by Kirk Withrow
Eric jerked the doorknob and was stepping over the threshold before the door was fully open. As though he’d walked into a spiderweb hanging unseen in his path, his face collided with several bony fingers when he emerged from the kitchen. Spitting and sputtering, he swatted at the cold digits as he craned his neck away. Just to the right of the door was a tall, spindly, ancient zombie, hands outstretched like nets hoping to ensnare some prey. Barely able to walk, the seven foot tall, aged zombie looked like it could have been a starter in the first NBA game ever played. He saw at least two other zombies advancing toward the doorway before he shoved Lila back inside and pulled the door closed.
Having been exposed to the bright sunlight momentarily, the darkness inside the kitchen now seemed absolute. The sounds of untold numbers of zombies echoed off every hard surface, making it seem as if they were coming at them from all directions. Every way felt like the wrong way to run, leaving Eric struggling to come up with any means of escape from the increasingly desperate situation. Any fledgling idea that surfaced in his mind was immediately drowned out by the snarls and moans filling the room like water in a rapidly sinking ship. Despite his best effort, the only scenario that seemed plausible was the one that ended with him and Lila on the receiving end of a zombie feeding frenzy.
Desperation surged as Eric’s eyes once again adjusted to the kitchen’s unlit interior. Darkness became shadows, shadows became monsters, and monsters became death. Darkness was all around them, so…
“Over here!”
The gruff voice cut through the undead noise, and Eric could tell it came from somewhere to his right. In that instant, it was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard—like an angel calling out in the night. As if to confirm this notion, a brief flicker of light punched a momentary hole in the inky blackness. Eric turned toward the place where he’d seen the transient beacon of hope and started for it without hesitation, hoping beyond hope that it hadn’t been some cruel trick his mind had played on him as one final sick joke.
“Get in here quick. Are you trying to get me killed, too?” the man said somewhat louder.
A second later, Eric felt Lila’s little hand slip out of his tenuous grip. He reached for her but found nothing but dark, empty space. Before he even had a chance to panic, he felt a similar tug as he was jerked forward. Unexpectedly, his back thudded against something hard that he assumed was a wall. He felt the air being forced from his lungs by the impact just as something brushed his arm. Then, metal clanged with a finality that left him feeling uneasy.
“Dad? Is that you?” Lila asked in a voice drenched with fear and uncertainty.
Despite being unable to see her, Eric pulled her into a tight hug and gasped, “Thank God.”
A bright light unceremoniously punched a hole in the darkness, highlighting a shadowy visage that looked more like a demon than a guardian angel. In that instant, it occurred to Eric that perhaps whoever or whatever was standing in the flashlight’s beam might have saved them merely to have them for himself.
Click.
A low electrical hum foreshadowed the cool glow of the fluorescent light. Several others followed, illuminating a long, wide hallway and the face of the man that had been their savior.
“The tunnels,” Eric said, surprised by the lights as much as the location.
The man extended a calloused hand and said, “Name’s Frank. Frank McMann. I work in park maintenance, or at least I did. I was down here fixing a supply line when this thing took off like its ass was on fire.”
Eric tried to read the man’s wrinkled face. Well-worn crow’s feet extended from the corners of his eyes, like little tributaries of the much-deeper marionette lines surrounding his mouth. His brown eyes were warm and kind, and his smile seemed broad and genuine—nothing forced or malicious. He had the grizzled beard of a man in the latter half of his life, with matching salt and pepper hair that was well on its way toward running the pepper out of town entirely.
Nothing about the man who’d risked his life to save them triggered any alarm bells in Eric’s mind. Even so, he was wary as he reached out to shake Frank’s hand. Given everything that they’d experienced over the last couple of days, he wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised if the old codger pulled a Scooby Doo, tearing off his mask to reveal a snarling monster eagerly waiting to devour them.
“I’m Eric Durst. And this is my daughter, Lila,” he said motioning to the little girl clinging to his leg. “Listen, I can’t thank you enough for what you did back there, risking your life like that…I don’t know what we would’ve done if you hadn’t come along when you did. You…you saved us.”
Eric’s voice trailed off, leaving the implications of the alternative scenario unspoken. Neither of them cared to add any unnecessary images to the ever-expanding library of horrors they’d already amassed in their heads.
“Don’t mention it, brother. You folks needed help, and I had help to give—simple as that. It’s safe down here, Mr. Durst. You and your little one are welcome to stay as long as you like. From the looks of it, you two could stand to rest a spell.”
Eric couldn’t argue that point. One look at Lila, and her exhaustion was plain to see. He, too, had gotten very little sleep over the last couple days, as he’d forced himself to stay awake as much as possible in order to ensure her safety. Having another adult with whom to split responsibilities like standing watch would be amazing. As he’d learned in his military and medic experience previously, it was always better to have redundancy in the system, particularly when dealing with the highly fallible human component. One is none, and two is one, right? Although Frank conveyed an authenticity that Eric found refreshing, he knew that people could be cunning and weren’t always who they portrayed themselves to be. He still needed to make sure the older man wasn’t a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
“Thanks, Frank. Let me get Lila situated, and then I’d like to talk with you for a minute if you don’t mind,” Eric said respectfully.
Frank motioned toward a section of the hard concrete floor lined with costumes that had been arranged into a reasonably comfortable pallet. Eric assumed the large stuffed animals scattered across the makeshift sleeping pad had been used as pillows, though he wasn’t sure. Who am I to judge? If there’s ever been a time to squeeze your eyes shut and hold your teddy bear tightly, it’s now.
Lila was asleep before the weight of her head had even settled onto Larry the Lion’s oversized belly. She clutched a plush Freddie Frog doll to her chest as though it might somehow protect her from anything seeking to harm her during her slumber.
“Sleep well, sweet girl,” Eric whispered, kissing her gently on the forehead.
Eric turned back to Frank, truly grateful for his kindness and hospitality. The two men spent the next several hours getting to know one another and exchanging information about what they’d seen and learned in the time since the disturbance started. Disturbance—that had been Frank’s term, though Eric hadn’t thought it harsh enough. After what he told Frank about his experiences above ground, the older man agreed.
“What you’re describing sounds more like the end of things than a mere disturbance. Or at least, the beginning of the end,” Frank said dourly.
“Maybe I’ll call it the beginning then,” Eric said, looking toward Lila with a glimmer of hope in his eyes. “Because if it’s the end, then what’s the point of even trying?” That thought hung in the air like a funeral pall.
Frank relayed everything he’d heard on the police and military channels he’d been monitoring since the outset. From the sound of it, the efforts to control the situation that first night had been an absolute bloodbath. For a time, the radio traffic was so heavy it was virtually impossible to glean any real information due to the number of people broadcasting over one another. In direct correlation to the gunfire, the radio chatter died down considerably, and the few calls originating within the park became increasingly desperate. It was around that time that Frank noticed a distinct shift in the na
ture of the radio transmissions. There were fewer and fewer chaotic calls filled with gunfire and agonizing screams. Instead, the transmissions took on a more distant tone, speaking more about containment and quarantine than threat elimination and rescue. He confirmed that the military had cut the power to the park in hopes of gaining a tactical advantage. “They even took out the emergency back-up power, but I connected a couple of our big, portable generators to this section of Fun World’s grid in order to get the lights up and running,” Frank said with a huge smile on his face.
While Eric hadn’t been privy to such strategic communications, he’d been up close and personal with the zombies inside the park and thus had considerably more direct combat experience with them than Frank, who’d spent the last couple of days in the relative safety of the tunnels. Eric shared everything he’d learned about the monsters’ behaviors, how to kill them, and the overall situation inside the park. When he came to the subject of his wife, Melanie, he choked up and could speak no more. The two men sat in silence for some time, each seemingly lost in their own emotions.
After what felt like an eternity, Frank finally broke the silence. “I know a bit about what you’re feeling. It’s basically what brought me to the park in the first place.” His gaze remained distant as he proceeded to share his history with Eric.
At sixty-seven years old, Frank McMann had spent the better part of his life as a Fun World employee, working in maintenance since the park’s early days of operation. Although he hadn’t escaped time’s inevitable toll, the strength and vitality burning in his deep, brown eyes as well as the deftness of his movements belied his age. Even so, the cumulative effect of many years of hard work and sun exposure were plainly etched on his rough hands and weathered skin.
Frank had married his wife, Betty, at the tender age of eighteen. Breast cancer took her away from him just seven years later. In the time they shared together, he and Betty had spoken at length about having a little girl, but fate’s callous hand had other plans. One of his last memories of Betty was the wonderful week they enjoyed at the newly opened theme park shortly before she passed away. The desire to keep that memory alive and to fill the void created by their unfulfilled dream of having a daughter of their own had been the primary reasons he’d come to work at Fun World after her death. Just as he’d hoped, he’d seen her everyday since in the happiness he witnessed at Fun World. Similarly, he saw the daughter he never had on the smiling face of every child he encountered. Those two precious things had been absent for the last couple of days until he found Eric and Lila trapped in the Princess Palazzo. Helping the two afforded Frank the opportunity to keep Betty’s memory alive for at least one more day.
Frank wasn’t sure why, but it felt good to share his story with someone else. He’d never shared that information with anyone in all his time at the park, and doing so filled him with a sort of peace, almost like closure to a part of his life he sensed might be nearing its end. In exchange for enduring his catharsis, Frank wanted to do everything he could to help Eric get back to Melanie, to get Lila to her mother.
After listening to Frank’s touching story, Eric had a new perspective on at least one aspect of Fun World. He respected and understood Frank’s reasons for sticking around for all these years. Seeing joy on the faces of so many kids and ensuring they were safe in the process; he could certainly see how it would be easy to derive considerable satisfaction from such a job. It wasn’t a full-on ‘come to Jesus’ moment by any means; he still believed that the lion’s share of Fun World could’ve only been excreted by the Devil himself. I mean, the fact that people love it doesn’t make it right or good does it? Just ask a junkie how he or she feels about heroin.
“From what you’ve told me, it sounds like moving through the tunnels would be far safer than trying to navigate the park,” Frank said, getting back to the business at hand. “The tunnel system is quite extensive and was designed to provide access to every section of the park. It’s basically a massive loop running beneath the entire park, with two intersecting tunnels that cut right through the middle like an ‘X’. There are more than twenty access points spread throughout the park,” he added, pointing to a map hanging on the wall.
The three-by-four foot map showed Fun World superimposed over the tunnel system. Several marks had been made on the map with a Sharpie. Next to the map was a notice indicating that all commercial deliveries were to be received at the Future Land service entrance until completion of the loading dock expansion project the following year.
Eric stared at the map with rapt attention, trying to commit as much of it to memory as possible. He noticed that both the Howling Moon Jamboree and the Amazonian voyage were essentially right above the tunnel they were currently in. I guess I know where the power came from. Thinking back to how the skinhead zombie was dragged away by the river’s underwater track, he realized Frank had unknowingly saved them once before already. “Are there other people down here? Have you encountered any zombies in the tunnels?” Eric asked eagerly, sensing the older man had more to say on the matter.
Frank’s face darkened considerably in response to the question. “Yes, I was just getting to that. I ran into a group of about twenty employees on the day this all started. I was on a maintenance call working on an AC unit in one of the tunnel’s break areas under the Dream Land section of the park. I didn’t know what it was, but there was a strange vibe in the air, and that’s saying something considering most of the employees present worked in characters. The character actors are always a little odd if you know what I mean. Anyway, just as I was finishing up, a guy dressed as a space soldier came tearing into the room screaming about some lady biting him. It was hard to make out exactly what he was saying on account of his crying and carrying on, but he seemed to be ranting about other violent incidents in the park as well. I hadn’t heard anything out of the ordinary on the radio, so I honestly thought he was simply putting on a show. Like I said, most of these guys are peculiar to say the least—struggling actors and such.” Frank paused momentarily as if gathering his thoughts.
“On my way back to the maintenance office, I noticed that there were fewer people in the tunnels than normal, and the ones I passed seemed tense and in a hurry. No one was in the office when I got back, which wasn’t all that unusual considering the time of day. The strange thing was that neither the landline nor the television seemed to be working. I assumed there must be a problem with one of the main data lines coming into the park and was thankful that job would fall on the shoulders of IT infrastructure maintenance. It didn’t really hit me that something was very wrong until about an hour later when I passed back by the break room. The place was a true nightmare. Less than half of the people that had been in there were alive—or whatever they were. The rest looked like they’d been run through a food processor and made into a character pâté. By then, the screams and chaos in the park could be heard all the way down in the tunnels.”
There was another long pause before Frank continued his gruesome tale. “I’m not proud of it but I barricaded the door when I saw the first person start lumbering toward it. I didn’t even try to help them,” he said as he looked away, obviously overcome with emotion.
“There wasn’t anything you could’ve done to help any of them at that point. You wouldn’t have been there to help Lila and me if you’d gone into that room,” Eric said, hoping to relieve Frank of his burden.
Nodding his head, Frank said, “I know that now, but at that moment, I was just scared. But I guess there’s a reason for everything.” Both men reflected on that idea for a moment, neither quite sure if they truly believed it given the current situation.
Pointing to a location on the map encircled with red marker, Frank continued, “The only area that I’ve seen any of them roaming free in the tunnels was over here by the Old Western Frontier. I only saw a few, but judging from the moans echoing through the corridors, there are probably more. I parked two of the service gators sideways behind several heavy
pallets stacked chest high with cases of bottled water. I piled up a bunch of other junk to shore up the gaps. The things were already trying to claw through before I’d even finished. When I circled around behind them, they were still busy with the barricade, so I closed and chained the fire doors here to trap them inside. Last I checked, the barricade was still holding up just fine.”