We Are All Dead

by Jimmy Bird

  I pushed harder on the door, but it wouldn’t go any further. I leaned my head towards the opening to see if I could get a glance of the object that was in the way. I was immediately rewarded by something reaching its arm around the door. I didn’t see it at first but felt something touch my shoe, causing me to look down. What I saw made me quickly jump backwards out of its reach.

  A chewed-up hand was trying to blindly grab the front of my shoe. I kicked it, hoping that the zombie would pull it back so I could close the door. No such luck. I tried to close the door but couldn’t get enough leverage to cause whoever it was to pull their arm back. Ultimately, I decided to kick the hand again. I must have kicked it a dozen times or so, but it still didn’t faze the thing.

  Another idea popped into my head. What if I forced the zombie away from the door by using the door as a battering ram? I knew that I could do it. It would be like a football move, by using my shoulder to nudge the door open. I knew that all I had to do was push hard enough to open it.

  I stepped to the side of the grasping hand in order to stand directly in front of the door. I leaned my spear against the wall so I would have both hands free and leaned my left shoulder against the door. I planted my feet firmly on the ground and pushed.

  I gave it a quick nudge to see what kind of resistance was on the other side. It wouldn’t budge more than a few inches which was about the thickness of the thing’s arm. I pushed harder, maybe moving the door a few more inches. Determined to open the door, I lowered my center of gravity. With as much force as I could muster, I strained as I pushed outward as hard as I could.

  The door slowly began to open. It became easier the wider it opened. Whenever it was opened about sixty degrees, I stopped pushing. I figured that it was opened enough for me to see what was behind the door.

  I leaned towards the edge of the door and stuck my head partially out. I looked down and immediately knew why the door had been so hard to open. It was a nasty sight as the lifeless arm was still on the ground while the body was still behind the door. It seemed that I had pushed so hard on the door that the thing’s chewed up, lifeless arm had detached from its body. It looked like the zombie’s hand had somehow gotten wedged on the door frame.

  After a quick glance over the scene, I determined that part of a ripped shoulder sling made from a shirt was to blame. Well, at least partially to blame. It looked like the sling had also gotten stuck on the door-frame as I was pushing open the door.

  Wait! Did I just say a sling made from a shirt? Does that mean that the zombie behind the door was Logan? Wide eyed, I peeped around the door and looked down. To be honest, it was hard to tell if it was Logan or not? The thing wiggling around on the ground was laying on its stomach. It was all chewed up, especially its legs. It even had hard patches of skin missing from the back of its head. The head wasn’t even the worst part, its lower legs looked like they were barely attached at the knees.

  For some unknown reason that I couldn’t explain, I just stood there and stared at the thing. I couldn’t help but think that the thing did look familiar. It was hard to tell, especially with all the wiggling it was doing. It wasn’t making much progress since it only had one arm and its legs weren’t working.

  One thing that it did manage to do was to turn over onto its back, it was wiggling like a helpless turtle. While watching him, I was now one hundred percent sure that it was Logan.

  His face was still intact and if that didn’t prove it then maybe this would, the thing was wearing Logan’s shirt. The same shirt that Logan had been wearing when he disappeared that day.

  Still laying on his back, he reached out towards me with his remaining arm. I want to say that I saw regret in his eyes, but that would have been a lie. He looked just as dangerous as any of the other zombies that I had seen. He had that customary predator look as he snarled at me.

  I, on the other hand felt pity for him. Especially, after he had died saving me. I was about to turn around to go back inside when I noticed something that looked like a pink shoe under him. The more Logan wiggled around, the more I noticed that the pink shoe had blood stains on it. I thought about bending down to get it, but with Logan wiggling around like he was, I changed my mind.

  I figured that it wasn’t worth the risk and backed up. I reached out and grabbed the edge of the door so I could close it behind me. I turned to head back in when I felt something slimy touch the top of my hand.

  I literally jumped out of my skin and as quickly as I could, I turned back to look at my hand. To my horror, it looked like a bloody hand was on top of mine. I knew what that meant.

  I began pulling the door towards me, but whatever was on the other side was also pulling. I tried to angle my head so that I could see what was there, but the zombie was already coming around the end of the door. I was so focused on the door that I barely heard my daughter scream in fear.

  I needed my weapon! My mind raced to figure out where I had left it. Then it dawned on me that I had left leaning on the wall, just out of arms reach. Forgetting about the door, I pulled my hand back as quickly as I could. I’ll admit that the thing had a strong grip, but don’t underestimate someone’s strength when their fear kicks in. I released the door so I could grab my spear.

  Once I had my spear in hand, I turned back towards the door. I knew that if I could close the door, we would be safe inside. I took a step towards the door and was about to drive my spear into the zombie when I stopped dead in my tracks. Have you ever seen a bodybuilder or a former athlete as a zombie?

  He stood over six and a half feet tall and had a muscular build (hence the bodybuilder theory). He was wearing one of those tight shirts that was supposed to complement that person’s muscles. The shirt was stained different colors of red and had holes all over it. The holes exposed flesh and tissue. The right side of the guy’s face looked like it had been ripped off, exposing an eye socket and his upper jaw bone. The left arm looked like it had been chewed on by wild animals, but I knew what had done it. Yeah, it wasn’t a pretty sight.

  After seeing the zombie, there was no wonder why I couldn’t pull the door shut. Before the zombie was able to take two steps, I stabbed him with the spear as hard as I could in the center of his chest. I tried to pull it back for a second attempt, but it wouldn’t budge. I guess I had stabbed him hard enough that I got the tip stuck.

  I held on to the spear shaft with two hands as the zombie tried to take another step. Man, he was strong. I had to widen my stance in order to keep from going backwards. My mind raced with a few ideas on what I should do next.

  Since I couldn’t pull the spear directly out of him, I figured that I could let it go and allow the zombie into the Warehouse. It would give me a chance to shut the door, kill the zombie, and figure out some way to remove the spear without the fear of danger. To be honest, the idea sounded good. But what were the percentage that it would go off without any problems? It seemed like the odds were always stacked against us and I wasn’t willing to have this monster inside with my daughter around.

  Another idea popped into my head. I could use the spear to push him back out of the doorway and shut the door. I would lose the spear but the percentage of it working was a hell of a lot better than the first idea.

  All those ideas ran through my head in a matter of seconds. I decided to do the second idea and pushed as hard as I could. It worked! Well, mostly.

  The zombie was trying to take a step forward which allowed me to catch it off balance. I lowered my center of gravity and pushed the spear as hard as I could. The zombie stumbled backwards and fell.

  I was pushing so hard and had such a tight grip on the spear that when he fell backwards, I almost went with him. I stumbled forward, causing me to let go of the spear. Luckily, I caught myself on the commercial style door knob on the door before I fell.

  I quickly stood up and composed myself. I reached out towards the door when I noticed the pink shoe on the ground? The zombie must have tripped on Logan’s upper torso, causing L
ogan in turn to roll off the shoe.

  Seeing my opportunity to grab the shoe, I reach down to pick it up. I then noticed movement out of the corner of my left eye. I turned my head to see what it was.

  I immediately saw a dozen more zombies or so coming towards me and they were close. So close that I would estimate that they were easily within ten feet. I needed to hurry.

  I quickly reached out, grabbed the shoe, and quickly stood back up. I immediately reached out to grab the door and stopped. Coming around the door was another zombie and it was literally two feet from me. I had failed to see the thing until it was almost too late.

  I was glad that I had stopped myself from grabbing the door, otherwise I would have gotten bit. I pulled my arm back just as the zombie reached out for it. The zombie was missing her scalp, literally. She only had hair right above the back of her neck. It was almost like a bald man’s mullet, only she was missing skin that exposed her skull. Seeing the top of her exposed skull was truly nasty. A few of her fingers on her right hand that reached out to me was down to bones. It looked like something had chewed on her hand like it was chew toy.

  She took a step inside the door. I figured that I could do the same thing with her that I had done to the bodybuilder zombie. While keeping an eye on her, I reached out for my spear that I left leaning on the wall. I felt nothing.

  I risked a quick glance towards the wall looking for my spear. It wasn’t there. Where was it? I glanced back at the zombie who now was on her second step into the Warehouse. Behind her the bodybuilding zombie was starting to get up with my spear still sticking out of his chest. That’s right, now I remembered what happened to it.

  A new idea formed in my head. What if I could somehow shut the door? I mean, I know it would be a long shot, but what if I managed to get around her to shut the door. Especially, since I no longer had my weapon. If I did manage to get the door shut then I could use Ruff’s spear to kill her. It would stop the zombies from coming in.

  I thought about doing a football spin move to get around her. Before I knew it, I started to juke to the left and spin back to the right whenever I almost turned right into another zombie. I quickly jumped back out of its reach.

  Crap! I was too late to stop the zombies from coming in. Without hesitating, I turned and sprinted back toward the barrier. As I ran, I could hear the footsteps behind me. Were those things on my heels? Were they that fast?

  Without even slowing down, I hurdled the barriers in full stride. I was amazed because I hadn’t been able to jump that high in years. I guess fear allows you to push your body to its limits.

  I landed on one foot and rolled. Basically, the old tuck and roll rule. I’m not going to say that I landed with grace or anything like that. I was far from perfect and thought that I heard something pop when I came back up but knew that I didn’t have time to worry about it. We had other problems.

  I rolled to my feet and immediately turned around into a defensive position. I noticed that the zombies hadn’t quite made it to the barrier of appliances yet. The footsteps that I heard must have been my imagination messing with me.

  I stood up just as Ruff, who was carrying JoJo, stepped up next to me. By that time the zombies had reached the barrier. It looked like dozens of them. I noticed that the barrier seemed to have been holding up just fine against their combined weight.

  The bodybuilding zombie was leaning over one of the appliances with my spear still sticking out of his chest. Despite the protest from Ruff, I slowly walked up to the zombie. With the barrier holding up, I was determined to get my weapon back.

  I reached out and grabbed the spear tightly with both hands and pulled. Nothing! I must have really gotten the spear tip stuck in his chest.

  Ruff hollered, “Jimmy! We need to go!”

  I ignored him. I was determined to get my spear back. I guess you can say that I was being a little hardheaded. With the spear handle still in my grasp, I widened my stance and pulled harder. I could feel it starting to move.

  I couldn’t help it, but I was feeling a little victorious. It meant that I was going to get my weapon back and the zombies were stuck. With that knowledge, I was determined more than ever not to fail. I pulled hard. It seemed to have loosened up a little bit more. I figure that one more good pull would do it. I widened my stance a little further and pulled with all the strength I could muster.

  My weapon came out of his chest, causing me to stumble backwards a few steps. Once I regained my balance, I looked triumphantly towards Ruff and my daughter. Unfortunately, they didn’t return the feeling. They had a look of fear on their faces. In fact, they were jumping up and down pointing towards something behind me.

  I turned just in time to see the barrier give way. A few of the appliances began to topple over, beginning with the one that the bodybuilder had been leaning on. Crap! Did I cause that? If I did, it meant that I had caused the fall of the Warehouse!

  I turned and ran towards Ruff and my daughter. They in turn were already heading towards the maintenance truck. Ruff placed JoJo in the back and jumped in the driver’s seat. Luckily, Ruff waited until I was seated before he took off.

  As we took off, I looked back at the zombies. I noticed that they were beginning to trip over the fallen appliances and each other. It was the only good thing to happen.

  We stopped and set off the outside sirens. They we’re supposed to be a silent, high pitched alarm that only zombies or dogs could hear. They were anything but silent. Well, it was too late now. Hopefully, it would buy us enough time to get the others and evacuate to safety.

  After our little detour, we rushed directly to the clinic where we found my sister, Bobby, and Seth waiting. They had just returned from searching all the sleeping quarters when they heard the sirens. My sister must have noticed that I was visibly shaken.

  She was full of questions but only one seemed important, “Did you find Mia?”

  I replied, “Yes and no!”

  Confused, she asked, “What do you mean? Did you find her or not?”

  I told her, “We found Mia, but she was a zombie.”

  My sister’s reply, “What? How did that happen?”

  “We’re not entirely sure. I might have figured it out, but I’ll have to explain later because we need to leave.”

  My sister began to shake which quickly escalated to hyperventilating. I tried to calm her down by helping her into a chair.

  I mentioned, “We found some evidence on what might have happened.”

  She looked at me, “You just told me that you didn’t know what happened to her.”

  “Actually, I said that we weren't entirely sure what happened to her.”

  I held out Mia's pink shoe towards my sister. She recognized it instantly. She had bought those for Mia a few months before the apocalypse started.

  She grabbed the shoe, “Why do you have this?”

  I told her, “I found it outside the maintenance door, just under Logan’s upper torso.”

  My sister frowned, “Logan’s torso? So, Logan’s dead?”

  I smiled sadly, “Well, he’s not exactly dead.”

  Confused, she asked, “So, he’s alive?”

  My smile faded, “No, he’s not alive. He’s a zombie.”

  I looked from my sister, to Bobby, and then Seth and shared my theory, “I think that Mia had gone to the maintenance area to be alone so she could mourn Logan in private. At one point, she must have thought about suicide. If you think about it, there are only a few ways to commit suicide around here and one of those is death by zombie. I figured that at some point, she decided to venture outside to do just that when she came across Logan’s body. She most likely recognized him and tried to help. When she got close enough, he ended up grabbing her foot. She most likely tried to use her arms to fight him off which allowed him to bite her left arm. Somehow, she managed to pull herself free from his grasp and ran back into the safety of the Warehouse. She then closed the door to keep the zombies out. She must have died alone an
d turned into a zombie just inside the door, somewhere between the barrier and door.”

  When I was done talking, I looked sympathetic towards my sister who was seriously hyperventilating. She got up from her chair and tried to walk out of the room, but only made it halfway. She collapsed in the middle of the room. I wanted to go comfort her, but Bobby was already there. He didn’t say a word as he knelt in front of her. He then reached out with his one good arm to help her up. She melted into his embrace.

  With tears in his eyes, Seth walked over and hugged them both. I couldn’t help but think that Seth was on the verge of breaking down himself. It wouldn’t have surprise me at all. Especially, since the mind can only take so much, and a young teenager’s mind was fragile enough without having to worry about surviving.

  Danny and Austin rushed into the clinic, “Why’s the sirens going off?”

  Danny must have noticed my sister was in the middle of the room with Bobby and Seth surrounding her, “What did we miss?”

  I informed him, “We found Mia and she was a zombie.”

  Zombie! Zombies! Crap, I had forgotten all about the zombies. They were now in the Warehouse. We needed to go.

  “Crap, I forgot. Zombies are now in the Warehouse. We need to go! Now!”

  Danny looked at me confused, “What do you mean that zombies are now in the Warehouse? I haven’t seen any.”

  Ruff covered for me, “Due to some unforeseen and unfortunate events, they are now in the Warehouse.”

  Danny turned towards Ruff, “Well, the barriers should hold them for a while giving us time to escape.”

  Ruff didn’t respond as he glanced toward me and I towards him.

  Of course, everyone noticed the exchange, “What?”

  I told them, “The barrier’s down. That’s why we set off the outside sirens to get the zombies attentions, hoping that it would deter them from coming in. The only thing is that the sirens weren’t silent like we had hoped. Hopefully, the sirens will be enough of a distraction so we can escape.”

  When my sister had finally calmed down enough, she apologized to us, “I’m sorry everyone. I....I just can’t take the deaths anymore.”