We’d been bugging the super of our building to get better hallway lights put in for two years, but no amount of arguing or pleading from the tenants swayed him. At some point in the “negotiation,” he’d threatened to raise our rent to pay for the upgrade so everyone had shut up and just dealt with the buzzing, dim hallways.
Now I hated the fat ass even more because the flicking yellow glow made the entire scene in the hallway all the more surreal and creepy. Trust me, we didn’t need that, it was bad enough as it was.
There was blood on the door across the way from ours and a little smear of sludge on the wall next to our apartment. I had to hope both were from Jack and not some unaccounted for zombie roaming around on our floor.
David looked around, checking all the way to the end of the hall before he motioned me out of the apartment. “Let’s go slowly and keep an eye out.”
“I hear that,” I whispered.
I kept close to his heels, watching every damn door as we slipped down the few feet that separated our apartment door from Jack and Amanda’s. That walk normally took less than a minute, but that night it felt like an hour because we had to move with such care.
When we got there both of us stared at the bloody handprint on the wooden surface that just about matched the size of Jack’s hand. I could almost picture him standing there in his stained t-shirt, wishing he could get in and attack Amanda. I wonder how long he had stood there before his addled brain remembered the key we had in our place. And how long he’d been in our apartment before he stopped thinking at all.
Both of us shivered at the same time.
Dave shook off his reaction first and tried the door. It was open, which made him roll his eyes. Even in an emergency and with a boyfriend who had attacked her, Amanda hadn’t thought to do something so simple as lock it.
Inside, he bolted the lock behind us and we looked around. The apartment was laid out the same as ours, so that would make it easier. Or at least, it should have.
Now okay, I’m no Martha Stewart so I normally don’t judge, but Amanda and Jack obviously didn’t care how they lived. Junk was piled everywhere. There were game systems, clothing, even empty pizza boxes strewn across the floor and furniture. It was like children lived here.
I shook my head as we gingerly stepped over the biggest piles and maneuvered around sharp furniture edges that were wedged too close together. Let’s just say this was not an optimal setting to go into battle.
“There could be ten zombies in here and we’d never know it,” I said under my breath.
“Well, let’s not think about that, huh?” Dave whispered as he gave me a brief look over his shoulder, but I noticed he lifted his bat a little higher.
Somehow we managed to make it through the mess to Jack and Amanda’s bedroom door where she’d said the safe was. Taking a deep breath, Dave turned the knob and pushed, but instead of swinging open easily, it stuck. We looked at each other and I raised my flashlight.
“Did she leave the hall door open, but lock the bedroom and just not bother to tell us?” I asked, incredulous that even Amanda was that stupid.
Dave put his shoulder into the door and shoved.
“No, it’s not locked. There’s something behind it,” he grunted as he pushed to no avail. Panting, he straightened up and stared. “I think I’m going to have to get a running start and force it.”
I stared at him. “But um…”
He glared. “What?”
“What if it’s a body back there?”
“Do you want the guns or what?” he snapped as he kicked some stuff on the floor out of the way to clear himself a little path.
Apparently he didn’t care about my answer, because before I gave one he got a couple steps running start and hit the door and put all the weight of his body into his shoulder. There was a creak and then the door gave way and opened about a foot and a half. Just enough for us to fit inside.
Dave staggered as the door gave and half fell into the room. Immediately I tried to climb in over him, you know, in an attempt to protect him in case there were zombies waiting for us. But did he appreciate it?
Yeah, no.
“Sarah, shit that’s my kidney!” Dave yelped as I tripped over him.
“I’m just trying to help,” I snapped as I got into the room around him.
“Then get off!” he barked, slapping at my legs as he got to his knees and we both looked around.
Lucky for us, since we were distracted by yet another fight, there were no zombies waiting for us, or even any dead people on the brink of waking up undead. I peered around the open door and found only another pile of clothing that had been blocking our entry.
“Remind me not to ask her to do any chores,” I said as I helped Dave the rest of the way up.
He smiled and I guess our little argument was forgotten for now.
“I’ll make sure you don’t lose your mind and do something so stupid.” He frowned as he flicked a sock off his pant leg that had stuck to him in the fall.
I grimaced as I hoped it was clean, not dirty, but then I saw what we’d been looking for and forgot about Amanda and Jack’s pigsty.
“There’s the safe,” I said with the same reverence I would have used if I saw Joss Whedon or something.
Amanda hadn’t been exaggerating. It was a big safe, tall enough to hold long-barreled weapons, not just handguns. As Dave put the key in the lock, I prayed Jack wasn’t just using it to store porno and Ho-Hos.
I’m not kidding you. When the door swung open and David stepped aside so I could see our bounty, I think angels sang. Seriously, I thought I heard choirs, because in that huge metal box were about ten rifles and shotguns, lined up perfectly along the rack. Boxes of shells were stacked on the shelf above. They were surprisingly neat and organized, too, considering the room was such a fucking wreck.
Dave grinned at me. “Thank God for the second amendment.”
I laughed as I reached in to take a few guns. “This may not be what the Founding Fathers intended, but good on them.”
As I positioned weapons over my shoulder by the slings one by one, David set his baseball bat aside and loaded one of the rifles. As he slid the action in place and clicked the safety off, our eyes met. For some reason, now that he had a loaded gun in his hands, the reality of the situation really started to sink in.
We were in fucking Zombie Central. And we had to get out.
“This is messed up,” I said softly, reaching out to pat his arm.
“Yes, it is, baby,” he answered as he took some handguns and put them in his waistband.
I giggled a little at the sight of him with four of them sticking out of his pants. It was like a Western movie on steroids.
He looked down at where I was staring and rolled his eyes. Apparently he didn’t find it as funny as I did.
“Okay huckster, let’s just get back to the apartment before Amanda burns the place down and we have to run into the dark and zombie-infested streets.”
I didn’t answer, but since that was actually a distinct possibility, I got moving toward the door. Before I could open it, Dave grabbed my wrist and pulled me back a little.
“Wait, wait,” he whispered as he stepped in front of me and peeked through the peephole. Once again, I was annoyed to realize he was right.
“So?” I whispered when he remained staring there for what felt like a long time.
“Mr. Gonzales is out there,” he said as he shot me a look from the corner of his eye.
“The super?” I asked, my eyes widening in surprise. I don’t think I’d ever seen him up on the third floor. Hell, he was hard to find in his own office downstairs. “Do you think the old bastard is actually checking in on residents?”
Dave shook his head. “I doubt it. I can’t picture him giving a damn about anyone but himself. Still, he’s not stumbling around doing that herky jerky dance the zombies all seem to have down pat, so do you want to risk talking to him and see if he’s human? Or at least as human as he’s ever been.”
I nodded without hesitation. Just the thought of other living people was a good one. Even if it was that asshole.
“He might be able to help us,” I said. “Or even want to join up when we leave the city. If we’re going to get out of here, we might need more bodies. Um… you know, live ones. I don’t think dead ones are going to be a problem.”
Dave clearly agreed with my assessment because without further discussion he opened the door and called out, “Mr. Gonzales?”
The super turned to face us and seemed surprised to see us coming out of Jack and Amanda’s apartment. Of course we were carrying an arsenal of weapons, so I’m sure that didn’t help in the “shocker” department.
“What are you doing there?” he asked, his light Spanish accent sharp as he moved toward us.
He looked just as mean and obnoxious as ever and I found myself relaxing, even relieved to see the fucker. He was one little flash of normal in a world of chaos.
“Just getting some supplies,” Dave said as he shut the door behind us.
Mr. Gonzales glared as he looked from one of us to the other. “That isn’t your apartment.”
“No, but the tenant, Amanda, is in our apartment. She said it was okay for us to go get the guns,” Dave explained.
I expected the super to say something about the weapons, but instead he shook his head.
“Amanda?” Gonzales asked. “The little dumb one that lives with the big dumb one here?”
I nodded. Awesome. I wondered how he described us when we weren’t around.
“That’s her, but Jack…”
I stopped as I thought of poor dead Jack on my bathroom floor, just another victim of Dr. Phil.
Mr. Gonzales seemed to understand my silence. “He isn’t okay, eh?”
Dave must have sensed my discomfort with the topic because he changed it. “Hey, is anyone else left in the building? Maybe we survivors could all meet up and talk about some strategies to stay alive.”
Mr. Gonzales tilted his head and for a moment he just stared at Dave. I shifted the six guns I had, three on each shoulder and they were starting to get really heavy. Why couldn’t he just say something so we could go back to our apartment and I could put these damned things down before my shoulders exploded?
“Mr. Gonzales?” Dave asked, his brow wrinkling. “You have been watching television, haven’t you? You know that there has been an attack or something, right? People are getting sick and trying to… well, eat other people.”
Mr. Gonzales smiled. “Of course, I know that. Now why don’t you get little Amanda and come with me? We’ll find the others. I’m sure we can find others.”
I stared. There was something weird about how he was acting, not that Mr. Gonzales had ever been normal. He always stared at my tits when he talked to me. Today, though, he was staring at my head. Not my face. My head.
He tilted his chin and in the sickly yellow lights of the hallway I caught a reddish glint in his iris. Actually it was more orangey as the yellow and red met.
“Fuck, David!” I cried as the situation became clear. “He’s a zombie. He’s transitioning!”
Mr. Gonzales smiled and through his clenched teeth a thin version of the black zombie sludge seeped through. The guns on my back were heavy and I must have seemed like the easiest prey because the super lunged for me. I tried to dodge, but couldn’t quite get out of the way with my load of firearms slowing me down.
He hit my shoulder and I slammed into the fire extinguisher box. The sharp metal edge jammed against my skin and I couldn’t help but cry out in pain even as I continued struggling to get away.
Gonzales grabbed for my shirt and caught a handful of the stained white linen. It tore as I yanked against him, but that only made him grip harder, fisting the material as he pulled me back toward him. I smashed into his fat belly, pulled to his clammy chest. He was so close I could smell his breath and it smelled like cigarettes and death.
The transition was happening faster now. His skin was graying, his eyes fully red as his mouth snapped at me like some kind of rabid dog. I strained my neck to get away, to back up but I could only manage six or eight inches of space between my face and his.
There was a huge bang from behind me and suddenly the teeth and head were gone in an explosion of acrid gun powder and smoky blackness. Brains splattered on the wall, on our door; they seemed to fly everywhere. I felt the back spray of them on my face and made sure to keep my mouth shut as I turned my head in horror.
The smell of cordite and blood hung in the air as I turned toward my husband. David stood to my left, his smoking rifle still positioned on his shoulder. He was panting as he stared at the headless corpse of Mr. Gonzales. The dead super slumped over and ended up propped against the fire extinguisher box at a weird angle.
He still had my shirt in his hand and I tugged helplessly to get free, but his dead, clenched fingers wouldn’t open. Finally I tore the fabric, leaving a fluttering remnant of white caught in his hand. Like a flag of surrender.
“Are you bitten?” David asked, his voice weird and faraway to my ringing ears.
I looked at Gonzales again and shivered. The blood at his empty, gaping neck hole was black, not red.
Suddenly Dave grabbed me and pulled me away from the sight. He spun me around and shook me hard.
“Damn it, Sarah, did you get bitten?”
My haze cleared as I looked down at my arm. Our super had made finger-shaped bruises on my skin, but I didn’t see any broken flesh or black teeth marks to indicate my certain doom.
“N-No,” I stammered. “I wasn’t bitten.”
Dave grabbed me and pulled me against his chest in the hardest hug he’d ever given me. His heart was beating pretty fast. So was mine. Even though we’d been attacked before, this was different. I had been weighted down, too off-balance to really fight or escape. Without Dave there to save me, I would have been undead for sure.
He let me go and looked around. “There are probably more of them in the building,” he said.
I nodded as we walked away from what was left of Mr. Gonzales. “He was only just transitioning, so he would have been bitten ten or fifteen minutes ago, maybe.”
David didn’t respond, but opened our apartment door carefully. “Amanda?”
She popped out from our kitchen with a sunny smile of welcome. I stared. Once again, the former cheerleader looked terrific. In the time we’d been gone, she’d changed out of her bloody clothes into some of mine and washed herself up, I guessed in the kitchen sink since I couldn’t imagine her climbing over Jack in the bathroom.
She’d even found an apron some hopeful relative had gotten me when we got married. It said, “Cooking for two” with a little arrow that pointed at her belly.
Why hadn’t I thrown that thing away?
She was a regular fucking Donna Reed now.
“Oh lookie, you found his guns,” she said with all the excitement of a kid.
Dave stared at her, I think as stunned by her absolute obliviousness as I was. “Yeah. Didn’t you hear the shot in the hallway?”
“Hmmm?” Amanda said. “Oh, yeah. I heard a bang. I thought it was a really loud car backfire. Did you have to fire the gun?”
Dave was gritting his teeth and I could tell that he was on the edge of a meltdown of biblical proportions. Honestly, so was I, but I thought he might not be able to control it, so I stepped in between them and placed a hand on his chest gently.
“Hey,” I said to him. “Why don’t you take all these guns and put them in our bedroom so we can figure out the weapons and ammo situation after dinner. Then maybe we could roll Jack into the hall or out the window or something so that we can each shower. I know I don’t want this disgusting shit on me anymore and I’m sure you feel the same way.”
Dave kept his eyes trained on Amanda for another minute before he looked at me.
“Fine,” he said, the word accentuated as he reached out to take some of the guns I had almost died for.
He left me with a shotgun and shells before he went into the bedroom. I loaded the gun carefully.
“Better check the pizza,” Amanda said in a singsong voice.
She was still totally oblivious to the fact that she had just narrowly escaped getting killed, and this time not by a zombie.
I shook my head as I went to the phone. By now I was sure my parents were freaked out by the news of the problems in Seattle. In fact, as I stared at our machine, I was kind of surprised that they hadn’t called already.
When I picked up the phone, I realized why. Instead of a dial tone to greet me, there was only a repetitious beeping sound that indicated the line was dead. I stared at the receiver for probably a full minute before I replaced it and went for my cell.
My bloody purse was in its usual spot by the door, though I swear I don’t remember putting it there. I snatched my cell out of the side pocket, wiped a smudge of blood off the screen with my mangled sleeve and powered it on (I always turned it off in Dr. Kelly’s office). But when it lit up, there were no messages on it, either, and the “No Service” sign glowed on the screen.
I looked back and forth between both phones in my hand as a horrible realization hit me. Whether by government assistance or zombie, we no longer had a way to call for help.
And no way to let anyone know that we were alive.
