Mistakes I Made During the Zombie Apocalypse (12 page)

“Ian!” Grant yelled as he struggled to get away from the zombie.

Ian stood still and let the tears fall from his eyes. If his friend had to die for his mother to be satisfied, he couldn’t find the strength to disallow it.

• • •

Your track record is ridiculous.

“Grant could have died then. I was going to let him.”

It might have been better. Less your fault than Lena. A death you could live with.

“No, I still didn’t help when I should have. It was absolutely my fault.”

But you wouldn’t be stuck in the closet if he had died sooner.

• • •

“Ian, what the fuck?” Grant screamed. He managed to push the woman off and trap her in a car. Her fingernails pulled from their beds and stuck to the rear window as she clawed at the glass. Grant shook uncontrollably from the close call.

“I’m sorry,” Ian said distantly. “Things are catching up with me.”

Drawn by Grant’s voice, zombies came from every direction in the pileup, tumbling between the cars like pinballs in a machine. He grabbed one of Ian’s shoulders and led him to a Vanagon with tinted windows. After a quick scan for any undead inside, they climbed in and closed the door. A few revenants bumped up against the sides of the vehicle, but they soon lost interest when no flesh was to be found.

“Hey, I know you lost your mom and that makes you sad, but there isn’t room for these emotions in the apocalypse.” Grant checked his clothes for tears and any pieces of the zombie that might have transferred during their scuffle. He found a slimy fingernail on his shoulder and flicked it away with a grimace.

Ian didn’t respond. He was in shock and his mind still replayed the last images he had of his undead mother. A soccer ball slowly lost air on the floor of the vehicle. Grant picked it up and threw it at Ian’s chest to break him from his daze.

“What?” Ian asked, unsure of where they were and what they were doing there.

Grant leaned back against the side of the Vanagon and closed his eyes. “We need to find somewhere secure to stay for awhile. I can’t depend on you right now.”

• • •

You know, Grant is really looking like the better friend here.

“He already knew loss. His mother was a waste of life, his dad was a deadbeat. He had a pet snake when he was nine, but it was sick when he got it and it died.”

Did you just say that Grant is a better friend because his snake died?

“Don’t be a dick. You know what I mean! Bad things never happened in my life before this.”

• • •

Instead of traveling east toward the central part of the city suburb, Grant and Ian took the long ramp of Exit 173 and turned west behind a gas station. They cut through a car wash tunnel. The scrubbers hung sadly, waiting to have purpose again.

“Where are we going?” Ian asked. “This is kind of the long way back to my house.”

“Do you honestly think you need to be anywhere near your house right now? It’s full of memories of your mom and dad. We’re going to the hotel.” Grant trudged up a steep embankment into the parking lot of the Hotel Nexus.

The hotel was an old four-story, 169-room behemoth of a building on Northgate Way, recently given a modern makeover through paint and furnishing changes. It was full of dangerous possibilities, but Grant was willing to risk it for the easily secured and comfortable shelter a room on the fourth floor would provide. Once when he was younger, Ian stayed at the hotel with his parents when their house was bug-bombed. He remembered it as clean and with a friendly staff. Now, he found himself hoping it had become a spotless ghost town.

Grant made for the lobby doors, but he stopped and held a hand to Ian’s chest. “You should take the stairs to the fourth floor and wait for me.”

Ian was scared to go alone, but he was frightened of the lobby as well. He beheld the tower that led to the long hallways of the upper floors. A handful of the doors were open, some all the way, some only a crack.

“Lots of places for things to hide.”

“I’ll be right behind you,” Grant said. “We have to get a master key. The electronic locks won’t work.”

Ian jogged to the stairwell. The dead were moving toward them from across the street. He hit each step as quietly as possible and took frequent breaks for his breath and Grant to catch up. They stood at the top floor railing and viewed the parking lot from above.

“A lot of cars down there.” Grant took a deep breath. “There could be folks hiding out in the rooms still. Late check outs.” He smiled.

“Yeah, we’ll have to pick carefully.”

• • •

You found a room no problem.

“I can still remember the smell of the shampoo.”

That place was nice. You should have stayed there. Grant was still alive then.

“Can’t I finish my story without you bringing that up?”

• • •

“Wow.” Grant threw his bag on the ground and walked deeper into the room. There was a kitchen stocked with cooking utensils, a dining area, a flat screen television and a comfortable couch. He fell onto one of the double beds, its bedding still tucked perfectly beneath the mattress. Ian followed suit, taking the second bed.

• • •

“Those beds were amazing.”

They were plain, old beds. They’re just better than a wood floor of a closet.

• • •

“It’s like an apartment.”

From the other bed Grant sighed. “I could stay here for a while.”

Ian stood up. “Help me put the couch in front of the door.”

“The zombies won’t get up here.”

“The others, in the other rooms. They could take our stuff in the night.”

That evening, from the window of the hotel room, Ian watched crooked shapes wander in the moonlight. Each form a demented, interpretive dancer with unfailing energy.

“We can go outside, Ian, on the deck,” Grant suggested. “They aren’t gonna take the elevator.”

“There’s a lot of them in the street. I don’t want to end up trapped. Even if they can’t make it up here, we still have to make it down.”

“Whatever you say, man.”

• • •

Remember the maid?

“She was scarier than the zombies.”

• • •

On the second day of their stay in the suite, around midday, the sound of wheels rolling down the outdoor hallway broke the silence. Grant peeked out the large window and saw a hotel maid rolling her cart toward their room. He moved the couch, opened the door before she could try, and stepped out. Ian listened from his bed.

“We don’t want to be disturbed.”

“I brought you some fresh towels,” the maid responded.

“That is
very
disturbing. Why are you here, working?”

She handed him a small stack of clean towels. “My boss didn’t tell me not to come so I’m watching after the hotel.”

“But if no one’s here, what are you doing?”

“I’ve been making my way through the building, checking all the rooms. Some of them are in very bad shape. I’m almost done. I’m about to clean the one next door.”

They watched the woman go about her work. First, she dragged a man’s body from the room and placed it on a low cart. Ian wondered why she didn’t throw the body over the railing, but then realized it would splatter all over the parking lot, and the maid’s duty was to clean, not to make a mess.

“This one shot himself.” She shook her head. “Big mess to clean up. Time for the tough chemicals.”

Next she brought out the dirty linens. First the man’s used towels, wrinkled and slightly wet, but not bloody. Then she pulled on latex gloves, disappeared back into the room and came out carrying pillowcases and a bed sheet, all covered in blood and bits. She put them in the same bag with the other laundry.

“Oh, don’t worry,” the maid exclaimed when she saw the looks of disgust on Ian and Grant’s faces, “you’d be surprised what we’ve gotten out of the sheets.”

• • •

“She cleaned the entire room as though it’d see guests again.”

It’s good to have a purpose in life. Maybe that’s something you can find for yourself?

“I’m not gonna clean hotel rooms.”

A purpose, not
that
purpose.

Ian shakes his head as though he can rid it of the voice inside.

• • •

“Do you boys need anything else? The ice machine and hot tub don’t work, but there’s a game room with a pool table and some snacks in the employee lounge. It’s safe down there.”

“No, we’re good. Thanks,” Grant replied.

She glanced at her watch, which Ian saw as an archaic behavior. “When will you be checking out?”

“He already has.” Grant pointed a thumb at Ian, who smacked it away.

Ian shrugged. “We never checked in.”

The maid smiled and rolled her carts, linen and limb laden, one in front of her and one behind, down the hall and out of sight.

• • •

They stayed in the hotel room for a week while Ian battled nightmares and anxiety. During the daytime, Grant searched the nearby buildings, an Indian restaurant, a Starbucks, two gas stations, and a 7-11 for anything they might be able to use. He also found the room where the maid was storing the collected bodies. Not all of them were dead again.

Over dinner in the hotel room one night, Ian threw in the towel. “Grant, I’m done with this.”

Grant reached across the table to take the leftovers from his friend.

“Not my food! I’m done with adventuring. I need to stay home, or here.”

“No! Fuck that! Life was dangerous and hard even before zombies existed. People died all the time from car accidents, plane crashes, and all sorts of shit. If anything, life has gotten easier. I’m leaving and I’m not leaving without you!”

• • •

“So we went.”

It was always hard for you to say no to him.

“The apocalypse stayed fun for him a lot longer than it did for me.”

You had another kind of moment before that.

“I got very, very sick, because…”

…I DIDN’T EAT MY FRUITS AND VEGGIES

Proper nutrition isn’t a concern for most young adults. Serving sizes, food pyramids and sugar intake are taught and mentioned by the school and a caring mother or two, but they are ignored whenever possible. Dwindling choices also hamper the task of eating right. Therefore, before the boys made it into the city center and closer to better food supplies, they subsisted on ramen noodle cups, bags of chips and soda; a typical teenage boy diet.

• • •

Tell them what it did to you.

• • •

After another day of exploring in the surrounding neighborhood, Ian and Grant were unpacking their loot in the living room of Ian’s house. A freshly made zombie, searching for sustenance, stumbled down the side yard and happened to see the boys moving around inside. It careened into the window with the ignorance of a bird, desperate to consume them, but not realizing glass blocked its path.

“Shit!” Grant yelled. “Grab your bag, let’s get upstairs!” He ran to the stairwell with his own gear and flew up the stairs, leaving Ian alone.

Light-headedness hit Ian like a punch to the stomach, sudden and debilitating. His hand refused to close around the strap of his backpack. He tried again and again, but finally chose to abandon his gear when a second zombie joined the first at the window. His legs felt heavy and he pulled against gravity with all of his might to reach the foot of the stairs. Thinking that crawling might be easier, he dropped to his hands and knees. The new position allowed him to ascend the first flight of stairs, but when he reached the landing before the second set, his vision blurred and he fell into unconsciousness.

When he awoke, a quilt kept him warm on his bed. The sun rose on the distant horizon and Ian could make out Grant’s form in the chair at his desk. He slept with his head on the hardwood tabletop.

• • •

Did you expect to see him there?

“Honestly, no. But I think that was out of confusion. If the world had been normal, he’d have gone home. When I woke up, it took me a moment to remember how fucked up everything was.”

• • •

“Grant,” Ian managed to croak. Dryness clung heavy to his throat as though it sought to choke him from the inside. His head ached.

Across the room, Grant stirred, but didn’t wake.

“Hey!” Ian yelled as loud as he could. His friend woke, rubbed crusty bits of sleep from his eyes, and came to sit on the edge of the bed.

“You look like shit,” Ian said to him.

“Well, I fucking feel like it too. Last night was rough.” Grant lay down, opposite of Ian, with his head at the foot of the bed. “You also look like shit, by the way.”

Ian’s sick body and tired mind couldn’t remember anything about the night before. “What happened?”

“You passed out on the stairs. I had to drag you up here.”

Ian felt his temperature rising; a fever was taking hold of him. He remembered they were unpacking. He remembered, “the zombies!”

“It’s okay,” Grant said as he propped himself up on one arm. “They’re gone now. I was trying to figure out what to do with them when a raccoon crossed the backyard. They broke through a section of the fence to follow it.”

Ian relaxed. “Lucky.”

“Yeah.” Grant lay back down, his neck stiff from sleeping at the desk.

“Why do you think I blacked out?”

“I’m guessing it has something to do with the fact that we’ve been eating air, sugar and salt for weeks. When was the last time you had water?”

“I had a soda yesterday. There’s water in that, right?”

“The bad stuff in it outweighs the good. We aren’t doing this right. It’s catching up to us. ”

“Lay off, Grant.” Ian struggled to sit up against the headboard. “I’m not the only one ignoring the cans of vegetables.”

“It’s not just vegetables. We need more variety. And I’m feeling run down too.”

“Are you saying that three kinds of Doritos doesn’t count as variety?” Ian laughed and Grant laughed with him.

That night, Ian’s fever raged. His legs ached and his skin burned fiery hot.