“You’re gonna bail?” Fred asked.
“It’s after midnight. Shift starts in six hours.”
“Goin’ soft.”
“Maybe, but I know one thing: if zombies
did
attack, I’d be glad I got my beauty sleep the night before.”
Ryan stood and helped Becky up. Her legs felt stiff from the cold. “It was nice meeting all of you,” she said.
“Don’t be a stranger,” Kevin said.
“Make her watch the films,” Fred said. “So she can join in the fun next time. Forewarned is forearmed.”
“I’ll make sure he does,” Becky said.
They said their goodbyes. Ryan and Becky were halfway across the cemetery when they heard Fred shout, “
They’re coming to get you, Barbra!”
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“Now you know my dirty little secret.”
“I don’t know what you were worried about. You’re friends are really nice. And
funny
.”
Ryan smiled. “Funny
haha
or funny
cuckoo
?”
“They’re definitely characters.”
“Wow,” Ryan said. “I’m going to tell them you said that.”
“You know what I mean.”
Ryan said, “They sure liked you. I think you scored yourself a permanent invite.”
Ryan turned onto Becky’s street and pulled up to the curb in front of the 4-plex that Becky’s father owned.
“I’ll understand if you don’t want to go out with me anymore,” Ryan said. “Seeing as how I’m a big nerd.”
Becky leaned across the seat and kissed him. “Yeah,” she said, “but you’re
my
nerd.”
Darcy Olson made her nightly rounds. She couldn’t put off checking on her latest patient any longer. The man had been brought in twelve hours earlier screaming like a banshee and clawing at his face. The doctors hadn’t been able to figure out what was wrong with him, but their best guess was some type of severe allergic reaction to an unknown chemical agent. Susie, an RN on the swing shift, had told her the paramedics that had brought the man in had been talking about a crashed space shuttle, but she was certain that Susie had gotten her facts wrong. Probably a plane crash. Susie was a gossip and had been known to stretch the truth on more than one occasion.
As if real life isn’t gruesome enough,
Darcy thought.
Darcy paused at the door before entering the room, her white sneakers squeaking on the tiled floor. The man (she knew he was a firefighter because he had been in uniform when he had been brought in) was heavily sedated and appeared to be sleeping now. His face was a jigsaw puzzle of scratches and gashes.
How does a person do that to themselves
, she wondered.
She had been at Trudy Memorial for a little over nine years, starting off as a CNA, and had worked graveyards while she went to school during the day, until she had finally been certified as an RN. She had enough seniority that she could have snagged a day shift by now, but after working nights for so long, she discovered there was something she liked about it; knowing she was wide awake during the wee hours when the rest of the world was sound asleep. And, besides, all the crazy shit happened during the night shift.
She picked up the clipboard from the front of the hospital bed. Hamill, Rory. Diagnosis: anaphylactic shock.
My ass,
Darcy thought. Shortness of breath, sharp drop in blood pressure, swelling – the man had all the symptoms, but she had never seen an allergic reaction like this. The man’s face was riddled with pustules, some of them had split open and were oozing pus. Darcy could see a network of veins pulsing beneath the skin of the man’s swollen face. The tips of his fingers were black as if he was suffering from severe frostbite; they would have to be amputated for sure.
Can kiss his job goodbye,
she thought and immediately felt guilty for thinking it.
She walked around to the side of the bed. She began to take his vitals, pulling on latex gloves after noticing the skin of the man’s arm was full of the same burst pustules that plagued his face. If Darcy had had her way, she would have notified the CDC first thing. In fact, she had recommended exactly that to Dr. Kirkman, but the old duck had shaken his head and said, “Let’s not jump the gun prematurely, Nurse Olson.”
The man’s fever was off the charts. They had slowed it down, but it gradually continued to climb. They were pumping him full of fluids to prevent dehydration.
Much higher, the guy’s brain will boil and turn to mush.
Gently, Darcy slid a pressure cuff around the man’s arm. As she squeezed the bulb and the cuff constricted, several of the pustules on the man’s arm burst and white puss shot out like lava from a volcano. She made her mind up then that if Kirkman wouldn’t call the CDC in the morning, then she would make the call herself.
The man groaned, startling her, and she dropped the bulb.
Just get through it. In a few hours it will be someone else’s problem.
She deflated the pressure cuff and unstrapped it. She wrote on the man’s chart, placed it back in its holder, and turned to leave. She had only gotten several steps before the man groaned again. Except it wasn’t a groan.
Is he talking?
The man’s lips were clearly moving. Darcy walked back to the bed. She couldn’t tell if he was saying anything intelligible or not, the sound was too faint. She leaned forward, careful not to touch him, and tilted her head to the side, ear inches from the man’s mouth.
The man’s breath was hot, and even with her nose pointed in the other direction, it smelled of decay and…
fruit?
The sound whistled out of the man’s chest, feeling like a gentle breeze in her ear, but she didn’t think he was saying –
The man’s eyes sprang open. A slender tentacle shot out from beneath the sheets, wrapping around Darcy’s back as though it was pulling her in for a hug. He sank his teeth into the top of her head, ripping away chunks of hair and skin and fragments of bone.
Darcy tried to scream, but her face was smashed into the man’s chest, muffled by his gown. She flailed her arms, pushing away, her fingers sinking into soft oozing flesh. The man kept chomping down, chipping away at her skull until her brains were exposed, and then he began to eat them, making loud sucking noises as he slurped them out of the opening in the top of Darcy’s head.
Darcy lasted for another ten seconds. Eventually, the pain went away. She couldn’t see. Bursts of light penetrated the darkness as though someone was holding a camera up to her eyeballs and snapping pictures with the flash on. The last thing she heard was the man whispering again, but this time she thought she could understand what he was saying. It came out in a low hiss. “
Brainssss!”
Morning came too soon. Ryan woke late, put on the same uniform he had worn the day before (never mind the wrinkles), and headed out the door. By dumb luck, the night hadn’t been as frigid as expected and he was spared the task of scraping ice off the windows of his patrol car. It was 5:54 A.M.
He drove down to the Sheriff’s Office, noticing that Branagan’s Yukon wasn’t parked out front. Inside, he was surprised to find it bustling with activity, which was unusual for that early in the morning. The roads hadn’t seemed particularly treacherous given the fact that the snow and slush hadn’t frozen over, but Ryan was hard pressed to come up with any other reason the phones would be going nuts at that hour of the day.
Before heading to Branagan’s office, Ryan poked his head into dispatch. Cindy Myer and Peggy Colson worked the day shift. Both of them had worked in dispatch for years (Peggy’s husband was one of the seven patrol officers that worked for the Trudy PD), and Ryan couldn’t remember seeing either one of them as frazzled as they looked that brisk but not unpleasant Saturday morning.
Cindy’s cup of coffee still sat off to the side untouched.
“Is the world blowing up?” Ryan asked.
Cindy cupped her hand over her headset’s microphone and said, “If it isn’t, it’s pretty darn close.”
“All kinds of crazy stuff,” Peggy said. “You wouldn’t believe it if I told you. Whole town’s gone nuts. Oscar Russo called this morning to say someone killed his dog. Left it on the doorstep.”
“Jesus.”
“Wait, I haven’t even gotten to the good part. Oscar seemed to think the dog’s brain was missing.”
“That isn’t the half of it,” Cindy said. “Roger Landry reported a bunch of folks walking down the center of county road eight. He came across ‘em, honked his horn figurin’ they’d get out of the way, but they wouldn’t budge. Said they tried to attack him, clawin’ at the windows of his truck. Said it was like they were hypnotized or somethin’. And he said they wasn’t in too good a shape either. Don’t tell anyone I said this because I know Roger’s a respected member of the community, but I swear he musta been drinkin’ early this morning. You know what he tried to tell me? He said one of ‘em was Larry Ackermann, and that half a Larry’s face was missin’. All messed up, eyeball hangin’ out of the socket. Roger said there’s no way Larry coulda been walkin’ around in that condition.”
Both women were more flustered than Ryan had ever seen them. Every line on the switchboard was blinking, indicating incoming calls.
“Sheriff in?” he asked.
“Left about half an hour ago,” Cindy said. “Somethin’ big happen’ down at Trudy Memorial. He hightailed it oughta here quick.”
“I’m heading down there. Why don’t you guys call around and see if you can get anybody to come in and help you with the phones.”
“Already tried,” Peggy said. “Nobody’s answering.”
This just keeps getting better and better,
Ryan thought. In less than six hours, the town was falling apart. Either that, or someone was playing one helluva prank.
“Well, then do the best you can,” Ryan said.
As he turned to leave, Peggy said, “Greg’s on duty. I’ve been trying him for the last hour and can’t get through. That’s not like him.”
“He’s probably got his hands full.” Ryan saw the fear in her eyes; that look that said she really wanted to believe that was all it was, but that nastier thoughts prevailed. Ryan nodded. “I’ll keep an eye out for him.”
“Thanks,” Peggy said. “And Ryan? Be careful. Things aren’t right in Trudy today.”
As Ryan went out the door, he thought:
She’s right. Things aren’t right by a long shot.
Rhonda opened the store at nine o’clock that Saturday morning. Her eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep, and she hadn’t bothered doing her hair. Deciding against the goth girl look (it was the weekend and too damn early to bother), she had thrown on gray sweatpants and a baggy hoodie that had the Monroeville Zombie’s logo on the front.
Kevin had entrusted her with a key to the store several months ago. He was prone to a severe form of micromanagement, so Rhonda guessed it was a sign of trust and respect that he had given her one. And maybe it had something to do with the fact that Kevin didn’t like to get up early on the weekends. Most of the time, he didn’t stroll in until around noon, which was fine because it gave her time to catch up on some reading.
At three there was supposed to be a
Magic: The Gathering
tournament. Rhonda didn’t care for the game all that much, but had educated herself so that she could be more knowledgeable when talking to customers. Kevin hated the game, which meant he would be on edge all day; there was something about gamers in general that he disliked. He wouldn’t be rude to them outright (they were still paying customers after all), but his vigilance was on overdrive whenever they were in the store. Rhonda had once asked him why he bothered holding tournaments if he hated them so much, and Kevin had said it was one of the few things the store did that actually made money.
Rhonda had only just sat down behind the display counter and opened the latest issue of
The Walking Dead
when Derek strolled into the store.
“Good day,” he said, too jolly for a Saturday morning. He had dyed his Mohawk a different color; green was out and red was in, apparently. He was also carrying a mace with a spiked ball dangling from the end of a foot long chain.
“What are you doing here already?”
“I decided to play in the tournament.”
“It’s not until three.”
“I know, but I thought I’d build a new deck beforehand.”
“You know Kevin’s going to go apeshit when he sees that, right?” Rhonda said, pointing at the spiked mace.
“It’s for ceremonial use.”
“You think he cares? No weapons.”
“I’ll hide it before he gets here.”
“Your funeral,” Rhonda said. “All I’m saying is that you earned some much needed brownie points last night. Don’t go fucking it up.”
“It’ll be fine. Want to help me build a deck?”
Rhonda shook her head. “You’re on your own.”
Derek walked to the back table, perusing the
Magic
cards, which stood neatly arranged in partitioned boxes. “By the way, thanks for sticking up for me yesterday.”
“No problem. Thanks for not making me look like an idiot.”
A couple of hours passed as Derek built a new
Magic
deck for the tournament and Rhonda went through a catalog, marking items she could use her store credit on.
The bell over the door jangled. It was quarter to eleven, and Rhonda turned on her stool, half-expecting it to be Kevin.
It wasn’t Kevin. It was a woman. She was taller than Rhonda by several inches, wearing a blouse and a long skirt. Her pantyhose were ripped at the knees. She was wearing heels, and at first, Rhonda thought they accounted for the reason the woman was moving so strangely; like she couldn’t find her balance. The strap of the woman’s purse was draped over her shoulder. But all of those details were secondary to the fact that a large portion of the woman’s neck had been torn out, leaving behind a ragged hole, revealing muscle and bone beneath. The woman’s lips were gone, exposing teeth and gums and giving her a permanent leer.
Rhonda froze on the stool, her mind desperately trying to process the situation.
“Halloween’s over,” Derek said, standing up and walking around the table. “But that’s a
great
costume! Who did your make-up?”
The woman stood there for a moment, mouth opening and closing like a beached fish.
Derek, never one to leave a customer wanting whether they liked it or not, approached the woman, eager to get a closer look.
“Derek,” Rhonda said. “Stay away from the customer.”
Derek sighed. “You’re as bad as Kev. It’s okay, I’ve got this.”
Rhonda willed herself off of the stool, walked around the display case, and stood behind Derek.
As Derek took another step closer, the woman opened her mouth and spoke. It was only a single word that came out as a robotic croak as though she’d had a tracheostomy. “
Brains!
”
The woman rushed forward. She came down wrong on one of her heels, her foot bent to the side, forming a ninety degree angle to her ankle, and Rhonda heard the sickening snap of bone breaking. The woman was on Derek in a flash, her momentum knocking him backward. They both fell to the floor, Derek on his back, the woman straddling him.
“This is
so not okay, lady!
” Derek yelled, his hands planted on her shoulders as she kept bobbing her head forward, her jaws snapping shut as she tried repeatedly to take a bite out of his face.
Rhonda bumped into the table and heard the rattle of metal. She turned her head and saw Derek’s spiked mace on the center of the table.
The woman’s long hair hung down in Derek’s face; he kept blowing on it so he could see while trying to keep the woman from taking a bite out of him. “
Brainsss
,” the woman hissed, a glob of drool sliding from the tip of her tongue and onto Derek’s chin.
“Lady,” Derek shouted, “this is not how you go about getting a discount!”
Rhonda snatched the mace from the table, walked around behind the woman, and swung the mace up behind her head. She brought it down as hard as she could, the chain snapping taut, the metal ball at the end arcing around. The ball struck the woman’s head, the metal spikes sank into her scalp with a sickening
thwunk
. Rhonda let go of the mace’s handle as the woman collapsed forward on top of Derek.
“Oh my God,” Derek said. “Get her off of me. She smells terrible!”
Rhonda grabbed the back of the woman’s blouse and pulled. Derek slid out from under the dead woman.
For a while, they both stood and stared at the corpse on the floor. A puddle of black ooze pooled around the dead woman’s head.
“What should we do with it?”
“I don’t know,” Rhonda said. “I’ve never had to deal with a dead body before.”
Derek said, “Kev’s going to be pissed.”