Zombie Tales: Primrose Court Apt. 205 (3 page)

The cops shouted something and the robbers
shouted something back and then guns started booming and all of the
shouting was drowned out with the noise. The shootout only lasted
about thirty seconds, but when it was over two of the masked men
where dead and the other was fatally wounded. One of the cops took
a hit in the vest and the other caught some pellets in the face and
neck from a shotgun blast.

The police report stated that thirteen shots
had been fired by the assailants and the two officers had returned
fourteen shots. Of all involved, I was to the only one not to take
a hit. I went home that morning and made a doctor’s appointment. I
knew I would soon come down with something. It’s embarrassing to
admit, but my STD screening came back positive for Chlamydia.

According to my alarm clock, it was 3:15. I
began to get ready for my big foray out into the wide, wide world.
I scrubbed the tiles in the bathroom and then took my afternoon
shower. My old brown suit was still in the bag from the cleaners,
the old cleaners. Bailey Dry Cleaning had gone out of business
about eight years earlier. I guess I didn’t have many occasions to
wear a suit and tie.

The mirror on the back of the closet door
showed an old man, gaunt and pale. The brown suit hung loose in all
the wrong places. I had the look of a walking corpse. How had I
come to look so old?

Little time was spent fixing my hair. I
didn’t have any gels or mousses or creams, I couldn’t have brought
myself to use the stuff if I did. I rinsed with Listerine and
brushed again. Strange how much we see ourselves with different
eyes when we plan on going into public. It had been years since I
had paid any attention at all to my appearance; I was committed to
good hygiene, but that is not really the same thing.

Just as I was finishing up my phone began to
ring. I stopped for a new set of gloves before answering.

“Oh good, Theodore, I was worried you might
be having second thoughts,” Dr Harriet said.

“No, I was getting cleaned up,” I told him.
Honestly, I was having second thoughts. I had given up coffee years
ago, but I felt like I had downed a couple of pots.

“Well, I just called to give you a few words
of encouragement. Today is a very big step, but I think you’re
ready. Now remember, it’s going to be scary at first, but if you
just breathe and take it slow, you’ll do just fine. One block down
from you, cross the intersection and right there is a Starbucks.
I’ll be there at five o’clock”

“Yeah, Dr. Harriet, I know. I’ll be
there.”

I moved to the front window and saw that the
police had finally arrived.

“Hey doctor, I have to go, something I got to
take care of, but rest assured, I’ll make our appointment.”

I hung up the phone and moved closer to the
window to look down at the patrol car parked two spaces behind Mr.
Grimly’s old beater. Now maybe we would get the bottom of
things.

The driver got out of his car staring up at
the building. He cocked his head to the side and at first, I
thought he was talking to his partner, but then I noticed the
little black box on his shoulder. I cracked the window so I could
hear what was being said.

“Dispatch, this is Charlie 14.” The
officer.

“Go ahead, Charlie 14,” a woman’s voice
responded, she sounded remarkable like the one I had spoken to on
the phone, monotone and jaded.

“Do we have an apartment number on that noise
disturbance?” The officer again.

“Caller said apartment 305,” The robotic
woman replied.

“That’s what I thought. Listen, I need you to
get someone from psych down here. I got a guy out on the ledge of
the fifth floor, looks like he’s planning to jump.”

“Copy that, Charlie 14.”

It took a moment for me to understand what
the policeman was talking about. I pushed my window open a little
further and tried to look up to where he was staring. High up on
the ledge I could see the soles of a pair of sneakers dangling.
That corner of the building was where Tommy the stoner lived.

“Listen, buddy,” the cop who had been driving
called up to the sneakers, “whatever it is, it can’t be that bad.
Just stay right there. I’m going to come up and talk to you,
alright?”

The other officer exited their vehicle and
started herding the onlookers out of the way. I shook my head and
closed the window. Now they may never find the underlying cause of
all that noise.

I sighed and went to find my wallet.

On September 11, 2001, I was late. I woke up
late with a terrible headache and missed my train. I opted to take
a cab into Manhattan, I really couldn’t afford the expense, but my
partners were counting on me. I had gotten into a start up venture
with two of my classmates from college. Our little publishing
company wasn’t ever going to be able to compete with the big boys,
but we were concentration heavily on the internet, the wave of the
future.

My taxi was more than twenty blocks away when
the first tower of the World Trade Center fell, our tower. In a
flash, both my partners and our twenty-five employees were gone. I
had the cab driver drop me off at the hospital and by noon, they
had found the answer: meningitis caused by meningococcal bacteria.
That had been the last straw. That was what caused me to move all
the way across the country and lock myself in a little
apartment.

Some people might think I’m lucky, but I know
I’m cursed. Every time I get sick, someone kicks the bucket. Every
time I contract a virus, bug or bacteria, someone near me dies. I
decided if I just stayed home and limited my contact with the
outside world, then everyone would be safe. If I took precautions
to prevent myself from ever contracting a sickness, then I could
break the cycle.

Now I was ready to face the truth. Dr.
Harriet had convinced me that it was all in my head. I didn’t know
anyone in that shootout. It would have happened even if I hadn’t
been working the store that night. Not to mention that when my
mother died I had already been three states away. It was all just
coincidence.

I took a deep breath, removed my latex gloves
and stepped out of the door of my apartment. I took measured steps,
walking slowly and softly. The stoner boy’s spit had dried since
that morning, but I still gave that area a wide berth as I move to
the stairs.

At the top, Mr. Grimly was hunched over, out
of breath. Sweat was dripping from his bulbous nose and off his
saggy chins. I watched droplets hit the hardwood and the two
suitcases at his feet.

“So what’s with all the noise, Mr. Grimly?” I
asked.

I startled him for some reason, I hadn’t been
loud in my approach, but I hadn’t gone out of my way to be overly
quiet either, lord knows I owed all of my neighbors a little
noise.

I was fortunate not to get his sweat on me as
he spun to face me and a spray of it splashed in my direction. It
brought to mind the splash of sweat, blood, and saliva that flies
when a boxer takes a punch in the movies.

“… What?” the little round man ask, playing
dumb.

I just stared.

“Oh, yeah, the noise, sorry about that,” Mr.
Grimly stammered “I was cutting up an old table I need to get rid
of. It’s way too heavy to carry down the stairs.”

I suppose it would be in my best interest to
get that damn elevator fixed. If for no other reason than to
minimize the foot traffic in the hall. I had nothing left to say to
the portly man so I just started down the stairs. I tucked my hands
under my arms. I wish I had thought to bring a pair of latex
gloves, but I didn’t trust myself to go back for them, I might not
be able to amass the courage to set foot outside my front door
again.

I wanted to stop at the front door of the
building, but I didn’t allow myself to even slow. Quick like a
Band-Aid, I thought and plunged out into the crisp, fresh air. I
focused on my breathing and the sidewalk in front of me as I turned
to the right and headed down the block. There was some kind of
altercation happening across the street. A scream and some
shouting, but I refused to look. I refused to acknowledge it. I
focused on the concrete in front of me, the cool air, in through
the nose out through the mouth.

About halfway down, the block I slowed to a
stop. Sweat was dripping off me like Mr. Grimly after a few flights
of stairs. I truly believe I would have turned around at that point
if that police officer didn’t start firing his gun. The image of my
time ducked down behind the counter of my little convenience store
flashed through my head. I couldn’t go back to my apartment now. I
might be a little crazy, but not crazy enough to willingly run
towards gunfire.

I stepped off the curb and was nearly run
down by a taxi as it sped by. It rounded the corner with tires
squealing. It looked remarkable like the one I had ridden in the
day the towers fell. My heart began to pound and I hurried across
the street. Just as I gained the other curb an old Econoline van
raced passed in the direction of the apartments. It was white with
a plumber logo on the side and a ladder strapped to the top. I
wondered if my father was driving it and if his legs were still
pinned under the steering column.

I tucked my bare hands deeper into my arm
pits and kept moving. Not much farther to go now. If I could just
get to the Starbucks, I’d be alright. Dr. Harriet would be there to
make sure.

I reach the corner and pushed the button to
cross the street. I saw the doctor in the window. He looked much
older than the picture he had e-mailed me. He was sitting at a
small table in a tall chair. His hands were wrapped around a large
white cup, as if he were warming them.

The light changed and the van in front of me
started out into the intersection. Dr. Harriet noticed me and
lifted his hand to wave and smile. I didn’t see the bus until it
collided with the van. It was one of the huge metro buses that
seemed to pass the apartment a hundred times a day, spewing great
puffs of black smoke with each shift of the gears.

The van it hit crumpled like a piece of paper
and the bus. Next, it glanced off a delivery truck and angled away
from it. I caught the expression of fear on the doctor’s face a
second before the mammoth, metro bus smashed through the plate
glass window and he disappear under it.

For a split second, I saw the little round
faces of Sally and Lenny, my siblings, in the back window. I
blinked and focused, they were gone, replaced by the screaming
passengers and splashes of blood on the glass. There was a lot of
screaming then. Some of the people in the coffee shop had regained
their feet and were stumbling around. I hoped to see that Dr.
Harriet had survived, but I knew he wouldn’t be that lucky. He knew
me and now he was dead in an accident I had somehow avoided…
again.

A man got out of a Mercedes that had been
waiting at the light. He looked closely at my eyes before pushing
passed me and going to the driver’s side of the car. I watch the
big silver vehicle rocket away. It careened off the delivery truck,
slid to the side just enough to squeeze passed it, and was
gone.

It didn’t take me long to figure out what
infectious disease I would contract this time. One of the
passengers who had stumbled out of the bus grabbed a Starbucks
patron and started gnawing on his neck. I could see the whites of
the man’s eyes; they were all white, like the super heroes in the
comic books, like a zombie I thought.

I looked around me and saw that he wasn’t the
only one. The bus driver was staggering passed the demolished van.
His shirt was covered in dark blood, but he didn’t seem concerned
with his wound anymore. I spotted three more the things before I
decide to head home.

I tucked my hands up into my armpits and
wished again that I had remembered to bring some latex gloves.
Today was definitely not a good day to be out.

What follows is an excerpt from the novel
this short story is based on…

I can’t claim to have seen every zombie movie
known to man, but I have seen most of the good ones, from the old
black and white George A. Romero flicks to the modern day,
Resident Evil
flicks. Many of them begin with the damage
already done. We meet the characters sometime after their survival
skills have kicked in. On occasion, we see how those characters
encountered their first zombie; sometimes it's in a graveyard,
sometimes in their home, or, more recently, in a secret underground
laboratory.

My first encounter was nothing like in the
movies. I was sitting on the toilet.

Don't laugh.

I am one of those rare few that are so
regular you could set your watch by my bowel movements, no fiber
added.

It all started on a Wednesday afternoon in
May. My allotted half hour lunch break was over and I was taking my
mid afternoon constitutional.

After nine years crunching numbers for the
same company, I had conditioned my body. I drank my morning coffee
at my desk in my little cubical, ran numbers and cost analysis
until twelve-thirty, took my lunch until one o’clock, and then
spent fifteen relaxing minutes on the pot.

Who can blame me for taking my fifteen
minutes on the clock? I'm sure everyone has the same mentality
about their employers; everyone has been force to suffer with fewer
benefits, less pay, and less time off. The recession has put most
companies, from the giants like Wal-Mart to the lowly mom and pop
stores in the same predicament. But even with all its drawbacks
there are benefits to businesses during a recession. One of the
benefits is that for every employee on staff there are two or three
equally qualified individuals out there just waiting for the
opportunity to take the job, often for less money.