Zombie Tales: Primrose Court Apt. 305 (4 page)

He took a long look at the side of her
neck; it looked as if someone had taken a Saws-All to it. The
lady’s teeth sank deep into the flesh of his arm. She grabbed it
like a piece of corn on the cob and just started chomping away.
Charles yanked his injured arm free and shoved the woman away from
him with everything he had. She landed hard on the concrete, her
head snapping back and striking it with a little crack.

A panel van flew by so fast that
Charles didn’t even have time to read the business name on the
side. The wheels rolled over the midsection of the woman with a
sickening crunch. Charles just stared for a second, when he finally
recovered slightly he saw the two cops limping into the front of
the building. All around him, the city seemed to be a battle field.
He could hear gunfire in the distance.

~ Go; go now, before more
cops show up. ~

Charles slipped behind the steering
wheel and fired up the engine. The car chugged and smoked for a
moment and then began to idle. He shifted the transmission into
drive and pulled away from the curb.

~ Take it slow now, Charlie
Boy, can’t afford to get stopped. Head over to highway 99 and
follow it north. By the time it’s dark, you’ll be out in the
country where it’s safe to bury your wife. ~

He pulled onto the highway and tried to
stanch the bleeding from his right arm. The Korean lady had taken a
chunk out and the blood was running down his elbow, soaking into
his flannel shirt, and puddling on the vinyl seat beside
him.

~ Watch the road.
~

Charles looked up in time to see a
large, Mercedes sedan clip the right side of his Lincoln as it
passed him on the inside. The car swerved in front of him and he
stomped on the brakes to avoid slamming into the back of it. He
laid on his horn, but the flashy, silver sedan jumped over to the
next lane and sped away.

~ There’s something wrong
with you, Charlie Boy. ~

“I’m just hungry, Mom. I haven’t eaten
all day. I just need to get something to eat, then I’ll be alright,
then I’ll go to the country and bury Mariana.”

~ You can’t risk stopping.
You have to keep going; you have to take care of this business
first. ~

Charles tried to focus on the road. He
almost wiped at the sweat on his upper lip with the paper towel in
his hand, but then remembered that it was covered in blood from his
arm. He looked at himself in the rearview mirror. His skin was pale
and his flesh seemed to sag. He looked like the shut-in from the
apartment below him, the one who had called the cops.

Charles passed the Woodland Park Zoo
and Green Lake.

“Not much further now,
mother. There’s a McDonalds up here on the left. At about
150
^th
Street I think. Do you want anything, Mom? I can’t wait… I
haven’t had McDonalds since before the wedding.”

She didn’t answer. He didn’t
notice.

Charles bumped up over the curb and
weaved through the parking area. He circled to the drive-thru and
lurched to a stop at the giant menu board and speaker
post.

“Welcome to McDonalds, go ahead and
order when you’re ready,” the speaker post told him.

“Can I get two…?” Charles bumped his
head against his window and then clicked the switch to roll it
down. “Yeah, umm… can I get two number ones with no pickles and no
salt on my fries?” Charles still knew how to get his food fresh and
hot, just special order it and they have to make it while you
wait.

“What would you like to drink with
that?” the post asked him.

“Coke for me, but my mom wants a
Sprite.”

The speaker post started to say his
order back, but Charles didn’t bother to wait. He was starving. He
pulled up to the first window, fumbled his debt card out of his
wallet, and handed it to the pimple faced kid inside.

“Are you alright, Mister?” The kid
asked, “You don’t look so hot.”

“Big Macs…,” Charles replied and the
kid nodded and handed him his card and a receipt.

“Pull up to the next window, please,”
the kid said.

He pulled to the next window and pushed
the gear shifter into park. He put his head back on the headrest
and closed his eyes for a moment.

“Here’s your drinks,” a voice said,
“your food’s gonna take a few more minutes.”

Charles opened his eyes and his head
flopped forward. He reached out his window and took the drinks from
the young, black kid. As the kid turned away, Charles dropped the
drinks on the seat next him.

“Here, Mom, hold these…” he
mumbled.

Charles heard thumping and wished the
guy in apartment 205 would stop pounding on the ceiling. Or was
that his heart, the cops were coming up the stairs to his
apartment, noise complaint they had said.

He tried to focus. He
wasn’t in his apartment. He was in the car. Charles looked in his
rear view mirror and saw a big SUV with tinted windows and a custom
grill stopped that the drive-thru window behind him.
That
thumping
, its rap music, that’s
all.

Charles let his head sag
back on the headrest again. So hungry, so tired, he just needed to
close his eyes for a minute. He listened to the
thumping
some more.

“Hey, Mister, here’s your order,” the
black kid said reaching out the window with a white and red paper
bag.

Charles opened his dead eyes, grabbed
the kid’s arm, and took a big bite of his wrist.

So
hungry
.

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

DON

OF THE

LIVING DEAD

By

Robert DeCoteau

A

ZOMBIE TALES
PRESS

Publication

CHAPTER ONE

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.

My job was definitely not secure. Even
with all my time working for Comdex Pharmaceuticals, I was just as
expendable as the next guy; maybe more so, I was one of the highest
paid accountants in the company. They could hire one of the young
fresh graduates off the street for nearly half of what they paid
me.

I work hard, but I see no reason to
waste any part of my lunch break in the john. Other than a pen or
two and maybe a few sheets of copy paper, those fifteen minutes are
my only extra compensation for the wonderful job I did at Comdex.
But I suppose I should quit rambling and just start at the
beginning.

Lunch had been a frantic race to find
Rebecca, the sandwich girl. She made her rounds in our building
every day, but ultimately she seemed to forget me three times a
week. It wasn’t by accident of course. I don't know what her
problem was. I mean, sure I asked her out once, but when she said
no I didn't push. I don't know why everything got awkward after
that. I'm an adult and she's an adult, just because she didn't want
to be an adult with me doesn't mean I don't still like
sandwiches.

That day, by the time I caught up to
her on the third floor, all she had left was turkey on rye. I can't
stand rye bread, why would anyone fuck up a perfectly good loaf of
bread like that? I bought it anyway, because I hate spending the
afternoon with an empty stomach more than I hate rye.

She sold the sandwich to me, but was
very flippant about it, like just because I chased her down to
purchase something for lunch, she had grounds for a sexual
harassment suit.

As if, I thought. Plenty of other girls
out there refused to date me, why would she think she was so
special.

I mean, sure Rebecca was attractive and
had eyes that flirted from across the room whether she knew it or
not, but I don't see how selling sandwiches out of a basket puts
you anywhere close to the top of the most eligible single woman
list.

Anyway, I had to eat my sandwich on the
move. By the time I caught up to her, purchased the sandwich, and
got my change, I had ten minutes left to get back to my
office.

The elevator ride back up to the fourth
floor was not at all note worthy. I got a few strange looks from
the other passengers because I was woofing down my turkey on rye,
but fuck them. There is no law that says you're supposed to stand
all ridged staring at the numbers above the door waiting for your
floor. I was hungry and I wasted precious time chasing down the
bitch that didn't have time to date me.

I got off the elevator on my floor,
humming the tune to some bluesy number that had been playing in
there. I tried to remember the words but quickly gave it up, words
were not my thing. Numbers were my thing.

I made my way to my cubical eating my
entire sandwich except the bottom crust; I tossed that into my
wastepaper basket. I booted up my computer and made sure the
spreadsheet on my screen looked like I had been working hard. My
screensaver was set for twenty minutes, more than enough time for
me to hit the restroom, but still have proof that I had returned
from lunch and started crunching the sales figures
again.

I gave Marcy a little wave as I passed
the reception area. She looked right at me but pretended that she
didn't see, putting her hand up to the headset she was wearing and
turning in her plush leather office chair.

Bitch.

I had been there for her. When she and
Julio from the mailroom broke up, I was her shoulder to cry on. I
bolstered her self esteem. I helped her understand that Julio's
need to screw other people had nothing to do with her. And what did
I get for all my trouble?

Nothing, that's what.

I didn't force myself on her. I mean,
that's what you're thinking, right? That I tried to make a move on
her while she was crying in my arms. Well, that's not how it
happened at all. I was a perfect gentleman. After she had somewhat
recovered from her falling out with “Don Juan” Julio, she started
badmouthing me all over the office, said I tried to take advantage
of her. There is no doubt in my mind that it was because she had
seen my crappy studio apartment and had second thoughts about me
and her.

She played it off like I was relentless
in my pursuit of her to the point of bordering on harassment. Like
I got nothing better to do than beg dumb chicks for sex, so much
for being the nice guy.

So that day was much like
any other. I enter the men's room at the end of the hall to do my
business with my copy of
USA Today
under my arm; well truth be told it wasn't my
copy; I didn't actually have a subscription. I routinely stole the
copy from the waiting area, but who cares? Who really expects to
have up-to-date reading material when they’re sitting in a waiting
area anyway?

My usual stall was empty, thank God.
This restroom only had three stalls, two the size of my linen
closet and one fit for a king. It was the handicapped stall of
course, set aside by society for those less fortunate. But being as
there were no employees on our floor confined to a wheelchair, what
was the harm in me staking claim.

I settled in. I'll spare you all the
embracing details, but suffice to say, I visited my local Mexican
restaurant the previous night. I didn't eat there, mind you; I
can't stand the ethnic music they play and watching all the white
patrons attempt to apply what they remember from high school
Spanish class is enough to turn my stomach. I ordered to go and
went home to watch Jersey Shore.