A note on my novel Zombies... Please realize before reading this novel-in-progress that it is meant to be a spoof of (and fond tribute to) George Romero's zombie movies Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, and Day of the Dead (my personal favorite). It is also a tribute to horror writers/filmmakers everywhere, in a light- hearted, if extremely graphic, way. Suzanne L. McAllister This novel, Zombies, is copyrighted by Suzanne L. McAllister 1989-1993. It is being distributed through electronic billboards for open reading. The author would like to mention that it is not finished, and I would appreciate any/all comments and constructive criticism. I can be reached via the following BBS's under the handle Raccoon: The Treasure House (313) 548-7979 GIFs'R'US (313) 398-1638 Earth's Dreamlands (313) 558-5024 Collector's Corner (313) 541-7323 Or by mail: 539 Leroy Ferndale, MI 48220 ZOMBIES Dedicated to George Romero (filmmaker magnifique!) CHAPTER 1 Caryn looked around the store and sighed. Another long, slow, boring midnight at Gas'n'More. Being a full-time college student made working the graveyard shift necessary, but that didn't mean she had to like it. A yawn caught her by surprise and she glanced up at the Marlboro clock over the wide glass doors. Twenty to three. The after-bar rush had tapered off and until about five-thirty or so she wouldn't see more than half a dozen people. Then would come the factory workers, in for their sandwiches, donuts, coffee, smokes, and gas, all of which was ready and waiting. She refilled her coffee cup and made another pot, then took two No-Doz. She'd had so much caffeine in the last five months, since starting midnights, that it barely had any effect on her any more other than stopping her yawns. Going behind the counter, she set her cup beside the ashtray beneath it, lit a Newport, leaned back against the register, and gazed out the bank of long glass windows at the big, brightly-lit sign out front and gas pumps. No traffic moved beyond them. Though the gas station/mini mart was located at the junction of two major streets and a freeway, it was surprisingly slow at night. Most of the people who came in at this time were cops for their free coffee and soda. They kept an eye on her, knowing that she was alone all night. That wasn't really necessary, she thought. Few people stopped in tiny Berkley Park off the interstate since there was a rest stop two miles back. Actually, Caryn thought as she glanced over at the thick textbook on the other side of the U-shaped counter, this does work out great if only I could get more sleep, but that's what I have to put up with, staying in the dorm and sleeping in the afternoon after classes. I get paid to study while I'm here, more or less, and I'm carrying a 4.0 grade average. Two more years and I'll be home free: a high-paying job at the hospital, a car and place of my own... and probably a new boyfriend long before all that if Dave doesn't quit his shit. But right now I need him to drive me back and forth until I can afford to get a car. She felt the familiar depression settle over her at the thought of him, and smashed out her cigarette roughly. A teenage couple came in just then, giggling and holding onto each other, both wearing brown and yellow jackets from the high school; the same good old Beaumont High Caryn had graduated from three years ago herself. These kids seemed so young and immature, she thought. Welcoming the distraction from her thoughts, she not only waited on them but talked with them for a few minutes about the school and teachers they knew. When they were gone she eyeballed the thick biology textbook again. But it was a Friday night and she had the next two days off, so why study now? No, she decided, this would be a junk night. Leaning over the counter, she grabbed a copy of the National Enquirer from the rack on the other side of the register and was soon absorbed in other people's problems. Ryan Callahan was having a rough night. If it wasn't bad enough that he'd had a fight with Mike and Anita after driving all the way up here to stay with them for the weekend, he'd gotten pulled over for speeding. Now, sitting on his bike with the cop behind him checking his license, he went to light a cigarette and discovered that his box of Winstons was empty. It was a great fucking night, all right. The cop walked up and handed Ryan's license and registration paper over. "You've got a clean record, so I'm going to let you off this time. But watch the speeding- there's been some bad accidents on this freeway because of it." Ryan was surprised, and knew how easily he'd gotten off. The fake insurance certificate had held up. "Thanks, officer, I will." But as he pulled off the shoulder and back onto I-24, he saw that the cop stayed right behind him. His speedometer needle sat steadily at fifty-five until he saw an exit ramp ahead, with the name of some town he'd never heard of over it, and a brightly-lit gas station sign not far away from the freeway. I'll get smokes there, and dodge this cop. He headed for the sign, making a complete stop at the end of the ramp instead of his usual glance-and-go, but the cop still followed as he turned into the gas station. Yup, a great fucking night. The clerk looked up from behind the counter as the door signal burred and said, "Good morning." Ryan grunted and walked past her to the coolers, staring in at the frozen foods. Asshole, Caryn thought, and decided to keep an eye on him. With that long hair and torn jeans he looked suspicious, and though the store had never been robbed that she knew of, there was always the possibility that it could happen. Relief flooded through her as she saw the white and blue police car pull up outside. The door signaled again, and she said, "Hi, Frank, how's your night going?" "Not bad. How about you?" Officer Frank Zambone and she were friends after both working the graveyard shift for the past few months. The other midnight cop, Mike Boujenah, was more formal and aware of his duties, but if it was slow Frank would stand in the store and talk to her, keeping his radio on and listening for the rare call. "Oh, slow, as always," she said, flicking her eyes in the direction of the suspicious guy, and he nodded slightly. Satisfied, Caryn flipped back a couple of pages in the tabloid she'd been reading and pointed out a story about zombies in South America, which were reportedly heading up into the United States. "Would you look at this..." Ryan stared in unseeingly at frozen pizzas, burritos, and egg rolls, seething in silence. Why didn't that asshole cop leave? He and the clerk were laughing over something, but he could feel eyes boring into his back. He moved over to the next glass door, barely seeing the premade sandwiches there, not wanting to leave until after the cop did but knowing he looked suspicious being all alone in here with the girl cashier. Especially since he'd driven up here straight after work at midnight in his grubby work clothes, and though he was used to the prejudice anyone on a motorcycle got, he didn't like it. But as it sank in what he was seeing, he decided to get something to eat so he'd look less suspicious and, now that he thought about it, he was hungry. If that cop decided to take another good, long look at his insurance certificate he might see that the date had been whited out and re-typed in, and Ryan couldn't afford to have his Harley impounded now, not out in the middle of Nowhere, Ohio. He had a couple hundred dollars on him, his entire paycheck, but most of it was for his rent and not to bail himself out of jail. He grabbed a large submarine sandwich and walked across the store to the soda coolers, hearing the cop's radio crackle and hoping he'd gotten a call and would leave. Caryn watched as Frank answered the call, frowning as he asked the dispatcher to repeat the code. "What? At the graveyard? Ten-four, I'm on my way." He turned to her. "I've got to go. There's a disturbance out at Eternal Rest, probably some kids goofing around, but the caretaker called and said something about graves being dug up so I've got to go check it out." Lowering his voice, he added with a glance across the store, "Don't hesitate to push that button if he starts anything, Caryn." "I won't. Hope it's nothing serious," she replied, but felt a worm of trepidation coil in her stomach. She simply didn't like the look or attitude of the man who was reaching into the Pepsi cooler. "I'll be back as soon as I can," the cop said as he hurried out to his squad car, then took off with his lights flashing but the siren off. Ryan walked up to the counter and set down his sub, a large bag of Doritos, a two-liter of Pepsi, and tossed in a Snickers for good measure. The clerk, a small, slender girl who almost looked ludicrous in an orange and brown smock two sizes too large, smiled at him and said, "Will that be all?" But the smile didn't reach her cold dark eyes, and he could feel the dislike coming off her in waves. But that was okay, because he didn't like her either. "Yeah. No, wait, gimme two packs of Winston, box if ya have it, too." He pulled out his wallet and threw a ten dollar bill on the counter. "That cop a friend of yours?" Her fingers danced over the register's keys lightly as she answered, "Yeah, he works midnights too. That'll be twelve-oh-seven." "What?!" Ryan leaned over to see the numbers on the register window for himself. "For this? You gotta be kidding!" She stiffened, angry. Every other person who came in the place complained about the prices, but what did they expect from a twenty-four-hour convenience store? Here was another idiot she'd like to poke in the eye with a screwdriver, the only kind of weapon she had in the store. "Cigarettes are two bucks a pack, the soda's two-twenty-nine, chip's're two-fifty-nine, candy's sixty cents, and the sub's two-fifty-nine plus tax." Smartass bitch, Ryan thought, annoyed. She was stuffing his things in a white plastic sack as he pulled his wallet out again and tossed three singles by the ten, grumbling, "How much d'ya charge for gas, five bucks a gallon?" "Dollar eighty," she said shortly, getting the cigarettes from the rack over her head. She wished either he'd leave or Frank would come back. He didn't like customers smarting off to her and usually said something when they did. "D'ya have a microwave?" Ryan asked, taking the sub out of the bag and breaking the plastic wrap open. "I got a long ride tonight and I ain't eating this cold." Damn, Caryn thought, but she pointed. "Over there, right next to the Frozen Coke machine." Later, both of them never forgot that moment, the last normal time of their lives before the world irreconcilably changed. The door burred and Caryn looked over, froze, then screamed at the top of her lungs. Startled, Ryan whirled around, dropping his submarine, and stared with his mouth hanging open. A man had walked into the store, and as the door swung closed on hydraulic pressure behind him, it had torn off half the heel on his bare right foot. The chunk of meat slid outside as the door completed its function. But the man didn't react, since he had quite obviously been dead for a while and didn't feel it. He was dressed in a black suit, white shirt, and maroon tie that were liberally caked with green slime, and his skin was a pasty greenish-white with mold growing here and there. He lurched toward the counter but seemed unaware of it and bumped into the magazine rack that fronted the register, knocking copies of the National Enquirer, Weekly World News, Star, and Globe to the floor. As they fell Ryan spotted one headline that caught his eye: ZOMBIES REPORTED IN SOUTH AMERICA- PIX INSIDE! South America? he thought crazily. They sure migrated fast, 'cause this dude is surely dead as dogshit and smells even worse. Slipping on the papers, the ghoul tried for the counter again and managed to bump a cigarette display aside with one stiff, flailing arm. The girl had backed up as far as she could go and was flattened against the Lotto machine, hands over her mouth, eyes bulging like brown marbles in her face. The critter was after her, Ryan realized. It wanted to eat her like he was going to eat his sub, only the zombie didn't have to nuke his intended meal to warm it up. And once he noticed the break in the counter only a foot or so to his left he would be able to get his dirt-caked green paws on his prey. Without thinking about it Ryan reacted. Running around the outside of the counter, he swung the heavy bag in his hands, the two-liter of soda catching the zombie glancingly on the side of the head and knocking him down. The weight of the bag made Ryan stagger, and when he turned back, the critter was slowly, jerkily getting back up, one side of its head looking oddly crushed but still intact, its flat colorless eyes now on him. "Fuck!" he said, looking around. Again without thinking, acting on sheer primal instinct which said __run if you can't fight, __Ryan darted around the counter and grabbed the girl by the arm. She was wide-eyed and pale with shock, and felt like a moveable doll under his hand. "C'mon, we gotta get out of here," he said, pushing her toward the windows and urging her to climb the counter. There was only one break in it, and the ghoul was too close to that for them to be able to use it. He urged her over then followed, twisting his ankle in the wooden magazine racks that fronted the counter. He sprinted past her to the doors, flung one wide, and yelled, "C'mon, you goofy bitch! Isn't the smell enough for you?" Caryn's eyes were wide and shiny, blank now. She followed him docilely out the doors and past the gas pumps, under the high roofs on struts over them, and out to the street. Ryan paused and looked in both directions, but the long black road was dark and deserted. Across from the gas station was a cheap strip mall, all the stores dark and silent, while to his left was the freeway and on the right, a Mexican restaurant. Nothing moved in the eerie dense silence. He glanced back over his shoulder and saw the zombie still bumping around inside the store, his rakish Harley parked just to the right of the doors. The urge to get on the bike and just go, hop on that freeway and escape this madness, was strong in him yet Ryan couldn't do that. His fear of the unknown was greater than what he already knew as a threat. He saw little or no choice; whatever was happening, it was in both their best interests to go back in that store, get rid of the ghoul, and stay put until the cops came back or something else happened. He grabbed the cashier by the arm again and turned her around, not seeing the slack, blank look of shock on her face. As they walked back across the parking lot he explained what they had to do, looking around to make sure more of the rotting fuckers weren't coming at them. As he pushed the doors open and shoved her in before him, Ryan grimaced at the stench that filled the store, as if hundreds of pounds of hamburger had gone rancid. The zombie was on the other side of the counter, near the Frozen Coke and fountain soda machine, and turned its head to look creakily at them as they again climbed behind the counter to relative safety. Nothing to use as a weapon in sight. Ryan looked around behind the counter, glancing at the girl, but she looked frozen in shock and didn't move. The zombie, which obviously wasn't running on all cylinders, managed to wander back their way and bumped straight into the counter again, this time knocking the cigarette display off, grunting in a flat, desperate tone. "Do you have a knife? Gun? Anything I can use to stop that fucker?" Ryan said desperately, wondering if the thing would ever figure out how to get behind the counter. But even if it didn't it had to go, because the putrid, gassy smell was about to make him puke. "Bitch, wake up and help me!" he yelled, going over to shake her. "Come on, think! That thing sees us as chow and we're gonna be its chow if we don't kill it- for good!" The zombie bumped the counter again ineffectively, then looked down and saw what was stopping it. Gears seemed to grind in its rotting brain and it raised one knee, trying to climb over it. Caryn was thinking of how she often thought of poking people in the eye with a screwdriver--usually customers who gave her a hard time, like this idiot--since that was the only weapon of any kind in the store. You had to stop their brains to kill them, she thought dazedly, and managed to say, "There's screwdrivers hanging over the sink in the back room." "C'mon, show me," Ryan turned and vaulted the counter beside the Lotto machine, then tugged at her shoulder. "Climb over, that'll confuse old deadbrain there long enough for us to get them." Feeling like she was trapped in someone else's body who'd had a massive Novicane shot, Caryn did as he said and led him into the back room. Over a stainless steel double sink was a rack of screwdrivers ranging from tiny to huge, and with an exclamation of triumph Ryan grabbed a two-foot-long Phillips. "This'll do. You stay back here and lock the door behind me in case it gets me instead of me gettin' it." "That door doesn't lock," Caryn said woodenly. "Then come on! What, you take a 'lude? Wake up, bitch! Deal with it! Here, take this. We gotta kill that fucker and lock them doors before more come." Ryan thrust a slightly smaller straight-slot into her slack hand, which closed over the screwdriver mechanically, and went to the doorway to the store proper. "Shit. He's corralled now. How we gonna get 'im?" Caryn peered around him hesitantly. The zombie was wandering around behind the counter, bumping into it, apparently having forgotten how it'd gotten in there in the first place. Its blindly waving hands knocked over a rack of greeting cards, then bumped the lottery machine and a ticket popped out. "That one's probably a winner," Ryan muttered, and shook his head. "Well, what d'ya think?" The thought of more things like that invading the store, trapping them, galvanized Caryn to action, though she didn't think there were more, that this was an isolated incident. "Guess I'll be bait," she said slowly. "You can creep up behind it. How's that?" The smile he turned on her surprised Caryn. When he wasn't frowning, this was one handsome guy. "Thatta girl. Let's do it before I pass out from the smell." "No kidding," she agreed, then took a deep breath and a better grip on the screwdriver, and walked out into the store. "Hey... you," she said hesitantly, cringing when the zombie looked over at her and drooled. "C'mon, thing, you want me, come and get it." She sidled over to the break in the counter, glancing behind her to make sure she had plenty of escape room. The front door was only a few feet away and she decided to break for that. The idiot biker might think there were more, but Caryn doubted it. One zombie was enough to stretch her brain to the breaking point and there was no way she was going to consider that there might be more outside. Ryan stayed in the doorway until the thing was out from behind the counter, reaching for the girl who was backing away at the same rate it came at her. He'd revised his opinion of the clerk, seeing that she was showing some balls now. When the critter was about two feet in the clear he moved, running up behind it and driving the long metal screwdriver into the back of its head. The zombie's skull simply fell apart, grayish-green mush splattering in all directions as the body lost all animation and fell down decently--and fully--dead. Both of them backed away, Ryan grossed out over the putrid shit that had splashed on him, Caryn turning away and retching, but she didn't vomit. "Get... rid of that before I puke," she said chokingly, and ran into the back room. Ryan shrugged. So much for her balls, but they'd been there when it mattered. He grabbed one of the zombie's arms and pulled, but it came off. "Fuck! I dunno if I can. The thing's falling apart like a jigsaw puzzle." But he finally thought to grab the shoulders of its suit jacket and managed to drag it out the front doors, then paused and looked around the silent area. No one or nothing moved, not even a car. Maybe I should just go, blow this place. But who knows what's going on everywhere else--it could be worse--and if I gotta be trapped somewhere during a zombie epidemic, at least this place's warm and full of food and beer. Could be worse is right. He closed the double glass doors and twisted the knob, making sure they were locked by jiggling them. "Okay, it's gone," he called, and she walked out of the back room with her face white as a sheet. "Now what do we do?" "You think I know? It's probably best if we just sit tight and wait and see what's goin' on. Do you have a radio?" She nodded and went behind the counter, kicking aside greeting cards and packs of cigarettes, and pulled a small black and silver jambox from beneath the counter. "It's not police band, but there should be something about what's going on," she said as she set it on the counter and plugged it in. But only regular music and talking greeted her sweep across both AM and FM dials, nothing unusual, but she left it on an easy listening station she sometimes listened to, low. "Shit, I wonder what's going on. Frank got a call to go to the graveyard just before he left." "Frank? Oh, you mean the cop. I dunno. Hey, can you turn off the sign?" Ryan turned and pointed out the glass windows. "That might be why that thing came here. It sure couldn't smell us in here." "Yeah, all right," she agreed, going into the back room. Moments later the big lit sign out by the street went dark, then the lights over the gas pumps, and finally the pumps themselves. "I can't turn out the lights in here or the coolers go, they're all on the same switch. I know 'cause we had a power outage before and everything went." "Hmmn. I see what you're sayin'. We're like a big sign sayin' SMORGASBORD HERE to them critters when they see the store lit up, even if the sign's off." "What do you mean, "them critters"? How can you logically think there's more of them out there? And I don't even think that was a zombie, maybe some kind of sick joke. Just because we saw one, whatever it was, doesn't mean there's more." Ryan was getting annoyed. "Jesus, what're you, a Vulcan? I never heard such cold logic in my life from somebody who was so terrified they couldn't move ten minutes ago." "Like you said, I've got to deal with it," Caryn snapped back. "And no, I'm not a Vulcan, I'm a college student." "Oh god help me, an intellectual," Ryan sighed, and turned away. "Another know-it-all." "Screw you, buddy!" Caryn snapped. "You don't like it here, leave. I sure don't want you here." "My name's Ryan, Ryan Callahan," he said, disliking being called "buddy". "I'm Caryn Jackson," she said, her anger draining out. "Okay, so what now? We wait until something happens?" "Yeah, I guess so, unless you'd like to take your chances in zombieland," he shrugged. "I'm happy here." "God, do you have to be such a smartass?" she frowned, going to refill her coffee cup. "I wish you would leave, 'cause I'm already sick of you." "Same here." Though Caryn didn't want him in the store, she had no way to make him leave and hoped that Frank would come back by and make him go. She carried her cup of coffee behind the counter and as she set it down, her eyes fell on the telephone and widened. "The phone! Damn! Why didn't I think of it sooner!" Ryan had picked up his bag, took out a pack of Winstons and his bottle of soda, and was sitting up on the counter near the lottery machine, smoking and tapping his ashes on the floor. He took a drink from the large bottle, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, belched, and said, "Waddia gonna do, call the cops and tell 'em we killed a dead guy? They'd sure believe that." Hearing a normal dial tone in her ear, Caryn punched in the numbers for the dorm. "First I'm calling home, to see if anyone's up. Shit. It's busy. Probably Marsha talking to Jeff for half the night again." She pressed the cutoff button, then glanced over at him. "As a matter of fact, that's a good idea. The cops might-" Ryan was torn by indecision. On one hand he didn't want her to call them, because if they came out again they might just check his insurance certificate and that'd be the end of his Harley. On the other hand, a gun and authority might come in handy if more of those things were wandering around out there, which to him there were. As far as Maeve Callahan's third son Ryan was concerned, if there was one, there was more. Caryn dialed the police station, getting a busy signal, and tried again. The other end rang, then a tired voice said, "Berkely Park Police, Sergeant Boujeneh speaking." "Mike? This is Caryn down at the gas station. Has anything... unusual... been happening?" "This had better be important, Caryn. I've been getting a lot of prank calls tonight, I can't contact Frank, and I'm not in the mood for any shit." Her heart began to pound, the receiver trembling in her hand as it shook. "About zombies? It's not a prank, Mike, we saw-" "Is Frank there with you?" he snapped angrily. "No, a customer is staying here because-" "That's enough, I'm too busy for this shit." He hung up and Caryn stared at the phone in disbelief. "He hung up on me! He didn't believe me! He said he's been getting prank calls about zombies!" "Then there must be more," Ryan said, frowning. "Caryn, maybe we should get on my-" The sound of squealing tires, clear in the silence, made both of them turn toward the windows. Headlights were turning into the gas station's dark parking lot, wavering and bumping as the car jumped two of the parking blocks, and suddenly accelerated across the blacktop toward the building. It barely missed a set of gas pumps, and Ryan yelled in horror as he saw it heading straight for his Harley. But he didn't have time to even move as it crashed into his bike and then hit the building, smashing the large motorcycle between it and the bricks. The store shook and bottles clinked in the cooler, several items falling off the shelves, as he sprinted for the door. Forgetting he'd locked them, Ryan shook the doors, lost in fury and screaming threats at the unseen driver. Just as he unlocked the doors, the car's driver's door opened and someone dressed in dark clothing fell out onto the blacktop. Caryn, who was behind Ryan, saw who it was and screamed, "Frank! Oh, no, Frank!" Still furious about his bike but suddenly remembering the danger they were in, Ryan calmed himself with a stupendous effort and relocked the doors. Staring out, he watched as the cop dragged himself up off the ground and staggered toward them. Ole Frank the cop had had a run-in with a zombie, maybe more than one, it looked like. Blood covered his dark blue uniform, turning it black. Big chunks of flesh were missing from his neck and arms, his shirt torn and hanging in shreds to show raw flesh beneath. He staggered toward the doors and collapsed again only a foot away, then lifted the top half of his body and stretched one arm toward them. Through the glass they could barely hear his voice: "Help... me... came to warn you, Caryn... things.... zombies..." It trailed off and he fell face-first onto the pavement, and didn't move again. Ryan suddenly staggered sideways from a shove and fell against a stack of soda crates, the bottles clinking. Caryn, still screaming, was fumbling with the door lock. "We've got to help him!" He pushed her away from the doors with less force than she'd used on him and held the handles securely as he turned to face her. "What, are you nuts? He's dead, and now he's gonna turn into one of those things. Looks like he went a coupla rounds with a zombie George Foreman. Don't you watch movies? Once you're bit by those things and die you turn into one of 'em." She bit her lip, crossing her arms over her chest and, shuddering, looked over his shoulder outside. Then she froze, unable to speak. Ryan turned his back to the doors and took a couple steps away, frowning, thinking about his bike and wondering if the cop at the station would believe them now. Caryn was staring at a shambling group of zombies crossing Pressburg Road toward the gas station, five or six, only their forms distinguishable in the dark. But there was no doubt that they were zombies; just the way they stumbled and lurched gave that away. She would've known something was wrong just by the way they were walking, if it could be called that. And they were arrowing straight for the store's lights at a snail's pace, but it was fast enough for her. "Ruh... ruh..." she forced out, and managed to point, her mind back to being on Novocaine. He looked up, annoyed, then noticed the pallor of her face. "Caryn? What's..." he turned and saw them right away. "Oh fucking shit. Critter patrol. How thick are those doors?" "Not thick enough," she managed to say, holding onto herself with a dint of will, wanting only to run out the back door and never stop running. "Kid broke one of them with a skateboard last month." "We've got to block them off, then," Ryan said. The zombies were just crossing the sidewalk and the lead one was stumbling over a concrete parking block into the lot. "We might have enough time. What can we use?" "I don't know." Caryn's eyes swept over the front of the store and she shrugged. "Soda crates!" Ryan pointed to the displays of Coke, Pepsi, 7-Up, and Faygo stacked up against the front windows to the left of the doors, which he'd fallen against when she'd shoved him away from the doors. It looked like there'd been a recent delivery, since the crates--each containing three eight-packs of bottles--were stacked eight and ten high. "C'mon, help me. Even if they break the windows it'll take 'em a while to get past these." As she went to help, Caryn's eyes were on the five zombies--skipping over Frank's motionless body--which had reached the gas pumps about ten feet from the front of the building. None of them seemed to be connected to reality, as two were repeatedly bumping against the gas pumps, apparently unaware that all they had to do was step around them, while another had fallen over one of the concrete parking blocks and was still trying to walk face-down on the ground. One woman, who was missing her jawbone and had a dark, gaping hole below her exposed front teeth, lurched steadily toward the lit store with determination, unaware that half her coffin was still attached to one of her legs and being dragged along behind her. The fifth zombie was lurching along in the lead, but stumbling, slowed by a missing foot. They stacked the soda crates in front of the doors, leaving most where they were to protect the windows though they were much thicker than the door glass, and built a wall about five and a half feet high. Ryan's arms ached and his back was sore when they got done, but both felt much safer with the crates blocking the doors. As they rested, leaning against the crates, something bumped in the night. Caryn peered between the bottles, being much shorter than the wall. "Here they come." Ryan looked over the top, being six-one. One of the critters was still bumping against a pump, but the other four had achieved their goal and were fumbling around with the door handles, stumbling over the cop's body and ignoring it. They'd stacked the crates tightly against the doors, which opened inward, and since they were locked, they didn't bump against the crates, so unless the glass was broken there was no danger of them being knocked over. The zombies scratched and bumped uselessly against the glass, one of them having the intelligence to try and pull on the doors, but when that didn't work, it went back to beating its hands uselessly on the glass. "I think it'll hold," Caryn said with relief. "I don't think they're strong enough to break it." "Yeah, and the way the one I dragged outside fell apart I bet they'd come apart before they were able to break the glass," Ryan agreed, grimacing at the memory and glad that he'd put the first zombie's body--and parts--on the side of the store. "Ugh, don't remind me," Caryn shuddered, moving away from the barricade. "Now I guess we wait." Ryan's stomach growled as he leaned against the crates, his back to the thumping zombies. "I'm going to get something to eat. Where'd my sub go?" "That thing stepped on it, so I threw it away. Get another since you did pay for it," she said, going behind the counter, but her eyes kept straying to the partially-seen forms beyond the glass. "I don't think I could eat right now." "They're gross, but I'm still hungry and I don't plan to starve to death in a store full of food," Ryan said, going to the sandwich cooler and taking out a roast beef sub that cost a dollar more than the bologna and salami one he'd paid for. Caryn watched unobtrusively as he heated up the submarine and hopped back up on the counter to eat. He'd also gotten a large bag of red-hot chips and another, cold, bottle of Pepsi from the rack without paying, and she decided to keep track of what he ate and charge him for it later. There was bound to be rescue, and things would go back to normal, so he wasn't going to eat all night for free. She tried to turn her attention to a magazine, but it was dry and boring and the zombies still bumping against the doors and windows outside kept distracting her. A tabloid might have kept her interest better than Newsweek, but she'd read all of them already. "Caryn, have you thought of what we'll do if no one comes by morning? Obviously the cop you talked to doesn't believe us." Ryan said, wiping his mouth on a piece of paper towel and tossing his empty wrapper in the trash. "I mean, who knows how many of these things are on the loose, or how widespread it is. It can't be happening just around here." "I had to do research on American burial traditions for my Cultures class last year, and in case you don't know, we bury people in two caskets. There's the one you see at a funeral, and it's lowered into a cement box that has a heavy lid. That's law, Ryan, and everyone who isn't cremated or put in a crypt is done like that. So don't think that the graveyard's empty, because most of them probably can't get past the cement lid on the second casket." "How'd you find all that out?" Ryan asked curiously, still eating hot chips. "Went over to the graveyard and asked the caretaker. He even gave me a tour of the place and answered all my questions. I got an A+ on that term paper, too." Caryn went and poured herself another cup of coffee. When she came back, she added, "Even the ones in the crypts can't get out. The doors are locked against vandalism, especially around this time of the year. Halloween's in two weeks." "Yeah, no shit. Now that you mention it..." "Get real. What's Halloween got to do with this shit going on?" "Just think how this looks in some European countries where they're still real superstitious. They must-" Angrily Caryn interrupted, "For all we know it's a local thing. I can't believe the whole world is being invaded by killer zombies." "I can, 'cause it's better than believing in false hopes," he snapped back. "I never think things are going to be good 'cause when they aren't, you just got kicked in the face again. Look at my fucking bike out there! I just got it fixed!" Caryn stared at him momentarily. "Jesus, are you ever a pessimist. You have control over things that happen to you, you know. If you don't put yourself in a position to get-" Now he interrupted her. "Oh yeah? How'd I have control over the fact that my mother abandoned me and my brothers when I was five and I was raised in an orphanage? That was a great start, Caryn, believe me, and it hasn't gotten any better no matter how hard I've worked at it. So don't spout that bullshit about control to me," he finished angrily, half-shouting. She recoiled and felt tears well up. "I-I'm sorry," she said, frowning, trying to stop herself from crying. She'd never been able to take a man's angry voice, not after her father. It had seemed that he was always yelling at one or the other of them. But she lost the fight and before she could wipe it away, a single tear coursed from the corner of her eye and down her cheek. She ran into the back room, where there was a small bathroom, and locked herself in. Why'd I have to get locked in here with an uneducated, bullheaded biker? Jesus, why not Frank or Jim or even Dave? Ryan watched her go with amazement replacing his anger. The goofy bitch had been __crying. __Over a stupid argument? Of all the people on Earth he could have gotten stuck with during an unexpected emergency like this, why her? Sure there were worse people--the soon-to-be-a-zombie cop would've been--but she wasn't his dream girl, that was for sure. Well, at least she wasn't bad to look at. That was something. She could have looked like the fat and pimple-dotted clerk who worked midnights at the 7-Eleven near his house, but at least that woman was an interesting conversationalist and didn't treat him like shit because he had long hair and rode a bike. Or, even better, he could have been home in his comfortable little house... but then it had a lot of windows that he would have had to board up, and he might have ended up like most people in zombie movies he'd seen: ghoul fodder. Caryn came out of the back room with her face blotchy and eyes red and wouldn't look at him, instead heading back to the long wall-length walk-in cooler and disappearing inside. A moment later he heard the blowers stop and the lights inside went on. He caught glimpses of her in there between the rows of shelves and realized with some amazement that she was filling the cooler. In his mind she went beyond goofy to being an asshole; why work when you didn't have to? Even if her bosses survived the zombie epidemic, would they care if her work wasn't done? Why did she care? Caryn was filling the cooler to have something to do, to keep her hands and mind busy, and to get away from Ryan. God, how she hated that opinionated, uneducated, pessimistic son of a bitch! Uneasily she wondered how long they'd be stuck in here together; much longer than morning, which was only a few hours away, and they would be on the verge of killing each other. Then, with such a shock that she almost dropped the six-pack of beer she was about to put up on a shelf, Caryn realized that no matter what happened from now on, __everything __she knew was irreconcilably changed. Even if this was a put-on or a joke or something not real, which she was too much of a realist to know better than, the past couple of hours had changed her. If someone had walked up to her and asked how she'd react in an emergency like this, she would have said that she'd be calm, cool, collected, and efficient; that how nurses acted and wasn't she training to be a nurse? But now she knew different. She had freaked out and frozen, completely lost control of herself. She didn't see that that didn't matter; she had come through when it was needed. Caryn only saw that she had clutched up under pressure. She unthinkingly shoved the six-pack of Bud Dry onto the shelf and moved over to the next, pushing the single bottles of beer and wine coolers forward and filling the racks from boxes behind her, still lost in thought. Ryan, meanwhile, was staring over the wall of soda crates at the dark night, past the zombies still worrying the doors, to the bulk of the police car and, though he couldn't see it, his bike crushed between it and the wall of the store. He had put so much work, energy, and money into that machine that he couldn't quite believe that it was gone, but intellectually he knew it was. Not even the handlebars could have survived that collision. His treasured Ultraglide was scrap metal. This was not the place he wanted to be during what was, apparently, a zombie epidemic or whatever you wanted to call it. Though only the front wall was glass, and the windows three inches thick and pretty much unbreakable by the stupid critters, it was hard to defend. And if three or four had found them, then there was probably more on the way. They had to get out of here, but how? Caryn jumped, startled, when Ryan stuck his head in the cooler and said, "Where's your car parked? I can't see it out there." She sighed and stretched, easing her sore back. "I don't have one. My boyfriend's been driving me back and forth to work, and I live on campus." "Oh, that's just fucking great. How are we gonna get out of here?" Ryan leaned against the cooler's metal doorframe, cool but not cold since she'd had the blowers off for at least half an hour. "Leave? But why? The cops know we're here, and we've got food, heat, and shelter." "But it's not safe. Look out front. There's five zombies out there now, plus your cop friend when he reanimates, and there's bound to be more. If they came here, for whatever reason, there's gonna be more. And if they break that glass we're fucked." She walked down the long, narrow isle toward him and Ryan backed out of the cooler. "I don't think they can break the glass. Besides, there's a back door, and nothing out back but dumpsters. We've got plenty of room to run. I think-" "And we're still fucked, but fucked on foot. Those things are pretty damn stupid, it looks like, but I don't think it would take us long to get tired and be ambushed or something after running for a couple of hours." Ryan said over his shoulder as he walked toward the counter, Caryn following after closing the cooler door and restarting the blowers without thinking about it. "Well, then, you are more than welcome to leave, front door or back," Caryn snapped, annoyed at being interrupted. "I never wanted you to stay here in the first place." Ryan barely heard her. He was standing at the bottle crate barricade again, staring past the zombies at the police car. A faint plume of exhaust was barely visible behind it, and that gave him an idea, whether she wanted to come along or not. "Are you ready?" Caryn took a deep breath and shifted her heavy backpack slightly. Though it usually held her textbooks, it now contained items that just might insure her and Ryan's survival out in zombieland. "No, but I guess I'll have to be." "Just remember- if anything happens to me, go straight to the police station. If that's been... infiltrated... well, then, good luck." Ryan stood posed and ready by the back door, which was unlocked, his hands on the long metal bar. "Infiltrated? Where'd you learn a big word like that?" Caryn cracked nervously. Ryan grinned back at her. "At the movies. C'mon, let's do it." Before she was ready, he hit the door's bar and was out, running. Alarms sounded as the security system was breached and Caryn flinched as she followed. The heavy steel door grazed her foot as it began to close behind him and she stumbled, but recovered quickly and followed Ryan's running form around the side of the store, the alarms silencing as the door shut behind them. Just as she caught up to him, Pressburg Road in sight, he stopped dead and she plowed into his back, knocking him over and falling on top of him in a sprawling tangle of arms and legs. If they hadn't still been on the side of the building that would have been the end of them, but the zombies around front couldn't see them yet. "You asshole!" he hissed in a loud whisper. "Well, you-" He twisted around and clapped a hand over her mouth, holding the back of her head with the other. They were laying on their sides with legs still entangled, facing each other, on the cold hard blacktop. "Sssh! Look toward the road!" Caryn would have bitten his hand if she could have, but he had it cupped over her lips. Instead she did as he said, craning her neck as his hands loosened... and gasped, but didn't scream like she wanted to. In the glow of a streetlight near the freeway overpass were zombies, what looked like an entire shambling army, coming out from beneath the bridge and heading their way. From the graveyard on the other side of the freeway, Caryn realized. They were less than half a mile away, and coming along slowly... but steadily. They could be outrun, but for how long? Ryan slowly removed his hands from the back of her neck, and mouth, somehow regretting leaving the feel of her long, soft, silky hair. Her body, pressed against his from chest to foot, was firm yet springy in places... one place, in particular. But he forced himself to ignore the feel of her breasts against his chest as he whispered, "We have got to get out of here, especially now, but be quiet until we're both in position. I don't know if they can smell us, but we're going to have to take the chance. We'll go ahead with the plan... you ready?" "As I'll ever be," Caryn whispered back, squirming away from him and getting up, unbalanced by her heavy backpack. Her body tingled from the feel of his, hard and muscular, unlike her boyfriend's, which was soft and paunchy. Ryan got up too, absently brushing at the ripped-out knees of his jeans, and glanced at her. Caryn nodded and ran out in front of the store and across the lot, reaching the parking blocks at the end before she stopped. The zombies gathered around the doors had just seen her and were turning around slowly, creakily. She glanced around quickly, saw that the road was clear to the west though eastward came the zombie army from the graveyard, and called, "C'mon, you stinking things! You want me, come and get me! Dinnertime if you can catch me!" Ryan watched from the side of the building. His opinion of Caryn Jackson was changing fast. Now that she'd apparently recovered from the shock of the situation she was not only dealing with it, but dealing with it well. Brave girl, he thought, watching from hiding as the critters turned and started for her. Instead of turning and running like he was sure she wanted to (God knew he did), Caryn held her ground, glancing back and forth between the two groups of shambling walking dead. She was so unusual, he thought. Terrified to the point of catatonia one minute, then in charge and taking action. She'd argue with him fiercely, or just back down and get upset. There was no telling what she'd do next, and if they got out of this Ryan was seriously considering asking her out. The fact that she was very pretty helped this decision. As his thoughts had run on, the zombies had shuffled past the police car and were now passing the first set of gas pumps in a loose group, one of them walking into a pump but this time figuring out how to get around it after a moment of creaky thought. They were less than fifteen feet from Caryn, who looked ready to vomit or bolt, maybe both, as the wind shifted to blow in her face. It was time for Ryan to make his move. He braced himself, then darted around the side of the building toward the police car, circled it, and reached for the open door. But as his hand closed over the top of it, another hand--cold and clammy even through his white sweat socks--closed around his ankle and he looked down to see the cop's open mouth about to close over his calf, jeans or no jeans. Frank had finally reanimated. Ryan jerked his leg away but the hand didn't let go, and Frank's teeth clicked together with an audible snap only inches from his inteneded place. Lifting his other leg, Ryan kicked the cop directly in the face and his head snapped back, nose smashing flat, but his head didn't explode into a pile of grey stinking mush like he'd thought it might. The cop was a lot fresher than the first zombie had been, and would take a lot more abuse before being felled, Ryan realized with a shudder of terror. He stomped on the cop's wrist as his head snaked back to try for another bite and the hand let go, Ryan dancing out of his reach without thinking; unfortunately, he also moved out of the reach of the idling police car. "Ryan, hurry up, they're getting close- both ways!" Caryn called in desperation. "What's wrong?" He turned and looked at her, then back at Frank, who was jerkily getting up on his unsteady legs. "Your fucking cop friend is after me! I can't get into the car!" As Ryan backed up again, Caryn saw Frank rise up from the ground on the other side of the police car from her line of vision and totter forward like a baby just learning to walk, his legs shaky and rubbery as rigor mortis hadn't yet set in. The sight of him tore into her soul. "Get in the other side!" she yelled, backing up as the lead zombie from the group that had been in front of the store reached the parking blocks about six feet from her. "Hurry it up, I'm running out of room here!" Ryan hurried around the car and yanked open the front passenger door, then crawled inside and started cursing. A computer terminal took up much of the room in the front seat, and he had to squirm around it before he could plop into the driver's seat. Then he looked up to see Frank's vacantly grinning face coming at him from the open door--he'd erroneously assumed that Frank would try to follow him around the car, but he hadn't--and he screamed as he realized that he was trapped, thinking he was dead, zombie fodder, and possibly soon to be one of the flesh-eating critters himself. Then Frank crumpled like a deflated balloon and he looked up to see Caryn beyond, her hands flying to her mouth and beginning to cry. Looking down, he saw the handle of a long screwdriver protuding from the back of the cop's head. Thank God she'd remembered it was stuck in her belt, since he'd forgotten about his own. "Hurry up and get in," he said. "They're following you." She stumbled around the police car, hearing the driver's door slam shut, and fell into the passenger seat, quickly closing her door though she had to fumble to feel for the handle through tear-blurred eyes. Shock was again taking her to its twilight region, her brain overloaded by the horrors of the night. She sat and cried silently, tears streaming down her face and not noticing the lumpy backpack behind her as Ryan wheeled the police car out of the lot, leaving the zombies and the brightly lit store behind. Ryan floored the car down the long dark road toward the brightly-lit town, vaguely noticing that the sky was lightening to his right. It was false dawn, but it meant that daylight would come and that thought buoyed his spirits, as did their escape from the store. As they swept around a tree-lined blind curve and the town sprawled before them, he slammed on the brakes as hard as he could and the police car slewed sideways, shuddering to a stop with its already-crushed reinforced bumper only inches away from the two cars smashed together in the middle of the road. "Jesus God, what happened here?" he exclaimed, his hands damp with persperation on the wheel he clutched tight enough to turn his knuckles white. Even through her shock Caryn could get an idea of what had happened. There were no bodies, but in the glow of a nearby streetlight the blood everywhere was quite noticeable. It was splashed both inside and outside the two cars, and on the ground around them. One of the cars, a black late-model Ford Escort, had the driver's door standing open and in the gleam of its dome light they saw a single severed arm sitting on the bloody seat, an indistinguishable tattoo on its wrist. Most likely these two cars had approached from opposite ends of the road coming around the blind curve and maybe there'd been a zombie standing in the middle of the road or several off to the side, just enough to distract the drivers so that they collided. And, unfortunately, must have gotten out of their cars. After staring for a minute, Ryan shifted the car into reverse and backed up to a nearby driveway, which led into the empty parking lot of one of the many strip malls that lined the road into town. He drove through the lot, bypassing the accident, and once back on the road beyond it, floored the gas again. The brakes now felt rather spongy and a small red light had come on over the gas gauge, but there was no time to worry about that now. Neither spoke as they raced down the dark, silent road, the police radio occasionally crackling, but only static came through it. Then they swept around a long turn and were in the town of Berkley Park proper and as soon as they sighted the long main street, Ryan slammed on the brakes again, throwing Caryn into the dash but barely noticing or that he bounced off the steering wheel himself. It was a scene out of the worst nightmare, brightly lit by streetlights and their headlights. Zombies shambled here and there, some with an obvious purpose in mind (such as the one determinedly attacking the front of the 24-hour laundrymat while they could hear desparite screams from inside) while others simply wandered around blankly, apparently having no idea what they were doing. Several were gathered around a car in the middle of the street ahead of them and in the glare of the police car's bright headlights, both Ryan and Caryn could quite clearly see that the zombies were hanging inside the car through the open windows and chowing happily on whoever had been driving. They were now zombie fodder, several of the critters leaning in the windows and squabbling weakly over the priveledge of getting the freshest food. Ryan rolled up his window, glancing over to see that the passenger side was already up. Caryn was staring out at the carnage with her mouth hanging open, blood trickling from one nostril, but obviously she didn't notice she'd been hurt. "Hey, wipe your nose, it's bleeding," Ryan said, his voice sounding shaky even to himself. "You think there'd be anywhere safe?" "I... I don't know," Caryn said, absently swiping at her nose with her arm and grimacing as she touched the bruised member. "All the people are sleeping... sleeping and not knowing... Jesus, we have to go to my house! And the dorm!" "Okay, we can do that," Ryan agreed, half for her peace of mind and half to get the gruesome scene before them out of his face. He let up on the brake and the red light on the dash went out momentarily, then reappeared, glowing like a mad dog's eye in the darkness. "Which way?" "Go up three streets and turn left," she said, squirming around to rid herself of the backpack and looking away as they passed the car surrounded by zombies. In the rearview Ryan saw that two of them, who hadn't been able to get into the group chowing down on the unlucky driver, shambled away from the other car and began to follow them, arms out and hands grasping at thin air as the police car sped away. Free of the pack, Caryn slouched down in her seat, not caring to see any more of what the town had become. Ryan slowed as he approached the corner, swerving to avoid a little kid zombie that he saw at the last minute, and made the turn a tad too fast, but the well-maintained police car let him get away with it. Tires squealing they flew around the corner onto a residential street lined with elms that stood sentenial along both sides like silent warriors who didn't care to get involved in this battle. The street was still and silent, mostly dark but for a few scattered porch lights and lit windows here and there. "Looks pretty quiet. Maybe they haven't gotten this far," Ryan said without thinking, then realized that if the critters had gotten to her family he was giving her false hope. "No such luck. Look there." Caryn pointed as they passed a small white house, its porch light burning, and in its glow they saw two zombies shambling up the driveway to disappear in the darkness on the side of the house. "Oh, shit, I hope they're okay! God damn it..." This was the first time Ryan had heard her swear and he glanced over at her, surprised and realizing how upset and tense she was. "How much farther?" "Two more blocks. We're about the farthest house out of town," she said, nervously staring out the passenger window. "That's why I had to stay in the dorm. I couldn't walk all that way twice a day back and forth to class." Cruising at about twenty-five, they passed the dark silent houses, seeing no more zombies and raising Caryn's hopes.