900 Miles: A Zombie Novel (2 page)

I’m all for brainstorming, but when you have
Patty, the HR clerk, sorting out how the chips fall, I can’t say that we’re really thinking through all the cards in the deck.

Making a run for it, heading to the subway
, everybody had ideas. All designed to put us outside with the Dead. Were there really any good options?

Let’s just call our neighborhood Yellow cab, I thought, as I took another look at my phone. Still no signal.

One guy emerged from the crowd with a slightly raised voice. He was bald with the cul-de-sac cut. The kind where he kept the hair on the side of his head, instead of just shaving the whole thing, creating a perfect half circle of baldness on top. I’d seen him around the building. He was either a CEO or acting branch manager. Either way, he was in charge of his own little world before this. Real alpha-male type and he was sure he had all the right answers.

Mr. Cul-de-sac kept rattling on about heading for the waterfront.  It was just four blocks away, according to him. We could get a boat and get
past the crowds in the city. No problem.

Our attention was pulled toward the glass front as a few
gunshots followed by screams echoed outside. We couldn't see what had happened, but it was close enough for the building security guard to walk over and lock the front door of the building.

There was some debate about how to get to the water when another guy in the crowd suggested just waiting it out. It was the typical scene. We were in an office building. Help would come. We could hold up.

In the movies, the group always does this. They board up the doors, hide in the cellar and hope that help will be there soon. Those assholes are always eaten. The reality is that everybody had someone they needed to get to. Whether it was kids, wives, friends or other family, nobody was just willing to sit still.

900 miles away. Still no signal.

Mr. Cul-de-sac was starting to build momentum, getting some followers. There were a few guys standing next to him now. Two of them were wearing janitorial outfits. One was waving a mop handle around.

“This guy’s going to get these people killed. You know
that, don’t you?”

I looked over to see the guy in the security guard uniform standing next to me.

I nodded saying, “Yeah, don’t bother to learn anybody’s name in here.”

He extended his hand and
said, “I’m Kyle.”

I paused, smiled at the irony and grabbed his hand. “John.”

That is how I met one of the best men I have ever,
or will ever
know.

Kyle was working the front
desk security in our office building. His job was basically to check badges and look intimidating. I’d later learn that he couldn’t find meaningful work when he returned from Iraq six months earlier.

He was a big guy, larger built than me, and a former helicopter pilot in the army. I don’t know jack shit about ranks or military status, but I got the sense that Kyle had seen his fair share of ground
, as well as air combat. He was trained to handle himself–and right now, that counted.

“You have any weapons behind that desk of yours?” I asked.

“Just my mitts,” he replied holding up his two brick-sized fists.

“That’s good, but I was hoping for a few guns or a
Billy club.”

“We’re keeping suits like you from entering the elevator, not hunting down
America’s Most Wanted.”

“Good point.” I shrugged.

Mr. Cul-de-sac had another half dozen followers standing around him. They were flirting with the idea of jumping from building to building by way of the rooftops. I have to hand it to them; they were really exploring all the options, no matter how suicidal.

He was really starting to get the crowd worked up.
Patty, the HR Clerk, was moments away from being his number one cheerleader. It was just then that we heard an explosion from across the street. She gave a short scream as we all spun around to look outside.

The gas tank in the overturned, burning car
, had just exploded. We all shifted our gaze to the building across from us as the glass from the doors shattered and fell. We saw six people run out into the street. They must have been sitting there just like us, our mirror image, trying to figure out their next steps, when everything came crashing in around them.

As soon as they stepped into the street, they were overrun with twenty or so of those…
things
. The first to attack was the firefighter, who was now among the ranks of the dead. The giant who smashed Josh was pushing the other dead aside to get to the victims. Apparently, even zombies will run over each other to get their prize.

The whole thing was over before it really even started.

Mr. Cul-de-sac jumped right on it. Voice raised, he had everyone’s attention.

“That could have been us. We have to make our move.”

I couldn’t disagree. We had to make a move.

My eyes drifted outside.  The chaos in the street was only increasing. Through the partially eaten bodies and
blood-covered pavement, one of the dead caught my attention.  It was my former boss; looks like he didn’t make it to his Hummer. He was stumbling around, heading toward our building. His entire gut was carved out, and his tie lay loosely over the open cavity. I didn’t understand how he could even be walking upright. Someone in the front of the group by the glass let out a scream that was cut short when another person slapped a hand over her mouth.

Kyle saw him, too. We exchanged a quick look. Fat man gets his stomach eaten out. We didn’t say anything, but I knew he saw the irony.

A few others suddenly noticed him as well. He was heading towards the door.

“Does he remember that we’re in here?”
The janitor holding the mop handle asked in a harsh whisper. The entire group watched as my boss slowly stepped up to the glass door that Kyle had locked just moments earlier.

As that formerly fat bastard rattled the door handle, we suddenly noticed that his lapdog, Josh, was moving. As mutilated as his body was with his missing leg
and smashed torso, he was still lifting his head up to see what was going on.

It was then that I noticed my boss was still holding his Hummer keys. Even in death, he couldn’t let go of his possessions.

I took a quick look around the lobby. A security desk, a metal sign post with a sign that said, “Show ID” and a fake potted tree. That was it.

The rattling of the door handle started to get some unwanted attention. Two more of the creatures lumbered over to our building. Mr. Cul-de-sac was backing away from the glass, his eyes wide with fear. The janitors started to fight over the broom handle. They decided to break it in
half. The dip shits screwed it up though, creating one side that was much smaller than the other was. As they fought over who got which piece, a few more creatures crowded around the glass door.

Most of the people just stood still, watching as the dead started to push on the glass. Kyle walked over to the “Show ID” sign and broke the rod off, creating a nice
4-foot metal weapon.

I took off my suit coat and threw it on the floor. They were coming and we fucking knew it.

Patty, the HR Clerk, let out a scream when the glass finally gave out.  The Dead flooded through the shattered door and spread through the small lobby. I watched as the janitors charged the horde as if it was a fucking bar fight; punching, brawling, and hitting them over the heads with their makeshift weapons. Not terribly effective.  A creature bit right through one of their uniformed arms. That janitor plopped to the floor, stunned, as he watched the zombie throw his arm, still holding half a mop handle, towards me. It left a smear of blood across the polished floor stopping just at my feet.

Mr. Cul-de-sac used the diversion as an escape. He took off towards the elevator. I’ll never really know if he intentionally set those two idiots off to die so he could save his own ass. I don’t know if it even really matters.

Most of the leaders in our world are in it for themselves. A sad truth those two idiots learned with their lives, and one that I would learn myself in the weeks ahead.

Our group was ripe for the picking. Weakness embedded into our very fabric. Any sort of primal survival instincts were bred out of most of our gene pool long ago. On the other hand, the survival instinct is a bitch of a thing. When everything was said and done, it was little
Patty, the HR clerk, who put up the biggest fight.

As the others in the room all but stood there as the horde ripped them apart, I watched in amazement as she rolled towards the potted plant and tore the small plastic tree from its base. She was throwing and flinging that thing around, knocking the lifeless mass of creatures back.

Just before two of the bastards tripped her up and tore into the soft flesh on her neck, I remember thinking that if more of us had put up the fight that little Patty did, we might have made it out that front door.

In fact,
we had all taken a very specific test that first day. That test was pass or fail.

My test was when two of the Dead knocked me down onto my back, and then pulled me through the lobby by my feet as I kicked, struggled and fought for life. With a deadly precision, Kyle took one of them out with the metal rod he was wielding.
The second one pinned me down when my test happened. Adrenaline shooting through my veins, I gripped the broomstick from the clutches of the dead janitor’s arm, and thrust it forward, driving it toward the creature’s face. The wood struck the eye socket bone, reverberating all the through my body. My hand thudded against the zombie’s face and I involuntarily jerked back, withdrawing the broomstick. It pulled out, creating an audible pop as the eye ripped from the socket. The creature dropped to the floor in its own dark pool of bloody mess. I shoved myself backwards to get out from underneath it and panted heavily. Feeling a cold sweat sliding down my back, I realized that I had destroyed that
thing
.

I had passed the test.

I was a killer.

When it’s all on the line, we have to make the hard choices. Sometimes they
work out, but sometimes they don’t.

I was still sitting on the floor, not trusting my legs to hold me up. I was trembling violently, gripping on to the broomstick for dear life. Kyle grabbed me by my shirt collar and started dragging me towards the elevator. He was covered in blood, not his.

I scrambled wildly for my footing when I heard commotion behind us. I twisted around as my shoe skid through a patch of blood,
finding my boss standing above me. We both stopped as I finally got to my feet. We made eye contact. For a moment, I could have sworn I saw a glimpse of recognition in his eyes as he reached out to grab me.

A
dark splatter of blood shot across the elevator door, as Kyle took a hard swing that literally sent the metal pole crashing right through his skull. The zombie’s body thudded completely lifeless to the floor. I nodded to Kyle as I reached down and unclenched my fat boss’s dead fingers from around the Hummer keys. I didn’t have a car, and he wouldn’t be needing his anymore.

“Thanks for three great years,” I let slip out.

The elevator dinged, and we jumped in, watching the door close just as the rest of the zombie horde charged toward it. We could hear the heavy thumps as they ran into it. An audible scream from the lobby let us know that they were still finishing off some of our group. Nothing could be done, I told myself. Nothing could be done.

We headed straight for the top of the building. Standing just seven stories tall, it was far from the tallest building in
New York. The elevator only went to the sixth floor, and we had to take a set of steep, dark stairs to the rooftop. The sun was starting to set as we pushed open a metal door, which led to the fresh air atop the roof.

Mr. Cul-de-sac spun around, holding a makeshift club that he had
created from a broken office chair. He was clearly surprised to see us, or anybody for that matter. He looked guilty, as if he’d done something wrong. We didn’t exchange any words, just glared in each other’s directions for a moment before going our separate ways.

I followed Kyle over to the edge of the building, peering over. There were dozens of those things roaming the streets. I was still trying to get my shit together, breathing a little easier to avoid passing out. A noise behind us made my heart leap into my throat and I spun around. Mr. Cul-de-sac was jamming another piece of the broken chair between the door handle and a metal pipe by the
door, buying us some time in case those things figured out how to climb stairs. This proved to be the smartest thing that I ever saw him do, but in the end, it didn’t work for shit.

Walking around the perimeter, we looked for some sort of fire escape. No such luck. However, we did learn that there was a parking garage right next to us. A narrow alley filled with garbage cans and trash bags stood between our building and a possible escape. With the right wind and a little luck, we might be able to make
it, if it came down to that. Exploring all options, even the suicidal ones.