Ben shielded his eyes, unable to handle the grisly display. Then, he heard feet shuffling toward him. Whipping his body around, Ben faced the murderer. Rose Yoland stood in the doorway, her lips pursed, snarling. She looked ill, much worse than Ben had over the past week. Her skin was gray. Bloody spittle slowly dripped from her mouth. Her eyes were murky, undistinguished. A deep, animalistic growl escaped her lips.
“Rose? Are you okay?” he asked. Red smears were painted around her mouth. Ben took notice to the blood stains on her night gown as well. Red droplets fell from her filthy fingernails, onto the tile floor.
Ben backed away from Rose, tiptoed around the corpse of his elderly neighbor. Oh, Christ, Ben thought. She ate him. She fucking ate him.
Ben crept into the hallway, mindfully sidestepping the broken door. Slowly, Rose followed him, taking baby steps. She walked like an infant learning how to put one foot in front of the other. Once Ben was through the doorway and on the porch, he immediately felt safer. But that feeling was soon erased when he heard more inhuman chatter behind him. He turned and saw Jackson Harlan, the three-hundred pound bus driver from across the street, stumbling into the middle of the road. He looked the same as Rose. Ben watched in horror as the residents of Densberry Avenue came out of hiding. Each of them moved similarly—slow and awkward, as if they had just exited the bar after last call. Some of them groaned, making unintelligible noises, and some of them said nothing. There were maybe a hundred of them flooding their yards, ungracefully making their way toward the street. Most of them were covered in blood. Their clothes were stained, so were their faces. And they were—
Heading his way.
Ben stood on the Yoland’s porch, watching a flock of zombies scuffle toward him.
The term “zombie” entered his brain the instant he saw them occupy Densberry Avenue. Ben suddenly remembered the brief conversation he had with Jake the day before the flu left him bedridden. High on bath salts, a man went crazy while riding the bus and started eating his fellow passengers. Bath salts my ass, Ben thought. He’d seen enough horror flicks in his time to know what a zombie was, and these people—they were fucking zombies.
He forgot about the news reports. The past week was hazy. He was barely awake for most of it, and the hours he spent conscious weren’t wasted on television; they were spent with his nose in a book or with a pen and paper, jotting down notes about the next Great American novel he always dreamed about writing, but always lacked the time and motivation.
The world went to shit last week and he missed every moment of it.
Just as he was wondering how much of the zombie apocalypse had been televised, a snarling sound caused him to spin around. Rose Yoland was there, maybe four feet from him, grunting and dragging her feet toward him. Saliva flew from her open mouth. Ben took a step backward to avoid contact with her and her bodily fluids. Unfortunately for Ben, he miscalculated where he was on the porch. When he placed his foot on the stairs, he lost his balance. He landed hard on the wooden steps, rolled across the walkway and onto the lawn. He felt air vacate his lungs. Moaning, he crawled away from Rose, who awkwardly began to descend the stairs. Her uncoordinated body caused her to lose balance, and she too tumbled. She landed an arm’s length away from Ben. Immediately, she crawled after him, snarling like a rabid dog.
Ben saw the sea of zombies heading in his direction. They had multiplied since the last time he glanced at the street. Just as he realized how fucked he was, Rose reached forward, grabbing his foot. He tried kicking free, but the dead woman’s grip was something unnatural. He kicked again, more furiously. His foot finally broke away from her clutches. His shoe came off, but it didn’t concern him. Scrambling to his feet, Ben got ready to run. He sprinted toward his backyard without looking back.
Zombies, holy-fucking-shit zombies, he thought, as he bounded the steps of his deck, holding his ribs, trying to regain his breath. Ben wasn’t a doctor—far, far from it—but he had experienced cracked ribs before.
He entered the back door, immediately locking it behind him.
Outside, the dead horde swarmed 19 Densberry Avenue.
Ben paced around his living room, grabbing the sides of his head, muttering the same three words over and over again: “Holy-fucking-shit.” Air slowly crawled back into his lungs and he was momentarily thankful. He was going to need a lot of it, especially if he planned on running from the throng of dead Red Riverians eagerly awaiting his exit.
He continued pacing in circles, his mind wandering in and out of negative thoughts. He wrestled with the realization that the world had virtually ended, that there would be no more electric or cable bills. No more credit card payments. No car loan payment. No mortgage. No lawyer fees. No child support?
Keep it together, he thought. You need to get out of this.
Ben grabbed his suitcase, ran to the cabinet where he kept some snacks. He only packed a few, hoping to stop somewhere on his way to Pittsburgh. He didn’t know how bad it was out there, but he was prepared to go a few days without food if he needed to. He might not have a choice. He headed to the front door. Scratching and moaning sounds stopped him from going anywhere near it. Fuck. They probably had the whole place surrounded. He heard pounding on the windows. It was only a matter of time before they would break in. He saw shadows moving behind the curtains. Lots of shadows.
The roof. It was his only chance. Ben raced down the hallway, locating the attic stairs. He unfolded them, climbed quickly, and ascended into darkness. He almost tried pulling the chain on the light, but then remembered there was no electricity. Dumbass, he thought to himself. He cursed himself for not bringing a flashlight, probably one of the most important things he could have packed in his survival trunk. He debated whether or not to run back down the stairs and grab one out of the junk drawer, but the sound of shattered glass quickly determined that going back was not an option—unless he wanted to end up the living dead’s breakfast.
The inarticulate vocalizations of the zombies quickly filled the living room. Ben reached for his Smart-Phone. Even though it was useless for making calls, it proved resourceful in other ways. He selected the flashlight application and the tiny light on the back of the phone illuminated the attic. You lucky bastard, he thought, as he ducked trusses, rolling over pink tufts of insulation. He continued until he got to the far end of the attic, where a fan blocked him from getting to the roof. It was roughly the size of a manhole cover, and Ben felt he could squeeze through it, if only the blades weren’t there.
Ben started removing the metal grate that covered the fan. To his surprise, it popped out easily. Trying to stay calm, he closed his eyes, blocking out the noises coming from the rooms below. Then he thought he heard lumber behind him creak. He quickly spun, shining the light toward the stairs. There was no one there. His heartbeat slowly resumed its normal rhythm.
He turned his attention back to the fan, which he tried removing. It was screwed in and there was no screwdriver handy. Ben started to debate whether or not he had met a dead end. He also wondered if the zombies knew how to climb stairs. If they couldn’t, maybe they’d eventually abandon the house and decide to look for food elsewhere.