Zombie Exodus Novel, Chapter 5, Abigail (Patreon)

Abigail hit the elevator button, but the unlit panel told her the stairs were in her future. She realized this was a metaphor for her experience in the apocalypse so far—every turn presented a detour. As the fog of her hangover lifted, she recalled the stairs below the third floor were under repair, something about falling patches of ceiling. At least the maintenance office lived on the third floor.

She opened the stairwell door and entered the dark. A wave of cold air swallowed her. The low humming of machinery swelled in the distant, though intermittent scratching echoed over it. She thought the mix of sounds could only be rodents in the ventilation system. She had worked on many a job site where rats made nests in the duct work. Aside from the noises, she was acutely aware of the lingering smells. In the past day or so, her fellow apartment dwellers had dumped trash and refuse in the stairwell, and as she walked, she kicked cans and stepped in muck. The odor of rotten meat wafted to her nose, and when that faded, she smelled urine. The only thing that helped was the frigid air which cut the rank aromas.

In the darkness, she descended the stairs with caution, using the railing and feeling out her path with her free hand, like swimming in a pool while holding the side for support. Of all the things she feared about descending the stairs in the dark, she felt most concerned of a simple injury. With her luck, she would twist an ankle and be an easy meal for even the slowest of infected.

Abigail’s foot hit something soft, and she slipped. Her hand tightened on the handrail, and she kept her balance and stepped over the pile. That was a close one. Her movement caused a domino effect among the trash, and the center of the mass shifted. A shadow in the dark rose in the midst of the debris, spilling the trash around the staircase in a wave. The figure rose in a slender column, blocking what little light flowed from the stairwell below, and when it peaked, it reached a full foot above her height and emitted a long and languid moan. It crept forward, and Abigail heard the sloshing of trash and rattle of cans. In the dim light, she saw the figure’s arms raise and long, slender fingers stretch out. He stumbled as he walked over the uneven, moving floor, but as he gained momentum, his moaning became more shrill and rose in pitch and fever.

Abigail backtracked up the stairs. The shifting debris felt like quicksand, and she struggled to lift her feet from the muck. The figure seemed less affected and became more animated, arms flailing and teeth clicking together. He swung wildly, growing angrier at each miss, as if he hated his awakening and wanted revenge.

She heard a clatter from above, and more solid refuse scuttled down the steps. Something solid hit her calf, and as she reacted, it scuttled by and fell further down the stairs. She felt trapped. There was no going up and whatever caused the debris to move could be just as dangerous as the figure blocking her way below. The figure closed in, now a half a staircase away. She had to make a decision as time was running out.

Her hand dropped, but instead of the hammer, she drew the pistol. She remembered Atticus from the firing range, the kind owner who taught her the basics of shooting. The kick worried her; if she fell on the stairs, it may mean death. She recalled her lessons and wrapped her fingers on the handle with both hands, squeezing the gun, and raised it at her target. She extended her arms to handle the recoil, and all thoughts were so focused on the revolver, she lost track of the figure. He stood close, and his hands flailed and struck the gun away. Abigail threw herself backward and rolled over a heap of hard trash. The figure roared and swung again, and some part of him caught the loose material of her sweater which tugged and tore. She aimed and fired, and the figure twitched, its shoulder turning away from the bullet’s impact. She scrambled for distance and slid on the pile of debris, riding it down like a wave, until her feet hit the next landing. Light streamed in from a stairwell door, which helped her to gain her bearings. She spun around to face the figure, and though his features were still hidden in the dark, she saw the man. He was Joseph, a tenant, who she met at a happy hour at a bar down the block. He had bought her a beer, and Abigail thought he was hitting on her until he vented about his cheating girlfriend and swore off relationships. He became friends with her and Emma, often hanging out with them on Friday movie nights or cooking them dinner after a long day at work. Abigail even fixed some woodwork at his parent’s house to repay the friendship.

“Joseph,” she said. He kicked through the debris, clawed hands grabbing at the air between them. As he descended, Abigail crept backward until her back hit the wall, and she lifted the pistol to aim the sight on his forehead. 

“Joseph, it’s me—Abigail. Damn it, you know me, Joseph. You cooked me dinner last week.” Her voice broke and a single tear dropped on her cheek.

Joseph grunted and growled and gave no indication his name, or her voice, or the sight of her meant anything anymore. His sneakers hit the landing, no more than a few feet from Abigail. She took a deep breath and cleared her throat. The pistol fired and leapt in Abigail’s hands, and a red hole appeared on Joseph’s head. His arms fell, and he dropped to his knees. The low moan faded, and Joseph slumped over and fell sideways into the debris, finally coming to rest.

“Goodbye, Joseph,” Abigail said. She turned away and bit her lip, and she raised her hand to punch the wall. She felt like she was dreaming—that somehow she was back in the apartment, asleep in bed, recovering from the nasty hangover, while Emma sat stroking her hair. She laughed, though tears ran down her face. This is crazy. This can’t be happening. Her laughter reverberated off the concrete walls, and she stayed there awhile until realizing this was reality now and Emma was still out there.

***

Light from the third floor hurt Abigail’s eyes as she exited the dark stairwell. Her gaze fell on a dark stain on the tan wall and next to it was scrawled the word “Linda” in a deep red. She stepped over a metal urn lying across the thin hallway and took a left past the management offices towards the maintenance room. 

Flood lights illuminated the new corridor which lacked wallpaper or carpeting. A musty screen of white billowy smoke hung in the air, and steam vents hissed from above. Water stains spotted the drop ceiling, and tiles bulged every few feet, though exposed wires hung from uncovered areas. The air was noticeably warmer, and she slid the sleeves of her sweater up past her elbows and drank down a bottle of water. 

She saw a closed door ahead and read the placard next to it—Michael Woods, Maintenance Supervisor. Knocking on the door, Abigail heard faint movement and a harsh sound like coughing or retching. She opened the door and stepped inside to the clatter of an old furnace and smell of oil and cigarettes. A table lamp shined an orange glow, and Mike sat next to it on a metal desk with a bottle of Irish whiskey and a pistol beside him. He held a dirty, blood-stained rag to his neck and sucked on a hand-rolled cigarette. A brown film like grease ran through the right side of his thick beard and was splattered on his arms and across his work shirt.

“Hey,” he said as she stepped into the lamp’s light. Smoke streamed from his nostrils, and cigarette ash fell to the floor. 

“Mike,” she said and ran to him. “Are you okay?”

He chuckled, a deep belly laugh, and he removed the rag from his neck. The skin was red and swollen, and a large bite of square teeth marked the side of his throat. Brown fluid seeped from each jagged wound, and white pus bubbled up from a large missing patch of skin.

Abigail covered her nose and pulled back. “Jesus,” she said and touched Mike’s hand.

“I’ll be meeting him soon,” he joked. He lifted the whiskey bottle and swallowed hard, spilling some from the corners of his mouth. He wiped his mouth with the back of his arms and leaned back as tears welled in his eyes. “I got into a fight with of those things. It was a tough son-of-a-gun, but I got it down. The thing is—it bit me. Got me good on the neck. Hurt like heck, but it’s numb now.”

“We can save you. It’s not too late.” Abigail ran to the other side of the desk and rummaged through it drawer-by-drawer. She saw Joseph’s fate and knew Mike was lost unless they acted fast.

“Abi, listen. It’s over for me. It’s fine,” Mike said and turned toward her. The desk groaned from his weight, and Mike smiled and rapped it with his knuckles. “I should have cut down on the beers. As a zombie, I’ll be too slow to catch anyone.”

“We can call an ambulance. Where’s your phone?” she tossed machine parts on the floor, loose change, a box of paperclips, and other junk she found in the desk.

Mike hopped off the desk and stepped next to her. He took her hands and held them in his. “Abi, stop. I’ve seen what the infection does. Once the venom is in your blood, it’s over. I accept that.”

“There has to be a way to stop it. There’s gotta be a phone around. We can call for help.”

Mike shook his head. In those past few minutes since Abigail showed up, Mike had changed. The clear parts of his eyes had turned bloodshot with brown veins, and his jawbone had jutted forward. His thick brown hair grew coarse and rigid, and his skin had taken a yellow hue and smelled of burnt eggs.

“Where’s Emma?” Mike asked. “Hey dig a cigarette out of my drawer.”

Abigail found the pack of Marlboros, lit one in her mouth, and handed it to my Mike. “Out there somewhere.”

“She stopped by last week. Said there was a problem with the drain.”

“Yep, in the bathroom. She’s always complaining how my long hair clogs it up.”

Mike laughed. He sucked on the cigarette and let the air spill from his nose. “She started telling me about this one time when you were kids and some kids were bullying her, and you joined in.”

Abigail leaned a hip against the desk and stared just past Mike at a calendar hanging on the wall with a photo of a curvy woman in a bikini with the head of a cat. It was a cat-woman hybrid. Mike and his quirky sense of humor.

“When we were kids—I was ten and Emma was eight—we used to hang with this gang of older boys and girls in our neighborhood. This one summer day past this dried up creek where we hung out, these twin boys, Tim and Kyle Pleeks, started picking on me bad. Making fun of my gangly, chicken-bone legs and lack of endowment in certain areas.”

“YOU were flat-chested?” Mike said with a sarcastic grin.

“Very funny,” Abigail said in a huff. “I guess some things never change. Anyway, these kids were laying into me, and Emma walked up to our group and sat down with a smile. Now, I don’t know why, but I started teasing her. Stupid things about her wavy hair, how pale she was, how she had nice skin. I mean, I wasn’t even good at mocking her. But everything I said was golden to the Pleeks brothers and those other kids. They laughed and pointed and joined in, completely forgetting only minutes earlier I was the target of their malice. Emma didn’t say a word but kept smiling and pulling at petals of sunflowers she was picking.”

Mike shook his head and flicked a long column of ash from the end of his cigarette. “Seems unlike you.”

Abigail felt her cheeks turning red. “Not sure why I did it. Maybe it irked me how Emma just sat there smiling. Or maybe I saw her as an easy way out, to deflect their attention to someone else. Even as I did it I was ashamed, but I couldn’t help myself. 

“This went on for twenty minutes, and Emma said we needed to be home for dinner, so we walked. All the kids followed, and we teased Emma the whole way. She never cried or argued or even spoke up for us to stop. It continued even as we sat on the porch waiting to get called inside. Apparently, my father heard the tail end of it all. After dinner, he pulled me aside, not angry, and told me, ‘Abigail, you should always stick up for family. You picked sides against your own sister. I’m very disappointed.’ I was crushed—not because my dad yelled at me but because I felt so ashamed. I didn’t even have the courage to apologize to Emma, because I’d have to face what I did. That was one of those defining moments of my life. I never put anyway ahead of Emma again.”

Mike coughed hard and covered his mouth in the crook of his elbow. Abigail took a step toward him, and he put a hand up. It took a few deep breaths and another drag on the stub of the cigarette to clear his lungs. “Why do you think Emma let you make fun of her?”

Abigail scratched the end of her nose. “That was her way of helping me. She knew we couldn’t team up and take on the whole group of kids, so she gave herself of to be the butt of the jokes and take the heat off me. Emma was very mature. She knew the words wouldn’t hurt her as much as they hurt me. She knew she could take it. I don’t think she expected me to do most of the harm.”

Mike nodded, looking down at the floor, and Abigail was glad he could not see her tears forming. He gritted his teeth and pulled the rag off his neck. The wound’s edges had crusted and scabbed, turning the skin black, deeper than a bruise, and the smell was strong and foul.

“I can’t believe I got bit. I figured I was safe in my office. The damn thing must have wandered from outside before the police locked this place down.”

“Locked it down?” Abigail asked and checked her backpack for anything that could help Mike. She took out a bottle of water and handed it him. He pushed it back to her.

“Yeah, the military doesn’t want anyone heading in or out. We’re on lockdown, martial law. No one on the streets or it’s shoot on sight.”

Mike grabbed his neck with both hands and fell into the desk which squealed across the cement floor as his weight pushed it. Abigail reached under his arm to support him, but he yanked away and stumbled across the office to a solo folding chair near the furnace.

“Best if you don’t get too close, Abs.” Mike fell into the chair which skidded a foot. He panted and gripped his chest while holding the rag to his neck wound with the other hand. His voice rasped as he spoke, and when he did not speak, he grunted in short spikes like an injured jungle cat. “I can feel it moving through my body, and there’s a pang in my gut like the worst hunger you ever felt. And it’s getting darker, and everything has taken on a gray tone like I’m color-blind.”

Mike sat forward in the chair, voice rising, teeth gritted. “My hands ache like they’re arthritic and someone’s chipping the bones with a tiny chisel, and my jaw keeps popping and grinding and at any moment, it may dislocate. My legs feel locked, and I’m cold but can’t shiver. This furnace is pumpin out heat but Mike don’t feel it. Somewhere in me, these cells are merging with my other cells, and they’re eating the nutrients and spitting out decay. It’s powerful, and it’s over-writing the Mike part of me, telling me to rise up and—”

Mike’s voice hit a crescendo; after which, he settled in the chair. He seemed to be at ease after the outburst and even his breathing slowed for a moment. “I don’t want to become one of those things. We both know what happens. Look over there,” he said and waved a finger to the desk and his gun.

“This infection has gotta stop. This is the only way. I just can’t do it myself. I tried to pull the trigger, but—” 

Mike squeezed his eyes shut as more tears came. He coughed, deep and violent, shaking the chair and bouncing off the metal of the furnace. He dry heaved, leaning over far, and crossing his arm over his mouth.

Abigail glanced down at the pistol, knowing she had to make a decision: leave Mike and condemn him to life eternal as a member of the living dead or shoot the man and end his suffering. She knew there was really no choice. Was it humane to end Mike’s life or leave him to the suffering of the undead? Humanity was a concept discussed in philosophy classes by professors most likely now turned to zombies. The apocalypse had new rules, a new world order.

“Goodbye, Mike,” she said and lifted the pistol from the desk. She braced her arms and lined up his forehead in the sights. He leaned far back in the chair and placed his hands on his lap. A smile crossed his face as he closed his eyes, and in that moment, he looked at peace.

The gun gave a loud pop. Mike’s body slumped in the chair, arms limp by his side, and his feet kicked out in one final motion. She looked at the barrel of the pistol and saw the smoke still trailing out. She ejected the clip and saw seven 9mm bullets loaded, and she pushed the clip back in and hit the safety switch on. The gun went in the back band of her pants, and she grabbed the bottle of whiskey and took a deep swig. The alcohol burned as it slid down her throat, and she threw the bottle in her backpack and wondered how to lay to rest the body of another person she had just killed.