Sam Williams - Tales from the Swollen Corpse

“Hector, move away!” Barb’s voice boomed from behind me.

Hector backed away with a look of someone that wanted to help but knew they couldn’t.

“Dude…” Dan was beside me now and saw what I saw. Barb was holding a carpet-kicker from the tool rental display. She walked up to the bloated bitch and calmly pointed the spiked pad like a golfer with their club. She raised it and swung, I am sure she must have intended to take the woman’s head off. Instead she sprayed Nicole with cheek fat, skin pieces and black blood. Nicole was really screaming now.

“Holy shit!” said the customer next to me.

Dan and I looked at each other, then back at Barb. Calmly, she turned the knob on the kicker, extending the spikes as far as they would go. Standing directly over the woman, Barb brought the device straight down onto chunky’s head with a dull thud. Pulling the kicker back forced the woman to release her grip. Barb pulled her farther back and with one hand, grabbed the back of chunky’s neck. The fat lady started to fuss and fight, making a wheezing sound. She was no match for Barb, who dragged her out the front doors. We watched Barb drag chunky to the curb, where she left her.

I had the doors turned off and was ready to shut ’em as soon as Barb came back through. I did, then turned around to see Nicole; she was sitting on the ground whimpering. Her leg looked really bad. Hector had the first aid kit and was cleaning it up. Looking up, I saw old Larry come around the corner.

“After a hundred and fifty tries I finally got through.” He looked baffled.

“Are they sending an ambulance?” Barb asked, bending down to look at Nicole’s leg.

“They’re not sending anything.” Larry replied with a shrug.

“What do you mean they’re not sending anyone?” Barb and everyone else looked at Larry for the reply.

“The operator said there is an emergency situation going on. Her advice was we should stay put and seal all the doors and when they have units available they’ll send ’em. After pestering her for a response time, she said we should plan on spending the night.”

“Screw that,” said one of the two customers.

The other, a lady, just stood there still in shock, her items brought up for purchase lying at her feet. The man walked towards the doors, I went to let him out. What we saw outside made us both stop and rethink spending the night.

Our weekly flyer must have made its way down to hell.

Seconds ago, when Barb dragged the fat lady outside, the parking lot was empty. Now the parking lot was crawling (in some cases literally) with corpses.

We stood there in horror and wonder watching the dead people run amuck. Barb walked over to see what we were watching. After peering past me, she turned and walked back to the registers. I turned and watched her nonchalantly walk to a checkout phone.

Barb’s voice came over the loud speaker calm and professional, “Ryan, come to the front. All Emporium shoppers please come to the front immediately. We are now closed.” Ryan worked in the back. I forgot he was here.

I looked at Barb as she hung up the phone.

“Yep, we’re closed for sure.” I said with a sarcastic smile.

“Well if there’s anyone left I don’t want them panicking and doing something stupid like opening an emergency exit and letting one of those things in. If anyone comes up front I’ll explain the situation.” Barb replied to me, looking worried for the first time.

“The situation? Barb, you sound like the 911 lady. What exactly is the situation we got going on, Barb?” Old Larry looked as close to being angry as I had ever seen him.

“We seem to have a zombie situation, Larry.” The way Barb looked at him put Larry back in line but what she said gave me shivers.

“Son of a bitch.” Said the man next to me as if agreeing, he stood still staring out the window.

We all know about zombie outbreaks. But there was a delay for me in accepting what I was seeing. Probably because I never thought I would be witness to one, or at least had been raised to think I wouldn’t. I heard the last time it happened was back when my Mom was a kid. Back then, they had a major outbreak in some small Midwestern town called Brecksville. The place was deemed unlivable for years and is now a tourist attraction.

I saw something about Brecksville on TV the first time when I was five; it scared the hell out me. When I asked my Mom if our town could ‘get zombies’ she told me there were worse things to be afraid of. She told me about when she was a kid, I guess back then when they were still dealing with the cold war, she and the other kids had to practice a daily nuclear attack drill. Like it would help, after a siren, the kids hid under their desks. In a weird way her telling me about growing up with the constant fear of being vaporized helped dilute any fear I might have developed for zombies. But now, looking out the front of the emporium, not so much.

Suddenly, Ryan showed up, he looked freaked. “Barb, it sounds like there’s a crowd out back and they’re banging on the rollup doors, what the hell’s going on?”

Barb went into manager mode, “Hector and Larry, get Nicole to the break room couch, take them with you.” Barb pointed at the customers. “Folks, there is a phone in there if you need it and a TV, which hopefully will update us on what’s going on. After you’ve settled them Hector, I need you back up front and Larry I need you to stay there in case Nicole gets worse or they need something.” Then she looked at Dan, Ryan, and me. “You guys come with me to Tools, I think we need to get armed.”

Dan had walked up beside me to look out the doors. He had been standing there focused on the insanity outside. After Barb’s “call to arms” he turned to me and said, “Fuck yeah. We do.”

Everyone seemed ok with Barb’s plan but Larry. I watched him pull Barb aside and sneak looks at Nicole while they talked. I was pretty sure what the conversation was about and was sure what most of us were already thinking. If that thing was a zombie that attacked Nicole, she was bit and it was just a matter of time before she was a danger to the rest of us.

Walking up to them, I heard Larry say to Barb “I won’t hesitate” like he needed to get a point across. He walked away and I heard him ask Hector if Hector could get Nicole to the couch by himself because he needed to grab something from tools if he was going to sit with them.

With everything happening so quickly I hadn’t thought of the fact I needed to call Heather and make sure she was ok. I tried my cell and got a “network busy”. Larry watched me pick up the same phone Barb had just tried to use. He shook his head and said it probably wouldn’t be any better. He was right; all I got was a busy signal.

We waited for Hector to get back and see if anyone else showed up front. I went over to talk to Ryan. He was standing by the door watching the craziness for himself. Ryan talked a lot of bullshit but he was also one of those people that knew a little bit about everything. If anyone had some input on what was going down, he would.

Looking out the doors, I asked the first thought that came into my head. “Why is it you think some of ’em are really slow, but fuckers like that one act like they’re on meth?” I was pointing at a tall shirtless and part skinless man who was running from car to car.

“It’s because the slow ones are old dead and whatever is reanimating them can’t compensate for decomposition, if the bone and tissue matter is gone, then it’s not there. That dude running over there is new dead.” For a long haired dude wearing an old Mega Death t-shirt, Ryan was a smart fucker.

A hand grabbed my shoulder and I almost crapped my pants. It was Barb. “Hey guys Hector’s back. I am going to need you two to go grab an axe or something and walk the store.”