Mark Clodi: About a Woman, a Zombie Chronicles Novel

The small television cut out, a blaze of static washed across the screen and Dora was left staring at the other two. Her new best friends named Paige and Mike.

"Now what do we do?" Dora asked expecting Paige to come up with an answer.

"Stay here and hide?" Paige suggested, seconded by Mike's eager nodding.

"Hide? Don't you have friends or family to check on?" asked Dora.

Mike held up his cell phone, "I can call them, tell them to stay inside."

Paige seconded that notion, "Yeah, if we hold up here for a while, maybe the guard will get things under control and it will be safe to go out again. You heard the governor, unless you have military training just stay put."

Out in front of the restaurant there was the sound of more breaking glass. Looking around worriedly, Dora asked, "Are there any weapons in here?"

Paige favored her with a pained look, "Why would we want our employees to bring weapons to work? No, we have nothing, maybe we could make clubs?"

"Not even knives?"

"We have some box cutters, nothing else, everything comes pre-packaged, it's not like we do more than warm the food up here."

Dora nodded to that, "Yeah welcome to modern eating, I guess." Looking around the office and trying not to jump as even more shattered glass noise came from the front of the restaurant, Dora said, "No windows in here either, where does that vent go?" She pointed to a large vent set up high in the corner of the office wall.

"How should we know? To the furnace? I'm not a plumber."

Mike shook his head too; he was looking at the shelves along the wall. He was looking at the corner of the shelves that had been propped up with a post. It was a makeshift job with the shelves awkwardly drilled into the post at the edges. Following his gaze Dora said, "Yeah getting hit with that would suck, it's really long though. Can we get it down?"

"Tear it down you mean? No way, the manager will have a fit." protested Paige.

"I thought you were the manager?"

"Well I am the manager on duty, but I'm just an assistant manager, I told you Tom is in Vegas."

"So if we have to defend ourselves against one these zombie-guys what do we use? Your good looks and Mike's endless wisdom?"

"Ouch." said Paige completely not offended, she had realized she was no beauty long ago, "That hurts. I'll grab the pole myself if something tried to break in here. Until then let's try not to take the place apart okay?"

A loud thump sounded against the office door. Paige sighed wistfully then shrugged her shoulders and tried to wrench the pole away from the shelves. The shelving was attached firmly to the pole and to the wall, after three sharp tugs it pulled away from the wall and all of the training manuals and books came crashing down in such an avalanche of debris that Paige stumbled and fell over on top of them.

"Shit!" Paige yelped as she fell, a couple more books piled on top of her, followed by a couple of men's magazines from top shelf. Dora was up and knocking aside some of the books as they fell and managed to catch one of the wooden shelves, stopping it just as it touched Paige's back. Mike leaned over and brushed other books and binders away from Paige, his eyes on the men's magazines, which had spilled open revealing a titillating scene of two lonely farm girls in a hayloft. After tossing the shelf aside Dora looked at Mike looking at the magazines, then Mike looked at Dora and blushed, they both stopped working. Paige continued struggling and her muffled voice said, "A little help here?"

They pulled her out of the rest of the books, which settled into an unstable pile. Another loud bang hit the door causing all three to jump in unison. Dora let out a frightened laugh and all three of them reached for the pole, which still had two shelves screwed to it.

"Dibs!" cried Paige, as Mike knocked the shelves off the end of it.

"Dibs? Dibs? Who says that? You're calling dibs on our only weapon?" asked Dora.

"I'm the manager, I made the mess, I get the club."

Disgustedly Dora surrendered her hold on it with bad grace, "Fine! I hope you use it and don't choke when it comes time to hit things."

Another thump sounded on the metal door, the frosted glass rattled a little in its frame.

"Uh, this thing will hold right?"

"Dora, this whole experience would go better if you only asked us questions we can answer. Do we look like we built the place? No. We only prepare and serve food here. The door looks solid to me, it should hold, what do you think?"

Dora started thinking, her first instinct was to lash out at the overweight, sarcastic woman, hurt her how she knew she could, she had to stifle that urge. Too many things had changed in too short a time and there was this small inkling of an idea that maybe, just maybe Paige was right. Nodding, she answered more truthfully than she intended. "Sorry, I'm nervous." she let out a short laugh, "Who wouldn't be. I'll try to stop asking dumb questions."

Paige just nodded once, a short, curt nod that indicated she understood.

"So what do we do?" asked Mike, still eying the porn magazines, which had fallen behind Paige.

"Well I don't know about you two, but I'm going to explore that vent before the door banger gets in here." Dora crawled up onto the desk, which was an ancient metal beast that the office was seemingly built around. Paige didn't protest, but did eye the vent warily, comparing her ample circumference with the size of the grate.

"I don't think I will fit." she said finally.

Dora, now on the desk, looked down at her and said, "You'll fit, you have to, you have the stick of power. Not to mention, I should have asked, but one of you has a car right?"

They both nodded. "Good." Dora responded, "You two need to decide if we are taking both of your vehicles or just one. I am going to get this grate off and see where it goes." Another loud thump shook the door, this time a crack appeared in the lower corner of the glass. "I guess I better hurry!"

Looking at the grate she saw it was screwed on, Dora hopped down from the desk and motioned for Mike to get up there instead. "It's screwed on, you can unscrew it right?"

Mike looked at her with disbelief, "Well, uh, with what?"

"Well don't you have a screw driver or something? Men always have those, those things in their pants to unscrew stuff."

From his position on the desk Mike actually checked his pockets, and finally shook his head. Paige pulled up the drawers of the desk and came up with a small plastic case, which she opened and took out a screwdriver. Handing it to Mike she tried not to jump when the door was hit again.

"He's just a kid really, why would he have a screwdriver on him?" Paige asked Dora.

Shrugging her shoulders Dora said, "Well he's a guy, they have screwdrivers and know how to do those guy things."

"Like unscrew a screw?"

"Sure."

Paige shook her head, "You don't unscrew things then?"

Smiling Dora said, "Nope."

"What about the reverse?" Paige muttered under her breath.

"What's that? You have to speak louder if you want me to hear you." looking at Mike she said, "Is it off yet?"

Mike had been standing on the desk watching the exchange and he immediately turned and started unscrewing the two small fasteners holding the grate on. He handed it down to Dora who, finding it unworthy of use as a weapon, propped it up against the door. It promptly slid to the floor as the bottom of the door was kicked fiercely from the outside.

"You going in or are you going to stand there?" asked Dora.

"I don't see where it goes, it's dark."

"Oh for christsake! Let me up there. As she joined him on the top of the desk Paige handed her a flashlight, also taken from the drawer, it cast a thin, weak beam, but it was good enough to light up the interior of the venting. The office was at the back of the building and the venting appeared to run straight for fifteen feet then turn upwards at a ninety degree angle. It widened right away, because it split, with half going into the office and the other half continuing on to the kitchen. Turning back to look at Paige, Dora said "Hey you're in luck, the thing gets wide right away, even you will fit. Mike could probably do sit ups in there. I mean, it's big!"