Mark Clodi - Outbreak

There was no one in Cory’s room, Amelia checked all the closets and the bathroom after they shut and locked the outer door. She then moved the hotel’s table over in front of the door and put both the chairs in front of that as well. Diane lay down on the bed which was made and Cory sat cross legged on the other bed, obviously ‘his’ bed. Amelia noted he took his shoes, those plastic kind that all kids loved during the summer, off before getting on the furniture, obviously a well behaved kid in ordinary circumstances.

Amelia opened the drapes to let in some light from the parking lot and slowly got Cory’s story out of him. He and his mom were there for a ‘Academy of the Brain’ event, where kids and their parents got together and formed teams to compete against each other in building robots, answering trivia questions and figuring out logic puzzles, he was ten and had just qualified this year, after hearing about it from his cousin the whole last year and about what a good time it was. Each team was modeled after those of a popular children’s book into separate houses and his was down by three points. Which Cory assured Amelia was nothing, they were practically in the lead as the next team out of seven was behind them by a whole eleven points. They were supposed to compete that day, but his mom told him there was some kind of emergency and they would not get to play again until later. Then the power went out and Cory’s mom went to find out what was going on. She never came back. After that someone started screaming down the hall and when Cory stuck his head out to see what was going on he saw the zombies doing bad things to people. He locked his door and hid in the closet, the beds had solid bases, otherwise he would have hid there, he confided.

Nothing happened for a long time, until eventually the banging started on his door, then there was a fight or something out in the hall and a woman told him it was okay and he could come out. He almost did, but when he pushed a chair over to the door to look out the peep hole he saw another lady all bloody next to the mom type who was asking him to come out. She was looking like right at him, almost like she could see him through the door, she tried to talk him out of the room when he heard a car in the parking lot, he went over to see and saw Amelia and Diane go into the lobby, before the woman banged on the door really hard with her hands, but the door did not give in. Then she told him it was just as well she would just save him for ‘later’ when she was hungry. Cory then hid in the closet again and when he heard the fight down the hall he opened the door to get help, when the zombies did not come out of the room he sneaked up really quietly to peek in side, where he got hit with the fire poker. Cory was from a small mountain town called ‘Eagle’ which Amelia recalled had gained some notoriety for a criminal case against a basketball star years before. He was very much alone in town and there was no question that he would be coming with them when they left.

“Cory do you have a radio?” Diane asked, breaking her silence after Amelia was done getting Cory’s story.

“No. Not really. I have an i-pod though, it has a radio.” he responded.

Diane sighed, as if knowing she got the right answer to the wrong question, “Hey buddy, would it be okay if Amelia tried to listen to your i-pod radio for a minute?”

“Sure.” Cory hopped off the bed and rummaged around in his suit case, half of which appeared to be full of toys, eventually he came up with the popular white music player, which he handed to Amelia, saying, “You turn it on here, and this, I think this is how you get to the radio, I never use it, so I don’t know.” As he spoke he pressed a series of buttons until Amelia, who had one earplug in could hear the static of the FM band.

“Thanks Cory, I got it from here.” Smiling, she thought of her i-pod which she had left sitting at home on her dresser. Kids.

“Alright Fred, Bobby it is time to go find a DSD and Gameboy at the store, if you guys are ready.” said Jimbo.

“It is a ‘PSP’, not ‘DSD!’” cried Bobby, “I keep telling you!”

“Whatever, get your hiney moving out before I change your mind.” laughing Jimbo was amused that being a kid was the same whether you were a zombie kid or a living human, how would Bobby ‘grow up’? “C’mon Fred lets go, there is smoke over that way, that means activity and probably human activity, so we can eat along the way.”

The trio set off towards the smoke and soon enough they spotted a gang of zombies stopped in the front yard gnawing on a couple of bodies. Jimbo stopped when he saw them and hissed at Fred, “It is her Fred! It is Nancy and that gang of girls she has! Can you get her from here? And stop her? Like we practiced?”

Fred stopped, crouched down and concentrated on the group. “There is something Jim, something, but it is like she is strong or something, I feel she belongs to me, like a daughter or something, kind of like you only stronger, but man Jim she is strong. I..I think she notices me trying too.” Sure enough one of the women stood up and glanced in their direction. She stood up and it was like Jimbo could see the strings pulling the other girls up and into formation behind her. They all looked around warily and then Nancy started coming tentatively in their direction. Jimbo sent Bobby off to hide in some bushes to the side, thinking the boy was probably not strong enough to be of much use mentally or physically. Nancy looked huge, her size was the same, but it was like she was ready to burst out of her body. The girls behind her looked the same and Jimbo knew if it came to a fight that they were probably out matched. Mentally he felt Nancy’s icy grip straining at his mind, he resisted and he could hold her of, but just barely, the fight that took place in his head at that instant left him as tired as if he had been running all day long. Jimbo staggered to his knees as Nancy walked up to them.

“Jimbo, Jimbo, Jimbo, you dirty little fuck. After all I did for you? And this is how you repay me? By nurturing Fred back to health?” turning towards Fred she said, “Hello daddy! It is so bad to meet you at last! I was hoping you would be much less challenging. Oh I feel you, you dirty little slobberer! Get. Out. Of. My. Head!” Nancy then screamed as Jimbo yelled, “Yes Fred, get her Fred!”

While Nancy was fighting for her mind with Jimbo she had scant mental ability left to direct her girls to attack Fred, ‘Screw that fuck Jimbo, get this maniac off me!’ she screamed to the girls. The girls were not affected by Fred, as he was concentrating fully on Nancy and winning too, until the girls jumped him.

Jimbo leaped on one of the girl’s backs, bringing her to the pavement, but not taking her out of the fight completely, he assaulted another girl mentally, although he was technically her ‘sibling’, both of them having been created by Nancy, he employed the techniques he had originally used on Fred, getting his mind around and through the cracks of the girl’s mental armor in about half a minute. Her shields were surprisingly good, then again it was obvious she had been building herself up to repel Nancy. Jimbo stopped the girl, Julie in her tracks mentally, though the effort at slowing the girl, Trish, whom he was fighting and stopping Julie cold left Jimbo physically and mentally exhausted. Fred was having his own problems and in virtually the same boat as Jimbo, one opponent he had to hold off mentally, the other was getting ready to hack him apart physically. Jimbo wrapped his arms around Trish and held her down on the ground, pinning her. It was all he could do to keep both girls pinned and hope, beyond hope that Fred would win the battle.