Chapter Text
When the world ended, my biggest concern wasn’t so much the vampires as was the loss of my medical team.
I’d just gotten off the phone with my doctor when the ruckus started. Peeking out of my office, I saw a man at the far end of the hall brutally attack another employee, slamming his victim up against the wall with enough force to cave in the drywall. The attacker was snarling. The inhuman tone of it struck a primitive chord of terror chord in me. I’d ducked back inside, locked the door and picked up the phone to call security.
Dead line.
Feet pounded down the hall towards the attacking man, angry voices rising. When the hollering turned to shrieks, I’d turned out my lights, double checked the lock on the door and went for my cell. A dial tone took forever to get, and then when my call did connect with security, all I got was a busy signal.
Nobody gets a busy signal any more unless cell lines are jammed. Jammed cell lines mean many people trying to make calls. Many people trying to call means some type of disaster.
That had been a day ago. Night had come, bringing bedlam outside my door. Tucked in my little ten by ten windowless room, I’d held my breath while a great clattering altercation took place in the open floor outside. Things that breathed wetly kept trying my door, carefully, cleverly. I’d always joked about the “Disaster shelter” signage my interior office sported, and it was during the long night that I understood it was no joke. The heavy, lockable door was the only thing which had kept them out.
I’d texted my sig other. Hey. Trapped @ work. No idea WTF is going on. Crazy shit. U ok?
Then a while later: I love u.
And received nothing in return.
I refused to allow myself to imagine… anything.
The office intranet had still worked at that point; muting my machine, I read the posts of others similarly trapped, begging for help, begging for information. It was unclear if the site had been attacked or if some bizarre group psychosis had turned half the staff into murdering machines.
Someone had posted a picture of the site’s cafe. The scene bore a shocking resemblance to the photos from the Nyamata Church after the Rwandan genocide. I could not believe my eyes.
I did not post back.
Towards morning, I slept a little and was awakened by more wet respirations. Labored, inconstant; the sound reminded me of the patients in the acute ward of the hospital, the ones who were circling the drain. An odd clicking interrupted every other breath, faintly insectile. This time, the door handle was tried with some force. I prayed the thumping of my heart wasn’t audible.
When it was gone, I checked my cell again, hiding the light with my body. Nothing.
I forced myself to be very still and calm.
As with any bizarre event in life, when one is going through it, it seems almost mundane, normal. I’d gotten up that morning, dressed, unplugged the car, driven to work in my typical F1-driver fashion, screamed at a hapless old lady who nearly swerved into me, hummed into the parking garage while already on the first of ten conference calls of the day, marched into my office, downloaded my email, then walked out my door to see a murder taking place. Now, under my desk, staring at crumbs the cleaner had missed the night before, I felt the same sense of unreality as on the day four years ago when I’d received the worst news of my life. And yet, even after that horrible day, life had still gone on in all its unstoppable normality: the sun rose, initiatives were planned, people hired, my SO needed advice on how to cook the chicken and I’d continued to kick and scream as always, just sometimes with not as much gusto as before. This was no different. The world as I knew it - the noisy, OCD world of corporate had just come to a grinding halt, and here I was, staring at crumbs and feeling irritated.
It was morning now and bright outside. That much I could ascertain from the light seeping under my door.
I took out my cell phone and checked for messages: still none. Texted my SO: Where r u?
The digital silence was deafening.
I crept to the door, pressing my ear against the cold surface. All was still. Very carefully, I turned the handle and peered out: several bodies lay half-way down the hall, heavy in their stillness. A swipe of blood arced along the white wall.
Then: somewhere outside, a siren. The howling grew louder and louder until I could tell it was in the building’s lot. Several vehicles, it seemed. The wailing crescendoed, then cut off abruptly. I hesitated in the doorway, listening.
Hoping.
Waiting.
Pop! Pop! POP POP POP POP!
It was difficult to shut the door quietly.
The shooting went on for a long time.
“The fuck is happening?” I whispered to myself.
My cell vibrated. I had to stuff my knuckles in my mouth to keep from screaming.
It read: Dear WalMart Shopper, your purchase last month won a $1000 Walmart gift card, go to…
“Fucking spam,” I hissed, then froze to the spot when a nearby screech seemed to answer me. It sounded like it had come from down the hall, where those bodies lay. Maybe farther away. I couldn’t tell. The hollow ceiling conducted sounds across the whole building, warping distance.
I couldn’t stay in my office forever. No food beyond a box of stale granola bars in the credenza. No water. No facilities. There had been sirens and shooting, so that meant somewhere, there were still people. I just needed to get to them.
I counted to thirty and dared the door again. Bodies: check. Blood swath: check. Screeching thing: no sign. Sun slatted through the blinds, many of which had been mangled in whatever melee had taken place out on the floor last night. There was something reassuring about the bright light. My gut told me if I could just get out into it, I would be safe.
With careful, quiet movements, I emptied the stale granola bars into my jacket pockets and swapped out my heels for the running shoes I kept in a drawer. Both seemed like good ideas. As I tied my laces, I plotted escape options. There were two.
One would force me down the narrow hall, over the bodies and into the central pillar of the building where the main stairs and elevators were. Once I reached the first floor, I’d have to cross an open, polished expanse of reception area to reach the front doors. The other option was a service stairway that opened directly across from my office. It was three stories of what was most likely dark stairwell, currently housing god only knew what. The advantage was it opened into a service hallway which contained several direct, emergency exits out to the rear parking lot. Exits to the sanctuary of the sun.
Brighter, longer and more exposed or darker, shorter and unknown?
Another screech floated down the hall. I crept to the door. A shambling figure crossed the hall past the bodies, heading towards the central stairway area.
Service stairs it was.
There hasn’t been a crashbar made in the history of mankind that is quiet. Despite leaning my weight against it with great care, the damn thing still clunked loudly as the door opened. A growl came from down the hall; the figure had heard me.
I threw myself into the breach.
The stairwell was filled with pale light. Someone had left the roof access door open. Thanking my lucky stars, I hurried down the stairs, doing my best to keep my footsteps soft. There were still plenty of shadows, increasing the lower I went. I knew I had only seconds to clear the stairs before the thing from my floor came in after me.
I heard the crashbar clang when I was midway down. A surge of panic like nothing I’d ever felt blasted through me and instantly I realized why everyone in horror movies always trips and falls on nothing when running away. My ankles seized. I staggered down several steps, caught myself on the handrail and looked up.
A flash of movement above and a long, low, clicking growl.
I think I swore. My pursuer let out a squeal and came pounding after me.
At the base of the stairs was another body. The light was poor there, but enough to let me see that it was still twitching, as if trying to get up. I channeled my childhood and leapt from the third stair, sailing over it, landing hard but unharmed. Hit the crash in front of me, committing to running as fast as possible to the exit door which I knew to be straight ahead. I hoped my explosive arrival would stun anything waiting near the door into momentary hesitation.
Behind me, a thud: my attacker had also jumped.
The sign over the exit door hollered in red bold letters: “Emergency Exit Only. Alarms will sound.”
“Good,” I panted, and crashed out into the sun.
No alarms, but a squeal and a hiss. So close! I heard the door bang shut and risked a glance behind.
Nothing.
It hadn’t followed me out.
I had made it.
Far off, I could hear sirens again. For a few moments, I crouched with my shoulder against the stone retaining wall, panting from the adrenaline and marveling I was unscathed.
There was a body in the landscaping off to my right.
I saw another one pitched over the hood of a car stopped crossways in one of the lanes.
Then a third, near the corner of the building, a lump of practical office separates fluttering in the breeze.
I looked but did not look. My brain refused to fully register the enormity of what I was seeing. A shroud of numbness settled over me. A bird flew by with a rattle of feathers, the only thing moving other than me and the fluttering clothes of the downed woman at the corner.
When the police car blasted by on the cross street, I nearly pissed myself. It came to a screeching halt at the corner, hesitating. That, in and of itself, seemed a very poor sign. I could see the cop behind the wheel turning his head this way and that, as if trying to decide which way led to safety. Finally, he picked left and went roaring off, not using lights or siren but every ounce of power that cruiser had to spirit himself away at a very high speed.
“Shit,” I heard myself say. The sound of my own voice was reassuring. It was a simple thing but it made me feel better, more able. “Shit.”
I had to get to my car and find help.
The Tesla was in the parking garage which stood at the end of the shallow front visitor lot. Up on the fifth level, my typical spot was an ideal place to both plug it in and avoid careless door-dingers. Few were motivated enough to park top level, so far away from the buildings. Given the current circumstances, it felt like I’d parked it in motherfucking Siberia. On a good day, it took me exactly six minutes to walk from my office to the car. Today was not a good day.
I was in the back lot. It was hard to leave the shelter of the retaining wall. I found myself dawdling, and even pulled my phone out of my pocket to check it. The pang of woe I felt when I saw the text message icon remained alert-free was an icepick in my heart. A squirrel came down a nearby tree, little claws loud in this suddenly very quiet world. The noise sprang me into action: I put the phone away, took two deep breaths, and started walking towards the corner, with its waiting corpse.
As I neared the edge of the building, I saw the familiar, shiny red and silver of a fire truck. Behind it was an ambulance, and behind that, a police car. The vehicles were still.
As were the dozen dead bodies scattered on the ground.
“Oh Jesus.” Saying it out loud was necessary. To make it real.
The woman in the practical office separates had been savaged; her limbs were heavily lacerated and her skull was crushed. Pink brain matter fanned out across the walkway like some bizarre sea coral. Nausea roared up; I dragged my eyes away from the gore and insisted my leaden legs step over her. After a moment my nerves complied with my brain’s demand.
To get to the front lot I would need to walk amongst the corpses, or go the long way around, along the edge of the lot. Exposure versus expediency again.
They’re just dead, you idiot, I told myself. Walk through them. It will be faster.
Shaking, I moved forward.
I’d known these people. I’d sat with them in meetings, had lunch, shared victories and failures, frustrations and encouragements. Some I liked, some I did not. There was Kaylee, who had just had a baby. A gunshot had blown off the back of her head. Her formerly pretty face was frozen in what appeared to be a snarl, her outstretched hands curled into claws. I wondered what would happen to the baby.
I was stepping over Ajay, whose dead eyes were darker than I remembered.
Now Marty lay before me, as bloated and ugly in death as he’d been in life. A sneer curled my lip. Marty had had his coming. Years ago, he’d tried to throw me under the bus for an accounting fuck up. He hadn’t been successful and I’d made sure it had come back on him like a razor-edged boomerang. We’d hated each other ever since.
“I win, you dick,” I said to his corpse.
He had been shot multiple times. His mouth was open and his - tongue? - protruded slightly from his parted lips. The crinkled, brownish mass didn’t look right.
I thought I saw it twitch.
I hurried around him.
The firemen were nowhere to be seen. Neither were the cops. All they had left behind was their modern reenactment of gunfire at the O.K. Corral. A backboard lay against a picnic table, its EMT owner splayed like a rag doll next to it. His hands were in his lap, palms up, blackened as if he’d been in a fire.
Is this real? I thought. Or did I pass out and get taken to the hospital, where all this is some weird fever dream?
The car the car the car get to the car.
When I got to it, I could go… somewhere? Where had that cop been going in such a hurry? To safety, I surmised. It came to me: the local police annex was less than three miles away – a short drive if there wasn’t chaos on the road.
Starting point.
I hustled the rest of the way around the building to enter the front lot. Still no movement. Even the faint sirens I’d heard earlier had stopped. The sun blazed down, blissfully unaware it was shining on some unknowable disaster.
The silence was thunderous.
Where is everyone?
It was then I spotted the movement in the parking garage. There. There they are. People. Oh thank God. Relief flooded through me, but only for a moment.
The figures were aimless. Their silhouettes jerked about in pained parodies of ambulation. In the dim shade of the lower level at this distance, I could see no detail, but there was something intensely alien and frightening about the way they moved.
Zombies? my brain offered up. They were popular, after all.
“Shut up,” I told it miserably.
There was no way I would brave those milling figures to get to my car.
I stood forlorn in the sun, utterly alone in my numbness and for one of the first times in my adult life, paralyzed with indecision. The garage was not an option. Going back into the building didn’t sound too hot, either. I could walk to one of the nearby companies and see if anyone there could help me but my instincts said no.
I had learned long ago to always listen to my instincts.
It was then I saw the keys.
They lay on the blacktop, gleaming. A pink ribbon keychain contained several keys, plus the black fob for an Infiniti-brand car. I scooped them up and pressed the unlock button.
A clunk up ahead and to my left. White QX80 SUV. The big model. Luxury tank.
Sirens came blasting, and this time, I counted five police cruisers on full blaze as they tore by the site. One of the cars was badly damaged, rear bumper flapping. The figures in the garage froze still until the cars passed, then resumed their predatory circulation.
I made a quiet promise that once all this crazy bullshit was over I would return the SUV to its rightful owner… but right now I was making an executive decision that I needed this vehicle. Mea culpa, so sorry, but serious shit’s going down right now.
I took one step towards the car, then another. Stopped. The back of my neck was crawling and it wasn’t from the sun; that felt good after the cold office building.
Be cautious, I told myself. Carefully, I knelt down and looked under the vehicle. My stomach dropped.
A woman was face down under the SUV. She was flattened, frog-like, up by the front, under the engine. Her bare arms were pasty-white and there was blood all over her twitching hands. I would have thought her dead if it hadn’t been for those restless fingers. The crown of her head faced me, hair matted with more blood.
“Hello?” I called out.
No response.
“Hey,” I said, a little louder.
The woman’s body convulsed and she inhaled sharply, making a very similar wet sound to what I had heard outside my door. Her head swiveled up on some invisible, greasy ball joint, eyes fixing on me. They were dark. All the way dark. There was no intelligence in them, only the promise of death.
“Oh fuck me,” I said, scrambling backwards.
I’d recognized the woman. She was not someone I knew well, but well enough to know she’d been kindly. She had just returned from work after her second battle with breast cancer, and recently, we’d chatted a little, trading battle stories. She’d told me that her upper body mobility was still limited from several surgeries.
She began to crawl towards me. Definitely not having any mobility issues now. And no longer kindly.
I like to think of myself as a practical person, sometimes brutally so. It has served me well in life, although some of my colleagues (Marty, in particular) would characterize me as cold. Backing up, I stabbed at the button on the key fob to open the back hatch. It popped and raised up on its pneumatics. Without hesitation, I ran forward, towards the thing starting to emerge, and launched myself into the back of the SUV to land amongst reusable shopping bags and two very painful bulk-packs of bottled water. I grabbed the plastic handle just as her head was coming over the bumper on that freaky, ball-bearing neck, and slammed down the hatch.
Locked myself in.
The gurgling thing found itself suddenly in the sunlight. It began to shriek wetly and smoke. Flailing arms beat a rapid tattoo against the tailgate then with a thud, it threw itself to the ground and disappeared back under the car, into the safety of the shade.
I was starting to get an idea of what had happened.
It banged around under the car while I crawled over the seats to get to the wheel. The gas gauge read “Full”. With a healthy V8 roar, the SUV came to life when I pushed the starter button.
From below, an angry shriek and the sound of fists hammering on the undercarriage.
“Time to GTFO,” I announced to no one in particular.
With a grunt, I slammed the vehicle in reverse, cut the wheel to the right and and ran her over. The thump was rewarding. Slammed it into drive, ran her over again. I felt more than heard the splat as her head exploded under a tire. The large vehicle easily cleared the the curb. I gunned it and left my Tesla and the carnage at the office behind without nary a glance in the rearview mirror.
I really wasn’t kidding when I mentioned I was practical.