A Zombie Tale

[stonewall]

Were any of you folks on the old Zombie Army? Me and the General sure were. This was the result of an on-line poll I took...


And here's a story I'm still working on. Mucho thanks for any comments you may have.

And We’ll Dine Like Kings When Maldonado Comes Back.

Part I.

Lupe Maldonado needed to kill Rafe the rapist for what he’d done. He just didn’t get the chance. But that was yesterday. Things change.

Lupe was a uniformed prison guard with an exemplary career, a beautiful wife, and a baby on the way.
Rafe was the kind of convicted felon that made anti-death penalty liberals wish they could throw the electric switch themselves.
It was really unfortunate that Lupe’s lovely wife Evelyn was dropping Lupe off at work that morning when all hell broke loose in the world. She became trapped on the inside, along with Office Manager Joyce Wickes, 58, pretty Administration Secretary Cindy Porter, 22, and a whole lot of desperate men. It’s not usually advisable for women to go on the inside of a prison unless they’re visiting someone. Desperate men are desperate men. Not all prison inmates are hardened lifetime criminals. But the prison system tends to throw everybody into the same fish tank where the ones who could be turned from a life of crime learn from the worst of human beings. And prisons tend to be a perpetual home to the worst of the worst.
Rafe was a lifer serving his second of six sentences for aggravated serial assault and rape. And for the last two years, a cadre of federal crime investigators had been feverishly trying to link him with the disappearances of several women over a six state area. Most of the inmates kept a respectful distance from Rafe. But there was definitely an inner circle of violent prisoners who stayed in perpetual orbit around him.
Joyce and Cindy were only there because they had jobs with the State of Texas Corrections Department. And they were never permitted to leave the Administration building and venture into the prison itself.

The Gorman County Correctional Facility stood in a 117 acre tract outside of the town of Gorman, not far from the trailer parks just off Farm to Market Road 68. Gorman stood at the corner of County Roads 2271 and 2275. They boasted their own stop light these days. That way, travelers would pause long enough to see the old Safeway store, two filling stations, a video rental place where the good stuff stayed hidden behind the counter, and Graciela’s Mexican Taqueria, home of the finest pork tamales this side of Louisiana. It was the Gorman County Correctional Facility that used to be the biggest employer in town. But these days the town of Gorman was pretty quiet except for the grunting and shambling of its dead citizens.
The prison complex itself was dominated by a big concrete-walled building that housed the really bad inmates like Rafe. The rest of the place was made up of dormitory style outbuildings surrounded by a double barbed wire fence, the outermost of which stayed electrified. Security was pretty lax outside when those buildings contained prisoners, mostly short-timers and trustees. The whole place used to house up to 250 inmates, pretty small as prisons go. There were enough armed guards and such to maintain order under almost any circumstance. They just didn’t count on the Apocalypse coming down so soon.
For Lupe’s wife Evelyn, it was just plain bad luck to be inside the fence on the very morning the dead decided to come back.

[stonewall]

Part II

22 Days Ago
Lupe Maldonado was never quite clear why the man on the radio kept saying stupid things like “The dead are returning to life and attacking the living.” There wasn’t anything “living” about them. Lupe figured that out the first time he saw one.
The morning the Apocalypse started, he emptied his service revolver into Roy Throckmorton’s chest. But it didn’t even slow Roy down. He never intended to shoot Roy. The two men had gone to school together before Roy had to drop out in 7th grade. They’d known each other all their lives. But Roy went crazy that day, walking slowly into the front Administration Office, grabbing Dale Ledbetter like he did and biting off a big chunk of Dale’s neck. Lupe pulled Roy off of Dale but not without a fight. Roy had gone crazy. He tried to bite Lupe too. And that look in Roy’s eyes chilled Lupe all the way to the bone. Lupe had no choice but to put Roy down. But, dammit, Roy refused to fall down until Lupe shot him in the face. ‘How the hell do I explain this to Roy’s elderly mother and the daughter Roy had out of wedlock?’, Lupe wondered to himself.
“What the bloody hell is going on down there?” Warden Stewart shouted as he came bounding down the stairwell.
“Roy Throckmorton, Sir. He attacked Dale Ledbetter and I had to wrestle him off. Then he attacked me, Sir. He wouldn’t stop coming at me so I had to put him down.” Lupe said.
Joyce said “Roy just wasn’t quite right. It’s kinda hard to explain, Warden. His eyes were all wrong. He was scratching and clawing and…. biting, Sir.”
“Roy Throckmorton did all that? I wonder did he tangle with some rabid animal and just not report it?” Warden Stewart said.
Joyce patted Lupe on the shoulder. “I saw the whole thing. There wasn’t anything else you could do, Lupe.”
“Thanks, Joyce.” Lupe said. “That means a lot to me.”
She gave his arm another squeeze.
Warden Stewart started back up the stairs while Cindy continued calling for help. The aged Warden mumbled half to himself as he climbed. “I still don’t know why none of the morning shift has shown up for work. Now Roy Throckmorton’s got hisself kilt. What the hell’s happening around here?”
Nobody said a word.
Warden Stewart turned at the top of the stairs and shouted down. “Cindy. Has that damn commissary truck showed up yet?”
“No, Sir.” Cindy called back, putting her hand over the phone. Cindy was a bit bewildered too. 911 had her on hold waiting for the next operator.
“Bloody hell.” The Warden said. And he went back to his office.
Dale Ledbetter bled to death right there in the front Administration office in spite of the efforts of the hastily called prison nurse. Cindy was still on hold with 911. Finally, she hung up and redialed. All she got was a busy signal. She tried calling the hospital over in Clarendon. But they weren’t answering either. The only person left manning the phones at the Tri-county Volunteer Fire Department started screaming into the phone about strange goings on all over South Central Texas and that she needed to get right with Jesus. All emergency vehicles were all out on calls and couldn’t come back and the whole world was going straight to hell. Cindy couldn’t get any more information from the man because he was feverishly praying and crying at the same time.
Cindy put down her phone and glanced again at her computer screen. Connection was still unavailable.
Joyce looked out the window and saw groups of people way down the street, coming from the direction of Gorman town and the farm fields beyond. That’s odd, she thought. “Cindy…” she said. “You know that old woman a mile down the road who thinks we’re the police station?”
“Mrs. McNaughton? She calls every morning to complain that the birds are talking to her.” Cindy said.
“I know. Isn’t it strange that it’s already after 9 o’clock and we haven’t heard from her?” Joyce said, watching the group of people down the street getting closer.
Cindy was trying to reach the office of the Mayor when Dale Ledbetter, dead as a doornail, stood up and attacked the nurse that had tried to save his life. As Dale bit down hard on her ear and tore half of her screaming face away, Lupe Maldonado, shaking off the human tendency to flee such hellish and unnatural visions, placed his gun up against Dale’s temple and fired. Dale collapsed like a New Orleans sandbag in a hurricane.
Lupe’s multiple gunshots were, by now, drawing the attention of more uniformed guards. Three of them stormed into the blood spattered office, guns drawn. Two more examined Roy’s faceless body. That’s when Lupe noticed what looked like scratches and… bites… on Roy’s back. And the nurse who had absolutely died in front of God and everyone only seconds before, sat up and grabbed one of the uniformed guards by the ankle, sinking her perfect white teeth into him all the way to the bone.

[stonewall]

Part III

At that moment, beautiful Evelyn Maldonado, was passed through the front gate. Evelyn parked her car in front of the Administration building in time to see Rafe the rapist and about a hundred inmates gathering at the fence inside the compound. She ignored him like she usually did.
Rafe leered greedily at her when she passed. His scarred, pock-marked fat face and greased hair were the perfect compliment to his foul disposition and violent ways. Some said he was just plain mean. The preacher at the Main Street Church of Christ said he was possessed by devils and that no man could be that bad off without help being that way. Groups of psychiatrists had tried getting inside his head for years with little success. Their best guesses as to why Rafe was the way he was ran the gamut from brain damage to his mama not breastfeeding him long enough as a child. Whatever Rafe’s problem, he was a very violent man. He had an especial violent tendency toward women. Among his many other problems, Rafe was incapable of being intimate with a woman in any normal sense. He raped people. And he wasn’t particular whether it was a man or a woman. Rafe was way beyond being a textbook sociopath. When he raped, he usually did it with whatever sharp pointed object he found available at the time. In fact, those were the only times he was ever able to get it up. And women? Well! They just screamed better.
Charlie Houseman, convicted arsonist with his own list of deviations and dysfunctions, bumped Rafe on the elbow. “What’s with all the shooting?”
“Dunno. Looks like they’re shootin’ each other.” Rafe said.
“Is that that security guard’s wife again?”
“Mex’s woman!” Rafe replied. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on her one day. He really couldn’t. He and Lupe had run into each other many times before. But Lupe was always the one with the gun. Some day Rafe wanted to tear Evelyn’s insides apart. And he wanted Lupe to know all about it.
Joyce, frantically waving her arms, met Evelyn on the parking lot. “Don’t go in there just yet, hon. There’s been an emergency. But your husband is handling it the best he can.”, she said.
Evelyn’s heart suddenly jumped into her throat as gunshot flashes lit up the windows inside the front office. Then all was silent except Evelyn’s beating heart. Lupe, spotted with blood, stepped out the front door calling for assistance on his hand radio and reloading his revolver with trembling fingers.
Evelyn was quickly in his arms, pressing her perfect bosom against him. Her lips found his. Lupe held his gal close. And for a moment, all was well in the world.
Evelyn was lovely. Of Eastern European descent, she got her six feet two inches and good looks from her dad’s side of the family. Her sandy blonde locks hung graceful and stylishly about her perfectly formed face.
Lupe’s father was a third generation Mexican-American. He spoke a little Spanish but not much. He married a red-headed Irish woman. Strong Catholics, they did their duty to the Church and started making babies. Mr. Maldonado passed away when Lupe, the eldest, was 12, leaving Mary Elizabeth Maldonado to raise six red-headed, dark skinned sons and one daughter by herself.
Boys don’t go looking for wild. Wild finds them. And before Lupe was 18, he’d had several brushes with the law. He broke his mother’s heart on more than one occasion and was definitely headed in the wrong direction. His saving grace came from two unexpected places. Lupe spent his 18th birthday in the county lock-up. The following day, he appeared before the oldest judge in the county for arraignment. Lupe Maldonado, high on crystal meth, had been stopped by the Texas Rangers in possession of a stolen car. While the county prosecutor listed all the charges against Lupe and the court appointed defender made little effort to actually defend, old Judge Finney blew his stack and called a court recess. Angrily, he ordered Lupe be brought into his private chambers.
“Dammit, Lupe. The only reason you’ve skated on thin ice for this long is because this community respected your father. Everybody in Gorman loved your mother from the day your daddy brought her to live here. But now you’re the man of the family. And all your brothers look up to you. And goddammit, we all like you. But I am tired as hell of watching you break your momma’s heart. Nobody’s been able talk any sense into your thick head for years. Well so help me son, you can be tried as an adult now. Do you hear me?”
Lupe didn’t know whether to shit or salute.
“You’re in more trouble than you’ve ever been. And I’m ready to help you finish fucking up your life today. So help me God, I’ll take you off your mother’s hands forever if that’s what you want me to do. You will never get another offer of friendship from me. Do you hear me son? I can bury you in the Huntsville Penitentiary and this community will never hear from you again. Do you understand me?”
Lupe nodded. “Yes, Sir!” he said. And an understanding passed between the two men, an understanding that nobody else would ever understand.
Lupe was never quite sure what the exact reasons were that his life got all turned around that day. Maybe it was the kindly judge who denied every motion and overruled every objection the bewildered prosecution made. There really was some hope in the world after all. Maybe it was the sight of Mary Elizabeth Maldonado, her beauty faded with the hardness of the years and her persistent tears of joy watching the miracle playing out before her eyes. Today her firstborn son would walk out of the courtroom free, in spite of his crimes committed.
Before the day was over, Judge Finney even got the soybean farmer, whose truck Lupe had stolen, to drop all charges.
Lupe walked.
His second saving grace was Evelyn. Lupe had never been a consistent churchgoer. But suddenly he was wearing his mother out going to mass, attending every social function, volunteering for every community outreach program, and never missing any of the three prayer meetings during the week.
Mary Maldonado wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. But she did figure it out pretty quickly. Wherever Evelyn Szymanski was, Lupe Maldonado could be found close by. The first time Evelyn turned those brown eyes on Lupe, she had his heart in her hand and she never knew it. It was the only prison he never wanted to be free of. The fact was, Lupe had gained a reputation for being a bad boy. He didn’t think Evelyn would ever give him the time of day. Lupe studied Evelyn and became as much of an authority on the woman he loved as a man can. She was studying to be an MD. Her family was financially well-off but she disliked seeing anyone putting on airs. She was simple and direct.
On her 20th birthday, Lupe met her after Sunday Mass and presented her with a simple, not too ornate birthday card. She was a bit shocked. “Thank you. I’ve seen you at Mass before. I’m sorry I never learned your name.” she said.
Lupe smiled and straightened up to his full 5’ 10” and looked up into her eyes devouring every inch of her with his deep gaze. “My name is Lupe Maldonado. My birthday is two months and seven days after yours. I’m studying for a career in law enforcement. And I think you are just fabulous.”
She felt weak in the knees for a moment. And she was a bit speechless.
“Good afternoon, Miss Evelyn. Happy birthday!” And Lupe walked his mother and brothers to the family station wagon.
Evelyn’s father walked over to where his daughter stood swaying in the breeze. “Who was that you were talking to, honey?”
“I think I just met the man I am destined to marry, father.” She said.

[stonewall]

Part IV

On the day of the apocalypse, Evelyn had only gone to see Lupe so she could tell him the good news. Her application for Staff Nurse had been accepted at Clarendon Medical Center. But now she held him close. Lupe had never shot anyone before. Today was a terrible first.
Lupe opened his eyes and glanced over Evelyn’s shoulder. What he saw was dozens and dozens of people from the town walking slowly toward the entrance. He moved his wife behind him and looked down the road the other direction. About a hundred more people were walking slowly up from the trailer parks. People were moving out from the tree line and onto the road, shuffling, shambling, slowly wending their way…. to the front gate.
The guard on duty looked out upon the slowly approaching horde with a calm that betrayed his ignorance of the emergency situation they were actually in. Lupe ran to the guard house yelling “FULL LOCK DOWN.”, into his hand radio. Everyone on that radio band including the guard at the gate heard the command.
Warden Stewart broke in. “Maldonado, what the fuck do you think you’re doing? I’m the only one who can give that order.”
“No time to explain, Sir. It’s an emergency. Just give the order. And send some more firepower to the front gate now.”
Warden Stewart leaned back in his comfy chair up in the office on the 2nd floor of the Administration Building. Lupe was one of the finest corrections officers he’d ever worked with. Stewart trusted him. He made a snap decision and crackled onto the airwaves again. “You heard the man. Full lockdown! All Cell blocks, all entrances. Full lockdown!. And I mean now!” This better be good Maldonado., he thought to himself. Stewart straightened his tie, grabbed his own hand radio, and walked out to view the situation himself. Warden Stewart didn’t realize it yet. But he had just saved most of the lives of the people inside the complex.
What he saw shocked even a hardened Texas prison official like himself. The guard at the front gate was sluggish throwing the gate switch. The electric gate slowly moved toward the closed position. And all the while, dead folks were coming through. In fact, a whole lot of hungry dead folks forced their way in before it locked. When they counted bodies later, they found that 127 of them had forced their way into the compound before the electronic gate finally shut.
The guard was torn to shreds right in front of Warden Stewart’s horrified gaze. Men, women, and children ripped bloody pieces of meat from the guard’s thrashing body and began to eat them. The rest continued on into the compound parking lot and front lawn.
Lupe shot a woman in the head. She dropped like a rock.
Warden Stewart was old school. He carried an old military issue .45 caliber automatic in a shoulder holster. “Did you tell that woman to halt?”, he asked.
Lupe Maldonado shot a teenaged boy, with only a bloody stump where his left arm should be, in the head. “I did. But they don’t seem to be listening. Be careful, they’ll kill you, Sir. They bite.”, he said.
Bite? They bite? The Warden pulled his gun and said, “Stop or I’ll shoot!” in a commanding voice to a man with his stomach and intestines missing. Stewart didn’t really believe it would do any good to say that. In fact, he knew the man was dead. He had to be dead. But when the Corrections Review Board examined the events of this day, he wanted to say with a clear conscience that he went through the formality. The man continued approaching with that cold hungry look in his eyes. Stewart shot him in the heart. The man never slowed down. Stewart couldn’t believe his eyes. Yep. He was dead alright. All these people were.
“Shoot them in the head, Sir.”, Lupe said as they and three other guards continued backing up, firing as they went.
Warden Stewart shouted into his hand radio. “Where the hell is all the whoop-ass I ordered out to the front gate?”
As if in answer, the midsection of a fat woman in her bloody housecoat exploded as a high velocity round tore her open. “Snipers are getting in place now, Sir.”, a voice crackled on the radio.
“Head shots, people! Give ‘em head shots.”, Warden Stewart said over the airwaves as he watched the top half of the fat woman try to pull itself across the pavement, her eyes still gazing hungrily at him. Stewart had seen a lot in his 37 years in the Corrections Department. His world consisted of facts and his understanding of the way things worked was firmly grounded in reality. But this day was the stuff of nightmares. The old Warden wondered briefly if he were dreaming.
“Is this the way Dale Ledbetter and Roy Throckmorton were?” Stewart asked.
“Affirmative!” Lupe replied.
The guards found this business of shooting folks disturbing. It wasn’t that they didn’t see the need to protect themselves and others. They could tell that this was a very strange situation. The problem was WHO they had to shoot. They were delivering headshots to neighbors and friends. Mostly folks they’d known all their lives. It was only a matter of time before one of them spotted a blood relative. Manny DeFranco, one of the uniformed guards, began to lose his cool. “Good God! My good good GOD!” he shouted.
“What the fuck?” exclaimed Jorje Martinez.
“Hold steady.” Lupe commanded as he dropped another one onto the pavement, steadily backing up.. “We don’t understand this any more than you do. They move pretty slowly. Just shoot them in the head and we’ll take care of it.”
Most made themselves breathe calmly and regain self control.
The effect of sniper fire was beginning to show. Corpses in the middle and rear of the swirling snarling mass began thinning out. Another few minutes and they would have the situation under control.
Daljit Ponsikul, the only uniformed woman on guard staff at Gorman Correctional, joined them, having come all the way from the other side of the facility, gun drawn. “Jesus Christ.” She exclaimed as the corpse of a teen-aged boy reached out grasping her by the collar of her shirt. Her self-defense training kicked in suddenly. Without even thinking about it, she dropped the teenager onto the tarmac with her free hand and aimed her revolver at him.
“Not him.” DeFranco yelled, recognizing his brother. But his plea was lost amidst the cracks and pops of small arms fire.
“Head shots, Daljit.” Lupe shouted as he finished reloading his weapon and put down an old woman.
“shitballs, man. They keep coming on even though we’re killing them. I don’t get it.” Jerry Travelina said.
Daljit took careful aim and drilled the boy through the forehead with a .38 hollow point slug.
“I said NO!.” DeFranco screamed and shot Daljit in the center of the chest, killing her instantly. DeFranco jumped onto the body of his brother and began shaking him frantically. They had been shooting corpses at point blank range. So the dead people had all the time they needed. Six of them laid hands on Manny at the same time. He was torn to pieces in seconds.
Lupe, Warden Stewart, and the others tried shooting and wrestling the creatures off of him, even as teeth sank deeply into his neck and shoulders. Jerry Travelina received a nasty bite on the shoulder from a large African-American male before brushing him off and shooting him down. This was definitely a tussle nobody wanted any more of. They decided that hand to hand combat with a crowd of dead folk is a bad thing.
“Fall back!” Warden Stewart commanded and snatched Daljit’s body by the front of her bloody shirt, pulling her away from the hungry dead. His intentions were noble. He knew she was dead but didn’t want to see her remains torn apart. It wouldn’t be right.
“I wouldn’t grab her like that, Sir.” Lupe shouted.
The Warden didn’t hear him.
That’s when Daljit Pongsikul opened her eyes, grabbed the Warden’s forearm and bit down hard. Warden Stewart shouted briefly in agony. When Daljit’s teeth hit bone, the pain was so intense Stewart saw stars and nearly passed out.
Jerry Travelina, the back of his khaki uniform red with his own blood, shot Daljit in the head and snatched Warden Stewart from the clutches of four corpses that were nearly on him.
After a few wobbly steps back away, Warden Stewart blinked his eyes a few times until he wasn’t seeing double any more. His wounded arm hurt like hell and there seemed to be no end to the bleeding. But he was still able to raise the hand radio to his lips. Alright, goddam it! I’m tired of this shit. Give ‘em hell. Extreme prejudice! Put every one of them fuckers down, NOW!
The gunfire from the rooftops intensified to a rapid-fire crescendo. They weren’t all aimed headshots when they came that fast. But what they didn’t kill they tore apart. And legless zombies or even half-zombies don’t move as fast. Suddenly they tide began to turn.
Lupe put down the closest one to the Warden and saw through the milling mass of rotting flesh to the door of the Administration Building. A large group of living dead had been drawn that direction by the sight of Joyce, Cindy, and Evelyn.

[stonewall]

Part V

Lupe charged over to the Administration Building, bowling dead people over and occasionally popping one in the head with his service revolver. He collected Evelyn, Joyce, and Cindy and moved them quickly inside, bolting the door behind them. “Secure all the entrances and windows. Shut the curtains and pull the shades.”, he ordered the three women.
Lupe shoved Cindy’s desk against the door as a further precaution. But no measure was foolproof. He looked again at the three women and saw they still stood rooted in place. “NOW!”, Lupe shouted. Outside, the steady hail of gunfire continued punctuated by a new erratic pounding on the door. They would be in soon. Lupe counted his remaining bullets. He came up with 11 rounds. It wasn’t nearly enough.
The first of the windows, the one behind Joyce’s workstation, crashed in. Mottled blue and gray arms pulled and clutched at the curtains until they tore loose from the wall.
Lupe called to mind the floor plan of the small two-story Administration Building. They could make a retreat out the back door that opened onto the prison yard. Or they could all move upstairs. That way there would only be the stairwell to defend. It might work.
At that moment, the windows in the back offices began crashing in. Joyce, the wisest and eldest of the three women said it first. “We might want to move this party upstairs now.”
“My thoughts exactly.” Lupe said. “Upstairs! Everyone!”
The front door caved in, shattering into splinters. The press of the living dead throng pushed Cindy’s desk out of the way. Lupe hurried everybody upstairs and began throwing desks, cabinets, anything big and heavy, into a big pile, blocking the stairwell opening while leaving enough of an opening big enough to fire bullets through… for however long those lasted. He wasn’t sure what he would do after that.
He handed Joyce the hand radio. “Administration Building to Warden Stewart…” she said over the airwaves.
The call was immediately returned by Jerry Travelina. “Copy that!” Lupe winced remembering the painful bite Jerry had sustained.
“We’re in a bit of a situation here. Unknown number of those … things … have broken in here. We’re in some bad need of assistance, Jerry. How are things out there? Over.”
“We’ve still got our hands full and people injured.” Good old Jerry. He wouldn’t bother worrying Joyce about his own problems. He was just that kind of great guy. He continued. “We may be a few minutes getting to you. Can you hold?”
The first of the dead had reached the top of the stairs and began pounding on the blockade. In the confines of the building, Lupe, Joyce, Evelyn, and Cindy could more clearly discern the grunting, shuffling, snarling, and moaning sounds the living dead made. It was more horrific than any nightmare any of them could have ever imagined… and the sun was shining.
Lupe took the radio. “We’re low on ammunition. We’ll do what we can but it won’t be much.”
Static crackled over the radio for a moment. Lupe took aim between the upturned legs of a hastily thrown desk and shot one of the bloody horrors through the eye. There were many more to take its place. The pounding on the stairwell continued unabated. Three frightened women held the pile barricade with their backs. Evelyn’s shoulder-length luscious hair bounced and jostled with every fist pounding away on the other side.
Jerry spoke. “We’re taking Jimmy and two of his guys off cell block C and sending them your way.”
“Make sure they bring a lot of whoop-ass with them. They’re gonna need it.” Lupe said.
“And Warden Stewart says he keeps a loaded 12-gauge pump in the ceiling tile above his desk.”
Lupe looked around frantically. They’d moved all the desks onto the barricade. He said “Joyce! Where was the Warden’s desk sitting?”
She pointed to a window view.
“Get a chair and check the ceiling tile above there spot. There should be a shotgun.”
The blockade of office furniture started to shift as the dead people gathered in a pack at the top of the stairs pushed on by many more behind them.
Lupe took aim with his pistol and dropped two more. It had no discernable effect. He emptied his weapon into the mass, spewing brains, hair, and pieces of flesh and skull bone all over the walls of the stairwell. The press of dead flesh halted for a few moments then began again as more living dead stood on the bodies of the fallen. The steady thrumming of beating fists, moaning, and growling filled the upstairs offices.
Reloading his pistol, Lupe Maldonado leaned his weight onto the barricade lending it his support. The banging from the other side jarred him briefly and he dropped a couple of precious bullets. One rolled under the piled up office furniture. He bent down to retrieve them. That’s when a hastily thrown desk shifted and fell off the barricade. Blue gray hands quickly reached through the aperture grasping Cindy. They clutched at her strawberry hair, her neck, her blouse, her arms. Jagged fingernails dug cruel trenches into her freckled flesh. And she screamed. The sound seemed to galvanize the already excited hungry dead, sending them into a frenzy of pushing, grasping, and clawing. Cindy’s feet came up off the floor.
Evelyn reached out to take her. Her hands came back with nothing but bits of shredded blue business blouse. Cindy thrashed and flailed about upon the pile of splintering furniture, tearing her pleated navy skirt and leaving bloody gashes on her back and thighs.
Joyce appeared at the aperture with pump shotgun in hand and yelled “MOVE!” Evelyn ducked away. She pumped four 12-gauge slugs into the dead swirling mass at head level, point-blank range. It was enough. Lupe reached quickly into the opening, snatched Cindy by the front of her bra, and yanked her back onto their side of the barricade.
The pile of splintered wood and bent steel continued to shift under the incessant pounding from the stairwell.
The guards outside were finally clearing out the yard. Occasionally they’d find one that had wandered in between buildings, into an office, or into some shadowy place. But they were completely unaware of how many walking dead had broken into the Administration Building.
Jimmy and his two men were just coming up to the Administration Building when they saw Lupe Maldonado, covered with sweat, moving Evelyn and a shirtless Cindy out the only window onto the flat black-tarred roof of the larger first floor. Joyce, still emptied the last buckshot from the Warden’s 12-gauge and climbed out behind them. Evelyn had found a mop handle in a utility closet and was punching at things in the office with the blunt end enabling the others to scramble out the window. Lupe dove headfirst out of the office, all his remaining bullets spent.
Last stand!
Jimmy and his guys came in blasting away at the dead people pressing up the stairwell, making a bloodier, slipperier mess than was already there. One of Jimmy’s guys blew the leg off one older man in overalls. “Aimed head shots only!” Jimmy ordered. “And watch your step. These stairs are slick as snot on a doorknob.”
On the first floor roof, Lupe and Evelyn had a hard time keeping dead creatures from coming out the window. There were too many of them to keep at bay with a mop handle. One large dead farm boy was proving to be particularly difficult. “Let him through!” Lupe ordered. Evelyn stepped aside and let the big guy get his upper body through the opening. With muscles wound as tight as steel cables, Lupe snatched him by the back of his overalls and pulled him, thrashing, onto the hot tar roof… and the last couple of feet to the edge where the dead fellow went sailing headfirst over the side. He landed in a broken unnatural position and never moved again.
Jimmy and his crew finally got the attention of all the dead folks in the office. And one by one, they all finally came down. The entire incident had taken less than half an hour.
Joyce found a sweater for Cindy who stood by wearing only her bra and skirt. Cindy, still shivering in spite of the warm weather, finally covered up. Miraculously she had not been bitten. But Evelyn was still concerned about the deep bloody gashes left in Cindy’s fair freckled skin. Already, they showed signs of infection. Her wounds needed treatment now.
Warden Stewart, Jerry Travelina, and two others on guard staff had been injured as well. Evelyn was concerned about the bites the four of them had received. But Lupe told her that it didn’t take bites to turn into a walking dead creature. Daljit Pongsikul had been shot in the chest. And in mere moments she was up and biting. She’d had to be put down along with the rest of the undead. It appeared to him that anyone who died needed to be watched. In fact, Lupe said, it would be good if all the wounded were watched very closely for any signs of strange behavior.
Warden Stewart looked worse than any of them. With his advanced age, he simply didn’t possess the youth and vigor of the others, no matter how many assurances he gave Evelyn to the contrary.
The final casualty tally, the day of the apocalypse was six dead, four wounded. Within 48 hours it was changed to 11 dead. One guard had fallen asleep on death watch over Jerry Travelina.
Apocalypses are a b*tch, even in places like Gorman, Texas.

[stonewall]

If y'all reply favorably, I'll continue posting until I'm through writing it. We're probably halfway through or better already.

Thanks again.

[Zombified Jeremy]

Excellent work!

I look forward to seeing more!

[stonewall]

Muchas Gracias.

[Zombified Jeremy]

Je m'apelle a la tres grande bibliotheque a la Toronto, Canada.

[stonewall]

Sorry amigo.... I didn't quite habla that. We speak more Espanol down in this part of the world....

Please translate for us.

[Zombified Jeremy]

I apelle A the very large library has Toronto, Canada.

[The HangMan]

bloody hell thats a lot of typing well in mucker

[stonewall]

Thanks Hangman... I don't understand "in mucker". This yank needs an explanation. Is that a commonly used phrase across the pond?

Thanks again.