This is the fifteenth chapter of the zombie serial The Dead Life. You can learn more about the story over at the project hub. This series originally ran on Haunted MTL but is being edited and updated in the lead-up to new installments to continue the story.
You can read the prior chapter here.
Day 17
The “office” was just a small box of a room, not built into the original construction of the pharmacy, but rather a prefabricated addition. It was ugly, too; the walls were made of plywood treated to look like they were made of higher quality wooden boards, smeared with greyish paint, and the frames were exposed metal. It was a cramped, thin-walled cube slapped into a corner of a musty warehouse.
There was no sound beyond the clatter of the delivery door as Dani had approached the office, and she had begun to grow nervous. Had the ghoul wandered out into the store, or was it lying in wait? What about the delivery door out to the back alley? Had it pushed its way through, somehow? It was so goddamn dark, even though her eyes had adjusted to not having much in the way of electric lights for weeks now. The lack of knowledge irked her. The lack of control quickly became the worst part of the apocalypse. Too many ways for chance to fuck her over. She hated it.
She paused at the door of the office. Things were quiet, and the inside was darkened to the point where she would need to get closer to see inside. The door was ajar, slightly, and a foul stench wafted out from the crack of the door and the frame. She nearly fell back at the odor. She didn’t approach closer or dare put her face near enough to look through.
“Is it in there?”
The quiet voice of the teenager behind her made Dani jump out of her skin. She whirled around and saw the teen standing there, only a few feet behind, cringing slightly. Dani furrowed her brow and wildly waved her free hand to shoo the girl away. The girl acquiesced, her eyes wide, staring at the door to the office.
Dani took a step closer to the door and rested the point of the fireplace poker against it. She gave it a brief shove with the iron tip, but the door didn’t move inward much. Something was blocking it.
Shit. Shit.
She tried again, giving it a harder push, but the resistance was so great that the tip of the poker slid across the plywood and hit the frame with a clang. Dani retracted her weapon and took a step back, listening. Something began to move inside, and within a moment the door clicked shut.
“Did it just close the fucking door?” the girl asked.
Dani turned back at the girl. She shook her head. “Not on purpose… these things are dumb. Really dumb.”
“So it can’t get out?”
Dani shrugged as she gazed at the office. “Probably not, but I still need to get in there,” she turned back to the stranger. “Might be keys, walkies, maybe a gun.”
As for the girl, she was a teen, probably no more than 14 or 15. Dani looked back toward her.
“You should keep an eye on your mom for a few minutes. I’ll take care of this.”
The girl trudged away as Dani turned her attention toward the office. The first step was to open the door, but now there was definite shuffling going on behind it. She stepped over to the office window out front, away from the door, and within an instant, a bloody and rotted hand slapped against the thin pane of reinforced plastic that served as a window, and then the rest of the ghoul rolled into view from the gloom.
It was thin… most of these things were. Sallow skin hung loosely from its torso. The shirt was once a white button-up, but now it was mostly dull and grey with deep brown stains down the neck and chest. A moldy green and brown striped tie hung loosely from the creature’s neck. The face, or at least what hadn’t slid off from the skull, had the faintest trace of a mustache and the top of the head had thin patches of hair. On the hip was a walkie-talkie in a holster.
The ghoul was far enough from the door that she could open it and then step back to regroup. She ducked low, just below the window, and edged her way toward the door around the corner. She grabbed the doorknob and gave it a turn, only for it to rattle ineffectively. The office was locked. Of course.
What were the options? She stepped back in view, and she watched the ghoul trace her movements at the window. It slapped at the plastic, which rattled loudly given the quiet of the storeroom. It wasn’t strong plastic at all, but breaking it down would be noisy. She scanned the area for a key but saw nothing. There was no choice in the matter.
That is when she heard the click of the doorknob.
The ghoul was still at the window, far enough away from opening the door, but somehow the knob had turned. Not missing a moment, Dani dashed over and kicked the door open. The plywood door slammed against the wall and the ghoul, who had been tethered to the knob by a lanyard and keyring on his hip, flew back into a filing cabinet and collapsed into a heap. Dani took two huge steps into the darkened office and put all her weight into driving the poker deep into the ghoul’s exposed eye socket. The ghoul flailed a bit as the poker stirred the brain matter within the skull, and after a few moments of vigorous stirring, it was now completely still. Gunk frothed from the socket.
Dani dutifully pulled at the poker from inside the skull, but it became wedged on bone, likely the orbital of the skull. She gave it another tug, but still no motion. Annoyed, she placed a foot on the former manager’s chest and grabbed the handle with both hands. After a mental count of three and a deep breath, she pulled with all her might.
The poker ripped free from the skull, arcing a trail of blood. brain and shards of bone in the air as she lost her balance. She herself only remained aloft because he foot had smashed through the ghoul’s chest cavity. The poker traveled full speed back behind her and rattled the tiny office’s window. Noisy vibration echoed in the storeroom. The poker’s hook lodged itself on the frame and rocked violently before clattering on the plywood floor. Dani studied the window, and just beyond, she saw the teen who was overlooking the chaos. Gore dripped down the plastic window frame in large, blobby chunks. Little ribbons of white matter trailed in the sloppy mix.
“Gross,” the teen said.
…
Edgar stood near the front entrance of the store, hanging back under the awning, staring out at the parking lot. His cart was as full as he could arrange. Anything that seemed edible or not damaged beyond being safe to eat was piled in. There was no order to the stacks, and he’d considered going through and making his assemblage less chaotic. Ultimately, it didn’t matter. That could be done from the safety of the storage unit.
Beyond the parking lot, he noticed a gas station on the opposite corner from the pharmacy. Survivors had clearly hit the place for whatever gas they could find. Was there any more left? He wondered.
What had really caught his attention, however, was the sight of a ghoul tangled up in a seatbelt, attempting to escape the opened door of a sedan. The bastard didn’t have enough sense to unbuckle the belt or even twist its own body in such a way that it could free itself. It simply would extend itself and the belt as far as it could go before the belt automatically retracted, pulling it back into the car, violently. Each time a limb or its head would bash against the frame, at least from what Edgar could see from across the street.
Eventually, Edgar figured, the thing would eventually see itself free from the car, from the constant friction of the belt. Maybe it would saw through part of its torso.
“Fuckin’ crazy,” he mumbled.
“What is?”
Jimmy rolled his cart toward the door, not full, but still, a fair amount of medical supplies rattled inside. Edgar saw some prescription drugs in the mix as well. Interesting.
Edgar’s grip was firmly on his cart, so he nodded his head across the street. “Those things. I’ve been watching this dumb dude across the street trying to get out of a car.”
Jimmy set his cart aside and squinted into the distance. “How the hell are your eyes so good?”
Edgar shrugged. “How are yours so goddamn bad?”
“You saw my glasses got smashed, right, asshole?”
Edgar smirked. Jimmy paused a moment, staring into the distance, and then huffed. Jimmy paused for a second. He realized an opportunity.
“Fuck it. Gonna grab some pairs from the pharmacy, I think there may be a couple left.” He whirled around and made his way from the front entrance, “Be back in a minute. Watch my shit.”
“Make sure they look good, some nice bifocals, maybe,” Edgar said.
He turned to see Jimmy walking into the darkness, his arms raised above his head, his middle fingers raised higher still. Jimmy vanished into an aisle. Edgar turned his back to the entrance and continued to watch the ghoul. It snapped back again, the back of its head smashing into the door frame in what seemed like a puff of black mist. It slumped behind the door for a moment. There was no movement and Edgar wondered if it had finally bashed its own brains in.
A moment later, it rose from behind the door, wriggling and thrashing. After some struggle, it finally untangled itself from the seatbelt, taking strained, wobbling steps from the car door.
“There you go, good job,” Edgar muttered.
The ghoul hit the curb of the gas mart and smashed into a wall, scrunching up like a sack of rotten meat and sliding down the surface of the stucco.
“Hey, are you Edgar?” asked a whispered voice.
He glanced to his side at a teenage girl, whose brown hair was a tangled mess. She looked at him and shrugged. She made her way to one of the shopping carts in the corral and started to pull it loose from the others.
“Dani said you can help carry my mom to the car.”
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