stop. There were two of them. Doc sliced right down the middle of the skull of the one in leather chaps and nothing else. Its skull folded open and its split brain fell out in several dry chunks. Once it fell, I saw that there were swatches of rotten cloth fused to its bare flesh in several places.
Chef took the woman in the matted dress. He pulverized her face without putting her down. She waved and twisted her arms in front of her once she couldn’t see anymore. With her teeth down her throat, I wondered if she could still bite at all. She was a zombie, so it didn’t matter. I watched while holding my small, metal pipe down at my side.
I thought for the first time in years, there was someone out in the world that used to know her better than I knew Coach Gathers.
I pushed it out of my mind so that I could focus on bashing their brains out when the next one came along.
He took three more downward shots before the crushed skull dropped with the rest of the body.
Chef dropped the bent bat to the landing below in disgust. “Where the hell did you get that tiny, aluminum pole that never breaks, John?”
Doc smiled as he stepped over the exposed crotch of his kill. “It is a display rod from a lab set-up in a chemistry classroom.”
“Were you a chemistry teacher, Doc?” Short Order asked.
I found it odd that these guys didn’t know this stuff about each other after all these years working in a kitchen. I didn’t know either and I knew a lot about a lot of people. People talk a lot more when they have someone that never speaks.
“That would explain my poisonous cooking, wouldn’t it?” Doc laughed.
“Do you recognize these? None of them are our people,” Chef said.
Doc pursed his lips. “Chef, do you remember one of our guys walking around the Complex in assless-crotchless chaps? What the hell is your point?”
“We missed three in just a few feet,” Chef said.
“Well,” Doc said, “let’s walk it again.”
We only got as far as the first hall at the bottom of the stairs when we found a door that was jammed open. We had to put down two more trying to come in before we pulled it closed and hammered it shut.
“Did we not walk this section?” Chef asked as he held on to the hammer instead of putting it back in the tool box.
Short Order answered, “I took down Jeff myself when we cleared this section. We came through here and pushed these doors to check them before we went upstairs and found him.”
“It must have been weakened and they got through sometime later,” Doc said.
“No one is doing the perimeter checks anymore,” Short Order pointed out.
Everyone stood and stared at each other for a while longer.
We searched the buildings over again and didn’t find any more open doors or walking corpses. We pushed on the exterior doors extra hard this time. We skipped lunch. There were plenty of the regular, lying-in-their-own-blood-on-the-floor kind of bodies. Many were our people lying fresh and slowly becoming less fresh. Many others were long decayed, weathered, hardened, and malignantly preserved shells that had found their way in from the elements.
We showered before dinner and then searched the buildings again before bedtime. I slept in my own room that night, but locked the door and dragged my dresser in front of it. It left deep scratches across my floor. The drawers were filled with stuff I never wore, but had kept anyway. I thought about clearing some of it out, but realized that would make the dresser lighter.
***
The next morning we made pancakes after each smelling the milk and deciding to go for it. Chef was the most sensitive to turning foods, but he was choking back his usual preferences.
We heard a noise. It was in the mess hall. Doc walked the zombie back out of the room with the end of his pole and sent it down the stairs without the top of its skull. It was one of the old, outside shells, but it left a good bit of dark fluid along the stairs as it tumbled
Chef took the woman in the matted dress. He pulverized her face without putting her down. She waved and twisted her arms in front of her once she couldn’t see anymore. With her teeth down her throat, I wondered if she could still bite at all. She was a zombie, so it didn’t matter. I watched while holding my small, metal pipe down at my side.
I thought for the first time in years, there was someone out in the world that used to know her better than I knew Coach Gathers.
I pushed it out of my mind so that I could focus on bashing their brains out when the next one came along.
He took three more downward shots before the crushed skull dropped with the rest of the body.
Chef dropped the bent bat to the landing below in disgust. “Where the hell did you get that tiny, aluminum pole that never breaks, John?”
Doc smiled as he stepped over the exposed crotch of his kill. “It is a display rod from a lab set-up in a chemistry classroom.”
“Were you a chemistry teacher, Doc?” Short Order asked.
I found it odd that these guys didn’t know this stuff about each other after all these years working in a kitchen. I didn’t know either and I knew a lot about a lot of people. People talk a lot more when they have someone that never speaks.
“That would explain my poisonous cooking, wouldn’t it?” Doc laughed.
“Do you recognize these? None of them are our people,” Chef said.
Doc pursed his lips. “Chef, do you remember one of our guys walking around the Complex in assless-crotchless chaps? What the hell is your point?”
“We missed three in just a few feet,” Chef said.
“Well,” Doc said, “let’s walk it again.”
We only got as far as the first hall at the bottom of the stairs when we found a door that was jammed open. We had to put down two more trying to come in before we pulled it closed and hammered it shut.
“Did we not walk this section?” Chef asked as he held on to the hammer instead of putting it back in the tool box.
Short Order answered, “I took down Jeff myself when we cleared this section. We came through here and pushed these doors to check them before we went upstairs and found him.”
“It must have been weakened and they got through sometime later,” Doc said.
“No one is doing the perimeter checks anymore,” Short Order pointed out.
Everyone stood and stared at each other for a while longer.
We searched the buildings over again and didn’t find any more open doors or walking corpses. We pushed on the exterior doors extra hard this time. We skipped lunch. There were plenty of the regular, lying-in-their-own-blood-on-the-floor kind of bodies. Many were our people lying fresh and slowly becoming less fresh. Many others were long decayed, weathered, hardened, and malignantly preserved shells that had found their way in from the elements.
We showered before dinner and then searched the buildings again before bedtime. I slept in my own room that night, but locked the door and dragged my dresser in front of it. It left deep scratches across my floor. The drawers were filled with stuff I never wore, but had kept anyway. I thought about clearing some of it out, but realized that would make the dresser lighter.
***
The next morning we made pancakes after each smelling the milk and deciding to go for it. Chef was the most sensitive to turning foods, but he was choking back his usual preferences.
We heard a noise. It was in the mess hall. Doc walked the zombie back out of the room with the end of his pole and sent it down the stairs without the top of its skull. It was one of the old, outside shells, but it left a good bit of dark fluid along the stairs as it tumbled
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