The short story
Apocalypse Sale
From the zombie universe of
HVZA
Hudson Valley Zombie Apocalypse
by
Linda Zimmermann
It was intended to be a humorous marketing idea. “Save up to 50 per cent on end-of-the-world deals at the Palisades Center’s First—and Last—Annual Apocalypse Sale.”
This massive edifice to consumerism in West Nyack, New York, had recently seen a sharp dip in revenues. As rumors of an unknown contagion spread throughout the Hudson Valley, fear gripped local residents, causing many to stay indoors. Normally, a weekend would find people fighting for parking spots, jamming the restaurants and movie theaters, and packing the stores from one end of the expansive mall to the other.
However, the local TV stations, newspapers, and social media had been showing gruesome crime scene photos of victims who had apparently been eaten by their assailants. They spoke of an infectious agent turning ordinary people into mindless killers and cannibals. Suddenly, the idea of shopping or grabbing a bite to eat in a place filled with potentially homicidal maniacs was not very appealing. A few hardy souls ignored the media reports and Twitter hysteria and were determined to literally shop until they dropped, but there were not enough of these foolhardy people to keep up the profit margins.
So was born the idea of the Apocalypse Sale, fully embracing American greed over common sense and public safety. Retailers didn’t need much convincing to offer deep discounts, and even joked that they would be better than the Black Friday sales—they would be the Black Death sales. Lured by two-for-one dinners and movie tickets, and half-price jeans and shoes, many tristate residents decided to throw caution to the wind. After all, if you have to die, some reasoned, you might as well die shopping.
Tour companies even offered special buses from New York City, promising that the trip would be free if you spent a minimum of $150, and presented your receipts before the return trip. Unfortunately, not everyone would be returning.
This was the period of time when the first wave of zombies was about to step forth from the ranks of the infected. No one yet knew that people could be walking down the street, and suddenly, in the span of several heart beats, die and have their bodies taken over by the Zombie Infection Parasites, all without missing a step. And these ZIPs immediately started to give off special pheromones that somehow signaled other ZIPs that now was the time to kill their host, take control of their body, and start feeding. The world was sitting on billions of biological time bombs, and dozens were about to go off at the Palisades Center’s First—and most definitely their Last—Annual Apocalypse Sale.
Janine Hovencamp couldn’t wait to go shopping with her friends, Ella and Reggie. The three girls had been inseparable since kindergarten, and had recently graduated from Clarkstown High School North together. They were all going to different colleges—in Massachusetts, Virginia, and California—so they looked forward to every precious minute they had left, because they would soon be heading off to lead new lives. While they each promised to keep in constant contact, in their hearts they knew things would never be same.
Gary Sanchez was not looking forward to going to the Palisades Center on his first day off in weeks. He was an EMT, and this mysterious infection kept him on double shifts for more days than he could count. All he wanted to do was sleep, but his fiancée’s birthday was in a few days, and if he didn’t do right by her with at least one expensive piece of jewelry, it would cost him much more in the long run. In other words, if he didn’t open his wallet, her bedroom door would be closed for the duration of her pouting. It was a selfish trait he wished she didn’t possess, but he was so hopelessly in love with her, if she literally used him as a doormat he would still want to marry her.
One thing Gary would not tolerate, however, was the needless risk of infection in such a public place. His fiancée complained bitterly about him wearing a surgical mask and gloves everywhere they went, but he had seen enough horrors on the job to know that whatever bug was infecting these people, he didn’t want to catch it. For those who thought he was an oddball, that was their problem. And he would be happy to tell them all “I told you so” as they were being carted away to an infection containment facility.
Peggy and David Millwood decided they would splurge and celebrate David’s recent retirement by going to one of restaurants at the Palisades Center, and then catching a movie. His retirement had not been voluntary from the telecommunications company for which he had worked for twenty-three years. And their current financial situation was not what they had hoped for at this point in their lives, as Peggy got laid off two years earlier and had been unable to find work. As a result, David had planned on working another five years before they took the plunge into a life of fixed income, but if they stuck to a budget they could still get by.
“Just as long as we don’t live very long,” David joked, as he tried to lighten the mood after he crunched their financial numbers.
It was a warm, sunny Saturday as cars and buses streamed into the parking lots. Sales were brisk, and the place took on a decidedly festive air as people who had been cooped up for weeks felt like they were on vacation or at a party. It wasn’t until early afternoon that the first sign of trouble appeared. A middle-aged woman had collapsed in one of the restrooms, and security had found her to be unresponsive. Not wanting to cause alarm, they carried her into one of the managers’ offices as they awaited the ambulance—which had agreed to keep off their siren as they drove up.
Before the EMTs arrived, the manager asked the security guards to check her pulse and see if she was breathing. Unfortunately for the guard who lowered his ear to her face, he was to receive the shock of his life—which would ultimately cause his death.
The woman, who had been a beloved elementary school teacher who never hurt a fly, slowly opened her jaw and clamped down firmly on the man’s ear. Shrieking in pain and trying to pull away from the zombie teacher, she clenched down even harder to keep hold of her prey. The other guard and the manager tried to pull him away from the woman, but as his ear started to tear away from his head, he screamed for them to stop, and “For god’s sake pepper spray her!” Guards at the Palisades Center were not supposed to carry pepper spray, but everyone did for special emergencies, and so a short burst of the burning spray finally caused the woman to release his ear—or at least most of it, save the chunk she managed to scissor off and swallow.
The EMTs arrived upon a scene of utter confusion. Two grown men were pepper spraying a small woman and struggling to hold her down. She was growling in the most inhuman manner and had blood all over her lips. A third man knelt in the corner screaming and pressing both hands against his head to try to staunch the flow of blood, which had already formed a crimson puddle on the tan carpet. A lot of shouting and swearing ensued until the picture became clear, and then one of the EMTs had the presence of mind to use bandages and tape to seal the woman’s mouth and prevent her from biting—and thereby infecting—anyone else. It wasn’t exactly protocol, at least not at this point, but it did save their lives, for the moment.
As the zombified woman and the mutilated and infected man were taken away in separate ambulances—the latter going to Nyack Hospital, and the former to a secret drop-off point for transportation to a containment facility, Gary Sanchez pulled his SUV into the underground parking lot. He had to drive up and down the rows of cars for several minutes before he found a spot in the back corner on the right. He checked his phone for the fourth time to make sure he had the photos of the types of earrings, rings, necklaces, and bracelets his fiancée liked. Almost as bad as getting her nothing, would be getting her something that wasn’t to her taste.
It was a sin he ha
d previously committed and subsequently had to endure a solid six months of comments such as, “You never pay any attention to what I like and don’t like. How can you say you love me when you don’t even pay attention to me?” All of his friends told him to dump her, but he was firmly hooked to the end of her leash, and he knew it.
He got out of his SUV and stood for a moment rechecking the photos for the fifth time, when he noticed a minivan two spaces over in the next row. A man sat behind the wheel, there was a woman on the passenger side, and a few kids were on the second row seat. Of course, there wasn’t anything unusual about a family in a minivan at a shopping mall, but none of these people appeared to be moving. Were they simply sleeping, worn out from a day of shopping and were just taking a nap, or was it something else?
Gary’s instincts told him to steer clear of the vehicle and mind his own business. But his training urged him to make sure these people were okay. He hesitated another minute or so to make sure that no one was moving, and then cautiously approached the van, readjusting his surgical mask to better the fit, and nervously tugging on first one rubber glove, and then the other.
The woman sat with her head rolled to the right