CHAPTER 7
Institute, WV
Henry’s first instinct was to jam on the gas pedal and run over the approaching zombies. The pair of undead men moved at less than a mile per hour as they approached, and they were in total oblivion to the danger Henry and his vehicle posed.
“Run em’ over, Henry, I hate those damn things!” Tori shouted in his ear.
“Easy Tori, geez, I’m right here,” he said, almost pushing her face away.
The zombies' slanted walking gate and slack jaws still turned Henry’s blood to ice, despite the fact that he knew he should have nothing to fear. But, here they came, wearing dark green coveralls and hard hats, of all things. He had begun to get used to their presence when he was in the complex before, but after being gone for a while the willies came right back. Now, the last thing he wanted was to have his last remaining prized possession, his classic candy apple red 1968 Mustang, damaged by a zombie pushing a lawn mower. There wasn’t a path to go around them. He was in an alley where the office buildings were boarded up on the left and right.
“Crap, I’m gonna have to back up. Are you going to be okay?” he asked Tori.
Tori sat in her seat, wide-eyed and picking her lip, and he could see the goosebumps on her arms.
“Such a fine welcoming committee. I wonder who is responsible for this mess. It better not be Rudy. That moron’s always up to something.”
Henry nodded. His friend had never been the most reliable of people and had grown quite fond of walking the grounds with the aimless zombies. To make matters worse, the director of the complex seemed to be enamored with Rudy’s bizarre ideas of giving the zombies a life of greater meaning. Henry could have slapped himself when he unintentionally pictured himself rebuilding the gazebo with the zombies.
“All right, this is ridiculous. I’ll back it up, and we'll just go around to the other side.”
As he dropped his car in gear, he caught a glimpse of three more zombies in the rear-view mirror; they had boxed him in.
“Dammit! There are more of them!”
Tori’s head whipped around, and she let out a frightened squeak.
Henry blinked hard as he pushed his glasses back up on his face. They all had on green coveralls, white hard hats, and work boots that were scraping and dragging over the ground. One of them was holding a shovel in both hands as his neck bobbed from side to side. Another one had a pair of metal tree-trimming shears with the tip scraping over the ground, but the third one was the most disturbing of them all.
“Is that a chainsaw?” Tori cried.
He nodded his head. The sound of the small motor in the lethal instrument was very distinct in his ears.
WAHHH! WAHHH! WAHHH! WAHHH!
“Geez, it can use that thing. Lock the door Tori!”
“It is locked!”
Henry began jamming his finger into his iPhone as the zombies closed in, step by dreadful step. He set the phone on his dash board and left it on speaker as it rang.
“Henry, maybe we should get out and run! They can’t catch us. Geez, where are their supervisors! Where’s Rudy? That idiot never keeps an eye on those things!”
As the sun began to dip behind the mountains on the horizon, darkness began to envelope everything. The alley was no longer a short-cut to his office, but rather a haven for the awakening of evil. Tori clutched at his arm as he tried to swallow down his fears. His heart thundered so loudly in his ears that he almost couldn’t hear anything else at all. He looked at his phone on the dashboard, uncertain as to whether or not it was even ringing because the sounds of the roaring chainsaw and the sputtering lawnmower were caving his senses in. He looked at Tori. She seemed to be trying to say something to him, but he couldn’t comprehend it. His nerves were jammed, and his mind had frozen.
Closer and closer the zombies came, and they were singing the most horrible song.
“Num-num. Num-Num. Num-num …”
Henry always figured it was only a matter of time before the WHS had him devoured. Had they finally figured him out? Did they decipher Nate McDaniel’s code he had received? CPWWSZH. It wouldn’t have been that hard to figure out: World Humanitarian Society World Population Control. Maybe this was why they kept the zombies around, and now they didn’t need him anymore, other than to be a rat in some kind of experiment. Henry rubbed his temples.
“I’m sorry, Tori! I’m sorry, this is my fault!”
Tori was just shaking her head, speechless in the shadow of death.
The recesses of his mind began to regain their purpose as a plethora of scenarios became a puzzle that needed solved inside his mind. They had sent him away, on a vacation, something that was an odd and unexpected surprise. That must have been the plan: to set the trap, plan his death, and get the entire incident recorded. I bet they’re watching right now. He remembered going over the scan areas of all the security cameras that they had set up before he left. He wondered if he was going to be the first victim or one of the last. How many others had been snuffed out like this. Rudy!
He could hear Rudy’s voice on the iPhone, but it was a recording, a stupid one.
“I’m sorry, I’m not here right now, I have leaped back in time to stop NBC from canceling Quantum Leap. Please leave a message after the beep, and I’ll have my zombie secretary, Chi-Chi, send me the message.”
WAHRAAA! WAHRAAA! WAHRAAA! Went the chainsaw.
"Num-num. Num-Num. Num-Num," went the zombies.
“Dammit, don’t you have a shotgun in this thing!” Went Tori, honking the horn and screaming like a woman gone mad.
The car was surrounded now, and the darkening silhouettes of the haunting figures pressed along the doors, pinning them in. Henry couldn’t even bear to look at their faces now. He wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction. He closed his eyes and tried to block out the kaleidoscope of sounds so he could think.
Drive through them you idiot! he thought.
“Run them over you idiot!” Tori screamed as he slammed the car into gear and revved up the engine.
“Shit! He’s gonna run us over!” one of the Zombies cried out, jumping out of the way.
Another zombie was knocking on the window saying, “Hey Henry, did you pick up my beer?” It was Rudy’s voice.
The ice in Henry’s veins turned into fire. He was furious.
“Get—Away—From—My—Car!
He wanted to kill them, every one of them as he took a special note of each and every one as they removed their zombie masks. All of the horrifying sounds were gone now, replaced with uproarious laughter.
“I gotta get back to the security office and see this on video. Man, Henry you should have seen your face!” a big black fella named Rod said.
Henry wanted to knock his block off, but he was pretty sure Rod could easily prevent that from happening, being an EFC fighter and all. Still, he managed to shake his trembling fist at Rod. The big man and a few others just laughed and walked away, hauling off their stuff.
“We’ll make a copy and bring it to the party,” a woman named Myrtle said as she limped away.
That’s when Henry noticed something else, too. In his terror, he had momentarily forgotten about Tori, but she seemed to be doing fine, even with all of the tears in her eyes that were caused by all of her laughing.
“You—You were in on this?” he stammered.
She was still cackling, and he couldn’t believe his ears.
“I’m sorry, Lover. It was Rudy’s idea. I didn’t figure you’d fall for it hook, line, and sinker.”
“Hey, roll down your window, Bawk. It’s cool, just a little prank. You know, a little 'welcome you back' party. I figured it’d get you back in the swing of things.”
Henry felt like a fool as he rolled down the window, but it didn’t stop him from grabbing Rudy by the coveralls and pulling his head in.
“Don’t ever do that again,” Henry warned as he shoved the man back outside.
Tori started rubbing his arm, still chuckling as she said
, “Easy, Lover. I’ll make it right. Man, you’re still shaking.”
“Get out.”
“What?”
“Get out … now.”
“Fine then, you big baby,” she said as she got out and slammed the door so hard it rocked the car on the springs. “I said I was sorry.”
Henry began to drive off as he heard Rudy yell, “Hey, leave the beer, man!”
He stopped the car and tossed the twelve pack onto the ground with a crash.
“Ah, Henry, you didn’t have to do that.”
But Henry didn’t hear him as he peeled away. He hadn’t been back for five minutes and he already wanted to get away. This place is sick.