Zombie Apocalypse Survivor: The Office Worker Read online

pain. The man's body immediately went slack, held in place in the doorway by the trash can's weight. Jared hoped that this man was truly dead, again.

  The other zombies outside were still pounding on the door. All at once they forced it open and were in the room with Jared. The trash can tipped over and spilled the rest of its water onto the floor. The first corpse Jared killed dropped to the floor.

  The zombies came straight for him in a classic zombie attack. Their arms were raised with their gnarled fingers outstretched. Their teeth were bared and snapping. Jared brought the rail down upon the head of the nearest undead woman, a shapely older woman in jogging attire, and dropped her to the floor. Maintaining the speed and momentum of the attack, Jared allowed the rail to swing through the strike in long arcs and followed through with a quick series of strikes upon the skulls of the other two zombies.

  The vibration of the series of strikes came up the rail and caused excruciating pain in Jared's hands. The end of the bar was now dented and bent. It was also smeared with grease, bit's of flesh and hair. He'd have to find a better weapon soon, but was glad to have its use for the time being. What was important than the pain of using the rail was the fact that there were no more zombies to contend with.

  Jared stepped out of the bathroom and into the hallway with the rail again held ready to strike in a proper batter's grip.

  Finding Sheila

  To his left, the hall lead a short distance from the bathroom to the break room and then out to the main call center floor of the Yellow Red National Shipping COMPANY (Yellow Red for people familiar with the company). In the other direction it lead to the back door.

  Jared walked past the break room and onto the main call center floor. Even though the beginnings of the zombie apocalypse had just passed through, everything was still neat and orderly in the large open room. None of the exterior building windows or doors were broken. The front door, though, was smeared with something nasty that looked like a mix of grease, blood, mud, hair, meaty bits and something else. Jared didn't bother to guess what something else could be. Jared was irritated THAT HIS boss had not been smart enough to lock the front doors before the zombies arrived. If he had the building might have been slightly secure.

  It was quiet inside the building so Jared took a few moments to look around. He saw something that interested him on Scott's desk, one of the desks that sat between his and Sheila's. Scott was a world class jerk, all 300 pounds of him. Scott considered himself to be an athlete and an expert of the fine sport of baseball. Jared couldn't see why, because Scott would get winded just opening the newspaper to the sports page. Jared also couldn't see why he considered himself an expert in the sport of baseball, since he was also a die-hard fan of the Cleveland Indians. Scott had a shrine set up on his desk to honor the team and right in the center of that shrine was a team autographed bat. It wasn't a cheap souvenir bat with the team colors, but a regulation wood bat.

  Jared set down the dented and bent bathroom rail and picked up the bat. “Much better,” he said out loud. There was a pair of navy blue, red and white batting gloves. He slipped them on and gave the bat a swing. “Nice,” he commented to himself. He decided to skip the batting helmet and baseball mitt, leaving them in their place on their shrine.

  Feeling a bit more confident with the solid feel of the wooden bat, Jared walked to the front doors and looked outside. For the most part the streets were deserted, save for a few scattered zombies stumbling and shuffling around in random directions. The few he saw would probably be enough to draw more zombies in from nearby areas. He figured that making a break for his car would probably be unwise.

  Instead, he turned away from the front door and walked to rear exit. Maybe it would be simpler to just sneak out the back and quietly walk home. Or better than home, he could make his way to his buddies’ zombie apocalypse party. They were supposed to have stockpiled food, guns, beer and video games. They had also spent the previous week installing barricades over the doors and windows.

  Stepping gingerly past his very first zombie kill, now halfway in and halfway out of the men's bathroom, Jared made his way to the back door. It was a glass door, from its top to its bottom. Looking through, Jared could see the alley way was clear. He opened the door and stepped outside, allowing the door to quietly the door shut behind him. He heard the latch click into place, accepting that he was now locked outside.

  Just to the left of the exit was a large trash dumpster where Yellow Red dumped volumes of paperwork with the credit cards and personal information of each of their clients. They also used it for regular trash from both the break room and the bathroom. Sprawled out on the ground between Jared and the dumpster was a corpse, or most of a corpse. Really it was just a pair of legs and the lower torso. The pin stripe pattern on the pants looked like the pinstripe pants that his boss wore. The cheap leather shoes looked like the leather shoes that his boss wore. Jared had no idea if the set of lungs lying next to his boss were the same ones that his boss had once breathed with. He had a feeling he wouldn't be seeing his next paycheck.

  Jared walked around the partial corpse on the ground and was just about to pass by the dumpster when he saw the other half of his boss. This other half consisted of his boss's head, torso and one arm. Jared didn't know where the other arm had gone to. His boss's half corpse was trying to climb up the dumpster. There was just no way it was going to happen with only one arm. Jared's zombie boss would start to reach up with his one arm and then the weight of that arm would roll what was left of his boss's corpse on its side. Then it would put its arm down to right itself and try reaching again. It just kept repeating the move, rocking from its back to its side, over and over again...

  Then it saw Jared. His boss rolled on its side and attempted to flounder towards Jared. His mouth was gaping in what looked like an attempt to moan. Fortunately for Jared, its lungs were several feet away, attached to the other half of its body.

  Jared stepped up to his boss and brought the bat squarely down into his boss's head. There was a sense of satisfaction with the act. Jared wasn't quite sure why. In jest, Jared said aloud, “If you're not going to give me a raise I quit.”

  He was smiling and starting to turn away when someone shouted, “GET ME OUT OF HERE!” Jared jumped in fright and brought the bat up as Sheila stuck her head out of the dumpster. She looked at him and said with a sneer, “Oh, it's you.”

  “What the heck!” Jared said, “I just saved your butt.” In truth, she could have just hopped out of the dumpster and walked past their boss without breaking a sweat.

  “Help me out of here, I'm going to get my stuff and go home.” Sheila held out her hand with obvious disdain for Jared to help. Looking down at their recently deceased boss she commented, “I guess I won't be screwing him for another raise.”

  Then she looked back up at Jared and said, “Come on now, hurry up.”

  Jared gave her a hand as she scrambled out of the dumpster in unceremonious disarray. She finally stood on her own feet and Jared noticed that her skirt was hiked up. She was wearing a pair of shiny red panties. She noticed his attention and snipped, “You wish.” She fixed her skirt and ordered him, “Now follow me back inside.”

  She stepped around Jared and walked to the back door without waiting for him or giving him a second thought. She grabbed the door handle, tried to pull it and found it locked. With a look of irritation she grunted, “Son of a...” then, “you, guy, get me in.”

  Sheila might have been a hot chick, but at the moment she was looking plain ugly to Jared. Despite his newly acquired irritation at her, Jared nudged her aside and used the head of the bat to smack the glass of the door. It smacked hard the first time, but didn't break. He tried it again a little harder. This time it shattered and rained small shards of glass onto the asphalt and tiled floors inside. Jared reached in through the broken glass and pulled the door open. Huffily, Sheila walked inside, again not botherin
g to acknowledge Jared. Not wanting to be caught outside after shattering the door, Jared followed her in.

  She walked straight to her desk, ranting the entire way. “What a weasel, I can't believe I lowered myself just to get time off and more pay from him. Ugh! And who's this dweeb following me around? Jake, Jack, Jason. Who cares?” Jared silently followed her and listened to her rants. He was mentally kicking himself for coming in to work to get to know HER better.

  She snatched her keys and purse and stocked to the front door. Jared said, “Wait...” she stepped outside and the door closed behind her. He finished his warning, “don't go out there...” He watched as she marched across the parking lot. She stopped at her Mustang and stuck her key in the lock. That's when the zombies noticed her. Maybe it was the jingle of her keys that drew them.

  It was over in seconds. No sooner had she opened the door and lowered herself into the driver's seat that a particularly fat and rotted looking 'woman' reached in and plucked her out by the neck A second later, a perky looking teenage girl in blood stained polyester pants and hooded shirt grabbed Sheila by the hair, snapping Sheila's head back. Sheila would probably have screamed, but