The Home: A Zombie Survival Short Story

The Home:

A Zombie Survival Short Story

By Chris Stoesen

November 5, 2015

Version 1.02

Copyright © 2015 Chris Stoesen

All rights reserved.

Dedication

Thank you so much to my wife and son for their love and support. I could not hope for a better family. After all, they put up with my nonsense constantly. Thank you to my cabin mates at Camp Nanowrimo. Without your encouragement, the idea for this story would never have been possible. A special thanks to Philip McClimon. Your zombie stories were a great setting and thanks for letting me use your world.

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Introduction

This book is the result of a conversation between friends during a summer writers challenge. I was in the middle of attempting to get my mother into a memory care facility. My friends were both sympathetic to what I was going through, but also helped me to laugh. The second helped me more than I will ever know.

Given that two of the authors that I was conversing with having written books in the zombie genre, comparisons between some memory care facilities and the genre arose. I can appreciate dark humor at time and this was one of them. A parting comment at the end of the discussion resonated with me, "this could make a great scene in a story."

It took a couple of weeks, but the story did indeed come out of that conversation. The thoughts that drove it were what would happen to people that need essential services once a major catastrophe like a zombie apocalypse occurred? What would happen to diabetics that were dependent on their medicines? What would happen to the elderly that are not able to help themselves any more?

Furthermore, the story had to have its lighter moments. I have visited many nursing and retirement homes. One of the authors described one of the funnier moments he had while visiting a home. All of these elements started to congeal and this short story just flowed out from it.

This may not appeal to hardcore fans of the zombie genre. There is little in the way of the typical blood and gore. I had honestly hoped to have it included in a larger work, but it took on a life of its own. So here it is.

There are many worlds that already exist for zombie stories. There are more flavors of them than Baskin Robins has ice cream flavors. I decided to adopt a world to base mine in. Philip McClimon's
Nicole's Odyssey: A Journey Through The Zombie Apocalypse
and its prequel
Substation: The Last Stand of Gary Sykes
are the basis of the world in which this story resides.

I hope that you enjoy this short story and will take a look at some of my other works.

Thanks,

The three sat panting behind the brick sign. The opposite side of the sign faced the street and illuminated by the hidden lights at its base. It read Brighton Commons Memory Care. To the group's left was the driveway that swung in a small loop. This was to allow ambulances access to swing around by the front door of the building. That front door was now some hundred yards in front of them. Inside the loop of the driveway was a nicely kept lawn with a flag pole in the center of it. The parking lot was simply a bulge in the driveway to the left of the building with a mere dozen spaces.

It was getting dark. The sun's rays still poked out above the top of the building in front of them. There were some lights on in the building as well as the perimeter lights. But much of the area was shrouded by shadow.

The blond girl was in her early twenties. She was gasping for breath after her recent run. With a flushed face, her hair was stuck to her forehead with sweat. Her eyes were wide with panic. The man with them placed his hand on her knee.

"Shhh. It's going to be OK, Mikayla. Relax, we can find what we are looking for inside."

The girl on the other side whispered towards them, "How the hell do you know that? This is an insane asylum. We just went through the wreckage of three drug stores and nothing. If we had been there last week maybe, but now there is nothing left anywhere."

"Shut it, Meredith," the man said with a good deal of heat in the whisper. He squeezed Mikayla's knee again before reaching down and picking up the machete.

Using the blade as a pointer, he pointed across the parking lot. The parking lot had a small bus in the parking lot. There was also a single car in the parking lot as well. It sat across three parking spots with the front right wheel up on the grass behind the parking spot. The driver's side door was open. The interior light of the car had died out before the three had arrived. There were no other vehicles in the lot. Silence and stillness were the only features of the lot in front of them.

"Inside that ALF is medicine. They keep plenty of it on hand. My aunt and uncle are or were in there. Aunt Jenny is a diabetic too. I know they will have insulin. I have no idea why there is still power on everywhere, but for whatever reason, it's on. That means the insulin in there is still good."

"ALF? What the hell does a really bad old TV show have to do with this?" Meredith sneered.

For her part, Mikayla looked puzzled as well.

With his left hand, the man pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.

He sighed and said, "An ALF is an Assisted Living Facility. This is a retirement home for people with dementia and Alzheimer's. There is a medical cart in there and in the kitchen there is a medicine refrigerator. There should be everything we need in there."

He rolled his neck, "We need to get in there. The damn doors are always locked though. We will have to kick them in. Any of those people inside there, will be fucked if we open those doors. Then again, I have no clue if any of them are really alive anymore. The staff must have fled when this started. If anyone turned inside there, we could be in for a rough time."

Pointing to the car, Mikayla pointed out, "that car might be usable, Mr. Carlton."

"Please do not do that again, I told you both, just Carlton. You both make me feel ancient."

A smile broke across both girls' faces. Mikayla said, "We have known you since we were little girls. It is hard to think of you any other way."

He just gave each girl a hard look that made them giggle more.

"OK, we are going to check out that car first. Follow me."

He ran for the car and glanced through the passenger window. Inside was an all too familiar sight. Leaning across from the passenger seat was an infected woman. The back of her head was torn open. There were specks of dried blood and brain tissue on the roof of the car and only a bit on the window. She was lying across a body of a man.

Carlton moved around the car and saw the man lying outside of the car. The dead zombie was in his lap. The head of the man was in ruins. His right arm was curved up to his head and still held a small frame snub-nosed revolver. It must have been a .357 given the damage from the two shots that he could see it made.

Reaching down, he removed the pistol from the man's hands. He saw the Smith and Wesson logo on the side of the frame. Opening the chamber, he saw that only two of the five rounds had been fired. He worked the ejector and picked out the two spent shells and dropped them on the ground.

Mikayla gagged as she rounded the car, "I don't think I can ride in that. I can barely stand near that stink. With all that has happened, I have no idea how I still am not used to this."

Meredith also had a look of revulsion on her face.

Sticking the small J Frame Model 360 revolver in his back pocket, he whispered, "keep a sharp watch."

He then unslung his pack. Unzipping the side pocket, he withdrew some yellow rubber kitchen gloves. Grabbing the man by the shoulders of his shirt, Carlton dragged the body of the man out of the car. He was thankful that neither person was sear belted. He saw the bite marks on the arm of the dead man. She must have bitten him and he decided he would rather be truly dead rather than the ambulatory kind.

The woman was far nastier. But she was not the worst zombie that they had seen. She must have turned in the car ride. There was a single bite mark on the woman's ankle. She wore a short dress with sandals. Carlton grabbed her arms and pulled her out of the vehicle, being careful not to get any fluids on himself. Once the two were laid out on the grass, he moved back to the car.

The keys were in the ignition and turned to the start position. There was no gas. The car had sat idling in park until it ran out of gas and then battery.

Carlton muttered one word, "Shit."

Meredith just started to laugh. Both Carlton and Mikayla shot her looks.

"Hey, in the past forty-eight hours, I have heard you say more bad words than I have the previous fifteen years."

That had Meredith start to laugh.

"Shut it, you two. You are worse now than when you were in my fifth grade Sunday school class. Come on. This car won't get us anywhere."

Crouched low, Carlton moved towards the front door of the ALF. The girls followed behind them. Meredith was in the rear. She scanned behind them as they quickly made it to the door.

She whispered, "Clear," when they got to the door.

Carlton looked through the windows. He could see movement inside. There were two sets of glass doors. The pair on the outside of the building were always unlocked. He popped the door open and stepped into the small foyer. It was these second doors that were locked to keep the patients inside. To the left, he could see that there were shapes moving inside. Through the door, they could hear a moaning noise.

With a quick glance to the right, he could see the alarm panel and a green light beside it. If he understood it correctly and based on his previous visits, the alarm was turned off. He slid the machete back into its sheath on his hip and rotated the strap for the short rifle on his back.

Whispering to the girls, "someone left the door alarm off. They never do that. The staff must have left in a big hurry."

Carlton carried an AR-15 with a short ten inch barrel. Screwed into the end of the barrel is a foot long suppressor. The barrel was thicker than a normal AR barrel as it was chambered for the 300 AAC Blackout round. The heavy, sub-sonic rounds it fired were some of the quietest that Carlton had ever fired. The ammo was hard to come by though. He was down to his last hundred rounds.

He checked the chamber to make sure that the weapon was loaded. He looked to the girls and saw they had armed themselves as well. Mikayla carried a baseball bat in her right hand with the barrel resting on her shoulder. In Meredith's hands was a tire iron. Both girls had pistols, but they were not suppressed. They left the pistols in their back pockets. No need to call more attention to themselves with a pistol shot if they don't need to.

Mikayla whispered, "You never did tell us where the gun with the silencer came from."

"This, my dear, is not a gun. A gun is an artillery piece of greater than fifty-caliber. This is a rifle. It does not have a silencer. It's a suppressor. There is no such thing as a silencer. You can only suppress noise not eliminate it completely."

He gave his speech as if he were correcting an intelligent student that muttered an asinine question. Both girls rolled their eyes and sighed.

"Whatever. Where did you get it, Mr. Sunday School Teacher? Were you running guns as a side job to working at the church."

He turned and looked at them with a puzzled expression. His eyebrows knit above his eyes and his brow furrowed in thought.

"I never worked for the church. I just taught Sunday School. And no, I didn't run guns for a living. I am a software developer."