Zombie Exodus Novel, Chapter 7 - Mindy (Patreon)

Mindy had no worry about this outbreak until she reached the lobby of the building and saw the massive tank rolling down the avenue outside. As a marine brat, she had seen military vehicles before. She was accustomed to the sounds of heavy engines and helicopter rotors, the firing of automatic weapons, and the shouting of orders through a regiment of soldiers. Though she never enlisted, her father retired as a captain in the Marine Corps. She spent most of her childhood bouncing from base to base, and it wasn’t until high school that her father took a permanent spot in San Diego. Living on bases, she embraced the military life. She could fall asleep on the back of a moving troop transport and found the smell of fired casings nostalgic. Seeing the military activity outside the apartment building gave her pause. This level of mobilization meant the outbreak was far more serious than she believed from the news report. They called snowstorms apocalyptic. What word could describe this?

Mindy leaned against the concierge’s desk and watched the two police officers arguing with the crowd of residents attempting to leave. Both were dressed in riot gear over the typical beat-cop uniform with Kevlar vests and hard pads protecting their limbs. The taller one had a salt-and-pepper beard and balled head which shined with sweat under the lobby’s lights. His partner, a rugged shorter man, leaned against the door and held an assault rifle across his chest.

“People, people, listen up,” the tall officer said. “We can’t let you outside. The National Guard is patrolling the streets, and the Governor has ordered us to keep everyone off the streets.

Candace bumped into Mindy’s side, pulling her attention away from the scene at the front doors. “Brad’s in the management officer. Come on.”

“Be right there,” she said. “I’m checking out the action”

A tall and slender man in a tailored, brown business suit stepped to the front of the crowd. “Officer Murdock is it?” the man said, reading the policeman’s badge. “I’m Don Kimmel, Democratic Ward Leader from the fifth district. I need to get by.” He turned to slip past Murdock, but the other office blocked his way.

“Briggs, do you know what a Ward Leader is?” Murdock asked in a sarcastic tone.

“Yeah, that’s one of those fake titles politicians give out,” Briggs said, looking past the now-irate Kimmel.

“That’s not like a city council person, right?” Murdock laughed.

Kimmel pointed outside and raised his voice above the officers. “Do I have to call the Mayor’s office and tell them that two police officers are illegally detaining citizens, one of whom is an elected official?”

“He said ‘one of whom,’” Murdock mocked, but it was his partner who turned serious. Briggs’s eyes narrowed. He brought his automatic rifle down to his waist and angled the barrel toward Kimmel.

“Our orders are to keep people inside. Call the Mayor, and if you get through, you can tell him to call us personally to let you through. Until then, shut up and step back.”

Kimmel raised his hands and backed away.

Mindy heard her name called and turned to spot Candace waving her over from inside a door further in the lobby. As she walked toward her friend, Mindy spotted a woman staggering toward the crowd at the lobby doors. The woman’s tan-and-green suit had dark stains that reminded Mindy of dried blood, and long, wild hair hung around her face. Mindy thought to walk over to the woman, but Candace called out again.

Brad Spencer did not wear his signature bow tie, his blond hair was tussled, and bags wore heavily under his eyes. He looked like an attorney who had spent the whole night coming up with a defense for an innocent client whose trial started in the morning. Last she saw him, Mindy brushed off mild, almost too-innocent flirting from Brad, and she declined his offer to take her to a local playhouse for a VIP showing of Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men.

When Mindy stepped into the doorway, Brad yanked her into his office and slammed the door shut. He closed the blinds and ran a hand through his thick yellow locks and muttered something under his breath. On the floor near an inner, glass-enclosed office laid a short man, who Mindy knew to be Victor Wong, the building manager. His head was sliced from scalp to eye through the forehead, and a metal picture frame was wrapped around his neck. A yellow coloring had invaded his skin along with deep green lesions that Mindy though looked like splatter from a paintball. A painter’s tarp was stretched out over half his body, and a brown fluid had seeped into the blue carpet beneath his body. Mindy thought paint cans had spilled over, but as she stepped closer, it smelled of human waste. Somehow she knew it was blood.

“He just came at me,” Brad said in an impassioned voice. “I didn’t know what to do, but he wouldn’t stop. He was infected, and I killed him. Now the police are here.”

Candace placed her hands on Brad’s back as he paced by. “It’s okay. Everything will be okay.”

“The cops aren’t here for you, Brad,” Mindy said. She tried to hold back the irritation in her voice, and she wasn’t even sure why she was so annoyed right now.

“What?” Brad whipped around toward Mindy.

“They’re not here for you. They are locking up the front of the lobby, because of the curfew.”

“Thank you. Thank you,” he blurted and shook her hand up and down as if they just met. 

Mindy returned a curt smile and a nod. “So maybe this isn’t the best time, but we need to get out of here.”

Candace stepped over to Mindy with a look of worry. “Now is not the best time for sure. Brad just killed Mr. Wong…”

“I didn’t mean to kill him” Brad said through his teeth in a frantic, almost mad voice. 

“I know, I know,” Mindy replied, soothingly, as if speaking to a toddler. She took his hand and patted it, and Brad bounced in place with agitated energy.

The sounds of gunfire mixed with screams from the lobby. Brad shirked away, fell into the glass-wall of the inner office, and wrapped his arms around his head. Candace reached for the outer door, and Mindy body checked her away.

“Wait,” Mindy said and split the blinds to peer out. A wave of people ran past the office, and by the concierge’s desk, a figure leaped onto a security guard and fell with him behind the desk. The woman in the tan-and-green dress chased Kimmel, who for his age out-paced the crazed woman. Mindy scanned the front of the lobby. The policemen were gone, and several people were banging on the glass doors and attempting to pry them open. A teenage boy staggered into a potted fern and toppled it over; blood spouted from a neck wound. A woman laid face down in the central fountain and water sprang from the middle, now tinged with pink. Everywhere Mindy looked, people were fleeing and shouting, and the few infected spurred up the chaos.

Kimmel lumbered around a huge leather couch still chased by the zombie woman in the tan-and-green dress. He faltered as he reached out to the office door, and yelled out, exasperated. “Help. Open the door.” He took a few steps and grabbed the handle. Mindy twisted the lock shut.

“What’s going on?” Candace said, eying Mindy who blocked the doorway and anyway to see out. Kimmel’s shouts came through the door.

“We aren’t leaving this office. It’s death,” Mindy said and leaned against the door should the lock fail.

“Please, please,” Kimmel screamed, but his voice faded behind the howls of the zombie at his back. 

Mindy turned to Brad, who cowered in the corner. “Do you have any weapons in here? A gun, a knife… anything?”

Brad whimpered on the floor, holding his hands on the sides of his face, glanced up, and shook his head. 

Mindy grabbed Brad by the shirt collar and pulled him to his feet. She slapped his cheek hard enough to snap his attention. “Think, damn it. Victor’s dead but we’re not. We have to defend ourselves. I’m not going to die, because you’re too broken up about killing a zombie. You have to have something in here to use as a weapon.”

Brad’s face still had a glazed-over appearance, and his bottom lip quivered. Mindy slapped him again, harder and leaving a wide, red mark.

He squinted and shrugged his cheeks. “Brooms. In the closet.”

Mindy ran to the door and pulled it open. Two brooms fell from the cluttered storage area, and Mindy handed one to Candace and took one for herself. “These won’t do much but may hold back a zombie long enough for us to get away. Grip it with two hands just below the center. Keep your hands firm and hit with the edge in the zombie’s head. If it doesn’t go down, hit a knee or ankle. At least that may slow it down.”

Candace stared at the broom as if she was just handed a live trout.

Mindy stepped to the outer door and listened. Several gunshots rang in the far distance, and low growls sounded close. As she popped the lock open, her skin prickled and heart pounded. She knew they just had to get outside. Surely she could reason with the police officers to let her and Candace leave the building. She peeked through the blinds—near the concierge’s desk stood a lone figure, a man in a bike messenger’s outfit. All around the lobby, people lie dead or dying, most covered in blood, some with gunshot wounds, and the few living barely stirred.

She turned the handle and eased the door open. “You two stay behind me,” Mindy said. “We’re going to get to the exit of the building and get out. Be perfectly quiet.”

Candace nodded and looked ready to throw up, but she held up the broom as Mindy explained and pulled in close near her friend. Brad stood and grabbed a stapler off his desk, holding it like a club and followed in close behind the two women.

As she stepped back into the lobby, Mindy panned the area for a better view and caught sight of the woman in the tan-and-green dress crouched beside Kimmel, who was lying on the floor, legs flopping and shaking as if having a violent seizure. Blood covered the bottom half of her face, and she pressed her mouth against the top of Kimmel’s skull and tore away a wad of plump and soft flesh.

Candace let out a quick whimper that did not faze the feasting zombie. She dropped her broom which clattered on the marble floor but quickly picked it up. The zombie’s head popped up, though she seemed so focus on Kimmel, the pause was momentary, and she returned to her meal.

“Be careful,” Mindy said.

“Do something,” Candace answered and used the broom to point to the woman in the tan-and-green dress.

Mindy frowned. “That guy’s gone. We can’t save him, and while she’s busy, we can head out…”

“She’s eating him,” Candace said, trembling. Red locks of her hair fell in front of her eyes as she tilted her head down.

Mindy stared at the zombie for a moment. She had a distinct feeling the woman would not bother them, would not give up eating the flesh before her. She also knew that Candace was shaken by the disturbing sight before them, and it was her job to put an end to it. Raising the broom like a samurai sword, Mindy moved silently down the wall of the lobby toward the zombie. She took in slow blossoms of air through her nose and exhaled in controlled puffs through her mouth. When the zombie lifted her head to swallow a fresh chunk of meat, Mindy swung the shaft of the broom and struck her head squarely on top. The blow made a quick popping sound like that made when a cork leaves a fine bottle of champagne. The woman in the tan-and-green dress sat up stiff, and she fell backward at Kimmel’s feet. The portion of food in her mouth popped out, hit the floor, and rolled under an accent table.

Mindy turned, feeling content in her ability to disable the zombie, but her triumph switched to shock as she spotted the bike messenger standing behind Brad. Candace must have seen the look of distress on Mindy’s face and spun around to face the infected man. His cheek was missing on the left side of his face, down to the teeth which showed through the hole, and his nose was deviated to the side and flattened, white bone peeking through yellow skin. Mindy could hear the sound of pop music radiating from tiny earbuds around his neck, and his red-and-black racing suit covered most of his body and was pristine for someone living as the dead.

Brad shoved the infected bike messenger away, but the zombie merely stumbled and became animated as if awakened by the impending chase. He snarled and reached out, stretching each finger with long hardened brownish nails hooked at the end. His mouth opened, and he belched, loud and odorous, with a smell of spoiled meat, causing the three to cover their noses and grimace. As the zombie lunged, Brad grabbed Candace and shoved her in the undead’s path. She shrieked and poked him with the broom end which did little more than rile him further. He swatted the stick away and lumbered toward the woman who stood fixed in fear.

Mindy barreled forward and threw a shoulder at the zombie, knocking him off balance. The infected man stumbled sideways and fell into Brad, knocking the startled man to the ground to his back. Brad slid along the polished marble floor, and clawed hands lashed out and scratched his thigh in three long streaks, but he kept moving away until his back hit the outer wall of the management office and could move no more. The zombie lifted his head with a look of contentment mixed in the rage, like he knew he would eat soon.

Candace picked the broom up and wacked the zombie’s back as it crept along the floor toward Brad, who sat motionless, eyes shut, mouth quivering. She brought the broom down again, grunting as she swung, but the zombie seemed numb to the bludgeoning. He slithered up Brad’s body not content with biting the leg—he wanted tastier flesh.

Mindy waited on the side, hand on her hip. She watched the zombie bike messenger stretch his mouth open and dig clawed fingers into Brad’s leg. “Come on, Candace, let’s go.”

“Help me,” Candace yelled as she wacked the zombie’s back. Mindy had never heard her friend yell like that, with such desperation and anger.

“He pushed you into the zombie. He’s getting what he…”

“HELP ME,” Candace demanded.

Mindy rolled her eyes, and with a sigh, grabbed the bike messenger’s ankles and yanked him off in one smooth motion. The zombie skidded on the marble floor and yowled in defiance at being taken from his meal. He spun on his back and sat up, swatted at Mindy, and growled. The lights in the lobby flickered, and as the zombie stood up, his movements were exaggerated by the strobe-like effect, and the violence in his eyes shook Mindy to her core. It was not fear but alertness to the danger, to the life-or-death situation. She grew up around war, or at least those preparing for war, but no one could be prepared for this.

Candace screamed, and the chase began.