A Little Me Time Read online

  There was still no response. Another one of them fell over, but the others maintained their single minded staggers directly at him. Lloyd backed off some more, then looked around. Off the south he knew there was nothing, though to be fair he hadn’t looked at any of the side roads where the ‘neighborhoods’ were located. He was only on the outskirts of Hiawassee . . . maybe if he went further into town, he could figure out just what in the hell the deal was here.

  Lloyd jogged sideways, then headed up the road at a light trot. It was probably unnecessary he saw the first time he looked over his shoulder. The . . . people . . .were so slow he could stay ahead of them even at a walk, but something made him want to jog and open some distance. And it wasn’t a bother, his legs and lungs were nicely warmed up after the morning’s hike. He was in good shape. He decided to keep jogging.

  The road widened out to three lanes; one in each direction with a turning lane in the middle. He passed the Dairy Queen, another real estate office, a Subway . . . the sandwich shop’s windows were all broken open. Lloyd slowed to a walk, but didn’t stop, as he stared at the building. A – well someone – was hanging out one of the broken front windows. It was like they’d been trying to dive out and just stopped and decided to drape themselves over the sill.

  There was a pool of blood on the pavement beneath them, and a lot of damage to the body. There was no way that person was alive. It was so bad Lloyd had no idea whether it was a man or a woman, and only knew it had to have been a teenager or adult from the size. That was all he knew, that and that they were dead, and he had no intention of going over for a closer look. What he could see from the road was quite bad enough. When a body was ragged and lumpy and ripped . . . there was no need for a closer look.

  “What in the hell is going on?” Lloyd wondered as he pushed back up to his easy jog. Well, easy was a touch of a stretch. Hiking boots weren’t really designed for jogging, but he wasn’t planning on running any marathons. He reached the first pair of gas stations, positioned right across the road from one another so their owners could feud and glare across the way at their competition. The one on the left looked merely deserted, though all of its windows were also broken out. But the other one.

  This must be where the smell of smoke was coming from, Lloyd decided. It looked like the station had burned. He saw the torched and scorched remains of a van or a SUV lying right atop one of the fuel islands. The formerly white pavement was cracked and blackened in a very wide circle all around, and the station building itself had not fared well even though it seemed to be brick. Every window was gone, and the roof looked like it had caved in.

  Apparently brick might not burn in a fuel tank explosion, but Twinkies went up just fine.

  There were no pools of water, no sign of fire trucks, no safety barriers or keep away tape stretched around the rubble. Hiawassee was a small mountain town, but it had all the standard accoutrements of a proper American community. Including police and fire services. How could a gas station go up and burn without it seeming to be a problem for anyone? Lloyd had never seen the like.

  He jogged down the slope. The hospital was coming up. He’d never had cause to use it, but the sprawling two story building was labeled as the regional medical center for the county. He assumed that meant it would be reasonably well equipped, however small it looked from the outside to someone more used to the image that one saw in a large city. However, small or not, injured or not, Lloyd had every intention of going inside now.

  Several things happened fairly quickly that changed his mind though.

  First, he noticed a fairly large crowd of people in the parking lot. People that looked suspiciously like the ones he had run from back at the Zaxby’s. People that had trouble standing or moving, and some of whom looked like they had injuries they didn’t seem to mind. People who had more than a little blood on them.

  People who were missing pieces of themselves, or who were damaged in ways that should have left them unable to blithely stagger around outside without any apparent concern for their condition.

  Second, most of that crowd staggered around to look at him as he came clumping up in his hiking boots. They peered at him for maybe a second or two, then lurched forward in the same stumbling, shambling ‘walk’ he’d already seen. The one that looked like they were always about to fall over their own feet, and was only somewhat faster than crawling would have been.

  And third, a voice shouted at him from the left.

  “Hey, dumbass!”

  Lloyd, who had stopped running when the crowd at the hospital began coming his way, looked left. Across the street from the hospital was a Rite Aid. There were only a handful of windows on the building, unlike most of the buildings he’d passed. The front door section was entirely glass, with a pair of broad windows on each side of that, but the rest of the building was brick.

  What glass there was had been boarded up though, from the inside. Maybe they were shelves pushed up against them. Lloyd couldn’t tell. He also couldn’t see who was shouting at him. All the entrances and egresses to the building were blocked off with just little strips at the top that he could maybe use to see inside if he got closer, and found something to stand on. He frowned.

  “Up here dumbass!” the voice repeated at a shout.

  Lloyd’s gaze lifted, and he saw a figure waving its arms at him from the roof. It was a man, he saw, and there were two more people next to him. One of them had the long unmistakable shape of a rifle in her hands, and the other held what looked like a coil of rope.

  “You planning on hanging around down there to get eaten, or you got somewhere better you need to be?” the waver shouted.

  Lloyd’s brows furrowed, and he glanced at the crowd coming at him from the hospital parking lot. Then, realizing he didn’t like either of the options the man on the roof had mentioned, he shrugged and started running for the pharmacy. The person with the rope threw one end down the side of the building, and wrapped the other end around his waist and shoulders. The one waving stopped waving and joined the second on the rope, while the third lay down on the edge of the roof and held the rifle before her like she knew how to use it.

  When Lloyd got to the Rite Aid, he saw the rope had been turned into a makeshift rope ladder using . . . he didn’t know what they’d used. Rope and duct tape was all he could tell, and he didn’t think he had time to study it before he went up. Whatever it was beneath the duct tape, there were horizontal grips spaced every three feet that were thickly wrapped with tape. They were slightly spongy, like cloth over something hard, as he gripped them, but they held his weight just fine when he climbed using them.

  Just as he neared the top, the woman with the rifle laid it down and helped him off the ladder. Lloyd wasn’t really all that sexist, but he sort of expected she was just making a polite gesture. When her hand closed around his, he corrected that assumption immediately. Her grip was as weathered and worn as his own, and she seemed to be less bothered by his weight than he’d figured she would. He was not a small man at six one, and she was barely five six, if that. But she provided solid support as he transferred from the rope to the roof.

  “Jeez, how fucking stupid are you, just wandering around alone like that?” the man who’d been waving asked as Lloyd knelt on the pebbled roof and caught his breath. The climb hadn’t been long, but it had been fully vertical, and he was sure stress was contributing to his lack of endurance.

  “What are you talking about?” Lloyd asked.

  “What?” the guy said, a perplexed expression replacing the annoyed irritation on his face.

  Lloyd looked up at him. “Where is everyone?”

  “What do you mean, where is everyone?” the woman asked.

  Lloyd shrugged. “I mean, you know, everyone. It’s like the whole town decided to get falling down shit-faced at the same time. All the stores are either closed or deserted. You three are the first folks I’ve seen that are acting normal, and there’s a gas station up the road that looks like someone t
orched it.”

  “That was genius here.” the other man, the one who was apparently responsible for the rope, said with wry amusement. His eyes indicated the first one, the waver, when Lloyd looked at him. He was hauling the rope up and coiling it neatly in a big loop. “He thought he could lure a bunch of them in and have a barbecue.”

  “It almost worked.”

  “No, it almost got you killed, and wasted a bunch of gas. I told you they wouldn’t stay there when you set the flares and ran off.”

  “Shut up.” the woman told the other two. She ignored them when they looked at her, instead studying Lloyd. “Do you know what’s going on?”

  Lloyd shrugged. “I guess if you’re asking me, then I don’t. So someone fill me in.”

  “Wow. How dumb are you?” the waver said.

  The woman continued ignoring her companions. “I know this is probably going to sound insane, but zombies have taken over.”

  Chapter Two – Take a look around

  Lloyd stared at her for several seconds. She gazed back at him calmly, seriously, without a trace of amusement or anticipation on her face. He considered, and discarded, several possible responses, then finally shrugged slowly. “Okay, I’d appreciate it if someone could fill me in on what I’ve missed.”

  “Where have you been?” the waver asked.

  “Shut up Frank.” the woman said again. “You’re being an asshole.”

  “Again.” the guy with the rope muttered.

  “I’m just asking.” Frank protested in an annoyed voice.

  “You’re just being an asshole.” the woman repeated. “And even an asshole like you ought to be able to tell this guy’s been up in the mountains.”

  Lloyd glanced down at his clothing, which he’d been wearing for the last week as he traipsed around on the slopes. The cargo pants and shirt had started out beige, and were now dirty wheat with an emphasis on dirt. He agreed with her. Anyone living this far into the mountains should be able to recognize he surely had been out on them for a spell.

  “I’m Holly.” the woman said. “You’ve got Bob there to thank for the rope ladder. And I guess you know Frank the asshole.”

  “Stop calling me an asshole.”

  “You are an asshole.” Bob said with a grin as he finished coiling up the rope ladder and dropped it on the roof. “Why don’t we continue this conversation inside though, out of the sun. Our mountain man here looks like he might like a chance to sit down and maybe have a drink.”

  “Uh, Lloyd.” Lloyd said. “My name’s Lloyd.”

  “Great. Let’s go back downstairs and I guess we’ll bring you up to speed.”

  Lloyd nodded. Holly picked up the rifle and slung it while Bob turned and headed for a slanted door along the ‘back’ of the roof. It looked just like a cellar door, like in the Wizard of Oz. Lloyd followed Bob, and when he got there he found metal stairs descended into a dimly lit hallway. At the bottom, Bob dropped the rope against the wall and led the way through an open door into the store. It was darker than the stairwell and back hall were; the only light the bit of sun that filtered in past the tops of the boarded up windows.

  “Home sweet home.” Bob said as he stopped near the front. Lloyd stared at what they’d done to the store for a moment. The windows and door were blocked by shelves that had been moved into position in front of them; one covering the opening at each window or door while at least one other had been leaned in against it as a brace. More shelves had been piled up across the entryway of the store, making a barricade that rose almost to Lloyd’s chest.

  Right behind the barricade seemed to be where they’d made camp. Some sleeping bags were laid out in a little circle, around a couple of flashlights and a small pile of food. Well, food was pushing it a bit. The closest thing to ‘food’ Lloyd saw as some beef jerky. The rest was junk – potato chips, corn chips, cheese chips, rice cakes, candy, crackers, cookies. There were also some six packs of Coke and Sprite, and a respectable stack of bottled water.

  “Make yourself comfortable. Feel free to eat and drink, we’ve got a whole store here.” Holly said as she approached from behind. Lloyd turned to cover his surprise; he’d known she was behind him, somewhere, but she moved so quietly he’d lost track of where she was.

  “Uh, thanks.” Lloyd said, dropping his rucksack and folding himself on the thin industrial carpet in a cross legged position.

  “You really don’t know what’s going on?” Frank asked, sounding like he thought even needing to ask meant Lloyd was a retard.

  “Not a clue.” Lloyd shrugged.

  “What are you doing up here?” Bob asked as he sat down on one of the sleeping bags and leaned back against the barricade.

  “Vacation.”

  Frank burst out laughing, not ceasing even when the other two shot him looks of varying degrees of dirtiness. “Oh man, vacation.” he said, holding his left side like he was in pain. “Now that’s funny.”

  “Don’t see how.” Lloyd said mildly. “I come up to Hiawassee every year on Labor Day weekend and spend the week wandering around out there.” he gestured broadly north and east.

  “Where are you from?” Bob asked.

  “Atlanta. Marietta actually.”

  He didn’t miss the winces off Holly and Bob, and even Frank looked solemn for a few moments. “What?” Holly sighed. He switched his gaze to her, and saw her eyes lift from his hands. Actually, his left hand.

  “I’ll be honest, I don’t know how you’re gonna take this.” she said after a moment. “I suppose it’s either a blessing or a curse, but that’s up to you.” She paused, as if giving him a chance to ready himself, then shook her head slowly. “Atlanta’s gone.”

  Lloyd stared at her for a few moments. Holly’s eyes held his steadily. Lloyd finally kicked himself mentally. “Okay, what’s gone mean?”

  “Gone man.” Frank said with a shrug. “Like, it’s not there anymore.”

  “Ease up.” Bob frowned.

  “It’s true.”

  Lloyd looked at them, then down at his hands. His wedding ring was where it always was, on his left ring finger. It was scuffed and tarnished a little from his vigorous hobbies, but he never took it off. No matter how crazy it drove Maggie. He liked to tell her the wear and tear was part of the bargain, for better or worse, right babe?

  “Gone, how?” he asked after a few moments. “What’s going on?”

  “I told you, zombies.”

  He looked at Holly. “I might be simple enough to enjoy wandering around in the mountains alone, but I’m not an idiot, okay? Zombies aren’t real.”

  “They are now.” Frank said.

  “Dude, seriously, shut up.” Bob said in an annoyed tone.

  “I’m just tell him like it is.”

  “You’re being an asshole. Until you learn what not to say, you need to practice not saying it.”

  Frank stood up and walked off toward the other side of the store. As he disappeared behind shelves that hadn’t been moved over to be part of the barricades, Bob gave Lloyd a weak shrug. “Sorry about him, but we’re sorta stuck with him.”

  “Zombies aren’t real.” Lloyd said again.

  “Well, Frank might be short on social graces, but he’s not wrong.” Holly replied. “Now, they are real. They wander around and eat anyone they can get their hands on that isn’t already . . . like them.”

  Lloyd frowned. “How?” They both shrugged.

  “Who knows.” Bob said.

  “We sure as hell don’t.” Holly added.

  “Yeah, we’re just stuck here trying to survive it. Like you I guess.”

  Lloyd started to reach for his ruck, where his canteen was, then changed his mind and leaned over to grab one of the bottles of water they had out. His canteen water was likely to be warm, at best. Sure enough, when he had his hand on one of their bottles, it was room temperature cool since it was out of the sun. He cracked open the seal on the top and took a long drink.

  “Okay.” he said when he lowered the b
ottle. “Treat me like I’m, I don’t know, a kid or something. What’s going on, why is Atlanta gone, and how do you know?”

  Bob opened up a small sandwich box and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. While he lit one up, Holly drew a deep breath.

  “Look, it’s like this. Last Friday, people started changing. It took a couple of days for the rest of us to figure it out, but they were turning zombie.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  Holly sighed. “It means they seem to die. Their hearts stop, their lungs stop, they’re just, you know, dead.”

  “Except they’re not.” Bob pointed out, exhaling a cloud of smoke straight up.

  “Right, except they’re not.” Holly agreed. “Doctors and stuff had time to look over a bunch of the victims, the zombies, before things went to hell. And they said they were dead, as in dead. Like dead. Very dead.”

  “Okay, I get it. They died.”

  “I’m just trying to be clear. You said explain it.”

  “Go on.” Lloyd said, taking another drink of water.

  “Well, when they die from whatever this is, they don’t stay dead. They turn into what you saw outside.” Holly told him. “You know, like over at the hospital?”

  “They seemed like they were trying to get at me.”

  “They were.” Bob nodded.

  “And if they had, they would’ve killed you.”

  “Don’t hold back.” Bob said as he exhaled again. “They’ll eat you, whether you’re dead or alive.”

  Lloyd processed that for a few seconds, and the other two gave him time to think. When he nodded slowly, Holly shrugged. “That’s really the hard part. Like I said, it started Friday. Everywhere.”

  “Wait, what’s everywhere?”

  “Everywhere.” Frank said. Lloyd turned as the man rejoined them, tossing a box of Little Debbie cakes on the ground in front of himself before sitting back down on his sleeping bag. “America, North America, South America, Europe . . . you know, everywhere.”