Zombie Fallout 5: Alive in a Dead World (33 page)

Randi Betcher had used the container in a way
that half the basketball team and part of the track team would not
soon forget, but that is a tale for a much different kind of book.
Wendy Treadman had decided that spreading the sticky gel on the
door handles at every residence at the James House dormitory was
just absolutely the funniest thing since just about ever!

She had just finished up and was heading out
the door when Gert had hit her shoulder, nearly knocking the
plastic jar to the ground.

“Watch it!” Gert had sneered at her.

She was going to call him a big fat jerk, but
she told her best friend, Jenny, that he had crazy eyes and she
just wanted to get away from there.

Gert had just received his first grade of C
in his entire academic career and could not even begin to process
the information. He had nearly needed to be tossed from the class
when he got loud with the professor, arguing that he could not come
to class because there were people out to get him.

Professor Garrity had told him that he needed
to get some help and that maybe he should just go home and get some
rest.

Gert had mumbled to himself the entire walk
from the far side of campus. He had wanted to hit the little Humpty
Dumpty girl that had gotten in his way as he walked into his dorm.
When he made it to his room and his hand came down and made contact
with the Vaseline on his door handle, something inside of Gert
quite literally snapped. Had anyone been close enough to listen,
they might have been able to hear it.

He didn’t scream, his normal and usual
venting mechanism; this time he internalized it. Gert tossed his
book bag, smashing his floor lamp which landed on top of his
illegal toaster oven, something he had purchased since the attacks
so he would not have to leave for dinner. Gert leaned up against
the door, his ear pressed firmly against the cool metal, the first
person that walked by his room was the guilty party; he was
convinced of it.

Soft footsteps padded down the hallway.
“Gotcha, mother fucker,” he breathed out softly. He waited until he
was sure the guilty party was outside his doorway doing all sorts
of unspeakable things against him again.

Gert ripped the door open. “I know what you
did,” he said calmly enough, but the red-rimmed eyes and clenched
fists belied his demeanor.

Debbie stared back at him in shock and a
growing sense of foreboding.
How could he know? I’m going to get
thrown out of school for this.

Gert was somewhat taken aback when he saw
Debbie standing there. He knew that she secretly had a crush on
Mike Talbot, that asshole, but could she be in on the pranks with
him?
Of course! It all makes sense that she would be, probably
trying to impress him, I’ll fucking show her.

“I need you to come in here so that we can
discuss this.” His words were calm enough, but emotions swirled
like a whirlwind inside.

Debbie felt trapped, but maybe she could
mitigate the damage. She stepped into his room, Gert looked up and
down the hallway for any witnesses, then quickly shut the door.

“Please sit,” Gert said motioning to his desk
chair.

Debbie noticed the tossed book bag and
shattered lamp, and for the first time since seeing Gert at the
doorway, she took a long at the Resident Assistant. He looked bad,
in fact, worse than bad. His eyes were streaked with thick heavy
lines of red, his sockets were sunken and his features were even
pale for a man of European descent.

“I need to go,” Debbie said, just realizing
that she was in the den of the enemy.

Gert slapped her so hard, she thought she
could hear her fillings rattle.
Should have taken better care of
my teeth
was her only thought as she sat hard in the chair, the
momentum of her fall sending the chair rolling for a couple of feet
until the rollers came in contact with Gert’s throw rug and then
her neck snapped back.

Gert was on her before she could defend
herself. His heavy blows rained down on her. She wanted to scream,
but Gert had delivered a shot to her stomach and she found herself
devoid of sufficient air to produce sound.

Gert pushed Debbie off the chair and onto his
bed. “Now I will show you how I discipline bad people the correct
way,” he said as he began to pull his belt off.

“Please, no,” Deb said, weakly holding her
hands up to defend herself.

Mike had left class early. He had been having
another major disagreement with, his what? What was she truly to
him? He didn’t know. They dated, they had fun and they were
intimate, but she was in a committed, long-term relationship with a
football player from a distant college.
Oh man, I’m the OTHER
guy in this relationship,
he moaned.

He could think of worse ways to be used, but
even though he was a guy, he wanted more out of the relationship.
They were going to a concert next week, maybe he would give her an
ultimatum then.
Or not,
he thought sourly because he would
rather take a piece than nothing at all.

It was these thoughts he was thinking as he
got his key out to enter into his room, but the key ring caught on
his pocket and fell to the ground. “Fucker,” Mike said as he bent
down to pick them up.

He heard a loud “thwack” as he stood back up.
He was staring straight at Gert’s door.
What is that crazy
bastard doing?
Another thwack, this one immediately followed by
a low groan of a female.

What the fuck?
Mike thought in alarm.
Maybe if Gert had got laid once in a while he wouldn’t be such a
butt dart.
But this didn’t sound like any kind of lovemaking
Mike had ever heard of. Mike was moments away from saying that this
was none of his business. He was afraid he was going to go down the
hallway and open that door and a leather-clad Gert would be holding
a whip. Then, after he found out this was part of Gert’s sexual
escapades, Gert would do the unthinkable and turn around to expose
his assless chaps. That would be something Mike would never be able
to burn out of his cortex no matter how many bowls of weed he
smoked.

Another thwack. Mike jumped back startled,
but the barely audible “Please stop,” galvanized his resolve.

He almost squinted when he opened the door in
the belief that if he was about to see something he didn’t want to,
his eyes would be closer to being completely drawn and he might be
able to salvage the ability to eat the next week. Mike was
completely caught off guard when he cautiously opened the door and
saw Gert standing by his bed, hand raised high with a belt ready to
deliver another blow.

“Umm, hi Gert, um your door was open and
I…”

Gert turned around, his face pulled back in a
mask of rage.

Holy shit!
Mike thought. He was
scared. He felt like his balls had just been dipped in ice water
independent of the rest of his body.

A swollen-faced Debbie peered from around
Gert’s frame, her hand came up pleadingly. “He’s insane, help me,”
she muttered.

Mike became enraged as recognition of what
was happening here rapidly dawned on him. The time for words was
over. Mike charged Gert, every muscle, every tendon, every spurt of
adrenaline surged in the reflex to protect Debbie. Gert was slow to
change the course of his force and only half turned by the time
Mike had crossed the distance of the room, slamming into the side
of him at a full sprint.

Gert’s right leg caught on the rug as the
force of Mike’s dive nailed him in the side and the two fell onto
the bed next to Debbie. Gert’s lower leg was pinned against the oak
side rail. The resultant snap did little to stop Mike as he mashed
his fist repeatedly into Gert’s bloodied face.

“I will fucking kill you!” Mike raged, his
knuckles bleeding and scraped to the bone from making so many
connecting hits.

It was Paul that pulled his friend from the
now passed-out form of Gert, saving his friend from a manslaughter
charge. Gert’s attorneys did try to charge Mike with assault, but
the judge threw it out. Gert got expelled from college. Once his
leg healed sufficiently, Gert had to do a mandatory thirty-day
psych eval which ended up being a one hundred and eighty-day stay
at a sanitarium and five years of probation.

After that, they never did find out what
happened to Gert, but like all things in life, they thought he
might be back someday. Debbie went home for a couple of weeks and
Mike was fearful that his plan to get rid of Gert would also get
rid of his new friend. Mike couldn’t believe his happiness when Deb
finally did come back, so much so, that he was happy he had given
his “sort of girlfriend” the ultimatum that he had. The girl had
said she wouldn’t break up with her boyfriend, so Mike broke it off
with her. They missed the concert, but how big of a deal was that
anyway? Now he was free to pursue whomever he desired and he gave
Deb a huge hug when she got out of the passenger seat of her
mother’s car.

“Good to see you!” He had been so thrilled,
he accidentally/on purpose kissed her lips. Both of them had
blushed when they realized Debbie’s mother was watching.

“Um, Mom? This is the boy that saved me.”

Mrs. Branch’s face quickly turned warm as she
came over to give Mike a hug. “Thank you for helping my
daughter.”

“You’re welcome,” Mike said, slightly
embarrassed.

And that had been the start of a particularly
warm and loving relationship for Mike.

***

Paul couldn’t understand why he got the “warm
and fuzzies” when he thought about it.
Maybe I’m just expressing
my feminine side
, he thought as he once again struggled with
the door, hoping that he could marshal up more masculine traits at
the moment and force the door open.

Paul was able to pull the door open just as
the zombie made it onto the landing with him. Paul squeezed between
the storm door and the front door. The zombie was intent on making
a “Paul Panini” as it pressed up against the storm door with all of
its murderous intent. Paul was staring eye to eye with the monster,
his nose skewed at an angle from the pressure being applied to him.
Shredded bits of used diapers spilled from the mouth of the zombie.
Paul could not imagine anything much grosser except maybe walking
in on his parents making love, but he wasn’t even gonna go
there.

Paul reached behind him with his left hand
for the doorknob, while with his right arm he tried to keep the
zombie from pressing him into the grain of the front door. His
hand, at first, could find no purchase, but as he frantically moved
his hand back and forth across the handle and more detritus fell
off, he finally made a friction-f attempt. His heart leapt as
the handle turned and quickly plummeted when he felt himself
falling inwards. Paul was able to pull his shot foot up over the
front step and into the house. He was not so lucky with the other
as the zombie pressed its attack and wedged Paul’s ankle between
the storm door and the step.

The fulcrum that was Paul’s weight as it fell
backward was easily enough leverage to apply the needed amount of
pressure to snap the bottom part of his leg. His foot now dangled
at a useless ninety degree angle from the rest of his prone body.
Paul’s screams of pain reverberated in the house. He began to
hyperventilate as he was having difficulty catching his breath. The
pain was a fire that burned all rational thought from his mind. The
zombie kept forcing the door against Paul’s useless leg. It was
like adding a fresh dose of salt on a newly whelped whipping welt
each time the zombie forced the door on his leg.

Paul instinctually kicked out with his “good”
leg, barely even able to register the slight spike in pain when the
wound made contact with the storm door. The blow had the desired
effect as it pushed the zombie away from the door. Paul was able to
drag his broken leg in through the opening, crying anew as the
splintered bones came back in contact with their newly departed
brethren and his leg was once again in the straight position on the
foyer floor.

Glass from the storm door shattered as the
zombie crashed back into it. The zombie was trying to reach its
hands in. Paul screamed as he placed his hands down on broken
glass. He pushed back and with a bloody hand, he slammed the front
door. The leading edge of the front door clipped his broken leg as
it swung shut. The pain was too intense for Paul, his body shut
down in an attempt to keep him from going into shock. Paul laid
there with his shredded hands, broken leg, sprained ankle and a
bullet wound, his body fighting to restore some order. Paul could
not and did not notice the small shadows that crossed his path as
he lay helpless.

Chapter
Twenty-One – Mike Journal Entry 12