Paradigm Lurch Chapter 2

This is chapter 2 of Paradigm Lurch, the ongoing story of zombie domination.

You can find chapter 1 of this story here.

Download the audio here or listen to it in the inline player.

Or read it.

Paradigm Lurch, Chapter 2
The closer Sid got to the city the more deserted things became. Eventually the unbroken line of headlights petered out, aided by the use of the southbound lane as a second set of northbound lanes, and the fact that eventually anyone who wasn’t out yet, wasn’t getting out. Because the interstate ran directly through the heart of the business district and the infection had spread well after business hours he didn’t see anyone, much less one of those infected. As he exited into the downtown area he could see lines of brake lights heading south out of the city in the other direction. Sid was committed now, trapped in a city full of plague victims who apparently are turned into emotionless cannibals.

Without hesitation, Sid found exactly what he was looking for: the national, corporate headquarters of Fifth Third bank. He chose this building partially because it was exactly what he needed, and partially because those bastards had soaked him with a variety of fees on more than one occasion before he wised up and took his business somewhere else.

Sid gets out of his truck, and walks to the large glass doors with his 20 lb sledgehammer in hand, gets in a batter’s stance and begins his backswing on what will be a glass shattering homerun swing. As he begins swinging he hears, “WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING!”

Sid turns and sees a rent-a-cop standing there. He’s just under six feet tall, dark hair, a high school wrestler’s physique, and just barely 20 years old. The words might have been loud and demanding, but it was clear that while this rent-a-cop might have been carrying out the duties of his office he was really saying hello. His face was open and relaxed, and his posture and stance were that of a man out for a stroll, rather than of a power tripping rent-a-cop looking for a confrontation.

“I’m Chad”, he said extending his hand, “and judging by your supplies and demeanor, you’re a man with a plan. So, why don’t you deal me in?”

Sid shook his hand and started explaining the plan. After about five minutes they got to work, Chad’s keys provided a less dramatic entrance than Sid’s original plan had called for. First they unloaded the truck, stashing all of the food, and equipment on the third floor, everything except for the sledgehammer and emergency ladders. Beginning with the ground floor stairs on the east side they started breaking out the concrete stairs. After breaking out the steps they dropped one of the ladders down making passage difficult even for those who didn’t want to eat their family for lunch. It was a long hard process that left the metal skeleton of stairs, but they were completely useless as anything other than a reminder of this building’s past life. They did the same thing to the west stairs, only they also destroyed the landing leaving a gaping hole as a surprise party thrown by gravity for anyone who walked through the door.

“What now?” asked Chad.

“Now we plunder the booty me matey,” said Sid, in his best pirate imitation, “we gotta figure the electricity isn’t going to hold out forever, and the water may not last long either, we need to go through the whole building while the lights are still on and fill every container we can with water, on each floor in each kitchen area. Use coffee pots, cups, plastic containers, hell, use desk drawers if they’ll hold the water, move anything usable to the landings on each side. Anything too big or perishable write down what and where it is and move on. Pay special attention to executive offices, those guys love to make their offices as comfortable as possible. I’ll take the west side of each floor you take the east side, we don’t move to the next floor without each other, listen carefully before opening doors, if what I saw today was what those infected with this turn into, we should be able to hear them coming from a mile away.”

They began their plundering on the third floor, the most time was spent filling up containers of every description with water. Chad hit on the idea of breaking open the bathroom supply closets. The sledgehammer made for a more than adequate lockpick. Inside they found bleach, toilet paper and other cleaning supplies. They took the bleach and left the rest. Sid remembered from that Y2K fiasco where survivalists and software engineers made lots of cash off of everyone’s fears that a drop of bleach per gallon would preserve water. Any containers that could be sealed were given this treatment. Using their all-in-one lockpick disguised as a sledge hammer they also broke open vending machines and stacked the generous bounty of pop cans and snacks on the landings.

On the fifth floor they hit paydirt: a fully stocked cafeteria. After a quick discussion of strategy they decided to leave everything that wasn’t perishable where it was, there was far too much of it to move, and besides, better to eat the food that would go bad first. They quickly began filling up pots, pans and whatever else they could with water, including several containers that were actually built for that purpose. Chad, in a flash of innovation plugged the drains on the six large stainless steel sinks and filled them up, adding dashes of bleach and covering them with trays, to try to hold off evaporation, at least for awhile.

They continued to loot the building, the higher they went the bigger and more impressive the offices became. Some of the offices were real goldmines, one in particular, used to be the workspace of a real baseball fanatic. In there they found a baseball bat, unsigned by Pete Rose, but still useful for crushing the skulls of any of those things they might come across. This same executive also provided a pair of binoculars. It was obvious from their weight they were expensive, and overkill for any baseball game he might find himself at, especially with the kind of salary he must have pulled in there was little doubt he’d need binoculars at all.

After they finished looting the building they made some sandwiches from the cafeteria and took them to the roof along with the binoculars to take a look around, and maybe cool down in the breeze. For a few minutes they just ate, looking at the surrounding buildings.

“You know,” said Sid, “there’s probably just as much stuff we could use in these other buildings as this one, maybe even cafeterias too, if we had the time to grab that stuff before the area gets overrun.”
With that statement he grabs the binoculars and looks at the neighborhoods on the hills The city itself was built on a series of hills, each hill contained neighborhoods. The downtown area itself was near the river, and so was lower than all of the surrounding neighborhoods. The two closest neighborhoods also happened to be the poorest in the city. In these neighborhoods few of the residents owned cars, and they tended to live packed together in rundown apartment buildings and what was once huge, classicly built houses were now multi-family dwelling places. As a result the infection spread rapidly and brutally through the neighborhoods. Through the binoculars Sid could see by the light of burning homes and buildings the same brutality he had seen earlier. Expressionless, almost inhuman faces chomped and chewed on all you can eat buffets of neighbors, family members, strangers, it didn’t matter, if it was human it was food. As if to punctuate the point a traffic and weather chopper, from one of the local radio stations that Sid had noticed inching across the sky earlier starting settling towards the earth, it was either being flown by someone who had no business flying or was badly damage. When the helicopter roughly landed Sid noticed the lurching forms of the infected drawn to the helicopter, by motion, sound or both. He filed that information away. He also noticed that the normal people who ran from the helicopter moved much faster and fluidly than the infected, but that didn’t matter. The mob of infected moved slowly, but they moved together, slowly, inexorably and in unison. This combination of numbers and a common goal was too much and the drama really was over before it began, even if it took 20 minutes for the running humans to finally succumb to the shambling, groaning mob of emotionless cannibals.

Sid slowly lowered the binoculars in shock. Chad took them from him and began scanning the surrounding hills. The sun was just beginning to rise, and the thin, grey light of the first minutes of dawn let Chad see that coming down the hills were the infected. The lurching, shambling gait of the infected was slow. But they were coming. Slowly, methodically, and inevitably.
“They’re coming,” Chad said, “We’re out of time”.

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