Chapter 3: Part 9, Fixed Lividity

Note from the author: Hey all you zombie fans! I am really happy to be able to bring you this next installment of Zombie Me! It's been rather difficult writing lately. One of the wonderful after effects of cerebral swelling.... It's funny how life mimics art and vice-versa. So if there are words backwards and things just don't make sense please forgive me. I have tried to do an extensive proof reading before posting. Let me know what you think!

The door at the end of the hallway stood partly open, smiling at them ominously as they approached. Flickers of light from the shoddy electrical work briefly illuminated the enclosure beyond. Jen couldn’t tell whether the random flashes were from actual lights or from wires shorting out, either way the longer she spent in this place the more it seemed to resemble a fun house.

Reaching the door Jen could see why it was ajar. A severed arm lay wedged between it and the frame. Jen slowly pushed the door open and suddenly stopped as she saw the hand move. Its curled fingers relaxed slightly as the weight from door was removed from the tendons in its forearm. Jen morbidly wondered who the arm belonged too, and then a halting fear shot through her as she questioned where the body was.

It was a question that was answered as the door began to close behind them. Between the flashes of electrical shorts she could just make out the outline of a body slumped over in the corner. It jerked suddenly as the door latched and she thought that it had begun to lean towards her. Jen could feel the walls closing in as the sporadic lighting decided to take a respite.

There was another brief wave of electrical shorts which arced like a bug zapper in July and she thought that the body had moved closer. She turned to head back toward the doorway and shrieked as a hand grabbed her shoulder. Corina jumped at Jen’s response “Calm down Jen! I just didn’t want to loose you in the dark.”

Jen continued to search for the handle to the door, but somehow managed to get turned around in the commotion. “Corina, we’re not alone in here...” Jen stopped as she was cut off by a low moan after which they were both now searching for the handle. “Where the hell is the door?” Working at a frantic pace they grasped along the cracked surface of the wall. Jen had the sinking suspicion that they were actually edging towards the phantom figure.

There was another pained gasp followed by a dragging scratch. Corina jumped as something touched her leg, she reflexively pulled her gun and shot at the darkness moving by her feet. In a flash of gunfire she could see the outline of a body reaching for her. She stepped back and found herself pressed against the wall with the hard lump of a door knob painfully biting into her lower back.

Caught off guard by the loud report of the gun Jen clutched at her ear, the explosive blast echoed in the stairwell as well as her head. As the ringing quickly subsided she could hear Corina scrabbling for the door, and then she thought she heard something else, a voice... “Hellppp meee.” It was quiet at first and the words bled together in agony, but then she heard it again, “Help... me...”

Through her commotion Corina heard the voice also. She stopped and listened as Jen fumbled around in her pockets for Andre’s lighter. There were a few brief sparks as the lighter ignited and then a faint glow began to illuminate Jen’s face. Within seconds she was encircled in the wavering light cast by the flame. Lying at her feet gasping for pained breath was a young looking man she recognized. He was one of the ten pledges rushing the fraternity this year. She’d heard Andre call him Mocha but she doubted that was his real name. One aspect of frat life was removing ones identity and replacing it with a new group oriented mentality. The brothers picked the name Mocha because his skin was lighter than the others.

“Mocha...” Corina looked down at the man dying at her feet and regretted the fact that she didn’t know his real name. Her throat suddenly felt dry as she tried to find words to comfort him. Then something clicked inside of her. It was the transition from using emotions into a mode of rational thought. Jen would probably have some psycho-babble term for it but she knew it was what many medical professionals used to stay sane when confronted with massive trauma.

Corina immediately saw that he was indeed the unlucky owner of the arm. She went to work applying pressure to the stump, though this time she was more careful of blood borne pathogens. Mocha squirmed in pain as she wrapped a torn piece of his shirt around his upper arm and tightened it to staunch the blood flow. She took a moment and scanned his body for any other major wounds that required attention. His shirt was torn from his collar down to his belly. She could see what appeared to be bite marks scattered down his chest and abdomen, these welled with tiny pockets of blood but weren’t life threatening. “You’ve lost a lot of blood but I’ve stopped it for now... Can you tell me where you are?”

Mocha stirred and looked up at her, the whites of his eyes stood out brightly in the flickering darkness. “Yeah... I’m... I’m at the house. I’m sorry... I’ve seen you before but I’ve forgotten your name.”

Corina laughed at herself for being foolish. “Don’t be sorry. I don’t know your real name either, mine’s Corina. Can you tell me what happened here?”

“James... It’s James.” He smiled briefly and for a moment she thought that he looked a bit like Tiger Woods. “I don’t exactly know how it started but I heard that there was a fight down in the basement. Some of the brothers thought that someone got in through the subway access door at the far end of the basement. A few of them brought some heat for protection, but it didn’t make a difference. When we got down there they were already shooting, but... but they just kept coming.” He inhaled sharply and winced as if it hurt to breath.

Corina could feel a low rumbling start by her feet and within seconds the room reverberated with a passing train. Jen looked at Corina and then to James who seemed not to notice. Coolly she looked back and said “Midmorning rush hour.” After the train passed by she asked James to continue.

Before he could continue his story a tooth jarring tremor shook James as he lay there. Corina held his head to prevent him from cracking it on the concrete floor. All that Jen could do was watch and wait until it passed. When it was over he lay there panting unable to catch his breath. Corina felt his pulse racing and looked to Jen gravely. “Try to relax, breathe with your abdomen and not with your chest.” She emphasized her request by placing a slender hand just over his navel. Within minutes his breathing slowed and he regained some of his composure.

“Am I gonna die?” he asked hesitantly. Corina shook her head but couldn’t verbally acknowledge his question. “Thanks... I hope you’re right, cause I don’t feel too good. My mom used to say... hope for the best, but expect the worst.” He paused and swallowed hard. “But... but I think I’m gonna die.” Corina backed away unable to take that statement and look him in the eye at the same time, tears began to run down her cheeks. “Don’t cry. You’re far to pretty to cry...” His voice began to take on a far away tone, softened by a release of endorphins from the seizure. His remaining hand took hold of Corina’s and lightly squeezed her soft flesh, and with a serious look he turned to her. “They don’t die. Jackson took two in the chest from Hendrix and he just kept coming. Even though he was out of bullets Hendrix kept pulling the trigger right up until Jackson killed him. I ran and hid under the stairwell but it was like they knew where I was.” He stopped and seemed to be thinking for a moment. “There were nine of us that came down and four of us had guns. Two of those... things, got us all.”

Another train rumbled by and caused the lights to flicker on for a moment in the dank stairwell. Jen looked up three flights to the top and saw that the railing had been broken halfway up as if someone had been pushed over. It was the first time she could really see how big the stairwell was. Graffiti coursed up the walls in garish purples, greens, and black. Scattered among crudely draw clown faces, rough cityscapes, and random tags, she could make out the Greek symbols which represented the fraternity. Once again the impression that she was in a terrible fun house filled her with dread. In the ending moments of the trains passing the lighting final gave out and once again drowned them in inky blackness.

A puzzled look crossed Jen’s face as she looked around her small sphere of illumination. She turned back to Corina and James. “If they got all nine of you then where are the bodies?"

James didn’t reply. Corina was kneeling next to him and crying silently. His light skin had gone an ashy grey and his jaw slackly hung open. As if in a final answer to her question, James’ eyes stared lifelessly upward in fixed lividity.