Georgia’s dead white lineament stares back at me unforgivingly. Her hands are clawing at me and her callous milky white eyes are jittering. The horde assembles themselves closer to me as if collectively hearing Georgia’s raspy call. I shank the katana deep into Georgia’s forehead and she slumps against the seat.
Mingled with turbulent rage, I yell, slashing and tearing through the groaning mob, slicing heads, arms, and waists with as much effort and dexterity as I can. I wipe my eyes with my shaking wrists. The surging tears wane but my eyes still sting.
As soon as I enter the looming activity room, I slam the double doors of the lounge shut and flee up the escalators. I encounter about a dozen loitering zombies, awaiting me. I scathe them deeply through the stomach with a vindictive dance. More of the undead ones come running up at me. Actually running, with full intent on tearing my flesh apart. It’s one thing to have one of them running at you, but to have a whole legion of them hauling toward your ass, it’s thoroughly hair-raising!
The chill, ambient purple glow of the room only augments the horror, outlining the dull, haggard, profile of the vengeful creatures. My heart starts to throb and I quickly scurry toward the next exit, pinning two zombies in my path across the forehead with my katana.
A familiar juvenile vision starts to spurt into my head and I’m suddenly transported to being seven again. Lost, asthmatic, and terrified as the slotting machines and tall trunks of legs surround me like a cruel misty labyrinth. Only this time the slotting machines and cruel mist are surrogated by the zombies.
Zombies. Another thing that I’ve thought about and feared ever since I was seven. I never would’ve thought they’d be real in a million years. Mom always said they can only exist in movies like Night of the Living Dead or terribly scripted porn. Otherwise, I’d have no reason to fear those chimerical creatures. Boy was she wrong. As if that’s the first time that’s happened.
I’m in the lobby, but it seems so strange now. It’s very vapid, empty, and heartless. The lights are dimmed and flickering and there’s a beep on the receptionist's desk. Fabian should’ve picked it up but I can’t seem to find him stationed there. I inch closer to the desk and pick up the call. It leaves me on voice messages.
“Shit! Fabian, make sure to evacuate everyone out of the hotel and casino immediately! There’s been a recent outbreak of deadly disease and we can’t afford to lose people. D’you remember ’09? Do what—” It cuts off. What happened in ’09?
Another message beeps in. “Hey Fabian, did you do the thing? I’m currently barricaded in a room with a couple of guests. A few of them went whoopsie. It’s not looking so good. Fuck! The little muncher has come in. Please, whatever you do, just please-No! Aaaah!”
The receiver cuts off. This guy must’ve been the receptionist that worked with Fabian. Or rather was. A strange growling sound meets me at the back of my head. It breathes its hot breath near my neck, almost calling me out for the intrusion. I stumble back and jut my katana to find Fabian standing limply as if his arms have been immobilized and his head is screwed in one direction. His fiery red hair is still apparent but his normal pallor has been blanched and his eyes are milky white. He stares at me studiously as if deciding whether or not to attack.
Well, why aren’t you? It’s weird. Something strange is going on with these zombies. One moment they want to attack and the next instance they're stock still.
“You honestly deserved better Fabian,” I say lamentingly. “It shouldn’t have been you.” The red-haired uncouth figure stands there ridged-like, staring blankly at me. I slowly squirm forward and jab the katana into his forehead until he crumples down. I crouch over him and gently pull down his eyelids, sending him off to a placating sleep.
The parking lot is a bedlam of scattered cars, beeping horns, and dead stranded bodies. There are still several contoured, breathing, vivacious people rushing their way into their vehicle and getting the hell out of this hotel. Some don’t even bother with civil road rules and they barrage and dent other cars to get to the road.
I carefully get into my silver car and drive out of the desert parking lot. I hastily slither down into the trafficking road. At this point, everything has been chaos, confusion, and a trench of sadness. And yet, I still need to know. I need to know that at least my mother made it. Yeah, I know what it looks like. You’ve been bitching and griping about her this whole time and now you suddenly wanna check up on her? Yeah, pretty much. She's still my mother and when all is lost, the best thing you can turn to is family.
Yes, she's fraught with a gazillion problems but she’s still there, and at this point, it’s the only omen of hope and normalcy that I have right now.
I drive past a soaring amount of fancy cubicle houses until I arrive at a neighborhood full of flat, opulent houses that sit on desert lots and have white cars parked on their sandy driveways. I arrive at a flat, brick and stone house planted on a desert lot. Only a shy away behind the structure is the jagged grandiloquent sculpture of Camelback Mountain nettled with a flock of palm trees. There are also a few dry cacti standing by our door in the desert front yard shriveling in the heat. Parked in the driveway is my mom’s white Mazda. She must be home.
I get out of the car and barge through the front door. “Mom?” I whisper almost sullenly.
There’s no response. My expectation is accentuated. I rush through the kitchen but no one’s there. The living room? Nope. I rifle around her bedroom but she isn’t around there either. Then I remember she has a small alcove of an office near the living room so I worm my way down there.
The office is a small paneled room furnished with a brown mahogany desk, several plaques, and several black leather seats and recliners. I try to ignore the family portrait of 3-year-old me after going to the dentist. It’s sitting stoically on my mom’s desk. This portrait’s coupled with eleven-year-old me in band practice. I shudder. I forget how cringy this office can be.
The figure of a woman wearing a white lab coat is standing mere feet away from me. She’s thin, curvaceous, and has a chopped cut of oily black hair. Her back is turned from me.
“Mom?” I say, in the vain hope that she’ll respond. Her breathing is hard and struggling to acclimatize to its normal pace. She creaks around at me and I see those familiar milky eyes and white chalky face and I just know. I know that I’m too late. Too late at what? What could you have done? Anything. Anything at all. Ha! Anything isn’t enough.
The silver tongue rips the air and my mom’s head dribbles off onto the floor. Blood spurts everywhere, even covering parts of my shirt. I stare poignantly at the corpse and then I run outside to the madness before the tears revivify themselves.
The streets are empty and the neighborhood is still quiet as if nobody’s inside their house. But the duplicity reeks at me because I can still see some cars on the driveway. They’re inside alright. Just not as warm and fervid as they used to be. Hell, not even that. Drab and dull is what they were, just like those zombies. Arrogant, careless, impolite, greedy, and selfish. But at least they were tepid enough to get along with. At least they were conscious and sentient enough to fix their flaws and redeem themselves. What can be said about the zombies? What can they do? I sigh miserably. Palvalla has just become hell.
A high-pitched scream rents the air. It’s coming from a glass and brick house right across the street. I wade toward the black door. I try for the doorknob but it’s incredibly hot. So I kick it in. Surprisingly it hisses open. The house is dark and looming and it smells of lavender and raspberries.
“Where are you?” I shout.
No response. I fear I may have lost her. I turn to go back to the street when I hear the scream again. I follow it until I reach the kitchen. The lights are blinking on and I see a little girl surrounded by two staggering, haggard creatures breathing and clawing insolently at her.
“Hey, log brains! Heads up!” I shout as I cut through their lock-tight jaws in a crisscross fashion, fountaining cherry blood across the drawers and the sink. I then spear the headless bodies down into a flashing finish.
The little girl cowers back onto the kitchen drawers, eyes bulbous. She’s an ornamented figure of wispy hazelnut hair, big pearly gray eyes, and rather large thin lips that showcases her crenelated teeth. It’s a strange face, but rather alluring. I start to wonder if she’s from here.
“Were those your parents?” I croak silently.
She nods. Her eyes are huge and shiny.
“Sorry,” I mutter. I don’t sound very sorry at all. Relieved, but not sorry.
No one got bit. At least I don’t think so. “What’s your name?”
“Mira," she says back in a hoarse voice
I consider her for a moment. “How old are you? Like five or sumn?”
“I’m eight!” She says defensively.
“Oh, my bad. You know, most eight years aren’t playing with zombies in their kitchen.” I grin, eyes twinkling.
Mira’s lips don’t move. She’s staring at me stone-faced. Then she studies the slaughtered zombies. “Are they dead dead?”
“Erm…yeah, I think so.” I get a very serious vibe from Mira. It seems she's incredibly mature for an eight-year-old. She also has a thin accent, which honestly, you wouldn’t find if you weren’t looking for it. “Where are you from?”
“Finland,” Mira says.
Of course. I keep forgetting about the profuse amount of Scandinavians that live in Palvalla. I don’t know why they come over here. It’s searing hot! But that’s probably it. They like the disparate weather. Or rather, it’s because of the founder of Palvalla, Nord Kuvall. He was the Swedish man who had the idea of creating this neighborhood. I legitimately think it’s because of that guy. Either way, I see some Scandinavians strayed here and there. Either that or it's Mexicans.
“Are you about to leave?” Mira asks.
“Yeah kiddo, I am.”
“Can I come with you?”
I hesitate. I really don’t want to put this kid in any more danger but at the same time, I can’t just abandon her. I can only imagine some ragged stranger finding her isolated and derelict. What would they do to her then? Rape her? Kill her? She’s already starting to feel like a little sister to me, and I’ve never had a sibling before. Who knows, this could be something new, something exciting even.
“Erm…sure. Just make sure you stay close to me and don’t wander off too much. Also, you owe me girl scout cookies in the future.”
Not even a twitch.
“I hate cookies,” says Mira importantly. “They’re too sweet.”
“You are the devil. C’mon.”
Comments (0)
See all