“All You Zombies”
“I’m bo-ored,” Bunny said in a singsong tone as she leaned over Leon’s shoulder. Leon swatted irritably at her head, but she just ducked back and started skipping around the table, singing, “Bored bored borededy bored, boredy bored bored bored bored…”
“Alright, who let the Bunny have sugar?” Kathleen snarked, prompting a round of desultory laughter from the rest of the group. Even Bunny laughed, mainly because Bunny didn’t know the difference between people laughing at her and people laughing with her. Then again, Bunny didn’t know the difference between her ass and a hole in the ground.
It wasn’t even that she was wrong. It was a Thursday afternoon and the mall was absolutely fucking dead. All of them were too broke to buy anything, they couldn’t boost anything because they were the only ones in the stores and the clerks were always fucking watching them, and they’d run out of things to say to each other about twenty minutes ago. The only ones having fun were Bob and Bobbi, and that was because they were making out...and looking at Bunny, Leon, Greg, Miguel, and Lashonda, Kathleen was pretty fucking sure she didn’t want to make out with any of them.
“Bored, bored, boredy bored, bordedy...” Bunny was right, it was just that she was such a fucking spaz that you wished you didn’t agree with her just so you could tell her she was wrong. They wouldn’t even let her tag along with them, except that Greg wanted to get into her pants. Only he was such a fucking pussy that he wouldn’t make a move even though Bunny frequently “forgot” to wear panties and she was the kind of blonde girl that blonde girls told blonde jokes about.
Bunny came to a stop and stared plaintively at the group. “Come on, guys, I’m bored! Let’s do something!”
Miguel said, “I got something you can do, Bunny,” and waggled his tongue at her. Greg punched him on the shoulder, and Miguel winced. “Jeez, man, I was just kidding.”
“I hate to say it,” Lashonda said, “but the Bunny’s right. This officially sucks and blows. Let’s go see a movie or something.”
“Can’t,” Leon said sullenly. “We’re all fucking broke, and Herb’s managing right now at the movie theater, and you know he’s a total prick about people sneaking in.”
Miguel shrugged. “Maybe we could go to someone’s house, watch a horror movie on DVD or something. I got this cool-ass shit from Italy, where a zombie fights a shark. Seriously, fights a fucking shark, man.”
Bob disengaged his lips from Bobbi for a moment. “No can do, guys.” ‘Someone’ always meant Bob, when it came to going over and watching movies. Leon’s dad was a drunk, Lashonda’s mom didn’t have a DVD player, Miguel’s parents wouldn’t let him watch horror movies in the house because it’d freak out his little brothers, Bobbi’s parents always wanted to ‘hang out’ with them, Greg lived on the ass-end of the bus route, and none of them cared about Bunny enough to want to find out why they couldn’t go over to her house. And Kathleen’s parents hated all her friends and didn’t even want her hanging out with them, much less bringing them over.
Bob gave Bobbi another quick kiss. (So fucking PDA, those two! Even their fucking names were like a giant neon sign saying, ‘We’re A Couple!’) “Mom and Dad are home, they’re redecorating or some shit. If we could get any privacy at home, we’d be there right now.” Only Bob and Bobbi would think of six people watching them as ‘private’. Then again, Bob was usually off in his own little world when he was making out with Bobbi.
Greg shrugged. “Well,” he said, “maybe we could go hang out in the parking lot, or down by the railroad tracks.”
“That’s fucking retarded,” Leon snapped. “It’d be just like hanging out in the mall, except it’s not air-conditioned. The only reason to go hang out by the railroad tracks is to drink, and that bitch down at the convenience store took away my fake ID last week.”
Greg responded by flipping Leon the bird, and Leon jumped to his feet and curled his hands into fists. Kathleen knew what that meant—if they didn’t want this to turn into another stupid fucking macho fight, as per fucking usual, then she needed to find something for everyone to do so that they didn’t spend their time bitching at each other. As per fucking usual. Sometimes Kathleen didn’t even know why she hung out with these guys, except that they were into the same gory movies she was and hanging out with them beat hanging out by herself.
“We could play tag,” she blurted out. Everyone looked at her.
“Tag?” Leon said, adding a dismissive snort. “What do I fucking look like, twelve years old?”
“Why not?” Kathleen said defensively. “We’ve practically got the mall to ourselves. The security guards are all down by the electronics store watching baseball on the display TVs, we can run around and shit without anyone yelling at us.”
Lashonda shook her head slowly. “I dunno, sounds pretty lame...”
Kathleen racked her brains, trying to think of something, some sort of angle that would get the rest of the gang interested. Horror movies, she thought, Texas Chainsaw Massacre Friday the 13th Night of the Living Dead Dawn of the... “We could play zombie tag,” she said. “Like ‘Dawn of the Dead’, except the zombies are inside the mall.”
“Oh, snap, that movie was cool!” Miguel said. “Remember when that dude got the screwdriver right through the fucking ear? Fucking A, that was great.”
“Remake was better,” Greg said.
“You fucking kidding me?” Bob responded, the blasphemous comment dragging him away from Bobbi for a moment. “Fast zombies suck, man.”
Kathleen knew that if she didn’t interrupt, this conversation would go on for another hour and probably drag Leon in...and her, for that matter. The original fucking ruled. “We have one person start as the zombie, and anyone they catch becomes a zombie and has to help hunt the other people down.”
Leon looked cautiously interested. “So how do we know who’s a zombie? I mean, it’s not like those rage dudes in ‘28 Days Later’ could hide who they were.”
“The rage guys in ‘28 Days Later’ weren’t zombies,” Miguel said. “They were alive. You gotta be dead to be a zombie.”
“I know they weren’t fucking dead, loser,” Leon said in tones of mock patience. “But they were wandering around like zombies, is my point. You could tell them apart from normal people. They couldn’t be all like, ‘Oh, hey, how was the game last night, great,’ and then rip your throat out when you weren’t looking.”
Kathleen was actually enjoying this, now. “If you’re a zombie,” she said, getting up, “you have to have your arms out like this.” She put her arms out straight in front of her and mimed walking around, her hands clutching feebly at thin air.
“Yeah, okay,” Leon said. “I’m in. Until it gets lame, at least.” The others all nodded their assent as well. “So how do we decide who’s it?”
Kathleen paced back and forth, pretending to be in deep thought. “Hmm,” she said. As she approached the escalator, she broke into a dead run. “Last one to the escalator’s a zombie!”
She was so busy laughing and running, she didn’t even stop to look at who became the zombie.
Bobbi didn’t stop to look either, but she knew. She and Bob had both been caught off-guard by the sudden rush to the escalator, but Bob had gotten just a little bit ahead of her. Not so far ahead, though, that Bobbi couldn’t grab his belt and give it a little yank, sending him off-balance and allowing her to lunge ahead.
“Hey, that’s not fair!” he said. “That is totally—” He broke off his complaint as Bobbi stepped onto the escalator, but she didn’t stop to take a look at his zombie impression. He was too close behind for that. Instead, she just kept running all the way down the moving stairs. Only when she got to the bottom did she stop to take a look at him.
He looked like he was straight out of one of those cheesy horror movies the gang always sat through. His arms were outstretched like a sleepwalker...or, well, like a zombie...and his mouth hung just a little bit open. He stared right at her as he walked down the escalator, slightly slowed by his inability to move his arms in stride, but his expression was blank and empty. “Aren’t you going to say, ‘Join us’?” Bobbi called up to him teasingly.
Bob didn’t respond. He just kept marching towards her, and Bobbi realized he was getting pretty close. “Weren’t you just saying that fast zombies sucked?” she called out, before turning and breaking into a run. Not too fast, though. She didn’t want to lose him.
But when she looked over her shoulder, it seemed like there wasn’t any danger of that happening. Now that he’d gotten off the escalator, he seemed to be pursuing her with an absolute single-mindedness, his arms straight out as he chased her. “Oh, come on,” she called out behind her. “Nothing to say, honey? Not even, ‘Braaaains’?”
Still no response. Jeez, she knew Bob took his zombie movies seriously, but this was kind of being a dick about it. “At least give me a moan or something,” she said. “Even the zombies in ‘Night of the Living Dead’ moaned.”
He didn’t moan, though. She heard his footsteps behind her and his huffing breaths as he chased her, but he just wasn’t saying anything. Seriously fucking lame. What was the fucking point of pretending to be in a stupid horror movie if Bob was going to be such a fucking method actor that he wouldn’t even talk to his own girlfriend? Bobbi took a left turn, heading down the small side corridor where the restrooms were located. “Oh, help me,” she said, in tones of mock despair, as she turned to face Bob. “Help me, please! There’s an evil zombie, and he wants to eat my...” She winked at him.
Nothing. Not even a smile. Fucking Jesus, man. Stupid fucking Kathleen, coming up with this stupid fucking ‘zombie tag’ idea just because she probably fucking masturbated to zombie movies or some shit. Bobbi glared at her boyfriend. “Okay,” she said, her glare just as quickly melting into a mischievous grin, “I bet I know something that’ll get you to moan...” She lifted her shirt, revealing her braless titties, and wiggled her chest a little. “Do zombies get hard-ons?”
Still nothing. Fucking asshole. He’d always told her he loved her tits. Bobbi lowered her shirt, really pissed off now. “Fine,” she snapped. “This is lame, anyway.” She ducked into the women’s room, pointing at the sign on her way in. “Occupado, so sorry!” she shouted. “Guess you’ll have to chase someone else!”
She slammed the door behind her and went to check and see if she’d messed up her hair with all the running. “He damn well better not,” she muttered as she looked in the mirror. Half of her wanted to go back out there, make sure he hadn’t gone running off to chase fucking Kathleen. She didn’t even have any fucking tits, she was flat as a fucking board, but just because she actually liked all those dumb stupid lame-ass horror movies, all the guys were all, ‘Oh, Kathleen, you’re so fucking cool, you’re not like all the other girls!’
Fuck that. If watching a few dumb horror movies was all it took to keep Bob happy, she’d do it. Fuck Kathleen. Stupid fucking—
“Jesus, Bob!” she shouted, seeing the door swing wide. “Someone could be in here!” Bob still didn’t respond. He just strode towards her, his arms groping for her, and Bobbi rolled her eyes in affectionate irritation. “Yeah, alright, you got me, guess I’m a zombie now—”
Bob’s outstretched hands found her tits and began to fondle, and Bobbi’s irritation melted. “Mmmm,” she sighed out. “I knew you couldn’t resist...oh, that feels good.” His hands just kept stroking and rubbing as he bore her down to the floor, a tiny streamer of drool hanging from his lip as he leaned in and began to nuzzle her neck.
“Oh, that’s...oh, that’s nice, oh fuck, yeah...” Bobbi sighed as Bob’s hands pushed up her t-shirt, running all over the smooth flesh of her breasts as he tweaked and pinched at the sensitive skin. “Oh, oh fuck, yes yes yes...” His hands felt so fucking awesome, better than ever, like he was just totally tuned in to finding every single spot on her body that felt good and bringing it to life. She arched her back a little, whimpering softly as he flicked her nipples until they stiffened.
His left hand slid down across her belly, down into the waistband of her jeans and inside her wet panties, finding her pussy and slipping two fingers inside it. “Oh, ogod, yes, Bob, oh, fuck...” Her moans echoed off the restroom tile as her legs fell apart to allow him easier access. It had never been this intense before, not all the times they were alone in his parents’ basement. He just seemed so dedicated, so totally fucking intent on making her feel so good, he just wouldn’t stop... “Fuuuuuck,” she groaned out as she felt her pussy spasm against his fingers.
He kissed his way down to her tits, long, sloppy kisses that made her feel all hot and dizzy, and she closed her eyes and just let herself enjoy it as his thumb found her clit and his tongue swirled around her nipple and she just, she had to, she was gonna cum... Her whole body shook as her orgasm hit.
“Oh...oh...okay, hon,” she said shakily. “We really should...oh...” He didn’t stop even for a second, he just kept stroking and rubbing and she felt him slip a third finger into her snatch and just keep pumping away. “We gotta...gotta get back to...ofuck ofuck ofuck...” She felt her pussy clench around his fingers as she came again, the second orgasm right on the heels of the first one, and she couldn’t quite seem to open her eyes anymore. She just stared up at the fluorescent lights through closed eyelids and everything just looked bright and red, just like her whole body felt like it was glowing as Bob kept finger-banging her right there on the restroom floor.
“Gnnh...guh...gotta, Bob...gotta stop, someone might...” Her words trailed briefly into an incoherent whimper. “...might walk in, Bob, gottaaaaahhhh!” He wrung another orgasm out of her, and every time she tried to talk, he’d find another spot to touch and she couldn’t help it, she’d just stop talking and start feeling so fucking good, and thoughts of soccer moms walking in with their daughters just got pushed away by four fingers in her snatch now, drilling away at her soupy cunny and ofuck she just came again!
“Please,” she whimpered, “no more, too much...” She tried to push Bob off, but he’d put all his weight on her and she couldn’t budge him and he just kept fingering and licking and stroking and she pushed weakly at him but she didn’t seem to have much strength to fight, not when he was touching her oh right there right there please yes more oh god yes...
“Gnnnnh...unnnnh...guhhhh...” She tried to talk but it all came out garbled, she couldn’t talk, she couldn’t move, she couldn’t think, she didn’t know how many times she’d cum but every time she tried to think about it, every time she tried to think about anything at all, he’d find another place to touch and she’d cum again and that just stopped the thoughts, it felt so good, felt better than thinking, always feels better than thinking, she didn’t want to...to think...no...think...felt...so good, so good, soooo good, so...good, so...guh...guh...guh...
Bob climbed off of her, his left hand slick with her juices. After a moment, her eyes opened, but there was no trace of expression to them. They were empty and blank. She sat up. Slowly, her arms floated up from their sides to stretch straight out in front of her.
The restroom door opened. Both zombies turned to look at the newcomer.
They’d gotten Lashonda, too, Greg noticed.
Greg cut hard left, rounding the corner at the jeweler’s and heading towards the west wing of the mall. Really, it wasn’t too hard to stay away from them, so long as you didn’t do something stupid like the dumbfucks in horror movies always did. The mall was built like a big ‘H’ with two crossbars, so as long as he stayed in the square and didn’t go out to the dead ends, he could always just keep ahead of them. And there were two floors, too. And there were only four of them. Sucked that they got Miguel, though. He’d have to give him shit about that, after the game was over. All this time, they’d talked about the fucking rules of zombie movies, and Miguel got nabbed before Bunny did.
He wished Bunny was with him right now, but he’d lost track of everyone in that first rush of excitement. It was just, bam, scatter, and the next time he’d seen Bob and Bobbi and Miguel and Lashonda, they were chasing him down with their arms sticking straight out in front of him. Really, they should never have split up like that. Rule Number One, man. Don’t split up.
Still, wherever the others were, they were probably fine. He was probably drawing all the zombie pursuit right along with him. Greg risked a quick look behind him, even though that was totally breaking Rule Number Three (Dumbfucks who look behind them trip over some stupid shit because they weren’t looking, and then the zombies catch up to them before they can get up.) Yep, all four, still heading right after him.
He wished he could fight back, though. Kathleen should have come up with a rule for killing zombies when she made up the game. Every movie had a weakness for the zombies, like shooting them in the head or burning them or electrocuting them. If there wasn’t a way to kill the zombies, then eventually, they’d always win, just like that zombie simulator they found on the Internet one afternoon. If the zombies got to infect everyone, and the people didn’t get to kill the zombies, then eventually, the people just got fucked.
Still, Greg thought as he took a left again, heading south towards the food court, they wouldn’t be getting him for a long while. He wished he could lose them, though, take a breather. He thought briefly about ducking into one of the bigger stores, but that totally violated Rule Number Two. Never ever ever go down a dead end, ever. That was how all the real dumbfucks bought it in zombie movies. They barricaded themselves in the cellar or the attic or on the roof or they didn’t know where they were going and wound up in some alley, and bam, they were zombie chow. Greg was no dumbfuck, that wasn’t going to happen to him. He was sure he was going to be the last survivor. Well, either him or Kathleen.
He saw another zombie coming at him from the south, and he crossed the hallway to avoid her. His heart kind of sank—he couldn’t tell from this distance whether it was Bunny or Kathleen, but either way, it sucked. He thought Kathleen would be one of the last to go—she knew the rules even better than him or Miguel, and they’d been watching zombie movies ever since they were old enough to sneak out of bed once their parents had gone to sleep. And if it was Bunny...well, he wanted to survive to the end, but part of him wanted to be the one to chase Bunny down. He pictured himself grabbing her and accidentally ripping her skirt...and she’d act all mad, but she’d be kind of smiling, and he’d kiss her, and grab her tits (and oh, man, she had some sweet fucking tits, Jesus they were huge, they—)
Greg stopped dead. That wasn’t Bunny. It wasn’t Kathleen, either.
She had the same blonde hair, but she was about a foot too tall to be Bunny, and she wasn’t flat-chested like Kathleen. She looked like some college girl wearing a UCLA t-shirt, and she was walking kind of funny, taking little dragging steps like...
It was the backpack that made Greg’s blood suddenly run cold. It was just a tiny little detail, but in that one instant when he noticed the backpack, Greg knew instantly in the pit of his stomach that something had gone totally fucked-up and this wasn’t a game anymore, even if he didn’t understand how or why. Because he could believe that the gang had convinced someone else to play, or that they’d gotten some girl to pretend to be a zombie and come up on him from the other direction to get him to panic, but...her backpack had fallen off her shoulder, and she’d stepped in the straps and gotten her right foot tangled up. And she hadn’t stepped out of it, and she hadn’t stopped to untangle it. She wasn’t even looking down at it. She just kept on walking, dragging the backpack along with her as she stumbled towards Greg with an empty expression on her face.
Greg broke into a dead run, making for the stairs. He stopped at the top and turned to look at his friends as they approached, their gaits steady and unwavering. Suddenly, he noticed little details, like the way their clothes seemed to be all untucked and stained, or the way that Bobbi’s hair was all fucked up and she wasn’t even trying to fix it. They weren’t laughing. They weren’t doing anything but walking towards him.
“Hey, Miguel!” Greg shouted. “I fucked your mom last night!” Nothing. Not a flicker of emotion. He didn’t laugh, he didn’t flip Greg off, he didn’t tell Greg that he was thinking of his own mom. Greg ran down the stairs as fast as he could.
He headed for the electronics store. He could see a guard standing outside, staring at the TV, and he made for him with sudden desperate panic. The whole way there, he was trying to think of what to say that didn’t sound crazy. ‘Um, look, this is gonna sound stupid—’ ‘Say, there’s some guys here acting kind of weird—’ ‘My friends have turned into zombies, you gotta help me—’
The guard looked over at him as he approached. “No running,” he said mildly, one eye still on the baseball game.
Greg staggered to a halt and put his hands on his knees. “I...” He gasped for air, and held up a finger to the guard. Fuck, running away from zombies really took it out of you. He didn’t know how the guys in movies did it. “I...”
The guard looked past him. “What the fuck is that?” he said in a tone of bewilderment mixed with irritation. “Hey, you kids!” he shouted, raising his voice. “What’s going on here? Is this some kind of joke?”
The guard walked right past Greg, who turned to look. Sure enough, he saw...oh, fuck, six zombies, just now reaching the bottom of the stairs. The other one looked to be a mall employee, he could see their nametag even from here. “Look,” the guard said, “I don’t want to see any of this fucking ‘flash mob’ shit in my mall, okay? You guys just take this outside.”
Miguel grabbed at him. “Oh, you just made a big fucking mistake, buddy,” the guard said, shoving Miguel sprawling into the group. They fell over, but two more zombies reached out of the pile of bodies and grabbed the guard’s legs.
Greg just watched the whole thing in a state of numb terror. It didn’t feel real, somehow. He felt like he was just watching another horror movie, watching some dumbfuck who didn’t know the rules get it in the shorts while the main character prepared to make a run for it while the zombies were occupied.
The guard tried to back away, shouting, “Hey, get the fuck off—” He overbalanced and landed hard on his ass, his sentence ending in a startled grunt. The pack of zombies began to crawl towards him, pinning him down with their bodies. “Hey! Hey, what the fuck, man! What the—” And then Greg couldn’t see him anymore. The mass of zombies just covered his body, and Greg realized that he didn’t even know the guy’s name. Suddenly he felt guilty because the guy wasn’t just some extra in a horror movie, he was a real person and Greg didn’t even have the chance to get his name and now he was never going to find out.
Greg heard the guard moaning underneath the pile of bodies, and then the moans became shrieks and the shrieks seemed to last forever before they became whimpers and the whimpers became sighs and the sighs faded away into an eerie silence. The zombie pack slowly slid off of the guard, getting back to their feet. After a few moments, the guard stood up too. His arms reached out, stiffened like a sleepwalker’s.
As one, they looked at Greg.
He took off running. He felt another surge of adrenalin. Not like the fun, exciting one he’d felt at the beginning of the game, but a desperate fear reaction, a crap-in-your-pants-and-piss-yourself terror that lent new urgency to his sprint as he made for the escalators. Time to get the fuck out of here, get to the fucking exits and figure out what the fuck was going on later. He didn’t look back to see whether they were gaining on him. Only dumbfucks looked back, and Greg was not a dumbfuck. He was not going to fucking turn into a fucking zombie, he was going to get out of here. He took the escalator steps two at a time, heading for the southwest exit.
Four more zombies blocked it off. FUCK! Greg turned left, making for the food courts again. All he needed to do was get through the food courts, and he’d be back in the east wing of the mall. He could go right, hit the southeast exit if it wasn’t blocked, and if it was, he’d just go left and get back into the loop. He was fucking smarter than the zombies, he wasn’t going to panic, he wasn’t going to do anything stupid, he was going to fucking survive this.
The food courts were eerily deserted, even moreso than they had been when they started this stupid game that wasn’t a game anymore. He couldn’t see a single person behind the counters, and he could smell food starting to burn all around him as the ovens went unattended. Fuck fuck fuck! Don’t think about it, he told himself. Don’t think about why this is happening, don’t think about what’s happened to the others, don’t think about how Miguel was your best friend and you and him are never going to get the chance to watch the movie where the zombie fights the shark or do anything else together ever ever again, don’t... Greg’s vision blurred, and it took him a moment to realize he was crying.
But there were no people ahead of him, and more importantly, no zombies. He was halfway through the food court now, not a zombie in sight. They must all be behind him, and that meant it was a race. He could do that, he could outrun them and outthink them and—
That was when he saw them, standing up and climbing over the counters of every single fast food stand, boiling out from behind the cash registers like wasps out of a nest. They poured out in front of him, all around him as they blocked off the exit and formed a wall of flesh that cut off his escape. He skidded to a stop, turned, but they were behind him, too. They surrounded him, getting ever closer.
It wasn’t fair, he’d followed the rules! He’d done everything right! “Goddammit,” he shouted as they closed in, “it’s not fair!”
Then the pack dragged him down.
Bunny sighed heavily. “I thought we were gonna do something fun,” she whined at Kathleen. “This is even more boring than the food court!”
Leon hopped up onto a washing machine and took a seat. “Gotta admit, the Bunny’s right again. Jeez, twice in one day. We should mark that down on the calendar.” Bunny stuck her tongue out at him, but he ignored her. “This is powerfully lame, Kath.”
Kathleen shrugged irritably. “Hey, we’re surviving, aren’t we?” She’d made straight for one of the big anchor stores in the northwest corner of the mall as soon as the game had started. Lots of aisles, lots of places to hide and plenty of freedom to move...and since they took up both floors, she figured she could always go up and out the other exit if they found her.
But nobody had found her, and now she was having to play babysitter to the two people with the shortest attention spans in the whole group. “Besides, nobody said you had to tag along with me,” she continued. “Why did you tag along, anyway?”
Bunny shrugged. “I figured you knew what you were doing, and I didn’t want to be a zombie. It sounded really boring.”
Leon smiled mirthlessly. “And I know you’re not supposed to split up when you’re in a horror movie,” he said. “Besides, I figured if they started chasing us, I could always just trip the Bunny and let them get her instead.”
“Oh, ha-ha,” Bunny said. “Very funny, I don’t think.”
“Yes,” Kathleen said before she could stop herself. “We know you don’t think.”
Bunny made a pouting face. “Why you always got to be mean?” she said in exaggerated baby-talk.
Kathleen thought that was a question that answered itself, but before she could say so, Leon half-whispered, “What the fuck...?” And when Kathleen turned to look at what Leon was seeing, the sight pushed away any thoughts of what she was going to say to Bunny.
A horde of people was flooding into the store, all of them with their arms outstretched and their eyes blank and vacant. There were too many to count, but Kathleen figured it had to be at least a hundred. It looked like every single person in the mall, all gathered in one spot. She noticed her friends leading the pack, but she saw mall employees, security guards, janitors, nuns and teenagers and suburban dads all marching into the store. The employees who’d been giving Kathleen and her friends nasty stares for the last few hours suddenly started panicking, trying to get out from behind their counters and failing as the zombies dragged them down.
“Oh, cool!” Bunny said. “They got everyone in the mall to play!” Eagerly, she started to run away from the zombies, a smile plastered on her face. Kathleen didn’t know what the fuck was going on, but she didn’t think it was that simple. But her hindbrain definitely didn’t like it, so she followed Bunny’s example and ran for it.
Leon was right alongside them. “What the fuck?” he shouted, his face red with anger and fear. “What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck?”
Kathleen just shook her head a little in response. “I don’t know! Make for the exits!” She sped up, quickly passing Bunny. The advantages of being flat-chested, she thought. Bunny bounced too much to really build up a good head of speed.
“We can’t leave, that’s cheating!” Bunny said. Fucking hell, would anyone really notice the difference if she became a zombie? She’d be less chatty, but would that actually be a bad thing?
They sprinted through the sporting goods section, and Leon stopped to grab a golf club as they ran past. “I dunno what’s going on,” he said, “but nobody fucks with me.”
Kathleen looked behind her, saw the zombies pouring into the aisle behind them, and put on a burst of speed. She didn’t bother grabbing anything. If it came to a fight, having a weapon wasn’t going to make much difference against a hundred zombies. If they were really zombies, which they couldn’t really be, because this wasn’t a horror movie, it was the real world. And people didn’t just become zombies in the real world, especially not just for no reason. It didn’t happen, it couldn’t happen, so it wasn’t happening. This was just a reality show or something. She was just being punked by her friends.
She looked behind her again. And she saw Leon trip Bunny.
Kathleen felt overwhelmed with shock as Bunny tumbled ass over appetite on the linoleum tile. She was stunned that Leon would actually do that, that he wasn’t just kidding like they all teased Bunny because she was kind of annoying. And she was even more stunned that she found herself skidding to a stop and going back, because Bunny was kind of annoying but Kathleen was absolutely most stunned of all to find that deep down, she felt sorry for the stupid bimbo and didn’t want to see her get turned into a zombie, especially not because someone she’d trusted had fucked her over royally.
“Ow!” Bunny shrieked. The sound seemed to come out as a moan to Kathleen; everything seemed to be in slow motion. “No fair, time out!” The zombies descended towards her, and Kathleen could tell there was no way she was going to be able to close the distance before they got to Bunny, let alone drag the girl to her feet and get her away from the advancing wall of grasping, blank-eyed flesh.
“I said time out,” Bunny shouted as they closed in on her. “I hurt my ankle!” Kathleen stopped again, turned back the way she’d come as the zombies began to dive onto Bunny. “Hey, stop, this isn’t funny anymore, I...I...aiiiiiiii...” And then Kathleen couldn’t see her anymore at all, just hear her scream and moan and grunt and whimper as the zombies did whatever they did to her. She didn’t sound like it hurt, though. She sounded like she was in a porno movie. Kathleen hoped it didn’t hurt, but she didn’t want to find out.
She caught up with Leon pretty quick, despite his shitty trick. He was down at the other end of the aisle, where the zombies had outflanked them. “Come on, motherfuckers!” he was shouting as he swung the golf club wildly. “Come fucking on!” They didn’t dodge out of the way, or even slow their advances. Lashonda was right in the front of the pack, and Kathleen let out a tiny moan of sympathetic revulsion as the golf club caught her right in the face.
The club smashed straight through her mouth, sending splinters of teeth and bone and droplets of blood scattering through the air as it absolutely shattered her jaw. But Lashonda’s eyes didn’t even register the pain. She just pressed forward, grabbing Leon’s arms while he was still caught up in the motion of the backswing and grabbing him and pushing him down to the ground, and Kathleen watched as Lashonda leaned in and pressed her bloody, pulpy mess of a mouth to his in an obscene parody of a kiss.
That was when she started screaming. Even as she started climbing the shelves, trying desperately to get up above the horde of zombies that was closing in on her from both sides, she heard her own voice, screaming hysterically, “Stop it! Stop it stop it stop it! It’s not real, you can’t do this, it’s just a game, it’s just a fucking game and I made it up and it doesn’t make sense, stop it stop it stop it! You have to stop because I made it up, people don’t just become zombies just because I say, ‘Last one to the escalator’s a zombie!’ It doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t make sense, oh fucking God, oh God, oh God, I’m so sorry! Wake up, wake up, oh fucking please fucking WAKE UP!!!!!!”
She wasn’t even sure if she was talking to the zombies or just praying it was a dream, but it didn’t matter because it didn’t happen. She got up on top of the shelves and saw them below her, filling up the aisle she was in and the aisle next to that. They reached up for her, but she was just a little too high for them to grab and they couldn’t climb because their arms wouldn’t bend.
She inched along the shelves, desperate not to fall. Silently, she cursed her parents to a thousand hells for taking away her cell phone (but not cursing them to this, not ever to becoming blank-eyed zombies, oh god, mom, dad, please don’t ever turn into this...) Carefully, she made her way to the end of the aisle. The exit beckoned, just out of reach beyond a dozen or so zombies.
Kathleen stood up. The zombie horde looked up at her, their creator. “I didn’t know,” she whispered, her voice too hoarse to shout. “I swear, it was just a game, I...” Her brain reeled in blank incomprehension, the kind of utter terror that only comes from finding a place where the universe defies any kind of reason. “I’m sorry,” she whispered through the tears. And then she jumped.
And just like she’d hoped, the pile of zombies broke her fall. She scrambled to her feet, desperately kicking and shoving and counting on her non-zombie reflexes to keep her moving past the last few surprised and confused zombies. One of them grabbed her hoodie and she shrugged out of it, not caring about anything now except getting past those last few zombies and getting to the doors, and getting...
Outside! She was outside! Kathleen ran as hard as she could through the empty parking ramp, just looking for people, a car, any way out of this nightmare. She sprinted down to the corner, to the intersection...
She saw the pile-up, the mangled mess of cars blocking the street. She saw the victim, still trying to walk on a broken leg, arms outstretched. She saw the people, some of them already being borne down under the weight of two or three zombies.
“Shit,” she whispered. “One of them must have gotten out.”