Page 18 of Doomsdate

There are zombies in my hallway.

Zombies? Do you hear yourself ? Mom hisses. The only monsters out there are other people, Maisie! And you’re going to go out there and expose yourself to them? They’ll hurt you! They’ll—

A small sob rattles in my throat. I’m just—going to check on Gramps. I don’t know what’s happening out there, but Gramps is old and alone. He needs me. The thought brings a measure of calm, so I let it play on repeat. I’m going to check on Gramps. He needs me. I’m going to check on Gramps.

“I—I’m going to take care of some last-minute things, but I’ll radio you on my way out of town. It might take a while, so don’t worry, okay?” My voice starts out steady, but the question ends on a shaky, teetering note, like I might fall and explode into pieces any second, too.

“Now you listen, Maisie-girl. You’re the strongest, smartest, most resourceful person I’ve ever met.” Gramps’s voice is sure and solid as stone. “You’ve been training your whole life for this. You’re gonna be fine. But if you don’t radio me in one hour from your rig, I will have an acute myocardial infarction, and ain’t nothing gonna be cute about it. You hear?”

“Got it.” A crash rattles my doorframe, louder than all the others. “Gramps? I…” But I can’t finish the thought, my voice petering out.

“I love you, too, Maisie-girl,” he finishes for me quietly. “See you soon.”

I push out a lungful of air. Time to pack.

It doesn’t take long to gather all the supplies I’ll need for the trek to Gramps’s bunker—I more or less stay packed, with gear neatly arranged into kits for various disasters. I have my winter camping gear already loaded in a hiking pack, a full suite of common lifesaving prescription medications, weapons bag, food, water, laptop, solar chargers, clothing, bartering items, toolbox, and my favorite rechargeable vibrator. I glance at my clipboard checklist, then frown at the large spread of items arranged neatly on my gear table. Everything I need to survive the road trip is here, but how do I get it out there, to my SUV? I don’t know what’s in my hallway (zombies, even the news is saying zombies!), but I need to make one trip, tops, and some of these items are heavy.

As if to underscore the point, another loud crash sounds from the hallway.

I glance at the Travel Baby Double Spinner Pro with Easy Glide Wheels I splurged on two weeks ago when I decided to go to New York. It sits where I parked it, tags still on its shimmering hard shell, waiting for its big trip to the Big Apple.

Well, Gramps’s bunker will just have to do instead.

Ten minutes later, I heave the heavy hiking pack onto my shoulders and grasp the handle of the overstuffed suitcase with my toolbox, weapons bag, and a hastily repotted Walter bungeed securely on top. I turn slowly to say goodbye to my apartment—the first place I lived on my own, but the second place I hid from the world in. I should be grateful to have Gramps and his bunker waiting, but it feels like I’m ping-ponging straight back to my childhood. This apartment was supposed to be a way station on the road to something better—the real world. But instead of moving forward, I’m heading right back to where I started. Safe, maybe, but at what cost?

It’s not goodbye, my brain insists. You’re just going to check on Gramps.

“It’s not goodbye,” I repeat out loud to the empty walls I never managed to fill. “I will be back.” My throat chokes on the words, as though the lie refuses to come out. I grab the machete with my free hand. Fact is, going to Gramps’s bunker is my best, smartest option. I think Mom, the real one and not the voice of my own fear, would agree, so that’s what I’m going to do.

The hallway’s eerily quiet, as if whoever was playing human pinball out there finally ran out of quarters. I strain against the weight of the pack to peer through the peephole, but there’s nothing out of the ordinary in my round slice of hallway. Taking a deep breath, I hit the exit button and listen with increasing dread as each of the security bolts and latches disengages to open my front door.

“It’s going to be okay, Walter,” I whisper to the plant, then hold my breath, listening.

I crack the door open.

The hallway is empty, though not untouched. Red gore streaks the walls, great big blots of it with stripes trickling away to the floor. The thuds—were they someone’s head?

Fear screams through my body.

I roll my suitcase quickly down the carpeted hallway, furious for once that I lucked into getting the apartment at the end. “The farthest from the elevator traffic—won’t that be nice?” the rental office lady had said as she gave me the tour. I’d nodded eagerly, as if twenty-year-old me had deep concerns about elevators and their noise when in reality I’d just ridden in one for the first time. One of the Easy Glide Wheels hits a puddle of slick blood the thin industrial carpet can’t absorb, and now it’s rolling even easier.

The door to 2F is cracked open. The anxiety behind my sternum flares and burns.

Be on alert, Maisie-girl, Mom says quietly in my head. Be ready, just like I taught you.

I can’t decide if I should slow down for stealth or make a run for the elevator, but it doesn’t matter, because terror flows through my limbs like lava, logging my legs down, making it hard to move at all. Mom’s voice is egging me on, getting louder and more insistent to go, run, get out of here! But I stare at the sliver of the old bros’ apartment as I slowly roll in front of it, willing it not to widen, arguing with myself about whether it already has.

I hear the snarl before I feel the impact. From my left, not my right, where I was looking. Stupid girl, Mom screeches as a body lurches out the door of 2G, hands scrabbling for my neck. The face is all gaping mouth and blood-clotted beard, but the backward baseball hat tells me exactly who he is.

Or was.

Tyler’s perpetually yellow sclera with their webs of capillaries broken from years of puking are now a blinding blue-white, the pupils and irises completely eaten away. A long strip of gristly flesh hangs out of his glistening mouth, maybe belonging to the former resident of 2G, unclear.

Doesn’t prove he’s a zombie, though. Right? Right?

My elbow reacts first. A hard, pointed thrust that catches Tyler just under the chin. The impact sends him staggering into my suitcase, then his door, and I watch with horror as the Travel Baby Double Spinner Pro with Easy Glide Wheels zings effortlessly past him, disappearing deep inside apartment 2F with Walter and all my weapons. My tools.

My vibrator.