I arrived at the old store at about half past five. The sun had set completely, leaving everything to rely on street lights. On a chilly November night, those lights seemed cold.
It didn’t help that this part of Wurtemburg Avenue had not been modernized. The sodium lights, with their unnatural yellow color, stood widely apart. Scattered potholes revealed the remains of an earlier brick street from days long gone. Many of the buildings with brick facades and boarded windows sat lightless, unused, the unburied remainders of businesses that died. Faded paint peeled from old signs.
Yep, this was definitely the place for a Zombie Walk office.
I parked in front of the store since there were no designated parking spaces. Doing my traditional zombie investigation precheck of flashlight and notebook, I locked the door of the van and headed to the store.
True to its time period, the store was narrow with a single door in the front middle. Two wooden steps led to a narrow landing before the door itself. On each side, large windows would have shown the insides, if there was enough light. The dust covering the glass kept my flashlight beam from penetrating.
Carefully testing their strength before putting my full weight on them, I slowly climbed the stairs.
So far, so good.
Though the stairs bowed slightly, they held. That would do until I could fish the keys out of my pocket.
The door itself was a wood framed job with two large, glass panels, one on top and one on the bottom. The handle looked like it was bronze, or made to look bronze, at one point. Above it, the keyhole suggested that the lock was much newer than the rest of the door. The brand name on the lock matched the newer of the keys that Muntz had given me.
Time to go in.
The door opened smoothly, which surprised me. I expected some resistance, or at least a menacing squeak.
I panned my flashlight around the room. Someone removed the store fixtures long ago. I had expected an old meat case and maybe a counter where an old-timey clerk would fetch dry goods from the shelves for gingham-clothed customers while the customer’s kids struggled to eye the penny candy. That probably happened at one point.
Instead, the room and its walls stood bare. As best I could tell, plaster covered the walls and ceiling. The white-ish color reflected my flashlight well enough, in the uncracked parts. At least the wood planks of the floor matched my imaginings. Otherwise, it was just a large, empty room with four support pillars from floor to ceiling.
The light fell on a door in the back corner. It looked to be wood, with eight panels and sturdy old hinges. I guessed that it led to the second floor.
Carefully checking each step, I crossed the old wood floor to the door on the other side. Muntz said the upstairs was not really usable, but while I was checking the place, I probably needed to check it thoroughly. Who knew what kind of trouble I had gotten myself into.
This door also opened easily, revealing a small hallway, or more of a landing. One set of steps led up, another set led down, presumably to the basement, and then there was a door. The single window in the door showed that it went outside into the alley behind the building.
The worrisome part of the stairs going up was the light.
The stairs went upward about half the height of the first floor, and then turned. From around that turn there was a light. It may have been green or yellow; it was faint.
My brain did the strange thing where it argued with itself. Part said that some street light had made it through a window. Another part pointed out that the windows were boarded up. But old wood on the windows could easily peel, allowing a small crack. But if it’s not the street light, then it is probably something bad and running away is the best course of action.
The problem with these arguments is that they don’t stop another part of my brain that then decides that I’m the fearless zombie hunter and that I should do something. Before I really knew what I was doing, my flashlight was off and I was carefully crawling up the stairs.
Everybody knows that you need to put your weight on the sides of stairs to avoid making noise. Distributing your weight on hands and feet can make even less noise and keep you low to avoid being seen. Why I knew that and thought that everybody else did will be a forever mystery, just like the reason why I went up the stairs.
As I started around the turn to the second half of the stairs, I thought I heard some sort of noise. How I heard it over the pounding of my heart, I don’t know. That sound should have stopped me then and there.
It didn’t.
A little further and I could see that the light was a mix of small lights in different colors, like Christmas lights. Someone was using Christmas lights to light up the second floor. At least I knew the electricity worked up there. Why wasn’t I running away?
Within moments, I was high enough on the stairs that I could see into the room. It was the same size as the store below, but with two-by-fours standing where the framed interior walls should be. The bricks of the exterior walls showed clearly. None of that was an issue.
Three men sat, leaning against the frame studs. They appeared to be in their late teens to early twenties. They wore jeans and winter work coats but looked messy. Beer bottles and snack food wrappers littered the floor around them. One seemed to be dozing or trying to.
As much as I hated to see those guys, the other people were worse. Three old, decaying corpses hung to the studs, held in place by Christmas lights.
Oh crap.
Judging by the clothes, I assumed that the corpses were the ones recently stolen. If those were the corpses, then the three men were probably Johnny Franks’ friends.
Oh crap.
Finally, good sense kicked in and I started my careful descent down the stairs.
I needed to get down, get outside, and then call the police. Maybe drive away and then call the police. Either way, getting down the stairs without alerting the bad guys was step one.
The creaking noise blared through the stairwell.
Oops.
I froze.
“Did you guys hear something?” asked one of the men.
“What?”
“I said I thought I heard something,” said the first man.
“Who cares?”
“There may be somebody down there.”
“Well,” said the second man, “go look.”
“I don’t want to go look,” said the first.
“Then shut up about it,” said the second.
There was a brief pause.
“What if it’s the cops?” asked the first.
“Crap,” said the second.
Another pause.
“We better all go,” said the first. “If it is the cops, then we can all get out the back.”
“Screw it,” said the second, “You get Sleeping Beauty here and we’ll go.”
They started moving.
Hoping that the noise of their movement would cover my own sounds, I sped my climb down the stairs. Once low enough, I stood instead of crawling so I could go faster.
The sounds of the three suggested that the sleeping one was moving but not easily. I guessed that he was either high or drunk. Either way, it slowed their pursuit and that gave me an advantage.
Or so I thought.
I made it to the store and was trying to move to the front door when the door to the stairs opened.
One of the men came through, saw me and pointed his flashlight at me. “Got you!”
Almost immediately after his cry, the second man came in and stood next to the first. The second was half a head taller than the first, and much wider at the shoulder.
The third man stumbled down the stairs while the rest of us stood still, not knowing what to do.
When the third one came in, he blinked as he looked around before his eyes finally settled on me. He seemed to stare as his brain did some sort of work. Finally, it accomplished its goal and spat out, “That’s the zombie guy!”
I froze and prepared to run, possibly through one of the front windows until I noticed something. When the wasted one identified me, all three of them pulled back as though recoiling in horror.
Some instinct raised my hand in front of me as though showing them some talisman to ward off evil. It took a moment to realize that I had the coral amulet in my hand.
The men looked at each other and then at me. It was obvious they weren’t sure what to do, but it wouldn’t take long to realize that my trinket wasn’t doing anything to them.
The third man started shaking his head from side to side. “Oh no, man. Oh no, man. I ain’t messing with this.” He turned and ran back through the door. Then we heard the back door of the building slam shut. He was gone.
That left me with just the two, but they were the more rational two.
As though practiced, they both stepped toward me.
I think some sound escaped my lips, but I’m not sure.
I stepped back and then again.
The men rushed me.
I turned to run toward the door.
Somehow, I tripped over my own feet, wheeling around and crashing back-first into one of the support columns.
The column gave way under the force. The ceiling fell in, dropping plaster, two-by-fours, and three old corpses wrapped in Christmas lights.
As I fell backwards, I watched the thugs stop in their tracks, staring at the dangling bodies swinging between them and the zombie guy. As the dead swayed, the garish lights flashed around in the falling dust and debris.
They turned to run, fighting to get the door open.
In the front of the store, my fall landed me near the window. Something hit my head. I was out.
Afterward
I awoke in the hospital.
Between Hannah and Hargrave, I got most of the story of what happened.
The scared thug ran out of the building and into the street and just kept running. Eventually, he ran into the path of one of the sheriff’s department vehicles, almost getting hit in the process. Through his babbling, the deputy figured out that he was in bad shape and that his buddies were in danger in a building somewhere.
At the same time, an ambulance was already on its way to the storefront. A jogger with his dog had to stop by the store window because the dog would not budge, instead choosing to stand and bark at the window. The jogger eventually noticed the hand of a person holding a pendant of some sort. The person seemed to be buried under a bunch of fallen stuff.
Between the sheriff’s office, fire department, and ambulance, the bad guys were arrested, the corpses recovered, and I was rescued. When I didn’t come home, Hannah contacted the police and reported me missing and said that I was headed to the store. That brought everyone together.
My injuries were minor, but there were plenty of them. Mostly scratches from broken boards and stuff. Since the boards were very dirty and since I had a head injury, the hospital kept me for a couple of days.
In the long run, the bad guys went to prison. The corpses returned to their graves. The story of swinging corpses defending the zombie guy went viral, which helped the Zombie Walk be a huge success. It became an annual part of the Founders Day celebration every June, the Walk, not the swinging corpses.
Stan and Mrs. Sweigert married and moved in together. They got the apartment building up to code and fully rented. Then they built two more.
Rick advised me to buy Stan’s farm as a real estate investment, handled by Ed Muntz. While working on the careful demolition of the burnt house, we were able to salvage a few heirlooms for Stan. The best being a dresser that, though scorched, was mostly in one piece and had a drawer full of old photos.
The Revenant Rangers started selling merchandise and memberships, which would put all three of them through college. They coordinated it with the Abish County Museum of Pioneers and Zombies, run by the newly married Mrs. Hannah Hunt.
My life has been pretty good, though I still haven’t found any zombies.
Nobody knows why the coral amulet makes dogs bark.