ZombieMart - A Contemporary Fantasy Short Story

ZombieMart - Part 3) Zombies! (1st Draft)

If you are looking for good life advice, one thing I can offer you is that you should never let yourself become trapped on top of storage racks in a warehouse while surrounded by stinky, icky colored zombie producing mist.

It's a bit specific I suppose, but I think it holds true for everyone.

While working night shift at Supermart 13 isn't exactly what you'd call fun, I can honestly say it had never been this unpleasant before.  Admittedly up here on top of the shelves I was probably fairly safe. I don't imagine zombie training involves much climbing. It's more about biting things and moaning probably.

But I had two immediate worries. The first was that the shelving I was standing on  was now completely surrounded by the increasingly foul smelling green mist. The second, was all the screams I could now hear coming from the store itself.  If this outbreak wasn't contained we could be talking a full scale zombie apocalypse. And that was not on my list of things to do at the weekend.

Bethany seemed to have been reduced to some sort of semi-catatonic hysteria. Every now and then she would whimper, but she wasn't going to be much use for anything. Since there really wasn't a safer place for her to be right now I decided to leave her be.

If I couldn't climb down from here, my only option was to go across. The warehouse was full of these shelf units so if I could get over to the other side I could probably work my way down to the end and maybe see out into the store itself. If I could get over.

The gap between my shelving unit and the other side looked alarmingly largely. I'm not scared of heights normally, but I don't usually try to long jump while 20 feet in the air either.

If I had been a little better prepared I might have had some magic to give me a boost.  There are a few options, it's possible to briefly reduce the effect of gravity and it's also possible to boost strength.  Unfortunately I didn't have anything suitable ready to go. I came here expecting to pack shelves, not play Captain America.

Still, who doesn't want to be Captain America? So I took a few steps back, mustered a rough approximation of courage and jumped.

I made it too. Sort of.  More precisely, I slammed stomach first into the edge of the shelving and clung on for dear life. Fortunately there's a lot of holes and things for fingers to grip on the shelving  so I wasn't in any immediate danger of falling down. Also fortunately I was at least half way onto the shelf itself so I was able to pull myself the rest of the way without too much effort.

At which point I rolled over and considered just closing my eyes and waiting for it to all go away.  But the screams weren't going to go away. So I pushed myself back to my feet and walked along to the end of the shelves.

From here I could see out into the store a short way. The green mist was gradually spreading out there too, although more slowly in that much wider space. But it was the zombies that were the real problem. They were attacking unfortunate shoppers like a feral pack. A slow and awkwardly moving one perhaps, but it was effective enough as the surprised shoppers were dragged down and my former colleagues savagely bit and ripped the flesh from their victims bodies.

If I was a positive sort of person I would point out how fortunate it was that it was the night shift and there weren't actually that many shoppers in the store. But that didn't help the ones who were there did it?

I had to do something. The problem was what exactly. An unprepared wizard against a zombie horde is not a good scenario. On the other hand, these creatures were not moving fast. Plus I was much more aware of the situation than the unfortunate shoppers and, I like to think, a little quicker on the uptake.

Besides, it's not like I really had a choice. I cautiously lowered myself over the edge of the shelf and began to climb down. Oddly enough going down was much more unsettling than going up, it's probably because I had to keep looking down to find my footing.

I should have looked down a little more often though. Because half way down I felt the firm but strangely cool grip of a hand around my ankle. Swiftly followed by a sharp tug that almost pulled me clear from the racks.

I admit it, I panicked. I screamed. It was probably a deep and manly scream, but it might not have been. Somehow I managed to cling on to the steel and resist the tugging on my leg. But gravity was against me and eventually the zombie thing would probably realize it could just bite my leg anyway.

I hadn't actually see these zombies turn others by biting them, but I've seen the movies, I know how this works. I tried to pull myself back up again, but the zombie wasn't letting go.

I glanced down thinking that maybe I could kick it and make it let go and found myself staring into the blank and strangely dead eyes of Maggie. And I froze.

It's not that Maggie and I are friends or anything, and one look at her face would tell you that Maggie wasn't even home right now. But, I couldn't do it. I couldn't kick her in the face.

Maggie's face contorted with animalistic hunger and her fingers dug into my ankle as she pulled relentlessly.