ago and had gone unnoticed. Until now. Rising up under the control of the zombie parasites, he had no conscious thoughts, per se, just an overwhelming desire to feed.
As the maintenance man had been young and otherwise healthy when he was infected, he moved with greater speed and agility than the average zombie, and went straight for the two people carrying the bloody corpse. They were all quickly converging on Gary and his SUV, but Janine and David were so focused on carrying Peggy they never saw the maintenance man coming. When the new zombie, with arms outstretched and jaws snapping, was just a few feet from Janine, Gary raced forward and struck him in the head with a special emergency hammer designed to break car windows and windshields in case accident victims were trapped. Putting all his strength into the blow, the pointed hammer easily shattered the maintenance worker’s skull. He fell hard, his jaw snapped once more, and then the crazed look vanished from his eyes and he actually looked peaceful—or as peaceful as one could look with a gaping hole in his skull, oozing blood and bits of brain.
Gary told Janine to open the rear passenger door of his vehicle, and then took Peggy’s body in his arms and rushed to place her on the seat. Searching for a pulse, he found none, but didn’t have the heart to tell David, who had already climbed into the back seat and was tenderly cradling his wife’s body, whispering comforting assurances. Gary promised to take them to Nyack Hospital, and he was equally anxious to leave the Palisades Center now, as people were streaming out and the parking lots were scenes of pandemonium with everyone running for their lives and punching and pulling people out of their cars to get away faster.
Janine jumped in the front passenger seat and Gary locked all the doors. One couple actually threw themselves on the hood of his SUV in their frenzy to escape, but both were flung clear as Gary sped around tight turns and dodged vehicles and people as he raced for the exit. Everywhere, cars were colliding with one another—and with people—as their survival instincts quickly turned savage.
Sirens wailed in the distance as all of the ambulances and Zombie Action Patrol units had been dispatched from Rockland and Westchester counties. Local police and fire companies had also responded to the numerous, frantic 911 calls, but many of these first responders were blocked from entering the Palisades Center parking lots as cars were now pouring out of the exits as well as the entrances, creating a logjam of traffic. Gary’s SUV threaded through the obstacle course and just managed to squeeze between a Mercedes and a BMW, while scraping the length of both, to get to freedom and the New York State Thruway heading east.
During the several minutes it took to drive to the emergency room entrance of Nyack Hospital, Gary and Janine were silent, listening to the pathetic words of hope and encouragement David still spoke to his dead wife. Not waiting for a gurney, David tenderly lifted his wife’s body and carried her into the emergency room. Only then did Gary speak.
“You okay? Were you bitten or scratched?”
“No, I… I’m not hurt. But my friends, they…” her voice trailed away and she returned to stunned silence.
“Look, I’m an EMT, and I’m going to stay here to see if I can help. There are going to be a lot of casualties coming in. Is there someone to call to come get you?”
It took a moment for his words to register, but then she mumbled something about wanting to help, too.
“Go home, you’ve been through enough,” he said as he was about to place a hand on her arm, but realized the rubber glove still had blood on it from the zombie he had killed. “On second thought, come inside and get cleaned up and disinfected first.”
Janine glanced down at all the blood, as images of Reggie, Ella, the little boy, and Peggy swirled in her overwhelmed mind. Like a robot, she entered the hospital where an infection specialist helped her remove her wet and sticky clothes, wash and disinfect her body, check for any signs of wounds, and conduct an interview about whose blood she had been covered in. Only after she received written permission to leave, did Janine call her parents and experience a tearful reunion. Before driving off, however, she ran back into the hospital to thank Gary, who was surrounded by the suffering and dying, but he still took a moment to wish her luck and tell her to stay safe.
Gary worked through the night as ZAP team members hovered around the emergency room like vultures. Anyone who had been bitten or splattered with zombie blood on unprotected skin was immediately taken away after their wounds were bandaged. Gary saw the little boy with the amputated fingers and the man from the theater, who had been bitten in the back of the leg, being escorted to an unmarked van in the parking lot. He lost count at around 24 or 25 such cases. The dead bodies—other than Peggy’s—never made it to the hospital. They were bagged and immediately brought to a containment facility where they would be burned as soon as they were identified. Official statistics were never publicly released, but one local reporter claimed that a trusted source told her that a total of 32 zombies had been put down by the ZAP patrol, and 47 employees and customers had been killed.
What no one knew at that time, was that dozens of additional people had become infected that day from ZIP eggs spread from the zombies’ breath, sweat, and saliva. Anyone touching infected surfaces, or getting close enough to inhale a zombie’s exhalation, began to feel symptoms within a couple of weeks. And within a month, they unintentionally began infecting their families, friends, coworkers, and fellow commuters on the trains and buses. Like massive lines of dominoes standing on edge and waiting to fall, the infection spread exponentially and people began switching in droves, clearly tipping the scales in favor of the undead.
David never recovered from the terrible loss of his dear wife. Locking himself in his home, he stopped eating and preferred to leave this life on his own terms, rather than suffer the same hideous fate of his wife, or worse. He didn’t have the courage or will to use a gun or pills, and just quietly withered away and finally ceased to breathe. In the ensuing mass hysteria and anarchy, no one ever noticed that he was gone.
Janine never went away to college. Both of her parents and her older brother were taken away to containment facilities in the following weeks. She took her younger brother and sister to a neighbor’s house where a group of other survivors gathered. They boarded up the windows, eventually learned to fight and scavenge for supplies, and did whatever it took to try to live another day.
Gary devoted himself to caring for the wounded and infected until all the hospitals were abandoned. Even then, he gathered medical supplies and did what he could to help survivors in his home. He also had to learn the hard lesson of dealing with those hopeless cases who begged him to prevent them from switching to zombies. And he didn’t feel a thing when his fiancée stormed out, claiming that he cared more for strangers than for her. In truth, he realized that she was right.
The Palisades Center never recovered from the disastrous Apocalypse Sale. Within weeks, stores began closing their doors, and the entire place shut down soon after. When quarantine was over and society’s infrastructure collapsed, leaving everyone on their own, the place was overrun with looters. However, once all the food was taken from the restaurants, even the looters stopped coming.
Once in a while, packs of zombies found their way through the broken doors, and staggered through the dark expanse of the Palisades Center, much like dazed and exhausted patrons used to do after a long day of shopping. These zombies rarely were able to find their way back outside, so day by day, and month by month, one of the country’s largest shopping malls became filled with wandering corpses. The First and Last Annual Apocalypse Sale had led to wholesale slaughter, and it remained to be seen if the living would ever again enter this monument to death.
***
If you enjoyed this story, please check out the novels “HVZA: Hudson Valley Zombie Apocalypse,” and “HVZA: Hudson Valley Zombie Apocalypse 2,” available in both print and E-books. You may also enjoy the “HVZA: The Graphic Novel.”
The HVZA books have been called “riveting page-turners” that are
“terrifyingly realistic,” providing a “gripping, edge of your seat read.”
For more information on the books and author, go to
www.hvzombie.com
or
www.gotozim.com
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