Chapter #5Life of the Living Dead by: BeeJay   My name is Trish Tallman. I'm 19. I'll always be 19.
I had a rough home life. My mom died when I was 10; the cops suspected my father had more to do with it than he let on, but they couldn't prove it.
Did Dad love me? In a manner of speaking: the manner where you want a cigarette afterwards, if you know what I mean. I put up with that for two years, and then I ran away. Anything, I thought, has to be better than this.
I might have thought that; unfortunately, being a kid on her own in Louisville, Kentucky, doesn't give you a lot of options for putting food in your belly and clothes on your back. It wasn't long before I was turning tricks; as you can imagine, it didn't seem much like progress.
Then, some folks opened up a mission in the red-light district. After two years of doing everything the johns wanted, I decided to take my chances again. This time, my luck turned good. I got to eat regularly, wear clothes that covered more of what my mom gave me, and even go to school; all without telling anyone that I was younger than I was (yeah, I had to do that a lot), or hearing those awful words: "Bitch better have my money."
When I graduated, I didn't have enough to pay for college, and I damn sure wasn't going back to my old line of work. However, it was enough to get me a position at this chemical plant. I went in, confident that this would lead to bigger and better things.
It didn't.
******************************
Bill, my supervisor, was a piece of work. Well, he was a piece of something, but I promised the folks at the mission that I wasn't going to use those words anymore. Even though he was old enough to be my dad, he undressed me with his eyes, and slapped me on my fanny whenever he walked by. But he walked me through my duties well enough, and I resolved to put up with him only as long as I had to.
Over lunch, I asked him, "What's the weirdest thing you've ever seen here?"
He chuckled. "Little missy," he said, "I've seen some weird shit come, and I've seen some weird shit go; but the weirdest shit ever... well, that just beat all." He leaned across the desk. "Did you ever see that old movie, Night of the Living Dead?"
"That's the one where zombies eat people, right? Don't tell me that's the weirdest thing."
"Well, did you know that that movie was based on a true story?"
"You're putting me on."
"I'm dead serious."
"But that movie had zombies all over the world."
He waved his hand. "The people who made that movie had to change everything, so the government wouldn't shut them down. I heard the real story from my boss. Would you like to hear it?"
I nodded.
"It was back in 1966, up by Pittsburgh. They were working on some new chemical; well, the stuff got out, and it killed some people; and then, those dead people got up and started attacking people. The government got things contained before more than three dozen people got killed, and they put the dead ones in these steel drums, you know?"
"So how did your boss hear about all that?"
"Because the government screwed up, is how. Those steel drums were supposed to go to some top-secret facility, but they got shipped here by mistake."
"That is weird," I said, getting back to my sandwich.
Bill looked at me with a gleam in his eye. "Wanna see 'em?"
"See what?"
He rolled his eyes. "One Direction getting back together. What have we been talking about?"
My eyes widened. "You mean they're still here?"
"What else are you gonna do with a bunch of canned zombies?" He cocked his head, indicating we should go, and got up.
Naturally, I followed.
Deep into the basement we went, until we came to a group of steel 55-gallon drums. Each one had the words WARNING: ZONTATHANATOXIN in stenciled letters, with IN CASE OF EMERGENCY CALL 1-347-555-8177 underneath that.
"Take a closer look," Bill said; "they're not doing anything."
I stepped closer, and gasped. In the top of the barrels was a glass window, allowing me to see a dead body in each one. "They're all dead, right? I mean, for real?"
"Let's find out," Bill said, and slapped the side of the drum.
I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt, and say that he didn't expect anything to happen. But something did happen: The drum burst open, and this stinky yellow gas came out.
Bill and I collapsed to the floor, coughing.  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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