Zombie Tales: Primrose Court Apt. 305 (6 page)

“Hey, Mathew,” I said to the man
outside Colby's door, “I'd go get some help if I was you. You hurt
Colby really bad and he could press charges for
assault.”

“Fuckin' right I'm going to press
charges,” Colby shouted, “Fuckin' bit a chunk right out of my arm.”
I could see over the wall that Colby was getting pale and
sweaty.

I stepped back down off the
toilet and tried to find a comfortable way to sit on the edge of
the seat to wait for rescue. Several minutes passed with the only
sounds being Colby's heavy breathing and Mathew’s occasional
–
thump
- on his
stall door.

“What's he doing?” Colby asked me after
a few moments of silence had passed.

“I don't know. I can't see him,” I told
Colby.

“Well, I think he's sick or something.
He looked pale and sweaty to me. You should climb up on the divider
and have a look.”

“What am I Spiderman? You climb up and
have a look.”

“Don, don't be a pussy. I'm bleeding
like a stuck pig here, just hoist yourself up onto the divider and
look over my door, see what that bastard is doing.”

-
thump
-
thump
-

“Fuck you, asshole! Why don't you just
go away?” Colby yelled frantically at Mathew.

Colby was a nervous wreck now. I
couldn't imagine what he was going through. The last fight I had
been in was in the fourth grade, I lost that one, but she didn’t
even draw blood.

I sat there zoning out on the wall that
separated us, doing the multiplication table in my head, and
wracking my brain. There had to be some way out of this. I mean
Marcy was what... thirty feet down the hall. My desk was another
fifty feet beyond that. It was business as usual out there and here
we were trapped in the restroom by some rabid skater
kid.

“Don, get your ass up there and tell me
what he's doing,” Colby cried, then calmer, “Look the kid is like
five foot nothing, he won't be able to reach you, just peek
over.”

“Fine I'll have a look,” I said, more
to calm him down than anything. I glanced at my watch,
2:09.

CHAPTER THREE

Now I wasn't the most athletic guy in
the world. Like most thirty-something Americans, I was about twenty
pounds heavier than I should have been and I hadn't used my gym
membership in more than a few months. I paid for a full year in
January, but life had interrupted my new year's resolution before
Valentine’s Day rolled around.

Still, it shouldn't have been so hard
for me to spring up onto the edge of the divider and balance myself
there while I shifted into a good vantage point above Colby's door.
The alloy frame of the divider was digging into my knees and I
tried to roll my left leg to disperse my weight as I inched into
position over the scene below.

I was finally able to catch a glimpse
of my first zombie; of course, at the time, it was just the guy
who’d had a beef with Colby. I know what you’re probably thinking,
how could you not know it was a zombie. Well let me tell you, when
they are that fresh, they look like everyone else. This guy was a
little thin and maybe a little bit pale, but other than that, he
looked much like any average Joe on the street, except he had blood
on his mouth from biting Colby.

“He's just standing there,” I said down
to Colby. The guy tried to walk forward thumping his face against
the stall door a few times, “he definitely ain't all there, that's
for sure.”

When I got no response from Colby, I
looked down at him. He appeared to have passed out. I backed up and
slid my body down the divider into my stall again. I sat there on
the edge of the toilet seat huffing and puffing. I really needed to
get into shape. After several more minutes had passed, I had caught
my breath and I noticed Colby wasn't breathing hard
anymore.

“Hey, Colby?” I asked into the
silence.

Mathew thumping the door a few more
times was the only response. He had moved back to bang his face
against my stall again. I could see the tips of his shoes from
where I sat.

I briefly weighed the idea of lying
down on the floor and trying to slide under the alloy walls of the
stalls to the area by the urinals. If I was quiet, I might be able
to get out of the restroom without Mathew even knowing I was gone.
There was about a foot of empty space under the walls and I didn't
think I could manage it. I'm not a fat guy, but squeezing under
there would be tight. Plus, Colby had bled all over the floor in
his unit and I wasn't keen on the thought of squirming through that
puddle.

I then pictured myself wedged under
that wall with Colby bleeding to death on the toilet above me when
help finally came. I could just picture the rest of the office
holding back their laughter as the fire department dismantled the
aluminum alloy wall pinning me to the tile floor.

I figured since I had already been
climbing around the restroom like it was my own personal jungle
gym, I would make my way across the top of the stalls and then
lower myself down to the floor. I hoped this weirdo only had a
thing for Colby and if I just stayed out of it, I'd be all
right.

I pulled myself back up on the wall,
taking a moment to look down at Colby. He was sprawled, back
against the chrome pipes behind the toilet. The thin hair on his
head was matted with sweat and his face was pale. His bloody arm
was rolled palm up and suspended between his knees. Streaks of
blood ran from the angry wound on his forearm down to his wrist
where it dripped into the large puddle at his feet. There was a lot
of blood.

I felt like an idiot shifting around on
top of the stalls just inches from the ceiling. If someone had
walked in at that moment, I would have been hard pressed to explain
myself. Slowly, I crossed the stall Colby occupied, moving from our
adjoining wall across his door to the next wall over. I pushed the
door of the last stall shut so I could use it to cross to the last
wall, but also to keep Mathew Stubs out.

As I got my knees on Colby's other wall
I felt his hands grip my right leg. I flipped my left leg over the
divider and yelled as my crotch was planted firmly on the one inch
wide partition. Slipping sideways, I lunged and caught the last
wall with my left hand, stopping my fall. I hung suspended above
the toilet, clinging to one wall and straddling the other. My
muscles strained, I wouldn't be able to hold myself up for much
longer.

“What the fuck, Colby,” I shouted,
tugging at my leg, trying to break his grasp. I felt pressure on
the toe of my dress shoe, “let go you asshole.”

The pressure increased as I curled my
toes up and yanked my leg out of his hands. I fell, a mass of
flailing arms and legs, landing hard on my back half on the toilet
in the cramped little space two stalls over from where I started. I
had the wind knocked out of me and could feel a giant Charlie horse
just under my left shoulder blade where I connected with the edge
of the U shaped seat of the porcelain toilet.

“You are a fucking asshole,” I yelled
at Colby's shoes, not more than two feet away from my face as I
laid on the floor in his blood, “That wasn't funny, you
bastard.”

Colby didn't say anything. I could see
from where I laid on the floor that Mathew was on the move again.
He was shifting toward my new stall using that old man gate of his.
I scrambled up to my knees and slid the lock into place just as he
reached the door.

It took me several minutes to recover
most of my composure and some of my dignity as I twisted and
turned, trying to right myself in the close confines of the little
cubicle. I took a few moments to rest on the edge of the plastic
seat. I cupped my hand over my scrotum through my slacks, wondering
if I had torn it or if it just felt like it. I was missing my right
shoe and probably would have bruises all over from the way Colby
had grabbed me and from my fall.

“Give me my fucking shoe back, Colby,”
I said as I stepped up onto the toilet and looked over the divider,
I was pissed now. Sure, they were only Payless, dress shoes, buy
one pair get the second half off, but I felt like a dumbass sitting
there with only one.

Colby was standing in the next stall
reaching up at me with my shoe in his mouth.

“Quit fucking around,” I said,
snatching at my shoe, I had to jerk hard to break it free from his
clenched teeth, “Jesus Christ, Colby, how can you joke around at a
time like this? You could be fucking bleeding to death. I've got
you're fucking blood all over me now,” I added as I looked at the
smears all down my right leg. I was sure that his blood was all
over my back from lying on the floor, but I couldn't very well turn
my head around to see how bad my shirt was stained.

Sitting back down on my toilet, I
untied my shoe and put it back on. There were ragged teeth marks in
the fake leather, but it was better than not having it. I hadn't
had time to do my laundry over the weekend, so the thin, black
socks I was wearing were old and had a few holes in
them.

I took a minute to rest after my
ordeal. My watch showed 2:46. Damn near two hours had passed and
nobody had come to rescue us. Hell, nobody had even come to use the
john.

I climbed back up onto the edge of the
toilet seat. My legs were very shaky now from all the exertion. I
leaned close to look down into Colby's stall. There was something
not right. Colby had pulled some awful practical jokes around the
office over the years, but he was also kind of a clean freak, so
having my shoe in his mouth was more of a joke on him than
me.

I peeked over, and then snatched my
head back quickly, nearly slipping off my precarious perch. Colby
was reaching up at me again, his outstretched fingers just inches
from my face as he thumped against the wall between us.

I heard his assailant shuffle at the
door of my new stall and thump against it with his face. I could
see his DC shoes under the door again.

“Stop playing around, Colby,” I
admonished him, “If you want me to get help, you'll change your
attitude quick.” I wasn't going to rush out of the restroom and
just leave him with this maniac, but I did deserve a little
respect; I mean, shit, I was crawling over the toilets for this
accounts payable piece of crap and he had the nerve to pull a stunt
like he did. I mean what kind of dumbass bites a man's shoe and
thinks it’s funny?

I stepped up onto the chrome fixture to
get a little more height and peered over to Colby's side again. His
movements were slow and jerky. The wound on his arm had turned
black and was ringed in layers of purple, brown, and yellow
bruising. Colby's eyes were what finally clued me in; they were
glazed like a Krispy Kreme donut, and I don't just mean the white
parts, both of his entire eyes were glazed, iris, pupils,
everything.

I could still see traces of color
underneath, like you can see traces of the yolk through the milky,
white exterior of a poached egg.

I'm not embarrassed to say I cried, not
for Colby. I mean sure, Colby worked in the same office and we got
along alright, but it's not like we were close friends. I didn't
even know his wife's name...wait, was Colby even married? Anyway,
you get my point.

My tears were induced by a veritable
tsunami of emotions. Fear was a driving factor. Revulsion, is that
an emotion? I think now that I was grieving. Sure, I hadn't lost
anybody or anything yet, but as I looked at Colby, I knew... I knew
that because of what had happened to this balding, borderline
obese, accounts payable drone, my world would never be the
same.

I may never get to hold my son, Bobby,
again. I may never get to apologize to my ex-wife for all the
things I didn’t do when our marriage was falling apart. I may not
even get out of this God forsaken men's room alive. Picturing
myself dead, but moving around like Colby and making it out of the
men's room brought on another torrent of tears.

About the
Author

I was born in 1974 in
Bremerton, Washington. I moved to Bellingham, Washington at the age
of four and have been here ever since.
I love living in the Pacific
Northwest about two months out of the year. The other ten months it
rains.
Constant rain gives me plenty of time to read and write.
While I'm hooked on writing horror right now, I enjoy many other
genres.
My
favorite author is Robin Hobb, who also lives in the northwest. She
is the award winning Fantasy author of Assassin's Apprentice and
several sequels.
I have one son. I named him Chance. He is currently six going
on fifteen. We are both currently enrolled in school, but I am a
few grades ahead of him.

You can find more from this author at his
home page on Smashwords

Robert DeCoteau-Smashwords

You can also friend him on Facebook:

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DeCoteau Author