Chapter 1: Meet the Malton Nightlife
“Can I get you anything else hon?”
The waitress asked between smacks of her bubblegum, though her tone said that the real question was whether or not she was going to be forced to jump through any more hoops for the promise of a meager tip or if she could go on break, have her much needed cigarette in the fenced smoking area, and talk to her coworkers about the assholes who come in at three in the morning. She was blonde—or at least she was now—and looked to be about twenty-five, though the lines around her eyes made a good case for a hundred and three.
“Bob” looked up at her with glassy eyes and a toothy smile that appeared painted onto his all-too-plastic-looking face. Gripped between his teeth was a straight briar pipe that jutted out at a right angle.
Squinting at her nametag, he replied “no thank you … Saalleey, I was just waiting for some friends. I think I will just finish this …bacon? It is bacon isn’t it?”
“Yeah, about that. The fucking zombies got into our meat shipment again so we just picked up some bacon dog treats from the pet store in the mall and have been frying them up in butter. I can tell the cook you don’t like them but I wouldn’t suggest it; the last guy who raised a fuss about the food made quite a mess before the cook cleared the rest of him out through the door. Not much of him left now after the zeds went at it. I have to say, they do a lot better job clearing up than the janitor we used to have a few years back. These days we just leave the doors open every few days, hide in the cellar, and when we come back up, clean as can be after a bit of mopping up. No leftovers and no vagrant army boys passed out on the bar.”
She said all of this with a matter of fact tone as she stared off towards the back door which represented sweet nicotine release. After a time she looked at the man at the table a bit irritated and repeated “so anything else?”
“Bob”s expression had not changed. He still stared at her with the same gormless grin. A single small plume of cloying smoke escaped from the end of his pipe and wafted towards the ceiling.
“No thank you ma’am” he replied.
Smiling, she turned to leave, taking a half-smoked cigarette out of a pocket in her apron, when he called after her: “Just keep the coffee coming if you would please?”
Grumbling the most unpleasant thing she could think of under her breath, Sally tucked the cigarette back into her apron and went to the back to retrieve the coffee pot from the stained and cracked burner. Returning to the table, she moved to pour some coffee into the chipped ceramic Hello Kitty mug in front of her difficult customer. The liquid had just reached the end of the pouring spout when she saw that his cup was already full to the brim.
She slammed the coffee pot down, allowing some of the thick black coffee to spill over onto the table in front of him.
“Listen!” she said between aggravated smacks of her gum, “you are getting on my very last nerve. You and that god damned smile of yours can just pay for your food and get the hell out of this bar! What do you have to smile about anyways? No one in Malton smiles!”
“Bob” continued to stare and smile as if waiting for something else that had yet to be said but was of significantly more importance than what had been said already. Another plume of multi-colored smoke escaped the end of his pipe.
“And there is no smoking in here! Do you think that just because the world ended, you can do whatever the hell you want? The minister of health says no smoking so, zombies or no, you better put that thing out!”
At this, “Bob” reached into the pockets of his clean and pressed suit coat and produced a pistol clip. “This should about cover the food” producing another two and laying them all on the table he added “This should cover the pipe, and this one is for you if you are willing to do a guy a favor.”
Sally looked down at the clips and her eyes sparkled like a dry heave on a tile floor: an unclean glimmer, colored by the sins of the past. Within seconds she reigned in her emotions and looked suspiciously at him.
“And what does a girl have to do for a tip like that? Because I will let you know that not everything in this bar is for sale.”
“Bob” merely continued to smile at her, and, though his teeth never seemed to part, his voice came to her in a low whisper.
“Some friends of mine are going to come in past your barricades any time now. I do not know who they are or what they look like but my third nostril will whiffread them when they get here. All I want you to do is add a bit to the barricades so they cannot get out and go out through the back and have your cigarette.”
“what are you going to do?” She asked.
“I intend to shoot them both…and maybe that guy at the bar too. I don't know why but I get the fealing I should.”
“well,” She replied with a shrug “that is going to cost you one more clip. I think the guy at the bar was going to tip.”
“Fair enough” said “Bob” producing one more clip from his pocket. “but if you would please keep that coffee coming and bring me some more of that marvelous bacon.”
Sally looked down and was surprised to see that his cup was indeed empty, though she never saw him drink from it, and his bacon was gone, leaving only a greasy spot on the plate where it had once been. Figuring that she must have missed it, Sally reached for the for the clips when “Bob” surprised her by putting his hand over hers before she could take them. The muscles in her hand tensed in alarm.
“But before you take these,” “Bob” started through his enamel and plastic smile “why don't you let me tell you about another alternative investment opportunity? All it takes is a little money down now and I can offer you big payoffs or triple your investment. What do you say? Interested?”
“Bob” held Sally with his gaze and his eyes began to sparkle a much more clean and sterile sparkle than hers. A line of shifting smoke worked its way from the end of his pipe, entering her left nostril. She relaxed, feeling the pressure of his hand on top of her own. Sally did not know why, but she could not help but think that today might be her lucky day after all.
Chapter 2: "Protect" and "Serve"
"Who wears a suit in the middle of a zombie apocalypse?"
Rob turned to cast a disparaging look at his partner who had just shook him out of a daydream, prominently featuring the bottle of hooch he had found at a crime scene last week and how he had used it when Susan was last able to sneak past the hordes and pay him a visit, with what he presumed to be one of the world's stupidest questions. He thought about saying as much, then he thought about just pulling his pistol and shooting him dead. It wouldn't really be a loss; his partner was a new recruit. Malton was always full of new recruits.
Reigning in his temper, Rob just surveyed the scene as someone re-barricaded the diner door where he had just come in. The diner was a typical small Malton storefront with the expected signs of wear and violence. Tables had been overturned in what looked like panic and half of the remaining neon lights flickered disturbingly. By the door were two bodies in dark blue three-piece suits, both face down and riddled with bullet holes, and at the bar was a form slumped over amid blood, cracked dishware, and the remains of what Rob could tell from a distance was a particularly repellant meal. In addition to the smell of what passed for meat and eggs these days, He detected a lingering smoky scent that knocked at the front door of his memory but ditched into his subconscious before he could properly answer it. He shook it off.
"So what do we have?" He asked, turning only after he had spoken to another young recruit whose name he could not recall and at whom the question had been directed.
"3 dead" the man replied in a stammer.
"The two there in the suits that Buddy...er...Officer Nilson...just noticed, and one other at the bar."
Walking to the well-dressed dead men "All gunshots, multiple entry points from multiple directions, all striking vital organs."
"How many shooters?"
"According to witnesses, just one sir. Reports say the two vics here walked in and some guy in a booth just started shooting."
"Anyone else hit?"
"No sir. Just the three. Funny thing is we found no new bullets lodged in the walls so it looks like he hit with every shot."
The young officer paused meaningfully, obviously waiting for Rob to follow up with another question asking how that could be. Rob decided to make this awkward and merely stared at the man waiting for him to continue. It wasn't long before he got his wish as the smug look slid down the officer's face as if it had been melted by the moment, only to be replaced by a nervous tic.
"Who wears a suit in the middle of a zombie apocalypse?"
Both men turned to look at Rob's partner, who seemed impressed with his own gift for observation and to have quite forgotten that he had already drawn attention to this detail. Rob became vividly aware of the weight of the gun in the holster on his side and his finger itched a little. The young officer, on the other hand, seemed relieved and continued his report.
"Yea...suits...anyways, like I was saying, the only bullets were in the vics but just about every piece of metal in the shop has a dent in it. It looks like multiple ricochets all finding the same three people. Witnesses confirm that the shooter didn't seem to aim but just fired randomly. They all took off once it started except for one employee named Sally..." here he paused for a moment and flipped out a note-pad "we couldn't get her last name out of her but she is over there"
He pointed to a woman in a bloody waitress uniform sitting in a booth at the far end of the diner with her back to the officers.
"so she was here for the whole thing?"
"Far as we can tell sir, yes?"
"Description of the perp?"
"No sir. Though they all say they saw him, all anyone can remember is a broad smile, white teeth, and a pipe"
"Alright then, we'll just take a look around and have a word with the witness. Good job officer..."
"Young sir."
"Figures..."
"What was that sir?"
"Nothing. Good work son. Go grab yourself a break."
As Officer Young left Rob and Buddy alone, Rob tried to remember how things had been before the outbreak. Back then, there was an actual force and an academy. Now they just take anyone who walks through the door and slap a badge on em. Have to to keep up with the zombies. Killers, bums, office workers, if they can carry a gun it's "Chin up lad and go out and do your duty." That's the only thing that explains a cop like Buddy. Rob turned to look at him and a little bit of vomit welled up in the back of his mouth.
Buddy stopped looking around the room when he noticed he was being watched.
"Who wears a suit in the middle of a zombie apocalypse?"
Rob clenched his teeth and waited for the rage to subside. When it didn't he just resigned himself to living with it and knelt down next to the body.
"The more important question Buddy is why didn't they rise?"
Buddy looked like he had been struck full in the forehead by the obvious and the trauma had obviously stunned him. Rob went on, checking the pulse of one of the dead men and pulling his hand away. rolling the corpse onto its back, he pried open the eyelid.
"Yep, definitely dead but no sign of zombieism. The pupils focus front in pinpoints and the mouth is stuck into some kind of stupid grin. Odd"
He checked the other man by the door and looked for ID. None; no pockets even. Then he moved to the bar with Buddy in tow. Same symptoms for all 3. The man at the bar did have a wallet though. Frank Simmons. No money but a picture of what must have once been the dead man standing outside of a well fortified building next to a smiling woman who looked straight out of a 50's detergent commercial. Her perfect curls falling over eyes that held something sinister behind their commercial luster.
The knocking on his brain became a pounding in his head as he stared at it but he forced it down.
"C'mon Buddy, let's go talk to that witness"
They approached the table where the woman in the waitress outfit sat. As they neared, Rob spoke in a soft voice gained by years of having to deal with fragile people.
"Ma'am, I'm Officer Summers and this is Officer Nilson. We would like to ask you a few questions about what you saw."
They rounded to the other side of the booth and Rob saw her face for the first time. What must have once been pretty features were tired looking around eyes that stared straight ahead, unblinking with a glassy sheen. Her mouth held the same rigid smile as that of the dead men. She did not seem to see them as she continued to stare past and through them as one watching a boat or train containing a loved one disappear into the distance. They were nice eyes but vacant and mournful. Rob found himself getting lost in them until he marshaled his will and broke his gaze. Looking down, he noticed a crumpled pamphlet in her left hand. With some trouble, he removed it and read.
"REPENT! QUIT YOUR JOB! SLACK OFF!!
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