Disclaimer: This story is based on the idea of Dawn of the Dead, an idea which belongs to George Romero and whomever else was directly involved with the creating of the original project. This is my first story on the site so don't bash me too harshly. Enjoy and thanks for reading. Later.
6:00 A.M.
The drip down from the coffee machine was the only sound that could be heard in Ron's ears. Being on only two and a half hours of sleep, he tried drinking some of that rancid concoction that his manager always bought. No Colombian coffee for this store, only the absolute bare minimum. Although some people liked theirs black, it was still unbearable to most costumers who dared to try.
But Ron didn't really care about those other people right now. He had to open at six for the fourth day this week, which was four days too many as far as he was concerned. Ron was more of a night person, and usually wound up partying until the wee hours of the morning. Who was to blame him though, he was a twenty-one year old college student who lived with his parents still to avoid paying rent. Only having really cell phone and insurance to pay for, most of Ron's money went to alcohol or Chaplin's, the strip club that was only five blocks away from the Stop and Shop Express, where he worked for the past year and a half. The pay was bad, and the hours were long, about fifty to fifty-five a week sometimes. It was money though, and easy since most people just went to the big Stop and Shop, not this little shop that was located about fifty feet away in the middle of the parking lot. In his mind, the only three things that were sure in life were death, taxes and the fact that he would be bored to tears by around ten o'clock.
"This fucking blows." Ron muttered to himself, as usual in the morning. He lightly slammed his head against the counter, hoping that maybe he'll hit it hard enough so that he might just wake up in bed, preferably somewhere around noon. But it was all too real unfortunately, because if this was a dream, the store wouldn't stink like rat shit. His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a banging sound against the window. Ron jerked his head up and looked at the clock first on instinct. Five minutes after six...that had to be some kind of record. Looking down at the window with mild disinterest, Ron's eyes widened as he saw something that may have reinforced the fact that he could be dreaming. It looked like a middle-aged woman, but he couldn't really tell. Her hair was damp and stringy, and she only wore a white gown with some pink designs on it, resembling a hospital gown. Ron backed up a little bit when he saw her face, an unhealthy shade of pale yellow.
"Go away! We're closed!" Ron shouted through the glass at this woman. The big black sign that said "OPEN" in big red letters contradicted him though, but the woman didn't seem to notice. She just kept on banging on the window next to the door, the grime from her hands sticking to the once clean panes. Ron backed up slowly, stumbling over the stack of uncut newspapers that were behind him. He shot his hands out to catch the counter on the right and a row of cigarettes on the left. This woman was like something out of a bad movie, and the only thing that Ron could think about right now was the one word which seemed impossible to comprehend in real life...zombie.
Ron watched as this woman, or zombie, or whatever it was kept banging away on the window, looking at him like he was the main course. He looked from the front door where she was to the entrance to the back door, thinking about just running as fast as he can away from this woman. But what if there was more? And what if this was just a very sick woman? Zombies aren't real, that he was sure of, at least before two minutes ago. The woman was now letting out these guttural noises and had resorted to just scratching on the window instead of pounding on it. Ron was about to make a break for the back door when he saw a car approaching the front of the store. Thoughts of this person creating a distraction for him to get away were mixed with actually wanting to warn him or her. As the blue sedan pulled up to the front of the store, Ron inched slowly forward, careful to keep a good deal of distance from him and the window. As the overweight man struggled to get out of the car, Ron started jumping up in the air, waving his arms over his head.
"Get the fuck out of here man! She's, not well!" If he had shouted that she was a zombie, the guy probably would have just laughed it off.
Hearing Ron yelling at the top of his lungs, the man looked up towards the store, just about the same time the woman had turned her attention towards the arriving customer. Within an instant, she assaulted the guy, causing him to let out a startled scream. She jumped on him at first, somehow positioning herself on the man's back as he fell forward. Ron watched in horror as her teeth ripped into the side of the man's thick neck, while her hands clawed at his chest and face. The unfortunate soul got up from the floor on what had to be instinct, as he spun around in a circle, causing specks of blood to hit the window pane and the door. Ron grabbed for the first thing he could get his hands on, thinking about going out there and giving the man some help. Seeing that he had grabbed a bag of potato chips, he thought he should go get something a little heavier, even though they were sour cream and onion. As Ron made a dash for the backroom, he stopped just before entering and looked towards the front of the store. In what seemed to be like slow motion, he watched the next events unfold, his eyes widened and only two words came to mind.
"Oh, shit!" Ron screamed as he saw the large man, with zombie woman on back, charge through the thick glass door. A sick thud emitted from underneath the fallen pedestrian, as the woman continued to chew away on the side of his neck. With the man knocked out and soon to be dead, the woman's eyes slowly raised up to look at the somewhat shocked young clerk. She bit down hard on the man, whose body was only capable of releasing a spastic reaction from his arms down to his legs. All the years of watching horror movies hadn't prepared Ron for this, as he seemed almost helpless to do anything except watch.
He needed something to snap him back into reality, and it worked when the woman was done having her snack. Ron saw the ghostly pale blue eyes of the woman fix on him, snapping him out of this sadistic trance. The woman snarled at him as Ron made another lunge towards the break room, with the apparently undead woman quickly following him. He slammed the door shut behind him, leaning up against it so she couldn't break in. But nothing had prevented her from shooting her fist through the aged brown colored wood and grabbing the front of Ron's shirt. He panicked but regained his composure after he saw what could be his answer right in front of his eyes, no more than a few feet away from him. The warped sense of humor started to kick in after the realization that he just might live through this, causing him to grab her wrist and release her from his grip. Doing a spin away from the door, he grabbed it as soon as she burst through the door.
"Say hello to my little friend!" Ron exclaimed in all of his Pacino glory and blasted the woman in the face with the fire extinguisher that he had grabbed. It seemed to stun the woman long enough for him to stop firing. With a quick swing to his side, he lashed out at the woman, leveling her in the side of the face with the side of his new weapon. The woman stumbled backwards out the door, eventually tripping backwards over the stack of newspapers that Ron almost broke his neck on earlier. He dropped the extinguisher and turned around, pushing the back door open and running out of the store.
The harsh glare from the sun caused him to stop and shield his eyes at first, but he soon got over it when he heard the rumbling from behind him in the store. Ron sprinted around to the front of the store, thanking whomever was watching over him that there were no more of these zombies in sight as he dug his car keys out of his pocket. He circled around to the driver side of the old blue Mustang hatchback, scraping some paint off as his first two attempts to put the key in the hole failed. Finally he stuck it in and twisted, seeing the lock pop up. He flicked the door handle up and quickly got in, hitting his head on the top as he got in.
"Oww, mother, goddamn zombie bitch!" Ron cursed the undead girl for his slight headache now, shutting the door and locking it. He stuck the key into the ignition as he saw the woman come from behind the store out of the corner of his eye. He started the car...and it died.
"No! Not now, you old piece of shit! Start! I am not fucking dying in a parking lot!" He shouted and screamed as his next attempt to start the car also failed. The fifteen year old vehicle was supposed to last at least two more months before it was supposed to die. Ron banged on the steering wheel with his hands, accidentally hitting the horn. It had definitely been a mistake, as now not only did the woman turn her attention towards him, but he saw a whole bunch of people running at him out of his rear view mirror. Ron turned the ignition once more, and finally the car started. He didn't waste any time as it could have went out any moment, and he burned out the tires by backing up faster than he probably should have on any other occasion. Ron turned the wheel violently, trying to position himself facing towards the exit. It didn't work, but he threw the gear in drive and slowly turned a little more to the left, speeding off and leaving those undead bastards in the dust.
Seeing no cars on the road and not really caring at the same time, Ron shot out of the driveway and made a wide left, driving down Stanley Rd. and heading back towards his house. The roads were empty on this Saturday morning, but they were never completely empty like this. Something was indeed very wrong in the town of Hyde Park, maybe even the country, Ron had thought. This sounded way too much like a bad movie to be true, but he definitely wasn't dreaming, he was damn sure of that. He was grateful that his parents were out on vacation, at least they were safe. Or were they? Ron decided not to think about it as turned onto the side street. It was something that would have driven him insane if he stopped to analyze the whole situation.Ron jammed on his break when someone ran out in front of the car. He jumped in his seat, almost hitting his head on the roof of the car again, and was ready to run over whoever or whatever it was. It was a neighbor of his, a young woman named Patty who lived about seven or eight houses away. She ran over to his side door, pulling on the handle and hitting the windows with her palms, much like the thing that showed up at his job.
"Open the door, he's trying to kill me!" Patty said, with a pleading look in her eyes.
"Are you dead?" Ron asked in return, probably one of the stupidest questions he'd asked in his entire life. He just shook his head before she could answer, reaching over and quickly pulling on the door handle from the inside.
As the twenty-something year old woman got into the car, Ron watched as a man ran out the door of her house. It was her husband Will, or at least it used to be. The snarling and the blood on the front of his shirt was all it took for Ron to floor it as soon as she got in. Will ran down the street after them, but was quickly out of their range as Ron made a sharp turn to lead them back to the main roads. In the seat next to him, Patty was silently sobbing, with tears streaming down her cheeks and dripping onto her faded black t-shirt. Ron immediately noticed how short those shorts were exactly, but he pushed it to the back of his mind.
"What is going on here?" Patty asked in between sobs. She ran the back of her hand across her eyes, trying to compose herself a little bit.
"I don't know, I was at work and some crazy bitch attacked a costumer. You know, this may sound fucked up, but I think these people are turning into zombies." Ron said as he turned onto Stanley once more, wondering what kind of reaction he would get.Patty shook her head slowly, looking at Ron. "That's impossible. Zombies don't exist, they're fiction."
"Yeah, well if you have some explanation as to why both of us have been assaulted in the past ten minutes, by two totally different groups of people, who have a penchant for eating other people, then let's hear it!" Ron yelled, probably a little bit louder than he should have. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean..."
"No, you're right...I just didn't want to believe it..." Patty muttered as the words got less and less audible as the sentence went on.
She looked out the window, seeing a few people chasing another person, and finally catching up to them. Patty let out another gasp, causing Ron to turn his head as well. They were just about to tear into the poor woman's flesh, and an attempt to help her would have been too late. Ron just sped up as Patty turned her head to look at him. He noticed it out of the corner of his eye but didn't turn to meet her glance, he just sped up the car to reach about fifty-five, as fast as his car could go without dying out again. He didn't know where they were going, but the one thing he was certain of was that they needed to get the hell away from these things. Ron just hoped that there were other people still alive.