When they predicted the apocalypse on December 21, 2012, nobody expected it would come in the form of the walking dead.  Being in New Orleans where the dead were buried above ground meant that they showed up sooner than in most other places.  The people of the Big Easy woke up on December 22^nd, thinking the worse thing they had to deal with was finishing their Christmas shopping.  Instead as they left their homes to get into their cars many of them found themselves short a few brains.

Jackie was lucky.  She was busy that morning taking care of a new intake at the women’s shelter and by the time she was done dealing with that the zombies were all over the news.  Thankfully, the women’s shelter was a fortress; it had to be to keep out the abusive husbands of the shelter’s inhabitants.  All of the windows were covered by heavy iron bars, so was the door.  Everything was locked down tight and nobody got in who didn’t belong there.

The worse thing she had to deal with once the zombies took hold were second thoughts on the part of some of the women when their abusers came begging at the door for admittance, having nowhere safe to go.  Jackie snickered at the thought.  Seems there are no “battered men” shelters out there.  Serves them right.

Jackie was taking stock of her weapon supply.  She always kept a good stock of guns at the shelter, in case any of the abusers decided to go ape-shit and try to shoot their way in.  She wanted to be prepared for any eventuality.  She took some of the more badass women with her after the apocalypse hit to do a little looting of their own, and now they had enough weapons and ammunition to arm each woman there.  Her most immediate problem was training some of the women who had never handled a weapon before.  She had a plan for that.

“Holly?  Are we ready?”

“Yep, I think I’ve got everything you asked for,” Holly replied as she looked through a duffle bag on the table in front of her.

“Handcuffs?”

“Yep.”

“Black hood?”

“Yep, got that right here,” she held it up.

“Rope?”

“Yep.”

“Collar to tie it to?”

“Yep.”  She held up a large leather dog collar.

“Alright,” Jackie turned to the other three women in the room.  “Everyone check their weapons and ammunition.  It’s important that we stay together, you understand?”

All of the women nodded solemnly.

“Okay, everyone grab your shit and let’s go!”

In the time since the zombies showed up, they’d learned a little bit about them.  Some of the preconceived notions were correct, for instance they do seem to go straight for the brains, they are stronger than usual, and they do stumble around and walk kind of slow.  They seem to have no problem breaking through windows, which makes most homes in New Orleans vulnerable to attack, especially since there are no basements to hide in due to being below sea level.  They aren’t necessarily smart, but surprisingly they seem to hang around places where they did when alive.  You might find one sitting on his old porch or trying to perch on a bar stool in his old hang out, which by this point has probably been looted and stood empty.

Jackie discovered by accident that when tasered, they become docile for a short period, generally about 30 minutes or so, making it possible to subdue one and take it somewhere.  Somewhere like a pen outside in back of the women’s shelter.  She and the four women with her were on the hunt for one right now.

“Susan?  You should lead the way since you know where he might hang out.”

“Okay.”  A short firecracker of a redhead stepped forward.  “We should check the bar first, it’s closer.  Follow me.”

Most of the inhabitants of the city by this point had been “turned”.  Houses stood empty, the streets had the stillness of decay.  There were a few colonies of humans that had survived, mostly in locations that had some heavy security to begin with, such as Fire and Police stations, other women’s shelters, the city jail, and maybe a hospital or two.

The women quietly stalked down streets and alleys, each one assigned a different direction to keep an eye on in case of attack.

“Incoming!  On the left!”  Shouted a tall brunette named Sherry.

The women turned as one and brought up their weapons.  Lumbering toward them was a male zombie.  He looked like he had been a cop in his previous life, he was still wearing the uniform, but his holster was empty.  He’d been chewed on a bit, probably what turned him.

“Okay girls!  Remember what I taught you.  Aim for the head or the neck, that’s the only way to kill ’em.  Okay, here we go, get ready, aim, one…two…Fire!”

A volley of projectiles were fired at the zombie, most of them met their mark.  His head exploded in several different directions at once, and then he fell to the ground, almost in slow motion, splattering the street with inky black blood.

“Good job girls!”  Jackie patted Sherry on the back, as she was the closest.

Suddenly they heard a scraping sound just behind them.  Jackie turned and brought up her weapon in front of her in one swift motion.  Before anyone else had time to react, she had felled the zombie of a teenaged boy sporting a head full of matted dreadlocks.  She walked over to him and nudged him with the toe of her boot to make sure he was dead.

“Tsk. Tsk.  That was somebody’s boy once.  Look what this world has come to.  Okay Susan, lead the way.  Everybody watch your directions.”

Susan led the team down alley after alley until they came to a bar in the seedier area of the French quarter.  They approached cautiously.  The double doors hung open, one of them was broken off of its hinges, and the windows in both of them were either cracked or missing.  A sign that hung over the door swung back and forth in the breeze, making a haunting noise worthy of a ghost town.  Amazingly, even months after the apocalypse the street around the bar still smelled of piss thanks to the former drunk patrons.  The inside was too dark to make anything out.  The women crept up with their backs against the wall flanking the open doors.  Jackie peered around the edge of the door.  She spotted a zombie perched on one of the stools.  She looked at Susan and motioned with her head.

“That him?” she whispered.

Susan cautiously poked her head out into the doorway for a second, and then pulled back quickly.  She nodded at Jackie.

“Okay, I’ll go in first; you girls follow when I tell you I’m ready.”

Jackie pulled out the taser and checked to make sure it was ready to go.  Then she sauntered into the bar.  The zombie, his name was Rick when he was alive, quickly smelled the fresh meat and turned in her direction.

“Come here big boy,” Jackie crooned in a sing song voice.  She beckoned to him.

He slid off the bar stool and lumbered toward her.  He was wearing mechanics coveralls that had his name embroidered on the chest pocket.  It was hard to tell whether the black stains all over them were car grease or blood, Jackie guessed it was probably a combination of the two.  When he got close enough, she fired the taser.  The probes shot out and hit him in the chest.  The jolt of electricity made him jerk as if he was having a seizure, but he didn’t fall.  Instead he just stood there with his face going completely slack.

Jackie stepped forward.  She waved her hand in front of his face and got no response.  She carefully picked up his arm by the sleeve and let it go.  It fell gently back to his side.

“Okay girls, coast is clear.  Bring in the restraints.”

In came Holly, Susan, Sherry, and Justine, a muscular Creole woman.  They set to work with the restraints.  Handcuffs behind the back, Black hood fastened over the head, then the leather collar.  Jackie attached the rope to the ring on the collar, and then she motioned to Susan.

“Honey, this one’s yours, here ya go.”  She handed the end of the rope to Susan.  “Now we head back, you know the drill.  I’ll lead.”

Jackie went first, Susan behind her concentrating on her captive, Sherry and Holly on each side, and Justine brought up the back.  They stalked through the streets of the French quarter, noting the discarded remnants of better times; beer bottles, broken beads and party favors littered the streets.  They passed abandoned vehicles that had been parked haphazardly, some of them half on the sidewalk, doors hanging open.

As they turned the corner onto the street where the women’s shelter was, they found a surprise waiting for them.  Milling around aimlessly in front of the shelter was a zombie.  Jackie was the first to see him and she thought he looked familiar.  He was dark skinned with a large afro, and dressed in his customary outfit, torn jeans and a black t-shirt with a jazz motif on the front.  Jackie stopped and held out a hand to motion for the other women to follow suit.

“Hey Justine, is that Andre?”

Justine made sure the coast was absolutely clear behind them before she looked forward.  “Oh Lordy, yes it is!  I ain’t seen him in so long I thought he was dead already.”

“Well, looks like he’s done us a favor.  Two for the price of one.  We don’t have any more supplies, but since he’s right in front of the shelter we shouldn’t need them.”

“Uh, Jackie?”  Susan piped up.  “I think we’d better hurry!” Her captive seemed to be coming out of his stupor and she was having a hard time keeping hold of him.

“Holly and Sherry, you help Susan hold onto him for a minute.  Justine, come with me.”  Jackie pulled out her taser and headed for the zombie form of Andre.

Justine followed behind.

As they got closer, Andre sensed their presence and turned toward them.  When he did so, they could see that half of his face had been eaten away.  The left side of his mouth hung loose in a sickly grimace.  Justine stopped and covered her mouth with her hand, suddenly queasy.

Jackie fired the taser, and it had the same affect as it did with Rick.  Jackie waved her hand in front of his face.  “Lights on but nobody’s home!”  She turned around and saw Justine’s pasty expression.  “Man up Honey, this ain’t no game.”  She motioned toward Andre.  “Go ahead and grab him and lead him out back.”

Justine complied.  Andre followed her with no resistance.  The other women at the shelter had been watching this scene through the bars in the door.  When Justine approached, the door opened for her.

Jackie turned around to check on the others, and found them wrestling with Rick like he was a bucking bronco.  She joined in the fray and they forcibly drug him into the shelter and out into the back courtyard.  There they found Justine locking Andre into a pen which had separate upper and lower doors.  There were several other such pens in the courtyard, some of them already occupied.

They wrestled Rick into an open pen and locked the lower door while still hanging onto his rope.  They removed the handcuffs first, and then coordinated removing the collar with the rope still attached while at the same time ripping the black hood off his head and jumping back out of the way.  While he was still disoriented, they quickly closed and locked the upper door.

Jackie looked over their handiwork.  “Whew, what a day!  Y’all should be proud of yourselves girls.  Now we have two more targets to practice on.  I think a two for one calls for a celebration!”

The other women smiled and nodded to each other.  Susan and Justine gave each other a high five.  Jackie led them all back into the shelter.

“Gather round ladies!”  She said to the group that was with her and motioned to all of the other shelter inhabitants.  “Today we triumphed over two of our former abusers.  Tonight we’re gonna celebrate.  Who has kitchen duty?”  She looked around.

“Me and Helen do.”  A round faced blond woman named Audrey answered.

“Okay Audrey, you an’ Helen make up some good old fashioned N’Awlins food.  Me an’ Holly will stock the cooler with some beer.  The rest of you go get dolled up and then set up the tables.  We’ll need someone to play DJ too, any takers?”

A mousy woman named Angela raised her hand.  “I’ll do it!”

“Okay, you know where the music is, start setting up.”

###

The women had the best meal they’d had in awhile and partied it up all night.  Some danced, some played poker, and some just chatted.  All of them drank themselves into a stupor.  This would be fine and dandy except for the fact that they were so drunk they forgot to check all the locks before they went up to bed and passed out.

Now zombies don’t do stairs all that well.  This was a fact that the humans of the Big Easy figured out pretty quick.  You might think that would be a lovely advantage, except for the fact that it would mean you could never come down.  And if you never come down, you never eat.  If you never eat, you starve to death.  After you starve to death, you wake up as a zombie.  Not a very good choice.  The lucky ones had firearms with them upstairs and managed to end it all right there.

The ladies had the advantage of numbers though.  Late at night while they slept, one of their former significant others figured out that a little used side door, used earlier to retrieve some beer from a shed outside, was unlocked.  Following the zombie trait of being a creature of habit, he entered to try and make contact with his woman.  Later that night, two more would follow suit.

The next morning the women woke up, a little less than bright-eyed and bushy tailed, and rose to meet the day.  Holly was the first to come down.  She went straight for the kitchen to start some coffee, so she didn’t notice their guests, who at this point were milling around in the library together.  A short while later Helen joined her to get started on breakfast.

Unfortunately for Helen, the first zombie to find his way into the shelter was her former abusive husband, Frank.  Frank somehow sensed her presence and headed for the kitchen.  The other two zombies lumbered behind, because that’s what zombies do.  Helen had her back to the door when Frank entered, allowing him the chance to grab her.

Seeing this, Holly let out a terrified scream, which brought several of the other women, including Jackie, running downstairs.  This was pointless from Helens perspective; as she was too busy being pulled limb from limb by three zombies.  Just before she lost consciousness, she ironically had the thought: Ew, I wonder who is going to have to clean up this mess?  There was one good thing for Helen though, since she was torn limb from limb including having her head ripped from her body before her brains were munched on, she was spared the eventuality of becoming a zombie herself.

While the zombies were busy working on Helen, Jackie moved quickly.  She motioned several of the other women to follow her to the weapon room where they armed themselves to the teeth.  They rushed back to the kitchen just as one of the zombies was backing Holly into a corner, but before he managed to touch her.  Jackie fired at the back of his head, which splattered gooey black blood all over the side of Holly’s face.  With a look of disgust, she frantically tried to wipe it off as the zombie fell dead at her feet.  The other two zombies were similarly dispatched by Susan and Justine.

Jackie looked over the destruction in the kitchen somberly.  She sighed.  “We need to clean this up.  Come on girls, everybody grab something and drag it all out the side door.  Justine and Susan, you guys guard the door.  Angela, go check all of the other doors and make sure they are secure.”

The women dutifully completed their assigned tasks.  All of the bodies and body parts were dragged out the side door and thrown over the fence into the abandoned property next door.  Every surface was scrubbed down until there was no trace of blood, brains, or gooey zombie residue.  When all of this was complete, the doors were checked and double checked to make sure nothing else was getting in.

The women made their breakfast and, except for a bit of a delay, started their day as they usually would.  After they were all showered and dressed, they met in the main living room to plan the day’s activities.

Jackie started the conversation.  “Well, we’ve just seen what can happen when we’re not prepared.  Helen’s loss is a sad one, but it shows us how important it is that everyone knows how to defend themselves when the need should arise.  Today we’re gonna move ahead with our shooting practice for those girls who are still a little shaky with their aim.  Everyone who needs it go ahead and grab your weapons and meet me and Susan and Justine out back.”

Jackie, Susan, and Justine all grabbed their own weapons and some keys off of hooks in the kitchen before heading out the back door.  Several women followed shortly after.  Angela and Audrey were the first two of those women.

“Okay you two,” Jackie pointed to Angela and Audrey, “You’re up first.  Do you know what to do?”

Angela and Audrey nodded.  They both made a last minute check of their weapons to make sure they were loaded, the safety was off and they were ready to go.  They signaled their readiness with a thumbs-up.

Jackie took the keys from Justine and walked over to the pen that was holding Rick.  As she started to turn the lock on the upper door to open it, a wasp suddenly landed on the side of her neck and stung her, causing her to reflexively slap at it with her left hand while her right was still on the lock.  It only took a few seconds for her attention to be elsewhere for Rick to lean down and bite her right pinky finger clean off.

Now anyone who knows anything about zombies knows that once you are bitten by one you are toast.  It doesn’t matter where the bite is.  What is particularly horrifying about this situation is that you know it’s coming for awhile before it comes, but there is nothing you can do to stop it.  Well, almost nothing.

Jackie quietly finished unlocking the top door of the pen and swung it open.  Then she turned around but did not move away from the pen.  “Okay girls, you know the drill.  Ready, aim, one…two…Fire!”

Fortunately for her, Angela and Audrey were pretty good shots.

 

Carolanne Patton grew up in the Central Ohio area, where from high school on she’s been asked if she was “in the TV” due to her name being the same as the main character from the moviePoltergeist. She’s never minded the taunt so much as she’s been a lifelong fan of horror fiction and movies.  Most recently she made her living doing something that involved middle of the night trips to the county morgue.  Now she is a writer of horror, and an affiliate member of the Horror Writers Association.