January 19th

This is Jimmy Varn and I am technically still alive.

The parade keeps going. The sounds of feet shambling and throats moaning is driving me nuts. It is like a perpetual death chorus.

I wanted to talk about something. I want to talk about the bookstore I work at and what Ken did. I want there to be a record.

When Hell Day happened, we found out about it slowly. It was before Christmas and the store was slammed. We had some old lades who were gift wrapping books for some charity. We had college kids who were enjoying their break. We had way too many toddlers because their parents used the bookstore as a babysitter.

The morning crowd was insane but around lunch time, it was thinning out and I thought it was weird. Usually it gets thicker, not smaller. I blamed the recession.

There was a complaint that someone was asleep in the ladies’ restroom. The customer said it stunk bad and the person inside the stall didn’t respond to knocks at the door. We assumed it was a homeless person. They crash here sometimes.

So we sent Doris in. Doris was a big giant of a lady who didn’t take shit from no one. She was black and fearsome, and that was just to her coworkers. I asked her to check it out.

Doris came screaming out of the restroom. She was grabbing her shoulder and it was bleeding bad. She screamed that she was dying and that the person inside had tried to kill her.

She was pretty hysterical. The shoppers responded like frightened sheep and most of them left in a hurry. Ken was pissed and was shouting at Doris to shut up. You know, I think all of those people leaving were a good thing.

Well the person who bit Doris came out. I don’t think I will ever forget my first zombie. She was an older holiday shopper. She had short blonde hair that was frosted almost white. She had a big coat and a red scarf that wrapped around her neck like a snake. Expensive leather gloves covered her hands.

Her mouth was bloody and her eyes were bulging. She looked at us and she moaned.

I think I can here her now outside in that parade.

So here we were with a zombie and Ken trying to shut Doris up. We didn’t know it was a zombie. You could tell she was dead just by looking at her but the brain doesn’t accept that shit, you know? We stood there and looked at it.

Paul went up to it and tried to talk to it. The zombie spun around and lunged at him. It bit his fucking nose as we watched.

I ran forward. Frank and Gwen were already on the zombie, pulling it off. Oh God I miss Gwen. Anyway, they were pulling the zombie off Paul but they weren’t trying to kill it. You don’t kill customers, right?

I joined in and so did this one customer. He was a big guy and he put his arm around the zombie’s head like he was a damn wrestler. He slapped a head lock across its face and was shouting abuse at the zombie.

So the zombie bit him.

You know, if you are reading this, you know all about zombies. I don’t need to gross you our or anything but I have to say this. When I saw that zombie just bite the shit out of his arm and then SWALLOW, I lost my shit. I have seen it happen a lot more times but that first time? Fuck. I threw up.

A lot of us did. Not Gwen though. God bless Gwen’s dead ass because that woman knew what to do. She picked up a heavy ass picture book of canyons and swung at the zombie’s head. Gwen didn’t swing with the flat side like a paddle, she swing with the edge. She hit the zombie’s skull and buried it right in her head.

The zombie went down. Paul is crying with his missing nose and big wrestler guy is crying with his arm. I think I was the first one to think to take out my cell phone and call 911.

No fucking reception of course. The cell towers were already jammed. I tried using the store phone and 911 was busy, which is the last thing you ever want to hear.

I give Ken some credit. He got us organized. He had the doors locked. He tried to get the last few customers to leave but three of them stayed and he didn’t mind. They were scared college kids. I bet they thought this place was safer than their dorms. Poor bastards.

We had a bleeding customer and a dead zombie. I think Ken wanted some non-store witnesses. Ken, always thinking ahead.

We could look outside and see something wasn’t right. The street outside was jammed with traffic. Some of the cars looked abandoned. Hell Day was happening fast and if it wasn’t for the restroom zombie, we might have missed it.

As night fell, we realized we were heavily fucked.

I’m going now. I can’t stop thinking about Gwen.