In a local mall behind the walls covered with ads and bright signs are the walls you don’t see. A long and twisted corridor made up of concrete and bad light where deliveries are made to the stores and an atmosphere only the dead would find comforting can be found.

Tucked in the back behind a locked janitors closet was Sam, a 47 year old janitor who’s only interests in life were keeping an honest job, out of prison, and with his family. The closet was small and Samuel somewhat claustrophobic. Clothed in his trusty overalls (a gift from his youngest daughter, Tiffany) he sat on the edge of the worn closet sink. The big bulky kind that lost the white matte paint overtime to glean a practical government metal. It was hot and smelled of mold but that was more than bearable compared to what waited for him on the other side of that door. There hadn’t been time to figure out what happened. Samuel had gone the long way to the mop closet; it burned more time and he was ready to go. He only had five minutes on the clock. By the time he got to the closet and cleaned and stored the mop it would be time to go. That was the plan. Life on the other hand sometimes has other plans that don’t coincide with ours. Finally reaching the closet, Samuel couldn’t help but notice the muffled sound of some person of authority shouting on a bull horn. Loud bangs could be heard and people were running around frantic and scared. Once the screaming started getting louder than the gunfire, Samuel get scared. He didn’t dare go out in the open and check what was going on. Instead he opted for the small, musky closet and prayed to God that the one rickety bulb that barely lit the confession chamber like room wouldn’t go out.

Time was largely irrelevant but he knew it had been hours since he had locked himself up for safe keeping. The screams were gone. Hissing pipes and the teeth grinding sound of scrapping-dragging foot falls from the victors over the living. Samuel sat and thought of all the things he had ever learned sitting in science class as a teenager or watching those fascinating specials on the History or Discovery Channels. He even thought about every movie he had seen or game he played with his son, anything to help him reason what had happened. Earlier on his way to the closet, Samuel barely escaped getting swept up in a wave people attempting to escape. They had banded together armed with whatever plans of survival or escape they’d concocted. He watched them go by as he stuck to himself, stuck to the shadows. Scared out of his mind yes, but aware enough to not draw attention. He only needed to make it to this closest. He needed to sit down focus. Let things die down. No need running around getting killed.

His fellow survivors didn’t get that memo.

He watched from the darkness as a woman had succumb to the flow of dead. She screamed for a while but quickly went into shock, the angle of her head locked her gaze on the shadows that Samuel was hidden in. She could see him, or so he thought. She stayed fixed on him. Blinking sparringly as her carcass tostled about from the violent picking and gnawing of her hunters. Samuel was the last thing she would see. For that, he felt sorry for her. A pathetic site indeed he thought to himself. Looking thru the glass walls of the food court over looking the parking lot you could see the carnage was everywhere. No place looked safe which meant his family was in danger. Smoke plumes wound skywards like giant vines. Explosions, sparks and light and the ground rumbled. Whatever he was going to do, he had to do it fast. Fast enough to get to his family and protect them, or get there so they could die together. He turned away from the window, back into the shadows. Back into the hell he had to survive here first.

“Just a little bit further to the closet” he said below his breath. So low in fact that even his inner self asked him to repeat what he said. With confidence this time. He can’t. He’s too scared. There wasn’t anything to call them other than the living dead. Hunters maybe. They seemed relentless, as if they were starving out of control. Keen to every sound, smell or sight it seemed. Could they see? could they hear and smell? No infection is going to do what they were experiencing. Rotted decaying things–humans–don’t come to life and consume the living. No blood being pumped, no heart pumping. No brain waves, nothing. Yet they hunt us relentlessly. Something only God could do. That troubled him a great deal but it didn’t stop him from praying every time he stopped to catch a breath before he reached the closet. Maybe we were being judged. Who knew. He just wanted to hold his family again. Samuel sat thinking of what to do. He couldn’t call them because he didn’t carry a phone. He hated the things. Late nights drinking beers with his friends from the neighborhood, he would tell them all the latest conspiracy stories. One of which dealt with unseen cell phone waves passing around and thru our brains. “We don’t know what the hell we’re doing to ourselves, you laugh at me now, but you’ll see.” He hoped he hadn’t been on to something back then. He pushed it to the back of his mind and got back to the task of figuring out an escape. Stroking his fingers over his shaven head, he noticed a blinking light at the foot of the door. He dropped down to his knees to get a better look. The right side of his face pressed against the damp, chipped concrete floor as his left eye locked onto a smart phone blinking a message notification. It was falling out of the pocket of someone who didn’t make it down the hall and it was Samuels chance to find out what was going on.

Undoing the lock, he slowly cracked the door and peered down the hall way. Samuel guessed that she too had thought about the closet at the end of the hall. He recognized the name on the badge but most of her was gone. She had once worked at the shoe store upstairs. She even had her “stripper shoes” on when they got her. He gave her credit for trying to run in those.  To the right of the door there was an emergency fire axe station. Deciding to do one at a time, he grabbed the cell phone with two fingers, like I child that was too scared to grab something. He wiped it clean of the blood and tissue and put it in his pocket. He took one last look back before breaking the glass, grabbing the axe and running back into the closet. Mission accomplished he thought. Finally something to smile about. The phone was low on energy and badly damaged but he believed it would still work. Frantically he dialed the number to his wife’s phone. No answer. There was no luck with Tiffany either. He tried to call his son as well but no answer. His only resort was the house phone that he only used because everyone called him a dinosaur.  “Get with the times daddy!” What he would do to hear his little girl tease him just one more time. Samuel did what he intended to be a small prayer. What started quick and fancy turned into a flood of tears–a prayer so hard he was sweating. Under different circumstances people would’ve thought something was wrong with him. In Sam’s mind he knew this was his last lance. He diale the number to his home and waited. It rang several times when the whispered voice of his son Max could be heard on the other line. A whispered “hello, dad, is that you! Where are you, we need! They’re here, they’re…”

“I hear you son just calm down, where is your mother is she alright? Where is your sister? He wanted to name everything he could think of but stayed calm and listened.

“We’re okay but we’ve boarded up the house. Mom got bit and is laying down upstairs. She’s got a fever but she’s alright. I’m down stairs with Tiffany and taking care of the house. I’m scared dad you need to get here”

Before Samuel could answer a loud crash could be heard on the other end. His son could be heard screaming “Dad, come quick! They’re in, they’re in!” Putting the phone away, Samuel grabbed the fire ax. Pulling his faithful old leather wallet from his pocket he took one last look at the pictures of his family. “I’m coming home…I’m coming!” Samuel violently swung the door open and took off down the hall. The long walk to the sharp left turn and then out in the open was plenty of time to wipe the sweat from his hands and make sure his grip was tight. As he reached the last few feet to the corner he paused once more to calm his nerves. He wasn’t as young and gungho as he used to be. Setting down his axe and closing his eyes, he cleared his mind of the fear anything keeping him from making it home. With that, he said Amen, stood up and took off full speed around the corner only to be greeted by a swarm of the undead  who now are all suddenly drawn to his presence. Samuel’s eyes widened, he licked his lips…

“…I forgot the axe.”