I knew Lewis would be engrossed in his research despite the corpse in the wrecked office, so I left the room. I wandered out to the waiting area, feeling numb and shocked. 

It has always astounded me, how quickly things can change. Just last week, I was writing a paper in my dorm room while Lynette was laying on the floor and watching A Nightmare On Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge on her laptop, Lewis was texting some girl from his Library Science course, and Peter was finalizing the road trip plans with Hannah (his girlfriend) on the phone. Just this morning, I was listening to every Blythe Baird poem Peter could get his hands on. Things were okay. Things were normal. 

And now... 

I took a deep breath and opened my eyes. I found myself in front of the vending machine, staring at cans of grapefruit-flavored ginger ale. They were arranged in messy rows. If I bought one, it was definitely going to get caught on something on its way out. 

Did I even have to worry about buying things now? How many things were different? How much had changed? I left my phone in the car; I couldn't check the news on my own. 

A kerfuffle behind me shook me out of my brief, spiraling introspection. I looked over my shoulder. There was Lynette, returning with Peter and a gang of zombies in tow. 

Of course she did. Lynette had never been one for discretion. If I could count on one person to draw unwanted attention to us, it would be Lynette. She practically dragged Peter into the building and immediately began moving the waiting room furniture in front of the glass front door. 

Peter looked, in a word, disheveled. One sleeve of his blue polo shirt was torn, exposing a gash on his shoulder. It sagged, falling down close to his elbow. His mouth was twisted in a concerned frown. In one hand, he held one of his father's golf clubs. He must have gotten it from the trunk. He took his father out golfing a month or so ago; afterward, Mr. Cunningham left one of the clubs in the car and never came back to get it. 

I could barely concentrate on what she was doing or the fact that Peter was brandishing the golf club like it was a sword. The hoard banging on the glass commanded all my attention. It mostly resembled a mix between a group of PTA moms and Facebook Republicans. One had what clearly used to be a MAGA hat on her head; another wore an unofficial red, white, and blue Trump 2020 shirt. Most of the other women were dressed similarly. The Zom Mom with the MAGA hat also held a protest sign. I couldn't read what it said. 

They were all decomposing and zombified. Their clothing, no matter how politically charged it may have been, did little to hide that. Their fists, bloody fingers, and wooden signposts pounded the glass as they mouthed and moaned words I couldn't make out. 

"Hey, Kurtis!" Lynette yelled, pushing a sofa with her legs. Peter stood on top of it, swinging the golf club wildly at the Zom Moms and, ultimately, adding to her load. "Snap out of it! Help us fortify the entrances!" 

I jumped a little, suddenly shocked back into my body. I was standing between the tall white counter and the slightly-ajar bathroom door. "Um. Okay. What do you want me to do?" 

"Secure all the windows-- actually, first, see if there are some nails and hammers in the garage. It's not likely, but it's worth a shot. Then start-- hold on, Pete, help me move this couch, it's caught on something," she grunted over the Zom Moms' groaning and continuous static from the television. "Kurt, if you find something, we can break apart those crates by the garage door and use them to fortify the office window or the one in the garage." 

"Sure. I'll do that." 

"Where's Lew?" 

"He's-- I don't know. I think he's still in the office?" 

"Great. Wonderful. Either he's deaf or he's hiding. Fantastic. Go do what I told you. I'll get him after I'm done here or something." 

I did as I was told. There was a workbench piled high with tools and supplies in the garage. Unfortunately, it was being blocked by a zombie who had a bolt sticking out of one of his hands and a hammer in his head. The claw and cheek of it were in his eye; a small nub of metal stuck out of the top of his skull. 

I forced the bile back down my throat. There was no time to think or assess my next move. This wasn't a game of Scrabble. There was only time for instinct. The only thing I could think of doing was in the split second I had was to grab whatever was closest to me that I could use as a weapon-- there was a crowbar on top of the crates-- and prepare for battle. 

He shuffled toward me, moving more quickly than I expected. Maybe it had something to do with the state of his body. Though he was dead and covered in Aisle Two of a hardware store, he wasn't utterly destroyed. The mechanic-- his embroidered nametag also said Ron, so I guess he was Ron Two-- reached out an arm that I immediately tried to bat away. 

Of course, because I'm was (and am) an uncoordinated idiot, it was a swing and a miss. The crowbar flew from my hands like a wet pool noodle and went flying across the garage. It hit the car Ron must have been working on before whatever happened that zombified him. The sad thing is, the crowbar didn't even dent the Honda. It bounced off pathetically and landed next to the tire. 

I could feel my face go pale. This was most definitely not good. Immediately, I remembered the fire ax in the hallway and darted toward it as fast as I could without falling. "Bad news, guys," I yelled, skidding to a halt at the glass case. "There's a zombie in the garage!" 

Lynette grunted. "There's no time for that, Kurtis! Just kill it and keep doing what you're supposed to be doing!" 

The case said, BREAK GLASS IN EMERGENCY  but it didn't say how, exactly, to do that. All I could think was, Punch it, punch it, punch it. I put one hand on the wall to steady myself and curled the other into a fist. With all the force I could muster, I raised my duke and 

And nothing happened. 

I punched it again and the glass began to crack. Ron Two was advancing on me at this point and I knew it was more trouble than it was worth (already, my knuckles were bleeding). With my heart climbing up my throat and fear crashing like waves in my ears, I punched the case once more, right where the crack began. It shattered, leaving shards in my knuckles and the dorsal side of my hand and wrist.  

"Ow," I muttered. 

As I was breaking the glass, I caught sight of Lynette punching one of the Zom Moms in the jaw. With a loud pop, it flew off and hit the wall. 

This Zom Mom was holding a "My Body, My Choice" sign with a picture of an interdictory circle over a disposable medical mask. Holding is a strong word. It was more like the wooden post had gone between her ulna and radius and was firmly lodged in her arm. 

I had no idea what that meant. She was still moving, though, so Peter tried to brain her with the golf club he was holding. Like me with the crowbar, he missed. 

I was distracted enough by this that Ron Two was able to rake his splintered fingernails along my arm. The pain was shocking enough that I was dragged back into my own fight.

Still, I couldn't help but see, out of the corner of my eye, Lynette taking the golf club from Peter's hands. As though he could read her mind, he began lifting furniture (which looked awkward enough and probably took a lot out of him. In fact, I know it did, because he tried to push his dresser into a corner once and had to call me in to take care of it). She protected him while he did so, beating back the Zom Moms hard enough with the gold club that the metal bent. 

When I turned my attention back to Ron Two, he was in the middle of pulling the hammer out of his head. It caught on the bone; when it came out of the eye socket, it brought gore and vitreous humor with it. 

As I ripped the fire ax from the shattered glass, he brought the hammer down on me. I didn't expect the attack to have so much force behind it, but the blow drove some of the glass deeper into my skin. Some of my blood mixed with his on my arm; I was instinctually disgusted. 

His fingers reached for my skull, crawling up to the messy plains of my greasy hair. Ron Two scratched and prodded as though he was searching for my bones. Choking back revulsion, I swung the fire ax, missed, and swung again. It lodged in Ron Two's skull with a sick crack, making a chip in the bone. It didn't go all the way through. 

I couldn't stop myself from yelping. 

"Pathetic snowflake," he moaned. 

"Holy shit, you can talk?" I was shocked by that. I didn't think his vocal cords would work or that he would be capable of conscious thought (though, by the things he was saying, maybe he wasn't able to do the latter). 

"We're the--" Ron Two choked on something deep in his throat (whatever it was, it gurgled in his larynx), then began groaning out political phrases.  He dinked me with the hammer once again, raking the claw along my upper arm as he lost control of his own. 

"Guys, you need to check this out!" Lewis came running out of the office, holding his phone in both of his hands. He wasn't watching where he was going. 

"This isn't the time, Lew!" Without hesitation, I brought the ax down on the chink in Ron Two's skull. As the blade pierced his brain, cleaving his head in twain, he crumpled onto the ground and I fell to my knees

I took the ax out of his head and, without thinking about the implications of what I was about to do, brought it down on the small chink in his skull. 

Lewis backed up into the office. "Uh... okay..." 

"Lew, I swear to God," Lynette yelled. "You'd better be doing something useful!" 

"I'm researching--" 

"Either go back into the office or help us kill some zombies!" With that command, she beat a Zom Mom over the head with the already-bent putter. 

Needless to say, Lewis went back into the office. 

Without another second of hesitation or a single quin's worth of remorse, I pried my ax out of Ron Two's head like the Arthurian sword, adjusted the back of my fake Crocs, and launched myself into the fracas at the front door.