Tabitha's take on Zombies

Harold Crane was a business man. It was what he had always been. He had started his company selling hammers when he was just eighteen. Through his hard work, his business had grown to a chain of three stores that sold not only hammers, but crowbars as well. He had spent many a long night giving himself to his business by coming up with a new marketing strategy, making the books balance, trying to make a deal with a supplier, or investigating his competitor’s new hammers.

His life was his business. He still visited his parents on Christmas and Thanksgiving and sent them a kind e-mail every now and then. But his first love, and his only love, was his business. It was the satisfaction he received from watching something grow because of his work, his effort, his time. He needed nothing else, he felt complete.

It was his work that brought him to Joktan, a small town in the North. There was only one hotel in the town, but the management put him up in their best suite. A best suite in Joktan cannot be compared with a best suite in New York. His room was sparse consisting of a bed, a dresser with a mirror, and a rather disturbing picture of the founder of Joktan, but Harold’s taste were not too refined and he figured he could be comfortable.

Harold stared at the portrait as he killed time that evening. The man who stared back at Harold had a grim look on his face, and in his hand he carried a hammer which please Harold very much. Behind the founder in the portrait was a house. Maybe it was a jail, Harold thought as he noticed the bars on the windows. That seemed odd to Harold, but he shrugged it off as he began reviewing financial reports from the latest quarter on his laptop.

Whenever we are with the ones we love we tend to lose track of time. I am sure this has happened to you as it has happened to me. Harold was no exception to the rule and it happened to him that night. It was well after midnight before he realized that many hours had passed. He crawled into the lumpy bed and tried sleep.

Sleep, however, was not to come that night to Harold. The mattress was uncomfortable and the financial reports were too tempting. Why should he bother tearing himself away when he could spend more time with his business? He turned on his laptop again and was immediately engrossed.

He jerked with a start. “Must have nodded off” he thought. He looked at his watch. It stared back at him informing him that it was 2:33AM. He wondered what had woken him, but was not left wondering long as a knock came at the door.

Harold was confused. Who knocked on people’s hotel room doors at 2:33 AM?

“Who’s there?” he called out after the next knock.

“Please, let me in. They’re coming for me. Let me in, please.” It was a female’s voice and its urgency was clear to Harold. Slightly annoyed at the intrusion, Harold reluctantly arose and opened the door. A figure dashed in the room slamming the door behind her. She didn’t speak nor was she still but immediately was trying to push the dresser to cover the door. The effort was futile, however, as she was barely as tall as the dresser. The only result from her effort was that the mirror fell off shattering into a million pieces.

Harold’s jaw dropped. His annoyment was now much more then slight. “What do you think you are doing?”

She stared at the broken pieces of the mirror. Her eyes then moved to examine Harold.

“I don’t know who you are,” she said “but I need your help.”

“What do you need?”

“Protection.”

“Protection from what.”

“The zombies.” Her matter of fact way of informing Harold of what had caused her drastic action flabbergasted Harold. He snorted.

“The zombies?” he enquired.

“Yes, and I heard you were the hammer guy. Hammers are the only thing that has ever stopped them. You hit them in the head with a hammer and they will die or unexist or something.” Harold shook his head in consternation. He wondered if she had escaped from a hospital or an asylum.

A loud thump interrupted his thoughts. It was followed by a vicious growl and an uncanny screech. She jumped across the room pushing herself in his arms. He put her arms around her as they both stared in horror at the door.

“Your hammers” she whispered, “Where are they?” He ripped open his suitcase and pulled out his sample of the KX 3000. Instinctively, he went back and put his arms around her. As nothing occurred in the following moment his actions struck himself as odd. What protection would his arms give this girl? He thought about withdrawing, but he couldn’t find the will. He did not know it at the time, for he had no time to analyze the situation properly, but for the first time in his life, Harold felt fear for another human being. He needed her to be safe. His existence depended on it. He would die, before he let anything touch her. Whether it was a zombie or just a normal human outside that door, he would attack it and kill it.

His thoughts again were interrupted as a knock came at the door. Neither Harold nor the girl dared to breath. The knock repeated. Harold was at a loss about what to do so he did the first thing that came into his head.

“Can I help you?” asked Harold.

The knocking turned into a steady beating. Harold forced the girl to get down behind the bed. He faced the door. He felt reminiscent of a medieval knight about to head to war. He felt ready for any peril that would come knowing that he would equip himself with dignity. No one could say that Harold Crane went down without a fight. His hammer as his trusty weapon and the will that had seen his business grow 200% in its second year could stop anything. Finally, the door broke open and Harold faced three Zombies.

There was a pause as the different beings surveyed each other. Two species born to hate each other now had to decide how best to destroy each other. The one hungered for the other’s flesh and the other instinctively feared the one. The zombies had vacant eyes, their mouths were pressed into a firm line only slightly revealing yellow decaying teeth, their hair was almost non-existent just a few greasy strands. They brought with them a stench of rottenness and decay. All this Harold observed in a moment. His first thought was “the one on the right reminds me of Brett from accounting.” The thought diverted him momentarily, but his thought went to the girl and he knew what he had to do.

No one who had known the Harold of the day before would ever think of him as he appeared in that moment. He let out a battle cry worthy of any ancient warrior. He wielded his hammer. He charged. He swung the hammer like a wild man swiftly knocking out the three zombies. He grabbed the girl’s hand and ran out into the hallway only to meet five more zombies. Nothing could have stopped the man. There was no hesitation, just a charge.

It was quite the sight seeing a middle aged man, still in his pajamas, with a crazed look in his eye wielding KX 3000 hammer as if it was a valued sword dragging along with him a girl.

The two fled down the halls towards the lobby. Harold had found new strength and new courage, but I am sure even the bravest soul on earth would have paused once he saw the sight that was the lobby. It was filled from one end to the other with zombies. I don’t know whether zombies can see of if they operate off of a keen sense of smell. Regardless of their faculties they knew there were live people in the room and every single one of them turned toward Harold and the girl with an unquenchable thirst.

Harold turned and fled making sure that he kept the girl still with him. He threw her in the first open room they came upon piling everything in front of the door. Once the barricade was as complete as the two could make it from the contents of the sparsely furnished room they huddled in the back of the room.
Neither had to say, for the both knew instinctively, that it was only a matter of time for that mob of zombies to break through the door. The girl turned to Harold,

“I know you are just a stranger, but there is no one on this earth that I would rather die with.”

He looked at her face. He felt lost. In that moment he wondered what he had done with his life. In a short span of time another human life had become indispensible to his happiness and even to his existence. He would give up his hammers, his business, and even his life so that her’s would continue. For a moment he wondered, if he felt like this now, how much more would he feel if he knew her for years? He wanted that. He wanted a lifetime with her. He would get to know her quirks. He would make his purpose be her happiness. She would learn to love hammers as he did. All the energy he had poured into hammers would be poured into her happiness.
It was too late now, but still he wondered what could have been.

There was a loud bang as the zombies bashed a hole in the door. Harold stood up and again wielded his hammer. If they were going to take him down it wasn’t going to be easy. His dignity as a warrior was at stake.

Harold’s final charge was a sight to behold. His hammer striking to kill, unconscious to any injury, he would have made any medieval knight proud. Her face filled his thoughts as he struck. One zombie went down and a second zombie went down. He was going to swing again when………

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

Harold bolted up in his bed. Quickly, he turned on the light. He felt himself drenched in his own sweat as he reached to turn off the alarm. A dream? Really? Just a dream? He chuckled nervously to himself. It had been a vivid, life-like dream. He felt relieved that his life was not in danger, but for a second he almost felt sorry for the girl that was only a figment of his imagination, but Harold knew that such a girl would only get in the way of his hammer business. It was his duty to make sure the entire world had access to hammers. Harold shrugged off the last traces of his dream and prepared for his day of business meetings.