Pipe Bender

Chapter 1

It had been a long night out with friends, we weren’t up to any good, we were just up watching Sci-Fi movies and geeking out about the latest and greatest toys, or collectibles like my friend Caleb always calls them.

My mom dropped me off Wednesday morning for work at the Build and Build construction material store. Over my yawn my mom said, “Maybe you shouldn’t have stayed up all night watching those silly movies.”

                “What?” I said jokingly annoyed.

                “You heard me,” she said, “now go make your momma proud.”

                “Oh, I will, you know it.”

I began walking away when I heard her yell out, “Remember we got church tonight, I think we’re going to help with Wednesday dinner- hope you’re not too tired.”

                She knew I was, “Love you-bye”

                “Love you too Billy.”

                I was just in time to start my shift, but my boss could see it in my eyes that I spent too many hours watching late night Sci-Fi.

                “Did you watch Velocirapture last night?”

                “No,” I said with a sarcastic grin. “I watched Velocirapture 2 –duh!”

                “Alright smarty pants, that just earned you the big Johnson job today. She wants three pallets of wood out front, and loaded in her car first thing.”

                Mrs. Johnson was the mother in law of Mister Willard, who owned the Build and Build, and she used every bit of the family discount, and Truck, my boss knew that I just loved working with her. She was nice but smelled like stale cinnamon crunch cereal, and she never tipped.

                “Ah man, that’s not fair Truck; I did it the last time.”

                “I’m just making sure you stay awake today Billy, you never know if Mister Willard will show up.”

                That was the constant threat, as to why we all came in on time and worked hard, just in case Mister Willard came in. But he was getting to be more like the mythical Easter Bunny, or Santa Claus would be more accurate. You had to be good, because you never know when he’s watching.

I had just finished the Johnson job and headed back to the break-room to get some water and realized how tired I was. I splashed some water on my face which I’d seen done in a few movies, but didn’t know if it really worked. All it did was get my shirt wet, so now I looked sweaty and tired.

Janice was in the back office and noticed that I looked like a wreck, “You know if you want, there’s that spot in isle 13 that has that little cubby hole you could probably get a nap in.”

                Janice was a girl a few years older than I who graduated two classes ahead of me.  When she was still in school, I always thought she was hot, but now working with her, she felt like my aunt. She was always looking out for me, and making sure I got a good lunch, which rarely I brought.

                “You know I can’t do that, Truck would have my neck if he found me sleeping.”

                “Don’t worry, I got here early today and don’t actually clock in for another hour, I’ll totally cover for you.”

                Totally just didn’t seem like an aunt would use, but she still felt like my aunt. I really was exhausted and so I decided to take her up on her offer.

                “Do I owe you anything?”

                “No,” she said, “of course not. Just take care of yourself.”

                “Okay Auntie Janice.”

                She hated when I called her that because I think she still felt like she was the hot girl all the younger boys’ ogled after.  Calling her aunt kind ruined this image she held of herself. To my knowledge a lot of guys still ogled her but they weren’t younger classmen, they were the customers.

Everyone knew of the spot on isle 13, and knew that it was the best place to catch a quick cat nap, which made it even more dangerous considering the Truck had worked there for years and most likely knew of it too. Janice was covering for me, but it still wouldn’t look good if he found me, because then I’d have to explain the whole situation and forbid a customer overheard it, or Mister Willard actually showed. I decided that the nap was worth the hassle even if caught.

I went to Isle 12, and then waited till the coast was clear and then crawled into my spot. Janice had agreed if I wasn’t back in the breakroom in an hour that she’d page me over the intercom. It seemed like a great plan.

                I took my hoodie off and used it as a pillow and crossed my arms over my face to block out the light that made it into the cubby hole. I was out. I had some random dreams and heard some odd noises, but other than that I slept really well. It felt like I had been there for hours, when I opened my eyes it was dark, a lot darker than I thought it should have been. I thought maybe Pierce the forklift guy parked the fork lift in the isle and had the forks in the up position, so it was probably what was blocking out the light.

 I laid there for a minute letting my eyes adjust and then proceeded to crawl out. I heard some crashing sounds in the isle behind me and stopped moving. Then nothing, so I moved again. I was just about out when I saw some boots walk right up to my exit hole. Then I knew exactly what this was. It was a prank; Janice must have set me up. She knew where I was, so she told Truck, and Truck had the team dim the lights in the store, and now they were playing a trick on me. It wasn’t going to work; I wasn’t going to give them the pleasure. So I crawled out. I looked the boot wearing individual in the face. It was Truck; he was standing there breathing heavy. He looked at me, growled and I could see blood around his lips. This was a good prank, him being all zombie like. I put my hand on his shoulder and said, “Good try Truck, I’m not falling for it.” Just then he snarled like a rabid dog and then something came up behind him. It was a huge two by four. It hit Truck so hard in the back of the head I thought his eyes were going to pop out and Truck fell to the floor. Then the guy carrying the two by four said, “That was close, he almost bit you.”

                I wanted to laugh, this had to be the best prank ever, but there lay Truck on the floor in a pool of his own blood.

                “What’s wrong with you?” the guy said. He was a black man, who had a strong build, short cropped hair, wearing a tank top and jeans.

                “What’s wrong with me?” I said.

                “Yeah, were you going to let him bite you?”

                I began to panic, maybe this wasn’t a prank, maybe this was actually happening, or at least a weird dream.

                “Truck,” I said, “No, he was my boss, he wouldn’t bite me- why’d you hit him?”

                The guy looked at me, and said, “Listen kid, I don’t know where you’ve been the last six hours but the zombie apocalypse just started and we are in the middle of hell my friend. So you better get on the ball, find you a weapon, get to killing or be killed.”

                He walked over to a display hanging on the wall. He grabbed a pipe bender, a simple tool which had a metal pipe for a handle with an ax like head with a blunt edge that you funnel pipe through to bend. The top was very heavy with the grip being much lighter. He tossed it to me, like it was a toy. I caught it, and nearly dropped it from the unbalanced weight to it. “That should do nicely,” the man said.

                I managed to lift it, and finally got a good grip on it. It felt good in my hands, so I took a couple practice swings. “You just need to remember, they’re slow, and without numbers they go down easily. Just keep your back from them. They can sneak up pretty easily.”

                I was so thankful this guy came along when he did. He was strong, he was brave, and I knew that he and I would go pretty far, even in this crazy new world- but I was still not completely sold this was happening. So far I had just seen one zombie and that was Truck, and this could still be part of some joke. The guy put out his hand,” I’m Zeke, my friends call me…” A zombie came crashing through isle 12 and on jumped on Zeke’s back, and lunged its torso forward and bit into Zeke’s neck. “Ahhh!” Zeke screamed, and then yelled, “Hit him! Hit him!”

                Zeke turned around and I took aim, and after about three to four hit the zombie fell off and Zeke turned around and beat the thing to a piece of pulp.

                Zeke looked at me, “Run kid,” he said in a very serious and almost scary tone, “You need to start running.”

                Zeke’s eyes started to go red, and I didn’t wait to see what happened next. I didn’t run, I swung for the fences and Zeke hit the floor.

                “Sorry Zeke.” It kind of made me sad, I didn’t even get to know what his friends called him.

I ran for the break-room to see if anyone else was alive. It seemed like if anyone had a chance it would have been in the break-room. We had a fully walled in room, with snacks, a fridge, a water dispenser, and even a small vault, that could fit about four people if need be. On my way there I saw a number of bodies lying on the floor, some looked like customers, but a few I knew were fellow employees. I hadn’t seen Janice yet, so I was hopefully she was still in the break-room. It took a few extra minutes for me to remember that it had been hours since I had last seen her, and not the minutes that I had thought it had been.

                I got to the break-room without seeing another zombie, but up to that point, I didn’t really know why. It was because they were all huddle in the break-room.