Connecting Dots

Jon looked towards Mortimer, who had tucked his hands into his pockets, focusing on their forward march. “Mortimer... what the hell is going on?” The man did not answer, nor did he look towards Jon. “We’re not stupid. There’s something going on, and I think you know, why else would Charlie come here?”

They reached the door at the end of the lobby. Mortimer reached out to open the door, which led out into a short hall. There was a cold chill that flowed out toward them. Just across the hall was the chapel where services were held for the departed. The silence was deafening and the group could feel the weight that was omnipresent in the building. Mortimer seemed to offset it with his attitude, which had only seemed curt and uninterested since they arrived.

Leslie reached up over the heads of the group members, forcing the door back closed by leaning her hand and weight against it. “Mortimer, what the actual hell?” She demanded.

The man sucked his teeth and glared up to Leslie. “I’ve always hated how you were taller than me...“ He groused. “What do you think? How many of ‘em have you seen? The druggies, on this side of town? Seems pretty unusual right? They aren’t on bath salts, they aren’t on anything. There have been reports all over the radio about these kinda assaults: weirdos high on drugs rushing shops and homes where people were waiting out the storms.” He looked to Kaitlynn. “You tell them, you were up with your dad by the bridge right? All the EMTs are that way.”

They looked to Kaitlynn. She furrowed her brows and nodded slowly. “Well -- year, I’ve been helping with the shortage. They closed the bridge to prevent people from crossing it, but that’s only because the river is high --!” She tried to defend, only to be interrupted by the man.

“Don’t be an idiot! You think some rushing water is going to stop a bunch of hillbillies?!” he moved to step forward, but Leslie placed her hand on his chest to stop him. Mortimer calmed down, frowning deeply. “They closed the bridge to keep them out.”

Nathan looked up from his music player. “Who’s them?”

Mortimer looked to Nathan, shaking his head in disgust by the obviously unconcerned question. He noticed it since they arrived in the mortuary. Nathan seemed unnervingly calm, despite how the others seemed rushed and ragged from running.

“Them.” Mortimer finally spoke up. “The ones ransacking the shops, attacking folk. Paint ‘em up how you want, but have you looked into their eyes?”

The silence returned. No one wanted to speak out loud what it was they knew the others were thinking. Leslie and Jon saw it when they went to Mac’s. The hooligans outside of his building had stiff, ambling movements like they were having difficulty controlling their bodies. Kaitlynn had seen some of the people she was helping earlier out on the bridge that they had vacant expressions, almost as if they were in vegetati states, not even responding to the pinch of the intravenous drips that pierced their arms. She had thought nothing of it, as those with regular use of drugs did not flinch at such things. Lesllie noticed it too, but in the way that the spirits normal in town were abnormally moving around. Jon had seen that body, Nikki had noticed how their recent attack in the cemetery was no ordinary drug reaction. She’s seen drug users up close and in personal ways. Nathan? He knew. He’s watched movies, he’s read books. The uncomfortable silence dragged on, Mortimer’s hand falling from the doorknob as Leslie’s weight forced it to close with an audible, click!

Mortimer shrugged, hands splaying out as he found their spinelessness incredulous. “I don’t have to spell it out for you, do I? Come on, I work with the dead every day. Those mangled, pipe waving punks aren’t alive, at least in the way we think.” They turned away from the man’s stony gaze as he leaned forward. “Nate, I know you don’t like me, but you agree right?” Mortimer was in an opposing field of view when it came to politics.

He was the sort of youth against immigration, or supporting lazy people on welfare using his family’s taxes. Despite his inconsiderate views it was somewhat expected as his family was quite known for their non-charitable affairs concerning their business. It was a business. They made no illusions that they were there to help anyone. They provided a service no one else bothered to do and it kept the town from overflowing with unclaimed bodies and from having to bury family members in cemeteries towns over. Nathan was remiss to agree with anything the selfish hack tried to push in terms of independent thought, but there was no doubt in his mind what was happening.

Nathan reached to remove his earbuds before looking over his shoulder to the others, body turning to the full rotation. “They’re ...zombies.” The word was unpalatable to the metalhead. He felt as if the very thought was a monstrous lie that one only read in stories or saw in movies, but more and more have the realities of such a threat had come to ahead.

After all it was only a week after they discovered that there was a mutated form of mad cow diseased that made the jump from the animal to people, in its usual course during production, was found in a warehouse in Belarus. Prion diseases caused by mad cow disease shuts down the brain and eventually kills the body, but many of the infected in those regions did not die, but instead became violent and fell into bouts of dementia, accusing people of being the cause of some invisible despair they were suffering. Nathan stomped on the ground and pointed to the others.

“I knew something was wrong with that meat!” He rushed into the chapel, Jon calling out to him.

“Nathan, hold on!” He would catch up to his friend, grabbing him by the arm. “You can’t say it was the meat at Misha’s.” Nathan shot a glare, at least assumed by the way the young man snapped his head in Jon’s direction. “Yes, I saw them dumping bodies in the dumpster, but they could be with the mafia or some crime group. How could have people from Outertown gotten sick?” They all had the same source of meat after all, which usually came from the stores out in the city.

The notion calmed Nathan down, but as the others rushed up to meet them in the middle of the chapen, which was partitioned with a mechanical folding wall, a sudden slam would ring through the hollowed room. They looked up towards the stained glass windows where three or four figures were violently wailing against the thick windows. The others looked to Mortimer, who knew the building best, as it was his home. They stood on the chapel to the left side of the building, but something was wrong. As far as Mortimer knew those windows just led to the display room which was left of the western chapel and right of the eastern half of the chapel.

Mortimer swallowed, starting to feel the nervousness grip his constructed, apathetic demeanor. “The casket room is on the other side of that window.” There was no caveat to his announcement though. “Which is only connected to the prep room and storage room. Aside from the fire escape, there’s no way out of those rooms.” And they would have heard the alarms go off had that door been forced open.