My Probation Consists of Guarding an Abandoned Asylum | Part 11

 

Part 10 | Part 12

My left leg still hurts after the wound courtesy of the ghost psycho-killer Jack. Even with him gone for good, I still had work to do. For starters, I needed to find what was behind the false wall on the janitor’s closet on Wing A.

A rock stairway that descended into an underground cave. Went down the erosion-carved steps until I reached the wide space filled with penetrating humidity and drying salinity.

It was a laboratory. Very rudimentary. No walls, ceiling or floor, everything was just the perpetually wet rocks you find around the whole island. Cables swirled in between the boulders, wooden planks were stabilizing the desks full of broken or cobwebbed flasks and test tubes, and torn papers half-dissolved were randomly spread all over the ground.

What chilled my spine was the six-feet-high Tesla coil on the further corner. It was on. Rays hit the ceiling, like trying to grab itself to the walls and climb out of the obscure cavern using its frail electric fingers. I turned it off.

***

“Just ignore it,” Russel advised me after telling him what I discovered.

“But…”

“Hey, there are a lot of things in this island,” he interrupted me. “You know it. If it’s not bothering, you don’t bother it.”

I nodded, not fully convinced.

“Hey, also need for you to remove the tombstones from the graveyard lot.”

“Why?” I inquired.

“Just do it. Gives a bad image.”

Russel sauntered towards the small boat he had arrived in before I could ask any further questions. Even if I had, he would’ve not answered me.

“Got you groceries for this fortnight,” Alex told me getting bags out of the boat. “I found something that reminded me of you.”

“Thanks,” I replied.

They left the island as soon as their job was done.

I checked my groceries bags. There was something I hadn’t ordered. It was a spray deodorant. The fragrance: “lighthouse keeper marine man.” Funny Alex.

***

It didn’t make sense, but I had to do it. I released the dozen tombstones from the rocky ground’s grip. One by one, I placed them in the base of the hand truck, that got bent and lost a handle in an apparent explosion.

When I pushed the hardware in the direction of the Bachman Asylum, a weird hoarse noise stopped me. Just the bare graveyard. I could swear I noticed a couple of tiny stones shook a little, but I assumed it was the veiled moonlight casting shadows through the moving clouds. I didn’t have the willingness to explore further.

I stashed the tombstones in the morgue. Seemed fitting.

***

After that uncomfortable task, I needed to enjoy myself a little. And I had fresh vegetables.

Never been a good cook, yet having nothing else to do but reading old medicine books, I became solid at it. Not a chef nor a mother with her whole life of experience under the patriarchal role assigned to her, but my eggs with green beans and peppers smelled delicious.

A growl intruded with my cuisine time.

Rotten flesh stench.

Fucking zombies!

They moved considerably slow, but there must’ve been more than ten.

Threw the knife I just used directly at the one that appeared to be the leader. It got stuck in his chest. He didn’t stop.

Oh, shit.

More utensils. The wooden rolling pin bumped against a bleeding torn apart face. The soup spoon got a tooth out of one, who slowly kneeled to pick it up and placed it back in his gum. Small forks impacted rotten flesh and fell with a clink noise to the floor. I ended up without anything to defend myself with.

A woman zombie threw her undead baby at me. I reacted fast, grabbing the pan I was cooking with. Homerun. The newborn flew screeching. My just prepared eggs looked like an edible firework. Motherfuckers.

Different approach. I slammed the head of the closest one against the reflective counter. Little blood dripped as he plunged into the egg covered ground.

Grabbed a second zombie and gently placed her face against the still burning flame of the stove. The monster didn’t complain or seemed affected. I pushed forward. Nothing. The melting skin suffocated the fire.

Turned off the gas after throwing the dead body towards her companions. I rushed to tackle her. Landed over her and punched the face. Blood, half a tooth, sputum, some weird green drool came out of the creature’s mouth. I provided a war cry as I attempted to avenge my fallen culinary masterpiece.

The rest of the horde engulfed me. I was so focused on basting this one dead woman that I neglected the others’ presence. Same happened with the fact that they were only trying to grasp me, not a single bite. Very zombie-unlike of them.

Yet, their deteriorated muscles, cracked bones and non-holding flesh made them unable to keep me with them.

I kicked and punched out of the stinky and badly decomposed mass of once-human parts attempting to cage me. Ran away.

They followed me into the library. I used my hiding spot behind a bookshelf that had proven effective before. The zombies didn’t give a fuck about it.

The groaning became louder. The odor more penetrating. The threatful atmosphere more oppressive. My attempts at launching books at them, even the heavier hard cover ones, were futile and ridicule. I was brought to my last resource.

With all my body’s strength and weight, I pushed the seven-feet-high, ten-feet-long bookshelf. It barely trembled in its place.

I backed a couple of steps to input more momentum into my endeavor. Screamed in desperation. The shelf’s center of gravity got outside its surface area and, as if I were watching it in slow motion, book by book left their places and fell over my hopefully-now-definitely-dead prosecutors.

BLAM!

The entire metal furniture impacted the floor. A rumble shook the weak-foundations building. A dust cloud flooded the place. It seemed like a war had taken place there.

I coughed the dust out of my lungs as I learned to breathe again.

From in between the library damaged property, putrid extremities started appearing as a George A. Romero limited edition of Whac-A-Mole.

I fled again.

***

While rushing through Wing B’s corridor, I noticed the records room was open and, strangely, a small document cabinet was in the threshold. Blocking the way in. I hadn’t left it like that.

A mystery for another time. I pulled it out and dropped it to the ground, hoping it would delay the zombies whose tombs I had rudely ripped away from their sepulchers.

It probably granted me a couple of seconds. I used them to reach my office and snagged my newly delivered spray deodorant no one was going to smell as I was the only five senses being on the whole island.

I got out of there and into the Chappel (the chain also delayed me a little), just in time before the sluggish creatures blocked the way. Unfortunately, that meant that all my advantage had been lost and they entered the religious room as an avalanche breathing on the back of my neck.

I parkoured over the altar and my inertia got better of me. My wound won’t recover soon if I keep doing this shit.

With the strength of my still working muscles and tendons, I stood and searched in the small box wedged into the wall.

A golden paten. Frisbeed it against the only eye of a zombie. Not even blindness made him stop his pursuit.

A chalice. Also projectiled it.

Finally found what I needed. Took out the big Easter candle and placed it over the altar.

Painful moans approached.

No fire. Fuck!

The stench flooded the minuscule room I had selected to make my resistance.

Sought in the drawers that were at ground level.

Missing-finger hands were already supporting rotten bodies on the altar.

Colorful robes.

Bones cracked.

White collars.

Heavy thumps on the floor.

A heart necklace? With a kid’s picture inside?

Threw it against the approaching, all-swallowing mass.

A skeletal hand placed itself over my shoulder.

Matches!

Turned around and, in that same motion, I slid the match through the friction surface of the box until the wooden stick reached the candlewick, turning it on.

Zombies grunted in what I hope was fear.

Shook the deodorant.

“Say hello to my little friend!”

Whoosh!

I yelled as my handmade flamethrower overwhelmed my opponents. The flames engulfed the undead. Weirdly, there was no screeching nor agony yelling. The same dull throat sound as always was being accompanied by the gently crackle of organic matter popping.

My fuel ran out. I was surrounded.

The walking fireballs continued their way, ignoring me. As their limited burning matter faded out, they traveled their way down the spiral stairs behind the altar. It was so obvious in hindsight.

I trailed behind the conglomerate. Went down to see what I knew was happening.

The zombies started to press each other against the morgue door. Their collective mindset managed to, by shier number’s strength, unlock the door with the force of an inaugurated Champagne bottle.

They knocked down the skeleton that was sitting just behind the door. They didn’t sweat about it. Wandered to the back of the room, where I had left the tombstones.

As organized as their eroded brains allowed them, each one grabbed his own grave and left the place in an, apart from the reek and growling, peaceful and civil manner.

I opened the main gates and fence for the zombies to have an obstacle-free return to their resting place.

They marched on a single line, each carrying his own graved stone as if it was their most valuable treasure, all the way to the burial ground. With astonishing force for what they had demonstrated before, they lifted and nailed their gravestone on the rocky surface. It appeared identical to how it was before I had done the stupidity of following Russel’s instructions.

What was left of those humans crawled, dug and swam deep into the ground, burying themselves without any help.

***

Fuck. I just realized I’ll have to take care of all the mess I did without a reason. Problem for my future self.

I still don’t get why Russel wanted me to sacrilege the eternal sleep of long-gone people. The motherfucker doesn’t even respect the dead.