“Amelia, my name is Amelia, officer. Thank you, thank you! I don’t know what happened to him, he was so nice before, he never did anything like that. I mean he was hurt and had blood on his arm, I don’t know what he was doing!”
“He was a zombie Amelia, old man ‘Patrick joined the living dead and was gonna get himself a bite of his secretary for breakfast.”
“Steve!” said Max and Stewart together, Max continued, “That ain’t helping!”
Stewart asked if anyone was in Kirkpatrick’s office, Amelia nodded her head no and they all went inside. One of the benefits of having an executive’s office was a lock on the door, Max twisted it as soon as Tom had made his way in. Stewart sat Amelia in one of the guest chairs and went over and got a cup of water for her from the sink.
“Drink this, take a breath and try not to think too hard, we have to explain what is going on and it is a lot to swallow.”
Amelia nodded and Stewart began with the start of her day and how she had ended up at MAC co rescuing Max. She went on to summarize what she thought was going on, people were turning into zombies, like in a B horror flick and were trying to eat anyone alive that they caught, which brought them to Kirkpatrick’s office.
“We want you to use the PA on the phones to call everyone here, so maybe we can rescue more people, then come up with a plan on what we want to do.”
Amelia let out a bitter laugh, “Use the PA? That is why you came up here? You could have used it from any phone in the building.”
Max and Steve looked a bit sheepish and shrugging his good shoulder Tom said, “We don’t know how. Who would any of us ever page?”
Amelia looked at him for a second, then nodded and went over to the office phone and picked it up. “What do you want me to say?”
“How about: ‘If you are still alive come to Kirkpatrick’s office.’?” suggested Max.
“Good enough.” Amelia pressed a couple buttons on the phone and said, “Attention all MAC Co. personnel, this is a state of emergency, we are all gathering at Kirkpatrick’s office. Please stop whatever you are doing and come to Kirkpatrick’s office on the second floor immediately. His extension is forty three forty two if you need to call. Repeat gather at Kirkpatrick’s office right now on the second floor. A-One.” Amelia hung up the phone.
“A-One? What was that for? Steak?” asked Steve, edging out Max by maybe half a second.
“It is the security code for an emergency. You didn’t know? Didn't you go to training? The codes are there to let everyone know if it is an emergency or not. You really don’t remember hearing them? Oh, by the way, I wouldn’t sit in that chair, that’s where Kirkpatrick was when I found him.”
Steve jumped out of the chair as if it were on fire and then tried to regain his composure by saying, “So now what? Sit and wait? Should one of us go make coffee?”
Stewart looked him in the eye and said, “Why thanks Steve, what a good idea! Why don’t you bring the whole pot in when it is done? Move the old man’s body into another office while you are at it too, would you?”
“Say I wasn’t of.. Sure, sure thing. Any helpers? Max?”
“Fine, no problem, we are keeping this door open though, okay?”
While Max and Steve made coffee people started to trickle to Kirkpatrick’s office and office area. They made more coffee while they listened to the survivor’s stories and gathered intelligence on where the last zombies were seen, putting them up on Kirkpatrick’s white board. After thirty minutes the office was downright crowded with seventeen people, there were various ages and both genders were represented. Steve had started to classify them as they came in, some were hiders, some were defenders, some where offenders. These categories had been worked out by Steve as he started hearing similarities in the stories, all of the people had one thing in common: they were survivors. When Max pointed this out, Steve said, “Duh, Sherlock. What next great obvious fact will you point out? I think we fall into the ‘defender’ category, we did not hide out, did not go looking for zombies to kill, we just dealt with the hand God tossed us, eh?”
“Uh, why is it important?”
“I dunno, just an observation of my own, I always liked to think I would not cower and hide if the shit ever hit the fan, you know Max? Turns out I did okay when push came to shove. I mean I killed a lady to save your ass. Killed her dead man. You owe me.”
“You killed a zombie, not a lady, lets not start making them human. Yeah you did okay Steve, better than I did. I am not sure why I sucked so bad at bashing her head in. In fact I am like, zero for three man, backed out on Nancy, got saved in the men’s room and you had to drag that last one off of me. Fuck.” Guilt once again washed over him as he thought about how easily he had been convinced to stay and not try for his wife and kids. Maybe he was a hider?
“Ah, maybe you are a ‘hider’ at heart, just trying to follow my example so you don’t lose face?”Steve said casually.
“Jah, fuck you too, loser. I did not exactly run away when I saw the old bitch jumping for Stewart, did I? So you can take your ‘hider’ classifi..”
“Sorry to intrude,” officer Stewart interrupted, who didn’t sound sorry at all, “You mentioned my name girls? Bring that fresh pot of coffee along and come into the office. I don’t think any more people are going to come up here now.”
With a little grumbling Max and Steve followed Stewart into the office. Stewart glanced at Kirkpatrick’s chair and then opted to sit on his desk, facing the small crowd. She asked if anyone could think of a plan of action, a dozen voices spoke up, most involving stuff like, “I need to go and get my wife or husband or kids, then we can go…somewhere.”
“Hold on, hold on there, we first have to decide if that is at all feasible? Are we going to work as a team? Go around to each person’s house or school or other job site and find everyone we care about? Who doesn’t have family or friends to go check on? Anyone?”
Only Tom raised his hand, “Uh, I just have roommates, my folks live in North Platte.”
Steve mumbled softly, “No shit?”
Max elbowed him to keep quiet, then said, “Why didn’t you raise your hand? You’re divorced, eh?”
Steve glared at Max, “So, divorce means my parents live in North Platte too? C’mon I got a sister, nieces and a nephew in town too.
“Okay, okay, just I never hear you talk about em and the only pictures you have on your desk are of your current lay and sports heroes. Lighten up Steve.”
“Listen up ladies, gentlemen.” Here Stewart looked at Max and Steve, “If we can be quiet for a minute and toss out ideas one at a time it might be more productive. Max?”
“Uh sorry. I think we need to break for the cars, head out and get in our vehicles then go our separate ways to check on our families. I think we should have a place to meet once we do that so we can get together, and we should tell anyone else where we are meeting, so we can all get together for, um mutual defense?”
“I think we should sit tight and wait for the army to come settle this problem.”said a middle aged woman in a snappy business suit whom Max could not quite name.
“Hider.” whispered Steve quietly to Max.
“Okay any other ideas? C’mon people we have only two plans of action: Go or stay and wait for the cavalry? There has to be another way.”
Other than Max and the hider no one else seemed inclined to throw out any suggestions, when it became painfully obvious that no one else would put forth any ideas, Stewart said, “Well, okay how about we wait for a few hours and if the guard does not show up we break for the cars?”