Zombies in Springtime -- Chapter 3 -- Motor Skills

Zombies in Springtime

Chapter 3 – Motor Skills

Lanny sat in his silver Nissan 350Z waiting to turn on to the short road that led from the faculty parking lot to the secluded rear campus exit. He waited because as he approached the stop sign for the turn, he noticed a dusty old brown Studebaker approaching from the right. When he first sighted the car, it was at the perfect distance to make the decision to go or wait difficult. Lanny decided to wait. He busied himself by grabbing his iPhone and perusing his calendar for the upcoming days. He had a meeting with Dr. Emmit Green, a good friend and colleague, scheduled for tomorrow. Dr. Green was a Biologist. Not exactly a great one, but he fit well with Spoon County Community College.

Lanny put his phone down and put his foot on the gas without looking. He expected a clear path because far more time had elapsed than the Studebaker would have needed to pass and the road had been completely clear after that. To his surprise, he had to jam the brakes hard and fast because the car was only just passing. Lanny judged the car couldn’t be doing more than ten miles per hour. His heart sunk to think he would have to follow the car on the one lane road to the campus exit. The road after the exit, Lady Bird Road was also a one lane road and he had to ride it for six miles on his way home. It was sparsely driven though, so he would be able to pass after they got off campus.

He followed patiently behind the car. He checked the speedometer—nine miles per hour. The rear window was so dusty he could not even get a hint of who the driver might be. When the cars finally reached the stop sign, he saw the driver’s face in the side mirror as the driver looked left. It was one of the gray kids. The car was turning in the same direction as Lanny was headed, but in the split second that Lanny saw the driver, he had resolved to follow the car regardless of its direction.

As Lanny followed the gray kid in the brown Studebaker, he noticed the kid’s right tire frequently carried off the right side of the road and then gradually crept back on. It was so slow and steady it almost seemed deliberate. The oscillation was constant. He could occasionally make out features of the face in the left mirror. The gray kid’s eyes looked vacant. Like a vegetable sat behind them. His jaw slacked open as though it would take too much focus to close it. Lanny always called the kids “gray.” He spoke loosely, but the description wasn’t far off. The kid’s complexion didn’t have very much of the typical apricot hue of a regular white kid. It had a little, but it also had an extremely faint shade of blue. The net result was that the kid looked like a dead guy. Like a zombie.

The kid slowed down and prepared to turn down a heavily shaded driveway about five miles from the school. Lanny thought it was a good thing these guys lived close by because it took them over a half an hour to get this far. The gray hand reached out of the car’s left window to give the signal for a right turn. One of the fingers struck the edge of the window as it reached into the air and Lanny saw something fall to the ground. As Lanny passed the driveway he stopped the car and backed up a little. He wanted to see what had fallen.

Lanny got out of the car carefully, suspicious that someone may be watching him. He stepped over to where he had seen the thing fall. His eyes scanned the road in rows as though following an invisible grid. He didn’t really know what to expect to find. Could have been anything—could have been nothing.

He was about to give up when he saw a strange shape on the very edge of the grass. He tried his best to apply categories to the thing as he walked over to it. Animal, vegetable, mineral? He leaned down, and the shape seemed very familiar. His nervous system began to lash out in alarm. It was the kid’s finger! His finger had been knocked clean off his hand when he made the turn signal and the kid had not even noticed. Lanny knew he had to do the unthinkable, but his corpuscles compelled him not to anyway.

He reached down and picked the thing up by the end, his thumb pressing against the dead finger’s nail. Lanny twisted his wrist studying the thing. The flesh tone was grayish, much like the kid’s face. The top layer of skin was dry and it was begging to die and shed. The base of the finger where it had been severed was much dryer than Lanny expected. There was very little blood; the blood that was there was dark red and tacky. As disgusted as he was, he brought the thing back to his car. Dr. Green would have something to say about this.