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White Collar Apocalypse Randolph S Stewart Miller wasn't usually late. And for him, three minutes was really late. He was a firm believer in, if you aren't five minutes early, you're late. He was usually at his desk ten minutes before he'd call the time clock service. Just another Desk Jockey Zombie, right? "Hey, Sunshine," Margaret Laminar called over the partition. "Wondered if you were gonna be here." In an office filled with dozens of cubicle zombies, in a building filled with hundreds more, Laminar wasn't too bad. He'd even considered hooking up if the opportunity ever arose. So far, it hadn't. At least he was one of the senior associates. "Morning, Marge," he replied half-heartedly. It felt like he was coming down with something. He noticed Marge sounded a little stopped up, nasally herself. Something going around, for sure.He was allowed a coffee maker on his desk, the single cup-in-a-cup kind. He set a pack of French Vanilla in the slot, added appropriate water, and booted up his workstation while waiting. Eight and a half hours, a half-hour out of that for lunch, and nearly a box of tissues later, he was ready to call up the time clock service and go home. "Hey, Miller," Laminar said on her way out. "Wanna join us at Bubba's for a drink and a plate of potato skins?" She gestured backhanded toward others in their circle, without naming names. It would be Taylor Sanchez, the little Cubana from Miami, Bill Williams (Miller wondered how Bill felt about his parents naming him William Williams occasionally,) Sofia Delgarde the accountant, and a couple of a dozen others who weren't so regular. Normally Miller was right in there. Not this evening. He wasn't feeling very good. "Sorry, Marge," he replied, pausing briefly to admire the way her skirt draped her luscious curves, stopping respectfully short of the knees to reveal tan legs that saw an adequate amount of time on the treadmill. The top half was just as well put together. She looked a bit disappointed. This probably would have behe time. Well, that's life. He wasn't desperate. In fact, he'd been with Marcia off of this dating site last night. She was a little odd, another professional Cubicle Warrior like himself, but with a wild side that, away from the workplace, wasn't repressed. He could feel where his lip was slightly swollen and hardened from where she nipped him during their tryst last night. He normally wasn't into it so rough, but it had been pretty good. Miller imagined Laminar would have been better.As all this ran through his mind, she nodded and said, "Maybe next time." With that she briskly tapped her heels across the linoleum floor toward the elevator, her shapely tush all too quickly disappearing around the partitions. He pursed his lips and twisted his face in regret, but he really wasn't feeling well. While the elevator would make a few more stops before the ground floor, most of those getting off there were already on the crowded lift when he stepped on it. It was crowded enough that he felt the left side of a bra poke the right side of his back most of the way down, and he smiled to himself. A little pervy, maybe, but a cheap thrill, one he didn't advantage himself of. It wasn't like he could move out of the way. Turned out she was twenty years older than he liked or so, and they went separate ways once off the elevator. Like so much of his life. Reality disappointed. ***** It wasn't a bad life, really. He made decent money, more than many who plugged data into a computer console for a living. He merged files, made files, made spreadsheets, tracked products, tracked consumers, and tracked the operations and retail stores that sold them. And how the goods traveled from production to point of sale. And how long they were at each point. Not exciting work, but he enjoyed it, understood the mechanics, and lived comfortably. Somehow he thought he'd get further, have more time to travel, see the world. This cold wasn't comfortable, though. Or whatever it was. He stopped at one of the downtown pharmacies down the street and picked up some non-prescription medication. It took longer than he expected. Something must have been going around. In fact, he wondered if a few of the folks in line shouldn't have been at an urgent care, or even emergency. Shit. How bad was this supposed to get? A last stop was for an espresso drink from the nearest cafe. He sat at the stop waiting for the bus that would take him to the best train entrance, maybe ten minutes of waiting, and the bus driver merely shook his head slightly at his coffee cup. Drinks were a taboo that was never enforced. Drivers in the City picked their battles. Normally Miller would have driven in. He had a parking spot after five years at Tamitech Solutions corporate offices. But he had wanted a good coffee. So he took the train in. Then he missed his train and ended up with no coffee and was three minutes late. And now he had a cold to beat the band. His head was beginning to turn a decent throb in his direction. Well, maybe he'd watch the Mets for a while and get a decent night's rest. It was still light out when he turned down his street, his townhouse was mid-block, but he almost immediately crossed the block. Two of his middle-aged neighbors were arguing, he didn't know either of their names, but normally they seemed pleasant enough. A short fat man and a tall thin one. He was pretty sure they were physically assaulting each other by the time he was putting his key in his door. He grabbed one of his preferred dark beers from the fridge, he kept lighter brews on hand for company, and pressed the "on" button at the top of his remote. The game wasn't due to start for another half hour, so a salami sandwich seemed to fit the beer as accompaniment.He switched to a quick bit of news before the first pitch. Seemed there was indeed something going around the City, ERs were filled to capacity and the pretty blond anchorwoman and her older, distinguished partner were encouraging people to seek care with their general practitioners, or at urgent cares. As if anyone would listen, right? Game time. Miller felt better by the time the Mets won five to four, and sleep came quickly. ***** A five o'clock alarm would have been so much better to wake up from than the neighbors arguing again at two-thirty. Lots of sirens through the night already made for a disturbed sleep cycle, and his patience was tested. Miller shoved the drapes aside to lift one of his windows and started yelling at them to settle down. When the tall thin man shot the short fat one in the face, Miller quickly shut the window and closed the drape. What the hell was going on? Sleep was out for the rest of the night. He lived here because it was a relatively affluent middle-class neighborhood. Middle-aged neighbors didn't tend to shoot other middle-aged neighbors in the face. Somebody had already reported it by the time his 9-11 call got through, and it wasn't long before the cops and an ambulance arrived. Which all in itself would have been ridiculous enough, but it wasn't the only gunfire nearby that Miller heard before the sun came up. Plus there had been fighting and yelling and screaming. Which was also very odd. People in Miller's neighborhood didn't tend to own guns, maybe one out of ten, one out of twenty. It wasn't a crime-ridden urban wasteland, professionals lived here. People joined each other for backyard barbecues, not early morning rumbles. To make matters worse, the power failed shortly before the alarm was due to go off. He hadn't shaken his ailment, either. No coffee again, right? "Crap," Miller said with this realization that with no power, he had no coffee. he settled for a glass of orange juice and a blueberry scone he'd picked up a couple of days prior. He was thinking of calling off when his cell began vibrating. he answered, putting it on speaker so he didn't hit the disconnect putting his phone to his ear. "Miller." He wasn't gabby when answering his cell. He was almost as curt at work. "Hey, Miller, this is Parker." Parker, from human resources. "From work.," he added to his thoughts unnecessarily. "What's up?' Miller asked. "Look, with everything going on, the office is closed today." There was a brief pause while Parker blew his nose. "We'll get back to you when to come in, or if you'll be working from home." "Uh, wait," Miller said before Parker could disconnect. "Uh, what's going on?" Miller was trying to focus, but his thoughts were foggy. He was having a little difficulty comprehending exactly why this was happening. Of course, that was because as of yet, he had zero information. "You should turn on your television," Parker replied. "Power's out," Miller said. "Does that have something to do with it?" "Maybe," Parker said. "But the whole city's gone nuts this morning. People sick, people fighting, people hurting each other. I gotta go. Others to call." "Wait..." Miller cried into the phone, but there was already a disconnect. He was wary of opening his door, what with all this news of violence, but he was nervous about staying behind locked doors without at least an inkling of awareness of his environmental situation. After all, he was an analyst with a need for data. It's how his mind worked. Though if he were honest, it wasn't working all that well at the moment. ***** "Hey, Mr. Miller." "Heya, June. Is your Mom or Dad home?" "They can't come to the door right now," she said through the thick oak slab she wasn't about to open. "They're...busy." He caught that she had to pause to think of why Mom and Dad couldn't come to the door. Good girl. A teenager alone didn't need to broadcast that on a good day, let alone on a day the world decided to go to hell. "Maybe later," Miller told her through the wood. "Okay," she said. June and Franky and Annie were his next-door neighbors. So the first door he knced on. After that was Sal the used car salesman. Technically Sal owned the lot, but Miller thought of him as a used car salesman. Sal's own vehicle was a nice late-model luxury ride. All he got from Sal was a "Fuck you, get off my porch" through barely cracked curtains. Sal had a reputation, deserved or not of being connected. Miller thought it wise to move on, though admittedly it angered him that his neighbor would treat him so shabbily. And the headache was back. He stopped going east down his block for two reasons. One, he didn't know anybody else all that well in that direction, and two, an abandoned police car could at that point be seen halfway down the next block. Add a third reason to that. There was still a pool of blood on the sidewalk from last night's shooting. He almost went straight back into his home but he had one more place he could check out. Deanna Reicher. And her husband Tony. She almost dragged him into her dark townhouse, shutting the door behind and closing more than a couple of latches and deadbolts for added security. "I'm so glad to see you," she said, looking out the peephole after she slid the last latch over. "Tony and me had an argument last night and he ain't come back. I'm worried and I'm by myself." She turned to look at Miller and Miller could tell she was indeed very frightened. her pixie cut framed a very scared face with jet-black locks. "And Mr. Gruber shot Laney Thompson this morning, right in the face. He remembered then that were indeed their names. "They seemed like decent people," Miller told her, and she concurred. "Yeah. We've had Laney over for dinner a few times." Miller wasn't surprised. He'd seen Laney Thompson go over a few weekends when Tony wasn't home, too. Figured Tony didn't know about that, but was none of his concern. Tony and Deanna were both a good quarter-century younger than Laney, and both very good-looking. But whatever. "What's going on?" Deanna asked. "I don't know," Miller said, and that was very true. "Last night and power's out, and everybody mad at everybody." "Yeah, Tony was mad at me." She paused, seeming to be very choosy in her words. "He said mean things to me and left. And he's not been back." Miller was beginning to wonder if he wanted to be here if Tony did come back. Deanna was wearing a floral sun dress that wasn't very lengthy, legs shapely if short. He didn't think she had on undergarments beneath it. But Deanna had some coffee in a Thermos, and with a splash of half-and-half, it was really a nice cup of coffee. She pushed aside a laptop and set their coffee on the coffee table. After a bit of coffee and a lot of speculation by both parties, Miller stood up to take his leave. "I need to check my phone about work," he explained. "Let me go with you," she said. "I don't wanna be alone in all this right now." He could understand her point, and frankly, he didn't want to be alone either. ***** Three figures were heading their direction on the sidewalk half a block down. Miller and Deanna were ready to run back into her house, but Miller realized one was a police officer. So they waited for the three of them on the sidewalk. "My God," Deanna said, "That's my Tony." Miller got a nervous twitch in the pit of his gut. He was in adequate shape, worked out and played racquetball regularly, and did more than his fair share of nocturnal recreation. Even had a slim background in taekwondo. But, you know, another man's wife, even though nothing had happened. Miller and Deanna both called to them several times. Their shouts weren't answered. "Something's wrong," Miller said as the approaching trio neared them. It was Tony, the policeman, and a woman neither had seen before. All three looked like they had been damaged in a fight. The woman had bite marks on her arms. Human bite marks? "Slow down there, buddy," Miller said as the officer quickly approached, the closest of the three to them. Deanna started shifting to hide behind Miller, as Tony and the woman came on either side of the man in uniform. "Tony, what the fuck?" Miller heard Deanna shout as they kept coming. The cop grabbed at Miller, strong hands grasping on the arms Miller had stretched out to block him. "What the..." was what Miller got out as the cop tried to bite his arm. The lady too tried to dig teeth into the frightened Miller, but self-preservation kicked in. His elbow went into the officer's jaw, his foot into the lady's side. "Yow, you whacko," he heard Deanna shout behind him as he deflected the officer's renewed attempts at grabbing and biting his arm. He kicked the cop's face, who went down backward and plowed a left uppercut into the lady. It took a lot for him to hit a lady, but he'd had enough. Tony meanwhile had reached Deanna and was sinking his teeth into her forearm. Miller brought a foot up in between Tony's legs. Surprisingly, it didn't seem to hurt him, but he did stop biting Deanna and turned to look at Miller with eyes that seemed distant, detached, and out of focus. His kicks seemed to be working so he planted one in Tony's face, realizing his mistake as the back of Tony's head snapped into Deanna's nose. She moaned as she fell, but Miller grabbed her and helped her get back up again. The cop was leaning on his arms on his way back up, Miller swept them out from under him and his face hit the sidewalk. Miller ran toward his door, dragging a willing Deanna close behind him. The three attackers were close behind, giving a disjointed chase even though they were obviously well battered from their violent efforts. They slammed the door behind them with nary a second to spare, the three in pursuit slamming into the door clumsily.Miller could just stare blankly as their futile efforts to pound the door open made disturbing echoes through the entire neighborhood. "Zombies," Deanna wailed behind him, enough sunlight coming through the drapes he could readily see her frightened and teary face. Her mascara was streaming down her cheeks. "My Tony's a fucking zombie." "Let's get you cleaned up," he said as he led her up the stairs. Zombies? Nonsense. No such thing. "And I got bit," she said as Miller led her into the shadowy bathroom. "Tony fucking zombie bit me." Miller lightly touched her lips to distract her from working herself into a frenzy, it may have worked to an extent and lifted her arm. The bite was very clearly defined and bleeding. He turned on the spigot and guided her wound under the flowing water, then doused it with peroxide. After which, he patted it with a clean towel and smeared antibiotics on it. A couple of gauze pads he wrapped in gauze strips and taped using Medipore, pulled off the roll to close it all up. "You could be a doctor," she opined as he finished. He couldn't help but notice how close they were. he shrugged. "We should do it," she said. "If I'm gonna turn into a zombie, I want to go out at least with a bang." "Your husband is out there," he protested. "He's a fucking zombie, and he bit me. I don't think all that matters no more." He definitely considered it. She was a very attractive woman, and with civilization maybe collapsing, maybe this would be their last chance at a moment of pleasure. ***** The power was still off in the morning. He didn't have much in the way of refrigerated food; condiments and leftover lo mein from Sunrise Wok nearby mostly. "You aren't a zombie," he teased as they woke up. He patted her bare rump. "Maybe not, but I sure don't feel too good," she said as she gingerly touched her bandaged arm. "I'm gonna have to change your bandage," he said as she continued. "How's it feel?" "Numb, sorta," she said. He wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. And his nose was still clogged, and the headache was worse. Maybe his head got whacked in the fighting yesterday. "An' I got a crazy headache," she added. And her voice sounded nasally, he thought. Now it was he being delusional. Zombies? Really?He glanced out the window. The streets were quiet. Looked at his alarm. Power was still out. He picked up his phone. Without recharging, it was down to twenty percent. No messages. Tony, the lady, and the cop had wandered off sometime during the night while they slept. The three had stayed on the porch all day yesterday, grunting and occasionally trying to walk through the door, grabbing the handle sometimes, others just blitzing into it. Now they were gone. Maybe they were zombies, after all. He thought of Marcia biting him on the lip. It was still swollen and seemed a little more split. Probably happened in the fight. Or maybe she had been infected with whatever was turning folks into zombies. And he was slowly changing, too. A chill went down his back. Tuna on bread with mayo was a late lunch. Deanna was getting quiet as the day wore on. Yesterday there had been occasional traffic out front. By late afternoon though he had only noticed a couple of cars passing by. What he thought at first was thunder? maybe bombs going off. He'd never heard bombs, he wasn't sure. He mostly controlled his headache with too many aspirins. If people were turning into zombies why weren't there mobs of them roaming? "Hey," he said as the shadows became long, and she had drifted off again into silence. "You okay?" She smiled at him for a moment and stood up. He did so as well. Her face flickered with anger momentarily, as though a battle raged within her. She walked briskly to the front door and before he could stop her, she openned the door and was on the porch. "Go away," she said almost blandly as she descended the brief set of steps and made her way toward her own home. He had to stop for a short coughing spell, then continued to follow her. He was able to open her door. She hadn't bothered locking it. "Deanna?" he said as he cautiously opened her door. She had already sat down on her couch, the coffee cups from the day before where they'd been left, and was powering up her laptop. "What the hell, Deanna?" he asked. She turned her attention away from her laptop and toward him with a hungry glare. From eyes that seemed distant, detached, and out of focus. ***** It was miles from work. But he walked it. At first, others ambling the streets pursued him, their violent intent obvious as he fled their efforts. People, or what was left of people, were parked everywhere getting the last percentages of power from cell phones and laptops. Bodies, too were everywhere. In cars, on sidewalks, in little shops, and on the streets. Sporadic gunfire erupted, as well as those distant thunders of explosions. Those who were on their devices ignored the bodies, the gunfire, and the explosions. What they did not ignore was the occasional non-affected person passing by.Those who could escape did so, some bitten and also infected. Those who could not would perished, would become a body draped on a bench or strewn on a street. Miller had no inkling as to where he was going, or why. He merely knew he had to keep going. After a while it was merely one foot in front of the other, no apparent rhyme or reason. Those others stopped chasing him. Occasionally he saw one or two who were not of the others and felt threatened, felt compelled to destroy them before they destroyed him.Miller was not aware of when his last conscious reasoning passed through his mind.It was not a sense of hunger that drew him to chase the living. That would have been a sensation. it was mere impulse, the basest sort of drive. In some places, power was partially restored. Storefront signs that were on were left on, would be left on until they burned out. No one would be there to turn them off. Refrigerators would run in these areas until their food rotted and their coolant ran dry. In a pet shop, bubbles would rise in tanks where there was no one to feed the fish. Miller passed a cafe. No one drank coffee. But they had plugged in devices to power them, turned on the laptops, put their fingers to the keyboards. Outside the office, Miller made no conscious decision to enter his workplace. It was not a conscious decision that led him through the busted glass doors, up the stairs, to the cubicles. He had no conscious awareness that he joined Laminar, Sanchez, Williams, and a dozen others who had returned to their cubicles. No awareness that Sofia Delgarde the accountant was not one of the returnees. Did not wonder if hers was one of the many bodies strewn across the city.His computer fired up straight away, and did not require the usual password. That had somehow been cleared off of it. Miller wasn't aware that his keystrokes joined his computer to a network that did not exist when he'd last sat at this desk a couple days before. No need to question. He was just another Desk Jockey Zombie, right?