Brown clutched his new bat as he raced toward the back of the store. He had visions of Trevor or the nameless mother slamming the door in his face and leaving him on his own against the cannibalistic dead that rushed at him.

Instead, Trevor waited with the door ajar while yelling unnecessary statements like, “run,” and, “they’re coming.”

As soon as Brown dashed through the door, Trevor slammed it shut behind him. The group stood there panting and exchanging panicked looks, until the first fists banged against the door.

The mother jerked back with a startled yell. She put her arm around her daughter and backed up until her heel hit a mop. The impact sent if falling onto the floor with a loud smack. She eyed them and wiped at her child’s face for a moment before standing back up. “You guys aren’t big talkers.”

“Sorry,” Brown apologized while removing his cowboy hat. He ran a sleeve over his brow before continuing. “I’m Brown and this here’s Trevor. We had two other people with us that are now… part of them.” The banging on the door was a blatant reminder as to the ‘them’ he referred to.

“I’m Laura and this is Jenny.”

Jenny held up her small hand. “I’m five year old.”

The noise on the door grew in volume.

“I think we need to do something,” Trevor said. “Help me move the desk in front of the door.”

“Wait, what about that back window?” Brown said while taking in the room. It was maybe fifteen by twenty feet and had cleaning supplies, about twenty boxes, and a cheap desk covered with stacks of paper.

Brown talked quickly. “Trevor, muscle that desk under the window, but don’t smash it out yet. Laura, look through those cleaning supplies for anything flammable.” While he spoke he tossed a few of the heavier boxes in front of the door. While the others worked he snapped the heads off of two of the mops, but slid the third mop toward where Laura gathered the flammable things she found.

“What are we doing?” she asked.

He handed her the mop handle and tossed the other one to Trevor. “We aren’t just escaping. We’re going to kill these freaks so they won’t be able to hurt anyone else.”

“I don’t think the owner will like the idea of us burning down this building.”

“I don’t care,” Brown said, as he covered the head of the mop with black spray paint. He spied two boxes full of paper towels and dumped their contents in front of the door. Going back to the boxes he looked through them while mumbling, “Come on, come on. Here we go, potato chips will work nicely.”

“Potato chips?” Trevor said while tossing the stacks of paper from the desk onto the floor. “Why those?”

“They’re like napalm, they don’t stop burning.” He grinned for the first time since this mess had started. “You’ll like it.”

Laura spoke up to be heard over the pounding fists. “What next?”

It pleased him to see that she had kept the mop handle he had given her. “Take Jenny and wait near the window. Trevor, how far of a drop is it and are there any of those things out there?”

“It’s kinda far, like six feet, but I don’t see any of those things.”

“Okay, listen up. I’m a volunteer fire fighter. A fire like this will kill you in sixty seconds. Smoke will fill this place save for a foot above the floor. It might not hurt those creatures that people have become, but it will kill us. Having the window open will cause this to happen faster. So I want you three to be safe on the ground. Then I’ll light this. Once I make sure it’s going, when I open the window to leave… it will inferno.”

No one cared to argue and Trevor dropped to the ground first. “Still good,” He whispered.

There was a moment of indecision as to whether Laura wanted to go down first or have Jenny do it. A large crack appeared in the door. Seconds later splinters flew. “Take her first.”

Brown lowered the girl down, then helped Laura. He office skirt didn’t make things any easier. Brown kept thinking another dozen of the creatures would appear around the corner, but this still failed to happen.

Maybe my plan is working. Maybe they’re all following us into the store.

The door splintered open enough for him to see a blood drenched face on the other side.

I need to move fast.

Grabbing up the paint smeared mop, he lit it. The flames roared up quickly and once it was going, he stuffed it into a mound of paper towels that surrounded one of the boxes of chips. He watched it catch and smoke poured into the room at once. He pulled the flaming mop handle out and while ducking under the smoke, he used it to push the boxes over that were helping keep the door shut.

The door burst open and three zombies stumbled into the fire. Their clumsy feet kicked the fire to new areas and caused it to grow to greater heights.

Milky eyes stared at him and they ignored the fire in their quest for his flesh. But Brown had already reached the desk. He hopped up and looked back one time. Two of the zombies were pillars of flame.

When he opened the window the oxygen caused the entire room to combust He jumped outside as smoke filled the room instantly. Brown landed on the ground coughing, but when he rubbed the smoke from his eyes the others were nowhere to be seen.

To be continued next Saturday!

You can find out more about Brown and the Eternal Aftermath here!