How I spent my lunchbreak or surviving a Zombie Apocalypse (Theatrical Muse prompt #281)

[a_time_slip]

She knew that her coworkers thought she was odd. When they took lunch breaks, they would sit on the crates and eat.

When she took lunch breaks, she would quickly down a protein bar, then start on writing out equations. Today, zombies were on her mind. Apparently, a lot of movies were made about them in this country- this time line, even. There were different types of zombies, and she quickly became engrossed in writing it down in mathematic formulas.

Before she could turn around the first page, she began to feel the familiar sensation of traveling. She stopped writing, hoping it would stop. With the machine missing, she wasn't supposed to be doing this randomly.

It didn't stop. One short and unpleasant trip later, she found herself in a strip mall. Everything around her was quiet and still, which unnerved her. Ja'nee tried to think of how she ended up in this, and how to get back to where she wanted to be.

If only the dragging noise would stop! The noise that wasn't there a moment ago, that was coming from behind her. She turned and started to run once saw what was there. They were people, but they were rotting. The person that was behind her had one leg, and tried crawling towards her.

Zombies! Ja'nee ran, and continued to run, looking for a building. She wasn't armed, and was fairly certain that this world didn't include power-ups and weapons. More zombies were there, and she wanted to cover her nose and escape from the smell. There was no time.

She ran, and ran, until she got to a door. Running inside, she realized that it would not keep anything out. It was a motion activated door, and the zombies were very close behind her. She caught her breath, and decided to keep running. This was a big box store- one of the books or lists recommended a big box store.

There wasn't time to think of that. She could smell the zombies. A clothing rack could work as a weapon? She knocked one over and tried to get the bar out of it.

The bar was welded to the rack. Ja'nee started running again. Toys... toys, she quickly tossed as many of them off the shelves as she could. There were marbles- would the zombies slip on those? This had to be somewhat of an obstacle for the un-dead crowd behind her. Shoes- lots of shoes were swept off the shelves too.

Finally, she ended up in the back room. There she found doors that closed. Doors that were easily locked, and reinforced with brooms and mops. She had to close any other doors- but luckily, a few store employees were back there, and had already done so.

She told them they were stupid for not locking the front doors, but the employees soon let her know that the store had been safe, before she led the zombies to it. Ignoring her idiotic moment, she tried to think of a way to kill them and get out of the world.

Getting out of the store and away from the zombies became their final plan. They needed weapons, and something that would destroy most, if not all of the zombies at once. Ja'nee had the idea of severing the gas line, and blowing the building up, but they needed a way out of the building before that could happen.

There were several dozen zombies, and only four uninfected, so fighting them really wasn't an option. This particular type of zombie was fast, but not very smart. They couldn't climb, and only followed those who weren't infected. She wanted to figure out just what was infecting them, but there was no time for that.

Instead, they were thinking of what to do after they got on the roof. They would have to run a few buildings away before the gas exploded, but none of them were sure they could do it in time. Where would they go after that?

She asked if any government was around- a military, a facility, anything that could help them. She was told that everything had been evacuated and they were all that was left. Ja'nee thought through things as they severed the gas lines, and told the people to grab a few of the crowbars that were stocked in the back, and start climbing to the roof. The slowest were first, and would have the most time to get to a far building. She didn't consider herself to be the fastest, but no one else volunteered to light the explosion.

Soon, she was the only human left in the building. She decided to climb up the ladder, and onto the roof before lighting a matchbook, and tossing it down into the building. Running as fast as she could she tried to avoid the blast, but the force of it blew her off of the building and into some rubble.

Hours later, it seemed, someone woke her up, and tried getting her to move. She was on the back of a truck, with another person from the big box store. They hadn't abandoned her. Right now, they were on the way to an evacuation point. The building had been reduced to rubble, clearing out a large amount of zombies.

The evacuation point was empty. No zombies were in sight, but most of the group seemed weary about going inside. Ja'nee forced herself up, and towards the building. Luckily, her injuries weren't nearly as bad as they could have been and she was able to get inside.

Coffee cups were overturned and rotting food covered the tables, but there were no other signs of anything having gone wrong. She frowned, because something didn't seem right. She picked up a few stray papers, quickly realizing that a bomb was supposed to have gone off, clearing the land of zombies. Clearly that didn't happen for some reason.

Nothing had been disturbed in days, she noted, so where ever they were was truly deserted. The communication devices left behind still worked, and eventually the people in the truck came in, and asked her what to do. There was another point, miles away, but gasoline was in short supply. She suggested they go through everything and find something to use.

One of the survivors managed to sign on to a computer, and reported to the others that he'd found out what happened. The zombies were victims of a neural parasite that transmitted through bodily fluids. Most that were bitten became zombies within two days, and a cure was in the works. Anti-parasitic drugs worked to some extent, and were being used in the military and outside of the country. Two weeks ago borders were closed and the healthy were evacuated.

Ja'nee began looking for any meds, while the person on the computer began typing messages. A cure was rumored, but not confirmed and that was the last she heard before leaving the room.

It took her a while, but she found a locked metal box. Not having lock-picking skills, she hit it with a crow bar until it opened. Anti parasitics were inside, along with a dozen vials of something that was marked with numbers and symbols.

She gave them to the people who were huddled around the computer, and suddenly felt her traveling sensations. After another unpleasant trip, she found herself in the back room, next to the crates, her papers still strewn on the floor. One of her coworkers walked in, to tell her to return to work, and looked surprised.

Five minutes ago, Ja'nee appeared normal, and right now she look like she'd been through hell. He told her to clean up and be back to work in ten minutes.

Muse:  Ja'nee (Janie) Taylor
Fandom: Original
Word Count: 1295