Natasha’s hand began to shake with anxiety as she poured coffee from the pot into Donald Casper’s cup. Both the waitress and the owner of Beakman’s Diner jerked back as the hot liquid spilled over onto his hand. She made a pained hissing sound between her teeth and set the coffee pot down.
“I’m so sorry.” She said, pulling a towel from its spot tucked behind her work apron.
Donald Casper squirmed in protest as she patted at the back of his hand with the bar towel. He made a shooing gesture and she picked up the coffee pot walking away quickly, face burning with embarrassment.
“Darn coffee here isn’t every hot enough anyway little girl. Why doncha go take a break. I’ll mind the house. Ain’t any point in making a fuss, don’t worry your pretty little red head.” Casper said as she set the pot back on its burner. He smiled at the young woman with his lips but with his eyes he was doing something different entirely.
“We don’t have time for any of that Pat.” Casper said, resuming the previous line of conversation. “What we should do is load up that old refer truck I got sitting out back aways. I’ve got enough food on hand to last a dozen or so people a good long time if we hole up at your ranch.”
“Do you really think that this thing will go on for that long?” Pat Wester asked and Casper grinned back at him.
Pat was a small hold farmer and not a very successful one in Casper’s opinion. If Pat hadn’t inherited the farm from his daddy while it was in the black, the way it always had been before Pat took it over, he would be just another junior high dropout milking the federal tit. Serves them right, thought Casper of milking the naïve taxpayers. He really did try his best at not being bitter at this dimwitted country bumpkin who sat before him but the man said some pretty stupid things. Casper believe that people could afford to spend less time talking and more time thinking, saying what was necessary and not just to hear their own voices.
“Now Pay, I ain’t gonna tell you anything for sure. But we’ve gotta be prepared for the possibility that this situation may take a while to clear up. I’m sure this’ll all blow over soon enough. In the meantime we’ve got to have some place out of the way where we can keep our supplies, place that’s defensible and not an obvious target for looting. And before you get any silly ideas in your head don’t think that this’ll make us even-stevens cuz it won’t. I’m the brains of this operation and I don’t want no caterwauling’ if I say jump.” Casper instructed as we gauged Pat’s reaction.
Like a fly on shit, he thought to himself. Bet it stinks so good that he’ll eat it right up.
Casper glanced around the coffee room and poured a shot of Scotch into his coffee from a hip flask. He took a sip and savored the heat that the alcohol left in his throat. He hated the idea of leaving his diner defenseless to the freeloading looters but his life was far more valuable than any can of corned beef hash. He had built Beakman’s Diner up from the shithole it had been before and if necessary he’d build it all over again. Perhaps he’d do better the next time and stay away from the corporate bloodsucking franchise business. This situation could be advantageous if things played out right. Hopefully the place would burn to the ground and once the shit stopped splattering on the wall he’d pick up the pieces and rebuild. Casper’s Road House had a nice ring to it. What the hell kind of a name was Beakman’s Diner anyway? Some asshole New England wacko from Philly established the chain but damned if he couldn’t come up with anything better sounding than his own last name.
Traditionally Casper kept Pat and his ilk at an even and comfortable distance from himself personally. He wanted their business but didn’t have any desire to have them consider himself their friend. Sure he would freely associate with them during long nights in the lounge and after he’d tied one on tight he’d even consider them drinking buddies. But so far were confidence in their mental capacity was concerned Casper didn’t put much stock into any of them as individuals. Pat was the only one dim enough to buy Casper’s shit outright. He almost thought of Pat as a pet. When a piece of equipment from the kitchen fouled up enough to need replacing Casper would ask Pat to ‘store’ it over at his ranch instead of paying to have it hauled off. After three decades Pat Wester had never caught onto the scam. Casper smiled to himself briefly, he’d live long and all those idiots out in the world would die. Except that Donald Casper was sixty-eight and eighty pounds overweight, working his way towards COPD and the crow’s feet in the corners of his eyes always made his heart flutter when he caught sight of them in the mirror.
Pay nodded absently even though Casper hadn’t said anything for over a minute.
“Okay Don we’ll do it your way. Maybe later on, even with all of this Martial law stuff going on, we can send someone into town and see what the deal is.” Pat said, looking out the window and up into the sky. “We should get a move on though. It’ll be dark in a few hours.”
Casper let this suggestion, slash, order slide. He knew damned well what time it was and he’d use his Rolex rather than the sky to tell the time. If you didn’t let your drones think they were making their own decisions they were liable to give you trouble. Casper didn’t need any more trouble, they were in trouble already.
Outside the diner in the gravel parking lot two short haul truckers stood talking together. Casper cracked the window over his shoulder so he could overhead their conversation. He listened for a minute. One driver, an old bald man everyone called JM was talking to the other, a stout local called Hess, out of getting in his truck and taking the highway into town.
So far it appeared that JM was winning the battle for Hess’s life. Casper nodded in agreement as JM said there was no use in going off halfcocked, that everyone holed up at the diner had friends and family in town. Not just in town, JM said motioning with is arms in an expansive gesture, but everywhere out there. This irked Casper because it made him feel slightly claustrophobic, as if they truly were trapped behind the lines of an occupying enemy force during a war. He decided that Hess would be the one to send into town when the time came to do so.
“We can’t stay at this damn diner forever.” Hess said, kicking anxiously at a pothole.
“Don and Pat are in there talking right now about what to do. I’m sure they’re gonna pick up shop here anytime. We’ll probably head over the hill and set up at Pat’s ranch.”
Hess nodded sullenly.
“Hey,” Continued JM, “We will wait this out for a bit, just long enough for things to cool down. We could use your help in setting up a place for your family to go. If we do it right we can all bring our people back with us.”
“You’re right. Thank you. Go on and head inside. I’m going to go up on the roof to help the boy with lookout duty.”
JM rubbed the stubble on his cheeks as he watched Hess climb the ladder to the roof. He turned and walked inside the diner where Casper and Pat sat. They greeted him with a nod.
The situation inside the diner was slightly askew. Half eaten plates of food covered the coffee bar and Natasha fidgeted nervously with the analog controls of the propane flattop grill. She ran her hands down the front of her pink and black pinstriped uniform and decided to wash the dishes instead of standing around worrying herself stupid.
JM pulled a chair across the floor and sat himself at the end of Casper’s table. He turned his coffee cup over, a sign to anyone who ever worked in hospitality industry that he was ready to be served. Natasha set down the plates she had been carrying and brought a fresh pot of coffee to the table.
“No charge.” She said grinning, adding a small wink to her boss and thinking that perhaps he’d favor her with the weekend breakfast position that had opened up last week.
Casper chuckled amiably and Natasha relaxed.
“At least someone’s got a sense of humor still, can’t everyone be walkin’ around with a stick up their rear all the time.” Casper said.
Natasha smiled and feigned a curtsy. She returned the pot of coffee and went back to clearing the dishes from the counter. Casper watched her as she picked up an armload and moved into the dish pit.
“Listen here.” He said, lowering his voice so that only the men at his table could hear him. “Ain’t no one that’s got any sense has a sense of humor right now. And don’t you forget that. This is some serious trouble we’re in here and we’ve gotta be more serious than ever.”
Casper glanced at the trucker briefly and polished off his coffee which was mostly Scotch by now. He looked directly into JM’s eyes.
“I set some people to pulling all the food and loading it into my refer truck while you was outside talking to that good old boy. Why don’t you go out back and see if they don’t need a hand?” Casper said. It was a command, not a suggestion and JM knew it.
JM looked from Casper to Pay and back to Casper. He’d let these two sit on their thumbs while he did the work, sure. And when the time came and food ran short he, not them, would know exactly what went from the diner to the ranch.
The closet sized walk-in freezer stood just inside the back door of the diner. JM was surprised to see that it was nearly empty. The others had worked fast. Most of them were working on carrying out large number ten cans and clearing the shelves of the refrigerators. He recognized all of the faces. There was Bill, one of Casper’s part time cooks. Alan, Pat’s farmhand and Alan’s his girlfriend Shayna.
Bill was rolling the number ten cans in the back of the truck while Alan scooted by Shayna who had sat herself on a five gallon bucket of dill pickle chips. She sat contentedly and smoked as the men worked. JM figured that there would be enough hash browns and frozen hamburger patties in the back of the truck to keep them fed for months. He squeezed past Shayna as she lit another cigarette. Bill grunted and dropped out of the back of the truck. The grunt had been man lingo for. “I don’t need any help. Stay the hell out of the way.” So he walked along the side of the truck and looked up at Hess on the roof just as redheaded boy standing beside him jumped into the air and called down excitedly.
“There’s a car coming. Go get mister Casper.” Nathan yelled at JM, his voice cracking. He had the same red hair and freckles as his older sister Natasha. JM figured the boy to be around fifteen. And inexperienced with the way he held the rifle on his shoulder.
JM went the rest of the way around the building and leaned through the diner’s door. He relayed the message to the men inside and turned back to the parking lot. Shortly everyone had dropped what they had been doing and were standing silently, gazing over the graveled parking lot and down the road. The boy had eagle eyes; the car had been a good stretch off when he had spotted it. They watched as a bloody and half crushed, eighty-something car pulled off the road and crunched noisily into the parking lot before squealing to a halt. Natasha gasped dramatically at the condition of the car, especially the caked on gore that had already began to fall to the ground in gooey clumps.
“Get your guns pointed at that thing ya hear. We don’t need any weirdoes or fucked up zombies coming around here and messing things up.” Casper said.
He took a step forward and checked to see that his order had been followed before pulling the pistol he was wearing from its shoulder harness. To his delight there were tree guns leveled at the car. He saw them all noticeably take aim as the driver’s side door opened. Then he saw the driver’s face and Casper waved his arm in the air. The man looked like he was about to pee in his pants, finding that maybe coming to Beakman’s Diner hadn’t been such a good idea. His face was bloodless and his eyes shifted from rifle to rifle.
“Put ‘em down boys. I’ll be a skinned cat. We got another of Casper’s chickens come home to roost.” Casper said as he walked casually up to the demolished car.
Layne stepped onto the gravel gingerly with his bare feet.
“You doing alright boy?” Casper asked.
“I’ve got a really bad hangover but from what I just went through I guess my day could’ve been a lot worse.”
Layne laughed at himself for a moment, picturing what the others must be seeing from their vantage points. He was sure he looked insane; just some guy driving a car with a road kill paintjob and wearing a throw up goatee and a bloodstain neck tattoo.
“What the hell happened?” Layne asked, honestly bewildered by his experience.
He started to ask more and pointed his thumb over his shoulder, back in the direction he had come when Casper motioned for him to stop. Layne knew Casper’s superiority complex and had never come to consider himself one of the man’s drone in the least. But something terrible had happened and if Layne planned on getting a slice of Casper’s information cake he’d be willing to choke down a humble pie.
“There’ll be plenty of time for talk like that later, for now we’re about to get a move on down the road. We gotta finish loading up the food. I’ll tell ya about it inside. Boy you must’ve been drunk for days if you don’t know what the hell is going on.” Casper said.
While Nathan resumed his post looking down the road the group on the ground filed inside the diner, everyone except Hess. He stood motionless looking at the ramshackle automobile that had just crawled into the parking lot. He threw one meaty leg over the top of the ladder and pounded down the rungs.
JM stopped as he was crossing the threshold of the diner and pulled his foot back out the door. Hess was crossing the parking lot in a hurry, kicking up a dust cloud and pulling at his pants pocket for his keys. JM reached the other trucker as he neared the big rigs parked by the road. He grasped the younger man by the forearm and was about to ask him what was on his mind when a heavy left hook landed on his jaw. Its lost on most people that if you’re going to steady the arm of a person in duress that you should do it on that person’s dominate side, JM immediately regretted not following that bit of common sense. His teeth clicked together even though blocked by the flesh of his tongue and blood spurt out between his lips.
“Just leave me alone. Leave me alone or you’ll be sorry. I’ve gotta get home to my wife and kids.” Hess said as he pulled himself up into the cab of the truck.
The electronics of the diesel engine hummed and clicked momentarily before the engine roared to life. The truck lurched into gear and pulled onto the road, heading the in the direction Layne had just come from. JM was holding a hand over his mouth as he stumbled across the gravel and up to the diner. Natasha led him gently inside, her concern turning to pity as he drooled blood into the warm wet towel she had brought to clean him up. They never saw the trucker ever again.
While Natasha tended to the remaining truck driver the others returned to loading and checking over the contents of the truck. Casper pulled Layne aside and they stepped down into the dining room. They stood next to the salad bar where the containers of vegetables and dressings shifted in their bed of melting ice.
“Don’t you worry about that Hess; he’s crazier than a shithouse mouse. What’d you see back that way?” Casper asked; his tone conspiratorial.
“I didn’t see anything.” Layne said with a frown. “Well I guess I saw everything. I don’t know what’s going on but what I can say is it’s a snafu back there. I almost didn’t make it out of my house. They just sort of walked through the walls and came straight at me.”
Casper nodded knowingly despite his utter lack of firsthand experience. Best not to appear surprised, Casper thought. The key to being the boss and keeping the regime in check was to act like you’ve seen it all before and already know what information is being fed to you. He didn’t have any words of solace for the short order cook and wouldn’t have said any had he held the capacity to generate them. So he nodded again and led Layne back up the single step into the coffee room.
“I think that we’re about ready to head out to Pat’s ranch now.” Casper said to no one in particular. “There’s nine of us now so we’ll have to break up between the rigs. I’ll have Bill take the refer truck and you ride shotgun Layne, you’re car doesn’t look like it’s worth a fart in a shit storm anymore. I’ll have little Miss Natasha and her brother in my caddy. Pat, you take you and yours in your Ford and see if you can’t fit JM in with you too. That’ll give us one rifle in each group. It’s always safer riding in a posse. We don’t stop, we don’t split up and we go single file, all ducks in a row.”
“Is there a chainsaw in the farm truck?” Layne asked.
“Now what’n the hell would you need a chainsaw for?” Casper asked as a retort.
“On our way out we could drop a few trees across the road. Maybe it’ll throw anything that’s following us off our trail.”
Casper looked at Pay who shrugged a reply.
“I think Alan’s got a Stihl in the utility box.” Pat said.
Casper nodded. Good thinking, he thought, and it’ll keep some of the looters and those National Guard Martial Law Nazi assholes away if they come around snooping. Casper stated his concurrence and planned on falling at least three large evergreens along the way.
When Casper started talking again Layne had decided to listen from the other side of the order window. He moved robotically on the cook’s line and by the time Casper had finished laying out the route they’d take through the rural hills and valleys he was setting a plate in the window. A fresh steaming cheeseburger and a heaping side of fries dominated the oblong ceramic plate. He found it amazing that a ravenous hunger was spreading from his stomach and up his chest. And by the looks on the faces of the others it appeared that they were just as surprised at his newfound appetite. The plates still mounded on the countertop across from the order window were full of uneaten food.
Casper gazed tiredly at his short order cook who stood dirty, shoeless and chewing on a mouthful of cheeseburger. Casper was just forming the thought that they would need to get the food out of the refrigerator drawers on the cook’s line when he was interjected. Layne’s fingers had gone limp and the plate spilled onto the floor, his eyes going as wide as softballs.
Nathan slammed through the back of the diner, panting and motioning breathlessly towards the parking lot. All heads turned in unison and watched through the large plaid frilled windows. Natasha screamed and pulled her brother to her side. Casper turned and let his Scotch and coffee fall to the floor.
“Everyone get the hell out right now!” Casper attempted to yell, his voice rising from a whisper. He heard the words echo like a claxon in his head.
“I’m sorry. I went to take a leak and…” Nathan started, quickly trailing off into a stream of ‘and then’s.’
The horde of yellow cadavers swarmed shoulder to shoulder into the parking lot, moving jerkily as if they were boiling or being puppeteered on jilting strings. They came from down the road and out of the woods that lined either side. Most were bloody and all appeared to be snarling mutely. Many were obviously missing lips, ears and noses. A few were missing their arms, those that were missing legs, Layne imagined, would have been left far behind.
The dead that spewed from the forest were covered in foliage and bark, having run along trunks and fronds and becoming sticky with the sap. Amazingly they saw that some even came out impaled completely with tree limbs that jutted absurdly from their chest cavities. Some smaller branches stood from eye sockets and open mouths, even caught in tattered clothing. Layne couldn’t envisage a more profoundly horrifying sight.
Layne stood back momentarily as the others rushed past him and through the kitchen towards the back door. On this go around with the walking dead everything sped up into a blur of commotion. He turned to run with the others and made it to the preparation kitchen before being stopped by ear rattling screaming coming from outside the diner’s back door. Someone, he was sure it was Casper, was screaming about how they needed to get the hell out of there. Someone else, perhaps Bill or Alan, was screaming about how shitty their life had been and that it shouldn’t have to end this way. What better way could there be, Layne thought grimly.
The small hallway leading out to the back door of Beakman’s Diner was too small and they were pushing through and nearly creating a bottleneck. Casper was the first out the door followed on his heels by Pat and then the farmhand Alan. Shayna pushed past Natasha and Nathan, shoving the latter to the floor. Bill and Layne stooped quickly to help him to his feet as JM sidled past.
Layne could head the windows at the front of the diner give way and then the ones to either side exploded as well. The dead fell into the building by the dozens. Layne pushed Bill towards the door and pulled the brother and sister along behind him. Three sets of arms swung around the corner and into the doorframe. Layne reached out to pull Bill back in by his shirttail but it wasn’t fast enough.
Bill screamed and moaned as the clutching hands pulled his exposed flesh towards awaiting mouths. His face was gone in almost an instant and he fell back through the door. They worked down his neck and more came to chew through his jeans. The zombies sprawled flat on their chests, their arms pinned with their elbows cricked. They squirmed using their necks and mouths to reach for their feast. They couldn’t move their bodies, the dead kept pouring on top of one another. The smell of fresh spilt blood filled the air and those on top bit at the ones below, taking mouthfuls then spiting and drooling in disgust. The ones on top wriggled for position at the bottom but they were pinned in. Within a few seconds the last bit of daylight shuttered behind reaching hands.
“Get into the freezer!” Layne yelled, the cadence of his voice rising in inflection, reminding him of the scene from the movie Reservoir Dogs where Harvey Keitel’s Mr. White was telling Tim Roth’s Mr. Orange that he was going to be fine, that he wasn’t going to die. Layne held no such hopes for himself.
Layne pulled the breaker on the wall next to the freezer, shutting its power off. He tugged the door handle and the door opened. They were all almost inside when Nathan broke off and scrambled away.
“The rifle!” Nathan shouted.
Layne reached for the boy, mouthing the words no, no, no over and over; but he had already returned to Layne’s side. Discontent or unaware of Bill filet that had been laid out before them the zombies at the top tumbled in and reached towards the living with yawning mouths. Nathan fell to one knee and reached for the rifle that poked out from underneath one of the ice machines in the cramped hall. Layne pushed him back and spun him around shoving and sending the boy sprawling into the empty freezer.
Fingertips now brushed his skin and one of the corpses tripped. Falling head first into the freezer door and slamming it shut. He kicked off the door violently and with his other foot turned and lurched into the kitchen. The dead were slowly making their way from the restaurant floor to the kitchen. They had been held up first by the tables and chairs, then finally by the countertop that separated the customer’s area from the back of the restaurant. The femurs of the ones pressed against the countertop cracked and they flopped face down making a ramp for those behind them.
He was trapped between two wriggling walls of encroaching agonizing death. He moved forward to make space between the closer ones behind him. A last ditch idea sprang into his mind at once and he looked from the open maws of the dead to the open doors of the Auto-Chlor dishwashing machine.
The dish machine sat in a corner on a two ninety-degree stainless steel countertops three feet from the floor. Two vertical sliding doors faced the angled countertops and sat inviting like a mirage in the desert. He didn’t have any more time to hesitate. Jumping on the countertop to the left he kicked the dish rack out of the machine. He crouched down and slid into the belly of the machine. He crammed himself as far back as he could and thanked his inherited metabolism that kept him talk and lanky instead of short and stout. I’m a little teapot, he thought as sanity began to slip away. Reaching below the elbow of one arm he got hold of the lower lip of one of the doors and hauled it down, pushing it further from the inside until it slammed snugly into place.
He huddled in the dishwasher, already experiencing cramps in his arms and legs and praying that the ‘heavy duty’ stainless steel box would hold out whatever horrors were trying to get inside. And then he was thrust into hell. A strange and peculiar hell, he thought, but still a legitimate facsimile of hell that he would not soon forget. He wasn’t certain at what rate the clocks in hell ran but they he’d have put all of his money on them running ridiculously slow.
They pounded ceaselessly on the doors of the dishwasher; he could make out the unrequited hunger in their shallow moans. He hadn’t had time to cut the power to the machine as he had the freezer. What little he could be thankful for was that the ON button for the machine was so small, that was it for his graciousness. Every time a dead hand chanced a blow to the ON button he was teleported instantly and shockingly through the strangest torture ever endured by man. The water was hot, but as Casper had noted before, it was never hot enough. Be that as it may, he thought, the whole time picturing himself trapped with the other aliens from Krypton as they were sent hurtling through deep space, that what wasn’t hot enough for one person was plenty hot for the other.
The spraying wheels above and below turned on the water’s pressure alone and with a human body crammed inside they wouldn’t rotate at all. He was sprayed constantly in the same pattern in the same places every time. He jerked in pain continually under the abuse, trying to relinquish those tender patches from pain if even for an instant. Finally after an untraceable amount of time either the power went out or the breakers were tripped. The machine never ran again.
He felt the clocks of hell speed up drastically and he began to snooze between bouts of restless wakefulness. The pounding eventually tapered off and then stopped altogether. He had a reprieve from the insults of the spraying nozzles and wondered if Natasha and Nathan had come through the ordeal alright. Surely they have to be better off than I am, he thought. And then, how long would the air in the freezer last without the compressor and fans running? He tried not to think about it, the air started getting stale and he was finding it harder to breathe than he remembered. Claustrophobia was setting in and he was stuck tight inside the machine.
He realized that the waitress and her brother must be thinking that he were dead. There had been no escaping out the front or the back, and who in all of silly hell would think to use a dish machine as a siege tower or escape pod? He couldn’t image the scenario; the thought had never crossed his mind. He had just appeared inside this box, there was no rational explanation.
Finally exhausted and sure that the chance being eaten alive was lower than the chance of never being able to get out of the dish machine Layne decided that it was time to get out. He hadn’t heard a sound for what felt like hours by the hell clock. Being stuck in this pitch black sweatbox is almost worse than death at this point, he thought. He took a shallow breath, the deepest he could muster in his confines and snickered lightly thinking that if anyone had written about the experience they would have romanticized the whole scenario and equated it to floating in a mother’s womb. If that was true then he hopped that the fiction character was also able to forget that early part of their life.
Layne pressed out and up as best as he could on the inside of the doors, for a moment panic struck anew and he feared that the doors would never open again. But with a dull tittering screech the doors sprang up on their loaded arms and flew off their rails. The tension spring behind the dishwasher popped and the doors fell crookedly to the countertops.
He thought to himself that houses and buildings had a zero zombie attack life while an Auto-Chlor dish machine had at least one. If this all blew over he’d have to write to the guys and gals at Auto-Chlor and thank them for their sturdy machines.
Layne pushed out of the hole slowly at first and then he jerked spasmodically the rest of the way out as a set of deep seated cramps lit up the pain receptors in his brain. The pain glared brighter than the Las Vegas strip after a sandstorm. He wreathed in pain on top of one of the dented doors. A few minutes passed and he was startled and afraid that the pain would never recede, the hell clock still ticking. Is this what it feels like to be eaten alive, he asked himself. Imagining ragged holes where the cramps emanated. Quickly the pain began to wane and he fainted.
He woke up sprawled across the stainless counter beside the machine. He could see daylight outside. But that couldn’t be right, he thought. How much time had passed? Hell, are you fucking with me, he asked in his mind with the tone of a prayer. He watched the haze of flies as the lit on the floor then buzzed back into the air. Looking over the edge of the counter he examined what he could only guess was the remains of the few unlucky zombie people that had fallen underfoot as the mod rallied through the diner. They were only a congealed layer of viscous tissue now, spread over the high tread linoleum and non-skid mats.
Carefully Layne hopped over the worst of the mess and traveled stealthily through the kitchen. There were no sounds other than the heavy buzzing of the flies and a low dripping of water somewhere in the room. He stepped hesitantly toward the freezer, eyeing the floor so he wouldn’t step in anything wholly unsavory. He couldn’t hear any noise from inside the freezer and he began to have his doubts about the pair’s survival. Reassured by the dents and tears in the corrugated metal of the freezer’s case his hope reasserted itself.
He knocked softly on the door, remembering the rifle that had gotten him into the deep sink of shit he had just been in. He thought he heard a shuffling from behind the door but couldn’t be certain. He knocked again, louder this time and heard a shriek from inside.
“Don’t shoot.” Layne said, pulling on the long flat door handle.
Hearing the clack of the loading arm of the rifle sliding into place he echoed what he had just said.
“It’s me, Layne. You better not shoot me after what I just went through.”
“Oh God, are you okay?” Natasha asked giddily as the door swung open.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just jealous that you guys got the presidential suit and I was left to fend for myself. No biggie.”
Nathan stood holding the riddle at waste level and Layne nodded, touching the barrel with two fingers and pushing it down to the right. The boy let the barrel swing down and looked at his sister.
“What do you mean?” She asked.
“Never mind, we should get out of here while there’s still daylight left. I don’t care if you’ve got the Ritz; I still want to bug out. This place stinks.”
“It’s only morning Layne.” She said haltingly.
Nathan stepped out of the freezer followed closely behind by Natasha. The boy looked around, examined the shards of rib that were the remains of Bill and looked away. He caught sight of the dish machine and looked at Layne disbelievingly.
“I really, really don’t want to talk about it.” He said, stifling a powerful desire to vomit up the no doubt meager contents of his stomach.
“We were in here for hours and hours. They wouldn’t stop banging on the door. I thought for sure they would beat it down or drag it open. We couldn’t sleep for a long time. Then suddenly they all went away and it got so quiet that it was almost just as bad as when they had been at us.” She said.
Layne nodded and put an arm out to Natasha. She stood back for a moment and then came forward. He led her away from the freezer and into the hallway. She instinctively looked for where Bill had fallen but besides the bones there was nothing left resembling a human form.
“It’s all clear out here for now.” Layne said. “You can’t stay holed up inside that freezer for God’s sake. We should follow the others out to the ranch. I’m almost sure they made it.”
He wasn’t sure at all, he hadn’t had time to listen and see if any engines had started outside during all of the chaos. He didn’t say this aloud, they’d find out soon enough. Natasha grasped Nathan’s free hand, the one not holding the rifle and pulled him along behind her.
Together the three survivors walked through the kitchen and into the diner itself. Layne had a snapshot of vision of how his house must have looked following the high-tide of the living dead. The entire place was a shambles. Everything in the room that hadn’t been firmly bolted down and some of the things that were, had been turned over and trampled in the carnage. Large portions of the building’s walls are the windows were missing. The ceiling had caved in two places where the ceiling joists had let go. Very few recognizable bodies lay strewn amongst the wreckage. Nothing moved save for the flies and the more subtle maggots beneath.
Layne left the brother and sister engrossed amongst the destruction and slid onto the cook’s line. He pulled open the stand up refrigerator near the closed end of the line and found eggs, cheese, ham and oranges inside. He turned over the cutting board on the counter and fished beneath the countertop for a loaf of bread, hoping that at least one had been knocked back. The rest were pressed flat to the floor below his feet. Finally his fingers sank into the soft side of a loaf and he pulled it out by its clear plastic wrapper. Nine grain wheat, awesome, he thought. At least they’d get their fiber.
He set the ingredients out on the cutting board and pulled the last remaining sauté pan down from the ceiling rack. He lit one of the propane burners beside the flat top grill and set about the task of frying eggs. Eggs are a strange thing, he thought. Unfertilized eggs didn’t actually require refrigeration like everyone believed. You could leave them in a cool dry place and they’d be good for months. Disputing the next fact with himself in light of Abraham Lincoln’s famous quote that you can’t read everything you read on the internet, he remembered reading that if you coated the shell with wax that eggs could hold for years and still be edible. This was something he’d have to try out since it appeared that the end of the world had effectively ended mass poultry production. Layne’s hell clock vanished from his mind completely.
“Who wasn’t a sandwich?” He asked.
He served the sandwiches with slices of orange directly from the cutting board. They ate quietly and ravenously in silence, standing to the side of the worst of the wreckage. Presently all that remained were twists of orange rinds and melted cheese stuck to the cutting board. Layne tossed the cutting board underhand into the center of the diner and wiped his greasy fingers over his jeans.
He packed up what little food he could salvage. It all fit into a large brown paper bag and he tucked it under one arm. Without another glance back into the diner he turned and walked out through the back door, the pair trailing behind.
As they crossed the back parking lot Layne say that the refrigerator truck and Pat Wester’s Ford were gone. Donald Casper’s Cadillac remained in its usually spot. He didn’t waste much time on speculation. No doubt they had all crammed into the closest vehicle and taken off. He didn’t notice any of those signature gore puddles accented with punji ribs glazing the parking lot, so it appeared that all but Bill had survived the assault on Beakman’s Diner.
Setting his step in the right direction Layne led the group towards Pat Wester’s ranch.
R. James Dailey 
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