It has been long enough. I guess I need to talk about this. Zero Hour. How this all began. I wish I could tell you that I have all the answers. Compiling our story with information that I have learned from Shannon working as a dispatcher, I have tried to piece this thing together. This is what I believe happened…
Migrating in from some unknown location, possibly through some worker, maybe through a visitor, I believe our local Patient Zero showed up at the Reedy Retirement Community, which is located about half a block from Reason’s. I say this because of the number of elderly people that were involved in that first wave of zombies that hit the store. Imagine one zombie loose in a nursing home especially amongst those with mental dementia. The place would be a damn smorgasbord.
I think this was the scenario. Someone was infected but was still not on their way to being incapacitated by the disease. They go to visit their nana in the home. Nana pats them on the face and the infected visitor responds with a bite that breaks the skin. Shocked by their behavior and not feeling well, the person apologizes and goes home to rest or maybe to a hospital. But now Nana is infected. When she starts to show signs of an infection, the responsible orderlies tend to an ill resident. Nana bites Orderly X in a fit of rage when they are trying to administer medicine. Orderly X chalks it up to some lady acting crazy. Nana is sedated and all seems fine.
Orderly X goes home after his shift. His girlfriend is there. The two have relations. Now, Nana, Orderly X, and Orderly X’s Girlfriend are all infected.
That night, Nana with her weakened immune system succumbs to the disease while under sedation. No one notices. She “awakes” at 3 a.m. How many people could she bite and infect within the midnight hours. The skeleton crew of orderlies and other overnight workers are quickly overrun. And now this whole host of zombies is just milling about bumping into each other when the day shift arrives.
As this is happening, Orderly X and his girlfriend have also died painfully but unnoticed in the midnight hours. They rise from the dead and suddenly their apartment complex or trailer park becomes a simultaneous hot zone. Now, zombies are popping up into locations – one north, one south – and these two groups of zoms converge in the center of town… which is right where Reason’s is. And suddenly, we are caught in the middle.
So, as I mentioned in a previous entry, zombies feature herd mentality. But they also use scouts. It is almost like they have some sort of psychic link with one another. A few of their shuffling brethren will wander away from the pack, looking for food. And if a big enough food source is found, it is like they put out a pheromone and the rest of the zoms come shambling.
So the first zom to show up on our doorstep was a scout – a wanderer – looking for food. What he encountered was a woman putting groceries in her car on the far west side of the parking lot. Now, you have to keep in mind. No one is anticipating some sort of zombie apocalypse. These guys are recently turned (within 12 hours) so they are not decaying or withered or even slightly resemble walking corpses. Patient Zero just looked like a sick, homeless guy. Granted, I have never seen a homeless guy in Langley but there are all over the place in Tulsa.
There were two managers on duty when the outbreak began. They were Kasondra Taylor (our assistant manager) and the store director Charley Montgomery. So some customer is bitten by a crazy homeless guy in the parking lot. This was witnessed by our CSM (Customer Service Manager) Becca Sutter. She pages for Charley to come to the front and go aside to make sure the customer is okay. Kasondra arrives at the front of the store (at the register) and stays inside to run the store as Charley goes outside with Becca.
As Charley and Becca are trying to help this customer, the zom goes to attack Becca. Charley defends her and the customer getting into a wrestling match with the zombie. Again, if this seems out of the ordinary, remember, they are not leaking blood out of their eyes or reeking of decayed flesh yet. Charley is just trying to help a customer and protect his CSM who is twenty two years old and has a baby boy that is only one year old…
And by the time they figure out that something is really wrong, a shamble of other zombies (Kasondra said they numbered at least twelve) lurch up onto the west side of the parking lot cutting Charley and Becca off from the west entrance. Now, this group that emerged, they seemed a little less than human and Kasondra had to make a hard choice. I know she has had nightmares regarding her decision but I thank her everyday for it.
Kasondra closed and locked the west entrance. She then got on the store intercom system and screamed – I mean literally screamed – for the store to be locked down. What she did not know is that two had already made it inside through the back entrance…
