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Felix has to finish their shift at work, no matter how many zombies get in the way.
Normal Shit by Michelle Adler
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Transcript:
I wasn\'t able to remove my respirator fast enough to prevent myself from filling it with vomit. I fought viciously with its straps and eventually separated it from my face mid wretch, tossing it away with all the gracefulness of a person who was now covered in their own puke. I finished up on the deteriorating concrete like a civilized adult.
My first clear thought while I was trying to calm down was that general, "my body betrayed me and now I have no food and I\'m going to starve to death" thing that I think when I have no food and I\'m going to starve to death. That, amazingly, didn\'t calm me down at all.
After that, came a wave of embarrassment. I mean, it\'s just an arm. Was I really throwing up over a stupid fucking arm? It\'s not like I\'d never seen an arm before... I see them all the time, I even have two of my own! I mean, look at it sitting over there in the street, minding its own business...ripped off at the socket, like a chicken wing.. In the early stages of decay..
I spit some more bile into the grass. Ok, now I was just messing up my esophagus.
I sat for a few minutes, collecting my thoughts. I couldn\'t go to work like this. I needed to call Steff and let her know I was going to be late. "Maybe I\'ll leave out the part about the arm and just pretend I\'m unreliable," I thought. But before I could trudge back to my house and hose myself off, I was going to need to do something about that arm.
I sighed. They\'d said they were going to up city sanitation services to take care of this kind of thing, but I hadn\'t even seen a garbage truck in over a month. Living in a slightly less desirable area of the city, I was used to this type of shit. But still, even slightest consideration, like an email about suspending service indefinitely, would have been nice. I thought about ignoring it, just never looking in that spot again, but I was afraid someone was going to trip over it. I pulled off my soaked t-shirt and approached cautiously, as if not to startle it. It took all my effort to actually grasp the thing with my t-shirt covered hand. I then lifted the limp chunk of meat and panic ran it to the closest neighbors overflowing trash can, shouting "I\'m sorry, I\'m sorry, I\'m sorry!" As I did for some unknowable reason.
I made it back to my house WITHOUT TOUCHING ANYTHING and washed my hands until the skin started to peel.
I felt bad about being late to work. Being dependable is my one and only good quality. Without it I\'m just a scared, incompetent child. "This is the time," I thought as I pushed the security gate open just enough to slide my body under it, "this is the time they fire me." I quickly slammed down and relocked the gate. Of course this was not that time, it couldn\'t be. I didn\'t even flip on the lights of the empty store as I entered, I was alone. As always.
Removing my gear, I hovered over the computer and checked the day\'s pending orders. Today it was just floral arrangements. Once the flowers were arranged we had a strict no refund policy. So before I started piecing things together, I checked the phone for cancellations. There were 21. I\'ve been keeping track of the cancellation to order ratio since the first week we noticed the very disturbing trend. I\'ve found it correlates directly with the-- you know-- Or at least it used to when I had access to that kind of data. Cases rise and flower cancellations go up right along with them. The only time this wasn\'t true was right around Valentine\'s Day and Mother\'s Day for obvious reasons. I scribbled down 21/40 on the pad next to the register, wished it was Valentine\'s Day so I could give people happy flowers, and got to work.
Amazingly, we still have water, cold water at least, on the Southside and I\'ve been able to secure propane for the generator rather easily. I sat in the cool, cave-like humidity, as I prepared the day\\u2019s orders. The generator covers the refrigerators and computer, but that\'s all. I hummed quietly to its din, grateful it wasn\'t quieter, it muted whatever was happening outside.
I was very good at pretending it completely blocked whatever was happening out there. I started to hum louder.
The closer I got to finishing my prep work, the more excited I became. It got to the point where my hands were actually shaking from the sheer joy of.. being so fucking terrified.
Well, anyway, I did that annoying breathing technique where I breathed in and out way slower than I could ever want to and then agonized over how specifically horrible I am at breathing in general until I fixated on my crushing self loathing enough to compensate for my near panic attack. Normal shit.
It was time. I trudged forward into the unknown filled with a sense of whatever it is I feel all the time. The air was so thick with smoke from whoever\'s wildfires it was this week, that, for once, I was incredibly thankful to have a gas mask (which smelled like puke now, fyi) instead of the more standard muzzle that was strongly recommended, though not legally required, by the CDC. Everyone had told me I was crazy when I started wearing it, but who\'s crazy now?
Ok, it\'s still me.
All of the day\'s deliveries were funeral arrangements. Yeah.. I had three funeral homes to hit before 5pm. I can\'t stress how important it was that I stuck to that timeline. The last funeral home was exactly a half hour\'s ride from the shop and I absolutely had to be back there by 5:30 at the very latest. No fucking wiggle room available.
The first stop, Bradford\'s Funeral Home, was out in the sticks. It was a beautiful ride up a very steep hill. Which was part of the reason I went while I still had the highest amount of energy and the least amount of injuries of the day. The building was surrounded by a tall chain link fence, complete with razor wire at the top. I always tried not to look at the razor wire.. I didn\'t really want to see what was caught up there. I\'m not saying anything was, I\'m just saying it was possible and I didn\'t want to find out. The gate at the entrance was always locked, but they\'d added this neat little drop box for the flowers and I guess mail too. I rang the buzzer next to the box, shouted "It\'s Felix!" into the intercom. As usual, there was no response from the other side. That was ok though, I\\u2019m sure running a funeral home is a tough job even in the best of times, they were probably just embalming someone. They weren\\u2019t like, dead in there or anything. Or...you know.., but somehow still working, or at least taking in the flowers every day. I placed the arrangements gently into the receptacle.
\\u201cJust because I can think it, doesn\\u2019t mean it\\u2019s real,\\u201d I reminded myself, continuing to avert my gaze from the razor wire as I turned away to leave.
I liked the part where I got to go down the hill. I imagined how nice the air would have felt if it wasn\\u2019t full of smoke and I wasn\\u2019t so covered in protective gear. I wondered if this was how astronauts felt when they were on the moon or wherever it is astronauts go. If so, I don\\u2019t ever want to go to space. I got so lost in my space men daydream that I accidentally cruised right through the stop sign at the bottom of the hill. Luckily, there was no one on the road. I still felt bad about it though.
Second stop, Riverview Cemetery and Mausoleum, was, you guessed it, right by the river. And I bet you\\u2019ll never guess what you can see from there. Correct again, the expressway! Anyway, Riverview\\u2019s security was a little more lax. There was no razor wire (only the barbed kind) and while the gate was latched, it was not usually actually locked. Anyone with enough mental dexterity to unlatch a gate was probably ok to go in. And plus, it seemed mean to lock the dead out of a final resting place. Or at least that\\u2019s what the funeral director had told me. It was also possible that they had just lost the key. It\\u2019s not like there was a locksmith left in this town.
Whatever the actual reason for keeping it unlocked was, usually that latch was more or less dry and clean, and not coated with a viscous layer of mucus and blood, like it happened to be at that moment. I stared at it blankly for a long time, but who was I to question it? I barely knew a thing about proper gate maintenance. It was quite possible that what I was looking at was lubricant of some sort. Maybe the gate had been sticking lately.
"Mucus is a good lubricant," I accidentally reminded myself, suddenly overtaken with a full body shudder. I pried the gate open with a twig.
Everything looked ok in the cemetery. All the corpses were underground, at least, and that felt like a win. However, when I got closer to the office I realized that this was not even vaguely "a win".
"I don\'t have any more food to throw up," I reminded myself, averting my gaze from the mess of what I can only describe as entrails on the marble entryway floor and fixating on the silent interior. I saw a mop in the corner, ready to go. At least someone was on it, I thought.
But there was no one.
I took a deep breath and shouted, "Mr. Matthews? It\'s Felix with the flowers!" My voice echoed back at me violently, followed by deafening silence. He was definitely probably just in the bathroom. "I- um, I\'m just gonna leave these here," I yelled int'