The evidence room is full of boxes with various labels, all featuring last names of what I presume are criminals in the area. It takes me a moment to figure out the organization but I eventually find that it’s sectioned into categories like weapons, documents, drugs, and personal belongings. After wandering the drug section for a few minutes I decide I have more important things to do than pocket pills and find myself in the weapons area. I ignore the collection of handguns, rifles, shotguns, and the oddly extensive number of explosives, and go straight for one long, narrow item tucked inside a plastic evidence bag.

“Oh, hell yeah,” I wrap my fingers around the grip and lift in the air like I’m He-Man about to declare my ownership of authority. Actually, what the hell, why not?

“I have the power!” My voice is a bit loud, as it should be when making such a declaration, and I turn to the door. When it remains shut, I grin and rip the plastic from the blade. “Oh, sweet baby, did they take care of you?”

A quick inspection of the blade and hilt show there are no new scratches or nicks, so they were at least careful with it. I check for the scabbard but it’s not in the same section. Come to think of it, none of my other belongings are anywhere nearby either. Would they really make their life that difficult by separating everything?

As it turns out, they would. After a few minutes of browsing the wares I find another box a few aisles over with my named printed below a string of numbers, 2040-LAU-75309, Chanticleer Laurent. A heavy wave of relief washes over me as I find my uncle’s journal sitting at the top; a well worn and rustic looking leather bound journal with various slips of paper sticking out at all angles. It holds all his notes and discoveries from the realms of the supernatural; magic, monsters, secret societies, and so forth. It’s how I learned about Gishban, the first fire elemental.

Learning that name took a lot of work as one can not simply write the name down; I learned that the hard way and spent two weeks re-writing my journal after the first spontaneously combusted. My uncle was clever though and hid the name with coded wording and writing tricks. I’ve often wondered if he had other names in the book but things fell apart before I could really dig into it and find them.

I guess since the world has ended I’m going to have a lot more free time to dig through the journals and see what other interesting secrets it holds.

Beneath his journal I find mine; a dollar store notebook with smiling devil emojis all over the cover and a considerable amount of stickers featuring characters from Alice in Wonderland, cartoon Zombies, and Gir. This was my second journal, given the early combustible demise of my first, and contained everything I had learned from my uncle’s. I learned my lesson the first fire, and did not copy Gishban’s name into this one. Instead, I borrowed my uncle’s method and hid the name in the text, which takes a surprising amount of ingenuity while writing.

The prosecutors had used these journals against me as evidence of my declining mental state and escape from reality. I bet they’re rethinking everything now that Zombies are taking over the world. I mean, Brady wasn’t laughing after he discovered I was right about vampires… considering he is one now.

Beneath the books I find my old leather jacket. I almost drop the journals as I rip the long duster from the box and fling it around myself over my shoulders, tucking my arms through the sleeves. It feels so good to have it back! It’s a little looser than I remember, but I’ve probably lost some weight eating the rabbit chow at the institute. I dig through the clothes at the bottom of the box and pull out the shirt I was wearing the night of the incident. It has blood on it, but at least it’s in one piece. The shirt I’m wearing right now is torn to shreds and leaves me looking like I walked off the set of the Lost Boys.

 I search the evidence room for a bag of any sort, and all I come up with is a bright pink school bag with a variety of Little Pony pins, Chibi Cat keychains, and a spattering of blood across the top near the handle. I almost pass it up, since it’s not a Wednesday, but then I realize I don’t actually know what day it is so… maybe it is Wednesday? 

“Whatever,” I dump the school books out on the floor and stuff my belongings inside. “Regina George is probably dead anyway.”

I find myself back down the narcotics aisle and raise my nose to the stuff. Just kidding, I open the bag, set it by the shelf, and just scoop everything into the opening. I don’t know exactly what all was in there, but I’m betting all the bottles and bags are properly labeled for a police evidence locker and I won’t have any trouble with it later.

Come to think of it, my drug habits probably didn’t help my case in the trials.

Whatever.

My scabbard is resting against a shelf at the back of the room and I’m just in the process of strapping it to my belt when the door of the evidence room bursts open and my muffled peace and quiet is disrupted by yelling and gunfire. I peek around the shelf and find two of the survivors rushing into the room and slamming the door just as a small group of undead slam into the window behind them and start pawing at the glass.

“They’re coming in the back door,” the man yells, clearly agitated with his newfound situation. He’s a larger, round, and balding man who looks to be in his 50s. He’s having trouble catching his breath. The yelling probably isn’t helping any. “Who the fuck left the back door open?!”

“Whoops,” I mutter quietly. I was subconsciously returning the sword to it’s home but I stop myself. I might need it soon. That’s the same man who fired at me when I was outside and I can’t imagine he’ll be kinder with the trigger now that we’re in the same room.

“Are we safe in here?” The young woman with him asks.

“These are reinforced windows,” the man pounds on the glass with the palm of his hand; the zombies outside try to snatch his arm through the glass, oblivious to the concept of translucency. “They won’t get inside.”

“What about John and Chase?” 

“John will be fine, and Chase is with him,” the man says. He turns to examine the room and I duck out of view behind the shelf.  “So, he’ll be fine too. Damn, I thought this was the armory.”

“That was the door on the left, we went to the door on the right,” the girl doesn’t take her eyes off the door until she’s convinced it’s not going to burst open under the pressure of the undead on the other side, or that they’ve turned raptor and figured out door handles.

The man catches his breath and straightens up to his full height. Comparing him to the door frame I’d say a good six and a half feet; not of muscle, but certainly someone who can throw his weight around. 

“Damn it,” the man growls. He holds his pistol up, examining it for I don’t know what, then stomps away from the door. “I’m going to check for another way out.”

I roll my eyes so hard it gives me a mild migraine and let out a heavy sigh at the thought of having to play hide and seek with these people. I consider getting it over with and just telling them there’s only one exit, but as I’m gathering the nerve to step out the guy kicks over a box a few lanes over and gets distracted.

“Holy fucking shitfucks!” the man exclaims and I wonder if he’s the same guy from earlier with the very creative ability to swear. “This might not be the armory but there’s still weapons in here. There are fucking grenades in here.”

Heheh, fucking grenades. You thought Taco Bell made your ass explode? Try our new anal fucking grenades!

“Is that going to help us get out of here?” She hasn’t moved from the door; has barely taken her eyes off it.

“Fuck yeah it is, little lady. Toss one or two of these out there, they go boom, and the zombies are gone.”

“These things have survived point blank blasts from shotguns, I don’t think some shrapnel is going to do the trick,” she finally steps away from the door as she approaches the man.

“God damn, Claire, they’re grenades, not shrapnels. They explode, go boom, and engulf shit in fire and death.”

Oh, cool, another Claire! This probably means I can’t join their group, it would cause too much chaos and confusion. I can just imagine it now, Mr. Big Fella yells something like; Claire, make me a sandwich! And we both jump up to kick him in the nads. Of course, I’m making a few assumptions about their personalities but based solely upon the few lines of dialogue I’ve heard from them so far, I feel like I’ve known them for years. He clearly embodies the stereotypical misogynist, resembling an exaggerated cliche secondary antagonist in some amateur writer’s debut novel, while she exudes the aura of a Mary-Sue archetype, getting shit done despite the attempts of men hindering her progress. But, pfft, what am I saying? This isn’t some novel, and reality doesn’t work like that.

“This is why men do the fighting,” Chuck says, reaching out and slapping Claire’s rear.

I spoke too soon.

“Alright,” I round the corner, slinging my sword up into my shoulder- side of the blade down, I learned that lesson the hard way, too. I’m greeted with a raised gun from Claire as the man fumbles between his gun and the grenade. After a second he drops the grenade to the floor, wincing and flinching away as he does so. When it fails to explode, he grabs his pistol off the shelf beside him and levels it at me as well. 

“That’s enough of that,” I continue.

“Where did you come from?” Claire speaks first. “Is there another door back there?”

“Nope, I was just in here first.” I step forward.

“Don’t worry, sweet heart,” the man reaches around Claire, resting a hand on her chest. I notice a little squeeze of his fingers as he pushes her to the side, getting a good feel. Pulling the old brake-check move without the benefit of a vehicle. “I’ve got this handled.”

Claire’s expression darkens immediately, gritting her teeth as she’s shoved aside, and I can tell this is a regular issue. She’s about to protest when I decide not to waste any time giving this douche a chance and I lunge forward. The first swing goes through his wrist, dropping both the gun, and the hand attached to it, to the floor. The second stops short of his neck, the blade pressing gently into his flesh without breaking it. My movements are significantly faster than I ever remember them being, and I feel as though I’m starting at the man for a long time before his eyes suddenly widen and he brings the stump of his hand up to his face.

He takes in a deep breath and releases it as a mighty, manly scream.

Before I can utter my next cool catchphrase, the earth beneath us begins to jerk about so roughly I stumble and crash into a shelf which tips over. Chuck and Claire don’t hold up any better, with Chuck face planting into the window of the front door and Claire collapsing under a fallen shelf. A roar emanates from seemingly everywhere, so loud even the zombies stop pounding on the door and cover their ears. Then, just as suddenly as it started, it all stops. There is barely a heartbeat of the most absolute, pure silence I have ever experienced before everything in existence rapidly collapses into a single point in the blink of an eye.

“This is why men do the fighting,” Chuck says, reaching out and slapping Claire’s rear.

I’m standing at the end of the shelves, exactly where I was just a few seconds ago, before I had revealed myself and attacked Chuck.

“Stop fucking touching me,” I hear Claire protest, followed by the unmistakable slap of angry hand flesh on old man face. I peek around the corner and see the two standing where they were just a moment before. Chuck is holding a grenade in one hand, and trying to fend off Claire’s attacks with his other. He seems amused by her attempts to hit him, and a lot less bemoaning the loss of his hand than I figured he would be. But, then, he has the hand again so I guess he wouldn’t be missing it.

“What the fuck?” I say, rather loudly.

Claire is quick to draw and has her gun aimed in my direction while Chuck drops the grenade and freezes for a second, wincing and flinching away as he does so. When the grenade fails to explode, he grabs his pistol off the shelf beside him and levels it in my direction as well.

“Who’s there?” Chuck demands.

“What the fuck just happened?” I step out into the aisle between the shelves, my sword in hand but dangling at my side.

“Where did you come from?” Claire asks. “Is there another door back there?”

“We just had this conversation,” I step forward, raising my sword and aiming the tip at Chuck. “Why does he have two hands?”

Claire seems confused, but Chuck seems angry as he steps forward, reaching around Claire to rest his hand on her chest and push her out of the way.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he says, then his head slips from his shoulders and bounces off the floor a few times. His mouth continues to move, uttering the rest of his line – “I’ve got this handled” – before going completely still. I’m a little surprised that he just stood there and let me chop his head off, but for a few seconds there it seemed like he and Claire were moving excessively slow.

Or, maybe I was just moving really fast and they seemed slow from my perspective? I’m not sure, I’m still new to the whole vampire thing.

Claire instantly brings her gun to my face, but the ground jerks out from beneath us and we both go tumbling in random directions, collapsing under falling shelves. The roar returns as it did before. I try to scream “what the fuck is this” thinking maybe Claire, the young lady I just met and have no reason to believe would have answers, might have an answer, but the roar is so deafening I can’t even hear myself. It’s disorienting, hitting my eardrums so aggressively I lose my sense of up and down as a wave of vertigo hits. As I begin to feel like my eyeballs are about to explode, everything goes silent.

I turn and vomit into the aisle.

“This is why men-”

Claire is quick to draw and has her gun aimed in my direction while Chuck drops the grenade and freezes for a second, wincing and flinching away as he does so. When the grenade fails to explode, he grabs his pistol off the shelf beside him and levels it in my direction as well.

“Who’s there?” Chuck demands.

I stumble into the middle of the aisle between the shelves, one hand braced on my knee, keeping me on my feet as I hunch over and try to catch my breath after losing my last meal… wait, what was my last meal? Oh right, the arm. I’m actually ok with losing that right now. My other hand is raised toward the other two, simultaneously expressing that I am not a threat, and that I need a moment.

Both of my hands are empty and I have a brief moment of panic before noticing my sword laying on the floor just behind me. That’s one anxiety gone.

“Where did you come from?” Claire asks. “Is there another door back there?”

I cough in reply, spit out some leftover bile and stand straight.

“Uhhh,” I groan. “No, sorry. I was just here first.”

We stand and stare at each other for a few seconds. I lock eyes with Chuck as I wipe my face on my sleeve, waiting for him to utter his next line… but, he doesn’t. No ‘Don’t worry, sweetheart.’

“Huh,” I note my sword by my heel and reach down to pick it up. I consider just killing the guy again so I can reset this moment and have my introduction be less vomitous, but that could easily backfire and be twice as bad.

As I rise with sword in hand I turn in time to see Chuck press his hand to Claire’s chest and move her to the side.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he begins.

“Ah, there it is.”

“I’ve got this handled,” Chuck and I say at the same time. He stops mid step and stares at me.

“Jynx,” I say. “You owe me a coke.”

His confusion is palpable, so deep that he forgets where his hand is until Claire grips one of his fingers and twists. He howls and pulls the trigger. A shot flies wild somewhere near me and bounces off a shelf to lodge into a wall somewhere behind me, but I’m too cool to flinch,,, externally, because fuck that was terrifying and I’m screaming on the inside.

“Fuck! Claire? Fuck, fuck, ow, stop it!” Chuck drops his gun as Claire kicks the back of his knee, forcing him to the ground.

“Stop fucking touching me,” Claire twists and I could swear I hear something pop before she releases him. Chuck cradles his hand to his chest as Claire levels her gun back at me. 

“Why can’t he die? I’ve killed him twice now and he’s still sitting here.” I waggle my sword in Chuck’s direction as he crawls across the floor to retrieve his gun. He freezes as I mention him and looks at me like I’ve said something absurd. Surprisingly. Claire seems more confused than absurdinated.

“What?” Claire says, like a reasonable person.

“Well, not twice. I killed him once and dismembered him once, but he still has two hands and a head and that is not how I remember him. Every time I injure the man the universe collapses and time resets a few seconds.”

Claire glances between me and Chuck as the man braces himself on the shelves to help pull himself back to his feet. Oddly enough, instead of shooting me she seems to be trying to process what I’m saying.

“I don’t know why, but I kind of believe you,” she lowers her gun just as Chuck is getting back to his feet and raises his toward me again. “There are vampires, zombies, and coordinated asteroid attacks, why can’t there also be time paradoxes?”

“Again with the conspiracies,” Chuck groans.

“26 evenly spaced asteroids across the globe is pretty precise to be random, Chuck.”

“Yeah, Chuck,” I decide to chime in on this topic of which I know nothing. “Bit too precise, Chuck. I’d love to hear more about that. And the vampires. And the zombies… and the paradoxes.”

I brush Chuck’s gun aside as I pass him and approach Claire, extending my hand.

“I’m Claire.”

Claire cocks an eyebrow as she takes my hand in hers and shakes. “Me too.”

The man lowers his gun, shaking his head. “What the fuck are you two talking about? You’re just going to trust this kid who says she tried to killed me? Twice?!”

“I didn’t try, I succeeded. Once, anyway. The first time i just took your hand, and even that was too much for reality to take, I guess. Also, it’s they.”

“They what?” Chuck growls.

“They me. They/them.”

“Oh. Sorry, they tried to kill me then,” Chuck says, correcting himself because even though he’s a chauvinistic pig ass asshole he’s not that kind of pig ass asshole. Respect.

“I’m sure it was in self-defense, Charlie,” Claire turns and looks back toward the door.

“Oh, definitely. I was defending my sense of common decency.”

“Damn it,” Charlie brings his gun up at me and takes several forceful power-steps in my direction. “I should just kill you now and call it self defense!”

“You can try. I’ve fought fledgling vampires faster and stronger than you.” I shrug at him.

“Wait,” he stops as his eyes widen with recognition. “You’re the punk kid from out front! How did you get in here?”

I stop myself from blurting out ‘back door’ seeing as it was through that very door that I did not close that the horde outside the room managed to stop being outside, so instead I lie.

“I Die Harded it through the vents.”

Claire’s eyes brighten as my lie triggers an idea.

“The vents! We can get out that way! Which one did you come through?”

“Oh, uh, well,” I turn around, searching the line of the ceiling for anything vent-like. “I got kind of turned around, but, it was, right, over…. There!” I point at a vent cover with my sword.

Claire immediately hurries to the area to check the vent.

“It’s still screwed in place,” she tries to pull at it. “Still secured, are you sure this is the one?”

“No,” I declare with confidence. “I am not.”

“God damn it,” Charlie nudges me to the side as he comes up behind Claire.

“Keep your hands to yourself,” I warn.

Charlie freezes, gives me a side glance, then turns to Claire. “Let me try,” he says through gritted teeth.

Claire moves to the side and Charlie jams a crowbar into the edge of the vent, prying it from the wall.

“Where the hell did you get that?” I wonder.

“Off the shelf, they’re literally right next to you.”

I check left, then right, and sure enough I find about a dozen crowbars in a box on the shelf directly beside me.

“Huh,” I reach out, take one, and slip it into my bag. “Seems like a popular tool for crime. Very useful.”

Charlie yanks the vent cover from the wall and tosses it to the side, it bounces off a table of random junk and clatters on the floor.

“How the fuck did you climb through this?” He booms. He moves to the side to show that while the cover was about 3 feet wide and 2 feet tall, it quickly narrowed into a pipe system barely a foot wide.

“I’m very flexible?”

“Bullshit.” Charlie drops off the table he’d been standing on and approaches, holding the crowbar out like a bat, ready to beat me upside the head. I lift the sword off my shoulder and do the same, extending it to just a few inches from his face. He stops walking and drops his aggressive tone.

“You’ve brought a crowbar to a sword fight.”

Claire rolls her eyes nearby and moves away, heading toward the door surrounded by zombies. “I really don’t care where you came from or how you got in here but we need to find a way out of here.”

“Well, I mean, I just walked in through the back door when you all had your backs turned. It was pretty easy.”

“So, you let all those things in?” Charlie starts to step forward but when I press the sword closer to his nose he changes his mind and takes a few steps back. My sword beats his crowbar for sure.

I’m not the best trained with a sword; I only took a few lessons at a LARP convention so I could feel more accomplished on the big ol’ role-playing battlefield. But, since most people have zero sword lessons under their belt, my amateur sword skills are still superior to the average joe. Or, average Chuck. So, when Charlie suddenly leaps forward with a heavily projected swing of the crowbar, I’m quick with a parry that catches his thumb and makes him drop his weapon.

“Nah, I didn’t leave it open, I definitely closed the door. They must have figured out how to open them. Besides, I’m pretty sure you guys got away safely enough, so no harm no fowl.”

Claire watches the zombies bash on the window, completely ignoring the door handle.

“Ok, again, I don’t really care right now, but these things have definitely not figured out door handles.” She spins on her heel. “You weren’t attacked by the zombies outside, why?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe I smell like death? I haven’t had a shower since… actually, I don’t know. What day is today?”

“It’s Thursday.”

“Oh, well, uh, fuck, okay then. I haven’t had a shower since Friday. So, maybe I just smell super bad?”

Claire moves closer and takes a sniff.

“You smell, but not like them. John called you a vampire… are you?”

“Pfft, uh, pfft. Nnnooo,” I muffle my words, probably trying a bit too hard to convince her that I am not a vampire. “Vampires, like, aren’t real, Claire. Don’t be silly.” I turn to Charlie, nudge him with my elbow and chuckle. “Wow, vampires? Haha.”

Charlie steps away from me with his usual Charlie scowl. Classic Charlie.

“That’s not particularly convincing. Everyone knows about vampires, since the broadcast.”

“The uh, the broadcast?” I scratch at my head, and my confusion is a lot more convincing since it’s real. “I have to admit, I’ve been kind of, uh, in a coma for a little while.”

“What, like Jim?” Claire asks and I immediately brighten up, pointing at her excitedly.

“You went with a 28 references instead of the Walking!”

“Well, yeah, Days is the original coma story. Walking just ripped it off.”

“Debatable, but what about this broadcast?”

Claire seems ready to take me up on the debatable statement, but decides the broadcast is more important.

“Before the TVs went down, the vampires came forward and said not only were they real, but they were trying to end this zombie infection since it is just as bad for them as it is for us. Turns out, vampires are real, and they can’t eat zombies. It’s a real tenuous relationship, and there are some bands of vampires who are embracing the chaos.”

“So, vampires and humans are… working together?”

“For now, yeah. Most of the surviving humans aren’t super fond of the idea of only teaming up because they want to protect their livestock, but there aren’t a lot of options. either team up and fight the zombie infection, or humans are fighting two battles instead of one.”

“Well, that kind of puts a damper in my dayjob as a vampire hunter.”

“You’re a vampire hunter?”

“Oh yeah, best in town.”

“So the only one in town?” Charlie growls.

“Well, that too.”

“Wait,” Claire leans in, getting a closer look at me. “I think I recognize you.”

I roll my eyes.

“Yes, yes, I’m THAT PERSON from the news the other year who claimed to be killing vampires. Believe me now?”

“I was going to say, I think we went to the same High-School, but now that you mention it, I did see your face on the cover of the local news.”

“You’re the murdering asshole?” Charlie grabs a new crowbar off the shelf and holds it by his side, not making a direct threat but warning that he will defend himself if he needs to. I chuckle at him, as if the idea of him stopping me is humorous. I rest my sword upon my shoulder and back away from Charlie, moving closer to Claire.

“No one believed me when I was declaring vampires to be a real threat to society, then they just step out into the light, figuratively speaking, and throw away hundreds of years of deception. Go figure.” I move to the door and stare out at the zombies. “So, what are your plans?”

“First we need to get out of here so we can meet up with Chase and John. They’ll be making their way back to the RV, so we should head that way.”

“When you say we, are you inviting me?” Exciting, I get to join a band of survivors on my first day of the apocalypse… MY first day of the apocalypse!

“We’ve been collecting survivors, I don’t see why not,” 

“Fuck that,” Charlie moves closer, waving the bar like waggling a finger. “We’re not bringing some psychopathic serial killer with us.”

“If you recall, their crime was murdering vampires, which, as it turns out, are real, so sounds like they’re less a murdering psychopath and more just ahead of their time.”

“Damn straight,” I grin. “I’m ahead of my time. Also, I’m pretty sure I can get you two out of here.”

“How the fuck you gun’ do that with them things right there?” Charlie points his bar at the window as he flexes his impressive vocabulary.

“Hold my beer, chuck,” I pick the grenade off the floor and toss it to the man. He drops his crowbar as he panics and juggles the explosive between hands a few times before catching it. “I’m just going to step outside and have a chat with them. When they’re away from the door, you two make a dash out back.”