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ZOMBIE TALES
PRIMROSE COURT
APT. 205
By
Robert DeCoteau
A
ZOMBIE TALES PRESS
Publication
Apt. 205
The alarm clock chirped its disapproval of me; I glanced over to see that it was right on time, 9:00. I slapped it quiet and then laid there on my back for a moment longer, organizing my thoughts. Today was the big day. Today I would break my routine and venture out into the world for the first time in nearly ten years. My task today was to meet Dr. Harriet at my local Starbucks and have my first face to face therapy session. Just the thought of it made my fingers tingle and my heart pound a little harder.
Agoraphobia is an irrational fear of wide open spaces, a fear of crowds, or a fear of uncontrolled social situations. For me it was all three. I don’t leave my apartment… ever. Some agoraphobic people are plagued by panic attacks. In fact, many psychotherapists believe the phobia is a byproduct of a panic disorder. In my case, this is not true. My condition is a result of conscious decisions. I don’t leave my house because I don’t want to die. It’s that simple.
Some might say I’m the luckiest person on the planet, there was a time when I might have agreed, but now I believe I’m cursed and one day that curse will be the end of me.
Climbing from the warm comfort of my bed I pulled the sheet off and tossed it into a basket with yesterday’s bedding. I removed my pajama bottoms and underpants and deposited them in a separate hamper.
Lined up on top of my chest-of-drawers was everything I would need for this part of my morning routine. From a large box, I removed a single handy-wipe, peeled away the foil packaging, and sterilized my hands before squeezing them into fresh latex gloves. I put on my surgical mask and cap. The spray can of Lysol that I kept on the nightstand was getting low. I would have to remember to add that to my shopping list. I sprayed the bare mattress, flipped it, and coated the bottom side as well.
Next, I used the wipe on the outside of the Lysol can, focusing heavily on the dispenser button. Finally, I treated the alarm clock. Each of the buttons was meticulously scrubbed and I used a folded corner of the wipe to get in all of the cracks and crevices.
With the gloves, handy-wipe, and foil wrapper deposited into the proper disposal receptacle, I moved on to my bathroom routine. First were the teeth, always the teeth. I unwrapped today’s toothbrush, applied paste, and began: twenty-seven little circles for each tooth, spit, rinse, repeat.
The brush and its wrapper were deposited in the trash and I moved on to scrubbing my face. I washed my hands, put on my second set of latex gloves, and started the shower.
When I was eight years old, I almost died. One Sunday we left our little town just outside Dallas, heading for the country. This was back when my father loved to go on Sunday drives. About an hour into our trip, my mother saw a sign proclaiming that the largest petting zoo in the state was just ahead.
“Oh, George, that looks like fun. The kids will love it,” Mother said.
Of course we stopped. My mother was an animal lover after all and she wanted her three children to be animal lovers too.
My older brother Lenny was ten at the time, just reaching that point when he had no interest in siblings, parents, or family outings. He spent much of that afternoon leaning against a fence post with a grim expression. No amount of coaxing from our mother would get him excited about our little interlude.
Sally and I on the other hand, were ecstatic about our unplanned stop. Sally, my younger sister, was six years old. She had been obsessed with bunnies and chicks ever since Easter a few weeks before. Sally spent the majority of our short visit folded over the large bin of floppy eared rabbits.
Growing up in Texas, every little boy experienced a cowboy phase; some never grow out of it. I was in the middle of my cowboy phase. I spent the hour long deviation from our Sunday drive petting the ponies and miniature horses and wishing I had brought my cowboy hat and cap guns.
By the following morning, I had developed a boil on my arm which was surrounded by an angry red rash. Mother kept me home and made an appointment for me to see the town doctor. I remember watching out the window as Sally and Lenny got on the bus. Mom stood next to the driveway waving to Sally and ignoring Lenny, per his request. The bus pulled away and that was the last I ever saw of my siblings.
Mom began to worry at about 4:15 when the school bus still hadn’t arrived.
It turned out she had good reason to worry; there had been an accident on the east bridge of Highway 922. A drunk in a pickup had veered out of his lane and the bus driver swerved to avoid a head on collision. The big yellow vehicle smashed through the guardrail and plunged seventy-five feet into Ray Roberts Lake. The bus driver, Margret Pearson, managed to escape a watery death, but all twenty-seven children perished, including Lenny and Sally.
“Cutaneous anthrax,” Dr. Michener had declared two days later.
He asked my mother about contact with animals and nodded his confirmation as she informed him of our recent excursion to the petting zoo.
“Don’t you worry; Mrs. Granger, little Teddy here is going to be just fine. This form of anthrax is transmitted through contact with infected animals, but is rarely fatal with treatment, especially since we caught it so early. I’ll do a culture to confirm and notify the authorities, have them close down that little animal farm.”
He took a culture from the black boil on my arm, but prescribed a round of antibiotics instead of waiting for the results. Mom took me to the drug store straight away and we headed home. Two weeks after the double funeral, we moved out of Texas. Mother needed a change so we headed for Colorado.
After scrubbing down the shower tiles, my bathroom time was complete. I moved back to my bedroom long enough to dress, deposit my towel in the soiled linen basket, and then went to the kitchen. Strawberry was my yogurt of choice for breakfast. I added a half of a cup of granola cereal and disposed of the little plastic cup, the lid, and the foil seal I had peeled off the top. My third set of latex gloves was reserved for my morning meal.
There was stomping on the staircase outside of my apartment. I rushed to the peep hole and watched Tommy, the stoner kid from upstairs, gain the second floor landing. He spit on the floor before continuing up the next flight.
I went to my journal and flipped to the page reserved for the pothead. I made a note about his break in routine; he was supposed to be at work. I put a star next to the note, reminding me that I would have to keep a close eye on his movements over the next few days. I also noted that he spit on the floor. That would be included in my weekly complaint letter to property management.
I finished my small meal and washed my bowl and spoon thoroughly before placing them in sealed Zip-Loc bags for storage. After trading my used gloves for a new pair, I moved to my computer station and prepared to get to work.
Thanks to the computer age, one no longer had to be independently wealthy to be an agoraphobe. The internet allowed me to work from home as a copy editor as well as providing me with virtual stores from which I could order practically anything I would ever need. A very reputable laundry company handled my cleaning. The grocery delivery boy gets a five dollar tip every time he runs my trash to the dumpster for me. Gone are the days when a person with my condition needs a handful of enablers to sustain themselves.
My next brush with death was a few years later. Colorado was much as you might expect it to be. Winters were severe and summers were mild. Mother loved the snow. We lived pretty far out of town, up at the top of a steep old logging road that led to nowhere. Mother refused to let me set foot on the school bus so I rode down the hill with my father everyday on his way to work. It meant getting to school almost a full hour early every morning, but I didn’t mind. I became something of a teacher’s pet, helping to set up different projects and staple handouts together.
One February morning when I was ten, my father and I were working our way down our little mountain in his old Ford Econoline van and we hit a patch of ice. The rear of the van slipped over the embankment and we tumbled nearly 200 feet down into a ravine. All of the windows shattered and I could hear the glass tinkling as the van crunched, rolled, and crunched some more. Finally, we came to a stop upside down.
Dad’s legs were pinned under the steering column. One of his femurs was broken and protruded from a hole in his blood soaked jeans. I managed to undo my seatbelt and crawl out of the wreckage. Once my father regained consciousness, he instructed me to go for help. He told me we were two miles from Route 27, there should be morning traffic. Just follow the road down the hill and flag down the first car I see.
It took me nearly an hour to get out of the ravine and almost another hour to get to the highway. My father was dead and cold before I finally got a car to stop. The autopsy report cited blood loss, shock, and hypothermia as cause of death. I had the Chicken Pocks on the day of the funeral.
My screen saver popped up and I blinked, realizing that I had been sitting at my computer with my hands poised over the keyboard, not working. There was shouting from down in the courtyard. I went to investigate. From my dining room window, I had a perfect view of the scene unfolding below. I stayed back a few steps, slightly behind the curtain to avoid being noticed.
Just as I had suspected I saw Mr. and Mrs. Grimly facing off. I glanced at my watch, 10:13. I flipped through my notebook to the “Grimly” page and recorded the incident. I would note the duration of the argument and the number of times profanity was used, English and Spanish.
“Why do you doing this every time?” Mrs. Grimly demanded in her shill voice, “I tol’ you it is jus’ a job, jus’ work, Charlie. Now get out of the way so I don’t be late again.”
“But, baby, we talked about this,” Her husband responded calmly. He always seemed to keep his cool. “I have a lot of money, I have enough that you don’t have to work anymore.”
“I know, Charlie,” said the Hispanic woman, “but I need to work, I always take care of myself.”
I flipped back a few pages in my log, this was the seventh such argument this month; twice in their apartment right above me, once on the third floor landing, and three times on the stairs. This was the first time they had made it as far as the courtyard.
Mr. Grimly was a rather rotund fellow with a perspiration problem. His marriage to the striking, young brunet was not at all stable. At first glance, one might think that Mr. Grimly had married high above his station, but a few moments in the company of the young woman would dispel that notion. She was obviously very high maintenance and shallow, not to mention, the vulgarities that she spewed detracted greatly from her beauty. In the end, I counted it as a wash. They may not be the perfect couple, but they were equal in their unpleasantness.
“Charlie... Charlie!” The wife bellowed, “Awe, forget it, I’m going to be late.”
“Baby, please, just give me a few minutes to talk,” Mr. Grimly pleaded,
“We’ve been over this a dozen time!” his spouse shrilled, “I’m sick of this chit, Charlie, you know who I am when we get marry.”
“Baby, please, don’t make a scene.”
At least the portly man was sensible enough to consider his neighbors and keep his voice down. His wife was yelling at the top of her lungs in Spanish. I couldn’t tell you what she was ranting about, the only Spanish I know are the major swear words, and she was using them a lot.
“Mari, honey, I can’t understand you,” Grimly whispered to his wife.
“Charlie, stop treating me like I’m sun kind of whore, I go to my work and I make money.” His wife shouted in his face.
“I know, Mari, but I just want to take care of you, why won’t you just stay home and let me take care of you?”
“I take care of me jes’ fine,” Mrs. Grimly lowered he decibel level slightly, “Damn, I lef’ my keys u’stairs.”
I stepped back into the shadows as both started heading back to the front of the building. Mrs. Grimly moved with purpose on her ridiculous platform shoes and her husband followed behind like an obedient dog. His head was down and his shoulders slumped, an obedient dog on the way to the vet.
I didn’t bother with the peephole. Instead, I moved to the recliner near the front window in my living room and listened to their loud footsteps as they moved from the ground floor up to their third floor apartment. I noted a few more heated exchanges between them, but the dispute resonated through my ceiling as garbled voices, sounding much like the teacher on the old Charlie Brown cartoons. The sound of breaking glass was clear, and the thump of something hitting the floor. Then there was only silence. Apparently, the damage was enough to stop the quarrel altogether. Good, maybe they’ll begin to act like civilized adults again and give me the peace I need to return to work. I changed my gloves and went back to the computer.
Mom and I moved to Oklahoma next. Dad’s life insurance had been barely enough to cover the funeral expenses, but with the sale of the house mom was able to get us into a nice double wide in the Happy Valley Trailer Park located just outside of Anadarko.