The camera comes to life, the attached lights staring brightly ahead. It’s November 2008 and we’re in a school gymnasium that’s been set up as a voting station. There are tables and an American flag and there are ten elderly citizens sitting behind the tables, and stacks of ballots ready to be distributed… what seems a bit unusual are the big pistols and shotguns sitting on the tables and being carried about. The man in the room with the least firepower available, is the uniformed police officer sitting in the corner on a folding chair.

A young newsman steps between the camera and the seated officials; he has an elderly woman by the elbow and he’s guiding her into the middle of the frame.

“Good morning, I’m Todd Preakish with KJOM channel 4 news. I’m standing here today with Marge Hannoway at the 13th precinct poling station, Cobb County, Maine… and I’m wondering… just what is going though your mind at this moment, Miss Hannoway?”

“I’m a bit concerned.” she says.

Todd holds the microphone in her face, waiting for more, but then sees he’s going to have to elicit the information.

“According to precedent and regulations, you’re supposed to open the doors promptly at seven AM; considering what’s been happening in this vicinity, is that still the plan?”

“Unless we hear from the state capitol, yes, we will be opening the doors at seven. According to recently passed legislation, it is a felony to intentionally dis-enfranchise any group of voters, or cause to be unnecessarily burdened any voter or potential voter, whether through action or through in-action, in an attempt to alter the voting process, by reason of race or creed or political affiliation or by ethnic origin or economic status or gender, even if that attempt wouldn’t appreciably alter either the momentum of the voting as it occurs, or the outcome of any local, state wide, or national election.

“Yes. I understand that… Miss Hannoway have you looked outside? I have it from a reliable source that you went upstairs, not more than five minutes ago, and you looked out the big window by the reading room and this reliable source said you saw something terrible.”

“I don’t know what you mean by the phrase, ‘reliable source’. I was the person who told you what I’ve seen. It was me you spoke to. I told you about looking outside. I guess I’m my own reliable source.”

“Would you be willing to tell us what it is you’ve seen?”

“Todd, you know what’s going on. It’s been on all the stations. Even your station has started covering the developments. It’s all people have been talking about for the past two days.”

“In your own words, if you don’t mind.” Todd held the microphone a little closer to Marge’s mouth.

“Well, I went upstairs and I went to the window and I looked down and saw between a hundred, and a hundred and thirty, bloody, murderous, growling zombies. They were milling about, testing the doors and windows, and most of them have blood on their faces and some have blood all over. They were crashing into each other and a lot of buildings in the neighborhood are burning… my car is on fire and so is that news van you came in… in fact, most of the city is on fire… and what’s worse, there is no sense of order, they haven’t lined up, you’re supposed to line up if you want to vote. They aren’t being very orderly. It appears good citizenship has been abandoned.”

Todd nodded, “Did you see anything to indicate these may be potential voters… these people surrounding the building?”

“That’s the problem then. isn’t it..? It’s difficult to tell. I did see a voter card… but the hand holding the card, was just part of a man’s upper torso; the torso being carried around and eaten by those dead people. I’ve tried to see if I can spot any of the regulars, the regular voters. I’ve worked as an election official here for almost 38 years and I’ve gotten so I can expect certain people dropping by early, and some dropping by after they get off work. So far, I haven’t seen anyone I recognize.”

“Being attuned as you are to politics, you know turnout is the key to most elections. It comes down to an issue of energizing the base and perhaps picking up some swing voters during the last few days. But at this time, the fastest growing segment of the electorate seems to be the un-dead… do you have any idea how this might affect the outcome today?”

“That’s going to be hard to guess.” She said, “I’m beginning to think the usual trick of trotting out wedge issues may not be sufficient this year, or for the next few election cycles. I’m not sure the un-dead have an opinion about flag burning, or gay marriage, or emergency contraceptives, although, so far as I know, there hasn’t been any polling, or study, or focus group seminars, not as yet, anyway. I imagine they might be interested in healthcare…. If a cure is possible… they will definitely be interested in increased funding for that. And now that I think about it, they may have strongly held opinions on the estate tax… but if you’ll excuse me, it’s about time to open the doors.”

The camera follows her to the door. She stands with her hand on the latch. She looks at her wristwatch.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Todd asks.

“I’m not going to have another election decided by the Supreme Court. I’d rather take my chances with the public at large.” She tosses the bolt and then opens the doors. She backs into the voting area making, ‘follow me’ gestures with her hands. A dozen zombies follow her. The torso with the voting card is also following… crabbing along… trailing intestines… leaving a streak of blood on the dark linoleum. The undead eventually arrive at the tables. The poll workers are all pointing guns at them, waiting to see what happens. The cop in the corner has come out of his chair. He’s holding a can of mace in his hand, his arm extended.

One of the poll workers tears off a paper ballot from a pad and offers it to a zombie. The zombie takes it and looks at it… turns it over and looks at it some more. He’s trying to read a proposition, but he’s having trouble. For one thing, half his face has been bitten off, and the other thing is… the proposition has been intentionally written where a vote in the “no” position will result in more exemptions to road-tax encumbrances and short term bond divestitures. The way it’s worded makes him want to bite someone… so he does.

Because he remembered to bring his voter card, only the torso is allowed to vote. Though un-necessary to do so, he also shows his driver’s license. The torso doesn’t have a face; his face was scraped off as he was being dragged behind a speeding car, an hour ago, so he doesn’t have a face. The poll worker dips his finger in a pool of blood and smears it across the photo on the license. He looks at the red smudge and then looks at the ruined face. “Yep, that’s you all right.” he says. Then he hands back the license.

Amid rapid gunfire and slow pandemonium the democratic process moves forward.

* * *

12:30 P.M. Oklahoma City station KJLG TV / The Green Room

Deke Wilson is a declared candidate… a churchgoing Democrat.. a successful businessman and he’s also tied to a chair because he’s recently become a murdering blood-thirsty zombie. A churchgoing Democratic zombie strapped to a chair. He is thrashing and wiggling; straining against the ropes. A woman wearing a smock is trying to put make-up on Deke. It isn’t going very well.

“I’m not going anywhere near his mouth.” she says.

Marvin Paynest is one of Deke Wilson’s handlers. “I’m mainly worried about the eyes.” Marvin says. “Can you make the eyes look honest, for the close-ups, for when he faces the camera?” Marvin asks.

“I’ll try.” say the woman holding the mascara. But then the woman mutters. “Like he’ll look honest while he’s chewing the moderator…”

“I heard you.” Marvin says.

Another one of the candidate’s men pulls Marvin off to one side. “Are you sure we have to do this?” he asks. “I know it’s kind’a late but, can’t we get another candidate?”

“His name is on the ballot. His name is in the ads. And more important than all that, it’s his money we’ve been spending. You said yourself, you thought he was a little too, ‘Michael Dukakis’ and needed to be more combative when he get’s in front of the camera. I just hope nobody asks him that question about someone getting raped and murdered… he’s liable to get angry.” They look at Deke as he snips off three of the makeup woman’s fingers with his teeth.

Amid the woman’s screams, a man with a clipboard in one hand and a stop watch in the other stuck his head in the room. “One minute till the debate.” he says.

* * *

Election Return Headquarters / New York

Big newsman desk. Map of U.S. on the wall. Three people sharing the camera, the one in the middle is Katie Couric.

Katie is speaking, “Another hotly contested race was in Illinois, where during the past few weeks the Republicans have focused a lot of money and energy and no one really thought they were going to gain any dividends for that… until last night when Senator Henry Smith admitted…”

The man on the right interrupts, “If I’m correct… it was a spokesman for the Senator… at first there was a blanket denial.”

The man on her left interjects, “And, if I’m correct, what was denied was a sexual motivation. He never denied biting the interns.”

“Whatever his motivation for that incident…” Katie says, “…what we do have is film of a previous incident involving the Senator. We have film of the Senator trying to gain entry into the dorms where the interns are housed, a full three hours before the biting incident in the Capitol Rotunda late last night. This is taken from a security camera and the film is a little grainy and it’s quite dark (the film starts playing) but it’s clear to see the Senator looks under the influence of something. Look at his expression as he bites the doorman… as he swallows the doorman’s nose. And you can see the trouble the police have in restraining the Senator. And we still don’t have an explanation as to why the Senator wasn’t arrested at that time, or why there were no charges filed. According to papers surrendered to the District of Colombia… the bite was being described as concentual. Although they were under a judges seal, we obtained a copy of those papers, anonymously via e-mail… however… interestingly… it seems those papers came from someone in Senator Smith’s office… so, until we find out the motives of the person sending those papers, we do have to be a little suspicious…. “

Sacrament, California - Newsroom of station HGIM 4:17 A.M.

Sounds of gunfire. In the background we can see people running… some of them are on fire… some of them are trying to build a barricade.

The camera focuses on the man at the newsdesk.

“We now have the final results for the governor’s race here in California and it went to the wire as expected. With 100 percent of the precincts reporting we have projected Schwartzenegger as winning another term… an unprecedented event here in California. Right now it stands at three votes for Schwartzenegger, one vote for Selma Hyack, and one vote for the Constitutional gun meth crack pedophile people’s coalition party. Our analysts tell us that even with high voter recognition… Schwartzenegger had real trouble obtaining the victory. For each vote cast for Schwartzenegger, there was more than eight hundred million dollars spent on advertising. A record for a gubernatorial election. And now we switch you to our affiliate for a reaction.”

The screen dances with black and white dots.

Three minutes later a test pattern fills the screen. An Indian, circles and numbers.

The test pattern is upside down.

The End

—-

Bio:Tom Smith has been published more than 100 times with stories appearing in: “Nightmares” “Lullaby Hearse” and “Scared Naked Magazine”. The story he wrote called, “White Kangaroo” (a story about a contest between balloon animal artists), was nominated as best web fantasy story in ‘03. Tom has three grown children: Jamie, Scott and Rebecca. All are accomplished, talented and sensible, traits they share with their mother, the beautiful, Mary Ann.

Saint Mercy Regional is an acute care facility located just outside Springfield. We have a fully staffed ER trauma center and beds for two hundred patients. It was about midnight when we got our first walking dead. He came bursting in the doors and started biting people. Nurse Pamela frowned and then called the man over to her desk. She put a clip board on the counter facing the patient and slapped a pen down on it. He looked down at the form, a puzzled look on his face.

“No one gets admitted without filling this out.” she said.

He picked up the pen and aimed the fine point metal end at his face and plunged the instrument in and then dragged it sideways across his pasty good looks. When he was through his upper lip hung down like a curtain hanging by one hook and blood was squirting onto the phones and the magazines piled on the counter.

Pamela wasn’t new to the health care system, “I’ll also need to Xerox your health insurance card.” she said.

* * *

At about this time I was upstairs in operations co-coordinating air evac and ER. This had nothing to do with the plague of zombies. I didn’t even know anything strange had transpired downstairs. I was busy on the cell phone talking to the medic on Mercy Bird One as he was cleaning up a highway accident. The med-evac crew is supposed to be able to turn to the hospital for guidance in unusual situations. The medic wanted advice. I was getting a little angry.

“What is it you don’t understand about our triage policy?” I said, into the phone.

The voice from far away seemed stressed. “Well, normally the dead don’t run off with the gurneys. A whole bunch of dead people have formed two teams and are having a race down the highway with the gurneys. They aren’t going very fast, but they seem to be very competitive, with members of both groups ripping off their own arms and throwing them at the competition…” he paused. I could hear him take a deep breath. “I’m usually very good about the triage; I’m usually very down with the triage policy. I do like my job, I’ve always thought it a good idea, that part about dealing with the dead only after all the injured are taken care of… just… well, this time… it just seems the dead are so much more insistent on getting in the helicopter than the living. You ever see films about the last days in Saigon? It’s like that, the embassy roof all over again. The injured have all run away, one of them running on broken legs. One of the cops had a guy handcuffed, I think he was the driver who caused all this, but the guy just ate through his hands and got the cuffs off.” His voice wavered. He burst into tears. Sobbing he said, “It’s just a little chaotic and I thought you could give me some advice.”

“Look… all I know is if you follow procedures your ass is covered. They can’t fire you if you go by the manual. Triage.” I said. “Triage. Triage. Triage. That’s been the mainstay at Mercy Regional and there’s no other way for you to be fair to your clients.”

“I’ll try.” He said.

“Good.” I said. “We’ll have two men standing by on the roof to help with transport. When you get settled come see me. We can get some food at the cafe’. I’m buying.”

“Think they have the grill running?”

“Till two A.M.” I said.

* * *

I didn’t know it at the time, but there was a steady stream of zombies drifting into the hospital. After ten all the elevators are controlled; if you get in any of the big elevators you can only get to the basement, the main floor which included the ER, or the ninth floor – elective surgery. At night, the main door stays open out front, but only because it is adjacent to the emergency room. The staff is supposed to intercept people drifting in off the street. That system broke down. They came in. Groups of zombies came in. What they did was cluster outside, a whole pack of them looking a bit like a rugby scrum; then when they noticed the nurse was busy, they would quickly shamble to the elevator and get in. Usually they went down. After an hour the basement was full; and I mean packed like a mosh pit. Blood was all over the floor and walls. The slightest whim had the whole group surging down the corridors like a tidal wave looking for Kurt Russell’s new movie. One found a phone and somehow managed to call the director of facilities.

“Light.” he said, after placing the call. The word was said very clearly, even though blood came out of the zombie and poured onto the handset of the phone.

“Station twenty?” It was a maintenance man trying to verify where the call was coming from.

“Light,” the zombie said spilling more blood. Then, “Kill”. Then, because he just heard someone else say twenty he said, “Twenty.”

The lights in the basement went out.

The zombie made an appreciative grunt.

Thinking it was a request for an adjustment, the lights came back on, about half as strong as before.

During the next three hours the lights would quickly wander from incandescent to non-candescent as the maintenance man tried to respond to some repetitive and gagged, imprecise instructions coming from the phone.

The crowd in the basement noticed the changing lights and were motionless for a few moments, silently savoring their improved circumstances. A few zombies started small fires adding a soft red glow and dense smoke to the hellish basement experience. One of the zombies liked the changes so much he tried to applaud, but found he couldn’t manage a complicated task, so to celebrate he ground his own face into the concrete wall until his neck was an empty stump.

* * *

On the ninth floor, where it was otherwise very quiet, a tiny sound made a tiny announcement; a tiny musical note announced the arrival of an elevator. This time it didn’t contain a rugby scrum. This time it was a lone occupant who stepped from the elevator doors. Many of the patients on the ninth floor would have recognized the arriving passenger. He was a surgeon, Dr. Mark Mywards, a handsome young surgeon who specialized in elective surgery. He was stopping in to check on Mrs. Berkling, she was sleeping at the hospital, waiting for her surgery. She was having something done around her eyes. Something un-important. (Hadn’t her doctor already told her she looked marvelous?) Her room was one of the VIP rooms: a room with a huge plasma screen TV and a real bed and a fake fireplace and decorative end tables; the kind of room most people don’t realize can be located in a hospital.

The doctor opened the door to Mrs. Berling’s room; he stood there with the light framing him. She knew by his outline that it was her doctor. He certainly looked care-free standing in the soft light. Myra Berling tried to learn a new word every day. Earlier she’d consulted a dictionary and had found the word, ‘insouciance’. She tried to use her new word. The doctor sure looks care-free, he looks, ‘insouciant’. She told herself. She guessed she hadn’t been mistaken by the silent messages he’d been sending her. He was here to seduce her, of that she had no doubt. Even though she was twice his age she was still vital and passionate. She sat up. She was wearing a very sheer night gown. The doctor walked past and stood by the big window. He was looking down at the city. From where he was he could see the fires, the burning houses and the broken police cars. He placed his head against the window. Even though the air conditioning was on high and the window very cold, he didn’t leave any fog on the glass when he turned to face the woman on the bed, he left a big chunk of his rotting scalp.

She was looking away; being demure. With her right hand she was patting the bed.

She only looked back in his direction when she felt his hard weight join hers on the soft bed.

Her first thought was, “‘Wow… he really doesn’t look that good when his hair isn’t combed.’ And then she screamed.

* * *

“I’ve always said new challenges call for new procedures.” I was talking to the staff; they were gathered in the multi-purpose room. I was up in the front, standing next to the big chalkboard with an overhead projector close-by in case I needed it. “Until further notice we are only admitting people without vital signs,” I said, “…people with no pulse, folks with fixed pupils, no blood pressure, zero brain waves, no reflexes, limbs kind’a jerking around, you’ll spot them after a little practice.”

Some podiatrist tried to question my authority “You can’t withhold medical treatment from the living.” he said.

“Show them the waiting room, they’ll move on.” I said. “And I’ve received a call from the governor designating this as the central medical facility during this crisis. If you find you have to call an HMO for any surgical permission, don’t you dare mention that the patient is dead. If they ask you’ll have to tell them, but it’s not a question they’re used to asking, at least not yet. Also, about the crash carts. I know how much you guys like to use the crash carts; just so you know, they won’t be any use for the next few days. Speaking for myself, I feel it will be nice to get through an entire day without somebody rubbing paddles and yelling ‘clear’. On another point, the president has called out the National Guard; at first the phone just rang and rang but eventually somebody answered. It turns out the man answering is the last available National Guardsman who isn’t busy at the moment doing terrorists, the border, storm clean-up, or the war. So the good news is help is coming. The bad news is, it’s one guy; a guy named Herbert Millstone. As a civilian he used to sell vacation condos. When he gets here don’t let him show you any pamphlets. I’ve also been informed that, congress has announced temporary medical benefits for the walking dead, to help pay for this emergency. When you have dealings with any of the walking dead try to get them to sign up for coverage. There are seventy-five different plans so there should be one well suited to your particular patient. Make sure you and your patient look at every single plan and then choose the right one. If your department has extra manpower or needs extra help don’t be afraid to let me know.”

In the back of the room a nurse held up her hand. “We can send you some staff from the nursery.” She said. “The damn zombies ate all the babies.”

“Okay let’s get back to work.” I said “And remember, just cause we can’t cure them, that doesn’t mean we can’t bill them for treatment.”

Finis

—-

Bio: Tom Smith has been published more than 100 times with stories appearing in: “Nightmares” “Lullaby Hearse” and “Scared Naked Magazine”