She was running now, so fast that she slammed into the driver's side door of her car, halting her progress with her hands. She pulled on the door handle, but it didn't budge. Her keys, her purse… they were still inside the restaurant.
Her phone rang again, and she swore out loud, ready to dash it on the ground. She spun around and saw the injured woman coming after her. Duane would know what to do. She swiped her thumb across the phone and held it to her ear. "Duane, something's wrong…"
"Mercy, you need to get home right now," Duane said, and for a moment, they were talking over each other.
Duane continued to ramble about her getting home, and eventually, in her panicked state, she shouted at him. "Shut up for a second! I'm in trouble over here."
"What is it, baby?"
Mercy moved backward, away from her car and deeper into the parking lot, keeping as much space as she could between herself and the woman with the damaged leg. Behind the woman, she saw Neil staggering in her direction as well. "I think there's like… dead people coming after me, like in that movie we watched."
"They're not dead, Mercy. It's just some sort of disease or something, but you need to get home."
"I can't. My keys are in the kitchen, and Marco's dead."
"Marco's… he's what?"
"He's dead. I saw Neil eating him, just like in the movie."
"This can't be happening."
"What do I do?" she pleaded, her own brain spinning too fast to come up with a plan.
"Are they fast or slow?" Duane asked.
"Slow, so far."
"Then you got a chance. Just keep some space between you. Don't be afraid to run. Don't be afraid to fight. You go around them, get into the kitchen, and get your keys, then you get your ass back home."
She nodded at his words, though he couldn't see it. His words gave her strength. Go around. Get the keys. Get home. She could do that.
"Ok, I'm going to hang up now."
"Alright. I love you."
"I love you too," Duane said.
She wiped the tears from her eyes, repeating Duane's words in her head. Go around, get the keys, get home. Mercy bounced in place, trying to pump herself up. It's no different than playing tag when you're a kid. Don't get touched. She took a few quick, short breaths, and then she went for it. She ran fast, faster than she'd run since she was in high school and she had been forced to do such things. Fear drove her to run even faster. She dodged around the woman with the damaged leg, and then she moved around Neil, his short, plump arms reaching out to her as if he wanted to hug her.
She ran around the side of the restaurant, her feet pounding on the concrete, and she slammed into the back door of the kitchen. She pulled the door open and stepped inside. There, her purse hung on the rack, waiting for her. She snatched it from the rack and began digging through its contents. She needed to find her keys. She would run to her car with the key out and ready to go. Her purse, bulky and heavy, was filled with all sorts of items, more lip balms than she would ever need, tampons, mints, gum, piles of receipts that she kept meaning to sort through, but where were her damn keys? She looked deeper into the purse, and she thought she saw the glimmer of the keys somewhere in the bottom. That's when her head was jerked violently to the side. She dropped her purse, lip balms rolling across the linoleum floor. Someone spun her around by her hair. She screamed to see Marco, blood pouring from his neck wound, standing there with a fistful of her hair. His mouth was open, his teeth and tongue layered in blood. He was trying to bite her.
She backed away from him, pulling her head back as far as it would go, though it hurt her scalp to do so. She didn't want anything to do with those bloody teeth. Mercy slapped at the man with her hands.
"Stop it, Marco! Let go!" she commanded through clenched teeth. In their struggle, they backed into a metal rack, upending it and sending up a frightful clatter as metal mixing bowls, plastic pitchers, and porcelain plates tumbled to the ground.
Mercy spun, her head pulled low, her hands searching for anything to stop this nightmare. Her ass bumped into the edge of the prep table, and she remembered the knives that hung on a magnetic strip above the metal surface. With her head held low, and Marco groaning in anticipation, she pawed blindly at where she thought the knife would be. She couldn't reach, not at the angle she was at. She yanked her head backward, and she heard a ripping sound, the sound of hair being pulled from a scalp. Pain made lights flash in her eyes, but she was able to stand up straighter now. She shoved Marco backward. Marco was short, but his body was thick with muscle from a lifetime of manual labor. He only moved back a few inches, and she realized she wasn't strong enough to push him away. She turned her back to him, spied what she was looking for on the prep table, and spun around, a razor-sharp carving knife in her hand.
She didn't give him any warning. She knew she didn't have to at this point. She hacked at his outstretched hands, opening new wounds that seeped blood onto the linoleum floor. She chopped at him, dancing around the prep station—just a little further.
She moved
