Life After the Undead (Completed)

PART 3: The Mad Scientist .5

Melissa's P.O.V

My head was no longer buzzing when I woke up. I wasn't sure how long I had been out, or what time of day it was. All I knew was that the sun was up and I was somewhere inside the Shady Mansion. The room I was in looked like it had belonged to a teenage boy. It was covered in Arctic Monkey's posters, old videogames and hockey trophies. There was even a hockey jersey hanging on the wall, it was for a team I didn't recognize but the name on the back read: Duncan.

Up until that point it had never occurred to me that Evelyn might have lost a loved one through all of this. I had never pictured her with a family, she just seemed so happy to be on her own that I just assumed that she had always been that way. Looking around the room I saw that the shelves had dust on them, like everything had been left in its place as a silent memorial to whomever this room had belonged too.

I sort of felt out of place just being there. I made the bed back up as my way of saying sorry for the disturbance and made my way downstairs.

Evelyn wasn't there. But a plate covered in tinfoil sat at the kitchen table and beside it a simple note.

Had to go out, but I left you breakfast. Don't leave until I get back.

Evelyn had been nice enough to leave a plate of pancakes for me. At first I was impressed, and then a warm fuzzy feeling enveloped my chest. It had been a long time since anyone had ever be so thoughtful or considerate, and considering I just tried to kill her I took this as a very good sign. I realized then that something was wrong. The plate of pancakes was stale, at least a few days old, all rock hard and only a few hours away from going moldy.

That meant two things:

1. I had been out a lot longer than I had thought; and

2. Evelyn had been gone for too long.

I started to notice things now. The house wasn't humming with power and none of the lights would turn on. I tested the taps, no water came out either. This wasn't good. If everything in Evelyn's house had stopped working, how long had she been gone?

I knew I needed to get out of the house, and to do that I needed my shot gun back, but Evelyn had locked all the doors, the only door left open was the front one. I sighed but slowly moved outside. I stood on the porch for a few moments waiting to see if anything moved. If the power was out her zombies could have escaped, but I couldn't hear or see anything shuffling around so I took a few tentative steps away from the door.

I could see the draw bridge, within running distance away from me. It had been left down. Worry lanced through me. If something had happened to Evelyn the house was useless to me. There was no point having an impenetrable fortress without power or running water. None of its safety features would work all of the supplies would rot, this place was inoperable without Evelyn and I had no idea where she was or if she was coming back.

Taking a step off the porch I glanced back over my shoulder to if the zombies were coming around the corner. I could see that all of the safety shutters were down. It was like the house had gone on lock down mode or something, only running the bare minimum. If that were true, why was the front door unlocked and the bridge down?

I was fully on the lawn now, throwing glances over my shoulder in case zombies were sneaking up from behind. The silence of the surrounding area was deafening. There were no birds around, and no people, nothing ever came near the Shady Mansion. Not survivors, not Drifters and certainly not zombies. It reminded me of the atmosphere around the Zoo where the Beast had made its home, and I didn't know if that was impressive or scary, so I settled on it just being a creepy coincidence.

The draw bridge creaked as I went over it. I glanced around making sure that nothing was lurking in the shadows past the walls of the gate waiting to ambush me and then rushed off the compound leaving the house of paradise behind.