Shawn of the Dead: after the credits

There are spoilers ahead if you have never seen the movie Shawn of the Dead, stop reading and go watch the movie. I have only used the world in to which we are introduced after the credits rolls. This is not fanfiction as I use only the world that is created after the credits roll and my own set of characters. With that being said, please enjoy this work of fiction. 

Eve hated going to the grocery store, even more so after the events of Z Day. It had been a month since but they still had whole streets closed for cleansing which, made going to the store that much tedious by adding a half hour to errand. She had listened to the man on the TV and stayed indoors with the doors and windows locked, it helped that she was near the top of an apartment building with doors that required a keycard to enter. After the TV when dead she spent the night in bed, listening to music and reading a biography. The following morning she awoke to gunfire as the National Guard cleared the streets below. All in all, it was a pretty peaceful night.

                Eve circled the lot in front of the store, looking for a place where she wouldn’t have to run into one of them. They may be harmless now but they were hard to look at. Each face a little more disfigured than the last if they even had a face at all. “Functional for menial tasks” the government had said when they announced their new free labor task force. Each one with a thick collar and chain around their necks, leashing them to the trolley return, their names tagged to the reflector vest the government requires them to wear as if they would respond to it if called.
                After minutes of circling she reluctantly chose a space three places over from the trolley return. She was careful not to look up as she grabbed her purse from the passenger seat and opened the door. The air was full of soft groans and idle chatter of passing customers with a slight scent of decay. As she briskly walked in the direction of the grocer, she looked back over her shoulder and saw one of the trolley snatchers staring at her. Its head tilted as it watched her with milky white eyes, raising a hand, trying to grasp Eves’ shrinking figure. She increased the pace of her steps.

                She moved through the aisles, avoiding the ones with zombified shelve stockers. Eve’s face paled when she saw one of them stocking the produce section since that was the entire reason for the outbreak in the first place. She had half a mind to leave the store and find another until she calculated the amount of time it would take with traffic.
                The stocker wore gloves, zip tied around his wrists, with some of the fingers bent in a way that would suggest he was missing them. His head swiveled as he watched the people pass but his hands continued to stack the tomatoes, unrelated to the focus of his attention. People took wide birth around him and averted children’s gazes while the stocker with the permanent frown continued until the box was empty then, stood vacantly watching the shoppers leer at him.
                Eve felt as if she had known the man, circling the produce section, she moved closer. His face was slack and one of his eyes had been gouged out but she was sure that it was her old fourth-grade teacher, Mr. Malbourn. She remembered the big bushy mustache that he would bristle while waiting for someone to volunteer to come to the blackboard. The mustache had been brown but was now dyed red from some victims blood, or perhaps his own. He used to wipe it after every sip of coffee with a kerchief he kept in his breast pocket, something now replaced by a name tag that read Chester. She pictured the thin book on the top shelf in her closet that might hold the solution to the foggy memory but instead set her focus on selecting a head of lettuce. After turning it over in her hands a few times, she placed it in the trolley and moved on to pay at the register.
                Eve stood in line adjusting the basket in her hands, waiting for a spot to open on the conveyer belt. Behind her stood a father, hand in hand with his young daughter who was turned, watching a shelf stocker in the aisle adjacent.

“Daddy,” She said softly not taking her eyes from the elderly reanimated corpse who stood complacently in the middle of the aisle, secured to the post by a chain.

“Yes, sweetie?” The man said watching the line in front of him.

“Is that Pop Pop?” She asked extending a finger towards him.

“No, sweetie. Pop Pop is sick at home.” The man nudged Eve who now had room to move forward. She obliged by stepping forward slightly since no room was yet available on the belt.

“Are you sure?” She asked in a sweet sing-song voice. The man turned his head and looked at the corpse that had been his wife’s father.

“Yes. I am sure. Remember, that’s where mommy is.” His voice broke a little as he held back tears.

Eve placed her basket on the conveyer belt and the checker began to ring up her items. She cast a casual glance around the lane, trying not to stare at the man as tears trickled down his face. His eyes were red and ringed in dark circles. A button on his shirt had been missed, exposing the chest hair underneath and his basket held only three items, two frozen meals and a bottle of whiskey. Eve paid the total, gather her bags and stepped away from the counter. The father placed his basket on the belt and quickly wiped his eyes.

“When is she coming home?” She asked innocently, crossing her arms across he chest.

“I don’t know sweetie.” He said pressing his fingers against his eyes and looking at the ceiling.

“I miss her.”

“Me too.”

Eve walked her items back to her car, watching the trolley grabbers clumsily try to stop the momentum of trolleys pushed at them by disgusted patrons. Three teens nearly ran her over on their way into the store. She turned, planning on chastising them but they had already disappeared into the entrance of the storefront. She muttered what she had planned to say under her breath as she grabbed the key in her purse. The trunk swung open as she approached. She dropped both bags and shut the trunk with a thud. Slipped her hand into her purse to retrieve her keys, she looked over the top of her car at a gaunt face staring back at her.

She instantly recognized the face of her longtime childhood friend, Rex. They had grown apart over the years but she would recognize him anywhere. The first time she saw him was from her window as he biked up a down her street, dressed in the finest protective gear that money could buy. The day that they shared their first kiss under a large alder on campus shortly before the summer holiday. The moment she swore that she would never talk to him again after he broke their promise of going to the same Uni.

His translucent eyes seemed to be locked on hers. Her throat tightened around a lump she didn’t know was there. She heard the sound of a trolley being pushed over asphalt shortly before she saw it crash into him. It knocked him over onto his side. The teens laughed and launched another as he struggled to get to his feet. The second trolley crashed into him just as he got his legs under him, sending him back to the ground. The two zombies around him mindlessly moved to collect the carts. The third trolley hit a different target.
Eve wanted to scream at them but the words stuck to her throat and tongue as she tried to speak them and by the time she found her voice again, they were gone. Rex had grabbed the third card and was shuffling back to the trolley return to which he was chained. She opened the door, got in and slammed it behind her. She sat in silence until her hands had stopped shaking. When she returned back to her apartment, she left the bags on the counter and went to her closet. She pulled down the old yearbooks and began to cry.