Zombie Tales: Primrose Court Apt. 502

By Robert Decoteau

Tommy's whole world is falling apart around him. It is the worst day of his life, but it is about to get much worse.

Enjoy this short story based on the novel Don of the Living Dead.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Decoteau
• Release date: Sep 6, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466186965

Robert Decoteau

I was born in 1974 in Bremerton, Washington. I moved to Bellingham, Washington at the age of four and have been here ever since. I love living in the Pacific Northwest about two months out of the year. The other ten months it rains. Constant rain gives me plenty of time to read and write. While I'm hooked on writing horror right now, I enjoy many other genres. My favorite author is Robin Hobb, who also lives in the northwest. She is the award winning Fantasy author of Assassin's Apprentice and several sequels. I have one son. I named him Chance. He is currently six going on fifteen. We are both currently enrolled in school, but I am a few grades ahead of him.

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ZOMBIE TALES

PRIMROSE COURT

APT. 502

By

Robert DeCoteau

A

ZOMBIE TALES PRESS

Publication

APT. 502

Tommy slammed the door behind him with a hard thrust. He tossed his backpack on the floor next to the broken down, coat rack that his mother had forced him to haul home from a garage sale years before. The thing was chipped and dented, two of the four hanging pegs were missing, and it canted to the side like a drunken sailor, leaning against the wall for support.

Mom, it’s all busted up, Tommy had told her.

I know Thomas, but that is part of its charm, she had replied with a little smile, never taking her eyes off the ancient varnish.

He should have seen it then. All the early warning signs were there. Tommy hadn’t realized it at the time, but his mother had been slowly slipping away from reality, even back then. What sane person buys a busted up coat rack for ten dollars and then makes an eleven year old kid lug it fifteen blocks and five stories up to prop it in the corner?

Is that you, Thomas? his mother called from the living room.

Yeah, Ma, Tommy yelled on his way to his bedroom. He knew if he didn’t answer, she would just keep asking. She would slip into a loop, like a broken record.

Is that you, Thomas?

Thomas, is that you?

Thomas?

Is that you, Thomas?

Thomas, is that you?

Thomas?

Tommy kicked off his Giovanni dress shoes, letting them sail into the closet to be lost in the pile of miscellaneous junk there. He yanked off his pale blue, Comdex work shirt and added that to the pile as well. He wouldn’t need that shirt anymore. He wouldn’t ever need that shirt again, fuck Julio.

We need to talk, Julio had told him that morning.

Tommy had followed his boss into the little closet sized office next to the sorting room.

Close the door, Julio had said, moving around the rickety desk and planting his ass in a worn office chair.

Tommy had been forced to stand. There wasn’t room for another chair in the little office. Tommy tried not to breathe in the awful stench of cologne, hair gel, and body odor. He let his eyes wander the room, pretending to be interested in the décor so he wouldn’t have to look his boss in the eyes.

We got the results of your UA back, Julio had stated with a smirk.

Julio had always hated Tommy, since his first day in the mailroom nine months earlier; Julio had been looking for any reason to can him. His boss had developed a reputation as a ladies’ man and it was common knowledge that he only kept enough men on the mailroom staff to keep the Comdex mail moving. The rest of the employees were attractive, young women. Julio worked diligently to get each one of those women on his staff. If a girl was willing to put out occasionally, she could glide through the work week in the pharmaceutical company mailroom without licking so much as a single stamp.

The results were positive for THC, Julio had said, leaning back in his chair, "You a stoner, Tom?

No, sir, Tommy had replied, he had been anticipating this moment and had prepared a response in advance, but all that had gone out the window, "It’s my mom. She’s real sick, she has