I Dream of Zombies: Rose Lee's Zombie Adventures

By Charlotte Gerber

Rose Lee is a zombie social worker in post-apocalypse Hornellsville, trying to help out zombies who are having a tough go of it. She is ever watchful, looking for the next human who may have succumbed to the zombie disease. Humans who have survived the apocalypse have a hard time understanding why she would help the zombies, especially since they are supposed to be violent.

Rose dispels some of the common misconceptions about zombies, such as they can’t eat brains because their teeth are falling out, and they must live in air conditioned surroundings or be at risk of disintegrating completely. This is a task that she takes on with humor and tenacity.

Life is pretty much an uphill battle until she finds an ally – a zombie hunter named Alex Georgiades. While he is a womanizer, he soon realizes Rose is a no-nonsense kind of girl who can easily resist his charms (and can run in high heels). Together they begin to deal with the wreckage of their town, and figure out who wants the zombie virus to keep ripping through humans in the U.S.A.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charlotte Gerber
• Release date: Feb 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311712288

Charlotte Gerber

Charlotte Gerber is a freelance writer and author. She lives in upstate New York on a farm with her husband, two children and numerous animals. When she isn't writing (which isn't very often), she can be found outside chasing escapee chickens who want to get to the other side of the road, and wrangling ducks that would prefer to be wandering in ditches, much to the displeasure of local motorists.Published novels include:Murder in Middleton (2012) Murder mystery/young adult/adultI Dream of Zombies (2013) Mystery/Horror/Comedy/adultA Cat Taught Me That (2015) Non Fiction/Philosophy/all agesThe Good Woof (2016) Non Fiction/PetsMakeup and Murder (pen name Cat Huntley) (2017) Fiction/Mystery/Cozy Mystery

Book preview

I Dream of Zombies

Charlotte Gerber

Copyright 2013 by Charlotte Gerber

Smashwords Edition

ISBN 9781311712288

Cover photo by Lario Tus at Dreamstime.com

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my father who watched the Saturday afternoon Monster Movies with me throughout my childhood. We bonded over scary B movies, which contributed greatly to my interest in writing mystery and horror stories.

This book is also dedicated to my dear friend Jan Lakes. Her keen sense of humor always pulls me back from the edge, just when writer’s insanity threatens to pull me into the dark abyss.

And to Cadillac enthusiasts everywhere.

chapter One

There are three things that zombies should never do: stay out in the sun too long, drink milk, and never, ever under any circumstance be within 20 feet of pepper. Pepper is more dangerous than a gun to a zombie. I should know. It is what killed my Uncle Walter.

My name is Rose Lee, and I’m a zombie social worker. After the so-called zombie apocalypse, also known as the ZA, there was a growing need for people who were willing to work with the zombie population. Since I couldn’t pull the grades I needed for a degree in anything else, I settled on a degree in human services. I find that ironic since zombies can’t really be classified as human anymore.

Older people hear my name and they instantly think of the stripper - Gypsy Rose Lee. My parents had been a fan of the movie and thought it clever to give me her name. I was a cute child, according to relatives, with porcelain skin and long, brown hair that my mother was always putting in curlers.

As I grew older, I also developed a figure to match my namesake. While I could be a pole dancer given my ability to run in high-heeled shoes, as a Catholic girl, it is something my conscience would never allow.

I make an okay living though and am currently living in a small, one-story house on the south side of Hornellsville. It is a small town in upstate New York. The town was famous for a short period of time during the 1877 railroad strike. When scabs tried to take a train up the mountain, union workers soaped the tracks and the train slid back down. Pretty clever, if you asked me.

During the zombie apocalypse two years ago, Hornellsville became a refuge for people fleeing the larger towns like Rochester, Albany, and Buffalo. People are getting used to the new normal way of life now, and many are moving back into the big cities where there are asylums to house the zombies that are falling apart, both physically and mentally.

I don’t have a roommate because you never know who could suddenly succumb to the zombie disease. While most people got their immunization shots once the cure was discovered, there are still those who refuse to get them. They think there is a government conspiracy to create more zombies, and given that outbreaks keep popping up, perhaps they are right.

My brother, Zane, has been missing since the beginning of the zombie apocalypse. He was one of the conspiracy theorists and I’m sure he is hiding out somewhere. Whether or not he has the disease at this point is hard to tell. If he wanted to get a hold of me, he could send me an email. So far, he hasn’t made an effort to contact me.

I try not to think too much about what he is up to, but sometimes at night I lay awake and wonder what the heck happened to make him such a nut job. He was a respected scientist at the University of Rochester before he went off the rails. The way the police explained it to us was that he had become a little too fascinated with his research in laser energetics, and had endangered other employees by performing unauthorized experiments.

His explanation was a little more interesting, at least in my opinion. Zane had told me that he suspected some of his fellow employees were acting distracted and odd right before the apocalypse. He thought they might be aliens or something else altogether. This is why, he explained, they needed to be taken out before they could take him out. I guess there were a few gruesome injuries that included singed eyeballs and other stuff too horrific to mention. I wish I could forget the in-depth descriptions that he gave me about the injuries. Unfortunately, I’m doomed to replay them over and over in my head whenever I think about him.

The last I heard from him, after he moved out of our parent’s basement, was that he was heading to Utah to live near the salt flats. He claimed it wasn’t as deadly as pepper, but it could be plenty effective at deterring zombies. Go figure.

I could torture myself thinking about him, but today I have to get to the local jail to talk with one of my clients. I hate visiting clients at the jail, mainly because the cops hate zombies and they think that because I work with them that I’m somehow in cahoots. It is a no-win situation for any of us. I just want to do my job and get paid. The zombies just want to go home to a nice, cold place, away from the prying eyes of the local police.

I was heading toward the jail when I decided to stop at the Crispy Biscuit for a strong cup of coffee and a brown sugar biscuit with marmalade. The Crispy Biscuit was well known for its wide variety of, what else, biscuits. They made them a dozen different ways which included being smothered in a variety of sauces, jams and jellies. I could spend an hour or more just sitting in the dining area inhaling the scent of freshly baked biscuits. Today, however, I had to zip through the drive thru because I had overslept.

Welcome to the Crispy Biscuit, a nasal female voice said over the intercom. Can I interest you in a Deluxe Chicken and Cheese breakfast biscuit?

No, thanks. Give me a brown sugar biscuit with marmalade and a large lava java with two creams and two sugars please, I said.

Does that complete your order? the voice asked.

Yep, that’ll do it, I said.

Please pull ahead to the first window, she said.

I did as instructed and rounded the corner with my 1990 Cadillac Brougham. It was a gift from my father. I’m not sure if it was really a gift, or rather his way of getting rid of the biggest, gas-guzzling vehicle he’d ever owned. I had named the car Beulah.

I maneuvered up to the window, being careful not to hit the concrete pylon next to the service window. Not because it would hurt my car, but rather because the car would probably take a chunk out of the pylon.

Eight feet of car hood later, the driver’s side window finally lined up with the service window. Five-o-five please, the cashier said. I handed her the money and was a little shocked when she almost dumped my order into my lap through the window. Sorry, she said, her cheeks turning a deep shade of scarlet.

That’s okay, it is that kind of day, I said, trying to reassure her with a smile. It never hurt to be nice to the workers at the Crispy Biscuit. Every once in a while they gave me an extra biscuit, and who was I to complain?

I noticed her hands as she went back to work. I could have sworn there were the familiar quarter-sized brown patches on the tops of her hands. I must have looked a little too long because the girl suddenly pulled the window shut, shot me the stink eye, and turned her back to me.

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know what those patches were – zombie disease. If that were true, all it would take to do the poor creature in was a whiff of pepper and BAM! A very sticky, and somewhat messy, end.

I was torn between pulling into a parking space and running in to alert her manager or continuing on my drive to the jail. I didn’t relish the thought of doing either; in one case the poor girl may be sent away to live out her life in a zombie asylum, and in the other, I had to figure out whether my client was worth the time and effort of sitting through a court hearing.

Life used to be so much easier before the ZA.

A sense of duty won out, since I’m required by law to report this kind of thing. I pulled Beulah into a tight parking space and disembarked. Luckily I had worn one of my sensible suits to work today and didn’t have to navigate the pot-hole filled parking lot in high heels.

I entered the restaurant and stood in line, waiting for my chance to speak with the manager. The hostess greeted me after a few moments.

Just one today? she asked.

No, I’m not staying, I said. I just have a quick question for the manager. Is he or she in?

Let me check, hon. I’ll be right back, she said.

I watched her walk away from me, her plump body crammed into a short yellow dress. A starched white apron hemmed with lace helped to cover some of the bulges in front, but from behind it didn’t help her at all. I gave a sigh and felt instantly sorry for her. She probably didn’t make much money, and the management was probably a little too cheap to buy uniforms that fit everyone, especially the more curvy girls.

She returned a few minutes later with a rather unhappy-looking man with a bad comb over. I could feel my stomach clench looking at him. I didn’t like dealing with surly people, especially this early in the morning.

What can I do for you mam? he asked in a weak, raspy voice, probably a result from chain smoking. I had a hard time looking away from him. His skin had an odd, oily appearance and he had purple circles under his eyes. His lips had a bluish cast to them; a candidate for a heart attack if I ever did see one.

Um, I stammered. I think one of your waitresses may be sick.

He narrowed his eyes and stared at me. Who is sick? he asked, a little more loudly than was necessary.

I think the girl who waited on me at the drive thru is a little under the weather, if you know what I mean, I said. I would have given the proverbial wink-wink to him, but I was afraid that he would misunderstand the signal.

No, I don’t know what you mean, he said curtly. Explain, he said, even more loudly than before.

I was beginning to feel uncomfortable and regretting my decision to come into the restaurant. There was no turning back now, however, so I plowed ahead.

I noticed that your waitress has brown spots on the tops of her hands. I don’t need to tell you what that is a sign of, do I? The last thing you need is a horrific accident in your restaurant, right? You know what happens when a zombie gets around pepper.

The situation was beginning to sink in with the manager, and he looked at the floor. He nodded and then said, I’ll look into it. He abruptly turned on his heel and walked away from me. I turned and was about to leave the store when I saw my car pulling out of the parking space without me.

I ran towards the front door of the store, and just then the waitress from the drive thru turned and gave a little wave from the driver’s side of my car. Holy cheese and crackers! I yelled. She stole my car!

Other patrons who were enjoying their breakfast biscuits stopped eating and looked up at me. She stole my car! I yelled again, pointing at the door. Then I turned and looked at the restaurant patrons around me, half wondering if anyone was going to help me. Most of them just went back to eating, though a few looked at me expectantly for a moment or two before they also returned to their breakfasts.

If nothing else, people in Hornellsville were a calm lot. After the ZA, people became jaded and no longer responded to a crisis with hysterics. They were most likely to ignore the occasional crime, even if it happened right in front of them. Even a car being stolen in broad daylight by a zombie was apparently no big deal.

A zombie counselor on the verge of hysteria would lose a lot of credibility in a situation like this. I checked my emotions, smoothed my suit jacket and looked for the closest booth to sink into before calling 911. The cops at the local precinct were going to have a hoot over this one, I thought.

A waitress, who seemed to appear out of nowhere, welcomed me.

You look like you could use a little coffee, she said and smiled warmly at me. Here’s a menu. I’ll be back in a sec, she added.

Coffee did sound good, and I wasn’t going to go anywhere soon, not without Beulah. I slumped into a bench seat that had very little padding. Along with the uniforms, the management must have thought that uncomfortable seating would keep the flow of patrons going more quickly. If the skimpy padding didn’t get them, the obnoxious lemon yellow and lime green swirl patterned material would drive them to distraction and send them running.

Running wasn’t an option for me, however, and after retrieving my cell phone from my purse I called the cops to report the theft.

911 operator. What is your emergency? an older female voice asked.

Beulah has been stolen, I replied.

What is your location? she asked matter-of-factly.

I’m at the Crispy Biscuit on Maple, I said.

Has anyone been hurt? she asked.

Nope.

Who is Beulah? she asked.

I hesitated before answering. Beulah is my car, I said.

I heard soft laughter coming from the dispatcher, though she did a good job trying to cover it.

"Your name?" she asked.

Rose Lee, I replied.

There was more laughter, and this time the dispatcher didn’t try to cover it up.

Oh, Miss Lee, she said. I know you. You drive that monster Cadillac, don’t you? I heard the boys talking about it. They say it belongs in a museum.

My feelings were a little hurt. Beulah was a beautiful car, though she was certainly a little dated. She had been made of Detroit’s finest steel back in the day. It was long, elegant and stylish, almost like a limousine. It was the color of an antelope, and definitely could run like one on the highway.

Well, museum or not, a waitress at the Crispy Biscuit just stole her, I snapped. I could feel my blood pressure beginning to rise, and the pitch of my voice was going up as well.

Okay, okay, I’m sorry, the dispatcher said, choking back a laugh. I’m sending someone out right away. They should be there shortly.

Thanks, I said, and then disconnected. There was no sense in prolonging the conversation, especially when I didn’t find it quite as funny as she evidently did.

Just then, my waitress reappeared with a cup in one hand, a coffee carafe in the other and a