Time's Up

The door creaked open, revealing a spacious foyer overrun by inattention, by palpable neglect. The hardwood floors, lacquered with a thick coating of debris and dirt, creaked as a man, clad in filthy clothing long unfamiliar to the touch of detergent, entered the foyer of the forgotten abode.

The man stood triumphantly in the foyer, surveying the living room, the dining room, both littered with furniture draped with soiled sheets, intently with the eyes of a man gazing upon an oasis discovered deep within the desert. He smiled with satisfaction as his family, his wife and teenage daughter, entered the house warily. Both ladies sported similarly drab, unwashed attire. And neither appeared thrilled with the current state of affairs.

The daughter spoke first.

“Dad, how long do we have to stay here?”

Her father turned to face her.

“A few days. Maybe a week. By then, we can move on.”

The wife’s eyes widened in disbelief.

“A week? That is unacceptable. We will not…”

The father turned stern.

“We will make this work. And I don’t want to hear another word about it.”

The father turned his attention to his daughter. A smile formed on his face.

“Sweetie, why don’t you go upstairs and pick out a room? We will be safe here.”

The daughter looked to her mother for guidance. Her mother glared at her father.

“Safe? Safe?”

The father’s smile vanished.

“I’m not listening to any more of your bullshit. Why don’t you go in the kitchen and see what’s in the cupboards?”

Then he turned to his daughter, still standing at the foot of the stairs.

“And you go pick out a fucking bedroom!”

The daughter’s scowl morphed into a nearly audible eye roll. But she scurried up the stairs without formal protest.

The mother, on the verge of eruption, looked ready to blow a gasket. But the father did not afford her the opportunity.

“I’m gonna go see what I can see. I’ll be back,” he proclaimed.

And with that, the father stalked back through the threshold, slamming the yellowed rotting door behind him.

The father stood on the front porch, a modest slab of cracked concrete, and marveled at the ink-stained evening before him. Rain began to fall. Gentle at first before the wind picked up, turning the light plink plink into roiling cascading sheets of thunka thunka. He looked left. He looked right.

Before him, a suburban cul-de-sac gone to pot. Untended lawns threatened to devour the driveways and sidewalks that carved the landscape into modest, middle-class slices of dominion. Tendrils of unchecked kudzu slithered serpentine up the sides of each house. Burned out hulks of used-to-be automobiles lined the streets.

A flash of lightning caused the father to shift his focus.

A crash of thunder.

Then another white-hot streak, revealing in the distance a

structure. With exterior lights illuminated.

A destination.

The father unslung his backpack. Unzipped the bag. Emptied the contents on the ground before him. An impromptu inventory revealed a bottle of water, an energy bar, a flashlight and a well-worn Colt .45 handgun snugly secured in a holster.

The father returned the food and water to the backpack. He clipped the holster to his belt. He slung the backpack over his shoulders again. Then, after retrieving the flashlight from the ground, he flipped up the collar of his jacket and walked into the storm.

**

After twenty minutes of soggy, solitary trekking, the father, trailing behind the faint yellow beam of the flashlight, approached the structure he had seen in the distance.

A small family farm.

About two hundred yards from the ramshackle home’s front door, he leaned against a rotten wooden post, carefully avoiding the rusted barbed wire coils lining the perimeter of the farm. He turned off the flashlight. And he watched.

Not ten minutes into his reconnaissance, the father observed two figures, backlit by the floodlights of the carport, shuffling around, struggling as they carried small wooden crates into the house’s interior. The father pushed away from his perch.

He had seen enough.

He silently crept towards the house, his fingers dancing against the metal housing of the flashlight.

About thirty feet from the carport, he turned on the flashlight and threw it as far as he could. The shimmering beacon hurtled end over end across the length of the front of the house, landing with a thud in the front yard, mere feet from the front door.

Almost immediately, the front door flew open. An old man, his well-polished double barrel shotgun sighted on the flashlight, emerged from within the house. Upon recognizing the deception, the old man panned left then right. But before he could sight a target, the father sprang from the shadows and fired two rounds into the man’s stomach. The old man dropped the shotgun as he lurched back into the house, clutching his leaky insides.

The father pursued his target into the house. Upon crossing the threshold, he was greeted by the strangled screams of an old woman. The old man, a soppy sack of quickly departing vitality, struggled to staunch the bleeding as he stared silently at his attacker with eyes turned feral by circumstance. Unable to stomach leaving the man in his current condition, the father pointed his pistol at the old man and pulled the trigger. A crimson dot on the old man’s forehead served as grim punctuation.

As the crack of the gunshot reverberating throughout the small home receded, a shrill ringing in his ears was quickly replaced by the redoubled screaming of the old woman, now hysterical and shaking with fear.

The father looked at the old woman.

“Please stop screaming,” the father said, pleading for the old woman’s understanding.

When the old woman only screamed all the louder, the father sighed and walked towards her.

Frozen in place by unfettered fear, she made no effort to retreat from his approach. She simply kept screaming. The father stood in front of her, raised the gun once again and pulled the trigger.

By the time her lifeless corpse fell to the floor, the father had turned his thoughts to the wooden crates in the carport.

**

Outside in the carport, the father cracked open the wooden crates, greedily ransacking their contents. Apples. Carrots and cucumbers. Even some dried venison. The father stashed as much as he could fit in his backpack. He would return tomorrow for the rest.

He found a tarp. Hid the wooden crates from any vultures, human or beast, who might abscond with his bounty. As he secured the tarp with a pair of weathered bricks, the father heard an unfamiliar sound. Shuffling, scrapping. And something else. Something… guttural.

As the father zipped the backpack up tight, he felt the hairs on his neck stand upright as the once indecipherable grumbling deepened, broadened into a braying, visceral call to… RUN!

**

And run he did. All the way home.

The creaky wooden door of the family’s sanctuary flung open. Dripping and out of breath, the father rushed inside. He slammed the door shut. Thrust the deadbolt home. Snapped the security chain into place. Panting, sweating, the father, having done what he could to secure the door, leaned his head against the door as he struggled to catch his breath. As he did, a thunderous blow shook the door, causing him to jump back in a panic. There was scratching, clawing at the door. And more pounding coupled with muffled, unhuman braying. But the door held.

Slowly, so very slowly, the unholy cacophony began to fade, receding into the night. The father sighed deeply. Then he called out to his family.

No answer.

The desperate sprint from the farmhouse had left the father exhausted. And hungry. He went into the dining room and dumped the contents of the backpack on the dining table.

He surveyed his haul.

Enough for a week. Well, at least for him.

He looked at the pistol, its action thrown back, its chamber pleading for more ammunition.

The father chastised himself for not snagging the old man’s shotgun.

But, he reminded himself, there had not been time.

The father grabbed a hunk of dried venison and an apple along with his water bottle. He greedily scarfed down the food. Unsatisfied, he briefly toyed with the idea of delving deeper into his stash.

He could eat more. After all, there was more back at the farmhouse. But there was no guarantee they would be there when he returned.

No, these supplies needed to last.

The father looked at the water bottle.

Empty. Gonna need more.

The father yawned.

His thirst was a problem for tomorrow. Right now, he needed some rest.

Gathering the empty pistol and a half-eaten apple, the father retreated upstairs in search of a bed for the night. He entered the first bedroom at the top of the stairs. At the foot of the bed, he found the backpacks belonging to his wife and daughter. He grabbed them both and threw them on the bed. One after the other, he dug through the bags.

Between the two bags, he found two bottles of water and eight rounds for the Colt. He cracked open one of the water bottles and greedily slurped half its contents. Then he set bottles on the nightstand and swept the bags off the bed onto the floor, before plopping down on the bed.

He loaded the rounds into the pistol as his eyes grew heavy. He rested his head on one of the pillows, and the Colt on his stomach.

Sleep came quick.

**

“Arrrrrgh,” a raspy voice snarled.

The father blinked away the darkness. Snagged the Colt from its resting spot. Quickly fired an unaimed shot that missed its mark, embedding itself in the plaster ceiling.

“Arrrgggggggh!” the raspy voice growled as its owner grabbed at the pistol.

The father struggled for purchase, hoping for a moment where the pistol’s sights lined up with the undead ghoul attacking him.

“Richard, stop it!”

“What?” the father asked, still struggling to maintain a grip on the gun.

The ghoul won the tug of war, snatching the pistol from the father’s clutches, then placing the weapon on the dresser against the wall.

“They told me they fixed that,” the monster muttered to himself as he pulled his phone out of his pocket and tapped the screen.

Richard looked confused, then annoyed at the man before him, draped from head to toe in a green spandex suit swollen with body armor.

The man removed his mask.

“What are you doing? I signed up for the seven-day package,” Richard snarled.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Johnson. Your payment was declined,” the man replied evenly.

Richard considered this information. Reached an immediate conclusion.

“That bitch,” he muttered as he rose from the bed.

Richard looked around the room. Everything, floor to ceiling, bore paint the same color green as the man’s suit. The walls. The floorboards. Even the blocky, featureless furniture.

The man persisted.

“Do you wish to provide an alternate form of payment?”

Richard looked at the man.

“What? No. No, not now. Everything is ruined.”

“I understand. I’m sorry your stay has been cut short.”

Richard turned to the man but said nothing.

“Please head downstairs. We will give you a ride to the guest relations center. You will need to complete the exit interview.”

Richard glared at the man.

“Sure. Whatever.”

Richard exited the bedroom and headed downstairs. Opening the front door, the same cul-de-sac from the previous day greeted him. But different. Newly constructed homes painted all green. Well maintained lawns. And sidewalks. And roads. Overhead, dozens of drones zipped past.

At the curb sat a waiting golf cart. He stalked angrily over to the vehicle and hopped in the passenger seat. With a wheeze, the electric vehicle departed the mock cul-de-sac.

**

Richard emerged from the guest relation center, having endured thirty tedious minutes peppered with tedious questions about his stay.

Was his experience authentic?

What was his level of immersion? Did the rain feel real?

Were the zombies appropriately terrifying?

Did the Tru-Sight v2.0 provide the visual immersion he had expected?

Any glitches, image tearing during render?

How about cochlear implants? Any lag with the audio or did the soundtrack stay synced with the visuals?

How about the new haptic gloves?

Over and over, Richard reiterated his only complaint centered around the brevity of his stay. And that he intended to sort that particular issue out when he got home.

Only then, after the seemingly endless questions had been asked and answered, was Richard permitted to leave.

The same golf cart, with the same driver, picked him up outside of the guest relations center. They drove without a word through the employee parking lot before stopping at the gate house at the edge of the property. The driver retrieved a cell phone from his pocket and handed the device to Richard as the gate opened.

“Thank you for choosing Time’s Up, an Elliot Eisenberg experience,” the driver said cheerily.

Richard grunted noncommittedly as he exited the golf cart. As the vehicle turned around and headed back to the guest relation center, Richard removed his phone from Airplane mode.

A bevy of texts and social media alerts inundated the device. He absentmindedly scrolled through them as he walked across the parking lot towards his car.

Richard pulled his keys out of his pocket, unlocking the shiny red Ferrari with a keyless fob. He entered the vehicle, closing the door behind him. He reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a case emblazoned with the Ray Ban logo. After putting on his designer sunglasses, he started the engine. Then he put the car in gear, floored the gas pedal and sped out of the parking lot.