Zombie Tech Support part 1

“Give me some room to work, please,” I muttered to the occupant of the desk. I was busy watching the output from the antivirius program, trying to figure out what had gotten into the computer this time. It was only a couple of minutes peace before the guy was running into my back again.

“Back off,” I grumbled, swatting at him. I hit the man’s arm and it fell off.

I rolled my eyes as I leaned down to pick up the limb. “Jeez, are you guys falling apart again? Doesn’t the boss keep the air conditioning running hard enough in here?”

“You always complain when I turn it down, Carlos.”

I looked up from the box I was working on. “Yes, ma’am.” I never heard my boss sneaking up on me. She just appeared, her suit immaculate, her hair in tight, perfect braids, and her schedule full of important things that I was keeping her from.

“I need you to have another fifty workstations up by the end of the week. The equipment should arrive tomorrow morning.”

I sighed, anticipating another long week of overtime. “Any chance there’s another I.T. person on the new hire roster? Or is it just more dead guys?”

“I guess you can pick one of the newbies out of the training class on Monday.” She checked her Blackberry as she spoke. “Make sure you get to them early, though, unless you want another one of these brainless shamblers following you around.”

The thrill of an actual assistant kept the second part of her instructions from sinking in immediately. “You’re turning the new hires into zombies?”

“Well, of course. Where do you think zombies come from, anyway?” Her cell rang and she answered it, hurrying off before I could reply.

I finished fixing the computer and moved onto the next minor emergency, but I was still thinking about that conversation when I left. I spent the whole drive back to my apartment on my Vespa thinking about the question. Where did zombies come from?

Home was a studio apartment by ASU that was close to work, grad school, and my favorite Thai restaurant. When I got there, I dug some leftovers from my mom out of the fridge and put it in the microwave. Then I set about investigating the best way I knew how.

I googled “how to make a zombie”.

The results included drink recipes, makeup instructions, CIA conspiracies and brain parasites, along with a handful of references to Voodoo. One of the links lead to the Amazon page for Voodoo for Dummies, which promised an easy guide to lwa, spells, and zombie creation.

That sounded like as good a place to start as any, so I pulled up the library search page and typed in the title.

Sunday morning, I ran down to the public library. The website said that Voodoo for Dummies was on the shelf, but it took me a few minutes to find the shelves among all the construction. I browsed once, twice, three times, but didn’t find it. Maybe I’d gotten the call number wrong? But there were one or two other books on voodoo there, so it should be there.

I figured someone must have beaten me to it, or maybe it was mis-shelved. I pulled out my phone and looked for the next closest library. It was ten miles away and promised that it, too, had Voodoo for Dummies on the shelf. I jumped on my moped and hurried over.

This time I had to go upstairs to find non-fiction, but I found the right section right away. And again, the book wasn’t there. There was even a gap in the books on the shelf where it should be – I must have just missed it.

I headed back downstairs and on my way out, I noticed a Hindi girl who had it on the stack next to her at the checkout station. Yep, beaten to it. Ah well, at least she was cute.

Checking WorldCat again, I decided I was heading for the main library in central Phoenix. There couldn’t possibly be more than two people in the valley taking Voodoo for Dummies out on the same day, right?

I parked and dashed into the library, grabbing an elevator just as it was about to close and heading up to the top floor. I spotted the religion section from the elevator and made straight for it.

As I pulled the library book off the shelf, another hand reached for it. I looked over.

“Can I see that book?” she asked.

I blinked at her. “Didn’t I see you at the last library?”

She looked away for just a moment, then looked back. “No.”

“Wait, I did. I’m sure I did. You were taking this same book out.” I held the book tightly to my chest, like I had in elementary school when I thought the older kids would take them and throw them in the canal.

“Why would I take the same book out?” she asked, grabbing at it.

I stepped back, out of her reach. “I have no idea. You’re the one who took it out.”

“I did not. Come on, I really need that book.”

“Then use the copy you took out of the other library,” I snapped at her and turned to leave.

“Hey! You can’t do that!”

I ran for the elevators, but none of them were waiting, so I turned and ran down the stairs. I felt a little ridiculous – who was going to chase me over a library book? But I hurried anyway, down all five flights. I even jumped over the last few.

At the bottom, I hurried to the check-out counter. I heard the elevators ding behind me. I slammed my card down into the slot and hurried through the scan and check out process.

When I turned away from the check-out machine, she was standing right behind me. I jumped and stepped back, feeling the machine press into the small of my back. I held the book tightly again. “What is wrong with you?”

She shook her head. “I… I don’t know.”

“Well, let me know when you figure it out.” I ducked around her, trying not to shove her out of the way. I didn’t want to look like a guy beating up on a girl regardless of whether or not she was acting weird.

“Wait! Please, just… just let me ask you something.” She was running after me as I left and caught up with me while I was getting my helmet on.

The book was safely tucked into the storage under the seat, so I figured it couldn’t hurt to let her ask her question.

“Why do you need that book?”

“For work.”

“Where do you work?”

“Why? Are you going to show up there to steal my book?”

“I’m just trying to figure out what happened. I mean, people aren’t supposed to be able to beat me to the books.”

“What?” I didn’t have any idea what she was on about now.

“I’m not supposed to talk about it. I’m sorry.” She turned and sighed. “My boss is going to kill me.”

Confused or not, I know a scared-looking girl when I see one. “Okay, fine, if it’ll make you feel better, I work at Laveau Communications. Does that help?”

“Laveau?” she repeated, her eyes wide. “No, you can’t have the book!”

She reached at me like she was going to push me off the moped. I stepped on the gas and zipped past her and out of there so fast I almost got run over as I merged onto Central Avenue.