Zombie Tales: Primrose Court Apt. 502 by Robert Decoteau

 
     
     
     
    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 a prescription card.”
    Tommy pulled out his wallet and began
to shuffle through it.
    “Look, Tom,” Julio leaned forward and
laced his fingers together. “Comdex has a very strict no tolerance
policy. You can claim whatever you like, but the fact of the matter
is, you tested positive for drugs and that means I get to issue you
your walking papers.”
    “I’m not a pothead, Mr. Garcia,” Tommy
had protested, he hated the job, but he needed the paycheck, “My
mother has medical issues and needs it for pain.”
    “Turn your ID badge into Barry at the
security desk,” Julio had instructed, rising from his chair, “We
will send your last check to the address we have on file. After you
leave here this morning, you are not allowed back on the premises,
understand?”
    All Tommy could do was nod.
    Tommy pulled his black, Nirvana
tee-shirt over his head