The Battle of the Call Centre

Alex loathed the rain, a little more than she loathed another day in reality. It was the weather to shoot a horror movie, humid rain, lightening, bruise-colored skies and rain from a more primitive time.

Alex stretched, rubbed her eyes, had a shower and then straightened her unruly, short hair and then smoothed on her makeup.The ritual soothed her, she painted on pretty cheeks, painted on dainty sculpted eyes in a pretty, silvery pink.  In the chaos, makeup and hair always got ruined but a little feminine normality was therapy but normally never lasted, nothing lasted.

Before the disaster, an umbrella would have been a gadget to stop her face getting wrecked and her hair turning to short snakes but now an umbrella was a weapon. Alex opened the door and braced herself for another morning of killing creatures that were once souls.  A big ex-man roared in her face and with a controlled rage she smacked him across the face, and then again, and then again until he fell, and then while he was laid out on the ground she stabbed him through the torso.Alex had become twisted since the disaster, she was vegetarian just because eating dead animals seemed illogical and revolting and now she was killing random people and different, bloodthirsty ways.

Alex looked at her watch, she was early as ever as the journey to work became as unpredictable as a bad trip.She waited at the bus stop wondering if the fat, gross bus driver was now a zombie, Alex wondered how many faces that made up the wallpaper of her life were now crazed creatures. Alex had found an ancient part of her brain that was hyper focused on survival, noises were louder, colors brighter and time had become distorted. The lightening made the scene slightly more terrifying and her senses Alex's senses were slightly more alert. She saw a tiny, lit up figure from a long way, she scanned him for signs of being on her a zombie with a checklist, the walk looked good, she had a good, upright gait, there was no roaring and shouting and as she got closer she looked fine.

"Hello"

Said the woman. Alex looked the woman up and down.

"Hello"

Said Alex quietly.

"God, you look good".

"Thanks"

Alex replied.

Alex just wanted to survive alone, since her daily killing sprees her emotions had closed down. Getting to know people may mean a broken soul when normal people turned vicious.

"Mad isn't it".

The soft-skinned woman looked deeply scared, Alex tried to keep her emotion to a minimum.

"Fuck"

Shouted Alex,

"Zombie"

The women tried not to look in the woman's eyes and started to pummel her. Blood and organs splatter on the road. The women did a grim high five as they looked at the ex-woman.

"Poor thing"

Said the woman.

"No"

Said Alex,

"get any ideas that you did anything wrong out of your head, she didn't have a life, she was just a monster, she's an ex-person."

The bus came and the women were relieved it was being driven by a gross bus driver and the rain-sodden faces were averagely depressed and ugly. Alex and the pretty young woman got on the bus quickly and the doors slammed behind them and they both could breathe.

The lightning got worse as Alex had to get off the bus and make the now horrendous journey to the office. She brandished her umbrella and stayed alerted on the short journey to the tacky red brick building that housed hundreds of workers. The trip was uneventful other than the horror movie rain.
Alex ran into the building and shouted,

"Hello".

She looked over to the security guard who to her horror now had a dripping face. This kill was essential but would be difficult. Bob was a small constant in her life, a gossip buddy, a person to talk through her problems with illogical people and a good laugh. She tried to run past Bob so she wouldn't need to slaughter him but he ran towards her so in an emotional quandary she killed Bob with her umbrella.

Alex felt tears in her eyes but then remembered her own advice, Bob wasn't human anymore.Nobody had a cure for these zombies, they could be your mum, dad, best friend or lover once they turned it was your duty to kill them. Alex buried all emotions and then with a huge flash of lightening the lights went out.

It took a few minutes for the green emergency lights to come on, once they sparked to light Alex ran up the stairs. The office had started to empty out since the disaster and Alex wasn't sure why she kept making the potentially lethal trip to work but it was a ritual like makeup and hair, work was normality. The lights were still an eerie, emergency green but the phones and computers were powered by a generator so the day went on.

After the short ritual of logging into her phone and getting through passwords, the beep came.

"I'm furious, the driver came with my interview clothes and he only had half a face, why do you employ those useless zombies?"

Alex sometimes felt she had nothing to say to these calls. She went to her updates page on the screen to see what the latest script was and purred

"I'm so sorry for any inconvenience, it must have been very distressing".

"Do you think I give a shit about those stupid zombies? I've got an interview, my office is full of those idiots."

"I just need to pull up your details"

Alex wanted to shout or laugh at the caller but Alex kept her relaxed but authoritative tone

"Can I have your postcode, please?"

"Yes, it's SE14 4LQ"

The caller's voice dripped with sarcasm and spite, Alex carried on with the call calmly.

"Thanks, now I can help you."

"Fucking useless zombies are everywhere you know, they're like a disease, I love killing them, doing the government's job for them."

The caller got irate as Alex asked her details.

Alex looked up and her boss was staring at her with yellow eyes and a bloodied face and a very crazed look. Her friend beat Jenny with and umbrella while Alex called the delivery company.

"Kayleigh, thanks so much, I know how much you hate killing".

Kayleigh went to hug Alex, Alex hesitated then realized she needed the human contact, so with her mind on full alert she took some much needed human contact.

Alex's work-mates looked at Alex and Kayleigh with shocked faces.

"We had to" Said Kayleigh

Just then, they green lights, the glow of the computers and the office went dark, the generator was only designed to power the building for a few minutes. Thunder rumbled outside and lightening illuminated panicked faces for a few seconds and room that was full of voices and activity was full of petrified people.

"There's no security guard"

Shouted Alex. The next flash of lightning showed true horror on peoples' faces.

"I'll guard the door, Kayleigh, come with me."

Kayleigh and Alex walked to the door and brandished their brollys.

"Someone, text the power guy while I guard".

Shouted Alex.

Kayleigh handed over her phone. The "power guy" was a retired engineer who could get the power back on, his real identity was a mystery but Kayleigh had this man's phone number. The account manager shouted over to Alex,


"Alex I'm in charge".

A boo went up, Alex felt nervous, she had gone above her position.

"Alex and Kayleigh know what they're doing"

A flash of lightning lit up Lauren's face and the manager had nothing to say.

Alex shouted,

Get your weapon line up, they're coming".

Brolly's and baseball bats and rackets came out and the zombies lolloped up the stairs,

"Get ready"

Shouted Alex and Kayleigh together.

Alex picked of zombies and killed them in various ways, the ones who got past were killed by Kayleigh and Lauren and a few were killed by the manager. The attack was at last over.

"Lauren, you're hard, help me move these bodies."

Shouted Alex.,

"Ladies"

"
Shouted the site manager Brenton shouted

"I'll do that with Bruce.".

Alex was relieved that someone else was doing something, and that someone else would have to smell death and look at internal organs and shudder at the half lives last expression on their faces.

"Sexist bastard"

Whispered Lauren.

"Yes, but we can't do everything"

Whispered Alex. Lauren nodded.

The main lights flashed on, the "power guy" had done his job .

"That's amazing"

Exclaimed Brenton,

" I think we're the only branch still going".

"Back on the phones people, apart from Kayleigh and Alex"

Everyone looked a little pale other than Bruce and and his gang who had large blacks in their eyes and excited expressions.

Kayleigh and Alex looked at each other and followed Breton into the office,.

"Take a seat ladies, we need words".

"Between you, you've murdered Jenny and Bob, what do you have to say for yourselves?"

"They were zombies "

Said Alex,

"Bob was about to kill me and Kayleigh saved my life."

"You can't stay here, not until I've seen the CCTV,"

"But we saved so many people just now."

Exclaimed Kayleigh,

"Not with my permission"

answered Brenton.

"I want a specialist team of super killers"

Brenton walked over to a flip chard and showed the girls a chart,

"There's Bruce, Matt, Callum and Brian, they're be doing the killing."

"But we're good"

Exclaimed Alex.

The girls had to walk down the stairs in silence, as they got outside to the now peaceful day and emotions spewed out like organs from a zombie.

"For fucks sake, we got there first, we were good"

Kayleigh gave Alex a hug, Alex needed the hug but wanted to pull away,

"Kayleigh, I've got nothing else, I hate that bloody job, it's all I have".

"Fuck, zombie"

Shouted Alex. The girls brandished their brollies and killed yet another zombie.

"Where do I go?"

Alex almost made a tear.

"My house, my dad will pick us up"

Alex nodded, she couldn't be bothered to speak.

Alex felt hugged in the car, Kayleigh's dad looked like a bear, zombie forecasts were read out on the car radio by a moronic sounding, happy DJ. Kayleigh watched the sun come out as the car left the city.