If you enjoy this, please visit my book’s new facebook page and like my upcoming novel, The Z Word, a collection of short zombie stories and flash fiction pieces that change everything you know about the genre. Okay, maybe not, but they’re still entertaining, and it’s still exciting that I have a book being published! I’m also challenging any writers I know to write zombie haiku and post them on the facebook page!
Adam shoved the bar between the two handles of the main doors and wrenched it into place. Jan was already on the marble floor trying to catch her breath.
“Holy shit. That was close. Were you bit?” Adam leaned against the door as it started to shake.
She shook her head. “You?”
“Nope.” He slid down to the floor next to her. “This floor is cold.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
“Think it’s safe here?”
“As safe as anywhere else. This is an art museum. The place should be locked down. Nobody can get in.”
“Think anyone is in here?”
They both looked up the marble stairs past the golden banisters into the semi-dark reception area as if waiting for a sound.
“I don’t hear anything,” she said to him in a low voice.
They both continued to listen.
“HELLO?” he screamed, making her jump.
“Thanks a lot, ass.”
He laughed. “Sorry.”
She stood herself up leaning on the large fireman’s ax she carried and crossed the stairwell, small drops of blood dripping from the ax trailing behind her. She climbed the four steps to the landing and listened again.
“I don’t think anyone is here. They would have come running, I would think.”
“True. Or they don’t trust us.”
She nodded as he stood up and adjusted the backpack he carried.
Jan entered the reception area first, the large room fairly well-lit from above by a glass roof. The signs directed visitors to the food court, gift shop and a long list of exhibits.
Adam walked up beside her. “We better check the place out, make sure it’s safe before we let our guard down.” She nodded in agreement and turned right toward the food court.
“Hun, why that way?”
“If people are here, we’ll know it by the condition of the food court. They’d need to eat!”
She passed an exhibit area, peeked in and saw an empty room save the art and a few statues. “Clear.”
As she continued on down the hall, she heard him yelp a little and turned back. “Hun?”
She pressed her back against the cold wall and peeked around the corner and saw nothing.
“Hun?”
He must have gone into the exhibit for some reason, she figured, so she relaxed a bit and peeked in.
“Holy shit!” he yelled.
She ran in brandishing the ax, ready to kill to find him looking at a Monet.
“Look at this? It’s beautiful!”
She walked up next to him and slapped him on the back of the head.
“Scare the shit out of me, why don’t you?”
He laughed. “Sorry. But come on. It’s a Monet. This room is full of them!”
“I’m glad you can appreciate art, even at a time like this. But come on, let’s make sure it’s safe first.”
He walked up to the velvet rope and started taking it off the pole.
“What are you doing?”
“I want to get close, real close! Closer than anyone has come before!”
His nose was almost touching it when she came up alongside.
“Great. Can we check the food court now?”
“Dare me to touch it?”
“You can’t!”
“Says who? The guards?”
She looked around. “Good point.”
He looked closely at the brush strokes, each one visible on the canvas.
“Wow,” he gasped and she breathed in, amazed at the work.
“Doesn’t look like much from up close, huh? But then, you can see each and every nuance. Intense.”
She wiped her hand on her jeans and reached up, running her fingers gently over the strokes. “Whoa.”
He followed suit and felt the small lines.
They stared a moment longer before she broke the silence.
“Okay, let’s get to work. We can touch the other priceless works of art once we know it’s safe.”
A Flash of Inspiration 