The Inevitable Zombie Uprising (6) - Chapter Three

Chapter Three: Uprising.
They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose, 
Nor spake, nor moved their eyes; 
It had been strange, even in a dream, 
To have seen those dead men rise. 
 –Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner 

In every emergency there comes a point after which one ceases to question reality. It falls after injury, after shock, and usually just before recovery. It burns away the myth that trouble is something one hears about in the news. Normally, it gives the survivors clear heads to pick up shattered pieces, comfort the grieving and tend to the hurt. In a few cases, though, this calm allows the survivors of a tragedy deal with even greater troubles that are about to fall upon them.  
When the world exploded, panic overwhelmed Lou, Amy, Alvin, Jan, Joseph and Ursula. Now a surreal serenity descended on them. A terrorist attack or nuclear war or some foul and overpowered accident was enough to kill so many, and bring to tears the rest. But when the dead began to move about on their own their only response was to accept it. The shear unreality of the situation would eventually shield them from it.
“If I'd told you there'd be zombies, you would not have believed me.” Urusla stated, flatly to the inattentive world. “But I saw it coming before she changed.”
Her voice was loud enough for the ears of all to perceive, but most did not hear her. Their anger at Joseph's impropriety was gone. They watched with morbid awe as several dozen corpses from the glass-strewn food court began to move. After a moment of processing, the artist heard Ursula's words.
“You knew?”
“Well, its a little hard to explain, and if it weren't for the zombies I'm sure you'd never believe me.” Lou did not respond verbally, so Ursula continued, gaining strength as she went on. “It was the eleventh of March, the day you change your clocks, because I had woken up really early – before my alarm – and...”
“Sorry to cut you off, dear, but I think those thing have noticed us.” Lou turned to the group behind them “Ok, kids! Time to be somewhere else, we're moving now!” 
They didn't move. Perhaps their new armament gave them some sense of empowerment, but they didn't actually move to use them. More likely, they were still a bit stunned by the whole thing. Urusla's voice, raising in pitch as she tried to put some authority into it, awakened them, “There are fifty zombies over there, and they're beginning to figure out how to move and where we are – so we have to leave, now!” More than anything, it was giving the beasts a name that let them all move. But where to go? It was Alvin's turn to take charge, again. “Back in the shelter!” he cried, and led them all with a pace that could only be described as frantic. 
Joseph was the last, guarding their retreat with another blast from his great pump-action cannon; as though he believed the noise would scare away the hungry and unnatural mob. The great steel door was shut and locked within a moment, and these few survivors were again alone and given a moment to collect their thoughts.
“There's a way out of here besides that door. The entire mall is built upon a concrete foundation, with a full basement. Storage rooms and electrical lines and stuff. Probably not hurt of the blast.” Alvin explained, his words were steady but his voice betrayed with constant warble his overbearing fear.
“Urusla, you said you knew they were coming?”
Five pairs of eyes an one flashlight turned to her. It seemed as though they were seeing her for the first time. A small woman of girlish figure and thin but animated face, dressed in the dark clothing of the modern goth stood before them. Her hair was dyed a purple-black, and she wore shoes which might have been mistaken for combat boots at a glance. To Amy, she suggested a person in desperate need of a makeover. Alvin noted she might have been cute (excepting the splattered blood), though she was not at all his type. Lou was sufficiently removed from the land of the teenager as to have no real concept what such clothing indicated. Janice took care not to judge by appearances, and thus stopped short of any internal appraisal that we might overhear.
“It sounds crazy, but bear in mind that we all just saw a troop of zombies marching across the food court because someone let off a bomb on the highway.
“A few months ago I woke up very early for work and it occurred to me to check my horoscope. I'm a Cancer. So, I looked online, and at this mystic looking webpage, and it said something like 'you will receive a long-awaited promotion.' I had a feeling it was right, somehow, so I got ready for work and hoped that something good would happen. I didn't realize it right away, but just after reading that, it occurred to me that there was a mail-order catalog I'd asked for once, and never got. I could see its cover in my mind.” She continued, “So I went to work, like normal, but there was no promotion. I even talked to the manager about it – dropping hints, hoping that I might be able to spur on the prophecy. Nothing. There was no raise coming for me. So I was discouraged when I went home, but in checking the mail, I found that catalog! Now, it took me a second, but that horoscope was actually right, just not in the way I expected!”
There was a general groan as her audience, one by one, understood the pun. Lou spoke up “This isn't really the time for wordplay, however much we enjoy it.”
Ursula looked quite injured. “I wasn't joking. There've been a few times like that, little things, in the last few months that have come true. Well this morning, just like the others, I had a vision of that old lady we saw, jumping up an biting you on the shoulder, right though your shirt. This morning, I didn't know you or that lady, but I saw both your faces.”
A general silence fell for a moment. It was punctuated by a echoing “Thud!” as above them, one of the animate corpses reached the steel barrier and was repelled.
This time, Amy was the first to support her, thinking more about the benefits of a lightened character on a cloudy heart than about serious accuracy. “She did pull you away form that zombie just in time. I bet if she hadn't known, you'd have been bitten.”
Janice suggested “perhaps we should be leaving, now? If you're all done prophesying.” Such voodoo struck her as blatantly unholy. 
Alvin and Joseph seconded the motion, and the five of them began their trek though the dark cellar to outflank their curious opponents. As they walked, Lou asked her “did you know, when we walked away, that she was about to... um.. change?”
“Yes.”
“And that's why you said we should leave her?”
“Yes. If you'd stayed there...”
“Umm, thanks. Look, if you have any more premonitions...”
“you'll believe me. You say. Well, I'll tell you either way.”
“thanks.”
Not exactly friendship, but a sort of trust was born. Here, in this world gone mad, was a girl who can sometimes see the future really weirder than corpses attempting to eat you?