I Work at the Great Zombie Museum. We have 5 Strange Rules.

The first thing I [music] heard on my first night at the Great Zombie History Museum was a chain dragging across [music] concrete. I was standing in the public section with a trash bag in one hand and a broom in the other. The museum had closed 20 minutes earlier. The parking lot was empty. The front doors were locked, and the only other employee in sight was Martin, the night supervisor. The sound came from behind a steel door at the end of the main hall. Something scraped [music] across the floor on the other side. The chain pulled tight. Then a heavy body struck the door hard enough to shake the handle. Martin kept walking. "You'll get used to that," he said. I followed him past the [music] door and tried to keep my eyes on the trash cans. At that point, I still believe the museum used recordings and machines to make the exhibits feel real [music] after dark. I'd seen enough haunted houses to know how much noise a speaker hidden behind a wall could make. The Great Zombie History Museum sits outside Youngstown, Ohio, close enough to the state line that it gets visitors from Ohio and Pennsylvania. Almost everyone who grows up in that part of the country hears about the great zombie plague of 1923. Schools cover it for a few days in history class. Old families still keep rifles and tools that their grandparents used during the outbreak. Several towns have monuments listing the names of people who never came home. The version taught in school is simple. The first infected people appeared near Youngsttown during the spring of 1923. The sickness moved through farms, mills, and mining towns. Local police lost control within a week. The governor called in the National Guard. By the end of summer, the last large group of infected had been destroyed and the roads opened again. Now, most books stopped there. The museum tells the longer version. During the day, the place looks like a large roadside attraction. The main building resembles an old brick train station. A rusted military truck sits near the entrance, and a tall iron fence surrounds the back of the property. Families come to see rifles, axes, farm tools, medical equipment, and photographs from the plague. There is a rebuilt farmhouse in the center of the public hall and a full-size wagon that once carried infected bodies out of Youngstown. I applied for a night maintenance position because the pay was almost twice what other museums offered. The listing asked for someone willing to work from 8:00 at night till 4:00 in the morning. My duties included cleaning the public exhibits, moving supplies, helping with feed deliveries, and reporting problems to security. The word feed caught my attention, but I assumed the museum kept a few farm animals for demonstrations. Morton interviewed me in a small office near the gift shop. He was in his late 50s and had worked at the museum for more than 20 years. He asked whether I followed written instructions, whether I could stay calm during an alarm, and whether the sight of blood made me sick. I answered yes to the first two questions and no to the third. And he hired me before I left the building. My first shift began the next Monday. Martin showed me the public galleries while the final visitors made their way toward the gift shop. We passed a display of homemade armor built from stove doors, a case filled with bullets dug out of a farmhouse wall, and several jars holding teeth removed from infected people. The largest exhibit was devoted to a farmer named Rambo. It included a saddle, a damaged rifle, a section of a burned wagon, and a handwritten journal opened beneath thick glass. A painted scene beneath the display showed Rambo standing on a road near Lake Tomahawk while boats carried families across the water. I'd heard his name before, but only as part of a lesson in school. Martin said we would return to the exhibit later. At 8:00, he locked the front doors and checked every restroom and gallery. Then he led me to the steel door at the end of the main hall. The sign above it read, "Authorized employees only. live historical collection. Martin entered a code into a panel. Several locks opened inside the door. "Stay beside me until we finish the tour," he began. "Don't touch anything unless I tell you." He pulled the door open. The air behind it smelled like bleach, raw meat, and old dirt. A concrete hallway extended through the center of a windowless wing. White lights covered the ceiling. Red lines had been painted across the floor at regular points along both walls. 12 human figures stood in separate concrete spaces behind heavy steel rails. Each one wore a collar connected to the wall. Chains also held them. Some wore torn workc clothes from the 1920s. Others had been dressed in simple gray uniforms. The nearest figure turned toward me. Its skin had dried against its face. Several teeth showed through a hole in one cheek. It pulled once against the chain around its neck, then reached through the bars. I stepped backward. Martin closed the steel door behind us. "The public sees photographs and replicas. This is where we keep the original collection," he said. The infected people in that wing had been captured during the plague. Their bodies continued to decay, but at a rate that made no medical sense. Several had been held by the museum since it opened. A few had been transferred from military storage sites after the government stopped funding them. At the far end of the wing, three reinforced kennels held infected dogs. A glass security room overlooked the entire hallway. Two smaller steel doors led to medical rooms, and safe rooms had been built at every major corner. Martin handed me a laminated card. Five numbered instructions were printed on it. Keep this on you. Every employee carries one. The wording has changed a little over the years, but the meaning hasn't. I started reading. Martin put his hand over the card. We go through them one at a time, he began. You learn where each one applies before you worry about the next. He removed his hand and pointed toward the public section. We returned to the farmer Rambo exhibit first. Rule one, always put your cows inside before dark. Martin stopped in front of the glass case and asked me to read the first line on the card. Always put your cows inside before dark, I said. I looked through the public hall toward the rebuilt farmhouse. The museum owned no livestock. The grounds behind the building were covered by pavement, gravel, and fenced storage yards. There was no pasture and no barn large enough to hold cattle. Are there cows somewhere else? I asked. No, Martin began. There haven't been cows on this property since the museum opened. He pointed to the journal beneath the glass. The rule came from farmer Rambo. In 1923, Rambo owned a small farm near Lake Tomahawk, southeast of Youngstown. His stone barn stood above the road leading toward the water. During the first weeks of the plague, [music] several families left their homes and camped near the lake because they believed the infected would stay close to the towns. Rambo stayed on his farm with his wife, his brother, and 17 cattle. The entries in his journal began as ordinary farm records. He wrote down how much feed he used, when a calf was [music] born, and which fences needed repair. After the plague reached the area, the entries changed. He recorded groups of infected people moving along the roads. He counted gunshots from neighboring farms. He also described how his cattle behaved before the infected appeared. The cows always noticed them first. They stopped eating. They raised their heads and faced the same direction. If the infected came closer, the animals crowded against the far side of the pasture and began calling. The sound carried across the hills. Rambo discovered [music] that the infected followed it. A single frightened cow could draw them away from a road. A whole herd could bring down every infected person in the area to one farm. On a warm evening in June, Rambo saw his cattle staring toward a line of trees to the west. The road was empty, and the woods looked clear from the farmhouse. He still moved all 17 cows into the stone barn. He covered the small windows, packed cloth around the door, and left one lantern burning inside so the animals would settle down. His neighbor, who kept a larger herd in the next valley, left his cattle outside. The first cows began calling before sunset. Rambo climbed onto the roof of his barn and saw infected people coming through the trees. There were only a few at first. As the cattle panicked, more shapes appeared on the road and along the fence lines. The infected entered the neighboring pasture. The herd broke through a gate and ran toward the lake road. Their bellows brought infected people from several directions. By the time the light faded, the animals and the infected had formed one moving mass headed toward the families camped near Lake Tomahawk. Rambo rode ahead of him. He reached the lake with enough time to warn the families. There were several fishing boats tied near the shore, but not enough room to move everyone at once. Rambo and a group of local men blocked the road while women and children crossed the water. The museum's display showed the last part of the defense. Rambo and the others pushed an empty wagon across the road and filled it with hay, lamp oil, and broken furniture. They set it on fire when the infected came down the hill. The burning wagon stopped the cattle and divided the swarm. Rambo fired from behind a stone wall until the final boat left shore. His rifle broke during the fight. The cracked stock in the glass case still carried dark marks from his hands. Rambo survived. His brother did too. The stone barn held and all 17 cows were still alive when he returned the next morning. The neighboring herd was gone. Martin opened a drawer beneath the exhibit and removed a copy of Rambo's journal. Several pages had the same sentence written at the top. put the cows inside before dark. Rambo had written it after each report of a nearby attack. He passed the warning to the other farms, and it became one of the first rules shared by people who survived the plague. "Why keep it on the employee card?" I asked. "A museum was founded by survivors," Martin began. "They decided no rule would be removed just because it stopped being convenient. People forgot plenty after 1923. We don't help them forget the rest. He placed the journal copy back in its drawer. The first rule had no effect on my work. I lived in an apartment and never owned an animal larger than a dog. The museum had no cows and none of my duties took me near a pasture. But I still learned the story. Every few weeks, Martin asked me what Rambo had noticed before the swarm arrived. Visitors sometimes laughed when they saw small signs in the gift shop that said, "Put your cows inside." The museum sold them beside toy rifles and farmer Rambo figures. Rule two, never step past the red lines in the live containment wing. Morton introduced the second rule when we returned to the live wing. The red lines ran across the concrete in front of every human enclosure. Some formed straight boundaries from wall to wall. Others curved around steel post or feeding doors. Each line was 4 in wide and bright enough to see under the emergency lines. Your feet stay on this side, Martin began. So do your hands, your tools, and anything attached to you. Each human zombie had four restraints. A collar held the upper body close to the back wall. Wrist chains limited the arms. An ankle chain connected to a steel ring set into the floor. A second cable ran from the collar to another point in the wall. The red line marked the farthest point the infected person could reach when every restraint was pulled tight. Martin told me the measurements included an extra foot of space. The chains were checked every morning and again before the public sections closed. Security watched the wing through cameras and thick glass. Even with those protections, employees had been injured. Metal stretched. Bolts shifted inside old concrete. A wrist could slip out of a cuff after enough skin wore away. The infected also tested their restraints whenever they saw something worth reaching. Their speed caused most of the accidents. Some of the zombies stood in the same position for hours. Their heads hung forward. Their arms rested at their sides. A new employee could work beside one for an entire shift and believe it had become too weak to move. The second something crossed that line though, it lunged. During my first week, I cleaned the containment hallway with another maintenance worker named Joel. He'd been at the museum for 7 months and knew the wing better than I did. He showed me which drains clogged, which lights flickered, and which zombies reacted most strongly to cleaning chemicals. One of the oldest infected people had been a steel worker near Youngsttown. A faded tag above his enclosure identified him as collection number seven. He wore dark work pants and one heavy boot. The other foot had been worn down against the concrete after decades of pulling on his ankle chain. Number seven never followed me with his eyes. He stood with his face pointed toward the floor and his hands hanging near his knees. On my fourth night, I mopped the hallway beside his enclosure. A dark mark near the bars would not come off. I pushed the mop forward and leaned into the handle. The wet end slid across the red paint. Number seven grabbed it before I could pull back. His head came up and both arms shot through the bars. The wrist chains snapped tight. He pulled the mop hard enough to drag me one step forward. I released the handle. The mop disappeared between the rails and struck the back wall. Number seven bit through the wet cloth, then twisted the metal handle until it bent. Joel hit the call button on the wall. Martin arrived with a long steel hook used to recover objects from inside the enclosures. He waited until number seven dropped the handle, caught it with the hook, and pulled it out. The metal had deep tooth marks near the middle. That one was new, Joel said. Martin looked at me. Did any part of you cross the line? No, no, just the mop, I said. Good. Then the museum just lost a mop, Martin replied. He carried the damaged handle to security and wrote an incident report. I expected a warning or a lecture. Instead, he returned with another mop and told me to finish the hallway from farther back. The following night, I noticed several thin lines in the concrete around number seven's enclosure. Some were old scratches from the ankle chain. One crossed beneath a faded strip of red paint and ended several inches beyond it. The current red line had been painted farther away. Joel explained that the boundary had moved three times. Years earlier, number seven's floor ring had pulled partly out of the concrete. He reached beyond the line and caught an employese's tool belt. The man escaped after the belt tore, but the museum added more space around every enclosure. The old march remained visible beneath the paint. After losing the mop, I treated each red line like a wall. If a rag, key, or bottle rolled past one, I called security. The recovery hooks hung at several points in the wing, but only Martin and the guards were allowed to use them. Joel followed the rule most of the time. He'd worked around the infected long enough to judge the reach of each chain. When he cleaned, his shoes sometimes touched the edge of the paint. He also leaned over the boundary to read restraint numbers or look behind the rails. I warned him twice during my first month. I'm on this side, Joel said the first time. Your shoulder isn't, I replied. Joel stepped back and continued working. The second time he dropped a roll of paper towels near an empty examination pen. He caught it before it crossed the line, then held it up and smiled. "Still got it," Joel said. Martin saw him from the security room and made him watch another training video. The museum kept replacement tools in a storage closet beside the live wing. At the beginning of each shift, I counted the mops, scrub brushes, radios, and key rings. We could replace every item in that closet before sunrise. The count mattered because the infected used anything they could. A zombie could swing a broom handle through the bars. It could wrap a cord around a wrist. Number seven once kept a radio for 2 days and crushed it whenever an employee came close. I gave the red lines more room than they required. That slowed my work, but it kept all of me outside the enclosures. Rule three, feed the zombie dogs until they are completely full. The three dogs were kept at the far end of the live wing behind two sets of steel doors. All three had been infected during the original plague. Their records identified them as farm dogs recovered from different counties. The smallest had once belonged to a family outside Youngstown. The other two had been found near abandoned barns after the National Guard cleared the area. Age had changed them. Their coats had fallen out in patches, and their bodies looked too thin for the strength they carried. The largest dog had a wide head and a strip of dark fur along its back. Its cloudy eyes tracked every person who passed that kennel. Martin called it Big Red because that was the name written on the tag found around its neck. Each kennel had a main gate, an inner safety gate, and a sliding feeding compartment. Employees placed raw meat inside the compartment, closed the outer panel, and pulled the handle that opened the inner side. The dogs never had direct access to the person feeding them. On my first feeding shift, Martin rolled three metal buckets into the kennel room. They were filled with beef, chicken, and pieces of organs from a local meat supplier. "A normal dog gets a measured portion. These dogs eat until they stop," he said. He fed the smallest dog first. It swallowed every piece without chewing. The second dog ate more slowly, but stayed beside the feeding door. Big Red finished its first bucket and struck the inner panel with its head. Martin opened an emergency container and continued feeding it. The dog ate until its belly pressed close to the concrete. Then it walked in a circle, lowered itself onto the floor, and closed its eyes. "That's when you stop," Martin said. The amount changed from night to night. Temperature, noise, and activity in the human wing could make the dogs hungrier. A feeding chart listed a minimum amount for each animal, but the numbers were only a starting point. A hungry infected dog did not conserve its body. It bit the bars until teeth broke. It dug until its claws came off. It struck doors hard enough to split the skin around its shoulders. Pain slowed a living dog. These animals continued until they reached food or damage the kennel. A full infected dog became heavy and slow. Once it fell asleep, security could inspect the bolts and clean the outer parts of the kennel. I helped with the feedings three nights a week. The smell stayed on my gloves in uniform, so I changed before returning to the public section. Big Red learned the sound of the bucket card. It began scratching the kennel door as soon as the wheels entered the wing. During my second wink, a storm delayed the meat delivery. The truck was supposed to arrive at 6:00 in the evening. At 8:30, it was still somewhere west of Youngstown. The dogs had eaten that morning, but their night feeding was already late. The smallest dog paced along the back wall. The second chewed at the edge of its feeding panel. Big Red threw its full weight against the main gate every few minutes. The impacts carried through the concrete hall. Martin called the driver and learned that a fallen tree had blocked the road. Security brought out the emergency supply, but the freezer held only enough meat for part of a normal feeding. We divided it among the kennels. The smallest dog lay down. The second settled near the back wall. Big Red remained beside the gate and watched me through the bars. Its stomach looked full and it had eaten more than the minimum amount on the card. I rolled the empty buckets toward the wash station. Big red struck the gate. A lower bolt shifted in its bracket. The bottom corner of the gate moved outward by less than an inch. The dog hit it again. The gap widened. Big Red pushed its nose against the opening and scraped one paw under the steel. Martin was in the human wing. I reached for the wall radio, then saw the red emergency bucket mounted beside the wash station. It contained frozen meat reserved for a kennel failure. I pulled it down and carried it to the feeding compartment. Big Red stopped pushing at the gate when the outer panel opened. I dropped in several pieces, closed the panel, and moved the handle. The dog turned from the gap and swallowed the meat. Then it returned to the gate. I fed it again. The dog continued pacing between the compartment and the loose bolt. I used the entire emergency bucket. Big Red's stomach expanded, but its eyes stayed on me. Security arrived outside the kennel room. The guards could not repair the gate while the dog was moving. One of them brought two more containers from a medical freezer. I kept feeding Big Red. The dog slowed after the second container. It stood beside the compartment and waited instead of running back to the gate. After several more pieces, it walked to the center of the kennel and lay down. Its eyes remained open. I pushed in another piece. Big Red raised its head, ate, and lowered its chin to the floor. The cloudy eyes closed. Martin entered the room and checked the animal from behind the outer safety gate. Then security locked a steel plate over the damaged corner and replaced the bolt. The repair took 12 minutes. Big Red slept through it. When the delivery truck finally arrived, Martin ordered a second full feeding. He said the long delay could leave the dogs hungry again before morning. I asked how an animal could eat that much after nearly a hundred years. We don't know where it goes, Martin began. The army studied them for decades. The museum stopped asking that question when the funding ended. The kennel floor beneath Big Red had no waste drain. The infected dogs rarely passed anything after eating. Their bodies took in meat and kept moving. After the storm, I stopped using the feeding chart as an ending point. I watched each dog. If one continued pacing, scratching, or following me with its eyes, I brought more food. The feeding ended when all three lay down and closed their eyes. Several employees complained that we wasted meat. Martin kept the invoices from every repaired kennel in a folder beside the freezer. One bent gate cost more than months of extra food. The following week, Big Red was moved to a new enclosure with four lower bolts. The old gate remained in a storage room. Its bottom corner had tooth marks and a narrow bend where the dog forced its nose against the steel. Rule four, if a coworker has been bitten or begins acting strange, notify security and back away. The museum trained every employee to recognize the early stages of infection. A bite did not change someone at once. The first signs often appeared within several minutes. The injured person began sweating. Simple questions became difficult. Anger replaced fear. The person watched hands, faces, and exposed skin. Most tried to cover the wound. Martin said the attempt to hide it was one of the most reliable signs. Every employee knew what happened after a serious bite. Security separated the injured person from everybody else and took control. The medical room stayed ready whenever the live wing was occupied. That knowledge, it made people dishonest. A worker could look at a bite on his own arm and decide the teeth had barely touched him. He could cover it with a sleeve, finish the shift, and hope the sickness never started. It had happened before him. During training, Martin showed me a security video recorded several years earlier. An employee entered the break room holding his left arm close to his body. Another worker asked what happened. The injured man said he cut himself in a display case. For the next few minutes, he sat at a table and pressed a towel against the wound. Sweat spread across the back of his uniform. When the other employee reached for the phone, the injured man knocked it away. Security entered less than a minute later. By then, the injured employee no longer answered to his name. Martin stopped the recording before the guards reached the table. Do not examine the bite, he began. You do not argue with the person. You notify security and you move away fast. Ordinary injuries were common in the maintenance department. The building had old display cases, sharp cabinet edges, and heavy equipment. Employees showed each other every cut so nobody had to wonder where it came from. Joel followed that habit. One night, he scraped his palm while moving a box of cleaning supplies. He came straight to me with his open hand. "Cabinet edge," Joel said. "Straight line, no teeth. Don't worry." I looked at the shallow cut and nodded. "Tell Martin," I said. "Yeah, yeah, I'm doing it now," Joel [music] replied. He reported the injury, washed it, and covered it with a bandage. The process took less than 5 minutes. Joel complained about security after that. He thought the guards treated every scratch like an outbreak. He'd worked on the live wing long enough to know the difference between a bite and a cut, he said. Martin heard him once and pointed toward the medical room door. Everyone who's been bitten knew the difference until it happened to them, he said. Joel stopped complaining near Martin after that, but he still rolled his eyes whenever we checked each other's hands. The zombies reacted to fresh blood. If someone cut a finger in the containment hallway, every head turned toward that smell. Chains moved against the floor, and the dogs woke in the far kennels. Because of that, even a normal cut required a report. Security closed nearby feeding doors while the employee left the wing. Maintenance cleaned the blood with longhandled tools. One night, I caught my thumb on a broken trash can lid near number seven. The cut was small, but a drop of blood landed on the concrete outside the red line. Number seven lifted his head. The zombies and the next three enclosures turned with him. One began pulling its collar against the wall. Another reached between the bars and dragged its nails across the floor. I pressed the call button and stepped into the public hall. Joel brought a bandage and security cleaned the drop from behind a portable shield. The reaction ended once the smell disappeared. That small cut, it changed the way I watched my co-workers. Sweat could come from hard work. Anger could come from a bad night. Confusion could come from exhaustion. A covered arm combined with those signs, it meant I called security. I decided that before I ever needed to make the choice. If the bite belonged to somebody I liked, the instructions still applied. If the person begged me to stay quiet, I would report it. Security could decide what happened next. My job was to keep the injured person from reaching anyone else. Rule five. If the containment lights turn red, enter the nearest safe room and wait for security. White lights covered the live containment wing during a normal shift. A red light sat beside every fixture. If a restraint broke, a kennel opened or a motion sensor detected movement outside an enclosure. The white lights shut off and the red lights came on. An alarm sounded once, then the wing became quiet enough for security to hear movement. Employees were not allowed to investigate. Safe rooms stood at both ends of the human wing beside the kennels and near the medical area. Each one had a steel door, a reinforced window, water, a first aid kit, and a radio. A button inside locked the surrounding hallway doors, and divided the containment wing into smaller sections. Martin showed me how to close each safe room during my first shift. He made me practice until I could pull the door shut and press the lock button in a few seconds. Security knows the building, he said. The alarm activated for the first time during my fifth week. I was emptying trash near the examination pens. Joel had gone to the public hall and Martin was checking the dog kennels. A sharp tone sounded above me. The white lights went dark. Red light filled the hallway. A chain dragged across the floor beyond the corner. The nearest safe room was 10 steps away. I carried the trash bag with me, entered, and pulled the door closed. The lock button turned green after I pressed it. From the window, I could see part of collection number four's enclosure. Number four had been a woman found in a farmhouse north of Youngstown. Her ankle chain had separated near the floor ring. The collar and secondary cable still held her to the wall, but she could move several feet beyond the painted boundary. She reached into the hallway and pulled the cleaning cart toward the bars. One wheel crossed the red line. Her fingers caught the lower shelf. Bottles and brushes fell across the concrete as she dragged the cart sideways. The secondary cable stopped her before she reached the safe room door. Security entered through the far end of the wing behind portable shields. The guard secured a new line to her collar, pulled her back, and locked a bar across the enclosure. Martin entered after them and inspected the floor ring. The white lights came on 14 minutes after the alarm. I waited for the radio message before opening the safe room. The broken chain lay on the floor. One link had split along a thin crack that was almost impossible to see from the outside. Martin held it beneath a bright inspection lamp. Ah, this past the morning check, he began. That's why the light matters more than what you think you saw. Number four had remained attached to the wall. From my position near the examination pens, I might have believed she could not reach the hole. The cleaning cart proved otherwise. The maintenance team replaced every ankle chain in the wing over the next two days. During that work, the zombies were held by temporary cables and watched by extra guards. Joel complained that the alarm had stopped an entire shift over one broken link. 14 minutes, Martin began. A controlled emergency should be short. After that night, the red lights activated twice for minor problems. One alarm came from a loose kennel sensor. The other came when a guard's shield touched the wrong side of a motion line. Both times, I entered the nearest safe room and waited. The rule removed every decision from the moment. I didn't need to identify the problem or decide whether the alarm was serious. Red light meant steel door, lock button, and radio. Following it became easy and that mattered on the night Joel crossed the line. By the beginning of my third month, the museum had become a regular job. I arrived before the public section closed, changed in my uniform, and checked the maintenance closet. After the last visitors left, Joel and I cleaned the galleries. Then we entered the live wing and finished the work that required security nearby. Joel moved faster than I did. He could clean both sides of the human wing while I finished the examination area. Martin had warned him about touching the red paint, but Joel believed experience made him safe. The shift began like every other Thursday. The dogs had already eaten and were sleeping. Security had inspected the restraints. The human zombies stood inside their enclosures while Joel and I cleaned the floor. Number seven was in his usual position with his head lowered. Joel carried a ring holding keys for the supply rooms, the public display cases, and the cleaning cabinets. He kept it attached to his belt by a short clip while he bent to replace a trash liner. The clip opened. The keys struck the concrete and slid beneath the lower rail of number seven's enclosure. They stopped several inches beyond the red line. Leave him. Call Martin, I said. Joel looked at number seven. The zombiey's hands hung near his knees. His ankle chain lay loose across the floor and his collar cable ran straight back to the wall. "They're right there," Joel said. "Leave them," I replied. Joel set down the trash bag. He placed the toe of one's shoe against the red paint and leaned forward. I moved beside him quickly. Joel, stop. He stepped over the line. Joel crouched and reached beneath the rail, his fingers closed around the keyring, and the number seven lunged. The wrist chains pulled tight as he caught Joel's sleeve. Joel fell onto one knee and struck the lower rail. number seven pulled his arm between the bars. I grabbed the back of Joel's belt and dragged him away. The sleeve tore at the shoulder. Joel rolled across the red line and landed beside the cleaning cart. Number seven kept a strip of uniform cloth in one hand. Joel stood and backed against the wall. Blood ran from his forearm to his wrist. The bite had gone through the sleeve below his elbow. Joel covered it with his other hand and looked toward the security room. That don't call him. I reached for the emergency button. Anyway, [gasps and laughter] it barely caught me. Just give me a minute. I pressed the button. Joel moved toward me. I said, "I'm fine. Don't let him take me." I stepped backward and kept the cleaning cart between us. Number seven pulled against his chains behind Joel. The infected people in the next enclosures had already turned toward the blood. Joel wrapped the torn sleeve around his arm. His face became wet with sweat. He looked down the hall then toward the public door. We We need to leave. I drive me to a hospital. I moved farther away. Joel pushed the cleaning cart aside. His hand shook and he had trouble fastening the cloth around the wound. When the key ring fell from his grip, he stared at it without bending to pick it up. Chains struck the concrete on both sides of the hallway. Number seven reached through the bars again. Another zombie pulled its collar against the wall until the metal plate moved. The alarm sounded. The white lights shut off and red light flooded the wing. The nearest safe room stood beside the examination area. I moved toward it and Joel followed, open it for me. I entered the room and pulled the door close enough to leave a narrow gab. Joel was still several steps away. Blood had reached his fingertips. Stay there, I said. But Joel came closer. I closed the door and pressed the lock button. He struck the reinforced window with his palm. Let me in, man. I picked up the radio and reported his name, the bite in our location. Security answered from the far end of the wing. Joel pulled the safe room handle, but the door stayed locked. He looked toward the public hall, but steel barriers had already closed across both exits. The red light showed his reflection in the window. Sweat covered his face. He pressed the bitten arm against his chest and walked away from the door. Two guards entered the wing behind shields. Martin followed them. Joel shouted that he didn't need their help. He tried to move around the first shield, but the guards blocked the hallway. Martin called him by name and told him to stay where he was. Joel turned toward my safe room. Tell him I'm fine. I kept the door locked. The guards took Joel to the floor and secured his arms. He fought them until they lifted him behind the shields. Martin opened the medical room door and they carried Joel inside. The door closed. Security ordered me to remain in the safe room. I could see number seven pulling at the strip of Joel's sleeve. The other zombies continued reaching toward the blood on the floor. A cleaning team entered from the kennel side and covered the floor with a white chemical powder. They collected the key ring with a steel hook and removed the cleaning cart. When the blood was gone, the zombies slowly returned to the backs of their enclosures. Number seven kept the torn cloth. The red light stayed on for the rest of the hour. Nobody told me what was happening inside the medical room. The radio carried short messages between security and the front office, but none of them included Joel's condition. Martin finally entered the safe room after midnight. "I'll call you before your next shift." "Is Joel alive?" I interrupted. "Go home," Martin said. I changed out of my uniform and left through the public entrance. Number seven still held part of Joel's sleeve when I passed the steel door. Martin did not call the next day. On Saturday morning, he left a short message telling me to return from my normal shift on Monday. I called the museum twice and received no information about Joel. When I returned, a new floor ring had been installed inside number seven's enclosure. The red line had been moved back another foot. Joel's name had been removed from the maintenance schedule. Joel returned to the museum near the end of summer. I saw him standing behind the counter in the public gift shop. He wore a long sleeved shirt with one empty sleeve pinned near his shoulder. The doctors had cut off his arm before the infection spread through the rest of his body. Joel was thinner and he moved carefully while arranging books on the counter. The museum had given him a job in the public section. He could work around visitors, sell tickets, and help with a farmer Rambo exhibit. He would never enter the live containment wing again. I stopped near the counter. Joel looked at me, then at the steel door at the end of the hall. You know, I was angry with you for a while. Well, I blamed you for all of it. I waited and then they told me how close it was. If you had let me leave, I I would have died. He held out his remaining hand. "Thank you," he said. I shook it. Joel worked in the gift shop for another year. He became the person who explained the Lake Tomahawk display to school groups. When children laughed at the sign about putting cows inside, he opened the copy of Rambo's journal and showed them the same warning written across the pages. I continued working nights. The museum replaced number seven's wrist chains and installed another rail around his enclosure. I stayed well behind the new red line. The zombie dogs received enough food to make all three close their eyes. Every injury was reported and every red alarm sent me into the nearest safe room. Four of the five instructions on my card protected someone during my first 3 months. The first one never applied to my job. The museum still has no cows and I have never owned any. But if you live near Youngsttown or Lake Tomahawk and keep cattle, [music] bring them into the barn before the sun goes down because farmer Rambo, he left that warning for a reason. [music]