Jill was on her knees, staring at the scene outside with her hands pressed to her face. He pulled her up and away from the doors, back down the hallway just in time to watch Trina, oh-so professional Trina, crawl from the ladies’ room on her hands and knees.
She appeared to have partially swallowed a dirty string mop with the strings hanging from her mouth. Then he realized that what dangled from her mouth was the shredded and rotten tissue lining her throat. Her eyes bulged and she continued to retch, slowly choking to death before their eyes. Her legs jerked and kicked then slowly, slowly became still.
More people were pounding and scratching on the doors now. They were all wounded in some way, horribly, bloodily wounded. Aaron and Jill looked at each other then quietly moved farther away, deeper into the building, leaving Trina’s body behind.
“We have to get out of here. There’s a door to the side parking lot in the break room. My car is out there. Where did you park?” Aaron asked.
“Front parking lot. There’s no way I’m going near those people.”
“I’ll drive you home.”
They grabbed their coats and headed to the break room. The lights here were motion activated and came on as soon as they opened the door making it impossible to see out into the night. Aaron looked for a switch to turn them off but found nothing. Great. Just great. He really, really craved a cigarette right now, could almost taste the welcome burn of the smoke filling his lungs and feel the calming release of nicotine. They heard glass shatter somewhere in the building.
“We’re going to have to run for it and just hope there’s no one out there. Ready?”
“Wait. Do you hear that?” Jill took a few steps toward the hallway.
Someone was in the hall outside the break room door. Shoes squeaked on the floor, the sound gradually getting louder. Hands slapped on the door and they saw a face pressed to the glass. Trina, skin dead-white and skeins of tissue still spilling from her mouth, pushed on the door and had it halfway open before Aaron got there to slam it shut, catching some of the tissue hanging from her mouth in the process. She drew back, more and more rotten tissue pulled out through her mouth until it was at least a foot long. She finally pulled free, the tissue hitting the floor wetly before she began a new assault on the door. The expression in her eyes was dead and the eyes themselves glazing over with some sort of white film. Aaron stepped back, more frightened than he had ever been in his life.
Jill moved closer, saw Trina and screamed. Aaron pulled her toward the exit and out into the dark. They took deep gulps of the cold air. Somewhere around the corner the ambulance still keened.
“She’s dead, she died; I saw her! I know I saw her die!” Jill shook and her breath formed vapor in the air.
“I thought so too but...” He felt a sense of unreality wash over him. “Dead people don’t walk and bang on doors. Come on, the coast is-”
A nightmare mob, bloody flesh torn and hanging, materialized from the mist and rounded the corner of the building and more, some wearing only hospital gowns blowing in the chill wind, approached from among the cars in the lot, slow, clumsy but closing in.
“…not clear,” Aaron finished. Jill made a soft, frightened sound and ran back to the door, pulling frenziedly on the handle, forgetting to run her ID card through the reader.
Aaron shouted, “Where’s your card?!” She looked blank. “Your ID! Swipe it now!”
She screamed, “They gave me a temporary! That’s all I have. It won’t open the door!”
He fumbled for his then remembered it was hanging on his computer. He looked around for a weapon, anything. Decorative white gravel filled a shrub border next to the building and he scooped some up and threw it. Their attackers never even flinched.
They went for him first, tearing the skin from his face and throat, biting the hands he held up in defense. Striking out, punching, kicking, he was no match for his attackers who tore into his body while he was still alive. As he thrashed in pain, feeling the skin torn from his flesh, Jill’s screams were the last sounds he heard.
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Table of Contents
World Without End
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Prologue
The Living Dead Series (Book 2): World Without End Page 22
