Just as she was debating whether or not to take a quick rinse, her door flew open and Mark and Kyle bolted in.
“We have to go,” Mark said. “Now.”
“Okay,” Alice said, starting toward them. She stopped and turned, taking one last look at her apartment. Was she forgetting anything? She had packed so quickly. Maybe she was forgetting something.
“No, like now,” Kyle grabbed her hand and yanked her into the hall. Mark grabbed her backpack and a pair of shoes. He closed the door behind them and shoved the shoes at Alice.
“Wanna tell me what’s going on?” She asked, slipping her feet into them, trying her best not to fall over and embarrass herself.
Kyle and Mark exchanged looks, but Alice rolled her eyes.
“Not the time to play coy, boys,” she said.
“It’s zombies,” Kyle said. “I know it. And they’re already in the building, and we need to get out.”
“Do you own a gun?” Mark asked, and Alice shook her head. She’d never seen the need for one. Her father had been quite the gun nut, but her? She just wanted to make a name for herself. She didn’t get all caught up in politics and gun rights or anything like that. It had never interested her, so she hadn’t taken the time to buy a gun.
Now she felt like an idiot.
“No,” she admitted.
“Kyle’s got one. I have this,” Mark held up a bat she hadn’t noticed. “But we need to go. Now. You stay behind us. Don’t let anything bite you or, you know, bleed on you.”
It all felt surreal. There was no way this could be happening, yet as the men led her to the stairwell, she realized that it definitely, absolutely, was happening.
“We’ll go to your car,” Kyle whispered. “If we get separated, meet up there and we’ll all go together, okay?”
“Got it.”
Mark opened the door to the stairwell that separated the stairs from the hallway. It was empty. They quickly darted down the stairs. Alice didn’t have to ask how the guys knew there were zombies. She could hear the cries from each floor as they passed one after the other. They didn’t slow down, didn’t stop to help, didn’t try to peek to confirm their suspicions.
They’d all seen enough horror movies to know better.
And now, now Alice had to make it to the car. Her Hyundai wasn’t the world’s best vehicle, but it had been a gift to herself when she landed her job at Smith & McArthur. The legal firm was known for being highly selective in its employees, and she had celebrated by buying herself a new car.
She had taken out a loan, of course, which her parents thought was irresponsible, but she had been happy with her decision.
Until now.
Now she wished she had splurged even more on a Humvee.
Or a tank.
They passed each floor and the cries grew louder and more dramatic. She heard a few gunshots and realized some of her neighbors were fighting back. On the 5th floor, there was blood smeared across the window that led to the interior hallway.
On the 4th floor, she could see a snarling, angry person covered in blood. Was it Infected?
On the 3rd floor, the door was completely ripped off its hinges and the remnants of a battle were splayed across the stairs and railings.
“Be careful,” Kyle warned. “Don’t touch the blood.”
“I thought you could only turn if you got bitten by a zombie,” Alice said. Maybe her horror trivia was a bit rusty.
“We don’t know how it spreads,” Mark said calmly. “So just keep your hands to yourself and keep moving.” He gripped the bat in his hands and followed her down the stairs. The floor was slippery and once she grabbed the railing to steady herself, barely missing a bloody spot on the rail. Luckily, neither of the guys saw it.
She didn’t want them to go full-on zombie-movie mode where they murdered her just for getting blood on her. When they reached the first floor, they stopped and peeked through the clear window that led to the lobby.
Furniture was strewn about and there was a body in the center of the floor. Just one.
“Ken,” Alice whispered, but Mark clamped a hand over her mouth and pointed. There was an Infected in the corner. It was near the body, but no longer chomping on what used to be Ken. Covered in blood, the creature, or zombie, or whatever it should be called, was looking at Ken.
It wiped its mouth with the back of its hand, as if satisfied after a meal.
Then it looked up.
It looked straight toward them and immediately started charging the door.
“Parking lot!” Mark called, and they hurried through the door behind the stairs that led to the parking lot. They heard a loud thud as the creature threw its body at the door again and again. “Move!”
Alice focused on her car and yanked the keys from her pocket. The car was in the first row, luckily, and only about 20 feet from the door. She hurried and unlocked the driver’s side door, then hit the locks for the rest of the car. Mark and Kyle both piled in the backseat with their bags and weapons.
“Go!” Kyle said. “Let’s hit it, Alice.”
She started the engine and began to drive. She knew the main road by their apartment complex was trashed, so she took the back parking lot exit that led to a side road. Hopefully that one would be a little more clear.
Hopefully that one would offer some sort of escape.
Hopefully they weren’t all about to die.
***
Alice peeled out of the parking lot and cringed at the squeal of her tires. She had lived in Holbrook for all of a year, ever since she graduated from college, and she hated how expensive it was to live there. Everything cost money and even now, even with the world around her falling apart, all she could think about was how much it was going to cost to fix her tires if she messed them up.
Mark hollered directions from the backseat and Alice did her best to follow them. Her ex-military neighbor was smart and attentive. She probably should have let him drive, but somehow, Mark seemed comfortable in the back, looking out the windows. He was watching everything, she realized, taking it all in.
Mark had spent a year overseas. Maybe more. She knew it was at least a year. Afghanistan, maybe. Alice wasn’t really sure. What she did know was that Mark was ready for anything, even if he didn’t own his own gun. She could see the wheels in his mind turning, formulating some sort of plan.
What was going to happen to them?
She could see from the road that they hadn’t wasted any time leaving town. Bodies were piling up. On the side road she had taken, people were running around screaming, trying to load up their cars, and sitting on their roofs.
“That’s not going to help them,” Kyle commented. “They’ll get dehydrated and die anyway, or they’ll starve. That’s the worst place they could go.”
“They’re scared,” Alice said. “They don’t know what to do.”
“Rule number one of a crisis situation is ‘don’t panic,’” Mark told them. “They might not know what to do, but they’re definitely panicking. Kyle is right. You can’t go sit on the roof and hope the zombies will somehow decide to go away. They aren’t going away. This isn’t some fictional story with a happy ending.”
Alice turned down another road and slammed on the brakes immediately, but she wasn’t fast enough. She slammed into a stopped car ahead of her and groaned as her chest hit the seatbelt. She heard Mark and Kyle muttering curses from the back of the car, but then they both started yelling at her to get out of the car and run.
That was when she saw it.
Alice lifted her eyes and looked ahead at the horde approaching from ahead of her.
That’s what it was: a horde. There was no other word for it. Zombies upon zombies were walking down the road, making their way around cars and bodies, and they were all headed straight for the trio.
One word echoed in her head.
Run.
Just Another Day in the Zombie Apocalypse is now available for purchase on Amazon. You may order your copy here.
A Hex a Day (Which Village Book 1) Page 13
