The Zombie Apocalypse (Book 1): Buried Instincts

by Henson, Lynn

  “Sorry. But we really have to get out of here. We’ll find a way. Trust me.”

  “Ok. We can get the rest of our things, right?”

  They walked back to their spot, and their spot was just as they had left it. Bree nervously got the remainder of her things together when out of the corner of his eye, the darkness seemed to shift. “Get down!” he whispered urgently. He grabbed his blanket and quickly lay down, covering himself with it. Bree followed his lead and looked cautiously around.

  Something smelled wrong. And it was unnaturally quiet. With this many people in an enclosed space, you’d hear something. But there was no noise at all. He watched as people materialized out of the darkness, all moving slowly, silently down the walkways. In a matter of a minute, these people had completely filled all of the space in their vicinity. The newcomers stopped and just stood there, unmoving.

  He slowly turned his head and saw more movement. Beyond the legs of those closest to him, he could see a lot of people shuffling slowly throughout the area. It seemed unnaturally orderly. Everywhere he dared to look, people were slowly filing into the room and standing among sleeping people. He took a look at the person standing closest to him. He looked like a stereotypical banker, he had black dress shoes, work suit, tie, wire-framed glasses, and a no-nonsense haircut. Blake felt this would have been a good person to go to for a business loan if not for the dried gore that covered his mouth like a painted on beard. His left side was a ruin where the suit had been torn away as well as much of the flesh that had been under it. He could swear there were ribs exposed to air.

  It smelled like meat just starting to go bad with a slight pungent twist of hobo.

  And as sure as he was of his own name, he knew that they had to get out of here or they would die.

  He rolled slowly to his belly, keeping an eye on the nearby infected for any sign that they noticed. Seeing none, he grabbed his pack and put it on all while trying to not make any noise.

  Bree hissed at him, shaking her head frantically.

  “We have to,” he mouthed at her as he took a deep breath in and pulled his feet up under him into a squat.

  Still no reaction from the infected, who were either standing in place or, moving further into the building.

  He started duck walking to the wall. Maybe they can’t see me if I keep below their field of vision. He was hopeful as he walked past several sleeping forms and the infected that stood among them. He spared a glance behind him and was very dismayed to so see that the banker had started walking towards him.

  Blake pushed panic away and pressed on, more hunched over now than squatting to get more speed. He made it to the outer edge of the room and looked back to find the banker still walking slowly towards him in obvious pursuit. Screw it. He got up and ran along the wall, Bree running after him. He spotted an emergency exit leading outside and slammed into the push bar.

  The door didn’t give an inch. He threw himself at it a couple more times, but the doors stayed shut. He gave up and continued on, still following the wall. Shambling figures still moved methodically in the convention center in his periphery. The wall ended in a turn and he followed it, running all out now, trying doors as they got to them, and casting glances behind him. The banker was still following him, but now that he’d been running, they’d left him far behind. The banker still continued his slow pursuit which didn’t do anything to put Blake at ease.

  He ducked into the first room that came along.

  A quick turn, then another and he found himself in a restroom. With only the small recessed lighting around the walls on, it was dimly lit. Blake darted into an unoccupied stall and slammed the door shut, locking it.

  His heart was pounding in his chest and he was breathing hard and fast. Sweat had dotted his head and the front of his shirt felt damp. Quiet! Be quiet! He tried to relax and control his breathing, slowing it down and inhaling longer. In. Out. In. Out. After a minute, he was breathing more normally. He wadded up some toilet paper and was dabbing at his sweat when he noticed the shuffling. He froze immediately, focusing himself entirely on being quiet and listening. There were definitely footsteps, and they sounded close. Oh, fuck, no. It couldn’t be... He looked down at the floor and saw shoes under the stall to the right. The same shoes he saw earlier today, and they were still being worn by the thing trapped inside. There was a light bump on his stall door which caused all the stalls to rattle a little. Then there was sniffing, and it had a wet quality to it like the sniffer had a chunky runny nose.

  Nice going you stupid asshole. Had to run into THIS bathroom of all the ones in this whole fucking convention center...

  As he was berating himself, a new more distant sound of footsteps became the new focus of his undivided attention. It was the steady sound of footsteps, one after the other accompanied by a small echo as whoever was making the noise walked into the bathroom. Blake hazarded a peek under his stall door, and he saw the banker, slowly walking straight towards his stall. He backpedaled to the left rear of his small hiding place and whimpered.

  A new pair of shoes presented themselves at the foot of Blake’s stall. There was a bump on his door, and then quiet.

  Then there was more sniffing.

  Blake noticed that he’d lost Bree somehow. He wondered where she’d gone.

  And then the screaming started.

  At first, it was one or two screams of terror, muffled by being in the bathroom, but as people started coming awake at the same time and seeing the horror among them, they all started screaming. Their screams were joined by the roars of the infected who had finally decided to do something besides stand. In front of Blake and to the right, both of the infected were roaring and pounding on his stall. He shrieked and tried to climb over the left wall of his stall. He caught the top with both hands, but couldn’t pull himself up. The roaring continued as did the pounding on his stall. He put a foot on the toilet seat and the other on top of the toilet paper dispenser and with a heave he pushed himself up halfway over the top, his arms locked straight down at his hips as he gripped the wall. The stall door finally gave way, and the banker lurched in causing the stall door to smack into him. As the banker reached forward to grab him, Blake pumped his legs wildly trying to get over the top and managed to kick the banker in the face with his right leg which knocked him back as well as propelling Blake into the neighboring stall.

  He landed on his back, somehow missing the toilet, and he struggled to his feet. The banker had freed himself from the stall and was now maneuvering his way into this one. Blake looked around him to see what there was to help him. Desperate, he gave the toilet seat a tug, but it was screwed in tight. He looked back, the banker was passing inside the stall door, arms out and mouth gaping open emitting a horrible hissing. Blake yanked at the toilet paper, and the cheap single ply stuff poured forth. He wadded up a large amount around his hand when there was a sickening crunch behind him. He turned and pressed his back to the wall, toilet paper at the ready. The banker fell forward, head into the toilet. The back of his head was a mishmash of black gore mixed with hair and skull fragments. His chin hooked the front edge causing the rest of his body to come to rest in an odd position, his chest hanging above the floor, but the legs and pelvis flat on the ground. Arms were to either side, with the hands still clenching and unclenching. He looked up and Bree was standing there, fire extinguisher clutched in both hands, with black gore and hair stuck to the bottom of it. She looked pale and might have been on the verge of hyperventilating.

  He put his hand forward to reassure her that everything was now ok. He took a step forward to get around the banker. The banker’s hands started flailing about and clawed at his legs as the banker roared into the toilet bowl. He stumbled backward and fell on his ass, hand smacking into the toilet handle, flushing it.

  “FUCK!” Bree yelled and with her eyes bugged out, she brought the fire extinguisher down on banker’s head causing it to emit another nasty sounding crunch. She brought it down again and again unt
il the banker stopped thrashing.

  Bree gave him last smash, and left the extinguisher where it was, semi-embedded in the back of the things head. The other guy in the stall was still growling and pounding on the inside of his stall. She grabbed his arm which was still wadded up with toilet paper and yanked him to his feet. He stumbled out of the stall. “You hurt?” She turned him around, looking for injuries.

  He shook his head. “Thanks. I thought I was done for.”

  When she was satisfied that he hadn’t been injured, she faced him again. “I think I might’ve found a way out of here, so this is what we’re going to do. We’re going to run out here and move fast. Stay behind me, and try not to look too closely around you.” He nodded. “Stay behind you. Don’t look around,” he repeated.

  “Right.” She looked at him and for a second, he thought he saw fear and uncertainty in her eyes. Then she squeezed his shoulder, her look now one of grim determination. She made her way to the bathroom entrance and looked out, checking to make sure he was still behind her. “Ready?”

  “Fuck no,” he replied.

  Blake tried really hard not to look at the horror around him as he ran after Bree, trying to focus on her pink backpack and not tripping. He got an eyeful anyway. They ran out of the bathroom, Bree moved quickly along the wall, sure of her destination. Screams echoed throughout the building as the damned feasted. Groups of infected were kneeling over the bodies of those who had been sleeping when the attack hit. A woman with stringy unwashed hair and a mouth caked with blood tore at the thigh of an old man who was mostly bald save his large grey handlebar mustache. She tore chunks of his leg and raised them to her mouth. They had reached the end of the wall and Bree sprinted across a large open area, moving left and right past large groups of feeders. Blake saw a middle-aged woman whose lower body had gone missing. Her eyes seemed to follow him as they made their way past her, and they were full of sorrow. Some of their running did attract the notice of some of the infected, who would look up from their meat, but with so much food to be had so readily, they were mostly ignored. They acquired pursuers from time to time, but a more easily had meal would soon present itself and they would lose interest.

  They’d crossed the large area, and Bree was running along the wall again. Off to his right, he saw the biker he’d seen earlier backed into a corner. He raged and threw vicious punches at one of the infected who lunged at him. But he’d been encircled and he couldn’t keep them all off him. He seemed to collapse under the weight of five of the closest and he disappeared.

  Bree moved away from the wall. A large group of people had tried to escape by running for the emergency exits. But they had the same amount of luck with them as Blake did. Bodies were piled up in front of the doors, and a lot of the infected were gathered around them, their appendages flopped about as pieces were torn from their owners. Bree did her best to give this assembly a wide berth, but the ample meat had attracted so many of the infected, that the outermost couldn’t get close enough to feed. These ones that walked around the periphery, noticed Bree and Blake running around them and were now shambling towards them.

  Bree finished skirting the mess at the doors and was now angling back along the wall. Blake tried to focus harder on keeping up with her, fighting the urge to look back at their new pursuers. Up ahead, the wall extended into a hallway. They ran towards it, attracting even more of the infected to them as they drew closer. As they passed into the hallway, a large figure loomed at the far end of the hallway. As they neared the figure, Blake saw a gold shield glinting on his chest. That’s a cop. Is he going to help us? He seemed to be walking too calmly to not be afflicted by whatever it was everyone else had caught. Bree kept moving forward but moved as close to the left wall as she could. Blake did the same, remembering to stick to her like glue. As they got closer, he could see that the cop was bleeding from several holes in his chest. The cop had lurched over to the left wall, obviously interested in Bree. He bared his teeth and reached his hands forward to grab her when she ducked down and stepped to the right of the cop. Another step and she was completely past him. Blake was paused, at a loss as to how to copy what Bree had done. Move! He willed himself to run to the right wall to try to get by the horror of a cop, but he pivoted, reaching forward and snagged his pack. Blake panicked and ducked down to get free, but the cop had an iron grip on his pack. He pulled and Blake lost his balance and fell on his butt. He spun around, half crab walking, half sliding in a futile effort to put distance between him and the infected cop. The cop bent down and pulled Blake close, mouth yawning open. He closed his eyes.

  There was a loud pop.

  Blake felt the tension on his pack lessen. He opened an eye in time to see the cop slump over on him. Bree was to the right of the cop holding a pistol. More infected were coming down the hallway behind her. “Come on! We’re almost there!” she yelled and took off past him. Needing no extra encouragement, he got to his feet and took off after her, the hungry infected shambling in pursuit.

  The hallway turned to the left, and Bree slid to a stop just long enough to confirm that nothing was going to eat her when she turned the corner. Then with a burst of speed, she was off again, Blake not far behind.

  The hallway beyond the corner was empty. Where’d she go? She couldn’t have gotten all the way to the end of the hallway. He poured it on, running faster. Gotta catch up. Gotta catch up.

  “Hey! Where you going?!” Bree demanded.

  He whirled around and saw her head peeking out of a doorway. Past her, the first of the pursuers were rounding the corner.

  He jammed and went into the doorway. Bree immediately slammed it shut when he was inside and locked it. There was a small rectangular window with black wire cross-hatching the glass in the door. In this glass, a woman’s face appeared. She was missing an eye, but the good one scanned the room and she started roaring at him. More faces pressed at the glass around her.

  “Barricade the door!” Bree yelled frantically as she ran behind a desk and pushed it towards the door. He helped shove it against the door, then took a moment to look at where they were. Judging from the safety rules and emergency procedure posters that covered the walls, the rows of computer monitors, lockers, and security guard uniforms hung up on the wall, he decided they were in the security office of the convention center. He glanced back at the door and the people there were half licking and half gnawing on the glass.

  He laughed crazily. Bree shot him a look of concern, “Hey! Keep it together,” she said, “Keep blocking the door. I’ll be in the other room.” She rushed through another doorway to the left of the lockers.

  He took anything he could find and added it to the barricade. There wasn’t a whole lot to work with, but the labor made him calm down a bit.

  Bree came out and looked at the barricade, then at him. “Come take a look at this,” she gestured towards the other doorway and went there herself.

  He looked over at the door to make sure it was holding, then followed after her. He recoiled once he entered the next room. The bodies of three people were here, they were all dressed the same, and they seemed to all have the same causes of death. They were wearing the uniforms he’d seen hanging on the wall of the other room, brown slacks, and a beige buttoned shirt. The shirts professed “SECURITY” on the backs in black letters. The ones he was looking at now seemed to have large blood stains spattered across the fronts. The room itself looked like a break room. An ancient TV sat in the corner on top of a rickety looking plastic table. Several similarly crappy tables and chairs adorned the room, with state and federal labor laws on posters to complete the restful mood the room was designed to convey. And of course, the three bodies that were sprawled about with pools of blood congealing beneath them completed the scene.

  Bree had moved one of the tables to the wall and climbed on top of it. There was a ventilation cover on the wall above the dislocated table. She was just shy of being able to look through the slats. She jumped up to try to see inside, causi
ng the table to shake precariously. She had to dance around wildly to keep from falling off. “Fuck,” she complained.

  “Is that how we’re getting out of here?” Blake pointed at the vent.

  “That’s what I’m betting on,” she said as she tried to pry the cover open. “This shaft looks big enough to crawl through. We just need to get this cover off and we can get out of this death trap.”

  Blake looked around for something serviceable. The break room didn’t seem to have a whole lot going on inside it, so he went back out to the security room to see what the lockers might yield.

  The answer it turned out was nothing too useful. The first locker was just full of new hire paperwork for someone named Booker Jackson. The next one was empty but it smelled like a dirty gymnasium where the toilets had backed up. The third one was stocked with a wide assortment of packaged snack cakes, Twinkies, Ho Hos, you name it, it was in there. He closed it, then thinking better of it, he opened it again and took out some of his favorites and threw them in his backpack. The owner of these snack cakes was probably lying in the break room. Even if he wasn’t, after today I doubt he’s going to be coming in for his shift. As he was doing this, he heard scraping noises coming from the door. He zipped up his pack and went to the barricade for a look. The one-eyed woman was still pushed up to the glass and she’d left a fair amount of slobber on it as her mouth opened and closed. The sound was coming from the opposite side of the door, and it sounded like the things on the other side were scratching at the door really hard. He could hear wood cracking, it wasn’t going to hold forever. Disturbed, he returned to the break room to see Bree trying to wedge a doorstop under the vent cover. He grabbed a couple of chairs and returned to the other room to add them to the barricade.

  He walked back into the break room just in time to see Bree had managed to warp the vent slats enough to allow her to grab the vent cover in the middle. She had her fingers between the slats now, and had put both her feet to either side of the vent cover and was pulling at it with her arms while pushing into the wall with her legs. Her hair hung back, black ponytail pointed at the floor as she strained at the cover.