Day 03: Not Alone

“Keep moving,” David said, “We have to make it back before night.” Nina and Lucky followed close behind him as he rushed through the dark theater with Liz and Cristian pulling up the rear. Another night out in search of supplies yielded a small case of bottled water, a few bags of popcorn, soda syrup, and some bags of stale nacho chips. Still, it was a much better haul than the week before.

As they made it through to the next hallway, Liz stopped and turned her attention to the utility closet. “Shh,” she said causing the others to halt in their tracks and listen. “Do you hear that?” Gesturing toward the closed door, she silently made her way forward. David moved in behind her while Cristian stayed put beside Nina.

Liz tried the handle but, it was locked. Keeping her voice low, she knocked lightly and whispered “Hello. Is someone in there?” The group listened and could hear a frantic whimpering coming from inside.

“Hey,” David joined in, keeping his voice just as low and calm as Liz. “We’re not going to hurt you and none of us have been bitten. If you come out, we can take you some place safe.” He reassured the person inside.

“Yes! Oh god, yes please help me! Help! Please!” A woman screamed from the other side of the door. Her hysterical cries grew louder and the group was stunned by all the noise the panic-stricken woman was making.

“Be quiet!” Liz hissed, afraid her boisterous yelling would attract zombies.

The door to the utility room opened and there sat a disheveled woman on her hands and knees, crying her eyes out. It was obvious she had recently been in a fight. Her clothing was dirty, torn and saturated in blood. On the floor beside her was a backpack Liz assumed carried her essentials and a fire axe, also covered in blood. Still, the woman appeared to be in shock and completely terrified. Reaching up, she grabbed hold of Liz’s arm and continued screaming for help.

And just as the group feared, her cries were overheard by the mass of undead the group had earlier outrun. “Uh, guys,” Cristian said, watching the door to Theater 12 begin to shake as the mob pushed to get at the weeping woman. Liz and David turned as they heard a cacophony of howling wails and agitated moans echoing from the short hallway they’d just exited. “There’s gotta be over a dozen of them in there from the sound of it.”

Two more theater doors began to throb as they, too, were rammed by the unseen pack. The building had to be filled with hundreds of flesh-starved zombies. Zombies that were now heading for the sound of the woman’s screams; heading toward them. “Shit; this is bad!” Nina’s eyes instantly fell on Cristian and he apologized for the foul language.

Liz pulled her hand free of the woman as the group decided their next course of action. If they didn’t act fast, they’d be overrun by the zombies when they began pouring into the area through the busted doors at the end of the hallway.

“No! Don’t leave me! Please don’t leave me here!” The woman shrieked hysterically, wrapping her arms around one of Liz’s legs and bawled.

“Stop with all that noise! You’re going to get us killed!” she said, struggling to push the woman away. Finally, after wrenching herself free, Liz and David directed their attention toward the doors that were on the verge of bursting open and flooding them with more zombies than they were equipped to handle. “We need to do something,” Liz said, checking the amount of ammunition in her weapon.

“There is no way we can take on what’s in there. We don’t have enough ammo between us and no idea how many more are hiding in this building,” Cristian replied. “We need to get out of here.”

“What about her?” Nina asked, pointing to the woman who was still sitting on the floor, sobbing into her hands. “We can’t leave her. She’ll get eaten alive.”

David sighed and grabbed the woman under her arms, lifting her to her feet. “Can you run?” she nodded her head. “Get your stuff, we need to move. Now. Hopefully, we’ll be safe from the zombies long enough to make our way out of here.”

Together, the group rushed through the corridor. If they could just get through to the other side of the building, they’d be able to make a break for their vehicles. The woman tried to keep up but, her body was too weak; wracked from the constant crying. She repeatedly slipped and stumbled just in the short jog from the atrium to the lobby and was really making the run difficult.

The group made it about halfway up the empty theater hallway when the howling crowd of ferocious undead scrambled into the area. Dozens of eyes fell on the group and the throng of monsters rushed forward with a hungry lust. “MOVE IT!” David shouted, seeing the blood-crazed zombies charging behind them.

They made it to the reinforced security exit and removed the metal bar used to keep it closed, pulling it open. Almost to safety, Nina, Lucky and Cristian ran in first followed by Liz. David was still struggling to drag the woman at his side, the chomping and snarls growing ever louder behind him. He nearly had her in the stairwell, when she suddenly let out a blood curdling scream. 

David lost his grip as the woman was pulled back into the passage, the force of the mob nearly jerking him with her. The undead grabbed her legs and were savagely tearing into her with their teeth. Other zombies, meanwhile, were trying to climb over her to get through the door and into the exit stairwell for the rest.

David desperately looked around, needing to break away and join the others but his options were limited. In order to make it out of alive, he needed to clear the zombies from the doorway so he could pull it shut. Grabbing hold of either side of the frame, he swung his legs up into the chest of the nearest zombie and shoved it away with both feet. It tumbled backwards, knocking over a number of the other zombies in its wake.

Quickly, he snatched the handle and tried to pull it closed but, at the very last second, a pair of bloody hands gripped the edge of the door and tugged back. The sobbing woman they’d met was frantically clawing at the door trying to pull herself free. “Help me!” she gurgled through a ripped out throat.

Realizing if he opened the door even a tiny bit at this point would let the fiends pour in after him and the others, David made a hasty and gut-wrenching decision. Turning his face away, he gave a fast, hard yank, slamming the woman’s fingers in the door with a horrifying crunching sound. The woman squealed in agony and let go allowing him to pull it the rest of the way shut.

Sparing a peek through the narrow window in the security door, he could see the woman being torn apart and the crowd of beasts feasting on her steaming, red entrails. David felt a knot form in his chest as though a piece of his humanity just died and momentarily slumped against the wall to catch his breath.

He was about to sink into the depths of despair, when he looked up and saw Liz holding out her hand to help him stand. “Let’s go.” With more and more zombies pouring into the short hallway after them, it was only a matter of time before they got the door down and flooded into the stairwell.

<----Previous -- Continue---->