Everything that could go wrong went terribly wrong. Terribly wrong. I lost 8 of my men to a night incident at the Hotel. Only two survived. No one heard anything that night, the next morning I only saw their dead carcasses splattered across the floor. Entrails and all. At that moment, I knew I was extremely lucky and already dead. A horde of zombies broke through the barricade that would hold out at least ten men. But these weren’t ten men. They were twenty zombies. All hungry. All crazy. There was no time for me to grab guns from my dead men, and no way I could carry them all. I told the few who were with me to grab whatever they needed and run down the hall to the stairs. The only way to escape was to go up. That was barely an escape at all.
We climbed the stairs. The only ones that were with me, were the very ones I had expected to die. It was the family of three. A young boy, a mother, a father, and another man whose name I didn’t know. I had rushed them ahead of me on the stairs. Something about that family that was suspicious. Something I could not put a finger on. But they were hiding something. They were also the dumbest people that I knew so far. Mother was probably already insane and constantly bickering and worrying over her son. The son was quiet and had a habit of wandering off by himself especially at night. I almost despised the boy since he caused many of my other men’s deaths two night ago. The other man with no name or clear role in the family seemed completely insane and was one of those men that could spread the contagious disease called fear. The father seemed to be in denial of all this. Despite that I found that he was the only useful person out of the bunch.
A normal human being probably would have kicked them to the side of the road as zombie meat. But I had a duty to the people as a military official. I knew I had to protect them. Something many of my men did not understand. But its okay. They are now dead anyway.
Behind, was a heavy armored, tall man. He wasn’t one of my men. He was a mercenary. My team met him during one of our runs in the city. We blew away some of the zombies that were on his trail. Ever since then he was silently following us. My men were always uneasy about him. But I trusted him more than the family. He was useful and helpful. He had went on night runs since we came to the hotel. As we were running for our lives up the stairs, he was carrying at least 12 fire extinguishers on his back. It didn’t slow him down one bit. Strong man. Too strong.
Ahead of the family, was one of my only remaining men, Kenneth. However, I had no respect for him. He was a deserter and a coward. The other, Constance, who was behind the merc stopped at a floor below us taking with him at least 10 zombies. Constance was one of my best guys. I knew if he wasn’t going to survive...he was going to thrive. The man had killer instinct.
I kept yelling for everyone to run faster.
“We need to stop at this floor! They’re gaining on us too fast!” I yelled at them.
They were gaining on us. There was one zombie far ahead of the rest. It was coming up on the merc.
“Watch out!” I screamed. As the merc looked behind the zombie pushed him out of the way almost tipping him over the staircase and I was flung over the railing with one hand gripping on the banister. From the corner of my eye I saw the zombie lunge for the man with no name just as he stepped onto the next floor.
Then all hell broke loose amidst the chaos.
The merc grabbed my arm and pulled me up with one pull. I gave him a nod and ran up to the floor where I saw the door to the first room was broken open. Running into the room, I told the merc to barricade that entry door somehow. The other zombies were coming. The room was huge and more like an apartment. There was a kitchen directly left of the entrance and double door that was mostly glass leading to the rest of the room which was practically empty space except for a couch facing a wall. The sun stretched in through the other side of the apartment which was nothing but a large window for a wall. I saw Kenneth holding the door to the rest of the room closed with a panicked look on his face.
“What the hell are you doing?! They’re getting massacred in there!” Looking through the glass of the door, I saw the zombie that had initially chased them in the room shot in the face on the couch lying on top of the man he had tackled. While the father was being feasted on by the mother. I didn’t see the boy in sight but he could have been hiding in one of the rooms within that room around the corner.
“You want me to let them out?!” He shrilled with his voice breaking at the end. I could see he was at his last wits end. I shook my head slowly feeling shame for the man.
“No, just keep the door closed.” I said. I ran to the kitchen that was only feets away and heard him yell in excuse “I didn’t have gun!” I didn’t reply. I was frantically grabbing everything that was in the kitchen. Whatever food was left over, whatever knives and pots were there. It would all go into my sac.
I heard a bang against the door Kenneth was holding closed. The mother had run up to the door screaming at a high pitched tone, trying to break through. I saw Kenneth struggling to keep the door closed.
“Keep that door closed Kenneth! Keep it closed!” I commanded. The merc ran over to help keep the other side to the double door closed.
“I—I can’t—” The mother broke through the door with all her body weight swinging the door into the merc’s face knocking him out. She tackled Kenneth to the ground. He was done for. Naturally I felt around for my gun. I cursed at myself for giving it to the kid so that he could protect himself when in reality someone should’ve dashed his head against a rock out of mercy. This wasn't a world for children anymore.
I grabbed the nearest butcher’s knife. It’s edge was dull. I doubted that it would save me if she came berserk running over. But I knew she wasn’t going to do that. I saw the human take over once again. As she knelt over Kenneth’s body her eyes widened in fear and she threw up everything that was in her stomach. She spewed over Kenneth his own and most likely her husband's, blood and body bits.
She looked up at me, almost looking through me. She stood up. She swayed. She grabbed her head with her hands and began to grunt. I walked closer to her. I felt too much at a dead end being in the kitchen.
“Please,” she started. “You can kill me now. You can do it. Before I change again. Before it takes over me...completely”
I didn’t hesitate in the least. I rushed up to her knife in hand and stabbed her directly in the side of her head with smooth entry to her brain. I let go of the knife. Life did not let go of her. She began to laugh hysterically. I began to get nervous. She wasn’t even a full zombie yet. Anything should’ve killed her. Anything. Her laughter was like poison. It was mocking me. I couldn’t take it anymore. I grabbed her head with my hand and pounded it against the wall multiple times. I let loose all the anger and frustration I had felt since all of this started. I kept pounding it over and over again. She only laughed harder and harder. Once I made a hole in the wall, I took her down to the ground and started to thrash her head against the floor.
The merc must’ve woken up and saw that everything I did wasn’t working. He pushed me out of the way and placed his foot on her chest.
“What the hell—“ I started but I saw him point to where her hands were holding. She had them painfully holding her chest. She was jittering up and down in pain. He pulled the knife from her head and stabbed directly in her heart. She gasped for air and the life went out of her eyes.
I was speechless. I grabbed the fire extinguisher from his back and took my knife from his hand. I walked towards the door to the rest of the room and felt his eyes watching me. I felt another pair of eyes watching me. It was the boy. As I thought, he was around the corner in the longer part of the room. He had no shirt or pants on. They were scattered the ground around him. I didn’t give him a chance to run straight for me before I took my knife and threw it precisely into his skull. Then he started to run mindlessly. There was no human in him. I saw what the mother tried to hide. The rotting skin. The scars on his back. The chunk of his thigh that was missing.
I had to be merciful. When he came close enough. I hit him over the head with the fire extinguisher. And unlike his mother, that was the end of him.
I looked to the merc who seemed unphased by everything all the time. For all I knew, he could’ve been going through the change and hiding it as well as that boy was. It was haunting to think that the boy…was the one who killed all my men. It all made sense. And that boy was always up and about at night. So was the merc.
But I needed help. People who go it alone in this world... Never made it.
Me and him checked all the bodies. I checked the dad and grabbed his gun amidst his small intestine. I rubbed the .32 pistol against my clothes to get the blood and gunk off. I swiftly headed back into the kitchen to grab my sac and turned on all the gas. Merc had found an exit to the roof. Before I left with him, I set a fire in the fireplace that was close to that exit in the room. We ran up the stairs quickly. We hadn’t forgotten about the zombies that were stalking us outside the room.
When we made it to the rooftop I let out a deep breath. I looked to the merc.
“Hey, my name is Alexandria. I don’t think I ever said my name. Thanks for saving me back there.”
I asked the merc his name. I even asked if he knew what to do next. I realized that the man might have been mute.
Out of his pocket he grabbed a cylindrical device and put it to his throat. It was a robotic voice.
But his voice, nonetheless.
“My name is Kevin. I am a synthetic human being.”
From below, the building shook as the gas exploded with the fire in the floor below them.