"We need that key card!" I said desperately as I looked from Shorty over to the brutal attack. Poor Clyde was enveloped in ferocity, his blood splashing on the walls as his assailants tore at what was left of his body. I turn away from the horrid scene and vomit into the alley behind the house. "Get up quick" Shorty says with a hint of annoyance in his voice. "We gotta get that card!" I struggle to my feet, still wobbly from the expulsion of an entire day's worth of food. "Here, grab one of these." He says, pointing to a stack of construction materials. A long stack of rebar lay adjacent to the house, and a few shorter castaway pieces were perfect for hand to hand combat. I hefted it, swinging it side to side, getting used to the weight and movement.
Suddenly one of the monsters in the Hazmat suits walked around the corner. He seemed almost startled to find us, staggering backward for a moment as his thick swollen eyes tried to focus on the blurry scene. The window of his faceplate was cracked and stained with blood. His yellow eyes seem to lock onto me, and he lunged forward, tripping over the pile of rebar. Thinking quickly, Shorty hops onto the first level of the warehouse shelving running behind the houses. Once he pulls himself up he offers me a hand. I pass him my rebar and he holds it as I climb up. I lift my feet just as the beast manages to get to his feet.
The sound of his tumble over the pile of scrap metal must have attracted others, because a second in a hazmat suit quickly appeared below us, followed by the doctor and Whitney,who was chewing on a human arm I can only imagine belonged to Clyde. The access card once clutched in his hand now is gone, and the fingers wobble lifelessly from the severed limb as she tears into it like a piece of chicken, her swollen yellow eyes searching for the source of the noise.
The doctor stumbles along the edge of the house toward us, his hand reaching out to steady him and guide him. Suddenly he stops as though listening. He has the same expression Mr. Lawrence's wore before he bulldozed the shed where my mother and I were hiding. He twitches a bit, and looks up into the air. Recognition seems to dawn as he snarls and walks rapidly to the shelf, reaching toward us. The others follow suit, and soon eight bloodstained hands are reaching, grasping, desperately trying to obtain some part of our clothing or bodies. Their fingernails are cracked and caked with bits of skin and flesh. Backed against the wall, we have no where to go but up.
"We need to tip this thing onto them." I said as I laid down on the shelf. "Here, give me a hand!" We braced our feet against back wall with our shoulders against the hard surface of the shelf. Our heads were just inches away from the grasping hands and I could smell the fresh blood on their fingernails. Another few inches they would have us by the hair. I shrunk my neck into my shoulders, desperately trying to keep them away. We grasped the base the shelf near our feet, pushing with our legs as hard as I could. Straining, I glanced over at Shorty, seeing the veins in his neck swollen with the effort he was exerting. "It's no use," I called out, stopping us both from the act. I spun into a kneeling position and caught my breath. "We need to be higher up." He followed my eyes upward to the shelf above us and nodded, catching his own breath.
Climbing on the outside edge to avoid the grasping hands, we made our way up to the next level. I large crate of MREs sat on a pallet. The box was open and I could see the shiny brown packaging gleaming in the low light. Pulling one out of the box I ripped it open and pulled out its contents. "Salsbury Steak" I said, tossing one to Shorty. He tore it open and hungrily ate the slippery meat patty. I grabbed a water bottle from another pallet and tossed one to him and we both downed them quickly and quietly. The moans and cries below didn't deviate our appetite. Shorty tossed the water bottle down and watched it bounce off the arm of one of the agitated monsters. He looked back at me and smiled, a look of sudden realization crossing his face. We moved behind the box of MREs and pushed them together. The pallet made a grinding sound as it scooted across the shelf and as it's center approached the edge it began to tip. Looking at each other we paused, like naughty school kids about to play a prank. Then with a heave we gave one last push and felt the resistance disappear from our hands as the massive box tipped over the edge. A loud crash followed by screams of terror and pain and we looked over to see at least one of the monsters had been pinned underneath the box. Whitney and doctor appeared unharmed, and looked up at us more furious than before. They began to clamber over the box and find their way onto the shelf above. Our smiles faded from satisfaction to fear as we realized we needed to ascend higher. "Let's tip the whole thing" I said in frustration and anger. Shorty nodded and looked like he was finally in his element.
Hand over hand and step over step we ascended the towering shelf until we reached the top, almost 50 feet above. Shoving boxes of supplies to the ground to clear our way, we watched as the bandaids and drink mix crashed against the concrete floor below. Laying down as below we placed our feet against the wall and grasped the top of the shelf firmly. At this height the shelf moved more freely and it began to rock back and forth with our effort. Leering outward, we suddenly realized the gravity of our situation and began to scramble to get a hold of something as the shelf begin to tip. "We're going down with this thing" I cried. Unable to right myself I felt the sickening dizzy feeling of momentary weightlessness and watched as the roof of the house below us came rapidly closer.
The shelf crashed through the roof of the house and sent us flying into the front yard. Shorty screamed in pain as a fence post tore through his leg. Looking back toward the rubble I watched in horror as Whitney crawled out from underneath shelving and metal beams. She was headed toward us, limping slowly, but with the same ferocity burning in her eyes. Looking back at Shorty I could see his leg was almost gone and he was bleeding out quickly. "Get out of here!" He yelled in pain and frustration. "Get that keycard and get out of here!" I looked back at Whitney, moving toward us slowly but steadily. "I can't leave you like this" I said, knowing that my words were hollow and useless. There was no way to help him, and at the rate he was bleeding he'd be dead in minutes. "You don't have a choice. You can't carry me and she's gonna be here before you could even help me up." He was tying his belt around his thigh as a tourniquet, pulling it tight with his teeth. "Go!" he said with a mouthful of leather.
I looked around for something to buy us more time. There was debris everywhere, but nothing small enough to use as a weapon, and I had lost my makeshift crowbar in the crash. Picking up one of the nearby poles from the broken shelf, I swung it slowly. It was difficult, but if I could land a blow it would do catastrophic damage. Whitney was almost to us, and I took aim as she slowly advanced. Timing it perfectly I swung hard towards her head, but she instinctively dodged and lunged toward me. Cascading onto my back she ripped at me, and I could feel her nails tear the skin above my eye and across my cheek. "This is it" I thought, and in an instant the faces of my mother, father, and Tracy appeared in my mind. My mind raced through my life, all the happy memories and cheerful moments. In those milliseconds I remembered the curve of Tracy's face and felt a well of sadness build inside me. "Goodbye" I said in my heart, knowing that I would never see her again.
Almost as instantly as the attack began it stopped, and I looked over to see Shorty pulling her off of me and scrambling to contain her violently struggling form. "GO!" he yelled as she whipped around and sunk her teeth into the side of his face. He screamed in pain and struggled to my feet. My vision blurred with the damage to my eye I stumbled over the piles of debris and into the now half destroyed house. Desperately looking for the key card I tried to avoid the pile of Clyde that lay strewn across the kitchen floor. In the corner lay the car, splattered with blood and gore and I scooped it up, wiping it off on my pants. I hurried out of the house and say Shorty now motionless, Tracy feasting on him like a starving predator. I slipped past her as quietly as I could and headed toward the other end of the massive room. "Tracy, I must get to Tracy." The thought repeated over and over in my mind and I raced toward the door embedded in the concrete wall.
Suddenly an orange light above the door began flashing and a klaxon sounded again. "Containment breach" an emotionless female voice reverberated through the room. A loud bang followed by a dozen moan drew my attention to the door leading to the cube room. Angry bodies were pouring out the door, covered in blood and hungrily looking for more. I saw the familiar face of my mother and froze for a moment, paralyzed by her appearance. I shook off the terror and forced myself to turn my back on the horde and focus on the keycard. Sliding the key card though the slot I punching in the last words of poor Clyde, 8410, and the light on the panel flashed green. I heard a hiss and the door lock released. Heaving it open I glanced back in time to see the crowd moving toward me. I closed the door quickly and leaned against it in the darkness. "Goodbye Mom." I said, the salty tears stinging the fresh cut on my face. I allowed myself a moment to recover, but felt a thump as hands and bodies crashed against the other side of the door.
Felling my way in the darkness I found the ladder and began to climb. "Tracy!" I called out as I ascended. "Tracy, can you hear me?"
You know how it ends. Now read how it begins...
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