If I Die Before I Wake Chapter 13
Chapter word count: 2,300
Total word count: 27,696
Southbend, IN. Notre Dame Campus
Alex decided on the fifth floor, but considering the lights were out as the sun began to set, we had to hike up those five flights, which sucked. But surprisingly, even Giselle didn’t bitch about hiking up in her boots, although I could tell she was breathing with a bit of difficulty as we pushed through the doors leading through the stairwell and into the darkened hallway of the dorm.
Creepy.
Instantly, Alex and I took out a few lingering college students-turned-zombie and I had to bite back a few nonchalant observations about how too much studying could really make you brain dead or something like that. Heh. But I figured that wouldn’t be too appropriate and managed to hold back as Seth fumbled with a few keys, dropping a handful of them in the process.
“Way to go.” I chided, grinning as Seth gave me one of those looks again. Sass. Pure and utter sass. A chuckle echoed down the hall as we continued to head down, following Seth’s pointing finger as he guided us to the end of the hall. The setting sun filtered through a window that allowed us to see outside and I could already see the flashing lights of the group that had decided that being outside was better than being inside. And as much as I wanted to zombie hunt, I had already seen what those motherfuckers could turn into and didn’t really feel the need to go play with them.
Fuck that.
“According to the map in the office…” Seth trailed off, pulling out a key and tossing it to Alex, who snagged it out of the air effortlessly before inserting it into the lock and unlocking the door with an unnaturally loud click of the tumblers. A jerk of his head instructed me to move forward, gun drawn, which I did slowly, flashlight sweeping into the room as the door swung open.
Nothing.
Which was… kind of shocking.
At least, there was nothing there immediately. The four of us moved into the common living area that seemed to separate two bedrooms. A couch, TV, video game system and a few other basic essentials were scattered around the living room, which lit up as Alex managed to pop open his flashlight to turn it into a handheld lantern.
Nifty.
The click of a locking door hit my ears as Giselle made it a bit safer to be on this campus, even with the probably drunken idiots that were running around outside. But we weren’t out of the woods yet and immediately Alex and I split off without a word, pushing open the bedroom doors to reveal…
Nothing.
Hm. It seemed to be a trend and I heard Alex pull the safety onto his gun and I reluctantly did the same as the sounds of moving bodies became comforting rather than creepy. We had only been together for about twenty-four hours and already things were starting to click. Sure, Giselle was probably good for absolutely nothing but at least the other two had their strengths. Already, Seth was on the broken couch and had his laptop open, attempting to hack into some sort of internet, but I doubted he was going to get anything out of it. Giselle had her pack open to reveal some food we had taken from the warehouse back in Chicago and by the looks of things, we were going to have to stop at a grocery store sooner or later. And that was probably going to have to happen sooner if the rate of decay was going to get worse the further east we got.
Fun times.
The room was getting darker and darker by the minute and everyone ended up propping up their flashlights so that the cones of light rose to the ceilings, at least giving us a bit of light to work from. Although I wasn’t sure what work we were going to be doing any time soon. Popping open a few cans of whatever crap we had grabbed off of the shelves of the warehouse wasn’t going to take much effort. Alex had already pulled out the next map, Ohio, and was attempting to chart a course that we could by in the next couple of days.
Wonderful.
Nothing left for me to do, but successive gunshots made me curious and pulled me towards the single window in the living room, ignoring Seth’s wary glances as I passed him.
“I think one of the beds should be brought into the other room.” Giselle suggested haughtily, and the suggestion was met with a bark of laughter from Alex and myself as I approached the curtained window that was barely illuminated by the sun’s rays. I didn’t catch Giselle’s look of scorn that was sent to both of us, but we all knew that the sleeping arrangements would probably be interesting. The dorm room was generally guarded since we were so high up and there was so much bait partying around outside, so having two good shots in the same room wasn’t a stupid idea at this point.
“C’mon, Giselle. You know you want to share a bed with me.” I crooned jokingly, pulling back the curtain to let my eyes graze the tops of a few of the surrounding buildings. Classrooms, other dorms, laboratories or whatever the fuck else they put on a college campus. “Hey!” I cried, the view interrupted by a smear of what seemed to be spaghetti-o slime, a few of the round noodles sliding down the glass and leaving a line of tomato sauce behind it like a snail.
Wonderful.
“That’s what you get.” She replied, her voice nearly vicious as I turned to glare and give a smart retort. But seeing the full can of ammunition in her hand made me stop and shake my head, turning back to the view I had before and attempting to ignore the streak of red that ran down the window. And unfortunately, that was when I made my mistake. Never turn back to the window.
Ever.
My eyes fell on the now familiar group of whooping college students, some with guns in hand, some with bats and some just with the flashing strobe lights that were bound to attract something. They didn’t have anything but their vocal chords to make sound, but a group that large was bound to get something’s attention, and down the block, I could already see it happening. And that sight made my blood run cold.
“Guys…” I called, waving them to the window as a large group of zombies began to sprint towards the seemingly unsuspecting group of kids. Kids. They were Seth’s age, if not much older and thought they could take on the world and whatever was coming through their campus. Fucking brave or fucking stupid, it would have been a coin toss to determine what they were exactly.
I could feel the warm bodies behind me as they crowded around the window, our view only barely hindered by the bit of dinner Giselle had flung at me. But it didn’t hide it enough as the horde of zombies collided with the group of students. But I was surprised, not hearing the instant sounds of panicked screams and frantic gunshots. Instead I heard barked orders from our Frat boy and calculated gun shots as those who were armed began to fire, taking down wave after wave. Giselle’s body was frozen next to mine and I could practically feel every muscle tense in her body as she watched the scene. Seth’s fingers gripped the windowsill, but there was no reaction from Alex, who was standing behind me.
Not yet anyway. Not that I was going to turn to look. My eyes were glued to the group five floors below us who were fighting among the abandoned cars and wreckage that they probably created for the most part. Body parts flew as the turf war continued and thoughts of a skirmish, some sort of battle from a different world flashed through my mind.
War was exactly what we were involved in.
But then the gunshots began to die down and the college kids began whooping and chanting something I couldn’t make out. Celebrations for killing what waves had already decided to attempt to hit them. They were teaming up relatively well, two lines, back to back and facing all the directions a horde could come from, like some backwards game of Red Rover.
Did they do this all night? Were we going to sit here and watch them do this all night?
“Well… so much for anything--”
“Wait. Look.”
Seth interrupted my disgruntled mutterings and I followed his finger, catching another wave coming down the street, this time much larger and much quicker. Fuck. The sun was down completely and it was difficult to pinpoint specific bodies under the scatter of stars and moonlight, but the strobes, flashlights and hovering, orbital moon were enough.
For now.
But this time around, things weren’t going quite the way the college kids planned and it made my stomach roll. A handful of general infected, two seemingly large football players (probably friends of Frat Boy) breached the two lines, throwing a few kids to the ground. And that’s when the shouting began. The fucktard with the strobe light hit the ground, his toy scattering across the pavement but still illuminating what was going on in even more gruesome detail than we wanted. A gasp from Giselle barely hit a nerve in me, at least until we had to watch the strobe light kid get his face ripped off by a particularly vicious zombie.
Yum.
And that’s when the screams began to get louder, one large voice attempting to keep control as the waves got bigger and more out of control. He was trying so hard to keep order and get his team back on their feet, but nothing was working as the zombies sent it all to hell. Clusterfuck. I couldn’t help but stare and feel absolutely helpless as we watched what seemed to be hundreds of dead heads filling into the street, tearing the kids apart. Flashlights bounced around the street, hitting the ground and cracking or giving us some obscene and spotlight to watch the owner get completely massacred. Blood began to fly and the screams turned hysteric, mingling in with the gunshots that were now turning into frantic blitzes of bullets and sound.
“We have to go help!” Seth cried, his voice cracking and turning into a bit of a hysterical point as he turned to grab a weapon. He was the only thing that could drag my attention away from the window for a moment. What did he expect to do? Go out there and be Rambo? Take down each zombie with a hit of his stupid fucking baseball bat? Luckily, Alex had a clear head (at least that’s what it seemed) and he put a hand on Seth’s shoulder, shaking his head as he did so.
“We’d get killed. They knew the risks of being out there.” And as if to accentuate that point, another blood curdling scream made its way up onto the fifth floor. Instantly I joined Giselle back at the window just in time to watch an inhumanly large shadow pick up Frat Boy and take off like a giant eagle searching for prey in a frothing river below. His gun attempted to shatter whatever was holding him and bringing him up to our floor, at least to where we could see the fear etched on his face. Whatever had gotten him was too dark to see, hell we could barely see his own body as the two silhouettes went higher and higher, until we couldn’t hear him scream anymore.
“What the fuck was--” But I was cut off by the sounds of hysterical screaming and before I could turn to ask Alex and Seth who had stepped away from the window, a flash of added darkness and a gruff yell passed across our vision, following the direction of the spaghetti-o.
Down.
Whatever had been carrying Frat Boy had dropped him and I had enough sense to slam my eyes shut before he hit the ground and whatever of his friends he landed on. A frightened sob escaped Giselle and I had a surprisingly tight grip put around me as she clung to my shoulders, her face hidden in my neck. And it would have been pleasant despite the circumstances that made me feel like I should vomit.
“That’s enough…” Alex replied, moving to close the curtains, sending us into our own little shelter of darkness despite the few flashlights we had on. My arms wrapped gently around Giselle for a moment, holding her shaking body as I looked to a very ashen faced Seth and a sour looking Alex. “We need to get some sleep…” He replied to my look and I nodded. But instead of heading to the bedrooms, he and Seth went to grab the mattresses in each room, dragging them into the small living area and arranging them side by side.
No one slept alone that night.
Without much surprise of course, no one really slept as we all listened to the continued and dying screams of those that would soon join their killers if they didn’t have the luck of outright dying. We listened to the screams of victims and crunch of bones and squish of body parts and the growling and snarling of the predators that loomed below us. It was like listening to the rain patter against roof tiles and windows. Some perverse kind of rain that only happened in fucked up haunted houses during Halloween.
Yeah.
No one fucking slept.