cybrpunk.com

DAY TWO

DAY TWO: AT THE OFFICE

How long have I been sitting huddled under this desk? I touch the side of my face and feel dried blood where it was running past my eye earlier. I don’t remember hitting my head but I sure have the mark to prove that I did. It’s quiet in here. So quiet it’s unnerving. To even think that I’m still alive after all that happened yesterday is overwhelming. Hell, I’m not even sure where I’m at. I know I’m in an office building or at least in an office. Something with a desk. It was getting dark outside when I ran in here and hid. I had tried to calm down and finally just hyper-ventilated myself to unconscious sleep.

Now I see a soft glow coming in from the edges of the window shade. The first rays of daylight turning the darkness around me into muddled greys and shadows. Shadows that my paranoid mind tells me could be hiding one of those creatures, but I know in my rational thoughts that that can’t be true. If they were here in this room they would have found me and killed me long before now. Like they killed my co-workers. All except Jason. Oh God, I wish I hadn’t thought of him. If I break down now… if I start sobbing… they might hear. How do those rotten bastards hear anything? I’m wondering about their hearing. Jesus, how the fuck are they even walking around? But they do both and if I so much as whimper they might get in here and tear me apart before I even figure out if there’s another way out. A way out. I need to pull myself together and see where I am and what my options are.

My neck and shoulders scream as I pull myself out from the cramped space under the desk. My legs immediately start to tingle and buckle from the rush of blood they’ve been denied for hours. I gasp at the pain and immediately regret it but thankfully there’s no noise from behind the door to the office. The office… gotta focus. It looks like I’m in some kind of doctor’s office. Not an examination room but a regular office with books on shelves and important certificates on the walls and a potted plant. Only one door since it’s a pretty small room. I dare to peek past the edge of the shade on the window. Shit… ground floor but with bars over the window. I plop down into a plush leather chair as reality hits me like a bucket of cold water. That probably helped keep me safe last night but it sure as hell is going to make it difficult to get out of here.

Dead people walking around are going to make it difficult too.

We were lucky to get out of the bank alive yesterday. A lot of good it did Jason. God! I have to stop thinking about it but I can’t. Just after we heard the first reports come in over the local news and the company communications, one of those… things… was already pushing its way through the bank’s lobby doors. None of us knew what to think except that maybe the person had been in a serious accident or something. If we had only realized what those reports really meant. It moved slowly and had blood on its face and arm. Amy, being the ever helpful and cheery person that she was, ran up to help him. Even as she was asking him if he was okay and trying to steer him towards one of the lobby chairs I could already see that something was very wrong. The look on Amy’s face when the man opened his mouth could only mean that she realized it too. Only she was too late to do anything but scream as it lunged at her.

I watched helplessly as she tried to turn and run but it just lurched its arms over her shoulders and bit down into her neck in one movement. I could see it bite again and it must have hit an artery as blood sprayed past the thing’s face and made a crimson shotgun pattern on the plain white wall. At that point we all panicked. Everyone behind the counter, me included, ran towards the back of the building. I looked at our friendly old security guard who just stood in shock with his mouth hanging open. He didn’t react at all. Being a small bank I knew they always kept old Morty on more for his benefit than ours. We live and work in a relatively small city and the owners know the chances of being robbed are always pretty low. Almost as low as Morty finding a new job or living off his non-existent retirement funds.

All of us, six in total including me and Jason, huddled behind the safe deposit box sign-in counter. Watching, crying, shaking… what else could we do? That was when the thing that tore out the side of Amy’s neck dropped her like a sack of wet mulch and turned to face Morty. Morty was visibly shaking and I screamed for him to run. He was just reaching for his gun when his hand suddenly changed directions and covered his chest instead. He started gasping as his knees buckled and the monster started walking towards him. I knew Morty had chronic heart problems and that this would be the death of him one way or another. Morty collapsed either unconscious or dead on the ground just as the creature got to him. It fell onto Morty like an awkward baby taking its first steps to get a new toy.

Once it was on top of him we saw it bite into the faded Navy tattoo on Morty’s exposed forearm. It ripped its head back like a wild dog with a rabbit and took the flesh and muscle with it. It was nothing like Amy though. Almost no blood came out at all. I’m no doctor, but even I know that it means that Morty was already dead. Thank God for that. But even as it chewed the lifeless flesh from Morty’s arm it was already looking over at the row of heads looking over the counter at it.

Most people aren’t good in a panic situation. Janice, who worked the drive-through window, was obviously one of those people. I just remember my jaw dropping as I watched her get up and run towards the front doors. She was screaming the entire time. The creature chewing on Morty lurched and swung it’s arm in her direction but was nowhere near close enough to catch her. She was still screaming as she shoved the door open and ran out of sight. All at once the five of us all turned our gaping mouths towards each other at what had just happened. Why hadn’t we thought of that? It seemed so simple. After a minute of whispered chatter we resolved to do the same.

Jason peeked around the corner and saw that the creature had gone back to eating. Ugh, it was actually eating! It was the best chance for the rest of us to get out while it was preoccupied. We slowly got up and saw that Jason was right. It was actually biting and chewing Morty’s fingers like they were barbecue pork ribs. Jeff lost it at that point and quickly turned away just in time to throw up on a potted plant behind us. Everything after that almost seems hazy. I distinctly remember Jeff wiping his chin with the back of his hand and muttering “Fuck it” through his clenched teeth. He got up and started to run for the door. The rest of us followed because we didn’t have a plan and we must have all figured it was now or never. Jeff made it past the psycho who was now making an effort to get up to chase the buffet running past. Jason and I caught up with Jeff and passed him as he tripped and went down hard.

We got to the door and looked back just as Katie started screaming. We looked down to see that Jeff hadn’t tripped. Amy’s bloody hand was locked around his ankle like a vice. I know she was dead; no one could have survived what she went through. She was dead but… she was moving. She had pulled herself up far enough to grab Jeff and was now crawling towards him as he started screaming as well. He looked at me and Jason who just looked in horror at him. Katie continued to scream and shake her head back and forth and started to back away from Jeff and what remained of Amy. I held onto the door handle too scared to do anything. I couldn’t even scream when I saw the bastard that killed Amy and Morty stand up behind Katie. She was still backing up and screaming. All it had to do was raise it arms and she fell backwards into them. I don’t even think she knew what happened. It had bitten into her shoulder and she just kept screaming. Screaming just like Jeff who could only watch from his place on the floor. He had a worm’s eye view of its next bite that separated her ear and the skin covering the back of her jaw from the rest of her head. Katie’s screams stopped as she died or maybe just fainted from the pain. Her’s stopped but Jeff’s screams only became more hysterical and we looked back at him. Amy, with her death-grip on Jeff’s ankle, had crawled up between his legs and had bitten right through the inner thigh of his pants. She must have hit that main artery in his leg because her face was sprayed with blood like someone had used a hose on her. She didn’t seem to notice as she went in for another bite from the exposed wound.

We stared in petrified terror as Katie and Jeff’s lives were taken right in front of us. It wasn’t until we saw Morty’s body twitch and start moving again that we finally found the will to throw the doors open and run. We ran for a few blocks with nothing to see but people running or being attacked. There were bodies on the sidewalks and streets and most were still lying still but every now and then we’d see one struggling against it’s wounds to rise up again. We saw other people we knew but no one paid any attention as they tried to save themselves. I’m even fairly certain I saw Janice lying in a pool of blood on the sidewalk across from us. I couldn’t know for sure but I think it was the same clothes she was wearing. She was so torn apart though it was impossible to be certain.

We ran. We ran until we were getting close to the edge of town and I tripped on the sidewalk approaching an intersection. Jason was still with me but he didn’t notice I had fallen and had already crossed the street. He turned and saw me getting up. He was always so nice to me. He was walking back across the road to help me when the pickup truck came screaming through the intersection and sent his body flying through the windshield of a parked car. I screamed once as the truck just kept going without even a flicker of its brake lights. One scream was all I could manage. I was so exhausted mentally, emotionally and physically that I couldn’t even react any more. I probably looked like one of those things as I sobbed and staggered over to his unmoving body with little hope that he could have survived. My sobs turned to heaves when I saw that the entire side of his head was caved in. There was blood and bits of brain dripping through the holes in the shattered windshield.

That’s when I just turned the corner at the intersection and kept walking. It was sunset when I realized that I wasn’t entirely sure where I was. I saw the small two story building that I’m in now and walked right in. It was quiet and seemed safer than anything else I had passed. It was dark when I numbly found this office and the desk I hid under until just recently.

And now I’m just sitting here. Sitting here and remembering and wasting time. Oh, I seriously have to pee. Wonderful… typical, though. Wait a minute… what’s this in the corner? A golf bag filled with clubs and heaven only knows what else golfers need while they waste their time out on a golf course. Golf clubs, though… those have potential. I pull the covers off all the tops so I can see them all. I pick up one of the clubs with the smaller metal heads. I’m sure they have names or something important but I could care less about golf clubs until two minutes ago. “8″ is what it is stamped into the metal with what I assume is the manufacturer name. “8″ should do nicely. I give it a test swing and it seems solid and manageable. I swing it back again like a baseball bat.

I hear a deafening CRASH as the club strikes one of the framed diplomas and sends it falling to the ground. The remainder of the glass and frame shatter against the floor and again create enough noise to wake the dead. That’s when I hear the guttural moans coming from what must be outside and down the hall. I can already here the shuffling feet and arms being drug against the walls as they head for the source of the noise. They assume it’s human and therefore food. Well, hopefully me and “8″ can prove them only half right. I grip the club like I imagine a samurai would have held his sword and I back up behind the desk. And I wait as the moans and the shuffling gets louder. When the door handle rattles the first time I unconsciously hear myself let out a whimper. A second later I feel warmth and wetness running down the inside of my thighs.