(The reporter puts a finger to his ear, listening to someone talk to him, and then nods.)
We have footage sent to us just moments ago from the urban area just six miles west of the university.
(Choppy video footage begins to air showing riots, looters and violence. The creatures are attacking people in the streets. A woman is screaming out for help as one of them heads for her. Mass hysteria is rampant in the streets.)
As you can see the area appears to be under some kind of a siege. Police have not yet released a statement but one officer told us that several police units were dispatched to the university no more than half an hour ago and more are on their way.
Radio broadcast from WKXR FM - 20 miles outside of Mountain Valley:
It’s fifty minutes past the hour here on WKXR, your choice for all those old favorites. The National Weather Association is calling for some cloudy skies tonight, lows in the mid to upper 50’s.
I’ve been receiving some word here that students at Mountain Valley University are being attacked. Apparently police are on the scene. I hope to have some more information on that as the night goes on. Until then, here’s one of your favorites from 1968…
Mildred West, an elderly lady who lived off of Oak Terrace just three miles east of the university, had made her way to the mailbox at around 7:45 that night. She had been suffering from a very painful migraine all afternoon and had spent the bulk of it laid up in bed with her eyes closed. After hours of waiting, her head pulsing with sharp stabs of pain, she had found some medicine the doctor had prescribed for her. It had been expired for quite some time but she hadn’t been in the mood to question whether or not it was safe to take. She had been in a great deal of pain and wanted out of it, fast.
Two pills and about an hour later she had finally been able to get up and move around a little. She hadn’t been able to pay her bills and she knew two of them needed to go out in the morning. Having admitted defeat in the memory loss fight quite some time ago she decided it best to write the checks, seal the envelopes and get those bills on their merry way that evening. After all, there was no telling if she would remember them in the morning or even if she would feel up to it. Her migraines had a way of sneaking back up on her when she least expected it. Nope, she thought. Better that I go ahead and mail em’ tonight. The last thing I need is bill collector’s callin’ and pesterin’ me. I don’t think I’d be able to take the solicitor’s and the bill collector’s callin’ me. They’d drive me to an early grave. She laughed and headed out onto her front porch, envelopes gripped firmly in hand.
As she made her trek down her driveway toward the mailbox she noticed the clouds had covered up most of the sky. The sun was below the horizon and a faint orange glow still hung near it. Gonna rain, she thought, opening up the lid of the metal box and sliding the bills inside. As she did, she saw someone standing in front of her porch. It was the figure of a man with a hat on. The porch light cast his reflection across her lawn, stretching it out toward her.
“Hello?” she said, her voice a little shaky. “Who’s there?”
She stood at the mailbox, the lid still ajar, fear beginning to trickle its way through her. Her neighbor, John Attenglen, was suffering from memory loss the likes of which she had yet to experience. He was known to sometimes go for a walk around the neighborhood and forget where he was by the time he had walked the block. She thought that it could be him so she spoke to the man again.
“John? Is that you?” she asked, compassion in her voice. “It’s getting late. You live right next door John, remember?”
Suddenly, the man walked toward her, his boots sliding across the grass. As he got closer to her she swore she could see a smile spread across his face and it sent chills up her back. The smile, if it had been one, was neither pleasant nor genuine. There was something sinister in it. She began to back away and that’s when she noticed that the left side of the man’s face was misshapen. His eye was missing and most of his hair as well.
She cried out for help, her voice echoing into the street and across the neighbor’s yards. The man picked up his pace and grabbed hold of her. She let out a bloodcurdling scream that quickly faded out. In the distance the sound of a ticking water sprinkler replaced her screams. The mailbox lid still hung open, the flag still down and a flash of heat lightning way off in the sky highlighted the darkness that had now fallen on Oak Terrace.
CHAPTER 16
Ewen hurried into the sporting goods department, still holding firmly onto Jennifer’s hand. He had never been much of a sports fan through simple lack of interest and the cliché of those who watched sports. He didn’t want anybody to think he was a beer-gutted, slovenly dressed, insensitive creep. He had met plenty of sports fans that weren’t that way and knew that the cliché had been built through sheer stereotypes, but he didn’t want to appear like that cliché at any rate. Most of all, though, he just didn’t find it interesting to watch television for such a long period of time having received no plot, character development or even a good story. Not to mention the fact that he found it strange that grown men sat in a chair for up to three hours yelling at the television screen.
He searched the aisles looking for something, anything that the two of them could use as a weapon against the creatures. Suddenly, he found what he was looking for. They entered into an aisle filled with baseball equipment. Helmets hung from several racks. Batting gloves and catcher’s mitts hung from another. But what he was most interested in lay at the end of the aisle. Baseball bats were perched awkwardly from several more racks, swinging slowly like a dead man that had been recently hanged in one of those old westerns.
Ewen let go of Jennifer’s hand and grabbed two aluminum bats, handing one of them to her.
“This ought to do the trick,” he said.
He turned to her, serious.
“Where’s the nearest exit doors?” he asked.
“I’m not positive, but it should be through the ladies department. I think I came in through there one time,” she said. “Just hang a left out of sporting goods and head straight until you see them.”
He looked at her with a sort of nervous excitement.
“You ready?” he asked.
Jennifer nodded, a worried look on her face. They took off running, exiting the sporting goods department with incredible speed. The lanes and aisles whirled by them as only blurred color.
When they entered the ladies department a small group of The Dead waited for them, their corpses writhing in twisted excitement upon seeing Ewen and Jennifer. Jennifer stopped short, thinking that they were going to turn around and head in another direction. Ewen had other plans. He kept running, readying his bat as he approached the creatures. One of them reached out for him and as It did Ewen swung the bat, connecting with Its head instantly. The incredible force with which Ewen had swung the bat sent the corpse flying backward and into a case housing jewelry. Shards of glass went spraying everywhere as the other corpses began to go after him.
“Let’s go!” Ewen yelled, looking back at Jennifer for a moment before returning his gaze—and his swing—to The Dead that were steadily approaching.
Jennifer snapped out of the trance she had been in and ran after Ewen, preparing her bat. Suddenly, from out of one of the aisles, a woman leapt at her. She wrapped her filthy hands around Jennifer’s neck, the metacarpals exposed. Jennifer screamed out for help as the woman’s dirty and jagged fingernails threatened to pierce her skin. As she began to feel the oxygen leaving her lungs and see bright flashes of light on a black background she swung her bat, connecting it with the young woman’s leg. The woman’s femur, brittle and exposed, split in half. The woman let out a unearthly scream, more out of defeat than pain, and loosened her grip on Jennifer. Ewen appeared beside her and swung his bat, connecting with the young woman’s head. Jennifer ducked out of the way just in time, holding her throat, coughing and desperately trying to get air. When she looked back at the young woman what she saw made her sick. She
quickly turned away, moving her hand from her throat to cover her mouth.
“Are you alright?” Ewen asked her, placing his hand on her back.
She looked up at him, unsure but nodding anyway. He grabbed her hand again and led her out of the ladies department through the aisles and aisles of clothes and out of a set of double, glass doors.
The crisp autumn air hit them causing them both to take deep breaths, especially Jennifer who was only now gaining some of her color back. The parking lot was exactly as they had left it: empty. A chilled breeze hit them, causing Jennifer to shiver. Ewen searched frantically for his station wagon and then it suddenly hit him. “Oh, no. It’s parked at the other end of the mall,” he thought.
“What do we do now?” Jennifer asked, looking back from the double doors of the apartment building.
She could see several more Dead headed toward them. They were deep into the store but she knew it wouldn’t be long before they were right up on them, particularly if they continued standing around wondering what to do.
“Run.” he said, taking off with her down the side of the mall.
They passed trees with shapes that seemed to move and bushes that rustled when the wind had died down. Everything around them seemed to be somehow alive. Just as a strange metallic taste erupted onto Ewen’s tongue and his mouth began to feel dry beyond belief he realized that Jennifer was stopping, and rather abruptly at that. She let go of his hand and stood completely still, terror in her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, gasping for breath and hunched over.
Jennifer didn’t say a word. Instead she raised her hand and pointed in front of them. Ewen followed her gaze to a group of twenty creatures standing at the other end of the mall. The streetlight meshed their shadows together forming a horrifying and disfigured blob. They were standing and watching the two of them, as if waiting for them to come.
Ewen looked back at Jennifer who was almost in tears. She looked exhausted and mentally drained. Ewen began to wonder what he looked like—no doubt, much of the same. Sweat was now rolling down the side of his face as he swallowed hard, a prickling pain stinging his throat. He walked back a few feet to Jennifer. He took his hand and gently touched her face, turning her gaze toward him. Even now he couldn’t help but notice how beautiful she was. The moonlight, what little there was peeking through the slits in the clouds, poured over her and again he thought she reminded him of an angel. He spoke to her, calmingly.
“It’s going to be alright. I promise,” he said, believing in his own words even though he had no way of knowing what they would face next.
“What are those things, Ewen?” she asked him, looking him right in the eyes.
Ewen shook his head.
“I don’t know. I don’t think I want to know either,” he said. “But what I do know is that God is with us. He will protect us.”
Ewen looked up ahead. The Dead were still watching and waiting for them, inhumanly patient. He turned back to face her again.
“Look, I think the only way out of this is to head away from the mall. I don’t know what these things are or why they’re here, but for some reason they came here,” he said.
Jennifer wiped steadily forming tears from her eyes, trying to stay calm.
“What if there are more of them out there, away from the mall?” she asked him.
“As long as they aren’t in such great numbers I think we’ll be alright,” he said.
“What if we come across too many of them again?”
“We hide,” he said, feeling a little helpless. “I know it’s not much of an option, but I don’t know of a better one right now. At least if we can get out of here then maybe, somewhere up the street, we can find help or at least good shelter for awhile until the cops sort this thing out.”
“You really think the police know about it?” she asked, surprised.
“They have to. And if they don’t, they’ll find out soon enough. If we can just get somewhere safe we can wait until help arrives.”
Jennifer nodded in agreement, still feeling just as scared though. Ewen noticed and lifted her chin a little with his forefinger, looking her right in the eyes.
“Are you going to be okay?” he asked, genuinely concerned.
Jennifer nodded and then took his hand into hers. They both turned and looked back at The Dead. They were beginning to move toward them now. Ewen and Jennifer took off running again, this time toward the nearby woods.
CHAPTER 17
It had been only a little over an hour and in that span of time the creatures, reanimated and decayed, had made their way to the university and gone on a killing spree. The bodies of over thirty students, police officers and professors were left behind, covering the sidewalks and streets in front of the Romero Center. Some police vehicles lay on their side, having rushed to the scene and trying to avoid the corpses—not knowing what they were.
In the midst of the destruction a police officer’s hand began to twitch.
He had emptied all of his rounds into several of The Dead but they had come at him in such numbers that he had been no match for them… especially without bullets.
His forefinger slid across the pavement, bloody fingernail scraping at the asphalt.
They had killed him, brutally and mindlessly. The last thing the officer had remembered was the pain that had surged through his body from one of the creature’s as it had bit him.
His hand made a fist and then relaxed again, as if on impulse.
His body had been sitting there, among the chaos, for twenty minutes. The creatures eventually tired with him and moved on to live targets.
His legs kicked and slid along the pavement. The palms of his hands began to push him up.
Now, as they beat on the metal doors of the Romero Center, moaning and snarling at what they couldn’t yet get to, the officer was no longer another body lying on the pavement.
He got to his feet, reacquainting himself with his surroundings.
The officer had become one of them. His face, pale and speckled with grit from the road where he laid, seemed stiff and rigid. Gone were the antiquated movements of the living. He opened his mouth, hissing, and moved toward the Center. As he did, other bodies, previously lifeless, become reanimated and began to join the other creatures.
You could still hear the crickets chirruping in the woods. Perhaps it was that, the single sound of any real life left on the campus that drew the dead toward the trees. Some of them left the Center, mindlessly following the sounds. They would soon find themselves emerging from the woods and onto a street lined with dorm buildings, one right after the other.
Within the confines of dorm building nine two sounds were echoing into the hallway…and one of them was getting louder. The first was the sound of the fluorescent bulbs on the ceiling humming, threatening to burn out with a faint tink-tink. The second was the sound of several sets of footsteps pounding against the floor as Riley, Jeff, Mike and Ben ran down the hallway and into one of the rooms. Two of them were helping Mike who didn’t appear to be looking well at all.
Inside, the room was a mess. Only Riley and Jeff lived there, the other two were best friends and, while they didn’t share the room, none of them were in it very much anyway. Most of the time they were all out together somewhere on campus sight seeing for chicks with Mike at lead.
Riley and Jeff had been best friends in high school and had landed entrance into MVU together. Their first semester here they met Mike and Ben. They had all been at the Snack Shack through sheer means of either coincidence or God’s Will. It depended on which one of them you asked. Mike and Riley were into the God’s Will theory while Ben and Jeff preferred the fate-like theory due to their belief that the universe revolved around one’s lack or abundance of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.
The place had been extremely crowded and there had been only two seats available. It just so happened that those two seats were at a table already occupied by Mike and Ben
. Suddenly, a beautiful girl walked in wearing a sundress, sandals and long blonde hair. As she walked through the crowd, heading for a booth in the back where a large group of football players were, Riley and Jeff fell into a trance. Their eyes followed her all the way back and, unbeknownst to them, their mouths fell slightly ajar in awe. After she sat down, nestling in between two jocks with matching leather jackets, the two of them came back to reality where Mike and Ben were laughing hysterically. Riley and Jeff had turned to see what was so funny and realized that apparently they were. Mike and Ben invited them to have a seat and they all shared their astonishment at how gorgeous that girl had been and how ridiculous it was that she was sitting with the creeps from the football team.
Now, standing around in the tiny dorm room of clutter they were all gasping for air. Long gone were the thoughts of beautiful girls, laughter and good times. They had lost those thoughts somewhere between the time when they had arrived at the Romero Center and when the attack had begun.
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