The eighth floor of the MHRA office was a large square and with only eight employees on the floor. Each warranted the luxury of a small office. Monique had the largest, while Danny had the small solo room adjoined to Monique’s via a connecting doorway.
The other three offices were shared, with a third desk set up for any visitors. The offices were set around the perimeter, and offered a view of the city in all directions. The rest of the floor was set up in much the same style as a hotel foyer. There was a reception desk, where the receptionist greeted all visitors. The elegant lobby contained a high end coffee machine and a refrigerator well stocked with soft drinks and juices. The large flat screen television mounted on the wall had been programmed to show various news channels at certain times of the day. The five of them sat on the chairs. Monique had returned from her trip to the window and sat beside Rebecca, while the men had adjusted the chairs so that they sat on either side of the sofa. They all watched the screen, reading and re-reading the message that was being broadcast. They all resisted the growing temptation of a chortle at the promise of help being on the way.
In the street, they heard sporadic bursts of gunfire, but the predominant sound was the monotonous growl of the creatures that stood in wait. With their attentions no longer focused on the people in the buildings, the majority of the herd - for that was exactly what it looked like to Monique: a herd of wandering cattle - wandered aimlessly through the street, showing no interest in those of their own kind.
The sun began to set, and the group shared out the contents of the fridge. Despite the circumstances, the sound of helicopters overhead and a more profound rally of gunfire had raised their spirits. Even the pounding at the doors had ceased. Although they could still hear the creatures on the stairs as every so often one would turn and tumble to the landing. Their undead brains seemed to have mastered the art of ascent, but lacked even the most basic comprehension of descent.
The group laughed and joked. Even Monique felt herself unwind a little -something she rarely did in the company of others. As the night wore on, the activity in the street increased once more. Looking out, Monique understood why.
“It’s the lights. They attract their attention. Turn everything off, now,” Monique whispered her barked order.
“What?” Danny flashed a strained look at Monique. “I’m not turning the lights off. If those things get in here, I want to be able to see what I’m fighting.” He stood up from the group, and a strange weight filled the air. Monique walked away, and without saying a word turned off the lights; one office at a time.
“Hey,” Danny called out, striding towards Monique. “This is the real world now. Things have changed out here. You’re not the boss anymore,” he spat. The stress of the day and his dislike for his boss festered in his words.
“Maybe not, but take a look.” She took Danny by the hand, but before she could move, he snatched it away.
“I’m not a fucking child, Monique! You don’t have to lead me by the hand,” he snarled.
Monique paid him no mind. She walked to the window and waited for Danny to join her. “Do you see all of those… things? Look at them Danny. Tell me, what are they all looking at?” She spoke with the sharp skills most teachers possess. It only served to infuriate Danny even further.
“I see that, but they can’t get it in here, we made sure of that. We need to see what we are doing, trust me.” Danny stood firm. The pair had moved into Monique’s office, but with the door open, everybody overheard their increasingly heated words.
“Maybe not at the moment, but look at how many are out there now. Their numbers have tripled in the last hour alone. What if they never leave? We cannot sit here forever, you know. We have eaten most of the food already. Think Danny,” Monique implored.
“Fine, but I still think it is a bad idea. If those things grab us in the night, I sure as hell won’t slow down to save you.” Danny glared before he strode out of the office.
A few moments later, the lights went out. Monique stayed where she was, the comfort of her own surroundings appealed to her more than the need for companionship. Sitting in her chair, she swiveled and looked at the night sky. The street lamps were on, but their floor was above them. The view of the stars was extraordinary.
A strange shuffling noise ripped Monique out of her sleep. Somebody was outside her office door. She sat up in her chair, wide-awake; all thoughts of sleep purged from her system. An unusual calm wrapped around her. Monique found it smooth and oddly relaxing. The initial desire to call out abated, as a level-headedness settled. Monique rose from the desk and inched her way toward the door. She froze when the shuffling started again. She caught her breath. The footsteps drew closer to the door. The door’s handle began to move, the action slow and smooth. It drew a slight gasp from Monique, who leaned over and held her hand against the handle, holding it in place. It was possible to lock the door, but lack of motion seemed to be enough for whatever was on the other side. She heard it shuffle away, with a growl of discontent.
Monique fell into her chair, her body shaking as adrenaline surged through her veins. She cried silent tears as she waited for the screams that never came. At some point in time, she fell asleep. Before she knew it, the sun had begun to caress the horizon behind the buildings.
She jumped from the chair and stared down at the street. It was too dark to see clearly, but the fading moonlight offered enough to deflate the hope that had risen during the night.
Monique’s mind circled back to her visitor in the night. Had it eaten the others? Were they all like them? Were they sick with the flu? A multitude of questions flooded her brain as she searched for a weapon. In the top drawer of her desk, she found her letter opener. It had been a gift from her parents during one of their many elderly globetrotting adventures. The blade was approximately six inches long. It was her only option.
The hallway was quiet as Monique slunk out of the room, closing the door behind her. The lack of lighting turned things in her favor. The shadows seemed to envelop her, to pull her to safety as she made her way into the room. She could make out the sofas and chairs, and could see the bodies that lay on them. Monique’s mouth was dry as she clutched the letter opener in her fist. The blade was raised to her shoulder, ready to strike if needed, when a snort from the chair closest to her broke the silence.
“Who’s there?” a voice shouted out as the figure in the chair sprung to life. It was Danny. He too clutched a knife in his hands; a bread knife found in the drawer of the kitchen area.
“Danny it’s me, Monique,” she whispered, raising her hands in surrender; an automatic reaction.
“Good God, you scared crap out of me. What are you doing creeping around in the dark?” he asked without lowering the knife.
“Quiet, I think one of those things is in here. I heard it creeping around; it was at my office door,” Monique whispered.
“Shit.”
“We need to check everybody,” Monique continued, her voice calm and steady, while on the inside her heart ran at a gallop.
Danny turned his back for a few seconds and when he turned back to face Monique, he held a flashlight. “I found this in Alan’s desk drawer,” he referred to Alan Parker, the first person on their floor to call in sick with the flu.
“It was his first day sick in almost twenty years. I guess I should have known it was serious,” Monique whispered as Danny flicked the switch and hoped the light was not too bright.
“Maybe so, but I mean zombies – who would ever predict that fucking zombies would walk down Main Street?” Danny whispered as he and Monique lit up each member of their group in turn, checking for bites. “Everybody’s clean.”
“I know I heard something. Let’s check the rest of the floor.” Monique nudged Danny to indicate the direction she wanted to head first.
Together they checked the entire floor, moving from office to office. The silence between them was not borne from animosity, but necessity. There was nothing. By the time th
ey fell into the chairs once more, the others had started to stir, while outside, so had the zombies.
“Take a look at this,” Monique called over to the group.
“What is it?” Rebecca asked
They moved to the window and stared down into the street. Even though the winter sun was not yet over the horizon, dawn was certainly upon them. The zombies stood in the street, and it took a moment for them to see what Monique had.
“They’re asleep.” It was Walter that first saw it.
The zombies were still; they swayed back and forth, but took no real steps. They all stood with bowed heads. The static sound of their growls had been replaced by a strange, hushed murmur. A few of the creatures had woken, their heads raised to the sky, and as they started moving. The rest of the herd woke to another day.
The sky was grey, and a light wintery rain fell. The walking corpses in the street didn’t seem to notice. They flowed through the street; a never-ending river of the damned. There seemed no end to their ranks. It was almost midday before the first burst of gunfire reached their ears. All it succeeded in doing was speeding up the flow of the masses in the street.
“I always thought they were slow,” Rebecca whispered, as he and Monique looked down into the street. “You know, like in the movies.”
“This is reality, kid,” Walter spoke as he moved to join them. The crowd had responded to a second, longer bust of fire, and moved through the street at the stumbled equivalent of a brisk walk. Their arms flapped around them as they moved at a speed that seemed too much for their basic levels of coordination.
“What are we going to do?” Rebecca asked, looking at Monique for answers. Rebecca was only twenty-two, and this had been her first job out of university. Monique often forgot that beneath her professional exterior was a naivety that would only disappear with age.
“For the time being…nothing. We are stuck. We can’t go out there with that many of them around.” Monique stared through the glass as she spoke, a distant, thousand-yard stare in her eyes.
“We still need to come up with a plan.” Danny strode to the glass. “We can’t just sit here and wait to die,” he added.
“We can’t leave with that many of them out there. You saw how they wiped out an entire office.” Monique countered, “We have to wait for them to move on.”
“Those have moved on Monique; it is just that more of the fuckers take their place,” Danny spat. “We have no food. We will need to get going eventually, so I say we make a plan. Be prepared.” Danny was right, and Monique knew it. She nodded in agreement and with that, the reins were snatched and Danny straightened up to take the control he so craved.
The day passed and the first signs of a rift began to show. Danny and Walter stood together, in private conversations, while Scott, who was always the shy and reserved member of the team, sat and watched the news. He hadn’t spoken a word since it happened. His pale face and clammy skin told them that he was in shock. He had a young baby at home, and he had not been able to get hold of his wife when he called. Monique and Rebecca sat quietly, talking and about life, their past; they bonded.
“I’m so hungry,” Rebecca rubbed her stomach as they settled onto the sofas once again.
“We all are,” Danny replied. “I haven’t heard anything banging at the door today, so tomorrow we will try to go down to the lower floors, see what food we can find.”
“Do you think that’s wise?” Monique asked.
“Do you want to starve to death? I’m saying we are going, but don’t worry, Walt and I will go. You ladies don’t need to get involved.” The words sounded tainted, not because of what he said, but the manner in which he said them.
Monique knew better than to cause a fight. Everybody was tired and hungry; arguing was not the answer, so she let the remark slide.
Night fell, and Monique stood watching the crowd. There were fewer zombies now, maybe fifty in total standing in the street, too many for her liking. What scared her even more was the notion that Danny may decide to make a move in the daylight. The sounds of slumber echoed from the center of the room, and Monique once again moved back to her office. She couldn’t sleep, and wanted to see if the Internet still worked. It took several attempts, but she managed to connect to the network. She didn’t know what she was looking for, so started with the basics: Zombies. She read about the genre, the obsession the world had with the living dead, and watched several short films and clips. The recurring themes were that headshots killed them, or fire, and that even a scratch was enough to spell the end. The more she read, the more she learned, but at the same time, Monique realized she was re-reading the same material, phrased differently. Nowhere did she find a common description as to what caused the problem. Even in fiction it appeared that the cause was never truly known.
Monique searched the Internet until the early hours of the morning. Fighting sleep she made her way from site-to-site, doing all of the things she should have done before. She created a Facebook account, and tried to find her friends, sobbing at the thought of each old acquaintance she came across, wondering if they were dead, or stuck walking away as a reanimated corpse. She cried at the years she had lost, hiding from the world, and the relationships that she had never allowed to develop.
Monique felt her grip begin to slip. The cracks that had surrounded her sanity had spread further, and now threatened to break her completely. The only thing that saved her was the return of the shuffled footsteps from the other side of her door. Monique quickly turned her computer screen off and jumped up from behind the desk. She went to reach for the letter opener, but it wasn’t there. She had left it on the sofa. The shuffling figure on the other side of the door drew closer, and stopped outside of Monique’s door. The handle jiggled again, but stopped. A thump from the stairwell side of the main door caused Monique to scream, and sent the figure scurrying away. Within a few seconds, all of the lights on the floor came on. At the same moment, a growl spread through the crowd outside, who woke from their quasi-slumber the instant the light appeared.
Monique ran out of her office and straight into Danny, who stood before her door, reaching for the handle. Monique shoved him away with as much force as she could, “You stay away from me,” she spat, her mind caught between fear and anger. The overwhelming sadness that had consumed her moments before was gone, pushed back deep inside, behind the crumbling walls.
“What?” Danny asked as she sprinted past him. The door to the floor was ajar, but the zombie on the other side was stuck on the barricade. Its arms reached through the gap, clawing frantically at the air the moment the group came close.
Rebecca started to cry. “Get rid of it,” she squealed as the creature’s head appeared through the gap.
Thinking fast, Danny kicked out and the door slammed against the arm, splitting the soft skin that ran along the length of the forearm. The zombie however, didn’t notice. Thick dark blood spurted from the wound and covered the walls.
“Do something else!” Rebecca screamed, slapping Danny on the back, pushing him closer to the door. “Stab it,” Rebecca called as the head appeared again. The lips pulled back into a snarl and the bloodshot eyes stared at the group. Danny struck, stabbing with Monique’s letter opener. The knife pierced the skull just above the left eye. The creature gave a gargled groan and fell backward into the barricade.
“Help me close the door,” Danny called, looking around at Monique who stood closest to him.
Monique stared at him. The image of her letter opener in his hand, the creeping figure by the door, the hateful look in his eye, combined with his lust for power made her shiver. Monique offered no answer. Instead, she turned around and walked away.
Danny and Walter remained standing by the door, waiting for any others that may happen upon them. They had closed the door, but the lock was broken from the recent, sudden impact.
“We can’t stay here,” Scott whispered his first words in three days, as he sat on the sofa with the two women. He turned
to face them, but his eyes refused to focus.
“I know. We’re not safe here,” Monique answered, although neither Scott nor Rebecca understood what she was talking about, or saw the way she stared at Danny, watching his every move.
Monique got up from the sofa and walked away, moving past the reception desk, into the office that overlooked the main high-street. It was one street over. Their office overlooked both a Starbucks and Pizza Hut. The Surrey House – every building in the street had a similar name – employees were responsible for a large portion of the daily trade in both establishments. They had even managed to talk their way into a specialty corporate rate. Monique stared at the two premises, their smashed front windows looked like ravenous mouths, with shards of glass for teeth, ready to tear into the flesh of whoever dared enter. A zombie appeared in the Pizza Hut window, its uniform ripped apart, but still identifiable. Half of its face was missing, as was an arm. Injuries serious enough to prevent it from climbing through the blood streaked glass, but not enough to kill it for good.
“I don’t want to become one of them,” Scott spoke up from behind Monique, who jumped at the sound of his voice.
“Scott,” she said, her breath robbed from her lungs. “I didn’t see you there.”
“Sorry. It’s sad isn’t it? That this is what we have all become? I mean look at them.” He pointed to the street where a crowd of close to fifty milled around the street. It was then that Monique saw the two busses, stranded in the street. With the doors locked, the dead found themselves trapped inside, much like the Pizza Hut employee Monique had seen.
“I try not to think about it,” Monique said. “It is what it is, Scott. I am sure that one day, this will all be over. It will become another part of history, like the Black Death in London, SARS, or that Mexican Flu. It isn’t the first time mankind has been killed off, and it won’t be the last.” Monique tried hard to keep her words uplifting, while the entire time her eyes were focused on the bus, wondering if they would just sit there forever, trapped like her and the others; a stalemate between two clueless sides.
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