by SP Durnin
"I wonder if we'll ever be safe from them," Kat murmured, and her fingers gripped the fabric of Jake's CBGB shirt. "I mean, I'm sure we'll make it to the west and all…"
Jake didn't take his eyes from the creatures outside. "You're more confident about it than I am."
"Don't interrupt," she said crossly, still looking through the blinds. "It's rude. What I mean is do you think things will ever be normal again? Dance clubs, crappy movies, celebrity antics on really stupid reality TV shows, that kind of stuff?"
Not wanting to depress her, Jake kept his true thoughts to himself. "People are resilient. Look at our history; world wars, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, terrorism... None of it ever put us down permanently. Eventually, we'll find a way to come back from this too, somehow."
"Do you really think so?" She turned her face towards him and Jake's heart rate sped up.
Kat didn't become serious often. Truth be told; many of their group believed that, save for when she was actively engaged in something dangerous, the pretty young woman had long ago fried her brain with all the blue hair dye. Jake knew differently. The way she acted was nothing more than a defense mechanism. At least, he was fairly sure that was the case.
"Probably. Maybe. As long as there are smart-mouthed, ninja-girls around to keep everyone honest. And supplied with 'Hello Kitty' items."
That caused Kat to stifle a laugh. She turned away from the window and the zombies beyond, hugging Jake warmly as she buried her face against his shoulder.
"Thanks for that." Kat pulled back after a minute and wiped at her eyes as they teared in uncontrolled mirth.
Jake touched the tip of her nose with one finger. "Anytime. Now, how about we check the rest of this place out, huh?"
She nodded and, staying on his heels, drew her sword as they neared the door. "Guess we should. Granted, if we run into more zombies in here we'll need to deal with them really quietly. We draw attention from that group outside, and I'm going to run like fun for the nearest horizon."
It was Jake's turn to stifle a laugh then. Setting his ear against the door's face, he listened intently. Hearing nothing, he turned the knob and slowly pulled the door open. When no drooling horrors raced into the room, Kat followed him into the echoing hall outside. To their relief, nothing broke the silence on the second floor. Moving cautiously, crowbar in hand, Jake led them further into the hall. Empty rooms were all they encountered and, upon reaching the stairwell, he decided to clear the first floor before proceeding upwards. It wouldn't do to have a zombie (or ten) coming up the stairs behind them, cutting off the only escape route.
Moving with exaggerated care, the leery duo descended the dimly lit ground level. Kat noticed a thin layer of dust coating the floor, revealing no one had been inside for some time. After pointing this out to Jake, they moved into the foremost room.
Kat twirled her sword and smiled. "Well, this is a nice change. No zombies, nobody shooting at us. You're going to spoil me if you keep bringing me to such nice spots."
"I'll risk it." Jake strode quietly to one of the windows and carefully looked through the small gap around its edge. "Let's see what our friends outside are up... Oh, shit."
Kat hurried to look over his shoulder. Outside, the grounds were slowly filling up with zombies. The horde, after squeezing through the narrow Wilmington streets in pursuit of the two fleeing survivors, had not simply kept trudging north on College Street. The creatures had spread out.
College Hall was surrounded.
"I don't know if even I could get through that many unseen," Kat whispered against Jake's shoulder. "This is bad."
"What's worse, we can't call the others for help. If those bastards who sacked Rae's cache are around, they'd know exactly where we are. They could even trace us back to the airport." Jake turned away from the disturbing view and sat down, allowing his back to slump against the interior wall.
Kat joined him and set her sword across her lap. Taking his hand she quietly asked, "So, what do we do?"
"I have no idea," Jake admitted.
Outside, the dead continued to move tirelessly around the Hall.
THE END OF BOOK I
About the Author
For over a decade S.P. Durnin crisscrossed America seeking the perfect pint of Guinness while developing a love/hate relationship with the idea of hungry, mobile corpses. He has lived in Montana, Texas, California, Colorado, Washington, and New Jersey.
In his younger days, S.P. was known to keep a "morning after" backpack in his trunk (in case he woke up in a strange place) right next to his crowbar, but in recent years took the next logical step, upgrading to a bug-out bag.
He now resides in Ohio with his family, one spoiled cat, and two dogs, until the inevitable zombie apocalypse.