Have you ever had that panicked moment when you realise you’ve been playing too long and someone will be home to catch you in the act soon? Riley has, normally things don’t quite go like this though.. Happy Halloween. Sorry in advance?

 

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“Oh god, is that the time?!”

I hopped off my bed and made a break for the door.
Two turns and I was inside Mum’s room.

My hands reached for the buttons on the dress I was wearing when the phone rang loudly through the house making me pause.

No-one calls us at this time day?
Cautious to not be visible from the windows of either Mum’s room or the stairs I raced back out to the cordless handset on the hallway table and snatched it up.

After a moment to get my breathing back to normal I pushed the button and raised it to my ear.

“Hello?”

There was a lot of heavy breathing on the other end of the line.
Somewhere in the distance someone screamed.
After a lot of shouting there was a short burst of really loud noise that I think might have been gunfire?

“H.. hello?”

The shouting kept on echoing in my ear, followed by another set of gunfire and more heavy breathing as someone loudly ran somewhere.
There was one more blast of gunfire and something metal crashed loudly down.
It sounded a bit like our garage door but it’s hard to tell on the phone.

“Riley? Riley honey, can you hear me?”
My breath came out in a gasp that I hadn’t realised I’d been holding.
“Riley. It’s Mum, I’m okay honey but I need you to be brave for me. I’m not going to be home for a while, I need you to go downstairs and lock all the doors and windows okay?”

“Mum? What’s going o-”
There was a loud crashing sound down the line followed by shouting, groans and rattling metal that was so loud it made me jump in fright.

“Riley. I can’t talk, just do what I say and go downstairs quickly. I’ll sort things out and call you back when I can. Make sure all the doors are locked solid, get some food, close all the curtains and go upstairs for the night okay?”
Someone yelled in pain, it sounded really close and REALLY loud.
“GO Riley! Don’t leave anything open, don’t let anyone see that your home, be as quiet as you can and whatever you do DON’T let anyone in!”

My legs were shaking.
I could feel tears on my cheeks too.
Mum’s never shouted at me like that before?

I jumped again and gasped when a man’s voice roared out from the other end of the phone.

“LINDSEY! HURRY THE FUCK UP THEY’RE BREAKING THROUGH!”
I don’t know who the man was but Mum’s name is Lindsey?

“I love you Riley. Stay inside, put the phone ringer on silent and keep it with you. No matter what you hear outside DON’T let anyone see you!”
She paused and something crashed loudly in the background followed by more shouting.
“I love you baby. I’ll call as soon as I can.”

The line went dead.
For a long moment I stood frozen in the hallway, stunned silent.

“Mum?.. M.. Mum?..”

She didn’t answer.
The phone just buzzed in my ear.

My breathing sounded so loud in the suddenly silent house.
My heart hammered away in my chest for some reason too.

I’m not sure what shook me back into the real world but with a surge of adrenaline I shot off for the stairs.
I didn’t fully understand what was going on or why Mum sounded so scared and worried but she REALLY wanted me to do what she said, so I will.. QUICKLY!

It wasn’t until I hit the bottom step that I remembered what I was wearing.
My first instinct was to run back up and get changed but Mum’s words rang in my ears enough to overpower my fear of discovery.

It doesn’t matter, she told me to make sure no-one outside saw me anyway so this will just make me more careful about it!

I got to the front door and chanced a nervous glance through the spyhole but all I could see was our driveway lit by the afternoon sun.
With a stretch I managed to throw the top bolt, followed quickly by the middle lock and the bottom bolt before pulling the big curtain that Mum had put in to stop the draft during winter closed, just in case.

Mum’s always been a bit over the top with security stuff but I’m kind of glad for it now.

Cautiously I made my way around to the front room.
The lights were off which made me nervous despite the sunlight still coming in from the windows.

I flicked on the light switch and snuck over to the bay window.
It took a few tugs to get the curtains moving but I managed it in the end and checking each windows lock as I went until I’d made the full circuit.

It felt really weird to have the front room so dark despite knowing that it’s still daylight out.
I took a few steps out to the kitchen and moved quickly over to check the back door.
It wasn’t locked so I turned the key and hid it in the old mug on the shelf like Mum does at night.

I had to go on my tiptoes to reach the top bolt this time but I managed it eventually and threw the bottom one shut as well seconds later.

Being in the kitchen made me a bit more nervous because, while it’s not facing the street, the backdoor has two little windows in it at my head height and the wall next to it is practically one long run of windows.

It took a bit of struggling and I almost fell when the dress I had on held my knees awkwardly as I tried to step up onto the countertops but I managed to get under the long window and check each lock while pulling the curtains too.
When I finally managed to check them all, I slide carefully off of the counters and sighed in relief, taking a moment to straighten the skirt of Mum’s dress and cover the slip I had on underneath.

I had a flash of guilt when I realised what I was doing, what I was wearing at the moment but before I could sink too much into guilt there was a shout from somewhere outside.

It really didn’t sound like a good shout?!

I froze in place and strained my ears to see if I could hear anything more but after almost a minute of silence there was nothing more to follow it.
Feeling even more worried and remembering Mum’s orders I rushed over to the pantry cupboard.

I wasn’t really in the right state of mind to make anything, Mum doesn’t like me using the cooker when she’s not around anyway.
In the end I snatched up the big multi-pack of crisps that we get in bulk for my lunch at school and raided the fridge for the big water bottle with the carry handle on the bottom shelf.

At the last moment I decided to grab the packet of cut chicken we use for sandwiches and brought it along with me as I moved through the house, shutting internal doors as I went until I reached the second floor.

My eyes cut down the hallway and I hesitated for a second.
We’ve got three bedrooms up here along with Mum’s office and the bathroom that connects between her office and her bedroom.

I kind of wanted to get changed at the moment.
Guilt was gnawing at me as I stood there ruffling the side of Mum’s dress against my leg nervously with my knuckles.. but Mum’s office has a computer in it, so I could go in and check the internet to see what’s happening instead?

Mum doesn’t know but I know her password.

It’s Dad’s name.
I found out by accident while trying to go on there and play some games ages ago but it didn’t seem like a good idea to tell her that I knew or how, especially after seeing his name again like that..

I dithered for a few more seconds before making my mind up and rushing over to my room to get changed.
My curtains were still open so I slipped over to them and after a peek outside that gave me nothing but a few empty back gardens, including ours, I shut them tight with a heavy sigh.

After a bit of struggle I managed to get the buttons on Mum’s black dress with the white polka-dots all over it undone.
It’s knee length on Mum but on me it ends practically at my ankles.
The silky soft slip went next and I blushed brightly as I pulled Mum’s lacy white bra up over my head to take it off.

Standing in my room wearing only a pair of white lace panties that Mum ‘lost’ years ago I shivered and dithered again uncertainly.
When I first got the panties I just liked them because they were soft and the lace felt nice, they were way too big for me at the time but now they actually fit relatively well, if still a little loosely.

I finally made up my mind and kept the panties on while tugging my jeans up my legs followed quickly by my baggy red T-shirt.

Feeling a bit less nervous, now that the prospect of being caught had been lessened a fair bit I bundled the dress, slip and bra together with the food for easier carrying.

A grunt later I had the water bottle up and I rushed over to Mum’s room, dropping the food on the bed before moving over to hide the clothes in the back of a side cupboard she rarely uses.
She never checks there usually and when she does she tends to assume she must have put whatever she finds there away by accident while she wasn’t paying attention as far as I know.

On light feet I pulled Mum’s bedroom curtains shut, then quickly rushed through the attached bathroom and out the other side into Mum’s office.

She’s got shelves of books all along the walls around her big wooden desk which is covered in photos of us together along with pens and other office-y stuff.

I shot a cautious look out of the big window behind her desk.
From this angle I could see just a little bit up the street and something was obviously happening up there?

I jumped a moment later when someone yelled out from the same general direction I’d been looking.

My eyes caught nervously on a few strange plumes of thick black smoke drifting in the air a fair distance away, somewhere much further into the city, but when another yell broke the silence I rushed over and closed these curtains too.

With a heavy sigh I slid into Mum’s leather office chair and turned on her computer.
It seemed to take forever to power up.
Eventually though it reached the login screen and I could enter the password.

“D-A-V-I-D”

The screen flashed before loading up onto Mum’s desktop.
I waited for everything to finish loading then clicked the browser.
The screen lit up for a moment as things loaded in the background.

When the computer finally stopped playing around it brought up Mum’s favorite news website.
Splashed across the main page was a string of stories with titles like ‘Cannibals attack the mid-west’, ‘Zombie’s in Zimbabwe?’ and ‘Emergency order issued as attacks spike’.

There were far too many words for me to bother reading them all so I clicked up for the ‘watch live’ link and waited as the computer chugged along with loading the page again.

“-secretary of state continued his statement to categorically deny rumors of a chemical attack and foreign powers involvement in this afternoons events, which have now been confirmed to have spread across every continent on the globe.”
The news man paused and shuffled some papers on his desk.
“We are striving to bring you the most current information possible but new information is coming to us at a constant rate. The government has declared a state of emergency across the United States and the British PM has advised people to take shelter until more information is available.”
His hand came up to press into his ear slightly and he ducked his head for a moment before turning back to the camera.
“I’m being told we can now go live to Tracy live in-”

The phone rang for the second time today.
I paused the news video with a click and accepted the call in a panicked rush.

“Mum?”
For a painfully long moment there was silence.

“Riley..”

“MUM! Are you okay? What’s going on?”
I strained my ears for any sounds I could make out on the other end.
At least there’s no more gunfire or shouting?
That’s good right?!

“Riley honey, I need you to be brave for me okay?”
She sounded like she wanted to cry for some reason.
“Be my big brave boy okay? I’m going to come get you but it’s going to take a while. I’m with some soldiers, we’re on the other side of the city and there’s no way I can get home tonight but you have to stay safe indoors and keep quiet okay?”

“Mum..”

“Get what you need to be comfortable honey, don’t go back downstairs but gather what you need from upstairs and pull the loft hatch down. It’s like camping okay?..”
Her voice trailed off for a second and when she started again there was a tremble in her voice.
“You need to take everything into the loft with you and pull the ladder hatch shut behind you. REMEMBER to tuck the pull string up as you go. You’re going to have to stay up there until I get home, okay?”

My voice didn’t want to work for some reason.
She sounds really scared?
It’s making me scared..

“Be Brave honey, no matter what you hear or see stay in the loft until I get you.”
She hesitated one more time, I think she’s crying or something?
“Go now, while there’s still time. Bring the phone with you, grab your games and books. Get as much as you need up there then hurry inside okay?.. if.. if you hear anyone downstairs get in the loft RIGHT away!”

“What’s happening Mum?..”
My voice broke and trembled almost as much as hers had when I finally got the words out.

“There are some bad people around honey, they’re doing bad things, you need to hid from them until it’s safe. Don’t forget to get-”
Her voice suddenly cut off.
A second later something in the distance exploded.

The noise was so loud it shook our house.
I screamed in fear.
Frantically I clung to the phone but there wasn’t even a buzz coming from it now?

The computer’s light suddenly cut off.
I could hear more than one frightened voice from up the street but it didn’t help me feel any better to know there were people nearby.

With stumbling steps I made it over to the wall and threw the light switch.. nothing happened?
My hand frantically threw it a few more times but still nothing?!

All I could hear was my breathing.
All I could see was a slight glow from the edges around the curtains on the other side of the room.

It wasn’t until another, much scarier scream of fear came from outside that I managed to jump myself back into action.

I pushed through the still open door to Mum’s bathroom and moved through to her bedroom.
Cautiously I moved over to the window to give the curtains a slight tug, just enough to let a crack of light inside the room.

It made it much easier to see what was going on AND made it much easier for me to breathe again.

Mum said take what I need.. what I need..
I grabbed the water and food first.
Stepping out into the hallway I froze slightly as the darkness surrounded me again but with mental shove I managed to push past my fear long enough to reach the loft hatch.

I had to leave the food underneath it so I could go get the little wooden stool from Mum’s vanity table and reach the dangling rope to pull the hatch down.
It moved almost silently and in one smooth motion the ladder slid down to sit at my feet.

The stool went back under Mum’s vanity and with one last deep breath I started climbing the ladder, the bottle of water in my free hand.

It was awkward and heavy but I managed it in the end.
I barely pushed it over the lip into the loft before climbing back down for the food.

Those key essentials covered I paused for a second uncertainly.
Take what I need?..

My eyes cut between my room and Mum’s.
Eventually I made my mind up and went back to Mum’s room.

Her closet door slid open easily.
I started pulling dress after dress along with some skirts and tops out of it.
When I had an arm full I rushed back to the ladder and hefted them up inside.

Two more trips to Mum’s room had a pile of underwear along with her bedding.
At the last moment I snagged her perfume bottle from her vanity too.
Everything of hers smells like her, that’s kind of why I started wearing her things so long ago, it made me feel better when I missed her..
I really miss her right now..

Against my better judgement I paced over to my room cautiously and went inside.
I grabbed a few books, my stash of ‘borrowed’ things, a torch and my favorite cap with the coat to go with it.

I managed to get it all up into the loft and had just turned away from the ladder to make one more trip when there was a loud crash of broken glass from downstairs.

At first I froze.
It wasn’t until there was a crunch of broken glass and a groan from the kitchen that I managed to kick back into gear.

I frantically climbed up the ladder and the moment my knees hit the lip I spun around to pull the hatch back up.
It took me a few seconds of struggling to get the ladder pulled back in.
My heart was hammering in my ears so loudly I couldn’t even tell if whoever was downstairs was coming closer or not.

As the hatch closed up at last, I managed to just about flick the pull string inside with it.

The moment the hatch shut tight I pushed the bolt on it shut and froze.
My heart was so loud as it thumped away in my chest!

I tried to keep my breathing quiet but it was hard to do when my lungs didn’t seem to want to work anymore.

Something crashed around down below.
As my heart slowed and my breathing evened out I could just make out some heavy footfalls.
My imagination was running wild with what it could be down there.

The obvious but stupid answer was like the news website said ‘Zombies’.
I’m not young enough to believe in that sort of thing anymore but some part of me still shuddered at the very idea of them.
My cousin showed me a movie with zombies in it when I was five, I couldn’t sleep for weeks afterwards!

Eventually the movements downstairs stopped.

I cautiously slid across the floor and got further away from the hatch.
Honestly, I don’t know why it made me feel better but it did.

Careful to not knock anything over I moved around to the high little round window at the far end of the loft.

There’s a bigger rectangular one on the other side of the loft but there’s boxes in the way to it and I’m not really sure I WANT to chance being seen through that big window.
The dull musty light coming through the dust coated little round window was more comforting and I THINK I can peek out of it without being clearly visible from down below.

I finally managed to get up to it and stretched up slightly to just peek over the edge.
The moment I got a clear view I let out a gasp and sunk back down before anyone could see me.

There are people out there?
A lot of them..

I think I saw some blood on the street?
It was hard to tell in my brief glance but there was definitely some dark liquid dotted around the place at the very least?!

“..zombies..”
The word hissed out of my lips and I frantically brought a hand up to cup over my mouth.

For a long moment I sat there frozen, waiting for the.. the zombie downstairs to move..

It HAD to have heard me?
It only came out as a whisper but in the silent house even a whisper was loud and easy to hear..

Nothing happened?.. it can’t have heard me somehow?

I let out a long breath of relief.
The feeling washed over me, bringing me back to myself a little more.

It’s really cold up here?

I shivered and shook as the cold seemed to dig deeply into my bones.
It’s really, really cold?

On silent feet I slipped over to the piles of clothing by the hatch.
My jacket went on easily along with my cap.
I pulled Mum’s bedding closer to the round window and doubled back to snatch up one of her nightgowns.

When everything was moved I settled down on her quilt and folded it over myself to get warmer.
My head propped against the pillows easily, with slightly shaking hands I brought her silky nightgown up and rubbed it against my face like I used to when I was younger.
It smells like her.. it smells like her and it’s so soft..

“..Mum..”
My voice trembled as I hissed the word out under my breath.

Somewhere outside, far in the distance from the sound of it, there was another explosion followed closely by something that sounded like the screeching of a car’s tires.
I huddled down tighter into Mum’s bedding and pulled her nightgown up to hide my face as tears started pouring from my eyes.

I.. I want my Mum..
I want my Mummm..

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Something crashed loudly.
I jolted awake with a surprised yelp.

It took a few seconds for me to work out what was happening.

My eyes stung from tears.
The loft was really creepy, barely lit by the moonlight coming from the circular window above my head.
I considered getting up to check what made the noise but it’s even colder now and honestly.. I don’t want to know what it was?

For the rest of the night I stayed huddled up in Mum’s bedding with her nightgown clutched tightly to my face like some kind of protective amulet.
When the first rays of the sun started making themselves known I slowly pulled myself free from the cocoon I’d made and carefully started moving around the loft a bit.

My goal was to make the space more comfortable.
I’m not going down into the house any time soon and honestly there’s not much else to do up here.

After a bit of searching I found a box full of old sheets.
I think Dad used them for painting at some point because they were covered in paint but they would do for what I needed them to do.

It took a while to move the boxes around and clear space when I was doing my best to not make noise but eventually I unburied the bigger rectangular window at the other side of the loft.
Naturally, I chanced a glance outside and breathed a sigh of relief when the street’s appeared to be empty.

That didn’t mean I trusted them though.
Mum was right, hiding is the best option!

A box of dad’s old tools gave me some cable ties and rope.
I used the safety blade from his box with a screwdriver to force holes through the sheets and tied them together to make a progressively longer single sheet.
It took a bit of struggling, in the end I had to undo the first sheet’s rope and wrap it around the long rafter that ran from one side of the roof to the other just above my head, but I got it in the end.

The finished product looked a bit like a shower curtain by the time I was done with a white canopy above it leading over to the ‘curtain’ on the other side.

I’d have to test it again when dusk comes but I left my torch on inside the ‘tent’ and when I stepped outside it I couldn’t see any light coming out at least?
I don’t think I could cope with having another long night without the torch again so having this bit done was a relief at least.

I opened the chicken packet to celebrate with some water but held off on using any of the crisps for now.

I’m NOT going back downstairs!
The food and water has to last me, and as horrible a through as it is, I don’t have a toilet up here either.

With that thought in mind I slipped out of the safety of the tent and got to work on my next project.
I stayed low as I moved about in the area nearest to the rectangular window but it was worth it, from under a pile of boxes I managed to get two old tires.
I think they are the spare wheels from Dad’s car, I have no idea why they’re up here but I’m SO glad they are!

It really didn’t feel like a good idea to put my ‘toilet’ near the big window but my head overruled my feelings on the matter.
They showed us how to make a ditch toilet in scouts, it’s different but the rules still apply, don’t dig the ditch too close to your tent.

A bit more box searching left me with some old bedding and cloth bits.
I used the blade to cut open the cardboard from the boxes and made a thick layer of them at the bottom, right in the corner by the window.
Hopefully the angle should keep me out of sight mostly.
The tires went on top and I draped a thick sheet over them, forcing it down into the center of the tires as much as possible.

The last of the rope went into tying around the tires to pull the sheet in tight so it wouldn’t slip and make even more mess.
I packed around the tires with anything heavy but roughly ‘brick’ shaped that I could find until the lowest tire felt like it wouldn’t move come hell or high water.

A long side of cardboard from one of the bigger boxes slid easily on top of the ‘toilet’ to create a lid of sorts.
From scouts I remember just how quickly these things can smell REALLY bad.
I don’t have any sawdust or anything to cover for it but I’ll keep looking as I go.
My last act before declaring the ‘toilet’ complete was to carefully tuck into the side of the rectangular window and slowly, so slowly it felt like I wasn’t even moving, crack the little window slits at the top open one at a time.

My heart was hammering in my chest at doing something that could so easily get me caught but luck was on my side.
True to what I saw earlier, if anyone was out there still they didn’t see the windows open at least.

The windows gave a lot more ventilation and the fresh air was nice but they brought the cold in with them too.
I dived back into my ‘tent’ for my jacket again just to stay warm.

The two most pressing jobs complete I was kind of at a loss for what to do next.
Despite the lack of power in the house I kept the cordless phone with me obviously, it made me feel better even if it didn’t work anymore.
After almost ten minutes of waiting I gave up with a huff and slid back out of my tent to start sorting through more boxes.
Half the stuff up here is ancient, I don’t think even Mum knows some of it’s up here?

I found some fancy looking plates and cups in one box and more importantly a wooden box of silver tableware.
Along with blunt dinner knives and forks there were five progressively large sharp knives, the kind that Dad used to use to cut the turkey at Christmas.

The biggest of them looked dangerous, the others weren’t much better but at least they were smaller.
I took all five anyway.
The smallest one I slipped next to Mum’s pillows and the rest I dotted around in hidden corners of the loft, just in case.

Despite how uneasy it made me I kept the big one at my side.
I almost cut myself on it a few times before I got used to its presence enough to remember not to put my hand down where it sat but it made me feel better to have it there and I DESPERATELY want to feel better right now!

Some old baby toys and clothes got moved to the circular window side of the loft and a set of musty old bedding got put inside the tent so I can make the floor more comfortable later.
I’d processed through about a quarter of the boxes of mostly junk on that side of the loft before I hit the jackpot.

Maybe it wasn’t exactly going to help save me from the Zombies or anything but I found a box full of photo albums which made me smile widely.
The box was heavy but I managed to quietly drag it into the tent by taking things slow and wiggling it a lot when it got stuck.

With something to focus on properly the rest of the day went fast.
I went through as many of the albums as I could, finding my favorites and splitting them out into one short but fat little album that had been empty beforehand.

Tears came at first, I spent about twenty minutes just staring at a picture of Mum from a few years ago when we went ice-skating.
She looked so happy..

Eventually the pain eased a little as I got swallowed up in memories of that day and with a tight smile I slide the photo into ‘my’ album before moving on to the next one with thankfully dry eyes at last.

By dusk I’d about half filled my new little album with photos and worked through about half the box worth of other albums too.
My stomach rumbled at me but I limited myself to a tiny sip of water instead of eating.
As the night truly fell I left my torch on and slipped out of the tent to double check how well the light was hidden.

A bit of left over cloth from the boxes earlier came into use as I tucked them in under the slight gap where the tent didn’t quite reach the floor.
There was a small amount leaking out from where the tent crossed the rafters so I tossed what cloth I could up there to lay over the edge until I couldn’t see any more light bleeding out.

Slipping back inside the tent was like coming in from outside with how bright it suddenly felt.
Instead of going back to the photo’s I grabbed one of my books and settled in for the night, propping the torch up against the low roof panel to limit how far the light spread while lying on top of the old bedding and wrapped up in Mum’s bedding for warmth.

After a few hours I marked my place, turned off the torch and settled down to sleep.
It didn’t come easily but eventually it did come at least.

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I lasted almost three days before giving into the stomach pains and eating a packet of crisps, another few hours went by before I had to give in to the inevitable and use the makeshift toilet as well.

It was really gross.
I had to use some strips of cloth to clean up and just a little bit of water but my gut felt better for it afterwards.

My album was finished and tucked inside my jacket for safe keeping.
I moved the box full of other albums back out of the tent into the ‘toilet’ area which had become a bit of a dumping ground for anything I found useless at this point.
In one of the last boxes to go through that side I found some battery’s for the torch and, while some of them had leaked probably from age, the ones remaining should last me for a while at least.

Two days after that I grew bored of reading and probably a bit stir-crazy too.
I hadn’t seen or heard anyone for days but fear and my half-formed nightmares about being eaten alive kept me from doing something about it.

Instead of being productive I sank into old habits, with a bit of a new twist at least.

I had a ‘tea party’.
I know it’s childish and silly but I’ve never had one before and I had all of Mum’s clothes sitting there and.. and I was desperately bored?!..

It kept me busy for a day cobbling together ‘dolls’ from the baby toy’s by the round window at least?
I used the plates and cups I found in that one box and spent a few hours carefully going through my options from Mum’s clothing trying to work out the ‘perfect’ outfit.

In the end I felt immensely silly kneeling on Mum’s bedding in her church dress with the ribbon belt awkwardly half tied into a bow at my back, pretending to pour drinks for ‘dolls’ and talking to them as if they were real in a quiet hush only I could hear, but it kept me sane in some small way.

I felt stupid and embarrassed when I eventually stopped but the crushing loneliness that had been building over the last few days had eased at least.
I was so desperate for human contact at this point I almost hoped to see a zombie outside or something just so I could pretend someone was out there again.

By the start of the second week I began marking my days on the floor with one of my knives.

My stomach became a constant nagging problem as hunger, ironically, ate away at me.
A little math told me that if I managed to stick to my current pattern of one packet of crisps per three day’s I would have enough to last a solid month but I’m not sure if I can keep going like this honestly?

I sorted more boxes, from the round window side this time, and found a stash of really old clothes that I think might have been Mum’s when she was a kid?
Some of them were way too small for me but others were a near perfect fit or a bit baggy in places.
The clothes were a lot more girly then Mum’s stuff, full of ribbons, ruffles and poufy underskirts.

The first day I wore them I was in heaven and couldn’t stop playing with them but as time went on they just became ‘my clothes’ to a point that I didn’t even realise what I was wearing half the time.

Mum’s clothes had slowly lost her smell to them as I wore them, instead of even trying to keep going I tucked most of her stuff into one of the spare boxes and stuck to the new, better fitting outfits to wear as the week went on.

To try and gain back some of what I’d lost, as well as cover the growing smell of the ‘toilet’ I sprayed the tent and my new outfits with her perfume.
It took a bit of trial and error to get the right amount down so I didn’t just get swamped in it but luckily it’s a pretty big bottle so I didn’t run out or anything.

I held another Tea party on the fourth or fifth day of the second week, I’m not really sure which, I think I might have forgotten to mark off a day at some point?

I felt less silly this time and it really helped when I gave the ‘doll’s the voices of people I know, in my head of course.
It may have been a mistake to give the most ‘female’ looking doll Mum’s voice though..
I ended up cutting the party short and huddling under the covers with the doll hugged to my chest while I cried heavy but silent sobs..

The next day I felt better and dived right in to sorting out more boxes.
I think I’m going crazy?
I swear I heard someone talking when I woke up but by the time my head had cleared I couldn’t hear anything at all.. just like always..

... (o.0) ... (o.o) ... (0.o) ...
.. (o.0) .(o.o) .. (o.o). (0.o) ..
... (o.0) ... (o.o) ... (0.o) ...
.. (o.0) .(o.o) .. (o.o). (0.o) ..

I think I finally reached week three today!
I’m not sure, I’m running out of food.. I think someone’s been eating my crisps?..
Was.. was it me?..

Everything’s blurring into a big mess.
I spent all of yesterday holding another tea party I think.. or was that the day before?

At some point I piled all the heavy stuff up against the wall under the round window and perched myself against it like a big cat.
I even meowed a bit and tried to lick my hands but that got boring quickly so I settled into sleeping under the warm sunlight and staring out at the dark city.

Maybe.. maybe it’s over?
I’ve not seen any zombies in ages.
There’s no-one here.. there’s no-one out there at all is there?!

The idea stewed in my head for ages.
Was there ever any zombie’s at all?
I’m starting to doubt myself.

Mum said bad people, she didn’t say zombies..
Maybe the news was wrong?

My head hurt almost as much as my stomach that night but I clung to the idea that just wouldn’t stop battering away at my resolve.

What if there are no zombies?
What if I’m just crazy?
What.. what if I can go outside again?

I could go find Mum!
She’d sort everything out.

During our tea party the next morning I asked my dolls for advice and they agreed with me.
It made so much sense, too much sense to ignore.

Zombies aren’t real!

I put on my best new dress, the cute one with the hearts and flowers on it and the fluffy warm underskirt thingy.
It looked really nice with some thick white tights from the box and my trainers.

I was practically humming as I lay on my belly near the hatch and considered it hard.
Maybe I can go outside again?.. I want to go outside..

The decision made I flicked the bolt open and slowly pushed the hatch down until the ladder could glide down clearly to the floor.
A thrill of nerves hit me as I lay there waiting for something to happen but it didn’t..
Nothing happened.. nothing ever happens?..

I slid over and put my feet onto the ladder to make my way slowly down, back into the hallway.
The house was a mess?
Things were knocked everywhere, all over the hallway..

Did I do all that?.. I can’t remember..

The hallway was dark with only a little light coming in from Mum’s bedroom windows still.
My belly grumbled and complained but I ignored it.
My belly never shuts up anymore.

Downstairs there was a sound.
I spun around to stare down the hallway, watching with bated breath as a slight shadow seemed to move towards me.

It’s Mum!
It’s got to be Mum!
She said she’d come for me and she did!

A wide smile came to my lips when the shadow moved a bit more but it died a moment later when a hand came past the wall followed quickly by a horrible, putrid, blood coated body attached to it.

I couldn’t tell if it was male or female but it turned and bared horribly white teeth to me.
Despite the way its jaw drooped and hung slightly loose with a great tear leading up its left cheek towards its eye it could still look at me.

I screamed.

It moaned and with almost glee it started moving towards me.
Cold reality and fear kicked through my idled brain.

I spun and started rushing up the ladder as fast as I could.

It reached the ladders base just as my chest eased past hatch and grasped my foot with cold, painfully tight fingers.
I screamed again and thrashed, kicking both of my feet while clinging on to anything I could get a hold on to stop it pulling me back over the edge.

In my panic my eyes settled on the big knife.
I’d left it a bit too far out of reach, I can’t remember the last time I even picked it up but I NEED it!

My kicks became more frantic and suddenly my free foot connected with something heavily.
The weight tugging on me let go and I scrambled back up the last few steps into the loft.
With trembling fingers I snatched up the knife and turned back towards the hatch.

The.. the thing.. the ZOMBIE..
It had fallen over but it was quickly getting back to its feet.

I dropped the knife at my side and tried to pull the ladder hatch closed.

The ladder seemed heavier now then I remember it being before.
I frantically tugged at it trying to get it closed before the thing could get back to its feet.

I’d almost managed to pull the whole thing closed when a horrible bloody hand landed onto the hatch and pulled it down.
Despite my position and stance I was almost pulled through the hatch as it fell open again.

Zombies aren’t meant to be this strong!
Zombies aren’t meant to be this STRONG!!

My fingers slipped and the hatch fell down, the ladder unfolding with a crash which is sure to bring more of the things after me.

My hands flew up to the side of my face and I almost gave up right there as the sunken eyes and wide hanging mouth of the thing turned up to me with a covetous groan.

I was sobbing and crying and panicking but it didn’t care!

My fingers found the knife again.
My hands shook so badly I couldn’t even pick it up for a moment but when I did I brought it forward and held it tight with both hands as if it would somehow scare the zombie away like a cross against a vampire.

It didn’t care.
It moved forward and landed a big solid hand onto the ladder.

Zombies can’t climb!
It can’t get up, Zombies can’t climb!!

Its head bowed slightly and after a horribly long moment as I stared at the patchy hair left on its decaying head in fear, it shifted a foot forward and placed it on the bottom rung of the ladder.
It’s horrible blood spattered face turned up to me and my heart practically stopped.

Zombies can CLIMB?!!

It stretched its hands up to grab me and almost managed it as I knelt at the hatch’s edge in shock.
A sudden jerk that was almost instinctive was the only thing that saved me, but its horrible hand stroked a bloody path along the skirts of my dress.

I screamed again.

Instinct came into play for the second time, the same instinct I used to get from spiders and other bugs.
It touched me! KILL IT!!

My hands shot down with the knife held tightly between both of them and in almost a dive-like movement I lunged at it and planted the knife solidly into its forehead.
For something so strong, the blade went in easily as if there was no bone to resist it at all.

I overbalanced when the zombie started falling and in a painful tumble we both collapsed to the hallway floor.

It took me a moment to realise that the screams were coming from me.
I stared at my arm, covered in blood, and back down at the now not moving but still horribly decayed zombie that had partly cushioned my fall.

Some primal part of my mind took over.
With a rush I practically sprinted back up the ladder and managed to pull the hatch up again with more strength then I seemed to have before this moment.
The second I managed to get the ladder pulled in I slammed the bolt back across the hatch and collapsed against the side of the roof in deep wracking sobs.

I’m not sure how long I sat there crying but eventually I came back to myself enough to realise one thing.

My dress was ruined?
There was blood all over it!
My nice warm tights weren’t much better, I lost one of my trainers too at some point?
My arms.. even my arms are coating in blood?..

Like a cornered animal I shot through the tent’s side into the toilet area.
I barely managed to reach the one unused corner before I puked.

I couldn’t stop shaking.
My hands scrubbed together frantically but the blood wouldn’t come off!

I yanked the dress over my head without opening the zipper in an effort to get it off quicker.
My hands scrubbed themselves all over the already bloody dress coating it in even more gore but cleaning themselves off neatly.
My remaining trainer went next and my hands trembled as I pulled down my white tights while trying to ignore the bloody handprints all over them.

After a long moment I pulled down my panties too.
I don’t know why I didn’t notice before but I wet myself at some point..

When everything was clear I kicked it all into the corner to cover the puke and huddled up against the roof again, naked and shivering but alive.
I stink!
The whole loft stinks!

I can’t.. I can’t go out of there again..
The zombies are real!

I lost myself to my tears again.
The blood dried on me by the time I stopped.

Almost mechanically I moved over to the water bottle and pulled it out of the tent.
A bit of spare cloth, in this case one of Dad’s old shirts, was spread out on the floor and I tipped as little water as I could out from the half empty bottle to wet it.

I rubbed the shirt on itself to get as much of it wet as possible and set to work cleaning off as much blood as I could.
Half an hour later and a little more water wasted I was about as clean as I’m going to get.
At least I don’t see blood every time I look at my arms anymore..

The water bottle went back inside my tent and I followed it, collapsing on my bedding and wrapping myself in Mum’s quilt for warmth.

My hands still shook as I reached out for the torch and flicked it on.
It glowed for a moment before slowly dying out again.
I shook it and bashed it on the floor a few times but it didn’t work.

With another sob I dropped the useless thing to the floor and pulled myself tighter into the quilt again.

Zombies are real.
Zombies can climb.
Zombies.. zombies, zombies, zombies!

Something loud crashed to the floor downstairs.
It was followed by more crashes and bangs.
There was an audibly echoing groan which obviously didn’t come from just one source right below me, it seemed to rumble up through the wood into my ear.

I sobbed harder and pulled myself tighter into the quilt one more time.

Never again!
I’m NEVER going outside again!!

... (o.0) ... (o.o) ... (0.o) ...
.. (o.0) .(o.o) .. (o.o). (0.o) ..
... (o.0) ... (o.o) ... (0.o) ...
.. (o.0) .(o.o) .. (o.o). (0.o) ..
... (o.0) ... (o.o) ... (0.o) ...

My eye’s cut over to the big window.
Something’s going on out there..

It’s not near but I can hear loud noises and stuff coming from the far side of town.

I gave up trying to be sneaky over the last few days.
The zombies know I’m here.

I think my house is possibly the last place nearby full of them at this point.
They all know I’m here.

They don’t let me forget that they are here either.
Even now I can hear them groaning and shifting about below my feet.

It’s driving me insane!!

Without secrecy being a priority anymore I could at least get a few things done.
I opened the bottom windows on the rectangular one wide enough to use some cardboard to toss out the filthy clothes from the corner.
It took a bit of working but I managed to change the sheet in the toilet too by boxing and tossing it.
The smell is actually bearable now.

I’m still spraying everything with Mum’s perfume when needed but it’s not as bad at least.

I got dressed eventually, although my clothing choices have taken a swing towards the practical.
I paired my jeans with two sets of thick tights underneath them.
Along with a thin dress made from some stretchy material from Mum’s stuff, I put a puffy knee length dress from ‘my’ stuff over the top of it all too.

A soft black waistcoat from one of Dad’s old suits went over the top of the mish-mashed outfit for practicality’s sake.

More layers is good, it makes me harder to grab and bite, the dress is light enough that if they get a hold on me the fabric will tear before I get slowed down too much but the dress doesn’t have any useful pockets.
I’d wear my jacket again but for what I’m planning that’s probably not going to help..

Dad’s waist coat is so good because it doesn’t get in the way much, it reaches my knees and the pockets are so deep that I can carry all but the big knife with me at all times.
Not that THAT’S much of a problem considering the big knife is still stuck in a zombie’s head downstairs.. there’s even an inside pocket that I can keep my photo album is too!

Part of me wants to run.
I’m out of food, I’m running low on water.
Things are happening outside too.

If I’m careful I could climb out of the rectangular windows onto the roof and shimmy my way to the ground somehow.
The zombies are all in the house, I’ve not seen any of them on the street at all despite practically camping out at both windows for the last few days.

It.. it feels like it’s my only chance?..
I’m not sure how much longer I can last here honestly.
I don’t want to go..
I don’t want to go outside again.. but I think I have to?

That’s why I’ve been preparing.

My cap is on tightly to protect my head as much as possible.
At least it stops my hair from being easy to grab.

I don’t have any gloves.
There’s nothing protecting my neck either and I’ve got these little girly shoes on that don’t seem to have much grip to them but they’re the best option from what I have.

I’m about as ready as I’m going to be.
A think I saw smoke coming from somewhere up the road yesterday morning, it didn’t last long but it wasn’t thick black smoke either.

It looked like a campfire?
A campfire means people, people mean food!

It’s either going now or giving in to the inevitable at this point.
I’ve had to catch myself more than once from staring at the hatch thoughtfully and considering if it wouldn’t just be the better option?

I’ve got my knifes, I’ve got my photo album and I’ve got my cap.
There’s nothing else important left here.

Even Mum’s nightgown has lost its meaning by now, for all it matters it’s just another bit of cloth.

“Now or never Riley..”
For a moment it felt like I could hear Mum’s voice again, encouraging me, echoing my words back at me.

The moment passed and all that was left was that incessant groaning again!

“SHUT UP!”
I stomped my feet down hard a few times which set them all off again.
They flooded around below me, in Mum’s office I think.

The curtains are closed.
If I’m quiet they will be chasing that banging for hours and completely miss my exit stage-left..

I cautiously moved over to the rectangular window on silent feet.
It was a bit of a squeeze but I managed to slip out of the bigger, lower window on the right-hand side.

For a moment I almost slipped and fell but a desperate swing of my arms managed to catch me on the windowsill instead.

There didn’t seem to be many options for getting down.
I know there’s a drainpipe outside my bedroom window but that’s on the other side of the house!

My eye’s scanned around and settled on next-doors back garden.

They have a trampoline?
It feels so long since I used to go over and play on it with Sam.

It’s not big or anything but it’s close to the low fence between our houses.
If I can make the jump.. I’ll have to cross half the roof to manage it but what other options do I have?

It was slow going.
I had to take gentle steps to make sure my useless shoes didn’t slide too much and cling to the tiles on the roof as much as possible.

In a few places I ended up pulling the tiles out but after a moments panic I regained my balance each time, slipped the tile into my waistcoat pocket to save any noise they would make as they fell and used the new hole as a more solid gripping point to move on from.

After a while I was purposefully pulling out tiles just so I had somewhere to hold properly from the hole they left behind each time.

Eventually I reached the far side of the roof and with a hand on the stone work at the edge I turned around to face the trampoline.
It looks a LOT further away from here..

“Don’t be a wuss Riley.”
My free hand moved to clench uncertainly at the edge of my dress’s skirt.

I don’t want to do this!
I don’t like heights!

I don’t like trampolines or Zombies either!

With a forceful gasp I pushed down my fear and before I could second guess myself I pushed off into the open.
My waistcoat caught slightly on the fence as I went down which jerked me about a bit.
There was a burning sharp pain in my side a moment later.
I landed on the trampoline with a loud creak and bounced a few times into a rolling stop.

I was on my feet in seconds but stopped short when the pain seared out again.

Tugging my waistcoat to the side slightly I could see what caused it..my knife?..
The little one, it had slipped somehow and cut into my side as I fell?

For a long moment I felt faint as I stared at the blood slowly spreading from the little hole in my dress but noise from my house followed in quick succession by a loud crash inside the neighbours place jolted me back into reality.

I slammed my waistcoat shut over the wound and tried to ignore it as I ran around the side of the house and yanked the bolts on the gate open to get outside.
My hand came to my side and I hissed in pain but the sounds coming from both houses were getting louder by the second.

I set off into a kind of lurching sprint down the street towards the place I saw the smoke yesterday.
I came to a hesitant stop at the first crossroads but a glance both ways showed only a single zombie off in the distance, standing around listlessly and completely ignoring me.

Despite the growing pain in my side I ran straight on.
A few hundred meters later the road bent and I came to a halt in shock as a massive barricade of overturned car’s came into sight.

It was still a way’s off but I swear I could see movement along the top of the ‘wall’?!

With cautious steps I moved along the street, my eyes peeled for any zombies that might be lying in wait for me but none came.
I was half way to the barricade when I spotted him.
Someone was behind the barricade!

I raised my arm to wave at him hopefully but before I could get my arm all the way up there was a loud bang and my arm exploded in pain.

I screamed.

I screamed REALLY loudly and collapsed to my knees in shock!
My eyes wouldn’t look away from my shoulder.. there’s so much blood?

I felt my screams die off and a sob replaced them.
There’s so much blood!

“No shit, it’s a KID?!”

My body collapsed forward despite my attempts to stop it.
I was face down on the floor curling around my bleeding shoulder in silent sobs of pain by the time a shadow crossed above me.

For a moment I thought it was a zombie.. and I was kind of relieved..

At least the pain will stop.
My stomach hurts, my head hurts, my side hurts and my shoulder hurts..
Everything hurts.. just.. just make it stop.. please?..

“Shit.. SHIT! JONAH GET THE MEDIC!”
Someone crouched down to my side and started trying to move me.
I batted at them weakly with my good arm but it was no use.
In seconds they had a grip on me and a moment later I was lifted into the air.
“Oh shit, it’s a little girl.. I shot a little girl.. shit, shit, shit!”

The world spun and we were moving.
I could hear his heavy footfalls but my eyes wouldn’t focus properly.
Just hearing his voice was soothing.. hearing another human’s voice again..

“Shit.. shit, shit! Hang in there kid! Stay awake!.. oh fuck, JONAH!”

We started rocking about and something sharp jabbed into my side.
I think I screamed but I’m not sure, the world disappeared in that moment.

... (o.0) ... (o.o) ... (0.o) ...
.. (o.0) .(o.o) .. (o.o). (0.o) ..
... (o.0) ... (o.o) ... (0.o) ...
.. (o.0) .(o.o) .. (o.o). (0.o) ..
... (o.0) ... (o.o) ... (0.o) ...
.. (o.0) .(o.o) .. (o.o). (0.o) ..

Fin?

It's that time of year again. Time to check in with the injury prone loft-dweller at long last, I suppose? Happy Halloween folks!

 

“-malnourished, dehydration, probably delirious from blood-loss, a stab wound to her side and a gunshot wound to her shoulder obviously...”

My head throbbed hard and I went to move on whatever soft thing I’m apparently laying on.
Before I could really do more than scrunch up my eyes a little someone’s hand latched onto my wrist and squeezed hard in warning.

After a moment or twos pause to process what was happening I took that to mean I should stay still instead and happily went along with that idea considering how oddly heavy I feel at the moment.

“How long until we can move her to the hospital?”
Another warning squeeze to my wrist came at that question from a second, more boyish sounding, voice but I didn’t need reminding to stay still at this point.

“A day or two, maybe?... They have better kit over at the hospital but I really want to get her stable before taking her back out there again.”

“Fair enough, keep me posted. Don’t be surprised if Falkner drops in at some point to visit, poor guys taking this whole mess hard, I’m sure he’ll feel better if he can see that she’ll survive this...”
The hand on my wrist gave me one more, hopefully reassuring, squeeze before letting go completely as its owner stepped away from me a little.

“Fine, just make sure he remembers this is a medical area. I don’t want him marching in here covered in Ghoul blood again like last time!”

“I’ll tell him... thanks Gloria, I know we have our problems but-”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, just get back to your troopers Nick before one of them accidentally shoots himself and I’ve got to fix that up as well, huh?”

The male voice, apparently belonging to some guy called ‘Nick’, fell into a deep chuckle that reminded me vaguely of my Dad for a few seconds.
It trailed off pretty quickly though, being replaced by loud footsteps that moved away from us until finally the room fell silent with an almost deafening swish of heavy sounding fabric.

For a long, tense few seconds I laid as still as I could, waiting for something else to happen.
Luckily it did eventually as the female voice of ‘Gloria’ spoke out again followed by her own lighter footsteps a moment or two later as she moved closer to my side again.

“I know your awake dear, how are you feeling?”
Instead of answering I groaned to myself and tried to roll over slightly only to pause with a pained hiss as a sharp pain in my side made itself known.
“Ah, I wouldn’t move too much at the moment dear. You’re still not really in any shape to do anything that drastic, it’s amazing you’re alive at all honestly...”

“W-what happened?”
My voice sounded so soft and hoarse that it felt barely recognisable to me at first.

Just hearing another human voice at last, knowing I’m not the only one out here, that there are men with guns on walls, and ‘Nick’s, and ‘Gloria’s around was good enough for now though.
I’ve heard my own voice plenty lately, enough to last me a lifetime honestly.

“You were shot, not badly, more of a flesh wound then anything but along with the shallow stab wound to your chest and what appears to be weeks of starvation it was the last straw I’m afraid.”
She sighed heavily and I made an effort to open my eyes at last, failing miserably a few seconds later with a huff of my own.
“You’ve been unconscious for a few hours now, I’ve had you on a drip but that and soup are about the only things I have on hand to help at this point, we really need to get you back to the hospital soon but there are some things we need to discuss beforehand...”

It took more effort than feels right for some reason but after a few tense seconds of forceful thinking I managed to pull my eyes open, reflexively blinking and wincing them shut again almost instantly despite the low-light level in the big tent we’re apparently camped inside.

“The obvious questions like ‘where you came from?’, ‘where’s the rest of your group?’ or even your name can wait for now dear. I have a much more important and time sensitive problem to deal with first.”
My eyelids still felt heavy but eventually I managed to force them open again, just enough to finally catch a glimpse of ‘Gloria’ for a few seconds before they shut again leaving me feel unfairly tired afterwards.

“...You look like my Mum...”
She looks nice, I like nice...

“I really need you to focus for me honey, I’m sorry, I know you’re tired but this is important.”
She let off another huff of breath at the end of that sentence.
I’m starting to think it’s a nervous habit or something, like when Mum bites her nails and then tells me off for doing it too.
“I don’t know how much you’ve been told already but the world is a very different place now and it’s a very dangerous place for a... girl... like you?”

“M’a boy-”
Despite my best efforts to get the words out properly even my lips are fighting back against me now.
I’m not sure if she even understood me at all.

“Well... that makes this a whole lot more complicated...”
She sighed again. She keeps sighing, it’s kind of annoying?
“I’ll be honest with you; the militia we’re currently being hosted by aren’t nice people dear, the only reason you’re alive at the moment is that they think you’re a girl.”

Wh-what? Why is that-
Why would that m-matter?

“They’re survivors, strong, but they’re ruthless too. They have some kind of wider plan going on at the moment and from what I can tell, women and female children are part of that plan... while men, specifically certain types of men, and boys in general... aren’t?”
My eyes slowly peeked open as she kept speaking and even I could see the shudder that went through her body at that last word.
I don’t know what it really means but it looked bad from the expression on her face if nothing else.
“You’re lucky I was here, I don’t even want to think what could have happened if one of their field medics got to you first honey... and that leads to my big problem here...”

Her hands fidgeted nervously and she reached for a small brown leather bag that had been hidden in a pile of bandages on a table nearby from the looks of it.

“You won’t survive five minutes in the main hospital without some help dear.”
She sighed heavily and ran her fingers over the edge of the bag in her hands.
“Since you were recovered I’ve been scavenging what I can from a nearby pharmacy the militia cleared out a while ago and I think I can help... help make you at least look like a girl long enough for you to find someone who can move you on to somewhere safer at least, safer for someone like you...”

The bag fumbled slightly in her hands but eventually she got it open and pulled out a needle in some plastic packaging, causing me to lean away from her slightly in fright.

“I thought you... I thought you identified as a girl, from the way you were dressed when they brought you in... but now, knowing you still think of yourself as a boy, that’s going to make this even harder-”
Her fingers moved quickly as she took the needle out and pushed it into a little jar that also came from inside that little leather bag before turning back to me with worried eyes.
“-I’m sorry for this honey but it really is the only way to keep you alive. When you wake up, don’t panic and answer any questions the men have for you.”
Her fingers fumbled slightly again and she stared at me with worried eyes for a few seconds.
“Just do what they say and hopefully we’ll both get out of this alive, okay?”

Before I could answer, her arm moved with seemingly lightning-fast speed and she stabbed me with the needle in her hand.

I barely got out an almost silent scream of fear before the world started getting hazy.
My eyes were already reluctant to stay open in the first place but this time when they blinked closed they stayed that way and slowly the world disappeared around me into darkness.

... (0.0) ... (0.0) ... (0.0) ...

“-should be awake any time now.”

My eyes snapped open and I let off a frightened yelp, jerking away from the needle in my arm in the few moments of confusion that came from having woken up so suddenly.

That turned out to be a very bad idea because, when I rolled slightly, something pulled in my side leading to a sharp pain that made me want to cry out all over again.
In seconds a man was in front of me, his hands on my shoulders to help support me as I flailed uselessly against the pain and cried in fear.

Another sharp jab happened somewhere near my shoulder and slowly I could feel the panic going away, not really ‘gone’ but just feeling more muted and flat as time went on.

“It’s only a mild sedative. Don’t worry, she should be fine for your questions but I’ll probably have to restrain her if she’s going to wake up like that more often... until her wounds are stable enough for her to move so suddenly at least.”
My eyelids felt heavy for some reason and I slumped against the man as my body started sinking further down into the bed around me.

Eventually I seemed to stop moving at last, allowing me to let out a long breath that felt really nice for some reason.

“You with me kid? Let’s start with something simple, what’s your name?”
Out the corner of my eye I could see Gloria suddenly tense and pale slightly.
I tried to work out why she’d react like that to such a simple question but it was hard to focus on her and the man asked a question, not answering would be rude...

“Riley?”

That’s my name, my name’s Riley... right?
Why does Gloria look so relieved all of a sudden?

“That’s a pretty name, do you know where your parents a-”
My face scrunched up slightly as I tried to think but the man seemed to change his mind before I could answer, continuing on with a different question instead.
“-where’s your group Riley? The group you were with before you reached us, did you get separated maybe?”

Separated... Separated how? What ‘group’ is he going on about?
There’s just me, only me...
Me, on my own with the zombies... and no-one else, right?

No! There are people now too?!
Gloria, and Nick, and this guy whoever he is, and that guy who shot me, and-
“-are you all real?”

“Shit, how much of that junk did you pump into her Doc?”
Glora seemed to swell up like a big fluffy, bird as the man turned away from me to face her but she didn’t say anything properly in response and eventually he turned to face me again, looking more than a little bit angry.

Why isn’t anyone talking?
I miss the talking...

“Don’t give me that look Doc. We need to know where she’s from.”
The guy raised a hand and ran it nervously through his hair.
“People could be looking for her and I’ve seen too many panicked parents go out looking for their kids only to come back a few days later as Ghouls for me to just leave this all to chance.”

Huh?
What’s... tha’ mean?...

“I’m... was in m’house, Mum said to hid’... so I di’... bu’ then I-urnnn...”
The words stopped coming and my head dropped suddenly sideways as everything went dark again.

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“Riley... Riley wake up honey...”

“Jus’ five more minutes Mum”
She jabbed me lightly in the arm with her fingers in response but that was easy to ignore, she does it all the time when I’m a little late for school in the morning after all.

With a sigh I rolled over slightly to get more comfortable, only to jolt up, suddenly wide away as pain registered in my side where my arm was tucked under me.

For a few seconds I rolled around on the bed slightly, silently gasping as the pain returned.
That stopped pretty quickly when a woman who was definitely NOT my Mum grabbed my shoulders and held me down a few moments later though.

All I could do is stare up at her in confused horror as the world slowly started making a bit more sense again, piece by piece.

“W-where’s my Mum?”
The woman looked really sad for some reason, not that it helped me much obviously.

Slowly details started making sense again and recognition flared in my head.
Where I was, first from the hospital smells around us, then the tent roof above and finally settling on-
“-Gloria?”

She smiled at me in a strained way like Mum does whenever someone brings up Dad around her.

“I’m sorry Riley. I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to knock you out like that.”
A little smile perked up on her lips as she watched me stare at her in confusion.
“You’re a lot smaller then you should be for your age young lady, either that or I got your age wrong... how old are you by the way?”

“I’m ten”
Ten and a half really, last I checked, but Mum said it’s rude to tell people that bit...

“Oh my, you really are small for your age then, aren’t you?”

Um... maybe?
I don’t know.

I’ve not had much to eat lately, I guess?
I noticed my clothes were getting kind of baggy in the loft at some point.
I’m not sure when though; a lot of stuff that happened in the loft is all a blur for some reason.

I think I had a tea party at some point?... or maybe that was just my imagination...

“I’m sorry to wake you up like this honey but, against my better judgement, we’re moving out soon.”
Moving, moving where?... Why?

“I need to go home-”
My elbows tucked backwards slightly to push me up on the bed but failed making me slide back down with a groan a second or two later.
“-Mum could be there waiting for me, she said I had to wait for her and she’d come for me...”

Even before I’d finished speaking Gloria was giving me this really sad, understanding look and shaking her head a little.

“This position was never meant to be permanent Riley. The Militia Commander had us out here looking for supplies and searching basements for portable generators or fuel sources.”
Her hand came up to brush her hair back behind her ears and she glanced away from me before continuing.
“You’ve been asleep for almost two days now. The men are done searching everywhere reasonably within range and the Ghouls are getting riled up too much to keep the camp safe anymore...”

She shifted a little bit and slid onto the bed next to me, gently wrapping her arms around me like Mum used to do if I had a nightmare or something.

“I need to strap your side and shoulder up tight, then we’ll go get some food for you before the convoy moves out.”
Her hand came up to brush my hair back from my face too for a moment before she continued.
“I know you want to be near your home Riley but in a few hours it’s just not going to be safe here anymore... I can’t leave you alone here... please don’t make me do something like that?”

The hurt in her voice was upsetting on its own but with everything else that’s been happening lately and the hazy confusion I could still feel settling over me I found myself breaking down in tears no matter how much I tried to hold them back.

As much as I want to find Mum, I can’t go back to the loft again!
I know she’s coming for me because she said she would... but I can’t... I

I’m finally out, and there are people now, and Doctors, and food!

“...I w-want my Mum...”
It sounded stupid even to my ears.

It sounded like something a little baby would say but Gloria didn’t laugh at me for it and we ended up sitting there in a slightly painful hug for a while instead as I cried to myself far more then I can remember doing in such a long time.

“Don’t worry Riley. I’m sure she’s out there somewhere and she misses you. When we get back to base I’ll help you search for her, okay?”
My breath came in and out really shakily for some reason which wouldn’t stop, even when our eyes finally met once more.

We both stared into each other’s eyes for a few seconds as I tried to see if she really meant it or not.

“I promise Riley, I’ll do everything I can to find out what happe-”
She hesitated for a moment but then her eyes got softer again and she gave me another squeeze.
“-where your Mum is, okay dear?”

Slowly I nodded back, letting a long shaky breath out afterwards as a big smile came to her lips in response.

“Right then, little-miss, time we got you up and ready to move. This is going to hurt a bit but it’s for your own wellbeing, Doctor’s orders.”
I found myself nodding still despite how bad that sounded.

After a few seconds, what she’d actually said finally registered in my slow brain and I cocked my head to the side slightly in confusion as I stared back at her.

“I’m not a g-”
Before I could finish what I was going to say she brought a hand up to my mouth and gave me a worried look, turning her head around quickly as if searching to make sure there were no zombies nearby or something.

“I thought you understood by now... we, uh... we need to play a game for now Riley, okay?”
A game?... What kind of game is-

“Until I say if you win or not, you have to pretend that you’re a girl, okay?”
Her eyes were really tight despite the wide smile on her face as she carried on.
“All the time, you’ve got to pretend all the time that you’re a girl, or else you lose and... and you’ve got to, uh... clean all the Militia toilets with a toothbrush!”

She pulled a ‘grossed-out’ face before crossing her eyes somehow in a silly way that made me laugh automatically, even as I tried to get my head around this new ‘game’ of hers.

I’m not stupid!
The guy earlier who kept calling me a girl...
Whatever she did to me before, when she first explained about what they do to men and boys around here, to make me look more like one...

I’d kind of forgotten for a minute there
I’ve only just woken up and everything’s still a bit weird but... I remember it all now and this feels a lot less like any sort of a ‘game’ then I think either of us are able to pretend it is for some reason?

This is like the loft all over again!
I know what I need to do to survive, I know that doing otherwise could be REALLY bad now too.

Bad enough to even scare Gloria!
I learnt my lesson when I dropped the ladder in the loft, because I stupidly thought a z-zombie was my Mum coming home somehow and I’m NOT falling for that sort of thing again!

“Okay, I bet I’ll win!”
Gloria smiled widely at me and patted my head before moving over to a worryingly big pile of bandages she’s got sitting ready on the table near my bed.

“Okay then Princess, let’s get you ready to see the troops then, shall we?”

My face automatically tried to pull itself into a grimace at being called a ‘princess’ but I managed to hold it back enough that it eventually turned into a smile.
With one more glance over towards me Gloria gave me a smile in return a few moments later.

Girls like princesses and I’ve gotta be a girl now too... this is going to be harder than I thought!

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“...Oww...”
My spoon fell from my fingers as they twitched hard from the pain that came from my shoulder’s new bandages being so tight.

A splash of the tomato soup I’d been trying to eat landed on the new dress Gloria managed to find for me somewhere as it fell back into the bowl, much to my annoyance.

For a few seconds I stared sadly down at the front of the dress where a big red blob now ruined it’s otherwise kind of nice, really light yellow, color.
One of the soldiers near us laughed and said something about ‘girls’ getting ‘dirty’, making me blush heavily and slump forward to hide as best I could despite being the only kid in the room, let alone one of only two people not wearing a military looking uniform.

At least I didn’t get any soup on my Dad’s waistcoat.
Gloria tried to say I shouldn’t keep it but I managed to talk her around by showing her how useful the pockets on it could be.

I think that’s what convinced her at least?
It was either that or the fact that everyone seemed really twitchy when they saw me walking around with bandages all over my shoulder that the thin little straps of this dress really don’t do a good job of hiding at all sadly.

I don’t know why everyone would be twitchy about bandages, that’s Mummies not Zombies after all, but they were and everyone seems a lot calmer now that you can barely see any bandage sticking out of the way-too-big arm holes of my waistcoat instead.

Either way I got to keep it in the end, so everyone’s happy at least!

“How’s she doing Gloria?”
My head snapped up to stare with wide eyes at the man who’d approached us.
It’s that ‘Nick’ guy again, he looks a lot more relaxed and happy then he did the last time I saw him for some reason.

“She’ll survive, we might need her sitting on the carts with someone to carry her if you can spare a man but apart from that I’ve done everything I can for now.”

They both seemed to share some weird, silent, conversation over my head for a few seconds which I think Gloria won judging by the sigh Nick gave off in the end.

“I’ll get Falkner, poor guy’s not been too good with a gun since... the incident...”
Judging by the pretty obvious look he tried to shoot at me without my knowing it, I’m guessing ‘the incident’ means when I got shot?

Come to think of it, I think he said the guy who shot me was called ‘Falkner’ at some point, didn’t he?
I don’t know... everything’s a bit hazy still from when I first got here but I’m pretty sure that’s what he said at least!

“We’re leaving everything but the tents and useful equipment behind, be ready to leave in an hour or so Gloria. I’ve got some of my more careful guy’s packing up your kit to go on the cart with the truck flippers as we speak, so you just keep an eye on her and make sure you meet up with Falkner before we set off, ya hear?”

They had another silent conversation there for some reason but this time Gloria lost I think because Nick walked off without another word and after a short pause she sighed to herself instead of smiling or something that seemed more obviously ‘I won’-like, to me at least.

“Right... you heard the boss-man Riley, finish up your soup and I’ll go get some more for you in a flask, just in case you get hungry on the way... When you’re done we’ll go find Mr Falkner, okay?”
Her voice didn’t quite sound normal for some reason, although to be fair, a lot of voices don’t sound normal to me anymore after so long without hearing them so maybe it’s just me.

Either way, she took my curious staring as some kind of agreement apparently because she pushed herself up from her seat across from me and made her way over to the big pot-thingy full of soup that she got my bowl from originally instead of saying anything else.

With a slightly frustrated sigh I looked back down at my bowl with its fallen spoon once more.

A slight grimace spread across my face before I finally realised how stupid I was being and I leaned over slightly to switch hands, picking the spoon up with my left a little awkwardly but without the same horrible levels of pain I got when lifted it to my mouth using my right instead.

No need to waste it... even if it has gone a bit cold now, and I don’t really like this sort of tomato taste normally, food is food after all!

I only like tomato’s on pizza... I miss pizza.

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“Clear!”
“Clear!”
We shuffled on a bit more, the bumpy, dirt-covered road under us making the big cart-thingy we’re sitting on rock a little and making my head bounce into the arm of Mr Falkner beside me as we went.

“Clear!”
“Clear!”
We moved on a little more and I couldn’t hold it in anymore, despite my best efforts to just be quiet in general at the moment.

“Why do they keep saying ‘clear’ all the time?”

Mr Falkner turned his head down towards me slightly and a little smile showed on his lips for a few seconds before he looked back up, his hand on the far side from me twitched a little with the big knife he has clutched close to his leg without him seeming to really notice it.

“They’re scouting the streets as we go to make sure there are no Ghouls hanging around.”
He glanced down to me again and smiled a little more.
“If they spot one or two, they’ll call it out and some of the big guys at the front in the body-armor will go to deal with them. If they spot more than that they’ll raise their fists and we have to all be really-really quiet, okay Riley?”

I couldn’t help but gulp slightly at the idea of zombies being so near again, let alone more than one of them!

Eventually I nodded anyway, then fixed my eyes on the ‘scout’ guy nearest to us intensely, which Mr Falkner seemed to find funny for some reason judging by his laugh and the pat he gave to the top of my head.
I swear, he treats me like I’m some kind of well-behaved puppy sometimes...

“Clear!”
“Clear!”
We moved on a bit more.

There’s a lot more men around then I thought were in the ‘camp’ we just left honestly?
They have loads of them walking alongside the four big wagon things that they call ‘carts’ at least.
The carts are practically full with stuff, including the back one where Gloria is sitting with her Doctor kit and these massive rod-things with hoses coming out of them that Mr Falkner called the ‘truck flippers’ when I asked about them earlier.

How anything that big and thin can flip a truck I’ll never know!
He said it was something to do with Sea-owe-two and ‘drolic trolley jack’s on steer-oi-ds’... whatever THAT means?

“Clear!”
“Cl- Contact!”

Everyone seemed to freeze in fear for a moment before suddenly there was a lot of action happening all around us, seemingly out of nowhere.

In front of us the armor wearing men moved towards the right ‘scout’ guy who’d changed his call at the last second and I tensed in my seat nervously.

I couldn’t really see what was going on, although Mr Falkner didn’t help matters there by practically pulling me into his lap the moment the call went out, hugging me tight to himself while his knife-holding hand came up from his hip to rest protectively in front of us both as he scanned around almost as nervously as I felt.

I kind of wanted to struggle a little to get away from him because being hugged like this is kind of scary in itself, that’s not even mentioning the fact that he’s squeezing my chest and shoulder a little too tightly which is hurting me a little!

I didn’t say or do anything though.
In the end I just leaned back against him as hard as I could to release some of the pressure and put some more space between me and the slightly shaking blade in his hand as well.
I’m not STUPID after all!

The wait seemed to take forever after the men in big thick suits of black ‘body-armor’, like the kind you see cops on TV wear, disappeared around the corner.

Eventually they came back and some people moved over to clean off what I think might be blood that they had on them with water and rags, which kind of reminded me of my own experiences getting clean after my first zombie kill too... enough so that I ended up shuddering a little which only seemed to encourage Mr Falkner to hug me tighter for a bit longer sadly.

“Clear!”
“Clear!”
Just like that the calls went out again and the carts moved off at their painfully slow speed once more.

Mr Falkner loosened his grip on me at last but didn’t fully let go or slip me back onto the seat next to him, keeping me sat on his lap protectively instead like some big teddy bear or something.

“Clear!”
“Clear!”
As our cart finally rolled past the street where the scouts had found some zombies, I couldn’t help but stare at the three bodies crumpled to the floor in the middle of the street.

Pools of horrible dirty blood seemed to already bee forming around them, despite the fact that all the zombies I’ve seen so far didn’t seem to even HAVE that much blood left in them to start with?

“Don’t look Riley”
A bit too late, Mr Falkner brought his hand up to block my view and turned me slightly in his lap so I was facing away from the street again.

It confused me at first why he would try to protect me like that considering I’ve killed one with my own hands, and a really big knife, already... however much of a panicked and useless mess I was about it all at the time at least.

Then it finally clicked in my head that he not only thought I was a girl, but I’ve not really had a chance to share my ‘story’ with anyone in the militia yet, have I?

I’m not even sure if I would have if I’d had the chance to do just that honestly?
The militia are human and gave me food, while treating my wounds so they’re at least a step or three above the alternative, zombie, company I could have right now... but I don’t really trust them yet.

I get the feeling Gloria doesn’t trust them either, which really isn’t helping that bad first impression sadly.

I’m staying with them obviously, it’s not like I have many options at the moment anyway.
I’ll feel a lot better if I can get one of my knifes back or something similar soon though, just so I can defend myself if the worst happens, or they find out I’m a boy, or just anything that might leave me trying to survive out here alone at least!

“Clear!”
“Clear!”

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The scout on our right froze for a second and rose his fist up in the air making our whole slow moving group come to a near instant halt.

Everyone seemed to hold their breath for a few seconds to a point that, as far as I could see, Mr Falkner seemed to be the first person who actually moved again after that really worrying signal.

Instead of doing something ‘soldier-y’ like the men around us who slowly started moving themselves at last as they all shuffled forward to assess the situation up ahead.
He eased me off his lap and slid down from the cart while tucking his knife into his belt and reaching up to ease me down to ground-level again.

We quickly moved back along the line of carts as people moved past us going the opposite way to eventually meet up with Gloria near the back, who seemed to be getting more worried with every step we took towards her.

“Doc, can you carry Riley?... I’ve got a bad feeling about this and if things go wrong we need to be ready to move.”

My eyes shot wide open in fear as I turned to stare up at Gloria who visibly gulped before nodding her head and leaning down slightly to pick me up into her arms with a surprising amount of ease.
For a few seconds she jogged me up and down on her hip before glancing back at Mr Falkner with a tight-lipped smile and a nod to show she was ready.

“Good. We’re only a few streets out from the defensive perimeter, the nearest normal entrance is a thin alleyway with bright red paint splashed all over the walls, you can’t miss it, if anything happens to me just... just get Riley to safety, okay?”
I could feel her nod again by the way her hair brushed against my ear but I couldn’t look away from Mr Falkner’s worried face in my frightened state no matter how hard I tried.

He seemed to be psyching himself up for something as he took in a few deep breaths then he ducked down behind the cart, only to come back up clutching two guns in his shaking hands, a long black metal one that I think is a shotgun of some sort and a much smaller pistol, like the kind you see everyone using on TV in cop shows and movies.

He nodded this time and eased his way around the cart for a better view up towards the action ahead of us that’s caused all this panic in the first place.

Slowly he slid the pistol down the back of his shirt and took a solid, two-handed grasp on the shotgun instead as gunshots started ringing out from up ahead of us.

Apparently those gunshots shouldn’t have happened because everyone around us moved practically as one towards them; guns raised and ready to take out any zombies they could see!

Only one or two soldiers seemed to be of the same mind-set as Mr Falkner because, as we moved left and made our way carefully down the street, a few of them practically ran into us while they made their own way towards the same street Mr Falkner was aiming for.

They all shared a look between themselves before nodding and moving together like a well-oiled machine to surround me and Gloria on all sides with Mr Falkner in the lead.
The gunfire behind us got louder with shouts joining it a few moments later and that was enough to kick us up from a silent, light jog, to an outright run in seconds.

Every gunshot I heard made me flinch because I know what loud noises do to the zombies.
I’ve seen it happen enough times from my window in the loft.

Something as simple as a rather loud metal trashcan falling over can set them all off in a frenzy, with zombies seeming to appear from every shadow to join the mass that moved towards that noise for the horribly tense period of time it took for them all to disperse back towards their favorite haunts once more when they can’t find anything to hunt near where it happens.

I couldn’t help but scream and bury my face in Gloria’s shoulder when a horribly loud bang went off near me and, seemingly in response to that, everyone picked up their pace once more as they moved down the street together.

Despite my better judgement I lifted my head enough to check my surroundings again and found myself paling pretty badly as zombies in all their horrible shambling states of decay started appearing from the buildings around us.

The tell-tale, deafening ‘bangs’ of gunfire going off from the soldiers around us to keep them from getting too close while we kept moving down the middle of the street as fast as humanly possible made me shudder in fear almost as much as the falling bodies that followed them did moments later.

We came to a crossroads and paused, lining up against the wall near to the edge of our street so Mr Falkner could peer around it and check to see if the coast is clear.

Eventually he pulled himself back and turned to look at us all once more.
Judging by the expression on his face, it really wasn’t looking good down that way...

To my surprise he stepped away from the wall and closer to us, me and Gloria, as the men behind us fired again to take out a zombie which had gotten too close for comfort in our slight pause.

“Gloria... take my gun, give me Riley...”
It wasn’t a question, nor an order strangely.
Just a statement of what is going to happen, given voice.

His hands were shaking but his eyes were certain as he reached out to take me in his arms, which Gloria almost reflexively helped him do by sliding me off her hip.

He got me settled after a few seconds and even from here I could feel his heartbeat hammering away in his chest, despite his best efforts at looking calm and sure of himself for the others at the moment.

After a moment or two more he turned to the men with us and gave them all questioning glances, almost as one they all straightened up and snapped off a salute to him, the nervous looks a lot more obvious on their faces then his.

“I’m not going to lie, there’s a lot of them... but they’re slow, they’re disbursed and we have the element of surprise because the others are making so much noise at the moment.”
He sighed heavily and flinched slightly as one of the men in front of us let off another round taking out another zombie who’d gotten too close once more.

“I need a volunteer to get their attention. If someone goes out there making noise and moving around a lot on the far side of the street then the Ghouls should all bunch up and move towards them... when it’s clearer we’ll make a break for it, get the kid and the Doc to the alleyway, then provide covering fire to let the volunteer through for as long as we can...”
He sighed and ran his free hand through his hair in a way that reminded me a lot of ‘Nick’ back with the others behind us.
“So... who’s up for being the hero?”

There was an almost painful silence as none of the men put himself forward for the dangerous decoy job that even I could tell was practically suicidal just from the looks on their faces.
Finally someone coughed and stepped forward...

Unfortunately it was Gloria who did it.

What followed was a rather heated, if rushed, argument about priorities.
The rules about ‘self-sacrifice’, sexism in an apocalypse and quite a few more topics I couldn’t really follow due to interruptions from seemingly random gunfire too close to my ears but in the end Gloria won, much to my growing horror.

She didn’t waste any time once the decision was made.

With one last long look at me, her hand coming up to cup my cheek for a moment, she practically marched her way out from the cover of our wall and started to make a worrying amount of noise while sprinting towards the row of buildings furthest from us while Mr Falkner turned his body so he could watch her better and I couldn’t.

Apparently that movement was part of his plan at the time, judging by how he stopped my head when I tried to twist for a better view instead.

For a nerve-wracking count of seconds all I could do was watch the nervous soldiers behind his back and listen as Gloria made progressively more loud noises, mostly by screaming bloody-murder at the top of her lungs from the sound of it?

Finally after what felt like a lifetime of statue-like inaction we were moving so fast that it took me a few seconds to even work out what was going on as I bounced against Mr Falkner and he sprinted along the street.

As we went on, zombies started coming into my view range.

Their slow heads turning to follow us despite Gloria’s distraction which worryingly I could only just about catch a glimpse of from between them as she ran backwards with wide frightened eyes and the mob of zombies split between her and us.

Before the reality of what was going on had fully sunk into my stalled, fear-ridden mind, one of the soldiers who’d slowed down slightly to aim at a zombie ahead of us let out a loud yell as one managed to get behind him and sink it’s horrible rotting mouth full of teeth into his unprotected neck.

Mr Falkner didn’t even flinch at the sound, if anything he just ran faster a moment or two later.
The other men around us weren’t so sure of themselves apparently because they all seemed to freeze and hesitate for a few seconds, staring at the now dying man in shock.

Almost inevitably that lead to them being left behind as Mr Falkner charged on forwards and the zombies started to turn in on them all.

“Almost there. Almost there.”
I’m not sure if Mr Falkner even realised he was speaking at first but eventually he spoke again, proving that on at least some level he was talking to me.

“When we get to the mouth of the alleyway Riley I’m going to put you down, the moment your feet hit the ground I want you to run. Run as fast as you can down the alleyway and wave your arms around while shouting ‘uninfected’ as loud as you can, can you do that for me Riley?”

I didn’t even get a chance to answer before a shadow fell over us as we reached the alleyway he’d just mentioned and in one smooth motion that only slightly jolted my still hurting shoulder he set me on the ground before spinning away from me and pulled the pistol from the back of his shirt in one smooth motion.

At least five zombies were shambling towards the mouth of the alleyway as he turned and I couldn’t help but freeze in fear, flashes of my past interactions with these horrible monsters rooting my feet to the ground like they were made of solid brick or something.

A string of gunfire went off, not wildly like those we heard coming from the cart group a minute ago, but precise and spaced out single shots instead.
The five distinct shots timed almost perfectly with explosions of blood from the heads of the zombies in front of us as they echoed around the alleyway to a deafening degree.

“RILEY, RUN!”

My feet stumbled slightly as I took my first step backwards, my eyes not leaving the pile of now obviously dead zombies at the front of the alleyway at first until a few more gunshots rang out and a distinctive scream which could only have come from Gloria finally broke me out of it enough to turn on a heel and run as fast as I could away from the chaos outside.

More gunshots, more shouting and more horrible moans from the zombies followed after me but I didn’t stop to process them, couldn’t stop at this point I think.

I just ran on down the dark little alleyway as fast as I could, my eyes fixed in the middle distance where a speck of brighter light could be seen glinting invitingly towards me.

As I got closer to the light it finally sunk behind a barrier ahead of me that had previously been hidden by the near blinding effect the light had caused for my straining eyes and I practically skidded to a halt as yet again I found myself facing a giant pile of overturned vehicles.
This time it was complete with wooden spikes and panels placed around, looking a lot more ‘permanent’ then the wall I originally found back at the militia camp we left behind this morning but no less intimidating yet welcome at the same time.

The minute I came to a stop, there was a loud crash from behind the ‘wall’ and seconds later a rather tired looking older man with a scruffy beard wearing some kind of body-armor made out of, what I think might have once been, car-body parts jumped over the edge of the wall.

He came to rest in a ready crouch, still a short ways in front of me, with a sad look in his eyes despite his gritted teeth.

A few seconds later someone threw a really awkward looking spear over the wall which landed with a clatter between us and his eyes tightened down in determination that wasn’t hard for me to understand the meaning behind.

With a scream I threw my good arm up in the air like Mr Falkner told me to as best I could and yelled.
“I’m human!”

The words came out without me really realising it at first but apparently they were the right ones to say despite what Mr Falkner actually told me to say because the man’s spear lowered slightly and he slowly stood up out of his crouch as a load of noise started coming from behind the wall that I’m pretty sure could only be people shouting at each other.

“Help, please?! There’s zombies back there and Mr Falkner, and Gloria, and the others need HELP!”

My second desperate yell only seemed to make the arguing behind the wall get louder but it didn’t matter in the end because the old man in front of me didn’t hesitate in the slightest as he charged towards me, spear raised.

I screamed again and practically collapsed to the floor in fright, landing badly on my still injured side with a whimper.

Honestly I didn’t stop screaming for almost a solid ten seconds... until it finally clicked in my head that he’d not actually been trying to attack me but had, in fact run, straight past me as he charged down the alleyway to help the others instead.

A few seconds after I lifted my head up in surprise and relief there was more noise, some that sounded like pretty bad words in general, as several more men in similar makeshift-armor carrying spears, bows and even a few guns at hand all jumped over the wall in front of me.
With barely a pause to catch their breath from the landing they all sprinted away with almost equally terrified looks to the one I could feel on my face plastered on theirs, as they charged past me and off to the battle outside.

Slowly my breath evened out as the few moments of terrified panic subsided leaving me alone in the dark alleyway, shivering and still frightened but not in direct danger at least, from either the zombies or the equally scary men behind the wall either at this point.

“Kid? Hey, kid!”

My head snapped up to stare open mouthed as a man leaned out over the edge of the wall and waved his hands to get my attention.

“That’s it darlin’, over here! Come on!”

My legs were shaking for some reason but I forced them to move and with an almost chest-achingly big gasp of breath I practically launched myself towards him.

He only just managed to get a grip under my arms from how awkwardly he was leaning, his whole body practically over the edge of the wall to reach me at all.
Before I could say anything he clamped down hard around my chest and shouted out for someone to pull him back up, dragging me up the side of the wall as he went.

One of his big hands managed to squeeze my injured side so hard I was seeing spots from the sudden jolt of pain as his other almost, at the exact same time, managed to pull hard under my armpit, just under my injured shoulder.

Needless to say I screamed.
The pain was unbelievable, almost as bad as the loose feeling of unreal pain I felt when I got shot in the first place, but somehow so much WORSE at the same time!

He’d barely gotten his body back over the wall with help from the men I could now see standing behind him, holding onto his belt for dear life as they pulled him backwards, before he accidentally slammed my unsupported chest into the wall and with one more scream of unbridled pain I passed out completely in one big ban-

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Seemingly seconds later my eyes snapped open, then crinkled shut slightly in pain as my shoulder and especially my side protested the idea of moving at all anymore which I was more than happy to accept their advice on at this point.

Late afternoon sunlight was streaming in through the big windows to my left making me wince even more as the dull orange light managed to feel far too bright to me for comfort.

Slowly I shifted myself, pausing every few seconds to make sure I wasn’t going to hurt myself, until I was finally sitting up on the big hospital bed I was apparently sleeping on until now.

My eye’s caught on the strange pink and white gown that felt practically paper-thin someone must have changed me into at some point.
With another wince I reached down to pull it up enough that I could see my side properly.

Somewhere along the way I gained some underwear apparently.
Girl’s underwear if the way they laid so tightly across my worryingly flat crotch, along with their general appearance with little red strawberries dotted all over them like the ones I used to see dolls wearing in TV adverts when I was younger, but with a lot less ruffles and other girly stuff added on for no reason at least.

A thin little plastic tube was coming out of the left leg-hole of them for some reason but a twitch of pain as I moved my arms down slightly to check the pipe better reminded me of why I’d been doing this in the first place and finally I finished easing the weird paper-thin dress thing up enough that I could inspect my bandages again.

I was left staring at a really tiny looking bandage, when compared to the big wrap-around one I had before thanks to Gloria at least, which stuck directly to my skin across my side like a giant white, padded band-aid or something?

“Ah, awake are you?”
With a yelp I instinctively yanked the thin-dress down to cover myself again and turned my head sharply to stare at a pretty amused looking male Doctor standing by the doorway.
“You, young lady, are lucky to be alive.”

He took a step into the room and I tried to push myself further away from him, only to wince my eyes practically shut as the pain in my side increased a second later.

“Easy! I’m not a threat, just checking up on you before my shift ends.”
His shift?

“You took a pretty bad spill and we were kind of worried you wouldn’t wake up at all for a while there. You had the beginnings of an infection in that shoulder of yours and managed to open up the rushed repair job someone did to your side as well.”

‘Bad spill’, doesn’t that mean like... falling?
I didn’t fall from anything, did I?

“Just keep calm for now, okay? I’ll go give a shout for your nurse and she’ll check you over, since you’re obviously not comfortable with me at the moment.”

I opened my mouth to answer but he’d already turned and left the room.
Just the tail end of his long white coat being visible around the door before even that was gone again.

Slowly I leaned back into a better position on my bed as it became obvious that he wouldn’t be coming back any time soon.
My head struggled for a few more seconds to stay up before falling back the last few inches left before it could hit the pillows behind me and I let out a long, tired sigh.

Eventually, after a few long minutes at the very least if my sense of time is anything to go on anymore, a woman with short brown hair and a nice smile came into the room wearing a set of those blue ‘scrub’-thingies you see on hospital shows all the time.

She spoke in a really nice, gentle voice and assured me that everything was going to be alright.
She just needed to remove my ‘cat-it-er’ or something, now I’m awake again and able to get up on my own.

It wasn’t until her hands were literally hovering over my thighs that I realised where she was going and what she was reaching for, leading to me snapping my legs shut instinctively as I uselessly trying to wave her away despite only having one pain-free arm I was willing to move in any way at the moment.

She paused for a moment in surprise at my sudden movement before that same soft, reassuring smile came to her lips again and she stood up to take a step closer to my head-end as I shrunk away from her slightly in surprise.

“Don’t worry Sweetie, I’ve been your nurse since you got in, I was the one who fitted the catheter for you in the first place and I’m not telling anyone...”

I wasn’t really in the right frame of mind to be processing what she was saying anyway but the calm look of understanding and acceptance on her face wasn’t helping my confusion at all either.
She seemed to finally get that I wasn’t following her properly because, with a careful glance over at the door behind her, she stepped even closer and spoke once more in practically a whisper.

“I know you’re really a boy Sweetie, well, kind of at least.”
Oh...uh?...
“Don’t worry, I’ve got everyone convinced you remind me of my, non-existent, little sister by now and the rest of the nurses are letting me deal with your daily needs. You shouldn’t be exposed as long as you don’t do anything too stupid to give yourself away, okay?”

All I could do was nod dumbly at her as she smiled at me once more before moving back down towards my new underwear and started pulling them down so she could reach the cat-it-er easier.
“This is going to hurt a bit Sweetie but it will be over before you know it; then we can get you cleaned up and go find some food for you to make up for it.”

Despite her soft smile and gentle tone of voice I couldn’t help but wince down my eyes again in anticipation of more pain which sadly didn’t take long make its appearance.

Under the sound of my short, half-voiced protests and whimpering denials we ended with her dropping the gross end of the pipe into a little dish thing near my bed before turning to me again, an apologetic smile and loud sigh of relief leaving her a moment or two later.

“See, not so bad, right?”
I opened my mouth to protest but she didn’t even wait for an answer as she moved over to help me ease upwards into a real sitting position on the bed instead.
“Now, it’s time we got you washed up and all pretty...”

Without another word she reached down and picked me up, perching my still sore but now at least covered and pipe-free crotch against her hip easily while turning us towards a little door at the far end of the room that I assume leads to some kind of bathroom area judging by what she just said.

“While I wash your hair for you, how about you tell me about yourself?”
She eased the door open and tucked it behind herself to keep it open as she moved me into the now revealed bathroom inside.
“How you came to be here, where you’re from, your name and how you ended up with a really well done disguise as a precious little girl instead of a smell old boy, huh?”

I winced pretty badly at that last point.

I need to stop wincing... it’s bad...
Mum always said it would give her wrinkles early when she did it but that never seemed to stop her anyway so I don’t know what to do about it now I’ve started to do it too?

“Do you want a bath or a shower?”
I glanced up at her in surprise which she seemed to take to mean something, although I’m not quite sure what honestly.
“Don’t worry about the supply, the militia have our grid and pipes working at the moment, so it’s ‘use as much as you want’ time at last...”

My eyes lingered on the showerhead for a few seconds but there was no real question to it in the end and with a vaguely shy wave I indicated I’d like a bath to her instead which she smiled over for some strange reason as she set me down on my feet at last.
She leaned over, putting the plug in, as her other hand turned the tap making water start pouring out of it, much to my surprise.

It’s been so long since I’ve had a bath!
I’d practically forgotten that so much clean, inviting looking water could even EXIST anymore!

“Panties too! I know that look and you’re not in any state to go jumping head-first into the tub at the moment, let alone with clothes on still.”
Once more I found myself wincing although this time there was a blush to match it as well.

It’ll all be worth it if I can have a bath though!

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“-and this is the dayroom.”

My head perked up from the embarrassed huddle I’d settled into as the Nurse, Nurse Josie apparently, lead me through the hospitals hallways giving me ‘the tour’ much to everyone who saw us amusement apparently.

“On days when the lines are down and we’re stuck on backup power it’s mostly just board games and books in here but at the moment we’re all up-and-running so feel free to watch some movies with the other kids or even go on one of the computers if you can get on one.”

My eyes were already wide in surprise from just how many people there are in this hospital but they got even wider as I took in the big, childishly-decorated room full of mostly women and girls moving around, doing all the things Nurse Josie mentioned and more.

Practically one whole wall of the room was lined with TV’s, each one awkwardly fitted to the wall or sitting on a side-table as if they weren’t really meant to be there but someone had put them up there anyway.

Several of the younger girls were all sitting in the far corner watching some little-baby cartoon I remember seeing before but never watching myself.

The older women were all in chairs on the opposite side of the room chatting to each other while their TV showed nothing but static for some reason?

In-between, was a mix of people all perched awkwardly around each other, most wearing headphones as they watched their own shows and movies either alone or in pairs with a headphone each.

Aside from that there were a few older men with bandages on, hitting balls around on a big green table with long sticks of some kind that I vaguely remember seeing someone use in an old movie once.
‘Snoo-car’ or something, I think it’s called?

The rest of the room seemed to be taken up with girls between the two, TV watching, extremes reading, playing with toys or just talking while some of the teenagers appeared to be messing with each other’s hair and hands as they talked instead.

“I need to go check in at the front desk. Stay here for a little while and try to keep out of trouble, okay Sweetie?”

With a jerk I spun around to stare up at Nurse Josie in silent horror at the idea that she was just going to leave me here with all these people!

“Don’t give me that look, I promise I’ll be back really quick-”
She reached down and gave me a gentle hug as she continued speaking.
“-I just need to find out where they want to put you now you’re out of long-term care... no matter how short-term your visit with us turned out to be in the end.”

As she straightened up she reached down and tweaked my nose with a giggle which really wasn’t helping me stay focused much.

With one more little smile at me she turned and walking out of the room, leaving me standing there feeling very small and honestly pretty afraid in a room full of strangers!

After almost half a minute of slightly-panicked pause with my eyes locked on the door in the vague hope that Nurse Josie would come back, I glanced nervously around the room before quickly moving over to a corner near to the older women that were all sitting still with their static-filled TV.

I quickly tucked myself down with my back to the corner so I could keep an eye on everyone while partially hiding behind the biggest chair that sat in front of me where a rather large woman was saying something about how much her feet were hurting at the moment, from what I could gather at least.

My hands came to rest on my knees and I set my chin down on top of them slowly as I got ready to wait for Nurse Josie to return.

I’m good at waiting now, and creeping about silently or being ‘still’ in general too, I learnt how to do it in the loft just to keep the zombies downstairs quiet more than anything else.
Now I’m glad for it because people are leaving me alone at least!

After all this time of me desperately needing some actual humans to talk to... I’m...
I’m kind of scared of them all now?

There’s too many of them, and they’re all so loud and... and...
Slowly I slid my chin off my arms and set my forehead down on them instead.

I miss Gloria and Mr Falkner...
I miss my Mum...

I miss... of all things, I miss the loft too!

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“-Shhhh! Quiet, it’s starting...”

My head shot up at the sudden hissing sound from one of the seated women.
I slowly turned my head slightly to see them all better without moving too much and giving away my location to them, just in case they haven’t noticed me yet.

Judging by the lack of that slightly annoying hiss and the rather large crowd of interested adults that’s started forming around the TV now, I think it’s safe to say that it’s not just showing static anymore?

“Good evening everyone, this is the Commander speaking.”
Several of the bandaged men actually saluted to the TV... along with several of the women too surprisingly, although I barely took that in because I RECOGNISE that voice!

“We have a short update for you all today.”
My legs felt stiff but that didn’t stop me from shooting up anyway, pushing my way around the chair I’d been hiding behind much to the surprise of its still seated owner, so I could get a look at the screen itself while the speech went on in that same heart-stoppingly familiar voice.

“Sectors J-Four through B-Three are currently under curfew due to a Ghoul incident close to, but not within, the walls around them earlier this morning... All wall sentries are advised to be on alert for stragglers and to avoid gunfire when possible, either use the shadows to move them on or failing that send out a call for a team to clean them up in close quarters.”

The speakers voice was stern, a lot harsher and more clipped then I’ve ever heard it sound before but there was no mistaking it when I finally got a good look at the screen at last.

An army uniform full of medals, a weird but official looking ‘hat’, a small scar-like cut above her right eyebrow and her hair pulled back into a tight bun were all jarring of course but there was no doubt in my head when I finally saw the face to match that voice.

It just has to be...b-but how?!

“We currently have several troops considered ‘missing-in-action’ and a list will be circulated with images tomorrow. If any of them are found, dead or alive, document them and approach under standard protocols.”
Her head dipped down slightly, finally breaking the mesmerizingly serious gaze she’d held with the camera so far as she shuffled her papers over slightly to change sheets.
“On a more positive note, work on clearing and setting perimeters around several high priority food production locations are going smoothly, meanwhile the rooftop reclamation project across the downtown area and surrounding districts of importance are also progressing well.”

My good arm came up slightly without any conscious input from me, my hand outstretched as if trying to grasp her through the screen despite the distance and people between us.
The uselessness of the whole idea lost on me as I stared on in horrified hope.

“As always, I thank you all for your hard work. The end is not here yet but with us all working together we will regain our city, and then the world!”
The people around me cheered and smiled warmly to each other at that last statement as the screen suddenly cut to black for a few moments before going back to that annoying static once more.

I could feel my shoulders slump slightly as her face once more disappeared from my life all over again, the flash I’d had of her almost too painful for me to deal with in its teasingly short period of existence.

Slowly, while everyone else talked among themselves with excited or encouraging tones, I made my way back over to ‘my’ corner and huddled down in it tightly once more with my head down.

Tears slipped out at long last and I couldn’t stop them even if I tried.
All I could do was sit there and silently try to understand what I’d just seen.

“...Mum?...”

That WAS my Mum, wasn’t it?
Calling herself ‘the Commander’, wearing stupid clothes and acting all serious, but it just HAD to be her!

Wh-what’s going on?
Why is she- Why are they-...?

My tears eventually dried as I got lost in confusion trying to work out what I’d just witnessed.
The way everyone was watching her... the way she acted?

She’s not even part of the army!
She was a waitress or something, worked nights a lot, that sort of thing.

I don’t-... I don’t understand what’s going on and-

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“There you are, Riley Sweetie.”

My head shot up to stare at Nurse Josie as she finally showed up again.
She looked a bit flustered and nervous but also relieved to see me too which was a welcome break from that horribly serious stare of Mum’s I can’t seem to get out of my head anymore at least!

“Come on, I’ve got information on where we’ve got to g-”
Before she could even finish her sentence there was an almost groan-like whirring noise that seemed to come from the very walls around us, and suddenly all the lights went out at once.

Several people screamed.

I stayed huddled against the wall, my eyes open wide to try and take in as many details as I could from what little the dying sunlight would offer me.

My senses were on high alert for zombies without conscious thought from me, mostly because that’s the first place my mind went to naturally when something scary was happening around me at this point.

The dim light from the windows started getting even thinner as people stood up to stare out of them worriedly, only to push backwards with frightened yelps a few moments later.
Some of them even outright ran, sprinting from the room without a word to join the people outside in the now darkened hospital hallways for some reason.

As Nurse Josie finally made it over to my side and knelt down protectively over me the whispers started, building and building into outright panic as people started leaving the room in a crushing stampede that obviously hurt more than a few of the younger girls who initially got dragged along into the mess of it all.

When the surge of adults and teenagers had finally left, leaving only a few stragglers and the now very frightened younger girls behind, the lights around us dimly flickered back on and I slowly eased myself upright, making my way over to the window to see what had caused all the panic with a growing sense of dread in my chest.

As I stared down from the worryingly high windows of the hospital to the city spread out around us my eyes trailed in slight awe across the almost castle-like barricade that surrounded us.
It was made mostly from the surrounding buildings in a large square and had a lot those street-blocking barriers made of cars at every entrance, like the one I was pulled up earlier.

I took in every detail I could, desperately looking for some sign of danger or movement.

The first thing to catch my eye was a line of armor-wearing men making their way along the uneven rooftops around us.
They were running over rather flimsy looking wooden ‘bridges’ between the buildings when necessary which, now I’d spotted them, seemed to stretch out for miles away from us in pathways leading to other large buildings, both near and far away, which all looked almost equally as tall as the hospital apparently is while sporting just as many lights as we used to have a few minutes ago beaming out of them too.

I was staring out towards the bridges that led off towards the setting sun’s light and a tall, very wide, building which I think used to be some kind of bank at one point if I remember rightly, when Nurse Josie finally caught up with me and let out a gasp.

A glance over to her had me also shifting my gaze much lower to stare at the open area below us that sat between the building-barricades and the hospital itself.

It wasn’t hard to see what made her gasp from there or made the others all panic either.
Down below us, limping and lumbering around as they left bloody trails in their wake, was a horde of zombies in worryingly recognisable clothing.

I squinted slightly and from within the mob of near-identically dressed militia soldiers, one splash of color stood out with disturbing clarity... the light blue of medical scrubs, darkened with blood in places but still recognisable...

Not the kind of scrubs they use here.
Not the kind Nurse Josie is wearing.
The kind I saw last this morning before our sprint towards the alleyway, the kind Gloria was wearing!

With a shudder I pulled myself away from the windows and let out a long, harsh breath of fear.

It’s happening again!
It’s all happening again!

“Do you have a loft in this place?”
The words left my lips easily, not even a hint of the fear I could feel hammering away in my chest present, even though I KNEW it should be there.

“What?... We, uh...”

“People aren’t safe, I’ve seen it happen, all it takes is one person to make a mistake and then you’re all in danger again no matter how well defended your location is. We need to go, we need to go RIGHT now and we need to get somewhere safe that’s as far away from the people outside as possible.”

My hands stopped shaking at last and I let out one long tense breath before glaring up at Nurse Josie who seemed almost as taken aback by my words as she did my glare.

“We’re taking these kids with us and we’re going somewhere safe in the hospital, somewhere small that the adults can’t get to easily, somewhere like... like the loft...”

We paused in a long stare off as Nurse Josie seemed to finally catch up with reality at last and jolted slightly in surprise before glancing around us at all the younger girls who’d already started to come closer to us out of fear more than anything.

“There’s...there’s the air vent crawl space, maybe?... Each floor’s air vent system has a crawl space around it for cabling and maintenance that leads to a central ladder system in the walls you can only access from the roof or the basement normally...”
She seemed to take in a deep breath to try and calm herself but I don’t think even the little ones around us were convinced by it in the slightest.

“Good, you stay here with them-”
She opened her mouth to argue but I held up my hand to stall her which I’m pretty sure only worked because of how out-of-it she seems to be at the moment already.
“-do you have keys for the rooms on this floor?”

Slowly, painfully slowly, she nodded her head and reach back for a key-card she had hooked to her belt.

“I’m going to go out into the halls and I’ll lock the door as I go.”
She flinched visibly but didn’t interrupt me regardless.
“I’m small, I’m fast and I’ve got a plan. While I’m gone, get everything you can together from in here and make some kind of ladder or rope we can throw up to the air vent when I get back.”

“What are you going to do?”

A shaky little smile formed on my lips as I took a few steps backward, out of grabbing range, in case she decided to try and stop me which really isn’t an option if any of us are to survive at this point, before answering her as calmly as I can manage.

“I’m going to go lock every door I can while the zombies are still at ground level... then I’m going to find my way into the maintenance system, secure the roof or the basement, and get back here to rescue you all before they manage to make it up to this floor.”

She opened her mouth in horror to argue but with a nimble lunge of my good arm I snagged the key-card from her limp grasp and made a break for the doorway, slamming it shut and tapping the card against the lock to force it shut with a satisfying ‘thunk’ which I’m pretty sure means it won’t open again without some help or effort at the very least even if the electricity cuts out again.

As I scanned the dimly lit hallway around me full of mess, flickering lights and chaos... but thankfully deserted of people, for now.
I let out one last long breath then straightened up as best I could to start my jog along the hall.

Someone downstairs screamed and I kicked up the pace a little more into a full run with a wince to go with it, only pausing long enough to slap the key-card against each door I saw along the way as I followed a sign on the wall pointing me towards ‘Maintenance’ with help from a useful, if kind of hard to see in the low light, red line marked on the floor to go with it.

“What on earth am I doing? Mum said to stay away from zombies, to hide, and here I am running into danger!”
That momentary burst of self-pitying doubt didn’t hold up long as Mum’s latest words came back to haunt me inevitably, as if she’d spoken them only for me at the time despite all logic to the contrary.

“The end isn’t here yet but with us all working together we can regain our city, and then the world-”
As inspiring speeches go, it was pretty terrible really.

Just the sort of thing I’d expect from Mum if she was put on the spot and had to come up with something comforting to say, she always said she wasn’t the ‘speaker’ in the family after all.

That’s why it feels so reassuring to listen to it at the moment, I guess?
Of all the confusing things I just witnessed in her short TV appearance, at least that one thing was consistent between the woman I saw and the Mum that I know.

“-this is just like the loft all over again... It’s jump or die time Riley!”
Stop being a wuss and do what you’ve got to do!

“It’s not like your jumping off your zombie filled house into the neighbours garden or something stupid like that at least... just running into a zombie infested hospital while trying to be a hero, like an idiot, instead...”

Something in one of the rooms to my left made a noise.
With a shriek I slapped the key-card on it's lock, making it 'thunk' shut tight before whatever was inside could come after me.
I miss being alone!

Happy Hallow— What?... Oh, yeah! Happy 'I managed to get a new chapter out before Halloween like I promised, even if it is tied slightly to my guilt over not being able to post a main series chapter for a while'-Mus? :) Time to check in with the injury prone former loft-dweller again at long last, I suppose?

 

“Maintenance, maintenance, maintenance?... where’d the red line go?!”

Along the hallway ahead of me was a crossroads.
All the nicely marked out floor lines seem to just STOP suddenly there, the floor patterns change too for some reason and I honestly have no idea where to go next because the last sign I saw just pointed this way in general with no further guidelines.

I reached the crossroads itself and carefully peeked both ways, finding nothing but empty dark hallways full of open doors and flickering lights.

A heavy breath of frustration left my lips almost silently as my eyes scanned everything I could for some kind of hint on what direction to take from here.
The obvious option would be to go straight on but the hallway ahead looks really long and if possible even darker than the other two options which isn’t exactly filling me with optimism at the moment.

From the hallway to my left there came a slight ‘ding’ and the unmistakable sound of heavy old elevator doors opening slowly.
A flash of terror went down my spine at the sound which seemed to echo in the empty halls around me with deafening clarity.

I can’t take a risk with it!

Elevators go to the ground floor, who knows what could have hitched a ride inside on the way up to here at this point!
My side protested as I leaned slightly to get a better look and make sure the coast was still clear but I ignored it in favor of shooting straight across the hallway ahead and breaking into a sprint to put some distance between us.

No signs made themselves known to me as I ran, no helpful guide lines either and as the lights flickered above me casting everything into terrifying shadow at random I honestly thought this would be the point that something jumped out from a doorway to get me at last.

I’ve been incredibly lucky so far; aside from a few odd noises and the occasional scream from the floors below I’ve not really come in contact with anyone or anything that could be a danger to me.

That can’t last... one thing I’ve learnt in my time of window-mounted zombie watching is that they are ALWAYS there, somewhere. If you can’t see them then it just means you’re not looking close enough and you’re going to die soon!

I slowed my run to a slightly pained jog and came to a stop at the first in a set of doors blocking my progress down the hallway with glass panels on either side of them.
A quick peek inside showed no immediate danger yet again so with a quick fearful glance back towards the still empty crossroads behind me I eased the door open and stepped through as quietly as possible.

A whole ward and waiting area came next as the hallway expanded outwards, but yet again no-one was in sight and the place was a mess.
After a few seconds to make sure nothing was going to leap out at me I moved quickly over to the reception desk on my right and went behind it, my eyes flying around for anything useful inside.

At first there was nothing of interest but paper and useless electronics but when I checked the draws I hit the jackpot, finding what I can only assume were some of the staff’s lunches, along with some bottled water and sweets tucked away in the bottom.

Even better, as I checked the last few higher draws I found a knife!
It wasn’t a very big knife, it took me a few seconds to work out how it worked and I accidentally almost stabbed my hand with it when the blade popped out suddenly but a tiny pop-up knife is better than nothing at the moment.

A quick dive under the desk provided the one other thing I’d needed to go along with this perfect haul of food, some ladies big leather handbag.

As quietly as possible I turned it over and emptied it out onto the floor, finding and discarding some weird little perfume bottle called ‘Pepper Spray’ but managing to get a set of keys in the process which could be useful somehow eventually.
You can never have too many keys!

With the bag empty I wasted no time in filling it up with the wrapped food and water before slinging the big strap over my good shoulder.
It took a few awkward steps at first but I managed to get my balance eventually and started making my way back around the desk, tiny little knife at the ready in my hand, just in case.

The big bag slowed me down considerably, of course. Despite that though, I moved down the hallway again towards the next set of doors with it because the loft taught me that food and water are VERY important at this point, so I’m not giving them up if I can help it now that I have them!

A peek through the glass side showed the next hallway to be almost completely black, aside from a slither of light coming from a bend at the far end and the few glimpses lighter shadow offered by the dim lighting behind me.

I almost decided to leave it and continue searching the ward to my right some more instead at first because the darkness inside was giving me shivers just on general principle.

I’d almost managed to convince myself that maybe there would be a better lit path somewhere if I kept looking... but that’s when the light at the bend ahead flared slightly and a big string of signs on the wall at the end of the hallway came briefly into sight making me freeze with a gulp.

“Come on Riley, don’t be a wuss...”
My feet jogged slightly on the floor with nerves as I tried to build myself up to face the darkness inside despite everything in my head screaming at me that it was a bad idea.
“...It’s still early... zombies are slow, even if they take the stairs and specifically came only for me I doubt they’ve got this high yet so as long as I don’t take too long standing here it should be... it should be—”

Before I could even finish the sentence my body was moving, the door yanked open quickly as if that would help make this any less of a stupid idea and my new bag hitched slightly higher on my already aching shoulder.

With one more hitched breath I pushed off and started jogging into the darkness, my eyes tight but focused on that light at the end rather than thinking about all the open doors around me and what they could possibly hold inside them.

It took almost half a minute for me to reach the end of the hall and when I came to a stop at the signs my bag slid to the floor as I leaned down slightly to catch my breath.
I hadn’t been running or anything but through the darkened run it felt like I couldn’t breathe the whole way, my lungs apparently deciding that they didn’t want to come along for the ride and trying to convince me not to go in their own way, I suppose.

After a few more deep breaths I shot my head up to stare at the signs above me, only to squint hard due to the low light level.

Eventually I brought my good hand up and ran it across the slightly raised lettering to try and feel what they were saying which surprisingly seemed to work judging by how quickly I managed to work out the first line read ‘Radiology’, whatever that is.

A few more useless lines later I finally found one that started with the letters ‘M-A-I-N’ and quickly skimmed over to the arrow symbol to see which way it was pointing as tension seemed to slowly build, pressing down on me like the darkness, worse than anything I suffered through in the loft by a long stroke.

I’m not really sure what it was, possibly a sound or a flicker of light perhaps, but whatever it was had my body moving on its own.

I snapped to attention and spun to look up the hallway to my left where most of the light I’d been using was coming from with a growing sense of dread forming in my stomach.

From pretty far down the hallway there was one door open which spewed out surprisingly bright light.
It took me a few seconds to recognise the shape of it and a heartbeat more for me to put a name to it, not helped by the heavy ‘thud’ my heart chose to do at that moment considering how important that beat was.

It wasn’t a doorway... it was an elevator.

An elevator being held open by a dark, but still recognisable mass which can only be a human body, mostly overshadowed by a crouched form that hovered over it, of course.
My lungs decided to leave me again and I’m pretty sure my heart made an attempt to flee too from how painfully it bounced around in my chest for a few seconds.

A zombie

I can’t tell if it’s sleeping, eating or just dormant like some of the ones in my house used to get when they couldn’t see or hear any new prey, but I’m pretty sure I don’t want to find out either way!

The fact it hasn’t heard me yet is a miracle in itself, helped most likely by the minor sounds from the elevator as its doors try to close slightly on the dead bodies legs lying in their path, but this is NOT the time for me to look a gift horse in the mouth!

With all the care I could manage, I reached down for my bag and lifted it gently off the floor before easing myself backwards down the right-hallway behind me.

The utter darkness that had so terrified me before seemed practically childish compared to the very real death in front of me instead.
Just like back in the alleyway, I couldn’t seem to force myself to look away from it.

With each gentle step backwards I made into the dark hallway my head was screaming at me to turn around instead but I ignored it in favor of keeping eyes on the monstrous thing in front of me because I honestly couldn’t look away anymore.

It was slow progress but each painfully gentle step I made took me further and further away from it while also helping me blend into my surroundings better if it ever decided to look up from its apparent ‘meal’ at last.

My free hand, the one not carrying my bag at this point, came out to my side as much as my shoulder would allow and I spread my fingers to hopefully find a wall to guide myself with.
Just as I made contact with the wall the zombies head perked up.

I’m not sure what it was doing, I could barely see anything as it is but it was doing something and that’s VERY bad in my book!

Silently, but with almost frantic speed, my fingers ghosted along the wall until they reached an opening.
The zombie stood up to its full intimidating height and seemed to take one shambling step away from the body it had been so focused on up until now.

Without a second thought I practically threw myself into the dark abyss inside the open doorway, my bag flying in front of me as I swung out my arms to grasp the door and slam it shut behind me.

I knew what was coming, I knew just how loud that slam would sound in the seemingly empty hallways of the hospital around us but it was all I could think to do at the time.

My fingers fumbled with the clip on my useless hospital gown but I managed to get it off eventually and with a jerk I managed to slap Nurse Josie’s key-card against the door.
The lock above my head shut tight with reassuring ‘thunk’ only seconds before something big, heavy and very angry sounding slammed into it from the other side.

With my back against the door where I’d practically fallen after shutting it, I could feel every hit as the zombie on the other side tried to get in, but it was no use.

My mind was spinning with possibilities.
Where there’s one zombie there’s more!

The hallways aren’t safe anymore, neither are any of the unlocked rooms in this maze of a hospital!
The room I’m in right now isn’t safe!

I can’t see anything, only the fact that I just made a very loud noise and I’ve yet to be attacked is keeping me from screaming in fear as the dark encloses around me completely.
My eyes are useless now.

If I scream then it will just draw more zombies and while the hospital doors can hold up well against one I don’t want to find out how many it would take to get past them in the end!

Slowly, a sense of dread still present in my every movement thanks to the constant ‘thud’ behind me from the zombie-stopping door, I slid my way up the wall next to the doorway until I was standing once more.

When I’d almost reached full standing height, my arm knocked into something that at once filled me with hope and fear.
Carefully I reached up and with a few seconds hesitation as I took in a sharp breath I flipped the light switch at my shoulder on before squeezing my eyes shut tight in abject fear.

The zombie at the door seemed to become slightly heavier in his attacks, probably due to the dull light now coming out from under the door to my right but it took almost a full ten seconds for me to finally muster up enough bravery to open my eyes again.

My eyes snapped open and in one breath I took in the whole room before slumping against the wall in relief... I’m in a cupboard.

It’s a pretty big cupboard, more of a storage room then anything with shelves of supplies both medical and normal boxes stacked everywhere to go along with them all, but still a cupboard.
My shoulders lost some of their tension as I kept scanning the room and finding nothing threatening at all, much to my growing relief.

A heavier ‘thud’ from the door made my eyes instinctively snap over to it.
I couldn’t help but let off a frightened scream as the horrible, torn and blood covered face of the zombie from before stared back at me from such close range through the reinforced glass panel that so many of the doors here seem to have!

I practically skidded across the floor to get away from it in my panic but my movement seemed to only encourage it into even more of a frenzy.
Eventually my back hit something and I came to a stop, shivering and shaking from fear but otherwise unhurt, just outright terrified honestly.

A quick glance around me made me surge to my feet again.
Self-preservation instincts working with hard-earned zombie knowledge as my body almost automatically started grabbing the lighter boxes from the stacks of practically empty ones in the corner to my left as I moved them to their new home in front of the door instead.

About six or seven trips later I’d managed to get a tower high enough that it blocked the glass panel from view at last.

I didn’t stop there, of course. Moving box after box over to make sure that there was no chance of that ‘tower’ falling over and exposing me again, however.
Practically seconds after I’d managed to cover the glass, the zombie seemed to calm down to some degree.
It was still striking the door from the sound of it but the strikes were slower, almost lazy and had a lot less force to them as well if the sounds anything to go by.

When I’d finally reached a point where my now corner-wide tower of boxes was so big I couldn’t even see the door anymore I stopped, collapsing to my knees with some heavy breaths and a wince or two thanks to my now protesting injuries.

“Great, another loft... and this one doesn’t even have any windows...”
I’m not staying here.
“Wake up Riley, Nurse Josie and the others are waiting for you.”

The question is... what exactly can I do at this point?
I’m boxed in!
I’ve got nothing, no weapons aside from the tiny little knife in my—

I dropped the knife
I DROPPED the KNIFE!

When did I drop the—it must have been when I got to the sign and—

That really is the final straw.
With a great heaving breath that easily bled into a sob I sunk my head down to my knees and cried as the last few minutes finally caught up with me.

I lost track of everything, the door, the zombie, my bag and even that stupid knife as I wrapped myself down into a ball on the floor and cried as silently as I could... the same way I learnt to do in the loft, seemingly so long ago...

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Silence

When I finally came back to reality and managed to stop myself shaking, partly from the cold which my hospital gown really didn’t help against but mostly from my emotions getting the better of me, all I could hear was silence.

A week ago I hated silence, I was maddening!
I’d heard it for too long, could feel it closing in around me with every muted beat of my heart, but now it was so welcome and reassuring after what I’ve just faced.

Silence means that the zombie isn’t hitting the door anymore.
Silence means that I have time to breathe.
Silence means... silence means safety, for now...

“Okay Riley, jump or die time!”
It took more effort than I’d like to admit for me to stand up again.
When I finally got my feet underneath me ideas were already forming in my head, priorities being sorted.

I can’t go out that door again.
Even if I could somehow get through it and the zombie wasn’t waiting on the other side like I KNOW it will be, I just... I just can’t go out there again...

That means I need to find another route out!
The others are counting on me, all those little girls who got left behind and Nurse Josie.

I can’t just give up and stay in here like I did with the loft.
I’ve got food and I’m safe but THEY aren’t!

“She said the air vents have a crawl space...”

My original plan was to go through the proper paths and find a maintenance access door but that’s not an option anymore, what IS an option though is finding a way into that crawl space from this room itself.

There are two vents in this room alone, probably more all over the hospital, that’s why it sounded like such a good idea in the first place.

With the shelving and some creative work I should be able to find a way to get up high enough to reach the ceiling; then it’s just a case of trying to find a way to bust through into the space somehow...

I need tools.
I need a ladder or something.
I need... I...

I’m an idiot!

“Wake up Riley. It’s the loft all over again!”
Boxes and shelves full of stuff, who knows what and how much of it judging by just how packed in everything is!

This is just like when I sorted everything in the loft, exactly the same.
Then I found clothes, knifes, stuff, junk and more...

I wonder what I’ll find in here that’s useful.

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“Useless, useless, useless... why does a hospital even have a box full of bath-plugs?”

The first row of shelves nearest to the door has been less than helpful, obviously.
There were a few bits and pieces I put to the side, some scrubs that are far too big for me but I might be able to sort something out of if I can’t find anything better to use and some bandages that I’m honestly considering as an option for making some last-resort body armor out of somehow at this point.

No reason to panic yet, there’s plenty more shelves in the cupboard!

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“Is that a swo—oh... no, it’s just another pipe...”

Three shelve rows down, nothing specifically ‘useful’ yet either but it’s not the end of the world, I found some more water at least... I think its water at least?
The sealed plastic bags LOOK like they have water in them, it’s kind of hard to read but I think the label says ‘Saline’ or something, while that’s not outright the word ‘water’ it sounds kind of science-y and maybe science people call water ‘Saline’.

The few bendy plastic pipes I’ve found might be useful somehow, I’ve added them to the pile at least, although I keep seeing the ends of them and assuming their some kind of sword-handle for some reason.

Still... no need to panic yet, there’s got to be something worth raiding in here!

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“A Screwdriver! That’s... that’s... something? Right?”

No-one answered that stupid question which I’m kind of thankful for because the only person who could answer at this point is the zombie probably still waiting for me outside and I honestly don’t want to know what it has to say!

A big screwdriver’s SOMETHING though!
It’s better than everything else I’ve found on this shelf, and the one before it too when it comes to finding a way to escape at least, even if I did have to get on my hands and knees to find the screwdriver under the shelves themselves.

Put that with the bendy plastic pipes I’ve got with the duct tape I found in one of the boxes against the wall and I’ve got a... a something?...
Like a spear but kind of bendy?
...I’ll keep looking

The last few shelves, then it’s the boxes or nothing!
What’s that thing Mum always does?... Touch wood for luck!

I don’t have any wood though...

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“Scrubs, scrubs, scrubs, more scrubs!”
That’s it! That’s all of it?!

There must have been something I missed?
This was so much easier in the loft.
I don’t... I don’t know what I can make from all this junk?...

Okay, don’t panic Riley.
Focus on one task at a time.

Clothes first, that’s the easy one, how hard can it be to make clothes out of adult clothes?

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After much trial and error, I eventually worked out that a screwdriver isn’t designed to cut cloth.
It took a bit more work from there but luckily the shelves around me are really cheap and old judging by the amount of dust on them.

The top of one of them is a bit bent and damaged which has left it with a sharp edge to it, not much, but enough that if I hooked the scrubs over it then pulled hard with my good arm it would tear them pretty good.

When I had strips of sorta even cloth then it became a lot easier to sort myself some clothes at last.
It took three of the ‘scrubs’ tops over the top of each other before I actually felt any warmer and their a bit bulky, kind of like the outfit I put together when I left the loft really.

I put one more scrubs top over the others, one that I’d managed to tear to shreds while testing the shelves out which I’m hoping will be a good distraction if I come into contact with a zombie again.
Having things they can grab would obviously be a bad idea but having things that are ready to tear off completely loose for them to grab means their less likely to get something important like my hair or my shoulder.

Two strips of cloth finished off my basically ankle-length blue dress made of shirts.
It’s not perfect, honestly I’d feel a bit better with less material around my legs but on the other hand I don’t have any jeans this time so having cloth that the zombies can bite before getting to me is a VERY good idea right now!

With that first problem sorted I settled back on the floor with a sigh to inspect the mess I’d made all around me.
Working on clothes first was a good idea, it gave me time to calm down and think.

Currently I’m thinking I’m hungry but that’s something better then outright panic at least.
Next task in mind, I went over to my ‘borrowed’ handbag and grabbed a kind of battered bundle of foil-wrapped sandwiches from inside.

Snagging a bottle of water to go with it, I made my way back to the slightly comfortable pile of scrubs I made when I got a bit frustrated and tipped them all out in the hopes that someone had hidden a big gun at the bottom of the box or something.

“Think Riley, the others are counting on you.”
I need another good idea like the one about using the damaged metal shelf to tear clo—
Could that actually work?

My unopened sandwich bundle and water bottle were left behind as I quickly moved over to the nearest row of shelves and started looking at it all for joints.

There was one shelf earlier that had fallen out of its slot on one side!
They all seem really strong and stable but I don’t know how if a shelf can come off that easily and-
There! At the bottom, I thought so!

The top and bottom shelves are bolted on to make it all stand up properly.
They used bolts with these weird little shapes on the top of them that felt oddly familiar for the few seconds it took before I recognised it properly and let out a little yelp of joy.

The screwdriver!

“I can undo the shelves...”

I can undo the shelves, right?
That’s a lot of metal, a lot of metal, a lot of bolts, a lot of wood from the shelf parts too!

“Who needs a ladder and a sword when you can make your own!”
I may have yelled that part too loudly judging by the way the zombie outside started half-heartedly banging on the door again in response but that’s not important now because I’ve got an idea.

If I can get these shelves apart then I can rebuild them in a ladder shape using the bolts.
If I can get to the ceiling then I can use one of the smaller, middle section, pieces from the shelves like a knife and poke them into the ceiling to find the crawl space.

“I knew it, there had to be something useful in here.”
The zombie banged in response again but that still doesn’t matter, it’ll get bored eventually and now I’ve got a plan!

Where did I put that screwdriver?

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“Owwchy”

The last bolt came loose, catching my finger slightly in the process before it fell to the floor with an almighty crash, setting the zombie off again which has kind of become a ‘normal’ thing at this point considering how heavy these shelves are and the fact I’ve only got one good arm to rely on at the moment.

I ended up making a kind of mini-ladder, first from boxes then later from shelf parts, so I could reach the tops in the end which was awkward and kind of dangerous, but it worked so no need to complain about it NOW at least.

“Now I’ve just got to make the big ladder, find a good ‘sword’ and maybe make some kind of scrubs-rope so the others can climb up and join me when I get there.”

An accompanying set of bangs and moans thanks to my, still terrifying but much easier to ignore now it’s being kept away from me by a big heavy door, zombie audience of one felt almost normal as I set to work again.
The hard parts hopefully over with now at least.

As I reached for my first ‘ladder’ part, my stomach grumbled loudly reminding me of my forgotten sandwich on the scrubs-pile.

With a glance between the two options available I hesitated but in the end the thought that I’ll be no help to the others if I starve while building things won out with some help from my now rather opinionated stomach.

“Food first, then get out of here...”

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It took a bit of work, things didn’t quite work out the way I’d planned, namely that the ceilings in this place are apparently made out of solid stone or something and I almost bent my ‘sword’ trying to find a way through it.

As it turns out, the vent system is almost as old as the shelves in my cupboard though, because the vent cover at the far end was loose enough that I could knock it off.
It’s a bit of a squeeze and I’m honestly not sure how Nurse Josie is going to even try to fit through but I managed to get myself, my ‘sword’ and one end of the super-long rope I made from tied together scrubs into the vent at least.

I had to resort to tying the rope around my ankle in the end but it worked and I’ve stopped questioning things if they work at this point.

“Okay... now I just need to not get lost...”
I’m pretty sure the main corridor should be on my left from here so if I head that way, at least I can follow the rope back if I really do get lost.

My first shuffling crawl was awkward to say the least and the metal underneath me made a pretty loud string of ‘pop’ sounds at first but they stopped pretty quickly and it didn’t break or anything which was the most important part!

“You can do this, zombies can’t get into air vents, it was hard enough for you to manage it, after all”
It wasn’t much but those few words gave me the little boost I needed to push onwards into the dark, cold but zombie-free air vent system at long last.

Every once in a while there seems to be a vent letting in some small amount of light when possible so that’s something at least.
If nothing else, I can always just huddle down and wait until daybreak so I can see better if I really do get lost, I guess?

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“There’s the nurses’ station, which must mean that this is the hallway leading to the room I first woke up in and that means...”
I need to take the next right and I should be at the wall vent of the games room.

About half way across the dark corridor, if my guess is right, I found an access hatch that leads into the actual crawl space at last.

I opened it, to check how useful it was going to be for us all when I first found it and wasn’t disappointed in the least.
I even took a brief moment to enjoy the dim red lighting inside from some bulb I couldn’t even see due to all the wires and pipes filling the area up before closing the hatch up again so I could keep going.

As much as it doesn’t really solve our biggest problems, knowing that the hatch is there and I can actually get somewhere that isn’t these stupid vents is reassuring if nothing else.

With a slight smile on my lips I turned the last corner on the vents and made my way over to the dull light-source that can only be coming from the big windows of the games room at this point.
The closer I got to it though, the more that smile dimed because even from a distance it was pretty obvious that someone been thinking along the same lines as me when it came to escaping.

The vent cover was already missing, allowing far more light in then I could have expected otherwise.
I picked up the pace a little, shuffling as best I could to finally meet up with the others and practically burst out of the vent opening, my head already scanning to find Nurse Josie.

The moment I got a good look inside the room my body locked up completely, a chill went down my spine and it was all I could do to not scream.

They’re gone?
No, they can’t be gone!

I leaned slightly further forward to check the door on my left and overbalanced completely.

With a startled yelp I fell forwards out of the vent, landing heavily on one of the big soft chairs someone obviously moved into place so they could reach the vent in the first place, and rolling to the floor moments later to get off my now aching shoulder once more.

I didn’t have time to be stunned.
It took everything I had but I managed to move again almost the moment I stopped rolling, my head whipping around and finding just what the big ball of dread in my stomach told me I should expect to see, a completely empty room.

A small ‘thump’ noise behind me made me turn away from the moon-lit windows and turn to face the door instead. The damaged beyond belief door...

The door that had obviously been bashed in by something much stronger than a zombie... a zombie like the one who’s standing in the doorway watching me right now...

A surge of something went up my spine and I shot to my feet only to take a step and go flying back to the floor again as the scrubs-rope around my ankle pulled tight, having obviously caught on something in the vents like it did a few times already.

My head swung to stare up at the zombie as it, he judging by the shape of him, took a step into the room properly and didn’t show any sign of stopping.

The world seemed to slow down as I scrabbled my hand around blindly for my sword.
As he went to take one more step and I finally recognised his face, the face of the male Doctor who came in to check on me before his ‘shift’ ended when I first got here.

I could feel my only recently eaten sandwich trying to escape along with my lungs as the gruesome hole in the side of his cheek shifted slightly, flashing bright white teeth and far too much gum at me through the dried blood near it.

He took another step and his arms came up to reach for me when my hands connected with cold metal at last.

In one twisting motion I turned violently to the side, much to my bodies protests, but managed to whip the sharp-tipped metal bar of my ‘sword’ up to meet his bitten and bloody hands in one great desperate swing.

His mouth dropped open in a hungry groan and I matched it easily with a war-cry like scream full of my own primal fear!
Jump or die time!