People like to believe that if the scenario were to arise, they would play the hero. They'd save the day, sacrifice themselves and be remembered for all their good deeds. I was no different. When it comes down to it though, people are a lot more selfish than they expect. Or perhaps I'm just speaking for myself.
When the zombies came it was more horrific and sudden than anyone thought it would be. One moment we were sat around the TV eating popcorn and talking over the terrible choice of movie. The next, my best friend, Danny, was taking a chunk out of his brother's arm.
Real life has no censoring. I stared in horror at the exposed muscle. There was blood pouring down onto the couch. Sinew was hanging from Danny's mouth, his eyes bloodshot and straining. Rob, the one with a gaping wound now in his arm, was the first to scream as the pain reached his brain. Meanwhile my mind was trying to comprehend what had just happened.
Danny hadn't been feeling great, that's why we'd chosen to have a movie night instead of going to the pub. We thought he'd just been coming down with man flu, a lot of people had. This wasn't man flu. There'd been enough literature and media released over the years to recognise a zombie when we saw one. You just don't expect it to be your best mate.
My girlfriend, Zoe, was already on her feet screaming at Danny to stop as he climbed on top of Rob to tuck into his neck. Erika was already at the door, on her phone, trying to reach the police.
'Vinny, do something!' Zoe yelled at me.
I leapt up, grabbed the closest object to hand, a lamp in this case, yanked the cable free and smashed Danny over the head with it.
I might as well have tickled a boulder. Danny continued to gorge himself on Rob. Rob's legs were twitching, his screams had stopped and been replaced by the gurgle of blood in his throat.
That was probably the start and end of my heroic streak. Outside there were the unmistakable sounds of the apocalypse. Screaming, dying, gun shots - you know, the works. It was time to be a coward and run. I grabbed Zoe by the hand and pulled her to the apartment door. Erika followed shouting at me that we couldn't leave Rob.
I ignored her. It was her choice if she wanted to stay or follow. I wasn’t about to get eaten trying to save someone who was definitely already dead.
Flinging the apartment door open I was hit by a wall of sound. People were pushing their way downstairs and I dragged Zoe into the stampede. Erika followed too, thankfully having the sense to shut the door behind her.
People were panicking, understandably. I was too. I could feel my heart racing along with the rush of nausea caused by the adrenaline coursing around my system. The people to either side of us appeared animal-like to me. Their eyes wide with fear, sweat making their skin slick to the touch, shouting and pushing trying to make the crowd move faster.
We were stopped. I stood on my tiptoes to see what was going on. Some people below us were trying to push back up the stairs. It didn't take me long to figure out why. We were fortunate to be near the back of the crowd. I shoved through and tugged Zoe up with me.
'What are you doing, we can't get out that way!' she shouted in my ear. Erika was holding her other hand, trying to pull her back. Zoe twisted it free as I insisted that we go up. Erika followed us, ever the loyalist to Zoe.
We barely made it up two steps before Danny and Rob crashed through the door onto the landing. Both covered in blood, both zombies. Erika hesitated for a moment, unsure whether they were still her friends. That moment killed her. They descended on her like a pair of - well like a pair of zombies. Ripping into her flesh and eating their fill.
Zoe was screaming again. I was dragging her up the stairs. The tide of people below us surged as people realised too late what was happening. They were trapped. Like sheep in the slaughterhouse, they screamed and shoved each other. Some people attempted to jump the banisters. Whether they thought they could make the jump from the twelfth floor, or if they just realised that that would be a better way to go, I couldn't be sure.
With all my strength I heaved Zoe up another flight of stairs. She had gone limp. Fear and trauma had paralysed her. The sound of thundering feet and hungry snarls let me know that they were coming for us from above and below.
In that moment I realised that I was not a hero. I was selfish. I was a survivor.
I let go of Zoe and burst through into the nearest hallway. My options were limited. Zoe stumbled through after me, crying, begging me to help. The zombies were right behind her. Some carried on up the stairs, some knew there was easier prey close by and followed Zoe.
I ran to the end of the hallway and attempted to open the window. Damn it. It was one of those safety windows that wouldn't open more than an inch or two. I cursed and glanced over my shoulder. Zoe and the horde were gaining on me.
Without seeing any other way, I barged through into the nearest apartment, praying that there were no zombies inside. Zoe was still staggering down the hallway like she was drunk. She was too far away; she would never make it. If I tried to wait, I'd die. At least that's what I told myself as I shut the door and locked it. I shoved a nearby side cabinet against it, hoping that would hold.
My hands were trembling. I knelt on top of the cabinet and pressed my eye to the tiny glass peephole. Zoe was right there. She slammed her hand against the door. Tears trickled down her cheeks dragging streaks of mascara with it.
'Vinny, you open this door! Vinny!' she cried.
I slid off the cabinet and moved away from the door. To open it would mean certain death.
The cannibalistic noises of the zombies were right outside. They were tearing into something. Someone. I was in denial. I knew it was Zoe they were eating but I didn’t want to believe it. I had done that to her, yet all I could think was, I was alive. I wasn't a hero. I wasn't selfless. I was a survivor.
I don’t know how long I sat there staring at the door. It was long enough for the sound of feasting to be replaced by the arrhythmic thumping of fists and faces against the wood. I wondered how much of Zoe was left, whether I would recognise her now. I resisted the urge to look through the door. That was one good way to torture myself that served no purpose. I was alive, she wasn’t. Could I have saved her? Maybe. Would I have died trying? Probably. So, did I make the right choice? I don’t know.
I stood up and made my way into the kitchen-living area. I found a beer in the fridge and cracked it open. Perched on the sofa arm I tried to weigh my options. I was twelve floors up in an apartment block packed with zombies. Zombies which were intently hammering upon the door to the apartment I was in. The fire escape was around the side, even with adrenaline on my side I didn’t trust myself to make that climb. I doubted there would be conveniently placed window ledges for me to step on like there would be in the movies. I was trapped.
The food in here would only last so long. It would last even less time if the power went out. I had no idea how far this thing had spread. I clicked on the TV and received the emergency broadcast on all channels. Stay inside. Stay away from people. Help is on the way. I’d seen enough movies and played enough games to know that help was not on the way. Anyone who could would save themselves. The rest of us had to fend for ourselves. Like I had done.
I made my way through the apartment, two bedrooms, one bathroom. No one was home. I doubt they ever would be. Water and electric were still working for now. The zombies were still hammering on the door. I wondered if they could smell me or if they could hear me. I guessed I could try to wait them out. There wasn’t much else to do. I counted out the food and filled some empty bottles, jugs and buckets with water. I had enough for a couple of weeks, maybe more if I was stingy. If I was the hero of the story, I would search the building for survivors, try to contact them, try to get them to safety. I wasn’t the hero though. So, I sat quietly and waited.
Screams and bangs occasionally interrupted my thoughts as people from elsewhere in the building were devoured. All I could think was that I was glad that it wasn’t me. Each time it happened the number of thuds on my door became less. With each death my chances of survival increased, at least for now, as long as I was quiet. It was amazing and horrifying how quickly I was coming to think of these people, my neighbours, my friends, as zombie fodder. I wondered what kind of person that made me. It made me a survivor I told myself and that’s all that mattered.
Eventually the thumping stopped. Sunlight streamed in through the curtains and the world had fallen silent. I peered out to the street below. Normally it would have been clogged with traffic, horns beeping, roadworks drilling, people shouting. This morning is was empty. Cars lay abandoned in the middle of the street. The roadworks had been left half finished, although I supposed that wasn’t so different to normal. No pedestrians wandered down the street. There were no signs of any zombies either. That’s if you excluded the pools of blood and body parts. I hoped they were sleeping.
I tiptoed through the apartment putting things in an Ironman backpack, it was the only thing I could find that wouldn’t hinder me if I had to run. What would Tony Stark have to say about my actions? Nothing good, I’m sure. I was no hero. I was alive though and that had to count for something. With the bottled water and packets of food it was already almost full and far too heavy to be comfortable. I swung it over my shoulders and selected the sharpest knife I could find from the kitchen.
Moving a cabinet on your own is difficult at the best of times. Doing it silently is next to impossible. Each time the wood scraped against the wall or floor I froze and waited for several minutes. It reminded me of those children’s games where if you move you lose. Only now it wasn’t a case of playground pride. Now it was a case of if I made too much noise, I died. I didn’t want to end up like Zoe or the others.
When nothing came to break through the door, I shifted the cabinet a little further. It was slow going. I figured I didn’t need to get the door all the way open. So, once there was enough room for me and my Ironman backpack to fit through, I unlocked the door. Again, I waited. My breathing and the thudding of my heart was loud in my ears. No noise came from outside. I pressed down the handle, inch by inch I opened the door.
The front of it was splattered with blood and gore. I tried not to take in much detail from the hallway. Body parts were strewn across the floor like someone had let off a human confetti cannon. There were no zombies. I closed the door behind me, if I had to turn back, I didn’t want a cannibal surprise waiting for me inside.
My brain kept trying to drag my thoughts back to Zoe. Maybe she had made it. Whether she had survived or not, I certainly didn’t want to run into her. Although the chances of her making it where less than slim. I pushed those thoughts aside to concentrate on being as stealthy as jeans and trainers will allow.
No noise came from the apartments to either side. I opened the door to the stairwell and stopped dead. Heaps of the dead were piled up on the landing, on the stairs and through the banisters. Only they weren’t dead. Sluggish movements came from the ones nearby. They ground their teeth and shifted their weight away from the sliver of sunlight that was seeping through the gap in the door. As carefully as I could I closed the door again.
The urge to go back into the safety of the apartment was almost too strong to resist. I took a deep breath and tried to steady my trembling hands. The stairs were blocked, but there was still power. I pushed the door open again, wider this time. The pool of sunlight spread across the blood-soaked floor. The zombies jerked away from it. I held the door open waiting for them to dive at me. They didn’t. I looked around; the doorstop was nowhere to be seen. It was probably lost somewhere beneath the heap of bodies.
My eyes found a dismembered hand on the floor. Trying not to think too much about what I was about to do, I took a deep breath. Keeping the door open, I stretched out for it. My trainer squeaked on the floor. Growls erupted from the landing. The pile of zombies shuffled. I held my breath. When I didn’t feel teeth sinking into my ankle, I stretched for the hand. Grabbed it and tried not to recoil at the sensation of cold dead flesh touching me. I took the torn-up end where splintered bones protruded from ragged meat and jammed it under the door. It slipped a bit and then held.
I released the breath I’d been holding. The lift was maybe two metres away, the pool of sunlight reached just over halfway.
I stepped into the landing. At least with this many zombies surrounding me, there wouldn’t be anything left of me to come back. I swallowed hard; it wasn’t the most pleasant of thoughts. Gentle steps through the sunlight brought me closer to the lift. A zombie to my left clacked its teeth together, they were visible through its cheek where someone had taken a bite from its face. I reached the edge of the sunlight, there were maybe three zombies sprawled between me and the lift doors. One didn’t appear to have any legs, so I’m not sure if it counted as a whole zombie or whether that would even matter.
My palm was slick with sweat as I held the knife tight. I didn’t dare try to kill any of them in case it roused the others. The knife was more of a safety blanket than a weapon. I stepped over the bloody torso of the first zombie. It didn’t move. The second one was sprawled awkwardly on its front. He was a large man once, now half of his stomach appeared to be spread across the floor. I stepped, slipped, nudged the zombie, before catching myself on the wall. I was leaning over the third body completely exposed. The large zombie snarled and lashed out with a hand. I hopped, somehow landing between the legs of the third zombie. The zombies shuffled.
Somehow, I was still alive. I pressed the button to call the lift. It sounded obscenely loud as it rumbled up through the building.
I tried not to move as I waited. Waiting for a lift always seems to take a long time, yet this one was possibly the slowest lift in the world. My chest ached as my heart pounded against it. The lift arrived. In case I didn’t notice it, it pinged as the doors opened.
The zombies started to move. Waking from their sleep trying to find what had disturbed them. The one beneath me started to get up. I darted inside the lift which was miraculously zombie free. I pressed the button to close the doors so hard it hurt my finger. Nothing happened.
The zombies were stirring, growling and salivating as they sniffed the air searching for prey. I remembered the floor number and hit the big G just as the nearest zombie’s head snapped around to face me. It was Erika. Once it was anyway. She lunged into the lift as the doors slid shut. She was here, defending Zoe right to her last breath. Do zombies breathe? I didn’t know. Right then it wasn’t important. What was important was that I was trapped in a slow-moving metal box with zombie Erika.
She jerked towards me on a broken ankle. Her teeth gnashing, trying to reach my skin. So, I summoned the power of every time I had watched the film 300 to perform the best Sparta kick, I could muster. It connected with her stomach and slammed her into the doors. If I wasn’t so scared for my life I might have been impressed with the effort. Unfortunately, it didn’t keep her down for long. She struggled upright again and came back for me. I dodged a lunge and tackled her to the floor of the lift in a move that would have made the university rugby team proud. I straddled her back pinning her arms beneath my legs. She spat furiously. I could imagine her screeching voice lecturing me about leaving Zoe to die and saving myself. She had always thought that Zoe was too good for me. I think she was probably right. Being good didn’t guarantee survival though.
I focused. Raised the knife and plunged it into the base of her skull. At least that’s what I tried to do. The knife slipped on bone and embedded somewhere in the back of her neck. Erika twisted beneath me and I struggled to keep her pinned. I tried again, this time with less of a dramatic build up. I positioned the blade carefully against the back of her head and pushed as hard as I could. It was much harder than the movies made it look. With a sickening cracking squelch, it broke through. Erika fell still.
For a moment I didn’t move. Erika wasn’t trying to bite me anymore. Shakily I got to my feet just as the lift dinged to let me know we’d arrived on the ground floor.
The doors slid open to reveal the bright lobby area. I don’t think I’d ever been so grateful for the large windows and warm sunlight. As I stepped out of the lift there was a crackling noise like that from a radio. I hesitated.
‘Can anyone hear me?’ a man’s voice came through the radio.
I followed the noise round to the reception desk. The walkie-talkie lay abandoned on the floor just out of reach of the security guard who was currently squashed up under the desk so that he was in the shade. A gory hole gaped in his neck that I tried not to look at too much. I glanced to the radio.
‘Is anyone there? We’re trapped on the third floor,’ the man whispered through the radio. The zombie twitched in response and lunged for the radio. It spun across the floor towards me. The security guard seemed reluctant to move out into the sunlight though, after a moment he settled back under the desk.
I stared at the radio by my feet. Normally the third floor wouldn’t be so far. When the stairwell was filled with zombies though, it might as well be on the other side of the city.
‘Please, there are children here. We need help,’ the voice pleaded.
The security guard grumbled and shifted as the radio crackled.
I felt bad for them, I really did. But what could I do? I’d barely made it down here by myself, never mind with a group of other people, including children. I wasn’t the hero they were looking for. If there was a hell after all this, then I’d pay my debt there. I’m sorry, but I wasn’t about to trade my life for strangers. I wanted to survive. I turned and left the building. Maybe someone much braver and stupider than me could save them.
I looked up at the clear sky. If I could make it somewhere safe before nightfall, I might make it. I know it was selfish. I know it wasn’t what I was expected to do. I don’t believe in karma, if I did, I would have no doubt it would catch up with me. As it stands, I’m the one that’s alive and that’s good enough for me.
I'm Katy, but go by K H Simmons officially. I write a lot of sci-fi, dark fantasy and dystopian fiction. If you're here for sparkly vampires, you're in the wrong place ;)
I frequently post short stories on my Facebook page, as well as work on full length novels. If you want more short stories like the above - check out my anthology Death, Demons & Dystopia available on Amazon/Kindle. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YN5DY98
When I'm not writing, I can usually be found cuddling dogs, reading, at the gym or playing video games.
