Der Wassertank/ The water tank (🇬🇧/🇩🇪)

English 🇬🇧

I lay in my bed in the evening and listened to the rain pattering on my skylight. I couldn't sleep like I do every night, so I decided to do it. Near our house there was a run-down hotel that I had always wanted to explore. So I crept downstairs into the hallway, grabbed a mackintosh and slowly opened the front door. After about 15 minutes of walking, I arrived at the hotel with a completely soaked mackintosh. I was a little scared but curiosity got the better of me. A few years ago, a corpse was said to have been found in a water tank here, which is why the hotel had to close.
The moment I entered the hotel, I was overcome by an uneasy feeling. Nevertheless, I simply walked further into the hotel to get an overview. Strange noises kept coming from the corridors and I smelled something strange, but I just kept walking. I knew what I wanted. To see the water tank. I walked up some stairs and looked at some corridors until I arrived at an attic where there was a water tank. I looked at the water tank, walked up to it and opened it.

I was shocked, I didn't know what to do. There was someone lying in the water tank. Someone I didn't know. He or she had very bland and pale skin that made him/her look like an undead. I was even more frightened when I realised that the person had a head injury. The blood from these injuries, however, had long since dried, so that I dismissed the person as dead. Only then did I notice the bad smell again, which was much stronger here and obviously came from the corpse. I looked around a bit in the area, as I had not really looked around in this attic.
I heard what sounded like a splashing noise behind me. I turned around and if anyone had seen me, they would have confirmed that I was terrified. The corpse that had been lying in the water tank a few minutes ago was now standing right in front of me with a somewhat slanted posture. Like everyone else who had been in my situation (which was certainly not many), I did not know what to do. My only exit was to jump down the building as the zombie was blocking the normal exit. But to do that, I would first have to get to the roof of the hotel, in front of whose ladder I just happened to be standing. So, smart as I was, I ran up the stairs as fast as I could and quickly looked around on the roof. To my regret, it was still raining as hard as before but the "zombie" was already halfway up the stairs. I had to hurry. So I stood on the edge of the roof and looked down behind me. The undead had reached the roof and was coming straight at me. So I had to improvise. The zombie, which was now only an arm's length away from me, came slowly closer and closer, but I just looked at it and let myself fall backwards.

I would not fall for long. I had to think of something and fast! I folded and knotted my still wet rain jacket so that I could use it as a kind of parachute. I landed not really softly (as the rain jacket was not the best parachute) but not really elegantly either, but I picked myself up and immediately ran to the next house. I rang the doorbell, hoping that the zombie wasn't chasing me. A slightly younger man opened the door and looked at me (understandably) confused. I quickly told him what had happened to me but he didn't believe me (which was understandable, I mean I come to his house in the middle of the night and tell him something like that) but I insisted that he come with me to see what was going on. He reluctantly agreed to come and we walked to the hotel together. But the zombie was no longer there. Why does something like this happen? The man was totally annoyed and ran home, which I had to do willy-nilly.

My mother was waiting for me at home. She must have noticed that I had been away. Depressed that I couldn't investigate the undead any further, I went to bed and fell asleep quickly (as I rarely do).

News the next morning:
"Hello and welcome to a rather sad news item. A girl from a small village near Aachen was found dead this morning. Eyewitnesses (including a 25 year old man) said that they had seen the girl late on her last evening. The man had even spoken to her. She had reported seeing a zombie in a water tank in a nearby hotel.
After the girl's body was discovered by her mother in the morning when she was supposed to get up for school, she had immediately called the police but the girl had disappeared without a trace. Police officers searched the area. The water tank was also examined by a policeman who has not yet reappeared. Now, of course, rumours are circulating that the girl was attacked by this "alleged" undead, infected and ran to the water tank to be left in peace. However, the leading investigators deny this.
There is still no trace of the police officer responsible."

⚠Some lines are based on true events...but which ones?