Zombies

Chapter 18-Readjustment

I awoke, expecting it to be morning. A window I had ignored previously revealed to me that it was still night. I woke up to a scraping noise. It stopped when I stood up. What I saw chilled me. There was a figure, in the corner. I could feel the stare coming from the figure. It seemed frozen in the act of something. It cautiously took a few steps toward me.

She has awoken. A breathy voice came to my mind. "I shall silence her. Must not be known or found."

My breath caught. I felt too frozen to scream. When I found my lungs my weak cries were muffled by cold hands pressing against my neck, hard enough for me to choke. I struggled against the stranglehold, I felt my face turn purple.

In the faint moonlight, I saw a zombie. I realized then she had the same voice that I'd heard before I'd found my father.

Her face was crazed. "There is no greater pain than the great displeasure of my king."

I started to lose consciousness. The lack of oxygen made me struggle harder, in a final desperate attempt for air.

I sat up in my bed, cold sweat on my forehead. I was gasping for life itself. I looked around, the moonlight from the window showed no signs of anyone exiting or entering the room. But there was no one here. I took a few deep breaths and soon felt calmer. It was still dark, and just like in my dream, there was a window, that only revealed a small amount of moonlight.

It was harder to fall asleep now than the last time, but I wasn't awake for too long.

The next time I awoke, it was light. I lay in bed, not feeling up to waking. Everything after walking up the stairs of the basement was a blur. I couldn't remember why I felt so on edge. Oddly, it wasn't the fact I was in the lair of the inner circle. I realized it was my nightmare, from last night; so I brushed it off and forced myself to get up.

I walked to my door and tried to turn the handle. It was locked. I began to feel anxiety, like bile rising to my throat, so I tried to think of a good side to being locked in a room. I realized this was proof that my dream was just a dream. No one could have exited the room, unless they jumped out the small window, to go four stories down.

I noticed another door. It made no sense to me. I walked to the door and opened it.

Instead of an exit, or another room, the door led to a bathroom. I gawked at the size and cleanliness of it. It was simple, yet more than anything we got at the lower levels. It even had a shower, small but better than nothing.

I looked in the mirror. If zombies were only how they looked then I would have been counted as one of the living dead. I had heavy bags under my eyes and my hair was in desperate need of brushing. I tried to comb it with my fingers. I selfishly missed roommates, some who through sheer luck remembered things like a hairbrush. Thinking of brushes, I realized how awful my mouth felt. There had been stuff like this prepared at the hospital for those who could do such mundane grooming, but that had been a full day before, and based on my mouth, and the events in between now and then, it felt much longer.

An opening of the door to my bedroom door caused me to jump and quickly slam the bathroom door shut.

There was an awkward pause before reluctant steps to the bathroom door. I felt my heart pound. Irrationally I was worried about some enemy on the other side of the door. I pushed against the door with my might once I realized there was no lock. Why of all the choices for bathroom design was there no lock?

A hesitant knock came at the door. An unsure tenor voice called out. "Um, Miss. Are you decent?"

Relieved that no one was coming to force me out of the bathroom, but still adamant about not letting anyone see how I looked, I replied. "N-no."