REANIMATE

Chapter One

 Warm, sticky, and blinding was the blood that leaked from a deep gash on her forehead. Her own moans of pain were masked by the loud shuffling and groaning coming from the dead. It was a constant shuffle, thump, groan, shuffle, thump, groan, and so on. Fiona reached a slick hand up to her eye and tried to clear away some of the blood. Her vision was red and she was beginning to feel light headed. Shuffle,  thump, groan.

"Jesus Christ," she spat, her voice hoarse and her breathing labored. From her good eye she could tell that the window would break any minute now. Long,  spidery cracks reached out through every corner of the window. On the other side the dead banged their bodies relentlessly against the glass. Some almost looked human but others had such morbid wounds that it was impossible that they were alive. Fiona reached behind her, fumbling to grasp her gun with a bloodied hand.She had ten bullets, ten shots mixed with her horrible aim... Yeah,she wasn't going to make it, not by shooting her way out anyway.

Behind Fiona, ten meters away, was an elevator shaft. Her best bet was to pry it open and try to escape from there. Either way it would buy her more time; maybe another ten minutes of life. The brief thought of'is it even worth it?' crossed her mind, quickly followed by a 'hell yeah, it's better than being eaten alive by these fuckers'.

With the rest of her strength she pushed herself off the ground and began to walk to the elevator. Behind her the sound of the window creaking in protest of all the bodies became louder. She hurried herself, her left eye rendered useless by the steady stream of blood falling down her face. She made a feeble attempt to pry the elevator doors open with her hands before giving up and looking around for something else to use. She probably had five minutes, maybe less, before she was zombie chow. She began to pry a metal bar from something that most likely used to be a clothing rack. She forced it in between the elevator doors and pushed with all her might. It barely moved. She cursed under her breath.

Crack

The sound of the window finally breaking rang through Fiona's ears like a church bell. Her hands were slick with blood and sweat as she kept putting her full weight on the bar, trying to get the doors to open.The dead were shuffling towards her at an alarming pace, knocking over displays, getting tangled up in wires that came from the ceiling. Adrenaline turned to panic as Fiona gave one last push and the door opened just enough for her to scoot through. Without another thought she pushed through, letting the doors slam back together.Only then did it occur to her that she was falling.

Unfortunately for Fiona the elevator wasn't on the third floor, it was on the second. Fiona hit the top of the elevator with a yelp, one of her ribs crunching beneath her. The old elevator shook slightly from the feeling of someone landing on it. Fiona rolled on her side, her face contorted in pain, but no sound came out. She could already here the dead banging against the elevator doors from above but it would belong before they cold break through those. Fiona lay there a moment,her thoughts swirling throughout her mind.

"Hello?Is someone up there? Hello? Can you help us?" A muffled voice said from below. Fiona was too distracted by pain to respond at first."Hello? Please, we need help. One of use is- We need help. Can you open the shaft?"

That time Fiona understood. She rolled over, her hands searching for the fire escape latch. She began to pull on it, a stream of blood trickled from her mouth as she exerted herself. Finally, with a creak, it came open. She looked down into the elevator, taking all of it in. There was a woman, one of her fingers was missing. Dark circles sat under here eyes; a stark contrast to her pale skin. Next to her, on the ground was what Fiona assumed to be her son. He had sandy colored hair and was pressing a cloth to a wound on his side.From what Fiona could see, it was deep. In the far corner, away from the two were an Asian couple. Their hair was matted with blood and dirt and they had a look on their face like they knew, they just knew.