Apocalyptic ✔

Eight

Wait For Mom

You can't leave. Mom isn't here yet. She said she was coming. She will get here.

You zip up the bag and set it by the back door, ready to grab and go in a second. The sun has started its slow descent. There are just two or three hours of daylight left. You aren't really hungry, but pull some leftovers out of the fridge anyway.

Another sandwich later, you creep back to the front of the house. Before you even get there, the increased groans, growls, and bumps to the house let you know that there are more walking corpses outside. When you look out, you have to hold back a gasp. At least two dozen zombies press against the front of your house. More wander the front yard and driveway.

How did you not notice this sudden increase? It's obvious now. The noise they make suddenly seems deafening. Your eyes wander over the varying stages of decomposition.

Here is a woman who has been dead for several days. Her body is sun bloated, maggots crawling all over her exposed skin. There, a man who must be recently turned. His skin color and uncoordinated gait the only clues that he is dead.

You back away from the window. There are to many. You need to leave. Rushing to the back door, you pick up the back pack and pull aside the curtain to look out.

A cloudy, bloodshot eye glares back at you. You drop the curtain, but it's too late. With a hiss, the zombie bashes itself into the door. Seeing you has worked it into a feeding frenzy. With another smack, the glass cracks.

You had been frozen in place, but the sight of that broken glass springs you into action. As you dash down the hall, the sound of broken glass hitting the kitchen floor sends you into a panic.

The back door is compromised. The front is blocked by a horde of the undead. Your only open path is upstairs. Heavy backpack bouncing on your back, you jump up the stairs two at a time.

Can the dead use stairs? You hope the answer is no, but you're not waiting to find out. Running into your bedroom, you close and lock the door. Backing away, you try to control your breathing, and listen for the sounds of the zombies.

The kitchen door groans and with an earsplitting crash, gives way. The noise draws the zombies, exciting them, and you can hear them coming into the house. Their loud sniffing soon pinpoints your location, and you hear them at the bottom of the stairs. The noise halts there as the zombies apparently have a difficult time with the stairs.

You sag with relief. If they can't climb stairs, you still have options. Looking out your window, from this high up, you can see the whole street. The highest concentration of zombies seems to be in your yard. Lucky you...

There are still to many outside for you to risk jumping to the ground. You will have to wait up here. You have the backpack, so you're ok for a few days, if need be.

Settling onto your bed, you get ready to wait them out.

A few times, thumping sounds on the stairs. You think that it's the sound of a zombie who made it partially up the steps, falling back down.

Time passes, and you are falling asleep, sitting up, when a shuffling noise outside of your door snaps you awake.

One of them is upstairs... With a growl, it rattles your locked door. You eye the flimsy door skeptically, not sure if it will hold. When another set of moans joins the first, you know you have to act.

Going to your window, you look out. There are less infected out there, now. Most have probably made their way into your house by now.

The door groans behind you, it won't hold for long. Decision made, you open your window. You're going to jump.

The door bursts open just as you swing your legs out the window. You hurry to throw yourself out, and the short fall to the ground ends with you landing wrong.

The snap of your ankle sounds like a gunshot, sending pain radiating up your body.

Panicked, you try to stand, but your ankle won't support your weight. The growling undead that were still in your yard shuffle towards you, bloody arms reaching for their next meal.

You shuffle, trying to escape them, but now, they are faster than you.

You trip and fall, and the nearest zombie sinks its greedy teeth into your thigh.