I was with A.J. He was still pretty shook up about the whole thing.
"This is my survival group?" He was joking. Like all of us were, to hide the fear.
The sky was an inky black now. Alin was still at the counter, staring blankly at something on her phone with tears that didn't fall out of her eyes and just sat there. Alex was on the couch. She looked as if she were asleep, but Alin's axe was clutched tight in her hand, which had been left to hang off the couch. The large blade of her axe reflected the clock on the wall.
2:30am. By now the alarm had been shut off and the students were no longer visible from our window. It seemed the teachers were too tired to deal with us now. But they were the least of our worries.
Many lights in neighbouring dorms were still on of course, I mean we are university students. What I was surprised of was that no one else seemed to be fighting for their lives. As far as I could tell, the rest of the world carried on. I was going to post my picture under the worn out tag of infected with his name on it. But there's no point in starting a panic. If the NHS or the police or -God forbid- the military were to reach us before the outbreak, it would be such an inconvenience. There would definitely be an unnecessary quarantine.
"You know," I said to him, "me and my friends back in Welwyn had a plan for the zombie apocalypse, were it to ever break out." A.J looked at me as if I had said I had a machine gun.
"What kind of crowd did you hang out with exactly?" He asked me.
I chuckled, "an artist, an alcoholic, and a giraffe... Also possibly a member of the Mafia."
"Seems legit." Alex's axe clattered to the floor.
I forced a smile. It was easier with the thought of my old friends. Me and everyone in this room had just started university about a month ago. No doubt they'd all made friends ,but I was what they call the silent type.
My mother always said I was too closed off. That I was unsociable. I had preferred the term 'observer'. I had always tried to not get involved with people. I told myself it was because I was too lazy to make friends or because my classmates are boring. But really, it was to avoid the ache of losing them. A lot of good that did me.
"At least one of us is getting sleep."
There was a pause.
"Did she mention anything about a cure?"
"There's no cure," Alin said, "well... Maybe there's-" a choked sound escaped her lips.
"Alin?" A.J asked. We finally turned around to look at her. Her phone had slipped out of her hand, hitting the edge of the counter and falling to the floor, cracking it's screen which had an image of her arm-in-arm with the person who she had burned hours ago.
Her arms hang limp by her sides. Her head fell to her right, as if her neck had bones but no muscles to hold it up. Her eyes were yellow where invisible capillaries should be.
I opened my mouth to scream, "run A.J!" But before I could, I felt a sharp sting in my neck. Well three sharp, long stings. I tasted metal in my mouth. A.J had clawed my neck open. No ... Not A.J. A zombie.
It hadn't exactly sunk in that my vocal cords were ripped to pieces, so I called out for Alex and painfully turned my head to her. But she also wasn't herself anymore. Her hanging arm clawed at the faux leather of the couch, ripping into its stuffing.
As I fell, I reached out, grabbing the lighter which Alin must have dropped. I fumbled for two seconds, but I heard the familiar click before my vision went dark. I couldn't taste any metal. I couldn't feel any sting. I didn't see my head hit the floor. But I heard the fire. I heard their screams. Then I opened my eyes.
And I was in hell.
A record player. Yes a record player. Not a phone or a laptop or those 2001 recorders with tapes in them. A record player with a large vinyl disk and a large trumpet looking thing on top of it was to my left. It was playing Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture. It had reached the build up and was somewhere around the 13/14 th minute, where the bells were ringing large and small along with the fanfare.
Their bodies were piled one on top of the other on a massive pile of unidentified corpses, burning like a witch at the stakes. I looked to my right and I saw a bloody pitch fork in my red stained hands.
The record player was reaching the crescendo, but it sounded wrong. Distorted. Too slow. And as the trumpets went off, I could've sworn I heard a deep laugh which was distorted by the tape and hushed by the music and the cannons Tchaikovsky had set off in the climaxes, but I could still hear it, laughing at the pile of burning bodies.
And God how they burned. Like the fire was eating them alive Yet they all stared at me, eyes wide open. They didn't move their lips but I could hear them chanting, "murderer. Murderer. Murderer! MURDERER!" Then Tchaikovsky's overture came rushing all at once, the clashing of what sounded like symbols and the blasting of what I assumed was a trumpet , followed by a canon shooting into the open sky. I heard it again. The deep voice laughed, echoing in my ears.
The music reached its finale, it's volume and the laughter and the chanting seemed to turn up their volume by 70%. All I could hear was them and my scream as I bolted out of my chair, falling onto the kitchen floor.
Alex bolted upright from the couch, hand clutching her axe which had fallen out a while ago. Alin jolted up from her crossed arms which lay on the counter. A.J pulled me up by my right arm. He didn't draw back at the feeling of sticky blood. I didn't have to wash my hand. There was no pitch fork. Alin's lighter was still in her pocket. They weren't dead.
"Nightmare?" Alin asked, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge. I nodded, shakily accepting the beverage.
_______________
Alex felt a little guilty, all she'd dreamed about was a quiet little girl in a black hoodie and a jovial woman who always answered Alex's questions when the girl didn't. What they had talked about specifically she couldn't say, but it hadn't been anything horrific. Alex reached down for the axe. What kind of dream did Alin have.
"We need to have a watcher system," she said, trying to avoid eye contact with anyone, "I'll take first watch."
"No," Silas said shakily. He had quite enough of sleep for one night, " I will." The clock read 3am.
YOU ARE READING
The Final Gamble
Science Fiction"Look at that thing," Silas jabbed his weapon at its burning, writing corpse, "look at it closely." "Is that thing human?" Alex got her first good look at it. Its haunting yellow eyes. Its pale face, blue like a corpse. Its limbs moved around, clu...
