The Rot: Book 2

Chapter 10

It looked like a whole wall of dead things that spanned the width of the road. I could see the mob of eaters through the van's windshield.

"Now what the fuck do we do?" Carla asked. I could tell from her tone that she was panicking a little bit. Hell, at that point, we all were.

"We have to hide. And fast," I answered.

I threw my backpack into the van and we all retreated further into the diner. Everybody ran back to the kitchen and we tried to wait for the horde of dead things to shamble past the building.

It started out as a dull moan and grew louder and louder as the mob of biters got closer to our location. Maurice and I looked out of the kitchen and towards the diner's windows, trying to see the eaters move by through the window barricades.

"Shit, that sounds like a lot of them," I whispered to Maurice. Neither one of us could really see through the barricaded windows, so we couldn't estimate how many biters were out there in total.

When the horde moved closer to the building, some of the biters started to wander off into the parking lot, and it even looked like a couple of the corpses brushed up against the minivan.

"Oh fuck me," I muttered when I saw the eater move by the van and wander into the front of the diner. Maurice and I quickly closed the kitchen door when the undead creature made it inside.

"Do you think she saw us?" Maurice asked.

"We'll know in a second because she'll be trying to get through that door," I replied.

"What's going on?" Cynthia asked me.

"One of the dead things is in here with us."

"Shit."

"I concur."

With all of us trapped inside the kitchen, we couldn't hear what was going on out in front of the diner, the closed door muffled any sounds coming from outside.

Janice located the back door to the restaurant. "We can get out through there."

"We might have to wait a while," Carla told Janice.

I had to agree with Carla, I wasn't about to run out there with a horde right outside the building.

"How long can we wait?" Cyn wondered. "We don't have that much daylight left."

"Well, to be fair, we really don't have that much going on anyways, Cynthia," I replied.

"Shut up, Reid."

The five of us waited for around half an hour. Maurice kept his back pressed up against the kitchen door should that dead thing out in the restaurant become inquisitive and try to get inside the kitchen area. Every once in a while, Maurice would press an ear up to the door and try to listen for the dead thing.

"I can hear something. Not sure what," Maurice told us.

"What does it sound like?" Janice asked.

"Hard to say. Definitely some kind of movement."

"I say we sneak out the back door, get to the van and get the hell out of here," said Carla.

"I'm all for that," Cynthia responded.

Maurice shook his head. "We can't just yet. Not until we know what the hell is going on out there."

Our group had two options: open up the kitchen door and deal with any stenches that could be inside the diner, which could alert the horde passing by. Or we could head out around the back of the building and see if the mob of corpses is gone. Guess which one the group picked? Also, guess who got picked to go out there? Yep, Ol' Reid Abrams. I hate my friends.