in a pleated skirt and a halter top. Her back was to them, only her profile visible. She was a bleached blonde, and had no visible wounds on her, but Marina was the brave soul to turn her over, which was when they saw the pool of blood. Something had opened her up, her guts spilling out from her bare midriff.
Samir squeaked, nearly fainting. Kamara grabbed hold of his arms and righted him.
“What on God’s Earth?” Klaus exclaimed.
“She looks like she’s been...” Marina paused, “ gnawed on.”
“You mean someone did -THAT- with their teeth?” Lupe said.
“Appears so. Someone or something. Maybe some sort of animal,” Ian said, “I don’t...” He was unable to finish his train of thought, as the dead girl began to groan, and slowly picked herself up off the floor. The group stepped back, watching the impossible happen before their eyes. The girl’s eyes were glassy, the icy blue of a corpse that had been dead for a long time. She shambled toward them, reaching out with her arms, her teeth gnashing, while her intestines dangled from her stomach in ropy trails. Marina was closest and she saw the girl’s intent. She raised one booted leg and kicked her hard in the chest as the girl’s greedy hands got within an inch of her shoulders. The girl crashed through the
windows, falling four floors down to the ground below.
There was silence for about a second, and then the German said, “What I just witnessed was
empirically impossible.”
“Yeah,” Marina said, “Tell that to the girl I just killed for the second time Klaus. I hope.”
The sound of the glass shattering had drawn attention to them, possibly by more creatures like the dead girl. Moans arose from other parts of the building, some sounding way too close for comfort. They dashed for the stairs, but the stairs were heaped with bodies, tangled in a jumbled mess of groaning, whimpering, and silent. They saw movement from some of them, but it was hard to tell what was dead, alive, or otherwise.
“Try the elevator!” Samir shouted.
They did. The doors swished open and four of those walking dead things shambled toward them.
“Close the doors! Close the doors!” Jomo shouted.
They had to shove the corpses back in while the elevator doors slowly shut on them. One of them had its fingers tangled in Xinga’s hair, and the girl shrieked something fearful until the door shut on its arm, severing it just above the wrist. The hand still danced in her hair, and Xinga screeched and flailed about until she managed to fling it away from her. It skittered about the floor like a spider, crashing into walls, sightless, but still incredibly alive.
“Not nice!” Xinga shouted, unsure if she’d chosen the right words. She was right, Klaus thought, but if anything, that was the understatement of the century.
“Where to now?” Kamara asked Samir.
“I don’t know,” he said. He taught an
International Studies group, sure, but that was just
like any of the many clubs at the college that one could join. He didn’t have any real credentials. He certainly didn’t have any experience with something
like this. Instead of answering, he began to try doors to different rooms.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Seeing if anyone else is here, hiding, or if there’s another way out.”
The first classroom they entered was littered with papers, desks overturned. There was a torso with arms slithering up the middle isle, guts coming out from the severed trunk like