Chapter two

The real truth

The walls were covered in a dirty old wall paper that once seemed like it might have been decent about 40 years ago. The floral design was now faded yellow with age, and aside from that it was torn off in some places. Cobwebs dominated the corners of the room and aside from the random articles of clothing and mouse droppings the room was empty. The gray curtain was barely there. Half of it looked like it was ripped off but the other half that was still intact was blowing lightly with the breeze and the sound of the wind coming in through the window made them shutter. They stood quietly as they looked around the room for a few minutes. The rays of light coming in through the window revealed just how dusty the place was.

"I knew this was going to be a stupid idea" Lisandra muttered finally breaking the silence. "There's nothing here- and I mean nothing!"

"Alright hold your horses. Maybe if we stay long enough we could see a spirit"

"There's no spirits, but I might've found something better…"

Tatiana points to the corner in the far left and began to walk up to it. Through the sunlight's rays one could see something shine a bit. They all saw it, but Tatiana was the first to reach it. She picked up the shiny object ignoring the mouse droppings and other junk it was surrounded by. It was a wedding band, and an expensive looking one. White gold curled around a huge diamond ring, with two smaller diamonds on each side. The group of friends inspected it discussing whether it might be real or not.

"Hell yeah it's real!" Tatiana grabs the ring from her friend's hand. "Bids" She said as she stuffed it in her pocket.

"No way! It was my idea to come in here" Erica argued. "It should be mine."

"Look, I'll hold it for now so that it won't get lost…" Lisandra waited for any resistance but everyone knew she was the most responsible out of the three. "We'll take it to a jeweler later and see how much we can get for it, whatever the price we'll split it three ways. Deal?"

Lisandra held her hand out for the ring. After a few moments of thinking Tatiana scuffed and pulled the prize out of her pocket placing it into her friend's hand carefully. She nodded at them silently agreeing and they continued to go about the building inspecting each room. Once they finish looking through the apartment they leave out into the hall way they memorize the apartment number. 201. They walk slowly trying to make as little noise as possible, making their way to the stair case deciding to go up rather than down. The stairs creek as they walk but they're used to it at this point. In the hall way everything is darker. There is no light coming from the windows and they walk blindly touching the walls as they go. They make it to the fourth floor when Tatiana's phone rings.

"Hello?" She speaks into the phone
"I wanted to know if you wanted to join us,"
"Yeah, we're inside of that haunted building you were telling me about…"
"Got in fine. Second floor right?" She laughed lightly holding the receiver closer to her face. The other girls waited impatiently for her to finish. They weren't going to go any further without her.
"Well come we're here already text me when you're inside"

Then she hung up.

"Who was that?" Lisandra asked

"Ricky, he's with the rest of the Suicide Crew they're coming they're not too far away."

"Suicide Crew?"

"Yeah, the guys. Ralf, Ricky, Adam, Luis and Matt you know; the guys that are always playing suicide at the handball court around the school. The others are taking midterms." Erica explained. Lisandra just shrugged in response. She never liked any member of the 'Suicide Crew' in her opinion they were all mean and immature and they all took pleasure in constantly making fun of each other and making others feel horrible about themselves.

"What you should call them is the Retarded Drop-outs, or the Dumb Fucks Crew and by the way why the hell would you invite them?" The brunette made a face, but Tatiana steps ahead holding on to the railing of the stairs and doesn't look back as she responds.

"Because they're guys. We'll be less scared around them. Plus, that guy Ricky is extremely hot…"

Erica and Lisandra both sigh, it was completely like Tatiana to be chasing after a guy.

At the top of the forth floor all of their previous thoughts and conversations were lost. A shadow could be seen at the end of the hallway where barely any light reached. It moved at first, then it went rigid and no further movement could be seen. The girls were beginning to think they were imagining things. They whispered to each other to confirm if what they were seeing was real. All of them had seen it there was no doubt about that, they thought it might be a homeless person but as they watched him they realized he was just staring at them. Lisandra took a step back, and Erica stepped forward with caution squinting at the darkness as if it made her vision suddenly enhanced. She bit her lip realizing that she couldn't see anything anymore. It was like the guy had blended into the darkness or maybe disappeared all together. Tatiana reached into her backpack pulling out two small wooden sticks.

"Drum sticks?" Lisandra mouthed out, you could almost hear her whisper the syllables. She clutched the sleeve of Erica's sweater peaking back down the hallway from behind her.

Tatiana nodded, still looking into the darkness. The girl seemed ready to swing at anything that was willing to come too close. If that was a ghost then it had succeeded in scaring the hell out of them.
They waited when suddenly they heard a screech, a loud shrill filled the hall and could probably be heard from outside even. Something leaped from the darkness with frightening speed and knocked the girls to the floor. They all stumbled and fell as their screams filled the air. The thing was already attacking pulling Lisandra's hair and trying to…bite her?

She yelled out in pain trying to pry the creature's hands from her hair. The other girls got to their feet and tried to pull the monster off. The creature quickly turned its attention to Tatiana in the manner of milliseconds it was off of Lisandra and had its hands wrapped around Tatiana's neck, choking her. The girl cough gasping for air although her throat was being forced closed her eyes began to tear even though it had only been choking her for a few seconds. She could see the girls trying to pull it off of her but it wouldn't release its deadly grip. Instinctively Tatiana remembered the drum stick she still had in her hand. The other one had fallen during the attack but she had still been clutching one of them, and this she used to bludgeon the creatures eye. She shoved the drum stick into its face until it released her; the thing screamed in agony, went limp and died.

Erica helped Tatiana up. The girl was shaking, in shock with fresh tears rolling down her eyes. Hands on her neck she still felt like she was being choked, she looked down at the creature taking a few steps back Lisandra tried her best to comfort her rubbing her back as she too looked at the thing but it was clear that she was also beginning to tear up too, horrified.

"WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?" Tatiana's shrilled when she caught her breath. Her sentence was cut off by Erica's hand.

"Shut up!" Her voice was low but powerful and the other two girls obeyed. She took her hand off Tatiana's mouth and spoke to them in whispers. "Look I don't know what it was but whatever it is, its dead now. If there's any more of them we're going to have to be really quiet so they won't notice us"

"What. Was. That." Tatiana repeated through clenched teeth. She had grabbed Erica by the shirt angrily. Couldn't the girl tell she had almost been choked to death? Not to mention the fact that she just technically killed a man. She could imagine the place surrounded by police the shame on her mothers face when she found out her daughter just… killed someone.

She could already feel the cold handcuffs on her wrists. Tatiana now regretted stepping foot into the place. They came looking for ghosts and ended up getting attacked and killing a man! She didn't know how she was going to live with herself now. She hoped the girls didn't want to call the police, she swallowed nervously waiting for someone to suggest something, anything that didn't include her going to jail for murder.

"This… isn't a person… at least it doesn't look like it" Lisandra pulled out her cell phone and held the light to the creatures face. She knew, that being the most logical of the three she must've sounded stupid but her mind was racing and she had to admit it as bad as it seemed. "It look's dead."

"No shit." Erica snapped, pulling herself away from Tatiana's angry grip. She knew what everyone was thinking and she too was beginning to regret coming here, but there was no way they were going to call the police. They would all get into trouble. Trespassing; murder…or was it manslaughter? The girl flinched at the thought. She didn't want any of them to get into trouble for something that was her idea. The only option that made sense now was to get out as soon as possible and never speak about the house again.

"No. I mean… Look at it. It looks like it was dead before we got here." Lisandra's words brought Erica out of her train of thought. She walked over to the body, kicking it lightly in the ribs. It didn't move, so she put her face closer to the body, observing its face and ignoring the long drum stick still sticking out of its eye.

It had thin chalky white skin. The veins under were visible and the creature had dark bags under its eyes and blood that was foaming out of its mouth. Of course its eye was gushing blood and ooze but it was clear that it had been bleeding profusely before their encounter. Its clothes were dirty and stained with blood and it had scratch marks all over. Open wounds- clearly the working of claws had scarred its face, and its eyes (or more its remaining eye) were white like those of a blind man. The creature laid there, a disgusting reminder of the trouble they had gotten themselves into. Tatiana stepped on the drum stick, shoving it deeper into the creatures head. Lisandra flinched at the subtle sound, and Erica on the other hand was already walking back downstairs.

"Let's get the fuck out of here."

"Erica what are we going to do?"

"Get out asses the fuck out of here like I said!"

Tatiana found her other drum stick and held it to her chest as if it were a cross. As they made their way down the stairs they heard footsteps; footsteps that weren't their own. They froze, paralyzed with fear in the middle of the stairs knowing that soon if they stood there they might get into another show down and next time… They might not be so lucky.

"Dude that thing wasn't human" Tatiana mumbled as they walked carefully down the stairs. "I've seen zombie movies. That thing was NOT human!"

"Zombies? Be serious." Erica gulped, knowing that they all had silently come to the same conclusion she still felt the need to debate about it. As much as it made sense to assume that it was a zombie; it didn't. Zombies don't exist. She wanted to believe that it was a coked out freak, anything... anything but a zombie. In the movies everyone turns into zombies. If what they were dealing with was anything like that they were in big trouble.

"You've seen it for yourself he tried to take a chunk out of Lisi. There's no other explanation. We're fucking with zombie's dude!"

Although she wanted to argue Erica was now speechless, and Lisandra on the other hand the one who always had something smart to say about everything had the words snatched away from her too. Then with no warning at all a roar could be heard coming from downstairs and banging as if someone was hitting a wall with something. The screams didn't stop, it triggered more. Noise now came from upstairs too and the sound of something running downstairs could be heard. The noise made the girls ears ring and even as Lisandra yelled for them to go they weren't sure they heard it as much as they saw her say it.

"Go. Go. Go!" Lisandra urged pushing Erica forward the girls went into a sudden sprint running down knowing now that they creatures were everywhere. Upstairs, and now downstairs somehow they began to wonder how come they didn't bump into them before? They went into the nearest apartment on the third floor and locked themselves inside leaning against the walls trying to catch their breath.

"Yeah" Erica admitted in an exhausted voice "I think those things are fucking zombies."

They stared at each other with wide eyes silently thinking about what just happened.