The sun was setting, and the fog was settling with it. A thick, nigh-opaque mist descended upon the wounded, exhausted survivors, as if the clouds themselves collapsed onto Fairfield. They could see across the street, see the zombies milling about beneath streetlights like moths at a lamp, but everything further on was lost to obscurity.
Not that it mattered to any one member of the trio. They were currently limping toward a nearby apartment building with all the speed they could muster. Behind them, heard but not yet seen, was a small horde of Infected.
Francis reached the door first and kicked it open, stepping aside to let Louis and Zoey in, firing blindly in the direction of the growls. Zoey, first to step into the dark corridor, turned on her flashlight. It illuminated two zombies in the hallway, both of whom seemed to be startled by the irritating light. She shot both of them and then continued down the hall, which terminated in a flight of stairs winding around a landing.
Zoey and Louis reached the landing, where the stairs suddenly turned to the right. Zoey continued up them, to clear the hallway on the second floor. Louis shouted back to Francis, "Come on, man!" A second later, Zoey heard Louis' Uzi sound off. Numerous growls were silenced, and Francis barked, "Fuck! That was right next to my ear, you asshole!"
"Maybe if you weren't so damn slow, Francis, you wouldn't have-"
BLAM, Francis' shotgun sounded off, and Zoey heard Louis scream, "Shit, Francis! God dammit, I'm deaf!"
"Yeah, not so fun, is it?"
Zoey walked past locked doors, listening to the bickering behind her, which was interlaced with gunfire as the two men worked to fight off the horde that was bottlenecked in the downstairs hallway. Zoey finally found an unlocked door, and pushed it open tentatively, glancing back down the hallway toward her friends. They had backed up to the top of the steps, still firing down at the approaching horde. Louis had switched to his pistol and was firing slow, conservative headshots into the nearest Infected while Francis quickly thumbed shells into his shotgun.
Zoey entered the dark room, and swept it with her flashlight. Empty. She checked rooms, finding no Infected. In the bathroom, however, she saw a bottle of pain pills beside the sink. She picked them up, reading the dosage. Adults – take two pills a day, or as directed by a physician. She popped two pills with a grimace, waiting for them to take an effect on her sore body and stiff, overtaxed, wounded legs. When nothing happened after thirty seconds, she popped two more. Then she pocketed the rest of the pills and hurried out to her friends.
"Zoey!" Louis was calling as she stepped outside. The two men had retreated halfway down the hallway, still firing into the relentless horde that was coming at them.
"Covering fire!" Zoey yelled back, firing both pistols into the horde while her two companions took the time to reload their main weapons. By the time both her guns were empty, Louis and Francis were firing again.
"We've gotta get out of here!" Francis shouted. "Zoey, you see a way out back there?"
"There was a fire escape on the east side!" Louis shouted back over the gunfire. "I saw it!"
"Which way's East?" Francis asked.
"Left! Left!" Louis answered, putting a bullet through the skull of a zombie that had grabbed his shoulder. The horde was on them now, and it was all they could do to keep them at bay.
"Then cover me!" Francis yelled, putting his shoulder down like a linebacker and charging into the nearest door. To pick up his slack, Zoey started firing her weapon alongside Louis. Francis bulled through the nearby door with a crash. "Here it is!" He called back to them. "Come on!"
Louis and Zoey backed into the room, still shooting. Francis put a shotgun shell through the nearest window, and the three of them stepped out onto the fire escape. Once again, Francis let Zoey take the lead up the steps. Louis gestured to him. "Go up, man! You're almost out!"
Francis nodded, and followed Zoey up the steps. Louis took the rear, firing two more Uzi bursts into the horde behind him before pulling out his pistol and unloading it onto them. Zoey, on the upper level, fired down at them with her two pistols. "Come on, Lou!"
Louis bolted up the steps, zombies hot on his tail. The three survivors climbed up two more levels to the rooftop. Zoey, reaching the top first, turned around to pick off the zombies that were dogging Louis.
"There's too many of them!" Louis yelled.
"Shit, we've got nowhere to go!" Zoey cried, looking around the bare roof.
"Good plan, Louis!" Francis shouted, as Louis reached the rooftop and dove out of the way of Francis' shotgun blast – which took out the zombie that was about to bite the black man.
"Hey! I didn't say anything about the roof!" Louis retorted, rolling onto his back and firing into the nearest two zombies before scrabbling to his feet again.
Zoey jogged the perimeter of the roof, looking down for someplace – anyplace – that they could go. The north side of the building gave way to the street, which was so far down that only the light of the street lamps were visible in the fog. Ditto for the west side, while on the east they were greeted with the brick facade of an even taller building, upon which it would be impossible to jump. On the south side, however...
"There's a tree!" Zoey yelled.
"What?" Louis replied.
"A tree! About two floors down!" Zoey could see the top of a tree in the fog – it was a leafy maple, or something of the sort. It was standing behind a tall, brick wall that was topped with deadly looking barbed wire. It was a long jump over the potentially deadly wire, and a dangerous landing, but so far it seemed to be their only option.
"Get off! Get off!" Louis screamed, smashing in the face of a zombie woman who had grabbed his shirt in her hands. More zombies were converging on him – he was practically overwhelmed. Francis had his own problems, swinging his shotgun madly and striking down zombies that tried to surround him, screaming as he did so. Sweat flew off his body as he did so – the man was clearly on his final blast of adrenaline.
Zoey felt relatively relaxed and clear-headed, and she noted that the painkillers were probably starting to take effect. She could still feel the pain in her body, but it was no longer an urgent sting that demanded her attention – it was more of an objective sensation, something that she was aware existed, but didn't need to cater to quite yet. She bolted to Louis, and shot bullets into the horde that was overwhelming him. He pulled away from the undead with a grateful nod, taking the opportunity to reload his pistol. Zoey screamed, "Help Francis!"
Both survivors shot the zombies in Francis' immediate area, granting him some opportunity to back off. The three survivors retreated to the south corner of the roof, while the area continued to fill with zombies.
"Well, we've got one chance." Zoey sighed, and all three survivors glanced down at the tree.
"No way!" Louis cried, but Zoey was already running. She leaped before she could even think about what she was doing, clearing the walltop and its nasty barbed wire and landing in the tree. Branches cracked beneath her. She smacked her head and back roughly against some stronger branches, but these did little to slow her rapid descent. She reached out with her hands, struggling to grab hold of something, anything, to slow her fall, and then she hit the ground facedown with a hard, extremely painful crash.
She had no time to reflect on her situation, though. She struggled to her feet and limped away from the tree in time for Louis to smash into the ground where she had once been. Francis crash-landed beside him with a painful cracking sound. Louis rose to his feet immediately, albeit stiffly, and scanned the area for Infected while Zoey pulled Francis up. "Come on, man!" She yelled, trying to motivate him, "I'm half your size! Get up!"
The horde behind them, lacking the intelligence or survival instinct to jump into the tree, instead ran straight off the roof. For the most part, they failed to reach the fence. A few, however, managed to impale themselves on the barbed wire, where they writhed furiously. Zoey raised her pistol to finish them off, but Louis put his hand on her arm and shook his head.
Dusting themselves off, the three survivors scanned their surroundings. They were in a grassy courtyard, at the bottom of a hill. They could see very little of the surrounding landscape, thanks to the heavy fog. Zoey recognized it, however. She had seen this grassy meadow and these brick walls before – although they had previously been devoid of barbed wire. "We're at Fairfield University." She said.
"Shit, really?" Louis barked a laugh. "Guess it's been awhile since I last came here!"
"I hate schools," Francis grumbled, rubbing a spot on his back that was apparently still aching. "This one could be an exception, though. Is it defendable?"
"This wall surrounds it," Zoey had only actually been to the university a couple times, since she was only two weeks into the semester when the apocalypse hit. However, she knew that the only entrances were two sets of bronze gates, one on each side of the property. She relayed this information to the others.
"Great, so we might be no better in here." Francis sighed.
"Well, someone put this barbed wire here!" Louis observed. "Either this neighbourhood got a lot worse since I attended, or somebody was manning this place after the infection!"
The survivors ascended the hill, moving slowly and quietly. The mist concealed any potential threats, so they knew they would need to rely on their hearing to anticipate an attack.
They ascended the hill and found themselves looking down upon a path that ran the length of the courtyard. The path was illuminated by lampposts, only the nearest of which were visible. For the most part, the course of the path could only be traced by the white orbs of light that shone through the thick fog. Only a single zombie could be seen, beneath the nearest lantern. It hadn't noticed their presence yet.
"Hello? Can anyone hear this?" A static voice crackled somewhere nearby. "Can anybody hear this?"
"Holy shit." Zoey muttered, as the nearby zombie snarled and charged in the direction of the voice.
"Follow that zombie!" Louis hissed, and the two of them hurried after the creature, following the sounds of its growls and its slapping footsteps.
"I don't like this," Francis grumbled, jogging behind but keeping his head up and alert. "Could be a trap!"
"Dude, someone's out there!" Louis retorted incredulously. "They might need our help!"
A second later they found the radio, sitting on a bench beside the path. The zombie was standing over it, snarling in confusion and spinning in circles, looking for the owner of the elusive voice. It spotted the trio and charged them.
Louis and Zoey had taught Francis a lot about zombie killing that morning, and over the course of the afternoon he had returned the favour. Wordlessly, Louis pulled a fishing knife out of a sheath at his side and rammed the blade into the zombie's face. He grimaced as it punctured cartilage, broke bone and sliced muscle, but the Infected man went down easily and silently. He rubbed his knife on the grass before replacing it in the sheath.
"Hello? Can anyone hear this?" The voice sounded rehearsed, as if the man had been repeating the same message for quite some time.
Zoey suddenly felt a twinge of doubt about the radio – perhaps it was the fog, blocking their view of their surroundings. Perhaps it was the radio's location, sitting on a random bench in the middle of the Fairfield University courtyard. Somebody had been here at some point – this much she knew. They would've had to be, in order to put up the barbed wire. Granted, the presence of zombies in the courtyard suggested that any former tenants might have been forced to move out – or worse – but the feeling of trepidation gnawed at her nonetheless.
"Louis..." she started to say, but he had already lifted the radio receiver and pushed the talk button. "I hear you, man!" He cried. "What's up?"
" 'what's up' is that I have a sniper rifle trained right on your head, Slim." The radio man growled. All three survivors heard him load up a clip and cock the weapon, to assuage any doubts of his sincerity. "And with these infrared goggles on I can see you crystal clear through this fog."
"Great fucking plan, Louis." Francis cried, slow clapping the man. "I'm gonna count to three. Zoey, I want you to run north. I'll run south. Louis, you distract him!"
Zoey scanned their surroundings, looking for their mystery shooter. She knew that the courtyard was ringed by four buildings, including the dorms, and the man could be in any one of them. She couldn't see past the fog, however.
"Look, man, we're just a few tired survivors passing through!" Louis reasoned. "We don't have anything on us but our clothes and our guns!"
"The woman."
Zoey's eyes widened, and the two male survivors' heads swivelled to stare at her incredulously. I'm a bargaining chip? She thought to herself. Something to be bartered?
"Fuck that!" Francis shouted.
"You can go to hell with that demand!" Louis snapped, tossing the receiver back on the bench. "So, Francis, that running idea..."
"Put your hands up right now or I'll shoot you both where you stand!"
The wording wasn't lost on Zoey: he said "I'll shoot you both". Obviously his eyes were on the men at the moment. He had no intention of harming her... yet. She wondered how they'd react. Louis glanced at Francis. The biker shook his head, and the businessman shrugged. "He has us," Louis conceded. "We may as well do what he says."
"If he lays a fucking hand on Zoey-"
"He isn't doing a damn thing from up in his... tower, or wherever he is. If he comes down here, we'll handle him! Meanwhile, I don't want to get shot!" Louis holstered his pistol and raised his hands. Francis reluctantly strapped his shotgun across his back and did the same.
"Good," the man said. "Now, step away from her."
Zoey's heart thudded. She met both survivors' eyes and nodded, wondering if somebody was going to come hurrying out of the mist and grab her. She placed a surreptitious hand on the butt of her pistol. Would she fight? If she resisted, Francis and Louis could be killed. If she relented, however, her fate would probably be much worse. Rapists. The word repeated over and over in her mind, and yet she couldn't bring herself to believe it. Her hand tightened around the pistol, meeting the wide, scared eyes of her two companions. I'm not going to be a victim, she hoped her eyes said. If some stranger came out of the fog and Zoey shot them, it would mean the men's deaths for certain. But if a stranger came out of the fog and she let him take her, then they would probably kill the men anyway, just to tie up loose ends. Louis and Francis nodded at her gaze, as if silently acknowledging this fact.
"Hey! Woman!" The receiver buzzed. "I don't have time for this shit! Pick up the receiver!"
Feeling terrified and numb, Zoey crossed the path to the receiver. She slowly lifted it to her mouth and depressed the button. "What do you want?" Her voice was flat as she said it.
"They're unarmed now," the man whispered to her in a voice that was suddenly soft and reassuring. "You're out of their reach. Say the word now, and I can put both of them down before they can take a step toward you."
"WHAT?" Louis exclaimed.
"MAKE A MOVE, SLIM!" The man challenged.
"No!" Zoey cried. "They're my friends! Leave us alone!"
"Is that what you want?" The man asked.
"Yes," Zoey whispered. "Just let us go."
"You got it!" The man exclaimed, almost amicably. "Alright, guys, you're free to go! Follow this path, the way you were going, and it'll take you to Baker Building. There's a cafeteria on the far end with some decent food, just watch out for the freaks! I cleared it out this morning, but those things are like ticks – you miss one and the place is full of 'em again in an hour!"
"What the hell?" Louis cried, puzzled, as he put his hands down. "He isn't shooting us?"
"Oh, and sorry about all that..." The man continued. His voice went sombre. "These days, you can't be too careful with drifters. Travel up the road a bit... you'll see what I mean. Goodnight, and God bless."
The three survivors traveled down the path a few feet when they saw what the radio man was talking about: three corpses, two men and a woman, lay beside the path. The woman had a sheet draped respectfully over her. The men looked like they were left as they fell. One of them had his pants around his ankles and a bullet in between his shoulder blades. The other one had a bullet in his chest, and his own buckle was undone.
Can't be too careful...
Zoey glanced at her friends, and then crossed to the corpse beneath the sheet.
"Don't," Louis warned, but she ignored him, pulling the sheet off the woman's face. She was an Asian woman in her mid-thirties, and to judge by her features she didn't look like she had been a zombie. Death itself couldn't smooth the lines of anguish on the female's features, and it was immediately clear to Zoey that this unknown woman's death had not come to her easily. The radio man's soft, reassuring tone in her ear suddenly made more sense to her. They're unarmed, you're out of their reach. Just say the word. The Asian woman's throat was slit, a deep gash that stained the sheet under which she lay. Had the radio man's intentions been less noble, this could have very well been Zoey.
Wide-eyed, in shock, she replaced the sheet over the woman's head. She'd never considered – seriously considered – the depths to which humanity would sink during this Apocalypse. She'd never reserved much fear for humans in the past couple days, she was so busy dealing with the zombies.
Together, Louis and Francis softly touched her shoulders and led her toward Baker Building, which now loomed through the fog. She nodded a thank you to both of them. Perhaps it's for the best that I never considered the possibility of rape, she thought to herself, if I lived with that fear and distrust, would I still have taken in Francis? Up on the Morpheus rooftop, when he was unconscious, she'd been his main advocate. Louis – in that way of his – was more afraid for her well-being than she herself was.
"You okay?" Louis asked her as they entered the building, coming out of the cold and into a wide hallway. The door slammed shut behind them, and in that moment three zombies rushed out of a nearby classroom. Zoey was first to react, and with six shots put all three of them down.
"Yeah," Francis nodded, "She's fine. Let's go grab some food!" He pointed at a sign hanging off the roof. "Sign says the cafeteria's this way!"
"You surprise me yet, Francis," Louis marvelled, taking the back of the procession as the three navigated the hallways. "I had no idea you could read."
Zoey smiled at the quip. She saw Francis scowl, but wondered if he was actually angry or not. She was starting to get the impression, over the last couple hours, that Louis and she were actually starting to grow on the stoic man. The pair still exchanged insults and put-downs on a constant basis, but they seemed to have become less adversarial – or so she liked to think. And when the radio man had singled Zoey out, back when the three of them thought he was taking her away, Francis had been the loudest opponent – a move that surprised her, considering his Every Man For Himself motto.
There were corpses all over the hallways – dead ones, not the walking kind. The radio man had been busy. There was still the occasional walker as well, though, but for the most part the trio met no opposition. They met their greatest obstacle in the cafeteria – twelve zombies. Nevertheless, with some careful positioning and timing, they managed to dispatch this threat quickly and cleanly, without spilling any gore onto the food or appliances.
Using her knowledge of fry cookers from some past jobs she'd worked, Zoey whipped the team up an extravagant dinner of French fries, hamburgers and sodas. Louis and Francis watched her work from across the counter, eyeing the process in wonderment as Zoey glided from burner to burner with practiced ease, using an efficiency that had been drilled into her. It was clear that neither of them had worked in fast food in their lifetimes.
No words were spoken while they all ate – there was simply no time between bites. The trio slaughtered the food with a ravenous haste, as if expecting their meal to be interrupted at any moment. Fortunately, that wasn't the case, and soon they were walking the dark, deserted halls of the school.