How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse

Chapter 12 – Brief Interlude

A/N – It's pretty long chapter this time, and I hope you all enjoy! I know you were expecting #Jelise feels, but those will be coming soon, don't worry *evil laugh*

It was cold.

The wall under his fingers was rough and grated against his skin as he leant there, panting and exhausted. His vision had blurred at the edges and he could barely see more than a few centimetres ahead. Then the world slid into darkness.

It was tiring, this sudden war against the undead. He hadn't slept for several days now and the lack of rest was beginning to take its toll. But he was safe now; he had escaped the clawing and grasping, odd shuffling and unearthly moaning, biting and stench of death. He could rest.

No. That was wrong. He wasn't safe yet, no one was. He had to keep going.

Gubiak opened his eyes.

The waning moon stared down on him as he crept through the alleyway he'd taken refuge in. as he neared the end he stopped breathing, slowly peering around the corner to check that the coast was clear and sighing in relief as he found that it was. At this rate I'll die of fright before being killed by a zombie, he mused, jogging down the empty street that was littered with broken glass and various other forms of debris from the nearby buildings. The city had been torn apart by the living and dead alike.

Something twitched in the darkness and Gubiak froze, fearing the worst. But when no crazed undead body came leaping at him he decided to investigate, edging toward a curled up balled half hidden by soggy looking cardboard boxes. He could only assume it was an attempt to keep the thing underneath it disguised from the zombies. He moved the boxes aside and elicited a frightened squeak from their inhabitant.

"Hello there," Gubiak said, crouching and putting on his best polite face and voice for the young boy of about four or five years of age. "Are you alright?" The child peeked at him through his fingers, relaxing when he realised the Gubiak was, in fact, a living thing.

"I don't know where my mum is…" he mumbled.

"Ok. Do you know her phone number?" the older male asked, not really expecting there to by any signal anyway. The boy shook his head.

Gubiak thought. He couldn't leave a defenceless boy here all alone during the apocalypse. He'd have to take the child with him, at least until they found more people to take care of him. "Come with me and we'll find your mum. What's your name?" he asked whilst aiding the boy in standing up.

"Patryk."

"Right then Patryk, I'm sure you understand some of what's going on right now so in order for us to move quickly I'm going to carry you on my back. Is that ok?" The boy nodded and Gubiak knelt, waiting for him to climb on. When Patryk had securely glued himself on the man stood up. "Here, I'll give you my phone so you can play games," Gubiak said, reaching into his pocket for the device. He unlocked it and blinked as his eyes adjusted to the light.

And there it was; a single rectangle barely a millimetre wide and tall. But it was big enough. They had signal.

"Hold on, I need to try something." He began to walk, calling the first person in his contacts.


Damn. Gubiak hung up again. He may have some signal but clearly no one else did, or they were all dead. He selected the next contact anyway and held it to his ear, walking out into the high street. He froze.

"Patryk, hold this for me," he said, handing the phone back to the boy as the dialling tone began. He quickly scanned the ground and found a longish plank to defend himself.

Ahead he could see a large group of people, lit red by a fire that was eating through a building nearby. Worse than the fire though was the large crowd of zombies following the screaming survivors as they headed toward Gubiak. They were almost upon them when Patryk held the phone to the man's ear.

"Someone picked up!" he shouted, but the zombies had arrived and Gubiak was busy whacking the closest ones away.

"Guby! Are you ok?" came Will's clear voice as it played directly into his ear.

"No! There's a fucking zombie apocalypse going on!" He abandoned his polite tone, though it didn't really matter because Patryk didn't understand what he was saying in English. "It's crazy. Have they reached England yet?" He thwacked another zombie.

"The entirety of Leeds is fucking deserted. We're stuck here," Aaron said. Gubiak had barely any time to register that the other end of the call was on loud speaker before a zombie lurched at him from the side. He swore and jumped back from it, jolting Patryk and making him drop the phone.

"Sorry!" the boy yelled as Gubiak smashed in the zombie's head and retrieved his phone, giving it back to Patryk in order to keep his hands free. "Aaron? You're ok?"

"Yeah. Me, Will, Josh and Evanz are all here. We're ok for now."

"Thank fuck," Gubiak said, the warmth of momentary relief flooding his veins. Or was that the adrenaline? "No one else will answer their phones. Not Jake, not Tyde, not Peace. I was so worried. I thought you were all dead."

Gubiak spotted a gap in the zombie forces and took his chance, pelting through it before it could close. Once freed from the mass he ran into yet another alley to escape, hiding behind the large bins at the end. "Ok, I think I'm safe for the moment," he panted. "These things are everywhere. There's fire nearby. I can hear people dying. Everything has gone to shit. The government has collapsed. I have no way of ge– shit!" He was cut off as a zombie stumbled around the bin and Patryk shouted to warn him. He caved in its head with the bloodied plank and returned to worried voices.

"Guby? Guby!"

"I'm ok. It tried to get me, but I'm fine."

"You've got to get to the coast! Try to find a boat," Will called. Gubiak had to stop himself from laughing.

"And go where? It's worldwide. There's nowhere that's safe." He could almost hear the despair on the other end of the call.

"Just stay alive," Josh said after a while. "Try to get here. It'll be alright, man!"

"I'll try but I can't promise I'll make it to you. Just wait for me ok? I have to admit I'd probably feel safer with the lot of you to guard my back." He glanced at the phone and took it from Patryk. "Fuck, signal's going. Wait for me guys, I–" Suddenly Gubiak felt a clawing at his back and he knew that it wasn't a zombie's hands. "Shit!"

Patryk was torn form Gubiak by the undead that had gathered behind them whilst he'd been talking. The boy stretched his arms out for Gubiak only to have them bitten into by more zombies. He let out a bloodcurdling scream as chunks of flesh were ripped from him and he was drawn further into the mass of the undead.

"No!" Gubiak cried, dropping his phone and wading into the crush recklessly. He grabbed Patryk's hand and pulled, only to find nothing attached to it. He looked up to see the boy, silent now that his throat had been ruptured, but still pleading for help with overflowing eyes.

Gubiak reached out, then everything went black.


"Wha– Where am I?" Gubiak asked groggily as he sat up, holding his aching head. He was indoors now, a darkened room filled with boxes of tinned goods. Some kind of store room then?

"You're at the research facility," a quiet voice informed him. Gubiak looked toward the source of the sound to see a stick-thin man with dark hair and a pristine white lab coat standing near him.

"What facility?"

The man huffed in irritation and crossed his arms. "Pandora Research Facility - Poland Branch, of course. Haven't you heard of us?"

"Um, no, not really," Gubiak admitted. The man looked even more annoyed.

"We're behind every major scientific advancement in the modern day, with branches in all six continents."

"Aren't there seven continents?"

"Africa doesn't count," he replied firmly. Gubiak was beginning to question the man's sanity.

"Anyway, who are you?" he asked. The man stood straighter and puffed out his chest proudly.

"I am Maurycy Czajka, head scientist in Pandora: Poland's section four, subsection two, genetic sciences. My research includes making unnatural hair colours genetically plausible, the removal of mutations in DNA coding, and the combination of animal genes." He wore a smug smile "I had great success with my natural fishing net makers, the Atrax Esoxpiscis, though they aren't ready for commercial use just yet." Gubiak stared at the man, who was waiting to be praised or something.

"Um, actually, I wanted to know who you are to me…"

The scientist uncrossed his arms and flopped in disappointment, giving Gubiak a look that made it clear he didn't like him. "I saved you from the zombies earlier when you got knocked out."

"What about… about Patryk?" Gubiak asked hesitantly, dreading the answer.

"The boy was already dead. Or close enough anyway." He shrugged. Gubiak clenched his fists and bit his lip, furious at himself for not being able to protect the child. He hadn't even fulfilled his promise. Gubiak swore to himself that he would find Patryk's mother and comfort her. That was, if he managed to survive all of this.

He got to his feet, and idea unfolding in his brain. "You're a scientist right? Do you know anything about diseases? Say, and infection causing zombie-like tendencies?"

"Are you talking about the undead outside?" Maurycy asked, looking down on the slightly shorter Gubiak. "I know a fair amount about that infection. Did you know it was once a cure?"

"A cure? How the hell is something as fucked up as that," he jabbed his finger in the direction of the outside (he hoped), "a cure?"

"That's what I said!" the scientist exclaimed. "I told them it wouldn't work! Though technically it did cure the cancers, but I warned them there would be side effects!"

"What?" Gubiak said, not sure how to handle the new information. "You were part of the reason this has all happened?"

"No, no, I told them to keep going with the in vivo testing but did they listen? Of course not – I wasn't assigned to the research team! So they just go right ahead with Phase 1 human testing and think the cure is complete and send it off to all of the research branches in all of the continents!" He was fuming, eyes burning with the anger at being ignored and then having no one to gloat at when he was right. At least, that's what Gubiak presumed, judging by the manic expression the scientist was wearing.

"So that's it? It's everywhere? The whole world is screwed." He sighed and put his head in his hands. It was one thing to suspect the apocalypse was worldwide, but quite another knowing that it was. "Wait," he said, suddenly realising something. "Did you say it was sent to every continent?"

"Yes," the scientist looked at him curiously, "I did."

"So it wasn't sent to somewhere you don't have a Pandora facility! Africa is safe!"

Maurycy thought about it. "In theory, it would be. But in actuality it probably–"

"Theory is good enough for me. I have to tell the others!" Gubiak was finally seeing a glimmer of hope. Maybe they would get through this after all! "But how do I get the message to them?"

The scientist answered. "Given the situation, an email is the quickest way. The computers here are still functional, but–"

"Great! Where are they?" Gubiak interrupted again, receiving an irritated glare from the scientist.

"BUT," he continued, choosing to ignore Gubiak, "the nearest lab with a computer is off limits. They all are." He glared again. "We'd need to open Gate 3 to get there and I refuse to do that."

"Why?" Gubiak asked, beginning to let his dislike for the scientist show.

"That gate is the only thing separating this room from the zombies. They'll never get through it." He adjusted his lab coat in discomfort. "I must remain safe here."

"Look Maurycy, I have a very important message to send to some very important friends, so you're going to open that gate whether you like it or not."

"No. I will not go out there and die!"

"In that case I'll open it myself – you think I can't? Are you willing to bet your life on that? Because let me tell you," he hissed, making himself look taller to intimidate the scientist, "I will open that gate, and when I do I will leave you here to be eaten alive by the swarms of zombies just waiting to kill you." He crossed his arms as the scientist went wide-eyed with fear, fooled by Gubiak's bluff. Honestly, he had no idea if he could open the gate at all, but he doubted it.

"If you come with me," Gubiak said in a far more gentle tone, "then I will keep you safe, and you'll live and you'll fix this fucking apocalypse. You can do that, right?"

"I'd be a hero…"Maurycy muttered to himself, and slowly he nodded. "Ok, I'll unlock the gate."

"Good. Now lead the way." Gubiak gestured to the single door of the storeroom and the scientist walked to it and out into the corridor. The gamer followed, seeing for the first time the pristine white walls and advanced science labs along the hallway that were only a tiny part of the Pandora Research Facility. It didn't take them long to reach the end of the corridor where a mechanised door blocked them, bearing the words 'Gate 3' in large font and yellow paint. Maurycy punched in the key code and swiped a clearance pass through the lock, nervously shifting his weight several times as he did so.

The gate slid open with a low his and Gubiak prepared himself to run if he needed to. On the other side lay a small room with the start of another corridor on each side. It was dark, the lights either switched off or blown, and Gubiak could just make out the shuffling form of a zombie at the end of the passage way directly in front of him. It turned to face them slowly and moaned, beginning to move toward the living humans. It was surprisingly fast moving, but Gubiak didn't get the chance to study it as Maurycy led the way down the left hand corridor and into the first room they came across.

On the far side of the room was a high tech computer and Gubiak switched it on whilst the scientist closed the door behind them.

"How come there's still electricity here? And internet for that matter," Gubiak asked.

"Well it's not like the zombies have pulled the satellites from the sky is it? And we've got a backup generator here in case of emergency." He pushed Gubiak aside slightly as he logged in to the computer system and opened up his email account. The inbox was practically empty, the only mail there being circulars. Gubiak quickly began a new message and began typing.

"I just hope Will bothers to check his emails at some point," he muttered to himself. "There's gotta be somewhere over there with electricity still."

"Hurry up!" Maurycy shouted suddenly, shaking Gubiak to get his attention. "This door isn't going to hold them off!"

He suddenly became aware of the thudding on the door and he glanced around briefly to see that the door was already buckling. He turned back to the computer and, typing in the last few sentences he sent it, along with a mental prayer that his friends would survive to see it. Then he focussed on his own situation.

Gubiak scanned the room for a weapon or an escape route, catching sight of an air duct at the top of the room, big enough for even a fully grown man to fit inside but too far off the ground for him to reach it.

"Up there!" he shouted to Maurycy, pointing at the duct. The scientist looked at him with a confused expression and Gubiak rolled his eyes. He grabbed the man and lifted him up high enough for him to get a grip in the duct, letting go as the scientist scrambled up into the escape. "Help me up!" He raised his arms toward the scientist only to be met with fearful eyes. "Come on, help me!" Gubiak shouted again, but he could see Maurycy's body shivering and knew that he wasn't going to move any time soon. But he was desperate and so he jumped as high as he could, missing the edge of the duct. He tried again.

As his fingers slid down the smooth wall after his fourth try Gubiak heard the sound of metal rending apart from behind him, the door finally giving way. He frantically jumped again, this time managing to catch hold. He pulled himself up and was nearly out of range when cold, damp hands wrapped around his ankles and he was dragged back down.

"No!" he shouted, lashing at the zombies and ending up in a collapsed heap on the floor. He kicked out at the undead near him, trying to get back to his feet. One of them toppled over and landed on him and he shoved it off, but as he was doing so another zombie bit through his legs, his teeth cracking the bone inside. Gubiak screamed in pain, the stench of rotting meat and his own blood making him nauseous.

He managed to maintain enough reason to wrestle the zombie off of him. He grabbed something off of the floor and began beating the undead back, creating a barrier of disabled corpses between him and the zombies that could still move. He staggered back to the wall and jumped again, using the adrenaline-fuelled power from his functioning leg.

"Hah!" he cried when his fingers caught the duct. He pulled himself up through shear will power and came face to face with the scientist once again. "Come on Maurycy," he panted from the exertion. "Help me up."

The scientist did nothing.

The zombies behind them had swarmed over the makeshift barrier and Gubiak was pulled down once again, crying out as his irreparable leg was yanked and jerked around by the brainless corpses. "No!" he yelled once more. "I will not die here, not now! Not after finding out where's safe!" He punched a zombie hard in the face. "I'm not going to die! Do you hear me?! My friends are wai–"


The man leant back against the cold metal of the air duct. He continued to shiver as he had been doing for the past two hours that he had been wandering around aimlessly for. He retched and bent to the side as he threw up, the image of the other man being dismantled and cast around the room permanently etched into his mind. He began to weep silently.

Then he slept.

So you guys probably liked that chapter, backstory for Guby! (which a lot of people asked for.) But hey, wanna know a secret? I didn't write this chapter. Will you please give a big hand for my mystery author, Kia! So everyone leave reviews saying how awesome she is for writing possibly one of the best chapters of this story so far! She deserves it, no?

Kia – Yeah dude, I totally deserve more praise than you.
But seriously though, if Guby seems a bit OOC then I'm sorry, I've not really seen much with him in it. Besides, zombie apocalypses can change people, right?