Chapter 3
Elliot's immediate impulse was to jump up and knock out both intruders in one blow, but she had only sat up before a stronger instinct told her to calm down and think.
Obviously, she had a few problems.
Number one being that there was a pretty huge zombie outbreak.
Number two being that she had some things to get done in order to fix problem number one.
Number three, people had somehow gotten into her house.
And number four, she had no idea who they were or what they wanted, but judging from their attitude and the video camera, she had to assume they wanted more than just money.
"Uh… who are you?" She finally croaked, stepping out of bed carefully, poised to attack at any moment.
But instead of answering her question, the woman stated, "Over night, the majority of the region has reanimated into hideous monsters that hunger for living flesh. My associate and I plan to document this event trough the eyes of one of the only people left." With that, she turned toward the camera man and said, "Our subject," She paused and looked toward Elliot with a raised eyebrow.
"Dr. Elliot Greenwall." Elliot answered, dumbstruck.
"-has quite a day ahead of her." With that, she put the microphone in her pocket and the man turned off the camera.
"Um." Elliot began, than snapped out of the trance the woman had momentarily tricked her into, and hurried to the window, careful to keep the duo in her line of sight. With a quick motion, she flipped the edge of the curtain so that she could see out side.
Even through her small line of sight, she could see a few dozen zombies slouching along the streets. If the outbreak had made it all the way out here, she recalled, then most of the city must be in turmoil.
She stepped away from the window and faced the visitors. "I don't who you people are, or what the hell you want with me, but I will not let you put my life in jeopardy. I'm not going to kick you out, because then I'd end up just killing you later. So for now, I'm going to put you to work. If you don't like that, then please," she said smiling, "feel free to leave."
She walked out the room then, not bothering to see if they were following her or not. While she led the way down to the front door, she wondered if she was making the right choice, but decided that dwelling on it anymore would just cloud her mind, and she knew that a clear mind was key in situations like this.
When she reached the foot of the front stairs, she turned around and the pair behind her paused halfway down.
"You two will need to pill down all the steel sheets over the first story windows." She walked over to the front door and slid a small, shoulder level portion of the wall over to reveal a hidden key pad. She leaned down for a retina scan and quickly typed in a code containing at least ten digits. Then, over every window in sight, the top panel of border surrounding the window swung up and a roll of steel netting protruded from the wall. Elliot walked to the nearest one and pulled the sheet down and latched it to the bottom panel of border. "Just do that on every window on this story. And please, do it as fast as you can. There's this room, the kitchen, the dining room, and a bathroom that have windows. Don't leave a single one unprotected."
Elliot then walked back to the door and opened it. Both of the dogs ran in and sat at attention in front of their master. After leaning down and giving both a scratch on the head, she pointed up the stairs and both dogs ran up and out of sight, leaving the man squeezed up against the railing, a look of fear easily apparent on his face. That was when Elliot realized she was still wearing her blue pajama pants and gray tank top.
"Okay. I'm going to go take a shower while the water's still running. When you're done with that, go through all the first and second story bathrooms, there's one on this story and two on the second, and run the bath water. Who knows long this will last, and we need to take advantage of all the water we can while we can. I expect the windows to be done by the time I get back." Then Elliot left the two behind and jogged back to her room.
"Well," the woman said when Elliot was out of sight. "You'd better get started, Nathon." And she walked into the kitchen to find something to eat.