Outbreak


7. The Decision


The sharpest knife glinted as Chad opened the drawer and almost seemed to be begging him to take it. Chad complied with the unspoken request of the inanimate object and wrapped his hand around the rough plastic handle. It was your average kitchen knife, except for the fact that it had been used to kill at least six people, one of them being only yesterday. And something in the way it fit so perfectly into Chad's hand made him think he'd be using it again, very soon.

"This is a stupid idea." He announced, pointing his knife across the room at each of his three friends. He bent down to scour a lower cupboard and disappeared from their view behind the kitchen surface. "D'you know why?" He continued his rant to the sound of his own clattered rummaging. "'Cos it's really obviously a stupid idea." He reappeared, standing up again with a can of bug spray in his not-knife-wielding hand

Troy ignored his friend and slowly turned the first of four locks that bolted the door. His fingertips tingled with excitement although beneath it all he could still feel fear. He also noted the subtle role-reversal that had taken place between him and Chad since the girls' arrival. Chad was no longer so keen about adventure, probably valuing his life more now that he had Taylor back. And Troy was no longer burdened with the role of leader, having Gabriella and Taylor around to help with decisions.

"Dude," Chad made his way from within the kitchenette to the coffee table where Taylor and Gabriella stood at a wary distance from the door. "Tell me you're not actually gonna open it."

Troy unlatched the second lock before turning around to face Chad. "Gabriella's right." He said simply. They'd argued about this for some time. Each of them contributed valid points for and against the opening of the door. But Chad's argument was overruled in a vote. Three against one. So the decision was made. And all the while, the knocking had never ceased. "What if someone out there is in danger? It sounds pretty desperate."

The clunking bangs persisted, reclaiming Troy's attention. He turned back around to get the penultimate lock.

"And it could be the army." Gabriella suggested. This had been a dream of hers for a long time. She'd always wondered when the president would send in a brigade to save them and anyone else they could find. "They might be searching houses for survivors and if we don't answer we'll miss our only chance of-."

"Yeah." Chad interrupted, having heard this claim before and no more convinced by it than the first time. "Or it could be a Savage, coming to kill us all. And we're just letting him in." He'd never felt such hopeless anguish. For once, he was thinking logically. For once, he had made a choice that would keep them safe. And everyone else was against him. Typical.

Taylor cleared her throat and spoke for the first time since the decision had been made. She'd been deep in thought, considering it and realised a key point to the disagreement. "Unspeakables don't knock."

"Uspeaka-what?"

Gabriella caught on to Taylor's point. "The 'zombie-dudes'." She explained. "They don't knock. They're not smart enough." She could see that, this time, one of her lines of reasoning was being absorbed by Chad. "And how would they have found us?"

The pensiveness on Chad's face disappeared as he reminded himself of the absurdity of the situation. "They probably followed us from the store." He dismissed that argument. "And they do knock. Prom night, remember?"

"There's no-one there." Troy said quietly.

Taylor, Gabriella and Chad all looked simultaneously at the open entrance. While squabbling, they hadn't noticed that, not only had the banging stopped, but Troy had unlocked the final latch and slid open the door. The stairway outside was empty. Or at least, as far as they could see.

Troy was just turning back to them, shrugging with perplexed curiosity, when a whoosh-sound filled the room. With the daunting noise came a terrifying cry that shook the ground beneath their feet. And, with that, they knew what was coming. Troy didn't have a chance to defend himself. He was knocked to the ground almost instantly, a fierce, heavy, writhing body on top of him. Eyes, teeth and claws flashed repeatedly in his vision. He yelped and tried to struggle free but was pinned to the floor. Clawed hands thrashed all around him and it took all his effort and attention to avoid them.

Chad would have loved to have taken the time to say 'I told you so' but knew that he had to act fast in order to save his friends life. Already armed, he ran forward, his knife raised high in the air. He'd made it only halfway across the room when another Savage entered. Followed by another. And another. It was then, for the first time, that panic registered. Overwhelmed, he raised the can of bug spray and pressed as hard as he could on the small plastic button. It hissed in his hands for a moment, releasing a white mist of deterrence, then coughed into a spluttered whisper. As the final remnants of it contents spilled out into nothing, Chad dismally realised that Plan A was down the drain. With frustration, he threw down the empty can, picked one of the three momentarily-discouraged Savages and ran at him blade-first.

The other two Savages recovered from the brief setback that the insect repellent caused and spotted potential victims. Smelling the uninfected flesh of a frozen Gabriella and Taylor made their sightless eyes light up. Eager for a meal, they sprang towards the scent of their prey. It was this sudden act of starvation that finally broke the girls from their surprised daze. Though, rather than flee, they charged forward, yelling simultaneously in a girly but threatening battle cry. Their attack had no specific strategy, seemingly just a compilation of strongly thrown punches and narrow dodges. But it was powered with determination and adrenalin-fuelled strength. They took one of the Savages each, silently deciding between what once must have been a frail woman and a young man.

Taylor took the latter and used his long, untamed hair to her advantage by grabbing as much as she could fit into her fist and yanking his head downwards until he was forced head-first to the ground. With a protesting shriek, he snatched at her ankles as she tried to stamp away his hands. She hopped on the spot like the floor was hot coal and realised that her foe did not have the intelligence to just get back up onto his feet. She hoped he would stay oblivious to the fact that being in a standing position would give him the advantage. As she continued to hop from foot to foot, occasionally stamping a finger and making the creature emit a pained scream, it dawned on her that she was not in such a great position as she had presumed. She had no weapons, no way of attack. Her only hope was to keep stamping and she was already feeling the strain in her thighs. She'd be tired soon. And then what?

Gabriella had killed before. It never got easier. She would usually use her baseball bat, just to knock them out, their death not particularly being a necessity. But she wasn't armed now. Which meant using her hands. She hated using her hands. The frenzied woman clawed the air with her razor-sharp fingers. Gabriella backed away just in time to only have a breeze cool her cheek where the claws would have made impact and torn through the flesh of her face. She knew she had to overcome her apprehension to kill or her own life would be lost. With a final preparatory breath, she reached out and put a hand on each side of the grey-skinned woman's head. She was a petite Savage so her neck was easily broken. It only took a fraction of Gabriella's strength to twist the head to an unnatural angle and snap the bone completely. Dead, the woman fell limp to the floor.

Still on the floor, Troy let out a hurt shout. Giving in to the fatigue from his excursion, his reflexes had slacked and the Savage on top of him had managed to pierce the skin on his neck. It was far from a deep wound, but it stung and came as a daunting reminder of just how much danger he was in of losing his life. Done with their foes, both Gabriella and Chad went to Troy's aid. Their footsteps on the wooden floor were accompanied with metallic clunks on the steps outside. More feet. More Savages. Chad sensed their approach and began to doubt that he'd be successful in the impending battle. He made a split second decision, stopped in his tracks and ran in the opposite direction of Troy.

Out of the corner of her eye, Gabriella saw Chad flee. She didn't allow herself time to think upon his cowardliness before launching herself at the Savage still in Troy. His bony shoulder made impact with her chest and she seemed to bounce right off him as he remained almost unmoved. He didn't even seem to notice her. She charged at him again, wrapping her arms around his back and trying desperately to pry him from Troy. She'd never felt so weak as he was barely fazed.

There was a thud as Taylor toppled to the ground, finally having been caught by the blindly-flailing hands beneath her. Her attempts to crawl away were unsuccessful even as she used her nails to try to scrape her way across the floorboards. Hope seemed lost until she heard the jangle of keys above her. Looking up, Chad stood over her, ready to plunge his blade deep into the heart of her assailant. He did so without a moments delay before helping Taylor to her feet.

He took her by the shoulders and held his face mere inches from hers. "Take these." He said, shoving a bunch of keys into her hands. His gaze held such an urgency that she had never seen before. She was almost entranced by his panicked eyes. She could not look away. "Take Gabriella." He continued. "There's a black car out there. Get in it. Lock the doors. And if they find you, drive as far away as you can."

She nodded, almost fearful of the strong command in his voice. Running to where Gabriella still struggled to get the Savage off of Troy, she grabbed her best-friends arm and pulled her to her feet. Gabriella tried to pull away, desperate to save her boyfriend, but Taylor's grip was too strong. They had just made it to the door when another five Savages barged in.

They couldn't hold back their screams. Chad took both girls with one swoop of his arm around their shoulders and pushed them towards the bedroom. "Through the window." He directed. "In the bathroom. Go!" He gave them one final shove into the bedroom and shut the door behind them.

The bedroom's stark silence was such a sudden contrast to the commotion outside. No longer a grubby pit, it became their utopia, their escape. Taylor started towards the bathroom only to stop after her first step upon hearing Gabriella attempting to reopen the bedroom door and get back to Troy. She turned back to her friend and grabbed the wrist that gripped the doorknob.

"Stop it, Gabi!" She ordered, pulling Gabriella with her to the bathroom. "We have to get out of here!"

Gabriella tried to shake free. "But Troy!" She argued. She'd only just got him back, there was no way she was losing him again.

"Chad's got him. They're meeting us outside." Taylor assured her.

Gabriella seemed unconvinced but reluctantly allowed Taylor to pull her through the open bathroom door. The off-white room was tiny with space only for a dirty shower cubicle, a sink and a toilet. Above the toilet was a small window and outside of it, they presumed would be a fire escape ladder.

Gabriella climbed onto the seat of the toilet and attempted to open the window, already doubting that she'd be able to fit through it. It didn't budge and a closer inspection of the hinges alerted her to the fact that they'd been painted shut. They were going to have to smash it.

Taylor was one step ahead of her and handed her a plunger. Gabriella took it a used the wooden handle to shatter the glass. She tried to remove all traces of glass to prevent them from scratching themselves on their exit.

A banging came at the bedroom door followed by ravenous growls and deafening scratches. This added a new urgency to the operation and Gabriella began instantly to climb through the window.

"Be careful." Taylor called after her.

Her head and shoulders were out. The view below, she found, was extremely daunting. They were two floors up from the concrete ground. The escape ladder looked worn and neglected. Getting onto it from the window was going to be a tricky manoeuvre.

She had half her body out now, struggling with her hips. Her sweaty palms gripped the first step of the ladder as best she could and she used the metal bar to pull herself further into the open. It was then that she realised that, at some point during her climb, she would rely completely on upper-body strength as she was going to have to dangle momentarily from only her arms. She paused to prepare herself for such a feat, not allowing herself to look down at the far away ground below. She'd hardly taken in one breath of air when Taylor began to shout from behind her.

The Savage was breaking through the bedroom door. His hands had broken through the wood. He was close to shredding the door completely.

Gabriella knew that, as long as she didn't fall, she was safe. Her fear now was that her dawdling would cost Taylor's life. She didn't stop to think before swinging her legs out of the window. Her shoulders screamed as she dangled solely from her arms and her feet struggled to locate a bar to stand on. Groaning and grunting and sweating buckets, she finally found her footing and quickly started her downward journey to the street.

Taylor meanwhile had clambered up to the window at unbelievable speed. Looking up from where she stood safely on the hard ground, Gabriella could see her friend's head poking out. Taylor looked to be doing well until she emitted a terrified scream. Her legs were almost out the window. But the Savage had broken in to the room. And she hadn't shut the bathroom door.

The Savage bolted at her. Taylor didn't know whether to focus on defending herself or climbing out of the window. Her hands loosely gripped the first bar of the ladder. Her knees were balancing precariously on the window ledge. Her leg was captured in a cold hand. The claws dug deep into the flesh of her calf. Gasping against the pain, she followed her reflexes and began to shake her leg in an attempt to free it from the painful ensnarement. The wood of the window ledge was rotten and weak. Her vigorous movements caused it to crack beneath her knees. The support she knelt on crumbled and she was sent tumbling out of the window, violently tearing her leg free of the callous hand.

Her fall was nothing like out of the films. She didn't have time to scream or thrash around. Her body didn't rotate in slow motion and she didn't shield her eyes from the approaching ground. She was completely tense. She spent less than a second plummeting through the air. Then a moment of agony shot through her entire body before everything disappeared.


A/N: It's so hard to do action sequences with four people involved! Sorry if I couldn't do it all justice, or if I didn't pay enough attention to certain people. Hope you enjoyed it! Thanks for reviewing and sorry I haven't bothered to name those fabulous people that leave comments but I can never spend long enough online. As far as all the exam nonsense, after tomorrow I don't have any until June so… updates galore I hope.

And finally, (my A/N's are so long, I wonder if anyone actually reads them) since I got rid of the trailer, I'm thinking of doing a little preview for each chapter. For example;

Coming up, in Chapter 8;

There isn't a word in any dictionary that could describe the feeling that washed over them at that moment. Such fear is unfathomable. It built up within them like a ticking time-bomb, slowly rendering all of their senses. Neither of them could think of anything but how close they were to slow and painful deaths. Their vulnerability was unbearable. Their hearts beat hard and fast in their throbbing chests. Their blood rushed through their veins. They couldn't stop themselves from shaking.

Stay tuned!

Oh, and don't forget to tell me what you think of the new preview system. Should I keep it up? Or not bother? If you don't tell me, I'll never know!


xX M Xx