'Very well then. If you insist.'
The gunshot echoed through the corridor.
The zombies swarmed onto the second floor, pouring from the stairwells and spilling out of the elevator shafts. The men and women defending the entrances had no time to scream, let alone impede their progress. Like a tidal wave, the zombies washed over them, slaughtering everything in their path.
Nurse Kelli was on the third floor, on her way back to the medical wing to watch over Frankie and the quarantined family with tuberculosis, when the explosion occurred. The force of the blast knocked her off her feet, and ceiling tiles and insulation rained down on her. She lay there breathless, waiting to see if it would occur again.
She'd been assigned a small .22 semi-automatic pistol, which she knew how to use. Kelli's father and brothers had been avid target shooters and she'd received a marksman rating from the National Rifle Association years before. She'd been able to shoot a grouping of three tight enough to cover them with a quarter. Nailing a zombie in the head would be easy enough.
Picking herself back up and retrieving the pistol, Kelli ran for the stairwell. The gun made her feel safer. She wondered where Dr. Stern was, and hoped that he was okay.
Two men and a woman stood by the elevator doors, repeatedly jabbing the buttons.
'Don't take the elevators,' Kelli cautioned. 'That was an explosion.'
'Are you sure?' one of the men asked. The others stared at her blankly.
'I think so, yes.'
'Bates didn't say anything about explosions. What should we do?'
'Fight back.'
'How?' one of the women asked. 'There's nothing here to fight. They're all outside.'
The man nodded. His voice was frantic, pleading. 'Mr. Ramsey said they couldn't get in. He promised.'
'Mr. Ramsey was full of shit,' Kelli said.
The woman gasped. 'You shouldn't talk like that! Mr. Ramsey saved us all.'
Not bothering to respond, Kelli hurried on. She rounded the corner, and spotted an exit sign at the end of the hall. Just as she reached for the door, it slammed into her, shoved from the other side.
Zombies swarmed through the doorway and opened fire.
The first bullet caught her in the stomach. The second punched the breath and blood from her lungs in midscream. Kelli had time to see a butcher knife flashing downward and then her severed artery squirted blood into her eyes, blinding her. She slipped to the floor, crushed beneath their stomping feet.
She thought, I never got to fire the pistol ...
Then a zombie was kneeling over her.
'You're still alive,' it rasped. 'Good. I will show you horror, wench.'
She remembered her nightmare.
The zombie slid a razor blade across her breast, parting both cloth and flesh.
The fire alarm began to wail, drowning out her screams.
The first round of artillery explosions rolled across the city, sounding like thunder. The building shook. Lights swayed back and forth and furniture collapsed. Screams and gunfire echoed through the corridors.
Above it all, the fire alarms shrieked.
Steve and Bates ran down the hall and ducked behind some sandbags.
'Is it an earthquake?' Steve shouted.
'No,' Bates yelled. 'They're shelling us!'
'But-but that doesn't make sense. They use us for food; possess us when they're done. They can't do either of those things if they blow us up.'
'They aren't trying to blow us up,' Bates grunted. 'This is calculated. Think about it. In order to kill us, they have to get inside. The artillery barrage is creating entrances for them.'
A second wave of explosions shook the skyscraper. Suddenly, the lights went out and the fire alarm faded. The emergency lights came on, but their illumination was faint.
'Shit.' Bates grabbed for his radio. 'They've knocked out the power.'
The radio squawked. Forrest sounded frantic.
'We've lost contact with the lobby,' he shouted. 'I think they used a truck bomb, Bates. A fucking truck bomb! We've got zombies on the second and third floors. Two and three are breached. We're holding them off on four, but we need reinforcements.'
Another voice broke in on the channel. 'Sir, we've got birds on six and seven! They're coming in through the windows! We opened them to shoot at- They-'
The report was interrupted by one long, wailing scream. It went on and on, turning into a high-pitched shriek before finally tapering off.
'Forrest?'
'I'm here!' The sounds of gunfire erupted in the background. 'Hard to see from all this smoke. They won't stop coming. There's just more and more of them!'
