“Then go home with your friend! Hurry!”
The zombie woman is wobbling her way past the sand, closing in, less than ten yards away now. She snarls and opens her fingers in an eager gesture. Most of the back of her neck is missing, and her hair has been almost pulled from the skull.
The boy finally turns to run, but smashes directly into the swing set, giving off a cry and falling down.
William, who already turned to run himself, stops abruptly. “Fucking hell …” He sprints over to the boy, grabs him by the arm and tries to pull him to his legs, but the boy is hazy after the collision, so William ends up dragging him along through the sand.
The zombie woman snarls even louder, upping her speed, like she’s sensing the opportunity. She’s gaining on them. William can’t drag the boy fast enough, and there’s no time to pick him up. Instead, he shouts pointlessly at the woman. “Stay the fuck away!”
The zombie bends over to grab the boy’s sprawling legs, misses and takes another few steps, misses again, narrowly, almost losing balance but stays on her feet, going for a third try. William gives one last hard tug at the boy’s arm, hoping to get him out of reach of the zombie—but he loses his grip, and they both fall down.
For one long, terrifying moment, William realizes there’s only one outcome left. The boy can’t make it up in time. The zombie is already bending down, grabbing his foot. The boy screams as her mouth descends upon his bare leg.
Then, everything speeds up, as something big and brown comes flying in from the side, hitting the woman and knocking her sideways.
William glares dumbly at Ozzy, who’s sunk his teeth deep into the lower arm of the zombie, ripping and tearing at it like he’s trying to pop it right out of the socket. The woman barely seems to notice the dog, she simply tries to get back to the boy, still clutching his shoe in one hand, but now she’s being dragged the opposite direction in a series of violent tugs from Ozzy.
Holy shit, he’s stronger than me, William thinks in amazement, still not able to act.
The boy, who’s begun bawling, gets up and makes a clumsy one-shoed run for the apartments. William jumps to his feet and runs to the car, glancing back at Ozzy who’s still holding onto the zombie.
When he reaches the open trunk, he sticks two fingers in his mouth and gives a short, loud whistle. “Release, Ozzy! Heel!”
The dog immediately lets go of the woman’s torn-up arm and sprints to him.
“Up!” William says. Ozzy obeys and jumps into the trunk, even though he keeps darting eager glances back at the zombie woman, who’s taken up pursuit. “Good boy,” William says, slamming the trunk.
He rushes to the driver’s door and throws himself behind the wheel. From the trunk, Ozzy has started whimpering uneasily, as he stares out at the woman approaching the car.
“It’s okay,” William says, turning the key. “Calm down, Ozzy, we’re leaving.” He’s mostly talking to calm down himself. His whole body is trembling from adrenaline, cold sweat is running down his back, like a junkie doing a cold turkey. He slams the car into gear and guns it.
As they leave the parking lot, he sees the zombie in the rearview mirror, following the car another few yards. Then, she slows down, apparently losing interest, before turning away and heading towards the apartments, obviously sensing more accessible prey.
“Hope she can’t get the front doors open,” William mutters to himself, wiping a flood of sweat from his forehead.
He thinks about the boys and how surprisingly fast they got the message. As soon as he said the word “zombie,” they knew exactly how dangerous the woman was. The term obviously wasn’t new to them; they’d probably blown out several zombie brains playing computer games.
Long live the youth, William thinks, reaching into the bag for a beer. They just might have a chance of surviving this …
TWELVE
Thorsten curses to himself in a low voice as he glares up at the red numbers of the elevator slowly counting down.
Goddamned punks. You just can’t count on young people nowadays …
Thorsten is only three years from retirement—actually, he’s too old to still be working as a porter, but he’s been taking good care of himself, minding his back and not overworking himself, so he’s still feeling in pretty good shape.
Still, it pisses him off to have to run double speed because two of the younger porters decide to just leave in the middle of a very busy day.
Normally, Thorsten never would work in the basement, but someone needs to do the work left by the two deserters. At least until they get hold of a replacement.
If those punks don’t get the slip for this, I’ll make sure they at least get a talking to they’ll never forget.
The elevator stops and the doors slide open, revealing the basement, and Thorsten strides down the hall. He’s worked at this place for ages, and he knows the building better than his own home, so he doesn’t need to—
Thorsten stops abruptly as he notices the writing on the door. It’s done with black marker in a quick handwriting.
“What the hell is this now?”
He steps closer, frowning. It’s got to be a joke. Some kid must have snuck down here … except for the fact that the text is placed too high for a child to have done it. Could it be someone from personnel, then? Who on earth would do such a thing? The young porters might not be the most well adjusted, but Thorsten still has a hard time imagining one of them doing this.
The handle suddenly jumps twice, causing Thorsten to jerk backwards. He didn’t expect anybody to be in the room. He grabs for his keys, but then hesitates.
Either it’s a distasteful joke, and someone is waiting to surprise him—or it
