It was too dark to see but LeBron heard his family scrambling up off the floor. Down below the smashing sounds ceased. It’d been loud. Whatever had wanted to get in the house this time hadn’t stopped until they were in. They stood together in the darkness listening to the sounds of something moving around in the house below. Yue gasped loudly when she heard the sound of something heavy below smashing into the floor. For a couple of seconds afterwards the sounds from below completely stopped. The silence somehow way more chilling than the crashing noises had been.
They stood there in the darkness holding their breaths. All of them doing their best not to make a sound. Tears of terror rolled down Yue’s cheeks. The smacking of footsteps moving quickly to the base of the stairs. Then the sound changed to the hollower sound of someone coming up the stairs. Halfway up the sounds stopped as if whoever it was had stopped again to listen. Drew was closest to the stairs. He had his hand on his pistol but hadn’t pulled it out of the holster. He was fighting back his fear. Praying that whatever was on the stairs would just turn around and go back down them.
Instead the footsteps sped up as the thing on the stairs moved quickly up to the loft. Light flooded the space as Bart flipped on his flashlight. He’d done it just so he could line up a clean shot at the monster threatening them. The sudden light revealed a middle age woman with curly auburn hair. Her clothes and body were filthy. Like she’d slept in a muddy ditch all day. Her neck had been savaged by someone in the very recent past. It was coated in dried blood. A strip of ragged flesh hanging off with the muscle showing from underneath.
The sudden light and proximity to uninfected humans sent the woman into a flurry of limbs and teeth. She was on top of Drew before Drew could even clear his pistol from the holster. LeBron and Yue were there a second later grabbing the woman by the hair and neck to keep her teeth off of their brother. Bart was ignoring the pain from his own wounds while shining the light and maneuvering around to try to get a clear shot.
The flailing woman reached back and grabbed LeBron by the shirt. She flung him across the room completely shredding his shirt in her claw like grip. He smashed into the dry wall hard enough to dent it in where his head hit. Yue was thrown off next. The crawler forgetting about Drew to jump at her. Bart blasted away as soon as she moved off Drew to attack Yue. The bullets ripping into the woman’s side didn’t seem to even slow her down. Yue scrambled backwards trying to get away. More bullets from both Drew and Bart smashing through the crazed crawlers torso.
The woman fell on top of Yue when one of the bullets pierced her skull. Others had already hit her in the heart and lungs. The bits and pieces thrown off the woman by the attack coated Yue’s clothes. She stood up as Bart ran to make sure she was ok. Ignoring her dad, she went over to where they’d stacked their medicine and frantically moved everything around until she found a bottle of peroxide. She ripped her shirt off and threw it to the ground. She then dumped half the bottle on herself and the other half on Drew and told him to scrub it in.
Bart was shining the light for them as they gargled with the peroxide when another of the crawlerz came thundering up the stairs. LeBron had positioned himself at the top of the straight flight of stairs with his moms shotgun. Not even able to see the monster coming at him he just started shooting down the narrow stairwell. They heard the monster gasp and grunt before it fell and rolled back down the stairs.
Less than a minute later there was banging on the door on the other side of the house. Bart shined his light down the stairwell right as a pale faced skinny high school aged looking kid came streaking up the stairs. LeBron pumping buckshot down the stairs as fast as he could rack the shell and pull the trigger. The kid took one of the hits right in the face but kept coming at an impossible speed. Half the skin missing from his face and the monster didn’t even slow down. Even with the last shot hitting him right in the stomach from a distance of less than a foot the monstrosity still leapt up the stairs to grab LeBron.
Bart sidled right up to the boy and shot him through the head twice dropping him to the ground. Without hesitating Bart then turned his aim and his flashlight to the stairwell where yet another of the beasts was streaking towards them. He emptied his magazine at this ones face to stop it from making it up the stairs. With himself and LeBron running low on ammunition he yelled for them all to fall back to the panic room. They grabbed whatever was near them and ran with it towards the bathroom in the back that they’d worked on securing and stocking with supplies earlier.
Noticing the flashlight waving around erratically Drew ran back to the loft by the stairs and bodily picked up Bart to carry him along. The man’s leg had given out on him after all the commotion. The sound of movement from the first floor egged Drew to sprint full speed down the hallway into Yue’s room. Yue slammed her bedroom door and dropped down the makeshift wooden lock they’d rigged up to try and keep the monsters out. Based on what they’d seen so far
