I nodded at Zach then looked over to Chelsea. She nodded back, her face hard and ready for what was to come. I waived her over, “Can you hold the door with Zach for a bit?” I asked.
She nodded without hesitation and sat down, her back to the door and her legs arched in order to apply closing pressure on the door.
I began pacing through the room, trying to think of a plan. If we tried to create a distraction, that would result in us having to open the door, completely giving away our position. That would not work. There were no windows to the room, and the air vent looked smaller than my head. That would not work. There were too many of the contaminated to fight our way out, though I had my suspicions on how the contaminated handled stairs. I imagined a whole set of them chasing me down a flight of stairs and rolling to their death. If only this room had stairs.
The hissing outside had greatly died down, but the chanting was still there. Suddenly an idea occurred to me. I ran up to the door and pressed my ear against the small opening between the door and the frame. My ears heard the hissing and groaning chant coming from the other side. I listened. I followed the movements of the contaminated. Chelsea’s hand rested on my leg, as if to inquire what I was doing, but I ignored it. I could not lose focus here, now. I almost had it.
My head was smashed backwards, jolting across the room. Another eruption came from the other side, and a contaminated must have been thrown against the door hard. I silently cursed and danced away the pain. My future cauliflower ear was pulsating and burning hot, but there was no blood. Chelsea and Zach had not moved from their position. Their faces were turning slightly red from the work that they were doing in keeping the door shut.
The raging was dying down outside, but the feasting was still active. I quickly pulled over a rolling marker board to the front of Zach and Chelsea and opened a red marker while grabbing a black marker and a green marker. Festive.
I began to draw to the best of my ability. The black marker represented the stadium specifically the floor that we were on. With the green marker, I drew a circle with arrows around the stadium, indicating the contaminated’s path. Finally, I used the red marker to circle our position. Fortunately, both Chelsea and Zach were paying silent attention to my artwork. Next to the green path of the contaminated, I wrote out ‘pattern.’ They both nodded in understanding. I then used the side of my hand to erase a small portion of the green path and used the red marker to draw a path from our location to the exit. I finished my game of Pictionary by pointing from my ear to the green path.
I had heard the convulsing revolutions of the contaminated. The revolutions occurred in the pattern of their movements. There was a small gap after sixty three seconds went by, and that gap lasted for about twenty seconds. Assuming that the contaminated would take about one step for every second, the break in the pattern would give us about a sixty foot gap in which to make our escape to the stairs and out into the parking lot. It was not a large margin for us to use, but it was something and probably all that we would get. Besides, I had full confidence that both Chelsea and I were faster than the contaminated and could make it out in time. Zach was strong enough where the three of us would be able to fight off any potential contaminated that were able to catch up.
I pressed my ear against the door again. The wave of contaminated was still outside, but I had to confirm that the pattern was still the same. My plan would be a complete failure if the pattern changed every time that the contaminated erupted in a feeding frenzy. I did not want to risk opening the door to be met in the face by a blood thirsty flesh worshiper all too pleased to be ripping out my throat.
Feet shuffled by, walking slowly but in a sure pattern ahead of them. The hissing ripped out from the other side of the stadium but was quickly quelled. A successful attempt at a bight to eat had just occurred. The shuffling continued. The hissing continued. The movements continued. It began to slow and seemed to fade. Just as it seemed as if the contaminated had moved on, the hissing and movement of feet was slowly growing louder. The gap was there. The pattern was sound.
I allowed Chelsea and Zach to sit against the door for another twenty seconds. Yes, I counted the seconds. I needed to time this perfectly. I quickly pulled them to their feet but had them place their body weight against the door. If another feeding outbreak occurred, we needed the doors to stay shut, but if it did not then we were in good position to run.
Forty-eight. Forty-nine.
I decided that fifteen seconds was close enough for us to prepare to run. I pulled Zach and Chelsea behind me, signaling for them to grab their weapons while I readied the door handle.
Fifty-three. Fifty-four.
It was then that I realized that there was a twist lock near the top of the door. My mind raced to the idea of locking it and waiting the contaminated out, but it was rusted and not well fitted, very little security there. I had no doubt that with enough force, the contaminated would be able to easily break through the poor lock and hastily make their way to our
