Aaron could hear it, clawing at the heavy metal door. Screeching. Gnawing. It was right outside, and it was baying for his blood.
He cast around, looking for something to bar the entrance. Wading through the thick, humid air, he took hold of a crowbar and wedged it through the handles of the groaning doors, desperate to buy himself a few extra seconds.
He turned and gazed into the dark room. It was large, dimly lit by flickering bulbs here and there. The walls were all of bare metal plating, with no thought for aesthetics. Not that it mattered now.
The room was dominated by a vast pile of rotting corpses. If he craned his neck, he could just see the top of the mountain of decay, hidden in the gloom. The only other exit lay at the top of the pile; a small ventilation shaft, its cover hanging to one side.
Indecision welled up inside him, but he swallowed it down. Better, he thought, to climb the dead than to join them.
"Time to go swimming,"
He set his jaw, and tried to ignore the fetid stench wafting out at him. With grim determination to survive at any cost, he took a step forward, then another, and another, forcing himself to walk the short distance to the corpse pile. Tentatively, he reached out and placed his hand against the nearest corpse. Another wave of revolting odour hit him like he had run into a wall. He took a step back, gagged once, and vomited onto the floor, bile mixing with the blood of the dead.
He swallowed hard, and looked back towards the door. On queue, there was a tremendous crash from the other side, and the door began to buckle.
Fear drove him like an animal. He alighted the mass of bodies, and began clawing his way up the slope. Within moments, he slipped, sliding back down to land with a crunch of bone on the cold metal floor. He lay for a moment, drenched in blood, pus, and fluid, nursing his now broken ribs, before struggling back up again. He clutched at his left side, willing the pain away and once again hauled himself up onto the side of the mountain of the dead.
There was a crash from behind him, and the shriek of metal giving way. Aaron paused in his task and twisted around to look at the source, gasping at the pain in his ribs. It was as he had feared.
The thing was looking at him through the doorway- ravenous, unrelenting, and hungry. Its atrophied face was pulled back into a toothy grin, malice playing on its decayed features. It cried out in victory, its eyes widening as it did so, its jaw distending to an inhuman distance.
But it wasn’t human. Aaron still could barely believe what he was saying, even as he muttered the word: “Zombie.”
They had come one night, when the moon was full, the wind chill. Thousands of them, bursting from the ground like a nightmare come true.
Millions had died on that night, and millions more in the weeks since. The memories of those weeks kept Aaron awake at night- screaming, running, as hands reached at you, welcoming you for an embrace of death.
He didn’t consider himself lucky. Every day of survival was another day in hell.
Determined not to become lunch for the walking dead, Aaron pushed on up the stinking pile. The creature wormed its way through the hole it had made in the door, bending itself into increasingly impossible shapes to achieve its goal. With a thud, the zombie fell from the hole to the ground below, splashing juices in all directions. It jerked its head up and stared wildly at Aaron as he struggled up the slope, a mixture of fury and insanity in its bulbous yellow eyes. Aaron climbed faster.
The beast hit the pile running, scrabbling up the sides of the mountain with unnatural determination. Within minutes, Aaron knew, its bony fingers would be sliding around his ankles, dragging him down towards the zombie’s waiting maw.
He struggled to climb faster, but it seemed now that for every meter he climbed, he slid two more in the wrong direction. Desperate, he pulled on the arm of the nearest corpse- once a man, he thought, but he couldn’t be sure- and, with effort, flung it down the slope behind him. It hit the zombie full in the chest, knocking it back a satisfying distance. This only fuelled its rage, however, and it began to climb at an even greater pace.
Dismayed, Aaron looked ahead. If he could just reach the vent, he would be free of this waking nightmare. It was now so close, so very close. It’s opening leering at him, taunting him with safety just out of reach. He writhed up the last few meters of the pile, and reached for the opening. His fingers closed around the grill, and he began to haul himself in.
The creature, not far behind, leaped towards him. Its emaciated hand belayed its true strength, and he felt the bones in his shin being squeezed together as it grasped his ankle. He let out a strangled groan and tried to kick the beast away, only to have its long, splintered teeth dig into his calf. Letting out a fully-fledged roar, one to rival the noises of the living dead now hanging from his legs, Aaron flexed his whole body back and forth, trying to shake free of the wretched creature. Clearly, it was not his day.
The grill of the vent, hanging by only one last bolt, came free altogether under their combined weight, and the wrestling pair dropped back down into the mountain of decay. At last the creature came free, rolling partway down the slope, causing a troupe of bodies to cascade along with it. Aaron simply plunged straight down into the pile, being swallowed up by the innumerable arms, legs, and battered torsos.
He gradually eased his way back up to the surface, and peered out into the room. Blood spattered his face- more than once he tasted the juices of the corpse pile.
Eventually, he hauled most of his body from the mess of dead. The smell of putrefied bodies was horrendous, and he gagged yet again as he squirmed against the weight of the dead. Near the top of the pile, the corpses shifted. He froze. Had he imagined it?
They shifted again, and the head of the zombie burst from the pile. Rather than climbing the slopes of dead, it had burrowed up underneath him, emerging now between Aaron and the vent. He yelped pitifully, and it screeched in reply.
There was no way he could get back out through the door without being caught. Yet the creature was now standing between him and the only other portal to safety.
He hesitated for a moment too long, and the zombie leaped at him once more, renewed vigour in its pounce. Aaron threw himself backwards, relying on pure reflex over common sense in order to escape. It sailed over him and began to roll down the pile. Momentum carried Aaron down after it, and the living and the living dead hit the floor at speed, followed by an avalanche of corpses. The beast didn’t hesitate to push its advantage, leaping atop Aaron as he lay on his back, wrapped in a cocoon of agony. Adrenaline flooded into his brain, and he wrenched the zombie up over his head onto the hard floor. It came at him again, and he twisted up onto his knees and punched it full in the face, throwing its head back at an unholy angle. It clawed at his face. He kicked and punched, throwing his limbs at it as hard and fast as he could.
They grappled in the pool of blood, wrestling furiously. Aaron threw a punch into its belly, and his hand punctured the taught skin, spitting pus up his arm. The creature pushed him to the floor as sheer revulsion distracted him, its long fingers closing around his neck. It squeezed, grinning. He could feel the life ebbing away as if through a hole in his heel, and consciousness began to slip away out of reach.
Desperate, Aaron bit into the flesh of the zombie’s hand. Blood and fluid coated the roof of his mouth, and he gagged on the hot liquid. The beast relinquished its grip with a shriek, and he kicked at its chest with both feet. It rolled away, and Aaron savoured the moment’s respite. Taking in a lungful of much-needed air, he rose, and, smiling despite himself, took hold of the crowbar that had before barred the doors. He twirled it experimentally in his hand as he and the beast began a grotesque dance, circling slowly, anticipating the strike.
The zombie threw itself forwards with an ear-splitting howl of rage, and Aaron met it head on, determined to end the game. He struck it to the jaw with the crowbar and, with a sickening crunch, the bone snapped. Teeth flew, and the animal roar ended abruptly. Its mandible hung useless, and blood poured from its face.
Aaron didn’t wait for an invitation as he beat the creature again and again around the head, bashing in its skull. It cried out, a shrieking animal, as he drew the crowbar back behind his head for the final strike. He swung, and it connected with the zombie’s temple, throwing it back with a wet smack. It landed in the doorway, and he took hold of the door without pause and slammed it against the beasts head once, twice, three times and four, further destroying it’s already damaged features. Exhausted, he staggered backwards, and raised the crowbar again. No attack came. He spat blood, his and the creatures, and let the crowbar drop from his grip.
“Stay dead,” he croaked, staring in repulsed wonder at the mangled face of the beast. He had won. He stepped over it and through the door, limping away.
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