Myra McEntire - Zombies

Run

“I wasn’t interested when it was attached, you low class mother effer, and I’m sure as hell not interested in it now!”

I screamed the words at the bloody, gooey mass of undead frat boy who was holding what had once been his … business package … in front of the peephole of my dorm room.

Covering my face with my hands, I slammed my back against the door, hoping and praying the lock would hold. I’d learned over the past few hours that the undead may not be smart, but they sure are persistent.

I’d also learned that you could take the life out of the body, but frat boy tendencies lived forever.

“What’s the verdict?” I asked Sally. She was trying to fashion a rope out of three sets of extra long twin sheets and a couple of beach towels.

“We’d be better off if we dropped it all into a pile in the parking lot and used it to cushion our landing.”

There was a loud thud, and then a thick squelching sound as something slid down the outside of the door. I ground my teeth together and hoped nothing leaked through the threshold.

“I think they’re throwing whole people now.” Another thud, then a squelch. “Or at least whole torsos.”

Sally let out a laugh that was two octaves beyond sane. “In or out? What do we do, Mattie?”

I squeezed my eyes shut to think but I opened them just as fast, unable to process the images that flickered behind my lids. We’d been in the room for the past three hours. Since the sun had gone down. Since we stood around the bonfire at the pep rally and watched the flesh begin to peel back from the exposed faces of our sorority sisters. Watched their jaws go slack, their eyes glaze over. Watched them fall on Casey and take her apart, ripping her flesh and shoving it into their mouths through groans of ecstasy.

The fire saved us. I’d grabbed the end of one of the longest pieces of burning wood and Sally and I had swung our way to freedom.

Didn’t feel so free now.

“I’m so sorry I never went to see Zombieland with you.” Sally’s breath hitched. “If I had I might have had some clue about how we could take these a-holes down.”

“No,” I said through my fingers. "You just would have had a girl crush on Emma Stone that much earlier.”

“I would have known something. Anything.” Thud, squelch. “Anything is better than nothing!” I waited for the pitch of her voice to shatter the glass in the window.

“All you need to know is to run. And don’t let anyone chew on you.” I pushed myself to stand and looked out to the parking lot. No zombies in sight. Which meant they were all in the building.

We’d hoped the zombie apocalypse was only occurring in our little corner of the world. Maybe because of something in the campus water or the Saturday morning special order waffles they served in the cafeteria.

But the fact that we had no cell phone service or Internet connection wiped that hope out two hours ago.

“Stay or go, Mattie. Stay or go?”

The door creaked, the hinges buckling. No squelching sounds now, just thud after thud, forming a dent the size of a skull.

“Go.”

It took both of us to push the mattresses out the window. They were followed by every article of clothing we could grab, including the contents of my underwear drawer.

The door smashed open.

We jumped.

Sally hit the cushy pile dead center and clothing went everywhere. I bounced off a corner of the mattress onto an arm. A lone arm, with bright red fingernails. And still moving fingers.

“Gross, gross, gross!” I scrambled to my feet and pulled Sally to hers, then removed a pair of lime green thongs from inside her hood. “One thing. You’re a good friend, but if the zombies chase us I’m tripping you.

Now RUN.”