Emma Shortt - Waking Up Dead

It reached out with its filthy hands, its bloodstained face screwed up in the nasty manner all their faces were. Desperate, feral, hungry.

“You want this? Fuck you!”

The machete went all the way through the leg this time, severing it. Jackson jumped over the limb, whirred behind it, and in one quick move, severed the head. A much easier job than the bigger leg. Skin, muscle, and bone were no match for Mandy’s perfectly honed blade.

More blood and pus splattered but Jackson barely gave it a second glance. She had no fucking time to. Where there was one zombie there were more. Her stay at the Pool Palace was officially over.

Quickly she stepped over the headless zombie into the cardio room, skirting around a treadmill, and then another. God, she remembered when the only exercise she got was on one of those things. Instruments of doom she’d called them. She’d run for five miles a day three times a week and back then she had thought it had killed her. Not being able to run five miles at a quick trot in today’s world would actually kill her. The irony was painful.

Pus—from the headless zombie, no doubt— was splattered over the exercise equipment. Drip, drip, drip it went as it hit the tiled floor. The sound amplified in the silence. She hated zombie pus. What did they do, projectile spit the stuff? She had no idea why the hell they were so full of the gacky yellow liquid.

She went through two more rooms before she reached the final door, which was open—though it should not have been. She’d carefully closed every door behind her not so long ago. Jackson paused, did a quick survey of the reception area, and then bent to eye the door handle. She was both surprised and a little panicked to see a splatter of gore on it. Had the zombie turned the handle? But why on this one and not the other? It made no sense. They didn’t, couldn’t open things. They just bashed through them. What was going on with the zombies today?

Another bang , and Jackson realized why it had sounded familiar. It was like an explosion, louder now, but still muted, and she felt her heart race. Could it be Tye or something completely random? She shivered as she realized she had no way to tell.

Taking a deep breath, Jackson jogged over to the curved reception desk. It was remarkably clean, the chair just pushed ever so slightly back as though someone had nipped to the bathroom or gone to get a coffee and would return any moment. A laptop sat in the center of the desk and a mug with “Number One Mom” was pushed against the extra computer monitor. They would never drink from it again.

Jackson shivered and cursed her morbid thoughts, gave the desk one last look, and headed straight for the entrance to the rec center. It was quiet, the weak sun hanging low in the cloudy sky. She crept out and down the stairs in a low sort of crouch that made her feel like a crab. Goose bumps were already dotting her skin, her wet jeans felt heavy, and her muscles were held tight to ward off the cold. If not for the adrenaline, she’d be freezing already.

She could still smell the Lynx on the entrance door as she passed. Why the hell hadn’t it stopped the zombie? And where the fuck were the rest of them? Carefully, that question foremost in her mind, she sped down the steps, weaving in and out of the abandoned cars up and down the street. A mangy rat skittered past and Jackson paused, her heart hammering in her throat, dispelling the chill creeping over her. As a general rule of thumb, if you saw an animal running, you joined it. Immediately. The zombies ate animals as well as people. Heck, the bastards ate anything with a freaking pulse, as well as anything without. Jackson still kept a look out for rotting corpses even though there was no need. They had been eaten in the very early months. She felt bad feeling grateful for that, but her life was horror movie enough already. Walking past decomposing bodies on a daily basis would only make it worse.

The rat stopped its skittering to sniff at something leaking from the Dumpster onto the floor. Jackson eyed the leaking fluid and her stomach gave a nasty squeeze. She’d eaten plenty of rat meat, if you could even call it that, and it made her queasy to think about what they’d been eating before she ate them. But it’s not running she told herself, ignore the rest . And her heart, as if on command, dropped back into her chest and she continued on.

She sped up into a jog, trying to steady her breathing, eyes darting everywhere, looking for the remains of the pack. They had to be somewhere, didn’t they? That zombie all by itself made no sense. But then neither did the possible explosions. She scanned the horizon but could see nothing to indicate where the noises had come from. The buildings surrounding her were simply too tall.

A zombie shrieked. Jackson’s heart jammed into her brain, her nerve endings tingling. She flattened herself against a building, inhaling as much oxygen as her body could manage, all the while looking everywhere for the slightest sign of movement.

She exhaled a shaky breath and gripped her machete a bit tighter, her brain demanding she do something. Run, you stupid bitch , it said, Jesus, do you want to die ? She grimaced and tried to push the panic away—only succeeding when she realized something was tingling. Jackson found herself looking down at the source of the sensation, puzzled in an odd sort of way. When she realized what she was looking at her chest tightened and the puzzlement rapidly switched to panic.

Her jeans were soaked with zombie pus, she knew that, could feel the weight of them. But what she hadn’t realized was that the denim was ripped right across the knee, and in a tumble of thoughts she recalled the zombie reaching out for her next to the shuttered house, and her knees smacking against the concrete. There had been no pain but that was only because of the adrenaline and it meant…

Fuck.

Jackson did not think. Not about the possibility of zombies close by, or the fact it was so cold. She lifted her jacket above her waist and undid her jeans, pushing them down her thighs until she could see her knee. The skin was broken.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Frantically she pushed the jeans farther, keeping her hands on the waistband away from the wet parts. They went over her boots—which were Airwaves and could take a quart of zombie blood without springing a leak—catching a little on the thick soles, so that she had to kick them off. Quickly she swung her backpack and removed her water flask, splashing the last of it on the wound. Her heart slowed ever so slightly when the water ran red—not yellow. She didn’t even know if the pus was infectious. Everything she’d seen suggested it was about the bite, but Jackson could not take the risk. Her jeans were done for, and she did not have a spare pair. The only option was to grab some from the Barbie brothel and hope she didn’t freeze in her panties before then.

The day was just getting better and fucking better.

Heart pounding she made to take a step forward, goose bumps already spreading across her exposed skin, but the moment her foot touched the floor she heard something… Jackson paused, tilted her head, and tried to identify what it was. A moment later she knew. She gasped, turned, and bolted in the opposite direction as fast as her bare legs would freaking carry her.

You should never have split up…you should never have gone in Creepyville…should have stayed by the university… The thoughts buzzed in her brain, admonishing her, and Jackson sped up. Because it was the sound of pounding, and it was very familiar. How many times had she heard it over the last few months? It was like the theme tune to the end of the world.