This Would Be Paradise (Book 1)-A Zombie Novel

Chapter 2

I stared at the door as if it held all the answers. Who would be banging on the door? Zoe got up to answer it, but I grabbed her arm as she passed by.

"Are you insane? That could be the crazy, sick woman," I hissed.

"I'm just going to look through the peep-hole," she answered, removing her arm from my grasp.

Zoe walked over to the door and looked out. Before I could say anything more, she ripped open the door. A disheveled guy in sweatpants and a faded t-shirt, burst into the room, shutting the door behind him.

"Mike, what the hell?" Zoe demanded of the scruffy guy.

"Zoe," he huffed.

I noticed he was bleeding from a gash in his leg. The blood was staining his sweatpants and dripping onto the carpet.

"Are you ok?" Zoe asked, taking a step back from Mike, whose eyes were darting all over the place rapidly.

"One of," Mike took a deep breath. "One of my buddies got sick I think. He bit my leg!"

Zoe ran into the bathroom for our last clean towel and he placed it on his leg wound, as he sat down on the bed. Sitting seemed to calm him down; he didn't look as panicked as he did before. I noticed him looking at me.

"I'm Bailey by the way," I said, giving him a noncommittal wave.

"Mike."

I wanted to say, yeah I got that, but I held my tongue for once. I grabbed Zoe and ushered her into the bathroom.

"Ah, who's that?" I asked.

"He's the guy from last night." She had the good graces to look embarrassed. I rolled my eyes.

"Hey, you girls see the news?" Mike yelled from the other room.

"Yeah, there's some serious shit going on," Zoe said leading us back to where Mike was. "We were about to head to the hospital."

I glared at Zoe for telling him, undoubtly he would want to come along.

"Mind if I go to? I think I need to have this looked at too," he motioned to the still bleeding wound that adorned his lower leg. See, I knew it.

"Well if we are going to do this, let's go," I sighed, grabbing my bag with all my documents in it.

The motion of putting the bag strap on my shoulder pulled my wound taunt and I hissed at the fresh wave of pain that radiated from my side.

"You get bit too?" Mike asked.

"Scratched by some crazy woman downstairs," I answered through clenched teeth.

"Should we be going back down there then?" He asked, a scared look flashing across his face.

"How else do you suggest we get to the hospital?" I asked.

"Call for an ambulance?"

"No ambulance would come for a scratch and a bite," Zoe sighed, grabbing her own purse.

I had briefly thought of calling the police to report the attack, but I figured I would have to fill out something at the hospital, so I would just do it all there.

"We should call a taxi though," I suggested, as the idea came to me.

Zoe nodded and started flipping through the phone book beside the room phone. She found a number and then tried dialing it. Mike and I just watched in silence as she held the receiver to her ear.

"You're fucking kidding me," Zoe sighed as she slammed it down. "No one is answering there either!"

I had to admit, at this point I was starting to get freaked out by the whole situation. I was attacked by some crazy woman, who appeared to have ripped open another man earlier, the news was going on about some virus, and flights were being cancelled. This was like something straight out of a b-list Hollywood horror movie and I was having a hard time believing it was all real. Maybe I was still hungover, asleep. At that thought, hope bloomed in my chest, but then I remembered the pain from my wound and I knew I wasn't imagining all this. Unfortunately, I was living it and first things first, I needed to get my side looked at.