The First 30 Days (PUBLISHED)

Eleven - Day 7

A short, startled scream ripped from my throat. From somewhere behind me, Shawn started yelling at Jack about not letting her bite him, while in front of me Jack struggled to keep the zombie's face away from his own.

The creature snarled and clawed, teeth snapping together audibly as she did her best to take a bite out of her prey. Standing frozen in the aisle, I watched in horror, the spray of blood when Evie killed Austin playing in my mind's eye.

A hard shove to the side broke me out of the trance I had been trapped in. Dropping his half eaten apple, Shawn raised the bat as he hurried toward Jack. The zombie paused in her assault, looking up with red eyes and blood stained face. She hissed warningly and my blood ran cold.

I thought zombies were supposed to be stupidly single minded and have little self preservation instinct? Then again, every zombie movie I'd ever watched portrayed them as clumsy and slow. The zombies in real life may be less coordinated and capable than before they died, but they were far from slow. Hollywood had gotten it all wrong.

The slow motion horror scene playing out just feet in front of me sped back up. Shawn reached where the zombie was still clinging on top of a thrashing Jack. Releasing her death grip on him, the zombie darted to her feet, eyes locked on Shawn, but it was already too late for her. Yelling at the top of his lungs, Shawn swung the bat as hard as he could, connecting with the matted blonde head as she was rising.

The sickening sound of bat meeting skull was every bit as bad as I had imagined it would be.

The zombie dropped to the tiles with a thud, muscles in her legs twitching. A pool of too thin looking blood began to spread around her cracked skull. Jack shoved away from the body and lurched to his feet. Wild eyed, he began searching his arms and hands for any signs that the zombie had bitten him.

"Did she get you?"

"I think I'm ok."

Both men spoke at the same time, anxiously checking for broken skin. I was unable to look away from the growing circle of red on the white tiled floor.

Now that she was still, the zombie was more easily distinguished as a woman who had been around my age. Her long hair would have reached her waist. Being locked in the cold fridge must have preserved her, or maybe she hadn't been dead all that long, because she had none of the signs of decay that the zombies wandering outside were starting to show. Not all that long ago, she had been a person. Now she was a twice dead monster who hadn't really had time to live her life.

The wide streak of blood left behind when the guys dragged the body to the farthest corner of the room was mostly dry. So was the spot on the floor that I had cleaned up the best I could after Shawn vomited.

Once the adrenaline started to wear off, he had started to shake. The shakes had turned into nausea when the realization sunk in, he had smashed some girl's head with a bat. Sure, she was a zombie, and she had been trying to kill one of our group. But mostly she still looked like the pretty young woman she used to be. Hitting her went against every decent human instinct.

Skirting the wet patches, I walked to where Shawn was watching the zombies outside through the tiny kitchen door window. Jack leaned against the nearby counter, lost in thought. He had been quiet since the attack.

"How's it look out there?"

Neither of them looked at me as Shawn responded, "There are more of them. I don't know if they heard us in here, or the ones who saw us are attracting the notice of new zombies, but I think the numbers keep getting higher."

That was not what I had been hoping to hear. We needed the zombies to lose interest and go away so we could take our food and retreat back upstairs. Now that there was a dead body in the corner, none of us was too excited about being trapped in the kitchen.

Wandering back to the counter, I absentmindedly put the bag of rolls back in it's place on the shelf. We all seemed to have lost our appetites for the time being.

Shawn's quiet expletive did nothing to help the already tense atmosphere.

"What is it?" Jack finally broke from his trance.

"The window is cracked."

"What!" I hurried back to where the guys were crowded around our only view outside of the kitchen. "Are they going to get in?"

"We need to go. Right now!" I hadn't heard Shawn ever sound as panicked as he did at that moment. "If they get through those windows we won't ever get back to the stairwell."

"Wait!" Jack grabbed for Shawn's arm to stop him from opening the door. "If that many of them see us, they'll come through the glass for sure."

I shouldered my way in front of them and peered fearfully out into the cafeteria. The sight made my breath stutter in my throat. Zombies lined up shoulder to shoulder, pressing on the glass as their frightening eyes searched for what had drawn so much attention in the first place. More zombies pushed them from behind in an attempt to see inside. One large pane of glass had a spider web of cracks spread across it's surface. That section wouldn't be able to take much more.

I looked over my shoulder to the wide eyes behind me, "They're already almost through. It's just a matter of time."

In an unspoken agreement, Jack let go of Shawn's arm. Shawn pushed the door open, and the noise rose to a nearly deafening level. Alarmingly observant, the zombies noticed the movement the second the door opened.

Screams competed with the banging of bodies solidly colliding with the glass. The large panes rattled in their frames under the onslaught. I had just set one foot onto the faded cafeteria carpet when the tinkling sound of glass falling to the floor told me that we were too late. That broken window was much closer to the kitchen door than we were to the stairs.

Reacting on instinct, I spun around and dove back through the kitchen door. Feet crunched across glass and pounded on the floor as zombies flooded into the cafeteria. Shawn bolted through the door behind me. Gasping for air, I looked out, and wished that I hadn't.

Dozens of zombies had already made it inside. In the lead, a tall man who was decayed enough that his skin had sickly black patches, was too close to reaching the still open kitchen door. Yelping, I yanked the door shut.

Seconds later the first zombie's face appeared in the round window. Nearly eye to eye with the creature, I flinched as it opened it's decaying mouth and hissed menacingly. Hands grabbing my shoulders from behind made me yelp again, but I registered the voice in time to keep myself from reacting more.

"Get away from the door!"

Shawn roughly dragged me back until we had one of the large, stainless counters in between us and the only entrance into the room. It was while the two of us huddled there, watching the zombies at the door fearfully, that I realized that Jack was not in the kitchen.