There was a loud noise and the sound of objects falling to the ground.
Melania woke up with a start, jumped out of her makeshift bed inside the prison cell and fell silent, listening.
More clatter, then the sound of heavy breathing and feet dragging on the ground.
“Shit!” She thought. She needed to get out of her cell quickly.
She couldn’t see the other cells in the room, but all seemed still, so she supposed most of her companions were still asleep. She tried to avoid making any noise, grabbed the key to her cell, her shotgun and went out.
She gasped as she went around the corner and into the main room, she didn’t expect things to be that bad: the barricades were down and one of the creatures had entered and was wandering inside. No wonder she could hear it in her sleep!
She hid behind a table, which laid turned on the ground, but right when she was preparing to take aim, Joss came from the cells area, armed with a knife, and launched himself at the creature.
“No!” She cried, but it was too late. The creature had grabbed Josh and was trying to bite him.
At the same time, another creature was entering the room from the hole in the wall and she could hear the shuffling of feet behind her. She had wakened someone with her cry. Or so she hoped. She wouldn’t want it to be another of those things crawling at her back.
Joss was too close to the thing and she couldn’t risk shooting, so she did the only thing she could think of and launched herself towards the creature, stabbing it in the neck with the syringe she was holding in her pocket and pushing hard with her thumb on the plunger, hoping that the guys at the lab were right and that it would have some effect.
The creature howled and started shaking violently, sending her and Joss on the ground.
The last thing she could see was Mateo pointing his gun at another creature, then she hit her head on something hard and all went black.
When she opened her eyes again, she was looking at Krissy’s familiar face.
“Are you all right?” Asked the woman while she was pressing some wet tissue on her head.
Melania nodded and sat up, looking around. Joss seemed unharmed and was already working at the barricades with Mateo; a single dead creature was on the floor, but it wasn’t the one she had hit.
“What happened to the thing I stabbed with the syringe?”
Mateo turned to her and shrugged, “Who knows? It ran out of the building with the syringe still planted on its neck.”
“Damn’!” She replied. “I guess we will never know if it works.”
“Well,” said Joss, “You saved my life, that’s more than enough for me.” Melania stood up and the world seemed to sway for a second, then she steadied her steps and nodded at Krissy: “Will you give me a hand disposing of this? I don’t want it to raise again while it’s still here.”
She started to move the dead body towards the window, dragging it from under its shoulders, while Krissy picked up its feet and helped carrying the weight of the creature. The two women huffed as they raised the corpse above the barricades that blocked the lower half of the window, then pushed the body outside. It landed with a loud “THUD” and a subtle, revolting “SQUISH”.
The lights started to flicker, then went off.
“Damn! The generator is running out of fuel again.” Said Mateo, finding a match in his trousers and lighting it, then carefully working to a corner of the room to light some candles.
“I’ll go.” Said Melania, and stood up from the floor where she sat after throwing the dead body out of the window.
“No, you are injured, let me go!” Answered Krissy, her voice strained and concerned.
“No way! If these things came all the way up here and managed to destroy our barricades, then I am pretty sure there are more in the streets.” She put her hand on Krissy’s shoulder. “I need you here to help the guys with the barricades. Besides, I know the area well, I can move around quickly.”
She could see her friend shrug under the flickering lights of the candles, so she added quickly: “Besides, it’s a simple task. Run to the auto repair garage, pick up some fuel, come back. What could go wrong?”
“Yeah, what could possibly go wrong?” said Mateo with a not so subtle hint of sarcasm, but then he added: “Melania is right, you know. She’s fast and has scouted the area already. It’s the best choice.”
Melania picked up her shotgun from the ground, wore one of the flak jackets they kept in the metal lockers, climbed on the small window near the office, turned around to wink at her group and jumped.