Day 14

Danielle Kim sat quietly against the wall, staring at the bloody remains of her neighbors. It had been two days since the online broadcasts had stopped. Yesterday, radio broadcasts about safe zones began to vanish throughout the day. Any broadcasts since were intermittent and only conveyed fears, prayers, and screams for help. Periodic ham radio bursts indicated some good ol’ boys from Yucaipa had begun patrolling and looting. Vultures.

She hadn’t bothered listening to the radio today. At the time she was too preoccupied with the sounds of struggle in the apartment next door. She didn’t really know her neighbors that well. 

Now she found herself staring at the blood that pooled around the corpse of… was it Julie? Fuck, it might as well have been Julie, now. Danielle had spoken to her a handful of times in the five years that they were neighbors. Most of those conversations came after the apocalypse through cracked doors and too-thin walls.

After the sounds of screaming and heavy thumps against the wall had suddenly cut out, Danielle left her quarantined apartment. She moved the shelf and table. She pried loose the boards. She undid the latches. She had stepped onto the walkway and saw the stone steps that lead up to the second floor were still demolished, and that no ghouls had managed to make it up. No pile of undead monsters forming an inhuman ladder.

Danielle turned her attention to the other apartment and saw that the door was open. She knocked lightly but heard nothing from inside. The doorknob gave clearance. She had decided then to step inside.

Julie was already dead. Her boyfriend was on his knees, his face buried into her face. 

Sitting here now, Danielle didn’t remember making a noise, but she recalled the boyfriend looking up at the time, his eyes pale and unblinking. Between his teeth was a chunk of Julie’s cheek. 

He had turned.

Danielle must have stumbled back to her apartment and grabbed something to defend herself. 

Now, Dani looked around Julie’s living room and saw the volleyball trophy that had been tossed away. The faux-marble corner was caked in hair, blood, and brain matter. She turned back to see her handiwork. Next to Julie’s body was the boyfriend; his skull was caved in. His arm was thrown over Julie. A parody of a sleeping couple. 

Dani began to sob. Everything had fallen apart. She felt like a fool for not having fled somewhere, anywhere, sooner. This shit could not be ridden out, and she knew she was smarter than to think that. Why had she stayed?

The sobbing continued until Julie began to stir. Dani watched the fingers of the dead woman begin to curl and drag across the carpet. The first stirrings of something horrid being born.

The internet was right. They were on it earlier than the TV, and even the radio. Danielle hadn’t wanted to believe it. The dead were returning to life and attacking the living, forced to wander in an undead daze.

Dani rose to her feet and made her way to the trophy. She wouldn’t let that fate befall Julie.

Danielle plunged the corner of the trophy into the temple of Julie’s skull. Soon the stir of rasping moans fell silent, and again, the trophy was discarded across the room.

Julie’s body was still and was still embraced by her boyfriend, their faces framed by pooled blood soaking into the carpet.

It was time to leave the apartment complex.