Day 14

Danielle Kim immediately took several steps from the gate and raised her crowbar into a batter’s stance. She whipped her gaze around, scanning the area for the undead. Her breathing grew rapid as she counted them as they came into view.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

There was one across the street behind her, approaching from the rear parking lot of a strip mall. To her left was a pair. One of the pair stumbled toward her on the grass that separated the sidewalk from the road, and the other was strapped in a car, the belt restraining it, but the window down completely. Gnarled, rotting fingertips grasped and flexed at nothing but her general direction.

The last two of them approached from her right, stumbling through a hole in a partially-demolished chain-link fence. At one time it had been meant to seal off a vacant lot.  Glancing ahead, back into the apartment complex, she saw at least three that were going to move in on her position from back around the corner in the complex. She had to be fast. Five could become more so easily.

She sprinted across the street toward the ghoul furthest out. The bastard seemed familiar, but she put that aside. She took a running charge with the crowbar trailing behind her. She took an upward swing within range and the crowbar connected to a saggy grey chin, knocking the ghoul onto its back. Fat, rotten flesh jiggled and open sores split further. Blood and gunk spilled out around the corpse. Rot splashed over Danielle’s feet and pants. 

Bile wrenched up her throat, and she stumbled away, coughing sick near the writhing body of the fat thing who was struggling to rise from under his collected weight. Dani took a few stumbling steps away and turned to see the other two creatures on the street moving toward her.

She turned back to the fat one, still rocking, and raised her crowbar above her head, taking a few steps towards it. Her momentum carried from her feet to the crowbar’s tip as the forked end wedged itself deep into the ghoul’s eye socket. After a shuddering twitch, the corpse stopped with a sudden jerk. She removed the crowbar with a sickening squelch and turned her attention back to the two ghouls. The street gave her some flexibility, with the first ghoul down.

These things were slow, having only crossed most of the street to her position. She could use that. The two from the demolished fence followed the other one that had emerged near the car of its trapped partner.

Danielle began to march toward the first ghoul to her right, one that had worked its way through the fence. She approached with slow, even steps meant to gauge speed. What clothes remained on the walking corpse had been torn on the fence, and most of its shirt dangled listlessly off its right wrist. Dani switched things up, taking some hurried steps and repeating her earlier strategy. The crowbar hit it in the chest, caving it in and sending the broken body spinning to the ground. Dani took a deep breath, placed the full weight of her foot on the corpse, and swung the hooked end of the crowbar into the gnashing head. She struck it like this three times before it stopped moving.

She stumbled over the corpse and turned around to see the second-to-last of the mobile ghouls had gained on her surprisingly quickly. She stepped backward, carefully, to give herself some breathing room. The other fence ghoul approached much more slowly. She saw it was missing a foot.

She went into a batter’s stance and waited. Her normally tan arms, now paler from two weeks in an apartment, were taut from her grip on the crowbar. Dehydrated muscle popped dramatically as her arms bent at the elbow. When the ghoul was close enough, she took another swing, instantly crushing the skull of what was once a wisp of a woman.

The last of the walking ghouls, the one with the missing foot, crept toward her with jerked, uneven movement. It didn’t take much effort to knock them to the ground and bash their skull in with the crowbar.

After catching her breath, Danielle walked slowly toward the car that had the trapped creature and pulled a screwdriver from her belt loop. She stood a few feet back as the creature gnashed its broken teeth and reached out with gore-caked, shredded fingertips. Watching the movements carefully, she found an opportunity. She grabbed at matted hair and held the head as still as she could. She nearly retched as she felt loose skin shift along the skull. The scalp would slough off at any second at this rate.

Within an instant, the creature stopped moving and hung silent; a screwdriver wedged deep into an eye socket.

Danielle turned back to the gate and hooked her crowbar on the edge. The first of the ghouls in the complex had rounded the corner and stumbled slowly toward her. She took a deep breath and tried pulling the gate forward again. Again, the gate was stuck.

Plenty of time. No need to panic.

She studied the gate, looking it over, and noticed that the upper wheel was not in the groove. She lifted and pushed it into place and began to laugh as the gate slid along the track, rattling slightly.

Dani flicked some wet gore from her crowbar as she walked back to the car and sat back in the driver’s seat. The engine turned over with little fuss, and she drove out of the complex.

She stopped the car as she pulled just outside of the gates to the Oakwood Apartments. Leaving the engine running, Danielle walked over to the ghoul with the screwdriver still jammed into the wet eye socket. Crouching, she braced herself on the car and pulled the screwdriver out with a sickening pop. She flicked away the socket sludge, something she was beginning to feel instinctual at this point, and walked back to the car. She tossed the screwdriver onto the passenger floorboard and shut the door.

Everything was going as planned. Everything would be okay.