Arthur wipe his face with his shaking palm, adrenalin has leaving his bloodstream and now leaving him weak on the knees and he let himself sliding to the floor on kneeling pose.
“The fuck just happened?” he thought. His head is in mess by the bloody sight before, but he shake that thought out of his head and tell himself that he needed to get out since the door wouldn’t hold on forever and the madman still ‘passionately’ banging the door like his life is dedicated to just doing that.
Arthur looked around the room. This is the first time he entered the janitor office. The room has no window and only have one entrance that’s blocked by the creepy man outside. The light is pretty dim—maybe it’s already the time to change it. The ventilator doesn’t seems to working properly and the room smelt weird and feels stuffy.
No wonder the janitor often looks irritated most of the time and not to mention that he has been working alone for the past few week since the other janitor seems to be abstain from work.
Another thing he take to account is that the room is crowded. Full of items for cleaning like mop and broom on one corner. Aside from the pretty sturdy desk and some chair and shelf he moved to block the door earlier, and the rest is overtaken by a few shelf full of ‘junk' labeled Lost Item on a yellowed plaque. The room is left with a little few space for three or four people to fill the space available on the room. And with how disorganized this place is, its no wonder the janitor office is the last place anyone would go to find their lost things.
He was about to get up from the floor when another stream of notifications from four different social media on his phone began to ring one after another on top of the banging sound that make him jump from fright.
“Fudging Jesus almighty.”
He curses inside his head and begrudgingly taking out his phone that still hasn’t stopped the notification battle. Rather, he get even more notifications and its lagging his phone a bit.
He decide to at least check his phone since this kind of notifications barrage is very unusual even for an active vlogger like him. He clicked on one notification from Facebook to see that it was from one of his vlogger buddies.
He read the content of his post carefully and his eyes grew wider every time he finished a sentence. He click on another notifications from Snapchat, Twitter and Instagram and his brown skins become paler and more paler by the seconds.
He hurriedly closes the last application and tap his emergency number when big beads of cold sweat has magnified on his unhealthy looking face that’s caused by the numeral posts he reads.
His heart beating hard on his ribcages, waiting anxiously for the person on the other side of the line to answer. His ear is ringing, the noise the man outside made has long been forgotten. He could only focusing his concentration on the beeping sound of the phone and redial when it was unanswered.
He know that his action was futile after it was left unanswered for the umpteenth times. He quickly changes his methods to texting, hoping that the person is still safe and couldn’t answer because he still put his phone on silent mode and not because something bad has happened.
Arthur face scrunched, his worry and terrified expression is still showing on his face, he looked at the screen and waiting for the other person to answer, but to no avail.
Not knowing what to do, he decide to quickly get out of there and rush to the place they agreed to met before, but he need some kind of weapon to protect himself from the madman.
He then turning off the notification from his social medias and only left the text and phone notification on since the barrage of notifications from the apps slowly eating away his phone battery.
With a troubled expression he said, “Please be safe, Bree.”
He then place the phone on his jeans pocket, and Arthur takes a deep breath and exhale it slowly, trying to calm his heart, and began to surveying the room closely. He walked to the shelves, rummaging the items there to look for something that could pass as a weapon.
Not long after that, he places the things he found on the floor. Lined up from the smallest one is two sharp sickle, a hollow metal rod that look sturdy enough, a new looking hatchet and a medium sized chainsaw.
How the janitor get them or what he’s using them for is still a mystery, but it’s not like he can ask him about that anyway.
He slide the metal rod and hatchet on his belt, wrap the sickles with some ripped jersey he found on the shelves and emptying his backpack and place it there carefully. Lastly, he take the chainsaw and see that the tank is almost empty. It won’t last that long, but it might be enough to but some time and harm the zombie outside.
Speaking of which, Arthur just realise that he doesn’t heard the banging anymore, and wondering if he leave since he wasn’t able to get in?
He’s pondering for a second before suddenly the door collide with something, or a few things, producing a loud noise and wave that make one of the chair on the desk to fall down.
Before Arthur could grasp what has happened another clash shook the door. This time, the shelf fall, the bolt almost fall out, and crack is forming on the door.
“Did he bring an army or what?!”
He hurriedly started the chainsaw and failed for a few times. The time he finally manage to turning on the chainsaw, the bolt on the door finally gave up and the zombies pushing the door that still stuck from the desk, but it was enough for Arthur to swing the chainsaw to the smiling zombie that gnawing the janitor before straight at it face.
Blood splattering, some part of its face fly off, but its still able to flapping its arms around and tried to catch Arthur. He spotted another creepy smiling zombie on his back that tried to squeeze his way in.
Arthur eyes hardened when he see that it doesn’t even budge after he lose a portion of its face, so he strike the zombie once again with the chainsaw. This time he aim for its forehead aka brain to the so called weak spot for zombies and sure enough, it drop dead on the desk while the other zombie finally decide to climb his way to Arthur on the first zombie back, but before it even finalize the move, a hatchet is landed on its head which making it stop altogether and falling on top of the now faceless zombie from before.
Arthur stay on defense mode for a solid minutes and wait to see of any other zombie is on the way.
When there a no more movements and everything is as quiet as grave, he finally puking his gut out on the corner.
He has been feeling like puking the time he saw the zombie tearing the janitor body, and then everything has become unbearable when he heard the sounds of bones cracking and flesh tearing and on top of it, the strong smell of iron assaulting his nose, and the surprise that human head is so easy to crack open making him unable to holding in his lunch inside his belly.
He felt his sanity slipping a bit, but in the name of survival and Brian, he swore he would not going to lose his sanity and will face any zombies in front of him bravely since he’s sure that Brian wouldn’t show his weakness like he did just now whatever might happened because he know for sure that Brian is stronger than him in the sense of psychology.
That is to say that he has more gut than him.
“And that’s what I believe.”
After the wave of nausea leave he finally feel better and he started to calm his nerves and beating heard for the time being by counting from one to ten repeatedly, like how Brian do it whenever he’s angry and about to explode. It doesn’t work for Brian as much as for Arthur thought.
He wipe his mouth and stared at the mess he just made.
His face scrunch up and he need to reminding himself that they are no longer human repeatedly, forming some kind of suggestion on his mind.
He inhale another big air inside his lung and exhale it slowly. After he’s sure that he’s one hundred percent ‘okay’, he begin to pull the desk over and dragging the two zombies inside and place them on the corner.
He wear his backpack with the sickles inside and clean the hatchet he use to hack the second zombie before with a rag from the cleaning supplies. His clothes is pretty bloody from the zombies blood, but he’s scratchless. The chainsaw has run out of gas the moment it landed on the first zombie forehead and it stays there majestically and making Arthur use the hatchet next.
He glance around the room to make sure that there’s no more useful things he can take with him anymore.
He peeked outside the damaged door with blood spattered on the wall and floor, looking right and left, making sure that there’s no other horde of zombies in the hallway only to spot the poor janitor in the place the zombie left him before, making him looked away from him with guilt.
When seconds passes and the hall stays soundless except for the sounds of his own heartbeats, he finally taking a step out carefully when his phone ringtone filled the empty hallway.
Arthur jumped and almost falling down to the poodle of blood on his feet. He feel like his heart skipped a beat.
His cursed silently and hurriedly take the phone out of his jeans pocket and his eyes lit up to find that the caller is Brian.
He answered it and worriedly said, “Brian, where are you? Are you alright? You’re not hurt right? Tell me wh-“
He was about to ask another question when Brian shush him—with annoyed tone he know so well. And so he clasp his mouth shut.
“You’re okay?” Brian ask with a small, whispering voice as if afraid that someone might heard him.
“I’m fine. What about you?” Arthur whisper back unconsciously, feeling the dire stare of the situation he’s in.
“I’m okay, sort of.” He said it slowly, but didn’t uttered any sound afterwards. Arthur begin to pick up some background noise from the other line and feeling that Brian got distracted by whatever it is.
“Bree, where are you?”
“I’m in the restroom close from the library like I told you earlier.” Brian whispering his words slowly. “I’m inside the bathroom stall. Couldn’t get out. You might not believe me but there’s two crazy guy here munching the life away from another guy outside. Literally.” Arthur heard some kind of moaning voice on the line and he could imagine Brian winced at the sound.
He know that Brian doesn’t have any social media account and always said that Facebook ruined peoples life, thought he never told Arthur to stop using them. It’s pretty understandable that he would not know anything about the Z apocalypse outside. So he start explaining.
“No, Bree, listen to me, alright? Remember the thing I told you in the class before? About the conspiracy that terrorist make some bio-weapon? Well, it turns out that the weapon is turning peoples to zombie. And I’m not joking. I just ki-kill two zombies right now.” He explained it briefly to Brian, long explanation is no use at his situation and the guilt he felt after saying he kill them couldn’t stay.
He heard Brian making a sound of air being sucked sharply at the end of his words, and he said in more hushed and panicked tone, “For real? Those guys are zombies? What should I do now? They blocked the exit!”
“Okay, calm down Bree. They’re dangerous and based on the info I got online is that they’re only could be killed if you destroy the head or more precisely, the brain. You got weapon or anything with you?”
“No, I-wait! I still have the bat in my backpack. The one you gave me earlier, but would that be enough to fight them?” he heard some shuffling noise, maybe the sound of Brian taking the bat off of his backpack.
“I’m not sure but I have some weapon with me. You wait there okay? I’ll go there immediately. Don’t make any sound to led them know of your existence. They don’t know you’re here right?” He started running to the old building of the campus when he said the first sentence, luckily it seems like these area is zombie free.
“No, I don’t think they-“ Brian stopped his word and with an even more small voice said, “Fuck. I think they got me.” Brian got completely silent and in between his running, Arthur heard some more shuffling noise accompanied by some gurgling and moaning sounds, but they seems louder than before. Alarmed by the noise, he couldn’t help but became anxious.
“Bree? Hang on, I’m coming alright?”
He’s not hoping for any answer from Brian, and he could only listening closely to the noise from the other side. When nothing happened he want to sigh with relief.
Then the sound of something heavy colliding with another thing can be heard. Both Arthur and Brian jumped with a curse rolled from their tongue.
“Fuck, Art! They’re here, what should I do?!” panic filled his voice, and Arthur feeling even more panicked than him.
“Hold, hold on Bree! You try your best to make them stay outside, I’ll get you right now!”
“But how?! Fuck-“
“Hello? HELLO?! Bree! Are you alright?!”
“NO! OH HOLY SH-FUCK!”
“BREE! Hang on! I’m going to get you!”
“AAAAAAAA! ARTH-OH MY HOLY FUCKIN’ JESUS! HOLY MOTHER FUCKIN' JESUS! SHIT-SHIT-SHIT-SHIT-SHIT-OH SHIT! OH FUCK! HOLY FUCK! MOTHER FUCKE-NONONONONO-SHIIIIIIIITTTT!” There’s a lot of sounds mixing up and another incoherent voice in between the cursing that Arthur couldn’t make out, and after the last profanity, there’s a ‘thud’ sound and the line went completely dead.
“BREE! BREE! GOD DAMN IT!”
Arthur put away his phone and running more hastily to the rest room where Brian locked himself from the zombies that was after him.
With resolved eyes, he take both the iron rod and hatchet on his hand and grip them tightly.
He only have one thing in his mind.
It is to save Arthur no matter what, and he hope that he's not too late.
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