Lucas stood at the bottom of the stairway, leaning against the railing and watching the glass doorway curiously. Erin stood close by, in the hallway leading to the common room, watching the large glass doors with captive dread. Several people were gathered around the front doorway, pressed up against the glass windows, trying to see an event transpiring on the other side.
Lucas had been able to hear the noise of excited chatter all the way from the second floor hallway outside his room. When he had arrived at the stairway landing and the elevators marking where the main lobby doors were located below, the indecipherable chatter below had ominously cut short. Feeling his own heart thumping heavily away, Lucas stealthily made his way downstairs.
From what he could make out before the commotion went silent, someone had apparently gone outside to do something about the zombie at the door. Joining the others, Lucas saw that their unwanted visitor was indeed gone. The place was so quiet they could hear the faded groans of the thing outside and its scuffle with its combatant. The sound, without visible details was a little unnerving, considering Lucas could not know the outcome until it was done.
Jorge, Victor and Simon were standing beside the front door, pressed up against the glass and straining to see something to the right. Victor, the furthest left of the three, forcefully whispered to them. "He's coming back! Evan, I mean!"
"Is it dead?" Simon asked as he tried to lean closer to that side to look. In his right hand he firmly gripped a metal bar.
"I don't see it! It must be dead, those things run fast!" Victor replied, as Jorge worked to unlock the door. Simon made no attempt to stop the action, allowing Evan into the building again. As Jorge quickly worked to lock the door again, Simon held it firmly shut with both hands, dropping the weapon in his possession.
"Okay." Evan said as he entered the room. "It's done." He dropped the length of pipe on the floor with a metallic, ringing clatter and looked at his own hands and arms.
There was a moment of silence as the lock of the glass door clicked shut and everyone who dared to try tested the security with a little pull. Lucas quietly remained at his place on the stairs.
"I can see it now. It's not dead." Victor announced to the room and backed away from the wide glass doorway and broad floor to ceiling windows.
"What the hell did you do that for if you weren't going to kill it?" Simon scowled as he knelt to retrieve his metal bar.
"What was I supposed to do? Bash his head in and get blood all over me?" Evan spoke as he thoroughly looked over his arms and clothing.
Simon frowned, but after a moment conceeded the point with an unhappy nod.
"I just broke his legs. So now if he sees someone he won't be able to run at them like before. I wish I could have killed it, though."
Almost as if demonstrating, the zombie lurched into view, slowly returning to the door. One leg moved uneasily and it swayed a little with each step. It groaned out its disapproval with its reappearance, reaching for the door. Lucas watched the gradual approach with a curious fascination. The people who had been up against the glass only moments before backed away.
Lucas left his place on the stairs and quietly approached, passing between the people to approach the safe doorway. The thing was now badly cut across the right cheek and its grey suit was badly scuffed. It had a cut across part of its arm that dripped blood, and moved the hand a bit awkwardly. But none of those things were what caught Lucas's attention.
Where once had been relatively pristine grey slacks, there was now a heavy stain of red-brown, wet fluid. It was particularly bad on the left leg, and although the shadow of Blackwood dorm cast the walkway in darkness Lucas could see it was also soaking the otherwise nice black shoes. As the zombie lurched closer, merely a dozen or so feet from the door, Lucas could see a widening trail of dark fluid standing out against the grey pavement.
Lucas felt a little sick, realizing that the bone injuries inflicted by Evan must have punctured the skin, and opened an arterty. But he was also excited that the science he read would be put to the test. The zombie was losing a lot of its blood from those injuries, and very quickly.
"You probably did kill it!" Lucas announced as the zombie reached the door and a dark puddle began to coalesce at its feet. It shakily twisted and tugged at the door handle.
"What?" Simon replied.
There was silence from the other people in the area, as Lucas turned to face the others that had moved away from the door. "Muscles need blood to give them oxygen. If it doesn't have any blood able to supply it oxygen, it won't be able to move."
"But all the news sites say that only head injuries work." Victor gave a confused glance towards Simon after he spoke. "If blood loss worked too I think someone would have said something about it by now."
"I know, and that's weird that they're saying that, but whatever is going on, it still has muscles like we do." Lucas asserted. "We might not know what is happening out there, but muscles still follow rules and at least for us, they should only work like I said. So the zombie should collapse in a few minutes."
"What if it doesn't?" Erin asked from the back of the room. She had been silent up until now. "What if it's still out there moving in ten minutes? Or an hour?"
"Then it will show us that something is very, very wrong." Lucas pushed his glasses up his nose and turned back to observe the zombie.
"Something is wrong!" Came a chorus of a reply from Erin, Victor and Evan.
"I meant it would prove that these zombies aren't following the normal rules." Lucas replied without turning back to face the others. "It would tell us whether what we think we know can still be trusted. Either way, we'll have some kind of answer in a few more minutes."
