As Lucas recovered from his laughing fit, his thoughts began to turn towards what he should do. Removing himself from the affected area was probably out of the question. After all, the people shown on the news tried that and it didn't work for them. Plus they actually had the advantage of having some guns with them and he did not.
Even though he only knew for sure that there was one zombie nearby, Lucas figured that if there was one, there could be others. An escape attempt might draw the attention of others that he didn't know were in the area. The people Evan had let in were chased by a zombie when they attempted to escape, so that at least proved that some were in the area.
The normal world had slipped out from under him as Lucas had slept. The time for an escape, if it was feasible at all, would have probably been when this first began. Not that he had a car to use. He relied on public transit to get where he needed to go. Even if he could get there, Lucas doubted the trains would be running right now. Since this virus broke out, they were probably taken out of service almost right away.
Given what he knew, and since he wasn't all that good at running, Lucas decided he shouldn't leave to find another place to stay. That didn't mean it was entirely eliminated as an option. If he thought of something later on of where to go and what to do when he was there, it might prove to be a better idea than it seemed like at the moment.
Pacing around the room, Lucas began looking for what might be useful among the piles of paper, books and assorted food wrappers. He quickly concluded that he probably had nothing that would be incredibly useful in a fight. One of the people who ran into the building with the zombie in pursuit said that it couldn't bite through their coat. Lucas did have a pretty heavy coat; it was a detail he considered worth remembering.
As for food supplies, he did have some in his room; a couple cans of chili and an almost new case of cheap noodles. A bag of cheesy chips and some candies. There was also a case and a half of caffeinated soda he had bought to help him through finals week. Getting one can out, he opened it carefully and took a deep drink of the sweet, slightly stinging liquid as he thought about the situation.
The only real choice for now was to wait. Lucas sat on his bed and stared out the window at the bare trees and the shingled rooftop nearby. He didn't know what he would be waiting for. Someone to come by looking for survivors, he supposed. Even if the news started giving out detailed plans for rescues or other information, it wouldn't do him any good unless they came right up to the building and killed the zombie outside.
Of course there were more people in the building than just him. He didn't know how many of them kept food in their rooms, but he also suspected the building wasn't completely full. Probably a lot of people already left as soon as they heard about the outbreak, or they had already left for home or vacation after they were finished with their finals. Most people had wrapped up their finals earlier in the week.
The kitchen downstairs had cupboards and a refrigerator. Some people did keep things in them, pots or cooking supplies, but Lucas kept everything in his room. From people he had talked to who kept things downstairs, sometimes their things were used by others, but theft was pretty rare. The common room was supposed to only be open to people who lived in the building. Lucas kept a couple of clean utensils and a small cooking pot in his room instead of the kitchen.
"Okay, so what now?" Lucas spoke with a sigh. He stared out at a tree branch, spidery, and waving slightly in the breeze. Waiting for rescue might take a while, and in the meantime he would have to stay indoors. He considered loading a game on the computer for a while but didn't feel much like gaming at the moment. There wasn't much to do besides try to figure out what was happening.
Reluctantly, Lucas thought back to the grotesque video of the woman with the missing arm. A trickle of blood oozed down her side and the loss of the limb didn't seem to hinder her at all. Not even after a minute, and she had supposedly been like that for a while before the recording even began.
With the initial shock of the imagery, Lucas hadn't fully considered what the video really meant. If she had been active for several minutes with her arm off, then it meant she would have lost most of her blood. There were the obvious conclusions, of course, that these things really were the living dead, and they would be hard to kill. But it meant something else too. After all there were rules to the workings of the world.
The muscles in the body worked as well as they did because blood was constantly supplying new energy to them and helping to repair minor damage. These things didn't need their own blood to function, which was distressing, but without blood the cells of their bodies would gradually become more damaged and have less energy to use over time.
Further, the fact that the blood oozed out instead of coming in spurts seemed to indicate the heart was not beating. If all of their hearts were not beating, every zombie would have that problem. It wasn't something Lucas knew how to confirm in the one outside, but he thought it was a reasonable assumption.
This meant the zombies should eventually be left with weakened, damaged bodies incapable of moving and run out of energy to function. Lucas didn't know how long that would take, but suddenly, the prospect of waiting this out didn't seem as bad to him. Given enough time, the problem should sort itself out as long as nobody new got themselves infected.
Of course, there was a chance he was wrong. The possibility of being incorrect was both horrifying and a little exciting. Being wrong about this would have some startling implications. Unfortunately, the only way he had to find out if he was right would be to wait.
