"I came down to watch the zombie." Lucas said as he crouched by the front door to unzip his backpack and take out the clipboard inside with fresh paper already prepared. He already had an idea for a note to make. "I came to see if there's anything I can discover about the infected."
"Well if you want to go see it, I'll trade you doors." George shook his head, the whites of his eyes looking more extreme against his dark brown skin. "He can't get in over there, but he's really starting to freak me out."
"Sure, just give me-" Lucas began while rooting around for a pencil; a heavy thudding march came from upstairs before he could finish his thought.
Pausing for a moment to observe, Lucas watched as Simon's heavy frame bounded into view, his face contorted into an angry scowl as he thumped down the steps. "That jackass is infected!" He looked right at George as he reached the bottom step.
George widened his eyes further, his grip tightening on the steel bar as he gazed past Simon up the stairs. "What? Are you sure?" George's wiry body was suddenly looking very tense.
"He's got a fever already. He's getting worse fast. He's definitely got it." Simon moved past George to a doorway at the far end of the lobby from the place where Lucas was crouched. "They're hiding him in Esteban's room." Simon removed a keyring attached to his belt and unlocked the door. The door closed behind the large man with a slam. There was an awkward silence.
Returning to his task before he forgot, Lucas partially jotted his thoughts onto the notebook paper. A startling rattle at the door behind him produced an ugly ragged line of graphite across the paper. George snapped his head around in fright.
Turning back to the glass behind him, Lucas found the undead had returned to its former place. A howling groan came from the monster as it watched Lucas mere inches away through the glass. Its teeth chattered as its mouth pressed against the glass near Lucas's arm. A faint trace of blood scraped onto the glass from where a couple of teeth had been broken. The lower part of its pants legs were stained black in the shadowy light still available. Lights behind the zombie let its shadow spill into the building.
"He snuck up on us." George exhaled sharply with relief visible on his face.
"Yes, it did." Lucas concurred, breathing a heavy sigh. Taking a couple of steps away with his pack, Lucas sat down again, and stared at the zombie. Rattling the door again, it emitted another unsettling groan. "They also know how to use doors. Let me ask you something, George."
"What is it?" George asked almost with a whisper, his voice shaky.
"When that zombie out there came over and surprised you, did you hear it coming first, or did you see it first?"
"I don't think I heard anything." George paused. "I was watching the door, but saw it out of the corner of my eye. I was reading when I suddenly noticed it at the door."
"That's what I thought." Lucas watched the bloodied zombie staring right back at him, shaking the door handles. "It knows not to make noise if we can't see it. Or if we're distracted by something."
The zombie wailed unhappily. Otherwise there was silence. George whispered. "God damn it. That's scary. The last thing I want to have to worry about is that it's too quiet."
Lucas turned his head a little. "Yes it is. So why do you think it's making that sound in the first place, then?"
George gasped, taking a sudden step backwards. "You mean, you think that's to let other zombies know that we're in here? So they can swarm us?"
"We're probably just lucky that there's no other zombies quite close enough to hear it right now." Lucas said as he watched the infected continuing to strain its body at the locked glass door.
