Pacing back and forth through the small room, Lucas had the time he needed to clear his mind. He was used to spending long periods in isolation when the mood struck him or when he needed to do so. Whether it was studying for his school work, gaming or reading something that caught his attention, it was rare he would be distracted by something once he really focused on it.
However, the unsettling frustration with the incomprehensible set of facts that had been established about these zombies made him feel rather antsy. With all the misinformation spreading around, no additional reading was helping the overall situation make any more sense. And what could be told from direct observation was unfortunately rather limited and perplexingly unhelpful. His normally eager curiosity had led to him repeatedly hitting against a brick wall of obfuscation that plainly contradicted human knowledge.
As he paced from one side of the room to the other, Lucas came to the unfortunate conclusion that he had no choice but to wait for better answers to his lingering questions. Simon's ignorant fear and stubborn demeanor wouldn't allow for direct experimentation on the one zombie Lucas did have limited access to. And the vast resources of the world via the Internet seemed to be mostly dedicated to nonsense and panic. Once he had finished clearing his mind, Lucas decided he would at least throw his own observations into the larger world.
At the very least, maybe his observations would help someone else piece together more information. In the end, he didn't have much to offer but questions, but he did spend some time typing up what he had managed to observe and the evidence for his reasoning he could easily reference on the Internet. His efforts ended abruptly when the Internet connection went down unexpectedly.
Checking again after a few seconds, Lucas figured that his connection might be down for a while, then lifted his head to idly glance out the window. There was nothing outside.
Lucas had been so absorbed in his activity that he didn't notice the overhead light had cut out at about the same time the connection dropped. But now that he thought about it, the level of light registered in his mind, he just didn't immediately realize what that meant right away. The only light he had to see by now was his laptop screen. It bathed the room in a soft glow.
The power had gone out. Standing up to look out the window, it appeared the entire city had gone dark. Not even moonlight provided illumination through the thick clouds. In the hall outside his room, Lucas heard the noises of people shouting at each other. It didn't concern him much since his door was locked.
Looking at what he had gathered in his post, Lucas decided to save the work and shut the computer down. However long this power outage lasted, he would post this once it ended. Until that point, it was probably better to save the laptop's power until he needed it. Just in case.
Leaning back in his chair, Lucas tapped his fingers upon the desk before him. He had nothing to do now and he wasn't sleepy. He could play a game on the laptop, but still didn't feel much like it at the moment. Sitting there in the dark, Lucas heard the shouting growing louder and more intrusive in the hallway. He wasn't sure what that was about, but didn't much care.
But there was little else he could really do right now. He could read in the dark, but he didn't feel like doing that, either.
Blindly feeling around the simple wooden desk for the correct drawer, Lucas fished out the emergency flashlight his mother had placed in there for him. Flicking it on, he walked over to the door and unlocked and opened it casually, shining the light into the corridor and witnessed a couple of people blindly feeling their way along the hallway walls. They stopped a moment as Lucas shone his light in their direction and looked back at him, then continued on.
There was a commotion echoing through the halls from elsewhere in the building. Advancing towards the nearby stair well, a visible light source came from somewhere around the top of the steps. Lucas climbed up partway to investigate. Jorge stood at the top of the steps, shining his flashlight down the hall where the source of the commotion was coming from. Jorge turned as he saw the new source of light.
"What's going on?" Lucas asked him as he stopped halfway up.
Jorge half paid attention to Lucas as he replied, only glancing over just barely. "We're going to get that sick guy out of here before he bites anyone."
