Uncomfortable Conclusion

The unsettling question, the one with bigger implications than all others Lucas had thought to consider so far, had few possible answers.  But before such answers would be entirely appropriate to consider, establishing the details of a basic timeline mattered.  With rising trepidation as each new tidbit gathered seemed to support the uncomfortable notion, Lucas could feel each sensible alternative becoming less and less likely.

Careful study of multiple news sources verified what had up until now only been an unexamined and implicit assumption.  As far as Lucas could verify, the absolutely earliest report of what the media dubbed infected was in San Francisco, California at 4:54 PM local time the previous day.  According to the local media, a zombie attack in Portland was first reported at 4:57 PM.

Within a short window of time of only a few minutes, a total of twenty four places in eight different countries had isolated reports of the characteristic spreading attacks which were undoubtedly confirmed.  While not every initial account had been in only big population centers, twenty one were in large cities where there were lots of potential eyewitnesses to see the first attacks by the infected.  The final early sighting was- according to the reporting- within a small town in northern Montana.

While attacks in those first places continued to spread out and the infected swarms grew over the next several hours within many of those initial places, in others they were completely beaten back and quickly eliminated as individuals fought against the attacks.  Many terrified people hid indoors, which kept the number of new infected to a minimum.  Those early attempts to flee or fight had mixed success, but reports indicated that bravado often added to the tides of undead.  There was no obvious pattern to who survived the ongoing regional outbreaks, but the initial panic had clearly led to confusion which did not help matters.

But beside the ongoing initial confrontation, the major characteristic of later verified cases came from smaller towns, within rural areas and suburban neightborhoods.  Not everywhere in the world, but in more places than where those first attacks had been reported, new confirmations trickled in.  Some small communities had mysteriously been cut off from outside communication and when someone checked up on the area, they were discovered to be plagued with the diseased.  As if the whole town had been caught unprepared for what was being actively reported on in the media and displayed all over the Internet.  Perhaps their calls for help were unnoticed in the panic.

Many more places were completely untouched by the zombies than seemed to have them, but those attempting to flee blighted zones for a safe area unintentionally brought the spreading disease with them.  Some traffic jams were credited to car crashes caused by attacks from infected passengers riding in cars.  Lucas curiously noticed that Portland was supposedly cut off due to a couple such wreckages.  Perhaps that was what made the coming military response delayed until tomorrow.

In either case, it did not look like it was a good idea to flee.  Given what he had read, it made sense for the CDC and the government to ask everyone to stay inside for now.

And finally, there was another wave of new reports, coming from only a few places so far and only beginning a few hours or so ago.  A few places were starting to report infected moving in huge swarms.  These weren't from the already known ongoing outbreaks, but totally new and uncomfirmed sources.  Supposedly, one zombie had caused a large outbreak somewhere that had simply not been reported until the mob had reached that size.  There were only a few of those.  That implied that in some areas of the world, the phenomenon had been overlooked for some time before it was noticed.

Lucas gathered these notes as he had made them on his computer.  It was not a trivial task to accomplish this, although several other people had done similar things.  Since there was a great deal of misinformation caused by understandable terror, it also wasn't likely he had a complete record.  But Lucas had enough for his own purposes.

Given the basic timeline Lucas now had, whatever caused these zombies, there was reason to think it had begun in individual, isolated pockets.  Then as attacks spread the infection from person to person and the hordes of undead grew, it began to be reported in more places because some zombies had been initially overlooked.  Otherwise, the appearance was sudden.  With nothing like it known prior.

That only led to two possible conclusions Lucas could envision and both made his skin crawl.  Something had created those initial zombies at a precise moment in time.  That meant this was potentially deliberately caused by something intelligent.  Or it had to be something natural that was so vast, so far beyond the scale of an ordinary person, as to be indistinguishable from a planned planetary event.

And so far, this appeared to be far too random and chaotic to indicate there was any kind of planning involved.

Shock

A rich, iron smell wafted heavily through the chamber after the final wet crack brought the fight to a close.  The battered corpse lay motionless upon the ground, its skull cracked open with its contents oozing; arms laying spread forwards as its final grasping attempts were ended with violent finality.  A growing but small puddle of dark, cold blood spread upon the hard linoleum floor.  The mass of brain matter had been splattered upon the floor around the broken skull in a disgusting faded pink heap.  Fragments of bone and teeth had been scattered over the floor, and with it, small dark stains.

Evan felt a woozy sensation in the pit of his stomach as he forced his attention away from the carnage.  Still frozen beside the front door, George cringed, his head turned towards the glass, producing a retching sound, then vomiting onto the red streaks leading away from the entrance.  Evan swallowed back an acidic taste, trying not to follow suit.  It was the most horrible thing he had ever seen; he hadn't even imagined he could see something that would have this kind of effect on him.

Standing before his slain target, Simon breathed heavily as the effort of the confrontation had obviously taken longer than he had expected.  The large man casually tossed the bloodied length of pipe into the back left corner of the room only a few feet away.  It landed with a resounding metallic clatter and rolled around on the floor.  Simon looked rattled by what he had done; a few spatters of dark blood were sprinkled on his heavy blue sweater and pants.  He repeated his earlier statement as he returned his attention to Evan.  "That is how you handle them.  Do you get it now?"

Evan did not reply.  He tried not to look at the result of the violence, yet he couldn't close his eyes without seeing it again.

Simon looked down at his handiwork and took a step back to lean against the nearby wall, still breathing heavily.  After a few seconds frozen in place, Simon wiped his hands off on his sweater.  There was the heavy, rapid sound of running footfalls and shouting as people elsewhere in the building reacted to the commotion now that it was done.

Standing along the right edge of the lobby, Evan could hear someone approaching from the nearby hallway leading to the common room.  They were speaking, but in the shock of the moment, Evan did not recognize the words.  George was still retching, leaning against the glass doorway and turned away from the scene.

From where Evan stood, he could see a small cluster of nervous people he didn't recognize peering at him from the stairs.  Luckily for them, Simon and the slain zombie were close to the back left corner of the lobby and the stairs began at the back right corner.  The angle they had occluded their view of the situation.  Evan regained his senses enough to wave them away before they came down and spoke few words indicating that they wouldn't want to see what had happened.  From the way they looked at him before retreating, they must have believed him.

Evan turned his head slightly, not sure when it had happened, but noticed an athletic black girl had emerged from the passage leading to the common room.  She had short hair are wore dark blue clothing.  A look of shocked horror was upon her face for a moment before she turned back down the entryway and disappeared.  Across the lobby another person was peeking out of a doorway down the far hall and reacted to the situation by ducking back inside.  He was also lucky enough not to be in a position to see what was left.

Despite the heavy scent a constant reminder with each breath, Evan managed to beat back his own disgust and regain his senses.  Every witness had been rattled and George had finally emptied his stomach.  A newer acidic scent mingled in the air as George moved along the edge of the wall, unwilling to look at the remains.

"Hey.  Both of you."  Simon spoke after the brief respite to catch his breath.  He looked between Evan and George as he spoke.  "Do you get it now?  Look at me!"

George shook his head, not looking at the larger man as he moved along the wall.  "I- I feel faint."  He dropped the keys to the front door as if to prove the point.

Simon spoke again, terse and confrontational.  "Well, George if you want to survive you're going to have to toughen up or you will die.  Do you want to die?"

"Leave him alone."  Evan exhaled slowly to settle his stomach.  "You didn't have to do that.  The military is coming tomorrow.  They would have killed it, and you know it."

"Wrong!"  Simon shook his head.  "The only thing I know for certain is that when you can take out a threat, you do it immediately.  You don't wait, you don't give it a chance to become a bigger problem."

"It was outside."  Evan stated.  "You didn't need to bring it in here to do that."

"Like you care, asshole.  The only reason this happened in the first place is because you didn't kill it outside when you had the chance."  Simon retorted with an angry scowl.  "I only finished what you were too much of a coward to do."

Evan had nothing else to say, but at least Simon wasn't picking on George anymore.  With the opportunity presented by the distraction, George had retreated into the hallway nearby and away from the lobby.

After a brief period of silence Simon announced he needed to clean himself off and change his clothing.  He retrieved the keys to the front doors and went upstairs with a final glare at Evan, leaving the gruesome mess behind.

Distractions

Online gaming just didn't have its usual relaxing appeal today, in fact it was only making Lucas feel more anxious.  Whether it was mostly due to the distraction provided by over excited people within the game world or the recent call Lucas had recieved, he did not know.  There was just nothing much he could do to enjoy himself and felt restless with how other people were behaving in the game.  On top of that, every few minutes there was another unwelcome intrusion or minor reminder of the outside world.  Uncomfortable thoughts kept inexorably returning to the otherworldly phenomenon taking place right outside the front door and within the world at large.

By the time the second can of soda was empty, Lucas drew himself away from the computer and got up to pace about his room with a mild agitation.  There was more than enough light to see.  The single overhead bulb for the room cast shadows radially outwards from the center of the room.  A colorful glow came from the idling game set on the computer screen.  With no light coming in from the nearby window, this was the typical level of lighting Lucas had grown accustomed to during many late nights of study or gaming.

While the black windows were sealed with only the tiniest of drafts felt around the edges, Lucas could already tell it was going to be a fairly cold night.  He normally didn't grow cold very easily, but noticing that it was cooling down he licked his sticky fingers clean again and wiped them off on his pants.  Moving to the nearby closet to retrieve a hoodie he kept within, Lucas slipped it on.  Pacing around the room while listening to the music from the computer, he slowly grew aware of a mix of shouting and other noise coming from somewhere in the building.

Beyond hearing the cacophony while checking to ensure the deadbolt to his room was slid shut, Lucas made no effort to investigate.  Whatever was happening, it was none of his concern.  Whatever argument had broken out among the residents of the dormitory was their business.  However, it did serve to make his mind up for the time being.  If people were going to be shouting like that in the building- combined with the general unhelpful nature of the online community right now- there was little chance that Lucas would find much to enjoy in this activity tonight.

He was almost finished with his bag of chips anyway.  Giving goodbyes to a few people still online, he logged out.  There were some single player games available, but with the frequent interruptions the mood for gaming had been undermined and had long since passed.  There were too many annoying little details about the situation that made no sense and many people he talked to had a lot of the same questions he did.

Every question had to have an answer.  But despite all reason, all sense, there were far too many things about the zombies which defied any sort of sensible explanation.  How their muscles could function without blood.  The way they identified their targets inerrantly at a distance and did not attack each other.  And how they converted their victims so rapidly, far faster than Lucas thought a disease could operate.

Despite all those confounding mysteries having occurred to Lucas, someone had asked him a disturbing question that he hadn't considered before.  A question which, moreso than all the others he had speculated over so far, unsettled his nerves to a much greater degree.

Why did the zombies suddenly appear in so many different places all over the planet nearly simultaneously?

Hands On Solution

"Wait, what are you do-"  Evan began to advance to prevent the door from being unlocked but he had responded too late to stop Simon.  The latch keeping the doors shut slid open with a click and Simon took a step back from the glass doorway.  "No!  Keep the doors locked!"

The beaten zombie wailed as the sick scent of its blood and the chill air seeped through an open crack in the doorway.  Uneven on its footing and with the sudden shift in its handhold, there was still time to prevent it from coming inside.  Evan rushed forwards, intending to hold the door closed before the zombie regained its unstable footing and opened the door completely to come inside.

"Stay back, dumbass!"  Simon shouted at Evan and aggressively swung the length of pipe at him to prevent him from approaching the front doors.  "I'm fixing your idiot mistake."  Without turning to look, Simon tossed the door keys towards where George was frozen in the hallway.  "You, lock the doors again once it comes inside."

George had been staring at the proceedings with wide eyes, his shock mingled with nervous fear.  He fumbled the keys and nervously knelt to pick them up, keeping his eyes on the front door as he did so.

With a moment for the zombie in the grey suit to regain its footing, the front door was swung wider, a blast of chill air blowing through the lobby and the thing in the grey suit emitting a loud and long groan.  Without a weapon to use, Evan quickly moved to the back of the chamber.  There was no point engaging the zombie directly when Simon was also threatening him with a pipe.  It rapidly lurched into the building as Simon lured it away from the front doorway.

"Come closer, you bastard."  Simon whispered as he readied the heavy length of pipe in a heavy, two handed grip.  The large man quickly retreated as the zombie rapidly advanced towards him with it uneven gait.  Each foot forward tracked old blood into the lobby of the building.  With a heavy swing, Simon hit the zombie in its side, unbalancing it, but not quite knocking it over.  Simon moved into the center of the lobby as it tried to grab for him, while preparing himself for another swing.

This time Evan watched as the swing hit higher up, knocking the smaller figure to the hard linoleum surface of the front lobby.  The zombie immediately began to push itself up again, but Simon stepped forwards and swung again, bringing the far end of the pipe heavily against its skull with a loud crack.

"Watch how I do it, asshole."  Simon called out as he looked up to meet Evan's eyes.  "This is how you handle these things!"  The zombie tried grabbing at Simon's leg in a sudden diving lunge, but Simon hopped back just in time and brought the pipe down again upon its skull.  The strike landed heavily, battering the jawbone against the ground with a wet crack and splitting open the flesh over its left eye with a deep cut.

George carefully ran past them for the door and held it closed, fiddling with the locking mechanism in a haste to get out of there as soon as it was done.  Evan stared as Simon began to slam the pipe again and again upon the undead ghoul's skull.  Repeatedly slamming the pipe down, the sound of the violence grew more intense as swing after swing produced increasingly sick cracks and wet rending as flesh tore.

Strike after strike continued producing heavy cracks, each blow coming as the zombie shifted its legs and lifted its head, still edging closer towards its attacker despite its head being consistently struck each time.  Thick blood oozed from tears in the flesh as heavy snaps echoed through the air.  Hammering against the ground again, blood and bone fragments spattered against the ground, the wail of the zombie continuing as teeth ripped from its jaw skidded across the floor.

The zombie's skull still stubbornly resisted each blow as Simon brought the pipe down again and again, taking a step backwards or to the side as it still attempted to reach him despite the battering it took.  Dead blood began to splatter from the force of each new impact, a tiny droplet as cold as ice landing on Evan's hand.  He wiped it off quickly onto a piece of paper pinned to a corkboard hung on the wall.

Still, Simon hammered into it with all his strength, pausing only when the thing tried lunging for his ankle or was crawling a bit too close.  When there was a pause as Simon stepped away, it attempted to stand.  Depite the heavy injuries to its head, it still moved as if its broken jaw and face were not an issue.  It still pushed itself to its feet in an attempt to rise up.  Each time, Simon used all his strength to brutally knock it to the floor before it could fully rise up.

Having finished securing the door, George watched the attack while holding his own steel bar up before him.  Evan had moved to the side as Simon and the zombie had proceeded towards the back of the lobby area, an unsettling, small streak of blood leading from the door to where the two fought now.

Evan stared nervously as Simon's brutal attacks finally began leaving small deformations in the shape of the skull, yet the zombie still moved.  Evan moved towards George, as Simon and the zombie were now near the back corner.  Despite the efforts of his attacks and the earlier injuries it had acquired, the zombie was still advancing, forcing Simon to pull back or circle around and keep his wits about him so he would not be cornered.  Perhaps noticing the deformation in the skull and sensing looming success, Simon yelled as he delivered another hard blow and another.

Wincing with a final blow, the head finally caved in, splattering gore within the nearest few feet and leaving a big mess of it on the floor at Simon's feet.  Simon hit it in the skull a couple more times to be sure, fully splitting the plates of the skull apart into a gory mess.  The lower part of Simon's legs were splattered in dark splotches and Simon looked up to meet Evan's eyes.  "That is how you handle them.  You have to be willing to go all the way."

Message From Home

Despite his best efforts to relax, Lucas still felt a little unsettled by the earlier confrontation with Simon.  Online gaming was usually a nice distraction when he felt anxious, but too much of the public chatter he was now seeing was mentioning the strange events taking place in the outside world.  Some people were still playing as normal, but far too many people seemed to be distracted by the zombies to just play the game.  It made the normally vibrant world feel hollow.

It didn't help things either that every few minutes someone he knew online would send him messages asking him what things were like where he was.  Being drawn into those conversations was a little uncomfortable as he reluctantly admitted he had seen one of the zombies but it was safely kept outside.  He was coaxed into telling a couple of curious people about his observations of function without blood.  And did think to mention that they sometimes seemed quiet.  Other than that, Lucas didn't really have much to say.

Despite wishing he could just play the game without the distractions, Lucas had soon eaten half the bag of chips and finished off the can of soda.  Licking the sticky cheese powder from his fingers to get another can, he started to get up when his cell phone rang.

Drying off his hands hastily on a napkin, Lucas picked up the phone and quickly checked the ID to see it was from his parents.  "Hello?"

"Lucas!"  Came the voice of his mother.  "You didn't go outside did you?"

"No.  I'm still in my dorm with everyone else."  Lucas said, mildly annoyed.  He wasn't an idiot.

"Good!  Stay indoors until someone comes to get you.  The army says they're going to be in downtown Portland by tomorrow morning."

"Yes, I saw the news."  Lucas got up and retrieved another can of soda before returning to his computer desk.

"They don't want anybody running around outside where it's not safe, so don't go anywhere either.  Just stay inside so when they come by, they can rescue you."

"Yes, they're saying that on the news too.  Besides, there's a lot of other people with me.  It doesn't make much sense to go off alone by myself."

"Your father, sister and I are being taken somewhere safer.  So we won't be able to talk for a while."  Lucas could make out some noise on the other end of the line that he couldn't quite place.

That was the first bit of surprising news Lucas had heard.  His family lived dozens of miles away, in Hillsboro.  It took about an hour of travel to get from here to there by the train line that ran through Portland.  "What?  But you're nowhere near where the zombies are, are you?"

"Not yet, but they said some of the infected are running out in all different directions.  They don't want anybody too close to Portland until this is all over.  And they won't let anyone go down there to get you out either."

"Oh."  Lucas wondered at that for a moment.  He had thought it was strange that the military was going so slow.  But now it made sense.  They wanted to make sure nothing slipped outside of the main infected zone.  So that meant clearing out who they could as they traveled closer to the impacted area.  "I guess that makes sense, now that I think of it."

There was a brief commotion through the phone line for a moment.  "We have to leave now, Lucas.  We all love you Lucas, stay safe.  We'll call your cell phone when we can."

"Love you too mom."  Lucas said just before the line cut out.  Waiting there for a few seconds, he realized that his mother's voice had been wavering a little as she spoke to him.

Replacing his cell phone on the desktop next to the keyboard, Lucas opened the next can of soda and returned to his game.

Executive Decision

With the remnants of evening twilight departed, the building hallway took on an eerie quality.  A sputtering light in the hallway produced a soft buzz.  Although there were a few muffled voices audible within the hall, it felt abnormally quiet for what he felt should be the normal level of noise inside the building.  The faint, chill breeze that occasionally trickled through the air didn't help either.

Evan quickly proceeded through the hall to approach the nearby stairs, making his way to the staircase leading to the front lobby and walking down the steps in a rapid pace.  Circling the drafty well with his hand loosely gliding along the rail, Evan heard a couple of distinct voices speaking quietly to one another in the lobby below.  Oddly, there was no sound indicating the zombie was still outside.

Moving halfway down the stairs, Evan paused, listening to the conversation below.  George and Simon were speaking to one another in what sounded like an argument.  He could see their large and skinny shadows within the hallway between the lobby and the common room.  Suddenly realizing he hadn't heard the zombie's persistent moans, Evan paused a moment to crouch upon the steps and looked through the large glass front for the building's main opening,

There was a low wail just as Evan saw the figure outside lit by reflected light from the chamber below.  Its eyes were latched onto his and it pushed its arms at the broad glass doors in a futile attempt to enter.  Dark stains colored the bottom of his suit, shoes and the ground beneath them.  Simon growled from the nearby hallway.  "I said get the-"  After a couple steps to the edge of the lobby, Simon halted as he recognized Evan and scowled.  "What the hell do you want?"

"I'm looking for Leon."  Evan stood up and took a couple steps down the stairs.  "Is he in the common room right now?"

George glanced down the hallway and replied hesitantly after a couple seconds as Simon just glared silently in reply.  "I think so.  Why?  Is that guy doing okay?"

"He's fine, he's just resting right now.  I wanted to ask Leon a couple of questions."  Evan came to the last step and approached the hallway.

Simon stood in the center of the entry to the hall, staring down Evan and blocking his way.  "You didn't kill the zombie."  He spoke neutrally as he held the length of pipe he had kept with him in one hand.  The sleeves on his thick wool sweater had been pushed up to expose his forearms.

"I made sure it won't be able to attack anyone."  Evan replied calmly.  He took a deep breath of air, tension in his muscles.  He was ready for an attack if it came.  The zombie rattled the door faintly as they stood within its sight.

"That wasn't the deal.  You were supposed to kill it."  Simon declared.  "Go now and finish the job."

George spoke with obvious discomfort.  "It can barely move anymore, Simon I-"

"Shut up!"  Simon tersely spoke without taking his gaze from Evan.  Evan could tell that Simon was holding the length of pipe with him very tensely as he tried to stare him down.  "Don't be a coward, go outside and finish what you started.  Bash its head in until it stops moving or the deal is off."

"I agreed to take care of the problem and I did.  I injured it so that it can't run after anyone."  Evan took a deep breath and shuddered as he thought about how casually Simon demanded something so horrific of him.  He doubted anyone else in the building would be able to confront Simon's bullheaded authority if they needed to.  Considering how he had been acting, Evan thought it would be unlikely that Simon would let him back inside if he went outside again.  "If you want it dead so badly, you do it."

"It's making noise you idiot."  Simon stepped forwards aggressively with the length of pipe in his hands.  "It needs to be killed before it attracts any more of them!"

Evan stepped back, ready to dodge a swing of the blunt implement and strike in return.  Simon unexpectedly turned away and moved towards the front of the room.  Confused for a moment at the sudden change, Evan didn't quite move into the hallway yet, watching for the purpose of the aggressive movement.

Simon took out the key to the front door from his belt, making his intentions to unlock the front door clear.

Relaxation

Lucas rushed up the stairs until he was safely out of Simon's sight and the speaking taking place below was now barely audible.  Keeping his attention on the stairs to determine if he was being followed, Lucas leaned against the cold cement wall and took a moment to relax.  After a few seconds passed with no approaching footfalls, he allowed himself to settle down.

The second floor hallway was empty and the sounds of a few muffled conversations besides Simon's increasingly distant, harsh voice were present.  One sounded as if it was coming from further upstairs.  Another pair of voices echoed down the hallway from what was probably an open doorway.  Lucas set down his bag and replaced the clipboard and pencil he had hurriedly carried with him.

Breathing in slow and steady, Lucas suddenly realized he was hungry and had been so for a while.  With the excitement of all that had been happening, he hadn't eaten since he woke up.  Thinking back on what food he had in his room, Lucas figured for now he had plenty of food for now.  He'd be fine for the day or so they would be here until help arrived to take them to safety.

Standing up, Lucas proceeded down the hall to the room.  With the voices in the building growing more distant, he felt better now.  The hallway, so familiar but eerily silent was a bit calming.  Up here, even the wails of the zombie outside were difficult to distinguish from the other voices present.  Arriving at his door, Lucas unlocked it, slipped inside and locked it behind him.

Lucas breathed deep and thought about what had just happened in the front lobby.  Simon's declaration was stupid and unfair.  There was obviously no danger to what he had suggested they attempt.  But maybe someone else had already tried to draw their attention with the sound they made.  It's possible he wouldn't have to do an experiment after all to be certain, but Simon's overreaction was still stupid.

Still, he hadn't read anything about that theory yet on the Internet.  Despite all the attention drawn to the zombies, it had only been about a day since they had first been noticed.  And it wasn't as if they were everywhere.  More places didn't have any of them than had them, it seemed.  So it was probably likely nobody had yet gotten the chance to run such an experiment.

Still, it was probably not going to be an issue for that long.  After all, they would all  be rescued tomorrow, so on reflection it was probably pretty unlikely they would have to use that information themselves.

Idly glancing over what food he had in his room, Lucas decided he didn't want to go into the common area with other people to cook anything in the small kitchen.  That left him with either cold chili in a bowl he couldn't wash out, or a bag of chips.  He opted for the bag and retrieved one of the sodas from his case.

While eating, Lucas decided to load up a game instead of doing more research.  It wasn't likely that there was much new to read in the few minutes he had been downstairs anyway.  He needed something to do to take his mind off of things for a while.