Free The Demented: Confliction by Derek J Thomas Page B

head.
  She almost laughed.
  “I never got mine.”
  She pointed back toward the kitchen.
  “What about Brent?
  Anyone know if he got one?”
    Both Nate and Jake just shook their heads, unsure.
    A loud shriek came from the TV, causing the three of them to
turn back around. The male news anchor
was standing behind the desk shouting.
He began flinging the papers on the desk to the floor.
  The female anchor remained in her chair, but
tried reeling away from the man. Abby
gasped when the man suddenly turned and lunged at the female.
  His arms grabbed her by the head, while his bared
teeth went for her neck. His weight and
momentum caused her chair to tip over backward.
Only their legs were visible at the edge of the TV screen.
    “What the…” Nate
began to say, leaving the rest unsaid.
    “This is all a hoax…has to be.”
  Jake said.
    Nate pointed toward the kitchen.
  “Yeah, tell that to Brent.”
    Abby began heading to the kitchen.
  “What do you have for weapons?”
  She shouted over her shoulder.
    “Weapons?
  I…I don’t have anything like that.”
  Jake responded.
    Nate ran over to the window.
He looked down below and saw that the mass of fighting people was gone,
only a pair of bodies remained. They
were covered in blood and gore, making it impossible to even tell if they were
male or female. He saw movement further
down the street.    It was a young man,
wearing only a pair of boxer shorts, rushing between parked cars.
  Boxer kept looking back as he sprinted toward
the fountain of water from the broken hydrant.
Rushing behind him were nearly a dozen people.
  They were quickly eating up the distance,
rapidly gaining on Boxer like wolves on the hunt.
  Their movements were awkward but they were
still incredibly fast. Nate felt like
yelling out the window to him, but he had no idea what he would say.
    Abby was banging around in the kitchen.
  She hollered something, but he was too
focused on the street to understand what she said.
    “There’s someone in the hall.”
  Jake yelled from behind Nate.
    Abby came racing out of the kitchen with
some large knives in hand. “Take one.”
  She said to Nate.
    He grabbed an eight inch kitchen knife and turned back to
the window. Boxer was just running out
of view with the group of infected right behind him, leaving the street below
deserted. Screams and the distant sounds
of gunfire reminded everyone that the city was far from normal.
    Nate finally realized Abby had handed him a knife.
  “What’d you give me a knife for?
  You know I have some guns at my place.”
    “Your place is three blocks away.”
  Abby snapped back.
    “Whoa, whoa, whoa.
  We can’t leave here.
  We’re safe inside the apartment.”
  Jake said.
    As if to pound his point home, loud banging started up in
the hall followed by a shrill scream.
    They all stood motionless for a moment.
  Abby was the first to speak.
  “Let’s barricade the door and hunker down
until we know what is going on.”
    Jake rapidly nodded his head, relief washing over his face.
    “Get the couch over in front of the door.
  I’m going to try to find some news.”
  Abby said while moving over to the
recliner. She pulled her phone out of
her pocket and tried dialing her dad, but only got a message stating, “All
lines are currently busy, please hang up and try again later.”
  She pulled up Safari to see if she could get
to her favorite news site. While it sat
spinning she looked back over to the TV.
    The scene on the TV had changed little.
  Part of the female news anchor’s legs was
visible at the edge of the screen. The same
ticker continued to loop across the top of the screen.
  Abby glanced down at her phone only to see it
still trying to connect. She looked back
up and began flipping through the channels.
Unable to find any stations that had “live” people, she flicked it back
to one of the 24/7 news stations that had an empty desk and left it there.