Free Byron : A Zombie Tale (Part 1) by Scott Wieczorek Page A

any luck, he would have bought us a few moments’ time.
    “Evan! Open the goddamn door, you idiot! Let us in!” John shouted as he ran down the hallway. “NOW!”
    The door flew open and all three of us ran through into the apartment beyond. “Get into hiding,” John shouted, “They’re coming!” With Evan leading the way, we all ran into John’s bedroom where his bed had been slid away from the far wall. Behind the wall where the bed used to rest was a gaping hole in the sheetrock. Evan crawled through with Pam hot on his coattails.
    I could hear pounding out in the hallway. The door to the stairwell hadn’t slowed the creatures down much. John slapped all of the locks into place and I helped him slide his refrigerator, which I remember being in the kitchen, not in the middle of the living room, across the doorway. From a nearby table he grabbed a bottle and splashed fluid all around the floor and doorway. The smell of it stung my nose.
    We retreated to John’s bedroom, closed the door, and slid the several newly installed locks into place then followed up with sliding his dresser in front of the door. He poured more fluid from the same bottle all over the floor and around the doorway. John pushed me through the hole behind his bed and as he finally followed me in, I could hear his bed sliding against the floor, closing off and masking our hidey-hole.
    On the other side of the wall, John and I stood up as Evan slammed down a large plywood panel which he began to screw into the wall.
    I looked at John, “what the hell?” I asked with genuine curiosity.
    “Welcome to the Sanctuary,” was his reply!

Chapter 12
    It was well past midnight when we had finally crawled through the hidden panel in John’s apartment into the Sanctuary beyond. It was a new day, but for all practical purposes, the old day hadn’t yet ended. The horde of creatures which was following us, drawn by the smell of John’s own blood, had breached the entry to his apartment building and followed him inside.
    We could hear them in the hallway outside the apartment. They were storming up and down the hallway, unable to locate just where that delectable odor had escaped to. John motioned for us all to follow him into one of the bedrooms away from the hallway. “Evan,” he said in a hushed tone, “draw them away.”
    I watched as Evan slowly and quietly opened the window facing out onto the street. He had in his hand a water balloon filled with some fluid and a large sling-shot. Evan shot me a smile and said out the corner of his mouth “sorry about the close-call with that shotgun, back there, Byron.” He loaded the balloon into the slingshot, drew it back and let it fly into the night sky. I didn’t hear it land, but the effect on the pursuers in the hallway was almost instantaneous. An inhuman shriek split the cool night air giving me a chill.
    Evan turned back to me and smiled. “It’s a water balloon full of pig’s blood! This stuff drives’em NUTS!” He was laughing quietly as he launched another balloon into the darkness of night. As the second balloon landed, I could understand why it had such a profound effect. The smell was terrific! It was almost as good as human blood! It made the burning worse. My body started to shake.
    In an instant I had clamped my hand over my nose and mouth; doing the best I could to hold my breath while running down the hall to the bathroom. John understood instantly what was happening. “Oh crap! Evan, close the window. Quick!” Their voices drifted down the hallway to the bathroom, but were punctuated by the sound of the window slamming shut. I allowed a little bit of air to infiltrate my lungs and was happy when the intensity of the burning in my chest stabilized.
    After a few moments in the bathroom calming the burning fire in me I opened the door and stepped back into the hallway. Greeting me on the other side of the door, however, was not my old fun-loving frat family, but instead a solitary