Free Dying to Live by Roxy De Winter Page B

here and they supposedly took care of any remaining problem. How could they have missed anyone?”
    “We’ll probably never know, Bao,” Xin almost whispered, trying to piece it together herself.
    “Well, I don’t know what you guys know, but I can tell you that some of those... things, were wearing military uniforms. From the food hall, I ran back a bit. To about here...” Again she circled another small building. “It’s what we call a security pod, much smaller than this but usually manned by one guy with a radio and a gun. I figured that I could get help...” Lucy began to tear up a little at that point.
    “I got there and the security guy wasn’t there. His torch and his gun were in the corridor and I grabbed them up, but as I rounded the corner one of... them, was on him. He was definitely dead. It was just... chewing him up and gulping him down like it couldn’t get enough. It was awful!” Lucy began to cry freely and struggled to finish her story. “It saw me watching it and kind of, went into a frenzy. It struggled to its feet and lunged at me. I didn’t even know what to do, except from make sure it didn’t get a chance to chew me up. I just... shot, and then I ran back to my car,” Lucy finished.
    The scene replayed in her mind, seeing every moment in slow motion. The dead, grey eyes had met her own. Again, she saw it looking at her over the oozing, mangled corpse that it had been devouring with such pleasure. Its snarl revealed bloodied teeth and half a mouthful of human flesh flopping from its parted jaws. She thought it might have been missing a hand, but her memory had been too busy storing away the details of its gory meal to recall for sure. As soon as it had gotten close enough that she could smell the metallic scent of blood soaking every inch of it, she had shot. She had not just shot once though. She had fired until the gun was empty. There were only four bullets, but none of them had taken it down. One tore through its chest, another through its stomach, its shoulder, its leg. The terror had only set in fully, once she had realised that there were no bullets left and the thing was still alive. She threw the gun at its head and turned and ran, but it followed.
    She didn’t tell the group the all of these details of her story. She barely wanted to remember it for herself. None the less, she did. Images burned in her mind, reminding her that she turned a corner and found her friend and colleague lying there, blood-soaked and growling pitifully. He had been trapped beneath one of the trolleys they used for transporting heavier equipment. The trolley was laden with crates but balanced on top had been a tool box. Lucy had clawed it open and her hand had reached inside and clenched around a screwdriver. She had swung around, wielding it in front of her like a lifeline. Moments later, the pursuing Zombie had crashed around the corner. In a flurry of motions that she was not sure she ordered her body to make, she lodged the screwdriver upwards through its chin, up through the mouth cavity and then further still, until blood had streamed down her hand and arm. The body finally slumped to the ground at her feet. After that, she had ran the whole way back to the car park. She had found her car and thrown off her bloodied coat. Exchanging it for the clean one, which she always kept in the back of her car, had made her feel less connected to what had just happened but not removed her panic.
    “When I was driving off, back down towards the gates... I hit another one of those walking monsters... veered off the track and into a concrete post. After that, all I remember is running. I guess I passed out and that’s how you guy eventually found me, at the side of the road.”
    The room was quiet when Lucy snapped out of her reverie and finished the tale. Each of them was lost in their own thoughts. Frank was still tinkering with the lock. Lucy listened to the gentle scratching noises it made as he tried