Our backs were against the wall, literally, and I wasn’t exactly sure how we were going to get out of this one.
I glanced over my shoulder again and noticed for the first time an exit toward the corner of the room. A discounted clothing rack had been pushed up against it, and it was barely visible in the almost completely-dark room, but a reflected Exit sign was still pasted on the top.
As quietly as I could, I whispered, “Behind us, Hale. An exit. Lead or Cover?”
Haley let my noise settle before she answered. The Feeders had already started moving toward us. Despite every Zombie movie I had ever seen, the real life versions were not exactly the dumb and easy to kill version of walking corpses. They were hunters, fast and intuitive. While humanity still had the advantage of a rationalizing, fully functioning, not-addicted-to-living-flesh advantage, they weren’t exactly a helpless opponent.
“Cover,” Haley finally whispered back.
And with her blessing I turned on my heel and sprinted for the door. I could feel her behind me, but out of experience, I knew she was keeping her gun trained on the Zombies that were now chasing us down to make snacks out of our innards. I gave up on being quiet and threw anything that stood in my way.
The trip across the room took maybe five seconds, but it felt like the longest run of my life. I could already hear the Zombie from the other room tearing his way to join his friends. My heart was hammering in my chest, my vision focused only on the exit and my ears trained to listen for any surprises.
As soon as they were in my reach, I grabbed onto the tightly-packed, discounted clothes and went to toss the rack, but it only swayed. Something was holding it to the ground.
Pure panic prickled my blood and my eyes watered immediately from the stress of the situation. I heard Haley’s gun go off behind me, but because the mouth-breathing was so loud I knew she had missed.
That meant she had four bullets left in her magazine.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I pulled again on the rack of clothes and this time it moved an inch. I realized then that it was tethered by something on the ground. While Haley shot off another bullet, I dropped to my hands and knees and felt blindly for whatever was holding onto the base of the rack. Once I found the thick rope that was tied to the base, I whipped out my pocket knife I kept in the pocket of my pants and began cutting at the rope frantically.
Another shot from behind me and one of the Feeders dropped to the ground. Good shot, Hales. There were still at least two more Feeders left, and I could hear more commotion from the front entrance. All these shots were probably drawing everything out there in here.
I finally got through the rope, but as soon as the slack was gone, something huge and clanging crashed to the ground just on the other side of the door. It sounded like pots or pans and a whole bunch of breaking glass.
Shit!!!
I didn’t have time to process that right now, so I stood up, effectively shoved the rack out of the way and went for the door handle. Another gun shot behind me and another Feeder dropped to the ground.
I lunged for the door handle, and turned it desperately. And nothing.
It was locked.
“No!” I screamed, not caring about the noise level at this point.
Haley’s last bullet exited her gun and the last Feeder felt the hit and fell to the ground directly behind me. These guys were dead, but there were who knew how many now headed toward us. Haley was out of bullets, and I had three left.
And our only exit was locked.
“What are you waiting for, Reagan. Let’s get the hell out of here!” Haley’s back was still to me as she faced her now empty gun at the hallway, just waiting for the rest of the Feeders to follow the sounds and find us.
“It’s locked! Damn it!”
Completely panicked, I yanked on the handled and kicked it with my new shoe. Nothing happened. The door stayed firmly locked, stubbornly unmoving. This was definitely worst case scenario.