No Time To Bleed

Shatoya’s scream seemed to fill the basement and I was sure it was bringing more of those flesh thirsty beasts to us.

Clarissa sent a dealing shot into the thing’s brain and it slumped over in a pile of steaming green skin.

God, these zombies were nothing like the ones I’d seen in the streets.

They were Lexicon creations with green peeling skin, boils all over their faces, warts on their trembling hands, black teeth, and blood ready throats.

We both pulled Shatoya up with no bites on her and from the way she was shaking I was sure she’d never faced a zombie before.

Before we knew it they were surrounding us, seeming to be in the 50’s all around.

My gun stayed in hands, pointed ahead.

“You guys ready…” I said.

They all seemed to be waiting for our first movement.

“I’ve been ready to kill these suckers since I broke out of this place.” Cece clicked in another round into the base of her gun. “Let’s kick some ass.”

One zombie with half a scalp and a limp came surging forward in a scream. I caved a foot into its knee and sent a bullet into its skull.
That seemed to set all the other ones off.

Gun in right hand. I peeled the 8 inch blade from my belt in the left.

I stabbed it forward through a zombie’s open mouth. It sank in easily before my knuckles even reached the teeth. A bullet went through it’s skull from Shatoya and I closed my mouth as the blood spattered in clots over me.
Gross.

Another one came from behind. I swung the gun around and slammed the butt of it into its head.

Fighting went all around, screams and shouts bounced off the cement walls. With door blocked behind us and the elevator the only option ahead, we had to fight our way out of here.

“Duck!” Cece screamed.

I dropped to my knees and with a loud smack into the creature’s head, it’s body toppled over me.

I sprayed bullets ahead and stumbled from under the body’s weight.

“We’ve gotta clear a path to the elevator! They’re bringing out more of those things!”

And Shatoya was right.

Clarissa heaved a grenade ahead. Half a second flat and the bodies flew in the air.

Blood sprayed us in pellets. We pinned our eyes and mouth shut.

Anything red gets into your body and your more than gone.

You turn into one of those things.

The floor became slippery and chunked with the ill black color of their internal bodily fluids.

More zombies were fighting each other to get to us from behind.

I reached one arm back and sprayed bullets like God only could behind me.

Hands, arms, legs, thighs, heads, teeth, fingers, nails, and brain matter was sewage along our shoes.

“I can get the door open with the card! I can’t get it open!” Clarissa blared, turning back to us. “You need to use the flash drive!”

The words were for me.

I surged ahead with my fingers trembling in my pocket for the device. I pushed it into the USB slot and the doors churned open with a loud beep.

The thing yanked out and I crammed it into my pocket.

We all jumped into the freight elevator and Cece pulled down the fenced shield.

Their bodies hit the other side with the force of a bomb and the doors closed.

The only destination to this elevator was the 15th floor down.

“Dear God that was gruesome.” Clarissa slumped into the wall.

We were all covered in black and anything that could possibly be in a zombie’s body.

“I’m probably gonna have to shower for hours when this is over.” Shatoya sniffed herself and looked to the numbers on the elevator.

“You didn’t lose the flash drive, right?” Cece asked me.

I shook my head. “Of course not. What’d you mean when you said you broke out of here?”

Her pale blue eyes widened at me. “What?”

“Before those things came out the vaults, you said you broke out of here. What’d you mean?”

Cece chuckled rudely. “Why the hell would I tell you that?”

Shatoya came forward and grabbed on Cece’s shoulder. “Cece, stop it-“

“No! I wanna know why this girl is so keen on me! Who the hell are you anyway? Just some hostage Clarissa’s holding?!”

I snorted back at her. “I am not a hostage.”

“Well, I should shoot you and go to that room myself!” The gun rose in her hand and started to point at me.

Clarissa stepped halfway in front of me. “If you shot her, you’ll be making a huge mistake.”

Cece chuckled. “Oh and why is that?”

Clarissa went dead silent and my heart was pounding in my chest.

“We don’t need to discuss this here. We came here for a reason and we are not gonna go acting stupid towards one another, right?”

Cece seemed to smell something bad and dropped her gun to her side. “This is why I hate teams. Too much bullshit to deal with.”

I wasn’t sure if now the greatest time for my sense of humor to pop in especially with some girl threatening to kill me.

“I didn’t come here to question you. As a matter a fact, I could care less if one of those guards out a bullet through your head.” I stated to her and her eyes narrowed at me as I stepped away from Clarissa’s coverage. “The only reason I’m here is so I can find my friend.”

She smirked back. “You don’t wanna stop this whole virus thing or take down Lexicon?”

I shook my head. “Just for my friend.”

This whole day was getting heavy and the elevator was sinking just into the 10th floor down.

My body was feeling tired. I felt completely gross and we weren’t even sure what we’d be up against on the 15th floor.

I pulled the floor plan out my pocket and tried to examine it. All I saw was a bunch of jumbling lines.

“Get ready. We’re reaching the floor soon.” Clarissa urged.

I pushed the floor plan down into my pocket and pulled my gun out at the ready. I wasn’t even sure where my knife was.

The elevator churned to vertical halt and Cece pulled the fence up.

Complete silence on the outside.

White walls as we stepped out and realized we had to make a choice.

“There’s two routes to control room.” Shatoya stated. “Left or right.”

“I’ll take right.” Cece said.

“Me too.” Shatoya agreed.

I guessed neither of them wanted anything to do with us for the moment being.

“Come on. We’d better get moving.” Clarissa lead us on to the left en
d of hall. “Get out the floor plan.”
I pulled the floor plan once more out my pocket. “I can’t read it.”

Clarissa took the paper from me. “I don’t even know why those guys gave this to you. Sometimes they forget everyone one of us isn’t up against Lexicon.”

“You don’t think I’m against Lexicon?”

Clarissa seemed to be studying the paper. “Are you?”

Seemed like an awfully justifiable question considering the question we were in.
“Of course I am.”

She snorted in response. “Then, that means you’re a target until they take you down. Look what happened to your uncle’s baby daughter.”

A terribly cold, but true thing of her to say.

I was still deciding whether or not I liked Clarissa.

We took a right a turn down another hallway and threw the map to the ground. I guess she had no idea how to read the thing either.

“How are we gonna get there?”

“Shhh!”

Everything got really silent.

Then, the fire sprinklers cut on from the ceiling and a bright light was flashing through the already white hallways.

“What’s going on?!” I shouted.

The water was pouring and washing our bodies of the zombie sewage we managed to gain.

“Shut up!” she snapped.

A door ahead whirled open and a man in a lab coat came out.

She didn’t even give him a chance before she clunked him over the head with her gun.

“Where’s the control room?!” Clarissa’s hands wrapped into his neck and shoved him into the wall.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” the man pleaded.

Her knife went to his throat.

“Where is the control room? I’m giving you 10 seconds before I slice your throat out of your neck.”

“I don’t know!”

The man appeared to be in his 30’s, balding with brown and gray flakes of hair on his head. He could be someone’s father.

“10, 9, 8, 7-“

“Clarissa, stop it!”

The blade pressed in closer to the man’s neck.

“6, 5, 4.”

“Stop it!”

“Shut up! This is how we get there, Jasmine! You can’t be weak! 3,2,-“

“You turn the next right and the 10th door on the left, you find it!”

A shoot of relief hit me as she pried her fingers from the man’s throat.

Then, she plunged the knife into the man’s chest and blood went red all over his lab coat.

My insides fell apart as the man hit the floor.

Floor 15 must be workplace for a lot of people and these doors were mostly offices.

The sprinklers had cut off.

“You’re a murderer.” I croaked.

The man’s blood mixed in with the wet on the floor.

She wiped the crimson blade on her pants. “I’ve killed plenty more than the likes of men like him. Pointless men.”

Clarissa stepped over his body and stopped when she saw I hadn’t moved.

“You coming?”

That man could have been someone’s dad. She’d killed him.

My throat turned to the Sahara Desert as I forced my own legs to move over his body.

If I wanted to survive anything that might become of my new, crazy, and completely irrational life, I’d have to learn how to play people to my advantage.

“You finally got some sense into that little head of yours.”

We walked side by side down that hallway and I knew that something else would be ahead because breaking into this place had seemed too easy.

And I wondered if William ever really knew his mother.

Because his mother was a murderer.