“Morning people should be shot.”, or at least that’s what Craig Nelson’s yellow T-shirt said. That was the name of the guy they left behind on floor nine. Despite her lack of enthusiasm for the man’s humorous shirt, Mary Ann still felt guilty leaving him to the monster in the hall. Reluctantly The short old lady followed the group in front of her, still clutching the broken umbrella she was using to defend herself. After witnessing horrible creatures come out of the other apartments, the old woman, and six other residents, joined together in hopes of escaping. Before they could even make it to the stairs, they met misfortune. While checking on the other residents, one of the monsters attacked their group. It took three of the four men to fight the monster off. Before they could kill it, the monster had latched itself onto Craig’s hand. Mary could still hear the panic in the poor man’s voice as he screamed. At the same time, the two other men let go of the monster, allowing it to continue mauling the man.

“Quick, while the monster is distracted!”

Nobody had anytime to argue with their decision, for the two men turned tail and ran toward the stairs. By then everyone, including Mary Ann, had taken the hint, leaving Craig to struggle with the monster. She knew it was wrong, and half wanted to go back, but… she didn’t have the courage. Those things were her neighbors, and they were killing people. She couldn’t fight them alone, so she also turned her back on Craig, leaving him for dead.

“Should we check the other floors?”

“are you crazy, what if there are more of those things?”

The five people in front started to discus what to do next.

“I just want to get out of here.”

“Do you really think there aren’t any out there? Those were our neighbors. If they turned, then what about the rest of the world?”

The grouped stopped walking, looking to the guy who spoke last. Mary Ann recognized him as one of two guy’s that let the monster eat Craig. From what she could remember, he was the grouchy guy at the end of the hall. She never bothered speaking to him before, because the guy gave off bad vibes, but now she felt like he seemed a little dependable.

“Look, I herd the guy above me having an argument with his girlfriend. It seems like this is because of that disease that’s been going around. I didn’t hear much, but it seemed like the girl was trying to get the guy to leave town with her.”

Everyone got quiet.

“Then what do we do?” Someone finally asked.

“I think we need to work together. There’s strength in numbers, and if we are careful we can fight off the monsters. We will need some supplies though. Let’s check out the next floor and see if we can save a few more people. I don’t think we’ll be able to continue with just the six of us. After that, we need to stock up on food. If this really is a disaster, then we need to prepare.”

The other’s nodded in agreement. Moving again, they are came up to the seventh floor. He motioned for one of the guys to get the door, readying the pipe he held in his hands. “When I give the signal, open the door. Everyone else stand back.”

Taking the hint, Mary Ann pressed herself against the far end of the wall, standing a couple steps above the others. The man lifted his hand, using it to count down silently. When he reached one, he pointed to the guy to open the door.

“Watch out!”

“AH!”

“I got it!”

A few minutes later, and the group of six had doubled in size. The only monster roaming the hall, of the seventh floor, was the one they encountered when entering in from the west stairwell. This made it easier for the group to go door to door when waking the other residents up. Leaving the dead zombie behind, the six started looking for other survivors. It wasn’t until the fifth apartment that they encountered another zombie.

Originally the woman who opened the door was confused by, and a little scared of, the group standing outside, but seeing her neighbors with them made her a little more inclined to believe the story they were telling. Noticing the blood on some of their clothes, the nervous lady ran back into her apartment to go get her daughter. Sadly she wasn’t there, instead what greeted the woman was, a slightly smaller, deranged monster. Still resembling her daughter, the woman screamed, as she was forced to watch men, she didn’t know, bludgeon it, after being attacked. Unable to cope with trauma, and confusion, the poor lady went into hysterics. It was Mary Ann who took the lead in removing her from the apartment.

“Leave her, we don’t have time!” Hearing the grouchy man’s heartless comment, Mary Ann quickly sent a death glare.

“Have some compassion you animal! You just killed her daughter in front of her!” The reminder caused the lady to start screaming even louder, eliciting a few bangs from one of the unexplored homes. This cause a few of the others to jump.

“SHH! Shut her up! Do you want to lead the monster to us!”

Realizing the problem, Mary Ann went back to soothing the woman, while the others started knocking on more doors, and looking for food. “Shhh, baby girl. Please calm down. You must be strong now!”

Suddenly the old woman felt a little lost for words. How could she ask this girl to be strong when all she wanted to was join her? What could she even say to the woman after watching a scene like that? Trying a few more times to quiet the sobbing, and failing, Mary Ann gave up. She left, leaving the woman sitting on the floor as she joined the others.

---

The door to the Ninth floor slowly creeped open, allowing a small and pale face to peak into the west side stairwell. Seeing that there wasn’t any monsters, the slim youth quietly slipped through. Fallowing him were two young adults holding bats at the ready. Motioning for the two to look upwards, Rein carefully edged closer to the guardrail to check out the lower floors. They had eight floors to go before reaching their target. Seeing nothing, the young man turned back to receive an all clear from the two behind him.

The three quietly began to descend the steps to the next floor, hugging the walls as they went. Coming up onto the next door, Rein quietly pushed his ear up against it, to hear what was on the other side. Nothing. Pushing forward the trio descended the next set of steps. By now it was almost seven in the morning, meaning the majority of the people should be waking up. The fact that they hadn’t come across any other people by now was a blessing, but also a bad sign. Luck like this wouldn’t hold out for long. Sure enough, as the team of three came up to the seventh floor, they found it hanging partly open. Something was sticking out keeping the door from closing fully. From inside the fourth floor a lot of loud voices and arguments were ringing out through the hallway.

Signaling the others to stop, Rein carefully approached the door. The thing that was holding it open was a foot. When the youth got closer to investigate, he found what looked to be a dead zombie, lying partway into the hallway, with it’s head bashed in. Further down the hall the youth could see a number of people running to a from the various apartments holding different things. Things like food and suitcases were being hauled around by panicked looking residents. One random woman sat collapsed against a wall sobbing.

“There are too many of them, we can’t make it out that way.” A man’s voice could be herd from the other end of the hallway. “Quickly go check the other stairwell.”

Realizing that this group of people were getting ready to escape, and were heading in their direction, Rein quickly waved the other two behind him onward. “People are coming this way. We gotta go.”

“Maybe they can join us?” Takeru suggested hopefully. “There could be strength in numbers.”

His girlfriend quickly refuted it. “Normally that would be the case, but when thing are this chaotic, it’s better to trust only yourself.”

Now running down the stairs, the three passed the sixth floor as she continued explaining. “Imagine trying to run out of this building in a large group with a bunch of zombies chasing after you, and you find yourselves getting cornered. There’s too many zombies to fight your way out, and you can’t run. Who’s the first one to die?”

Thinking about it for a minute, the guy slowly shakes his head, not knowing the answer. Rein finally spoke up for him, maintaining his usual dry expression. “The stranger you just pushed forward as bait.”

Hearing this morbid reply, Takeru’s face went white. These two were really starting to freak him out.

“Shh, quiet.” Rein suddenly stopped a few paces from the fifth floor door. The sounds of movement could be heard from further down. Looking over the railing, Rein caught sight of a few red stains. A low growl came from below. Keeping his voice low, he informed the other two of the zombie lying in wait near the fourth floor door.

Tip toeing the last few steps, Rein carefully pulled the fifth floor door open and looked inside. Finding no signs of movement, he quickly entered, fallowed by the other two. Niomine quietly shut the door behind them, just as a zombie shuffled around the corner from the stairs below.

----

“What do you think those things are?”

“Obviously they’re zombies! Didn’t you see that one with his face torn off? Obviously the guy died being mauled by the other one.”

A couple of people talked quietly to each other on the seventh floor, holding a few bags full of food. The original group of six had grown to one containing about twenty people. Most of the families on the seven floor were lucky, only having one or two people turn within their homes. Thanks to the timely warning from the others, these people were able to survive being ambushed by any monsters. Mary Ann let out a sigh as she watched a young couple usher their two kids out of their apartment. If only they could of saved the girl from earlier, then maybe that poor woman wouldn’t have had to suffer such a traumatic experience.

“There are still zombies on the west side, but not as many as there are in the east stairwell.” This came from a young man that joined them recently.

Nodding his head in agreement, the grumpy man spoke. “Ok, looks like we’ll have to escape out that way. Men take the lead, and push back any monsters until we make it to the next floor. We’ll regroup there after checking for more survivors.”

“Couldn’t we just stay here where it’s safe?” This came from one of the families. A loud thump came from outside the east stairwell door, now barricaded with some furniture. A subtle reminder of what was on the other side.

“We still don’t know how far this spreads, and I don’t think there’s enough supplies or manpower yet. If we can at least make it to the third, or second, floors we can call out for help from anyone passing by.” The man explained.

“That and, if the army comes to save us, we wont be stuck on the upper floors.”

“Wouldn’t they come by helicopter? We should head to the roof!”

“Do you want to take that chance! We came from the seventh floor, we have no clue what’s going on upstairs.”

“That’s true, the floors could be flooded with monsters.”

“Someone has to warn them. Are you all just planning to leave them to die!?” A shrill voice came from the back of the group.

The group suddenly got quiet turning to the woman that, until recently, had been sobbing by herself on the floor. Seeing the look on everyone’s faces, they were all fairly certain that they weren’t willing to risk going back upstairs, just to save the rest of the floors. It was one thing saving the people below them, as they tried to escape, but another to dive head first into danger. How far were they willing to go to save people?

Mary Ann stepped forward, “We aren’t planning to leave them to die, we just don’t have a way to save them right now.” Speaking softly to the other, the older women started to explaining. “If we set up a safe space first-”

“THAT’S NOT GOOD ENOUGH!” Still hysterical, the young woman cut the other off. “The longer we wait, the more of those things there will be! You said it yourself, I herd you. It’s a disease! And diseases spread! It took my daughter!”

Suddenly the cranky man stepped forwards, glaring daggers at the woman. “Shut up! We are doing what we can. If you want to go save those people, then go! The rest of us have a safer plan. So, stop your whining, and lets get going before our only escape gets blocked by these monsters again!”

Storming off, the man was fallowed by a few others. This prompted the rest of the group to make their decision. Sure enough, everyone slowly followed after them, leaving behind the angry woman and Mary Ann. “Common, we can try and think of a way to save the others as we go.” Mary Ann implored.

The woman huffed, before fallowing after the old woman. Just as the two ladies were about to exit the seventh floor, the young woman caught sight of a small red box on the wall.

----

The Fifth floor was dark. A few of the lights in the hall seemed to be broken, making the already quiet floor seem even less inhabited than it already was. One thing different from this floor verses all the others is that all of the apartment doors were left open,

“tsk, looters.” A salty voice came from the woman behind them.

Walking forward, the trio payed close attention to any noises in the abandoned apartments. “Where do you think all these people went? We didn’t see that many people upstairs.” Takeru asked. He only got a shrug in response.

“They probably herd the commotion from outside and saw what was happening, so they may have been the first to leave. Logically speaking the lower we come the less people will still be around. I doubt anyone from the top floors even know what’s going on.” Rein reasoned.

“Or maybe those people we saw on the seventh floor were also from the bottom floors.” The girl suggested, but Rein shook his head in denial.

“There weren’t enough of them. There’s about ten apartments on each floor, so there should be at least a hundred people from here to the first floor alone.” Debating about this as they went, the team of three continued to seal off each door they came across. Suddenly a moan came from one of the rooms beside them. Before Rein could react, a large man with blood coming out of his mouth came rushing toward him. Mentally cursing himself for not paying attention, the boy was forcefully pushed toward the ground, but Rein wouldn’t be so easily done in. When his back hit the floor, the teen lifted his legs up and pushed at the lower abdomen of the zombie, flipping the corpse up and over himself. When the zombie hit the adjacent wall, a wooden bat smashed into the Zombie’s face before it could get up. The danger didn’t stop there though.

Two more zombies started to exit the empty room, filing toward the three. A metal bat lashed out at the leg of one of these zombies, and swept it out from under the undead, causing it to sprawl out on the floor. Quickly rolling into an upright position, Rein swung out with the crowbar in his hand, landing a blow to the side of the remaining zombie’s head. Now with each person fighting one on one with their own zombies, the survivors were forced to rely on their own strength. Luckily, two of these people were sufficiently skilled at handling these freshly animated corpses. Neutralizing their opponents, the two turned back to find the eldest of their group viciously bashing the skull of the zombie before him. By the looks of things Takeru’s zombie had died from it’s first blow, but the student’s emotions got away from him. He struck out with a few more blows, unsure if the zombie would suddenly spring up again, or not.

Panicked, the man finally stopped attacking, the sudden realization of what just happened came to fruition. He’d just killed someone, again. Wide eyed, the young adult stared down at the body in front of him, only moving when he flinched away from the soft touch of his girlfriend. “Honey, calm down it’s just me.” Niomine consoled. She stayed quiet for a moment before reaching out again. When she saw that Takeru wouldn’t pull away from her again, she pulled him into a hug. “You’re ok. They are just monsters, remember? It was already dead.”

“Y-yeah….I-I’m fine.” The man assured her weakly. He definitely wasn’t fine.

Rein decided to leave the two alone to they work through what was most likely a turning point for their relationship. The guy had been watching his girlfriend kill zombies all morning, and had yet to personally take care of one of these monsters himself. It would do him some good to finally cross that line from, civilian to survivalist. Taking the time to scout the apartment the zombies just came out of, Rein found a broken window. Someone must have jumped out while fleeing from these three zombies, which left the small horde with nowhere to go. Once they lost their prey, they most likely remained in the room, idle, waiting for the next victim to come along. Looking out the window, Rein saw the front entrance of the apartment complex they were in. The sight caused him to frown. “Hey, you two might want to come see this.”

Having just managed to calm her lover down, Niomine pulled away from her boyfriend so he could collect his thoughts. She then walked into the room to join Rein, who was standing near the window silently. Seeing the teen look out the window with a sour gaze, she couldn’t help but turn her head to see what was up. It wasn’t good. The entire entrance to the first floor was crowded with zombies lazily shuffling in and out the front entrance. Normally this wouldn’t be a shock to anyone who’d experienced this kind of calamity before, but for it having been only a few hours into the apocalypse, this amount of undead ,in one place, was unusual.

“I think we found where the rest of the residents are.” Rein sighed. Suddenly he saw something that made him narrow his eyes. “There….that’s the guy that fell down the east stairwell earlier.” Rein stated pointing to one of the zombies.

Seeing the kid point to a zombie wearing a yellow shirt, Niomine couldn’t help but respect his impressive memory. “If he’s out there, and not at the bottom of the stairwell, then something must of lured it to the first floor...then...the other zombies must also be from there also. No wonder there are so many.”

The teen nodded his head in agreement, coming up with the same conclusion. “It seems like the whole buildings worth of zombies are out there. Looks like you two will have go out a window from the second floor after all.”

“What window?” Takeru walked in to the room and asked. Suddenly a loud alarm radiated through out the building.

“Fuck! Those idiots pulled the fire alarm!”