6 - Roger

“Roger, please, we need to stay together,” said Alfie.

He knew that he didn’t have much time. The more he waited, the more those monsters would appear.

“Bye, Alfie. Take care.” Roger said, opening the emergency exit door.

“Well, it was nice to meet and to work with you,” Alfie said, locking the door behind him.

He looked around, and he didn’t see anyone or anything. His heart started bumping inside his chest.

What the fuck was I thinking? he thought. I should at least have brought some kind of weapon with me.

But now it was too late. He was sure no one would open the door again, even if he begged for it.

The plan was: run down to the first floor, avoid those creatures, run to the car, and drive home.

He started going down the stairs, paying attention to any sound that could come from nearby him, but it was hard to keep focused. People were screaming everywhere.

Only two floors. That was all that he needed to go down and then run to the car. Luckily, his car opened with the car remote, and he didn’t need to put the key in the lock. He watched too many horror movies and read too many horror books to know what would happen if he didn’t have a more modern car.

He wanted to sprint and just go down, running the stairs and be done with it as soon as he could, but he needed to be careful. The sounds on the outside were too many already, indicating that chaos was growing more and more with the time.

Something made a huge sound on the top stairs, and Roger looked up. Someone was coming down running like crazy, screaming out loud.

“Help me, please. Somebody help me.”

It was a woman. He could see her hair moving up and down and to the sides as she ran down the stairs.

On other occasions, Roger would have helped the woman, but not today. His priority was to get out of the building and reunite with Sam. Nothing else mattered. Roger started running down as well, to avoid the woman and the possible thing that was following her.

When Roger got to the first floor, he stopped. They were there already, inside the hall, bent over some bodies and feasting.

Think fast, think fast. He thought to himself, heart jumping inside his chest. His shirt was soaked and sweaty from running and nervousness.

The main entrance of the building was blocked. There was no way Roger could go in that direction. He knew the building had a back entrance, tho, used for the cleaning staff to put the trash out and for the companies to deliver things to the other offices on the building.

He started moving slowly in the direction of the door that would take him to the back door, never taking his eyes from the crazy humans eating the others. He felt his stomach churn with the view and all the blood covering the floor, but he took a deep breath and kept going.

It took Roger only five seconds to get to where he wanted, but to him it felt like ten hours. He opened the door. His heart jumped in his chest at the squeak the door made as it opened.

The monsters looked at Roger and got up in less than a second. They started running in Roger’s direction, leaving their recent lunch behind and looking forwarded for the new and fresher one they were seeing.

They were two, then three, then four. Roger went inside the door and locked it behind him.

He was lucky enough that the door he just closed behind him had a thumbturn lock from the inside, where you just need to twist to lock it in. He locked the door and leaned against it, breathing heavily from the running and adrenaline. On the other side, the monsters were beating on the door, bumping against it, and trying to reach Roger.

He was afraid of letting it go. What if the door locker wasnt strong enough to keep those zombies away?

He looked towards the corridor now. There were some trash cans leaning against the wall, but overall, it was clean. The light was bright white, illuminating all the way to the end. The door to the outside was closed too. Only a few steps and Roger would be outside.

The monsters didn’t stop bumping on the door. He needed to let it go. Roger breathed deep and then started sprinting towards the exit door. He looked behind, and everything was fine so far. The bumps were still happening.

He tried to open the exit door, and nothing happened. He looked at the lock to see if it had a thumbturn locker as well, but no. This one needed a key to open. His heart started racing. That was the only way for him to go out.

He looked around and saw another room. Roger walked towards it at the same time the other door collapsed, and four crazies started running towards him, red eyes glowing ferociously and yellow saliva dripping from their mouth.

“Fuck.” he said, going inside the side door.

And then a big boom exploded somewhere outside, turning the electricity off in the building.

***

At first, nothing happened. Roger stayed put in the same place, breathing heavily; he couldn’t see anything in front of him. The room went totally dark. On the outside, the zombies were still making a weird growling sound. They should be on top of him at this time, but nothing happened.

What the fuck? (here1 don't remove I use to keep track of italic) Roger, though, was too afraid to move himself from where he was.

Now that everything was almost silent and the crazies were not bumping into the door, Roger could hear people screaming on the outside.

What the fuck is happening? Please, make this to be one of those realistic dreams. (here1 don't remove I use to keep track of italic) He thought, trying to move his feet back outside that small room. He could see only a small bright light coming from the corridor, coming from the door that the zombies just broken down.

Roger was confused as to why the zombies were not attacking him. They were pretty insistent just a few seconds ago, and now they were there, growling, but not moving towards him.

Slowly, one step after the other, Roger moves towards the door and picks up the corridor. What he saw made no sense. The four zombies were standing in the corridor, not moving, their red eyes glowing with the little light coming from the outside. Growling only, with yellow saliva still dripping down their mouth, but not moving at all. Then all of them moved their eyes in his direction, and Roger jumped inside the room again. He bumped into something and fell on the floor, hitting his ass.

That was it, they were going to run at him now. They saw him. He just closed his eyes, thinking about how he loved Sam and how sorry he was to not be able to find him.

But nothing happened.

They were still there, at the same place, only growling and drooling.

Roger got up and walked again towards the door. The eyes were still looking at him, but they didn’t move. Roger decided to go out to the corridor. The eyes followed him, but no other movement.

What the fuck? (here1 don't remove I use to keep track of italic) He thought, trying to understand what was happening.

He looked around and thought about trying the back door again, but that wouldn’t help at all. It was locked, and he didn’t have the key to open it. The only way to get out was from the door where he came in first. Through those crazy things that were, for some reason, not moving anymore.

Then it clicked, as if the answer was there in front of him all that time. The explosion cut the power, leaving him and those things in the dark.

Zombies that can’t move in the dark? Why would that be something? But, as weird as it sounded, it was the only explanation that Roger had for them to stop chasing him.

The growling was getting on his nerves now. The vert low growling, the red eyes following him, the yellow thing coming down their mouth, mixing up with the blood from victmins they did.

Ok, I can’t stay here forever. I need to try to move past them and get the hell out of here, (here1 don't remove I use to keep track of italic) he thought, moving towards the monsters.

He walked two steps when another crazy, from the outside, looked towards him and started running in his direction. Roger froze in his place, all his teorical stuff going down as other zombies followed the one.

He closed his eyes, hoping he was right about the dark and light stuff.

The growling voices were loud now with the new three additions on the outside, but they couldn’t cross the door. They stayed there, trying to reach the inside, blocked by something invisible to them.

Roger felt a huge relief. He went back inside the previous door and sat on the floor. With this new piece of information, he thought it would be easy to get to Sam now. He only needed to wait for the night to come and drive all the way to the Cabin.

Sam … He needed to tell him about it. He picked up his phone and tried to call him, but the service was already down.

That was quick (here1 don't remove I use to keep track of italic), he thought. I thought it would take at least a few hours until everything collapsed (here1 don't remove I use to keep track of italic).

He closed his eyes just for a bit. He promised he wouldn’t sleep. He was just a bit tired. Not that it passed too many hours since he woke up. The phone clock was marking 11:30 a.m now.

But for some reason, his eyes were heavy, and he wanted just to rest a little bit.

***

He woke up in a jump from the place where he was. His eyes didn’t see anything but dark, and it took him a few seconds to remember all the crazy stuff that happened. He looked at the phone, still no signal. The clock was marking 13:11 p.m now.

Damn, I guess my little rest was more than I planned, (here1 don't remove I use to keep track of italic) he thought, standing up. Then something came to his mind.

Roger took his phone and turned on the flashlight. He looked around the room, searching for other possible exits or useful stuff. It was a small security room, with some computers lined up in the end of it, all turned off now. There was a little fridge next to the TVs. Roger opened and smiled when he saw some protein bars and water bottles inside it.

On top of the table, next to the keyboard, there was a bag. Probably the guard of the building left it there when he went out to check what was going on. There was nothing important that he could use inside it. He threw everything.

Roger ate a protein bar and drank a bit of the other, then put the rest inside the bag. Then he kept looking around. And something caught his attention. On the corner of the room, there was a small opening on the ground.

He went towards it, and he saw a cellar door on the ground. There was a thumbturn lock keeping it closed from the outside to the inside. He unlocked it and opened it. He saw a stair going down all the way to the darkness.

He looked at the phone clock again.

Well, I have some free time to explore, I guess, (here1 don't remove I use to keep track of italic) he thought, and went down.

***

Roger went down the stairs. As he went down, everything started getting darker and darker. When he hit the ground, he couldn’t see anything beyond him. He turned the flashlight on again and started looking around.

He was in a sewer. Water was running through his shoes, and he felt a bit nauseous with it. His city was not known as the cleanest one, and he didn’t want to think of what he was going to be stepping into going forward. He looked up and sighed.

Fuck, I should close that thing, (here1 don't remove I use to keep track of italic) he thought. He was almost going to do it, but he decided to keep it like that. Other people could find it, and they could use it to escape. It is not like those things would be able to go inside, since the place was dark as fuck.

Roger pointed the light to the ground to check what was the direction the water was going and he followed it. If he walked that way, soon enough, he would find the entrance to the sewer.

He looked at the phone’s battery and smiled. He still had 74% of battery. He put the phone on airplane mode to save battery. The lines were not working anymore, so there was no reason to keep it on and waste it.

Roger’s heart was racing in his chest. His mind kept sending thoughts that at any time one of those zombies would show up from somewhere and start running towards him.

He wasn’t yet sure that they wouldn’t move in the dark. Maybe something else made them stop? Why the hell would zombies not be able to move when it was dark? It didn’t make any sense. But again, zombies didn’t make any sense either, and there they were, killing people, eating their flesh and infecting others.

Roger tried to push those thoughts away, forcing himself to think about Sam. He couldn’t wait to be together with him again. Hr would hold him so tight against his arms for minutes. He wanted to kiss him all and hold him tight, keep him safe against his own body. And if it depended on Roger, he would make it. He would fight hard to be together with his love. His only concern was that Sam would make it to the cabin.

Roger walked for minutes inside the dark sewer. He tried to use the phone’s light only when really necessary, to not waste battery. He was getting tired of walking already when he got to a place that looked more like someone’s home.

There were some candles lit up here and there, illuminating a bit of the room.

There was some wooden furniture in some corners, and in the very corner, on Roger’s right side, there was a big mattress with some blankets on top of it, folded.

Roger looked around to see if he could find the person who lived there. No one in sight. He kept walking slowly. The last thing he needed was to run from someone or something in the sewer. It was still very dark, even with the light from the candles.

He was almost out of that room. Now he could see some other light coming from the place he was moving towards, and he knew he was close to some exit from the sewer.

Roger looked at the phone. The clock was marking 2:20 pm. He stopped moving, thinking that maybe he should wait for the night to start moving. It would be safer if his theory about the monsters not moving in the dark was right.

Roger stood there for a few seconds, thinking what he should do. Then he turned around and went back to the room. He would wait there. If the owner of the place arrived, he would explain everything. He would even invite him to join Roger on his journey if he wanted.

Roger sat down on a small plastic chair he found and waited. His stomach started growling, but he didn’t find any food around. After a few minutes sitting, he looked at the mattress. For a while, he tried to fight the urge to lie and rest. But he was so tired…

He didn’t even notice he was lying down and his eyes were closing.

He was so tired…

Hold on, Sam. I’m coming. He thought before his brain shut down.