Page 4 of Invasion of Sorority Z

A frown turns my lips down as I don’t hear a peep. The bugs are always making some kind of repetitive noise. Always. So why…

My door bangs open, slamming against the wall with a loud thud. “Get up, we have company.”

I flinch at the intrusion, fear swarming down my back.

“Anna?” I croak, recognizing the voice.

“The dumbasses set a fire,” she grits out. “There’s a horde of undead boxing them in right now, and they’re running this way to escape. I don’t know how close they’ll get. Go wake up the others, I’m going to the roof.”

My palms wet with sweat as I scramble to my feet, hardly able to see a thing. I pat around the side of my bed, finding my emergency flashlight and flicking it on. “Keep the light away from the windows,” she warns before stomping away.

I’m shaking on wobbly legs to find the others in just my tank top and pajama shorts with little cherries printed on them. Anna and I have the two bedrooms on the third floor, while the other four girls stay on the second floor. Stairs, I need to make it down the stairs while shaking.

Any of the times we have discussed these sorts of situations in the past, I never even thought about how my body might react. Outside of my sensory struggles, I’m not typically an overly anxious person. I’m starting to realize that might be because I have never been in a deadly stressful situation before. Finals have nothing on a mob of zombies sprinting toward your location!

Pinching myself proves fruitless, but my feetneedto move. I point the flashlight to the lightless stairwell and scramble down a flight as quickly as I can manage. In two blinks, I’m shoving Cayte’s door wide open, and shuffling inside while hiding my light from her bay window.

“Cayte,” I whisper-yell. She rouses, eyes flying open wide. “Cayte, you gotta get up. Anna said zombies are coming. A lot of them.”

“Shit,” she curses, throwing herself out of bed at lightning speed. “Can you go put the ground floor barricade in place? You remember how? I’ll get Megan, Brooke, and Sarah.”

Oh yeah, I’ll get right on that! No worries at all.

I swallow the sick feeling in my throat, immediately wanting to tell her no. No, I do not want to be on the first floor where the zombies are coming straight for us. No, I don’t want to be in the dark alone, moving heavy objects.

My head bobs in confirmation as she finds her own light, turning it on too. “Anna said to keep the light from the windows,” I manage to say, voice cracking. Licking my lips, I move toward the door despite the shiver of fear rolling down my spine. “Be right back.”

“Hurry,” she encourages. “Our plan says we go to high ground unless Anna says otherwise.”

“The roof, got it.”

The second set of stairs isn’t any easier to take. It’s daunting and makes me feel like my heart has fallen into my stomach. My hands are so sweaty that the hand-held light is nearly slipping from my grip with each step I take.

“Barricade,” I say, reminding myself of the goal. We have two of them. Two easy to set, large blockage mechanisms we created for both the front and back doors. “It’s easy. Just push and latch, Stevie. Easy.”

The front door barricade is set within seconds, easy enough to push into place and latch even with shaking hands. It won’t hold off a horde of zombies, but it will keep us safe for a little while.I hope.

Getting to the back door, tears start to drag down my cheeks, hot and so salty that they burn as they fall.God, Anna is going to think I’m such a wimp when she sees me crying.

I can’t help it, though. I’m about to be blocking out my safe place. So I’m standing here, staring at it while I should be running for my life. I made that, out there, and it’s likely about to be completely decimated. All of that labor, for absolutely nothing. Each silent and sickening crying fit working with the awful mud, no longer worth the pain. Every peaceful escape I’ve experienced, never to be had again.

My fingers twitch as I outstretch them to reach for the pulley when a shadow crowds my vision. A scream falls from my mouth, in surprise or horror, I don’t know. Illuminated by the light of the stars, something much bigger than a zombie is peering right into my eyes. Looking down at me from at least two feet higher than my head. I can’t force myself to move a single muscle, freezing under its gaze.

Broad shoulders are the most daunting bit of it. It’s… almost human. No, humans arenotthat large.

“This one is alive,” it says clearly. With a deep and gravelly voice, the creature sounds distinctly male. He steps closer to the sliding glass door, pushing himself into the brightness of my flashlight trail.

Huge gray thighs and a toned abdomen come into view. Two arms, two legs, standing straight and speaking English. I’m reconsidering the possibility of this being a human man, when my eyes catch on the bright red color of his left arm. It’s metal.Holy fucking shit, is a goddamn robot looking at me right now? This has to be a dream. Wake up, Stevie, wake up.

His head tilts to the side, bright green eyes finding my hand on the side of my leg. “Why do you squeeze yourself, hu-nim?” Even through the glass, I can hear him clearly. I’m not sure if it’s due to the dead silence of the house, or if he’s simply loud.

“H-human?” I croak.Is this a panic-induced hallucination? Is that even a thing?

“Yes,” he agrees. “This is what you are called, is it not?”

I nod, throat feeling tight. “What are you?”

His hand plants on his chest, and I get a better glimpse of his face. Long red hair sprouts from the middle of his head, like the sides of it have been shaved. His face is like someone who has never seen a human tried to draw one at the instruction of someone who has seen many of them. Large and exaggerated but otherwise…prettyfeatures.

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