“Dying isn't half as hard as living”, Jacob slowly whispered, quoting the man from
earlier. The man whose blood was now drying out against the once pristine walls of the
corporate office. The man who had decided to end it all, with the intention of never
becoming one of them. Tightening his hands around the grip of the trigger, he let out a
choked sob as he quietly kept repeating the phrase. The door to the secluded room that
he was sheltered in began loosening off the hinges with the immense slams on it from
the other side. The moans and distorted noises coming from the other side were
deafening. Seeing the rusted hinges distancing themselves from the screws that held
them in place, Jacob shut his eyes tightly and set the barrel of the pistol in his mouth.
Dying isn't half as hard as living, he silently thought as his sweaty finger slid
around the trigger.
Dying isn’t half as hard as living.
And then, darkness.
__________________________________________________
The incessant sound of pens and keyboards clicking echoed through the sterile,
pale office. Men and women sat unmoving in their squeaky desk chairs, eyes unmoving
and dried up as they stared deadly into their computer screens. Their worlds were so secluded that when the main door bursted open to reveal a skinny, bloody teenager with
shaggy brown hair yelling, the room didn't know how to react.
“What’s with you people?! Don’t you know what’s going on out there?!” The boy
frantically yelled.
A woman in her forties stood and carefully approached him, “Calm down, what’s
happened to you? What’s your name?”
The boy replied slowly, “Jacob Marshall.. Whats with you people? How sheltered
are you in here, haven't you seen the news?”
Jacob quickly spotted the overhead tv and ran up to it, stretching to turn it on.
“The number of deaths isn’t confirmed, it must be thousands. We’re reporting
here live from the studio, we’ve lost connection with our outside reporters, we don't
know if they're dead or…”, the anchorwoman covered her face with her hands and
shook her head, “ For anyone just tuning in.. there's been an outbreak of some sort,
w-we have conspiracists calling in claiming in the new vaccination that the CDC and
FDA just approved contains ingredients that were in agent orange and napalm. They’re
saying that anyone who got this is infected. These people.... These things.. Are as if
they're from a movie. It started this morning at 8 am with a man sprinting down second
avenue, grabbing people and breaking their necks before, before.. Biting into them..
Eating them..”
Turning off the tv, silence spread throughout the office. No one knew what to do
or say. The silence was broken when one of the men slowly raised his voice, “Kid.. Is that all true? Is that what it’s like out there?”
The boy slowly shook his head with tears forming in his eyes, flashes of the
horror he previously experienced outside reappearing in his mind.
The older man nodded his head before clamping his eyes shut and out a
distorted cry filled with fear and pain.
“How are we supposed to live in a world like that?! I can't live like that..”
Screams erupted as everyone's eyes witnessed the man reach under his head and pull
out a pistol. At first, he held it pointed at the group, in fear of one of them attempting to
disarm him. But, once everyone's hands raised in front of them in panic, he let out a
defeated sigh and a warm tear rolled down his face,
“Dying isn’t half as hard as living.”
As the last syllable left his lips, the barrel was quickly raised his is temple and his
body dropped to the ground while blood flooded out onto the floors. The room fell silent
and everyone looked at each other, unsure of what to do next. One of the women went
to go speak when all that was uttered out of her mouth was a painful scream. Her body
curled into fetal position as she dropped to the floor and let out painful cries. A few
rushed over to her, trying to get her attention to find out what was wrong.
The woman's agonizing screams pierced the eats of everyone in the room. In
hopes of calming her, the head manager rushed to her side. He rested the back of his
hand on her forehead, then moving it to her cheek. The heat that radiated through her
skin cause the manager to flinch. Returning his hand to her cheek once more to confirm
what he just felt, his head wasn’t met with the warmth from her skin, but the warmth from her mouth as her teeth slammed down on his fingers. Soon, the clamp she held on
his gushing fingers was released and as he got up to run away, her hands grabbed his
pants, pulling him back to the floor before ravaging into his neck. Blood gushed and
filled the floor until his screams soon died out in a soft whimper. Her misshapen body
rose and cries out a piercingly loud shriek and pounced after the new nearest victim.
Jacob backed into the nearest corner as not only did he watch the one woman
begin killing victim after victim, but no later he watched those same bodies rise back up
with bloodshot eyes and burst capillaries. In a panic, he spotted the pistol from earlier
lying on the floor in pool of blood. Going into a full sprint, he dashed across the room,
grabbing the gun and making his way into the nearest coat closet.
He shut the door and locked it, using all his energy to push the nearest
shelving unit in front of the door. He clamped his hands over his ears as he
listened to the distorted screeches and cries for help. His body shook in fear and
he jumped as the door that kept him secluded from the horror recieved a small
dent from a voilent kick. He didn’t know if it was from a victim, someone
desperate for saftey as he was. Or what if it was a predator, seeking him as their
next prey? The risk was too great for him to decided so he dropped to his knees
and began sobbing quietly. Wondering how he could possibly escape this. If he
waited it out, waited for the creatures to wonder out of the building, he could
possibly find a way out. He wondered how long that would take. Would he starve
first? He squeezed his eyes shut and began sobbing quietly.
“Dying isn't half as hard as living.”