8:15 am

In a room that screamed try hard intellectual, lied a man on a couch facing away from another man who was right behind him, sitting next to the sofa in a comfortable chair.

The man on the couch was wearing a uniform of some sort and had been cuffed to the couch.

He had a sleek physique along with an angular face with sunken cheeks that accentuated his cheekbones and a slicked back black hair giving the man rather wolfish features which were further stressed by the man’s pale blue piercing eyes making a man carry a certain predatory charm.

Compared to the wolf in the room, the man sitting in the chair paled in comparison to him.

A simple definition of pencil pusher could define the man in the chair.

Brown hair with a receding hairline and green eyes along with a rather average looking face that was slightly more round than normal, donned in a rather casual suit with a white shirt with no tie. The pencil pusher was holding a notepad and was currently writing on it.

The man on the sofa was Kaine Smith, who appeared distracted at this point of time, looking outside the window he was facing.

-Perspective of Kaine Smith-

I was lying on a couch in an office with a man wearing clean casual clothing sitting on a lounge chair behind my head. It was my weekly one-on-one counselling. It’s rather fascinating how this couch thing works. You see, the idea is to remove all those social tenancies we have when facing others in social discourse.

No pretence or pressure to follow the societal etiquette, not to mention taking a vulnerable position lying down and not facing the other, builds trust between the psychiatrist and the patient. People with trust issues would go mental.

“Kaine? Are you listening?” The doctor seems to have noticed my distracted thoughts.

“Yes doctor.” I reply while continuing to stare out of the window towards the sky.

It’s the only reason I like these sessions. Unlike most of the windows, this lets you see towards the outside of the asylum.

And the guy knows it as the office is arranged so that from the couch you can have a straight unobstructed view outside from the safety glass window grid.

“Ah, good, it’s been rather an odd morning here. With many of the patients acting odd.”

“No doctor, I’m healthy as I can be. Is it the influenza outbreak that has been going around?”

“That you definitively are,” the doctor mumbles rather quietly, but it’s easy to catch. Perks of him sitting right behind me.

“It probably is the influenza, it’s just the aggressive behaviour of the sick that’s worrisome.” The doctor answers without softening his voice.

“What can you expect from sick mental patients? We’re a rather unstable bunch.” I laugh.

Instead of humouring me with an answer, the doctor scribbled something into his notepad. Gotta respect the man sticking with the classics. His scribbling session is interrupted by an increasing commotion coming outside.

“Excuse me.” The doc says while he stands up and walks towards the door of his office. After noticing my “caretakers” absence outside the office, he turns back to me.

“I have to step out for a moment. We’ll continue our session once I’m back.”

“No problem doctor” I say while I clatter my handcuffs which I’m cuffed to the sofa and add: “I’m not going anywhere.” And smile.

I look as the doctor leaves the office and turn back to look outside. I’ve got no interest in the happenstance of this facility.

A few minutes fly past until the doctor rushes in and slams the door shut behind him and based on the clicking sound coming behind me, locks it.

“Holy shit, ho- unholyshit… Zombies...” He whispers to himself.

I turn my head towards the door to give the man an incredulous look. “The fast kind?”

“N-n-no.” He says while still facing the door and slowly backing up.

“Then what’s the problem?” I irritatedly ask him. The man had me worried for a second.

The crack of a doc ignores me and heads for the rather escape proof window. He’s definitely not as smart as he claims.

He looks out of the window to see the nearby metropolis filled with columns of smoke rising towards the skies. Confirming that this is happening elsewhere as well.

“It’s the apocalypse.” He mutters weakly while staring at the scene of chaos as a helicopter a view distance away loses control and disappears from view, heading towards the ground. Followed by a sound of an explosion loud enough for us to hear through a reinforced window.

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I silently walk behind the doctor and look outside as well for a moment in silence, admiring the scene unfolding outside.

“No.” I whisper right next to his ear as I snap his neck by suddenly pulling from the mandible and push from the other side at the sphenoid bone area towards the skull. “It is a paradise.”

I gently lie him down on the floor and turn towards the office door and bow in gratitude to the chaos going on there, which bought me time to slip out of these sloppily put on cuffs. Well, can you really blame the orderlies for not having the expertise to notice they cuffed me too high, letting me slip out of them.

Not to mention they are not very keen on spending too much time in my proximity.

“Now how to get out of here” I mumble and cast my gaze around the room to scan the office for something tougher and longer than my arm with little to no success till my gaze wanders upon the kind doctor's body.

“…Surely he wouldn’t mind.”

I undo my handcuffs still attached to the couch with keys I found in the doctors pocket and walk back to the recently departed doc to strip him and then dislocate his right leg from both the pelvis and kneecap joints by kicking it out of place and begin using my handcuffs to start the arduous project of using the jagged edges of the cuff to saw his leg off.

It truly is a difficult project, not to mention once I finally got some progress going through a show of force and diligence, I had gathered some audience behind the door.

Putting the issue of noisy audience behind me as the door was of metal make, I once more engrossed myself in my task with heartfelt gratitude to doc and unquenchable enthusiasm towards my goal.

Truly, nothing can stand before human ingenuity and effort.

Other than time and disturbances. It took a lot of it and had a lot of them. God, the banging of the door and the constant moaning is annoying. Made it hard to concentrate, making me lose time on the job. Which wasn’t appreciated.

I glance at the bloody femur of around 50 cm in length with bits and bobs of flesh still attached to it. It took me most of the day to get it free and then the rest of it to clean the bone of the unneeded softer parts.

I’m rather famished after this ordeal, to be honest. The office had a personal bathroom where I could drink, but that was all.

And I find no interest in partaking a dinner of doctor whose valiant name… I have forgotten.

Probably John or something.

I strip as well and change into the clean set of the doctor’s clothes I put out of harm’s way. They’re a little big for me as I’m a rather slim guy but mine are dirty, not to mention rather eye-catchingly orange and obviously inmate’s overalls, with the asylums name written on it.

Well nothing should be wasted so once I changed clothes I ripped the overalls into thin strips and use them to tie the handcuffs to the femur so that the jagged edges will face towards the stuff I want to hit from both sides of the femur by closing them around the femur and then secure them in place and then use the cleaned, wet ripped off sleeves and legs along with the unused cloth strips to make a handle for the mighty cudgel I had named Jason in the honour of the doctor’s contribution to the world.

I put my hands together and offer a prayer for Doc. Hopefully he’s watching.

Rest in peace. I will remember your contribution.

I then move my attention to the next problem at hand.

I face the door with determination and unlock it and open it, pulling it with me to form a triangle of safety as the door encloses me into the corner of the room with only a slight gap in between the wall and the door. I listen as the undead flock to the room towards the multi-talented remains that is doc.

I hold my breath and count to sixty. I then glance towards the small gathering of diners who have lost all interest in anything other than their meal.

There are five of them.

Former staff of the asylum. They truly are zombies, the oddly pale skin with bloodied appearance, with bits missing here and there from probably getting bitten or just from the occupational hazards from being a zombie.

Hazards like me, and environmental hazards like metal doors based on their mangled hands.

I quickly close the door once more, making a bit more noise than I’d hoped for and use the key still in the lock to lock it once more and confront my attendees who have now noticed there is fresh dessert on the menu.

Exiting the room might have been a good idea, but here I have a controlled space I’m familiar with a finite number of hostiles.

Perfect warm up for a rusty, hungry individual.

They come at me with surprising coordination, forming a crescent shape of bodies as they leave the corpse alone, slowly shambling while gurgling and reaching towards me with their crippled filthy hands dyed in blood and gore.

I head forward and swing Jason at the zombie at the vanguard, aiming towards its head with relative ease, taking it down and then get back to avoid getting mobbed.

That’s one down.

I’ve around 3 meters of space left before they reach me and 4 more to go.

I rush again in to the fray and take an overhead swing this time and bash another one’s head in and then nimbly head back to the door.

Three left.

The remaining ones can almost reach me now as I lean on to the door and swing Jason once more, hoping to even the numbers.

My target once more crumbles down on to the floor with the right side of his head caved in.

Three down, two to go.

While facing the last two with no room left to fight safely, I attempt to leap through their ranks back inside the office, only to stumble and ram into one of them.

Exploiting the happenstance and changing my priority into pushing it to the floor hard, head first, causing it to stop moving while I roll off with only hitting my elbow rather hard, causing more harm to my pride rather than anything physical.

It’s one on one now.

The Last one gives me no respite as I roll aside from its attempt to mount me as I attempt to stand up, only to slip on the blood on the floor and get fondled by my foe at my left leg whom I politely kick in the face with said leg to create some distance.

With a hearty crunch, its nose breaks as I slide around 2 meters away thanks to the generous lubrication from doc and the rest of the staff and try to stand up again.

But alas, the lubrication is a blessing as much as it is a curse. I only manage to disorderly get on to my knees again after going down the second time only to notice Jason is missing from my hand.

I try to figure out where did I exactly drop it as my nefarious foe mages to crawl dangerously close to me, leaving me no other option other than to continue on without my weapon.

I relinquish my higher ground advantage to get on my back and kick the fiend once more but this time with both of my legs put together and fully loading all of my strength from my leg muscles into this kick and to send this bastard to afterlife.

I hear another satisfying crunch as I snap its neck with the force of my kick. Exhausted and hungry, I just laid there.

“What an embarrassing first contact with the undead. “I mutter weakly as I lose myself into the world of dreams, laying in an office filled with bodies and gore.

Hoping that I was alone.