Crystal’s four-letter word died on her lips as she was submerged in a torrent of water. She had the disorienting feeling of being swept downstream, or rather, downstairs and the feeling didn’t stop until she had collided with Troy’s legs. The taller boy placed his hands under her armpits and hauled her head above water. Crystal gasped and sputtered hoping that her heart would decide to start again. The water was ice cold! Well, considering that it had been ice a few seconds ago, that did make sense…

Austin’s progress on melting the ice was improving, but at great hazard to everyone standing around him. Either the intense heat burned you, or, in Crystal’s case, washed down all the flights of stairs they had already cleared. The progress was growing harder to measure though, as the water quickly became ice once more.

Daniel floundered around in the water before grasping the only thing that resembled a life preserver. “YOU PERVERT!” Crystal lashed out to smack him, causing Troy to drop her back into the frigid water. Immediately, Crystal’s heart stopped again and it was a while before Troy managed to scoop her up once more.

“Can’t you keep your hands off your boyfriend for a little while?” Troy asked, grunting with the effort of playing lifeguard.

“HE’S NOT MY BOYFRIEND!” Crystal shouted, the force of her voice causing Troy to fall into the water as well.

Meanwhile, Austin had sloshed down the stairs wet stairs that were rapidly becoming iced over again and was watching all of this high and dry on the landing of the fourth floor. “If you guys are done playing Ice Capades, I need your help. We still have about ten more floors to go.”

Crystal started to heave a sigh, which quickly became a gurgle as she was dropped beneath the water’s surface again. This was so much work, and it wasn’t going to work. Water expanded when it melted and there wasn’t enough room in this building to hold all of the water. She was going to drown in this icy tomb with only Tweedle-pervert, Tweedle-crack head, and Tweedle-pyromaniac to see it.

No matter, she came here to save a friend and that was exactly what she was going to do. And it shouldn’t be her fault if she wound up killing the friends she was already with along the way…

Sam quickly took stock of their situation. He was a practical man and not really given to pessimism, but right now, they seemed to be thoroughly fucked. He couldn’t feel more than a disconcerting tingle in his right arm and the shoulder throbbed with a stabbing pain every breath. His legs wobbled with each step he took and he didn’t think that he could manage another form tackle without snapping his arm off.

The only good thing about his opponent was that it didn’t seem to have a mind of it’s own. It never outright attacked them until they attacked it. But it wouldn’t let them leave the room. It always circled between them and the vault door. There was something strange about this guy. His movements were unnatural and he made no sound, like a zombie, but Sam wasn’t given to imagination, so he hadn’t come up with the colorful simile yet.

Anything the guy did was too fast to see what he had really done and all of his moves were more strange and fluid than the special effects in the Matrix were. And he was dressed like anorexic Gucci model. Now, about fifty feet away from them, he stood staring at them with unblinking eyes, waiting for them to try another attack.

Sam wasn’t even sure it would be a “them.” Amanda hadn’t spoken or even looked at him since he’d saved her. Sam had awoken on the cold metal floor that had used to be his dad’s old office, but now it was just some huge metal room. On one side of the room, there was a tall, dark-haired man who was at first just standing there. Sam could’ve sworn his vision had doubled because he saw the man twice, but as the fog cleared from his brain, there was only one man and he was beating the hell out of Amanda.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Without thought, Sam had picked himself up and ran across the room, slamming his body into her attacker. The impact had jolted the man back onto the wall; meanwhile, Amanda had seized Sam’s bad arm and hauled him in the opposite direction towards the door. But the man had leapt to his feet and in front of them all in one motion. He then swiped his stiffened hand in a karate chop at Amanda’s throat, but Sam shouldered her furiously over to a safe distance. Then, the shoulder had started hurting and Amanda had doubled over, shaking and gasping, gripping her knees. She didn’t look as though she would be good in a fight. Both of her hands were bloody and if Sam stared hard enough, he could swear he saw the gleam of bone under the flesh.

“Amanda,” he whispered. He wasn’t used to using his voice again and he didn’t want to let the guy hear what he was planning. Not that he seemed that interested, anyway.

“Amanda,” he whispered again, because she hadn’t looked up. He reached out with his good hand and touched the top of her head that was bent over her knees. She looked up at him with wild and confused eyes. Dark circles beneath them were dampened with tears and here face was pale beneath dried splatters of blood on her cheeks.

Jesus…what happened to her.

“We need to do something,” he said, “I can’t use my arm; are you all right?”

She stared at him as though that was the dumbest thing anybody could ask, but she nodded. Her body still trembled violently.

“Jesus…” she whispered, “I almost lost it, back there.”

“Lost what?”

Amanda abruptly stopped shaking and gave him her withering look, “My contact lens,” she said, sarcastically, “Now hurry up and….”

But she never got a chance to finish her sentence.

Apparently, the zombie fighter had changed its tactic as going to settle for killing them right there, right then. It vaulted the whole fifty feet over to where they stood, holding one of its arms out in front of him like a spear, and at that speed, it would’ve had the same effect as a spear.

Sam saw it coming and did one of the main things that he had been hearing about all of his life: He played the hero. The zombie angled its stabbing arm down for Amanda’s chest, intent on killing her instead of him. But he jumped in front of her. The blade-like hand skewered his lower chest at the diaphragm, going in the front and coming out of his back.

For a second, all of time stood still. Sam felt the cold, bone deep sting of the arm going through his body more easily than a hot knife went through butter. With an unworldly consciousness, he felt it pierce Amanda, standing behind him. He knew it; he could feel her pain in some way…. He could feel her shock, and somehow it was transferred to him.

I screwed up, Sam thought. Or Amanda had been the one to think it. For a brief second, they shared the same fate, mind, and the same pierced heart. Then it was gone. Time started to flow again, but more slowly.

Sam felt the arm, still lodged fatally in his own body, tug as thought it was being torn at. The zombie, whose face was no more than six inches from Sam’s twisted suddenly in a reflexive expression of pain, then parted its mouth in a soundless scream. The zombie withdrew it arm abruptly while jumping back; leaving in the path that it had come. Sam felt the arm slide in reverse through his body, and was released from the hideous, suspended time.

But he wasn’t free from death.

He collapsed to his knees, but his spine arched backwards, falling to the floor. Warm arms wrapped around his torso. He dimly perceived Amanda lowering him to the ground; through a haze he thought he could see her. Coldness, more deep than anything the metal floor had ever offered was creeping rapidly up his body. He stared up at Amanda’s face, which was hovering so close to his that he could feel her breath on his skin. The fog cleared for a second, and he was able to see every feature of her pretty face with an aching clarity. She felt like the only warm thing in the world at that moment, with her hands over the wound and her warm dark eyes staring into his. Sam didn’t even notice when her blood dripped near his face.

He would’ve told her how he liked her face. He would’ve told her that and so much more, but his mouth went dry. A burning thirst competed with the numbing cold, but Sam couldn’t decide which was worse. He looked at Amanda’s pretty face, distorted by pain, and opened his mouth to say something. Anything; he had to tell her.

Tell her what? That he would miss her? He wouldn’t; he’d be dead. Too many options, too many feelings assailed his rapidly decaying brain. So he simply picked the most immediate thing that came to mind when being confronted by death:

“Damn it…Deer season starts tomorrow.”