[Survive or die trying]

Marshall was abruptly woken up by a voice in his head. He looked around his room in a state of confusion and fear. He didn’t know what was going on. It took a couple of seconds before Marshall calmed down. He told himself that he was just imagining things and put it out of mind.

Wiping his face, he took his phone from the nightstand to see the time. It was 11:59am, Marshall groaned with the new knowledge. It was his second week at his new job working the night shift. From 1am to 9am, the job was taking a toll on Marshall’s body, and it was taking time for him to adjust.

After getting off of work, to taking a quick shower, it was already past 10am before Marshall laid his head on his pillow. Just having less than two hours of sleep after a long day would have any sane person fuming. Marshall on the other hand kept a calm mind and tried falling asleep once more. It just was not destined to be. Not more than ten seconds after Marshall closed his eyes, he heard the voice in his head again.

[Begin]

Groaning and visibly upset Marshall opened his eyes to find a metal bat hovering above him. Marshall’s body reacted before his brain fully understood what was going on and hit his head on the end of the metal bat. Holding his forehead and wincing in pain Marshall could not help himself from cursing three generations of the metal bats family.

Awake as he could possibly be, Marshall got off his comfy bed, to make sense of what was going on. The first thing he checked was the floating bat. Being quite aware that he didn’t own a bat much less a metal one. Where did it come from? Why was it in his room? And most importantly how was it floating in the air? These questions were like a revolving door in his head with no way to know. For the most part that was the truth unless he was somehow being pranked. It didn’t make sense because his closest friend and roommate was at work and his parents lived an hour away. There was no reason for a floating bat to be in his room.

Curious Marshall checked to see if the bat was actually floating or being held by a string. Try as he might, he couldn’t find any strings. He laughed softly while shaking his head. “I must still be dreaming, yeah that’s what it is,” he said to himself. Marshall grabbed the handle of the bat to find it heavier than it looked.

Usually when touching something metal it would have a coldness about it. Surprisingly as Marshall held the bat, he felt warmth and a feeling that the bat was always with him. Marshall proceeded to swing the bat around to get a feel for it. As he was doing that, he noticed that there really weren’t any strings or anything connected to the bat. “Strange,” he thought.

Having played with the bat enough. Marshall walked over to the window. He squinted his eyes as the sunlight shined through the blinds as he slowly opened them. The sun was shining bright as the white clouds blocked part of the blue sky. It was a typical morning one that he hadn't seen in two weeks.

As beautiful as the sky was, there wasn’t much going on outside. Marshall was about to close the blinds when he saw a person trudging over slowly. It was weird since the person seemed to have a major limp but wasn’t using a walking cane. As weird as that was, Marshall was about to close the blinds and mind his business. Until he saw three more people with the same limp walking past his window. Curious Marshall continued to watch.

Maybe there was a charity walk featuring disabled people that he wasn’t aware of. Marshall walked to pick up the phone to check. He searched for any charity happening around his area code. No matter how much he looked he couldn’t find any. “Weird,” Marshall thought once again.

Peeking out the window, Marshall saw more and more of the limping people walk by. Suddenly one of the people broke from the crowd. That person started limping in the direction of Marshall’s apartment. Marshall’s face scrunched up in both puzzlement and worry. He had a feeling that something was wrong. He just couldn’t put his finger on it.

The limping person deviated from his path a bit leading him to another apartment. Seeing this Marshall let out a breath of relief that he didn’t know he was holding.

The moment was short lived as two more people broke from the limping crowd. This made Marshall more nervous than he thought possible. The situation was too weird. Why were these people coming so close to his apartment? Even if this was an impromptu event, people shouldn’t be coming this close.

Marshall closed the blinds ever so slightly so that he wasn’t visible to the people outside. Then he waited while watching the people.

The bad thing about waiting was that the limping people were moving so slow that it made the situation more unnerving. Marshall’s apartment was so quiet that he only heard the sounds of his shallow breathing and the ticking of his analogue clock in the living room.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

HAAA HAAAA, TICK TOCK, TICK TOCK, HAAA HAAAA, TICK TOCK, TICK TOCK,

It’s funny how loud unnoticeable sounds become when everything is dead quiet. Everything just becomes magnified. Funny how this is in retrospect, it wasn't funny for Marshall. He felt like he was in a low budget scary movie. Unlike the horror movies where the black guy dies first, he refused to be that character.

Marshall took a long deep breath to calm down. This wasn’t a scary movie, and he wasn’t in danger or so he thought.

He watched as the first limping person walked right into his neighbor's door. Instead of stopping and orienting itself, the person kept trying to walk through the door. Marshall wiped his eyes to make sure that his eyes were working properly. They were working just fine, and he definitely wasn’t seeing things. That begged to believe what was happening.

Marshall took an involuntary step backwards in disbelief. “WTF is going on,” he yelled under his breath.

Marshall looked around his room for something to give him security. He saw the metal bat and immediately took it from his bed. With his hand on the bat’s handle, the familiar warm feeling took over his body. It seemed to melt away the creepy atmosphere.

Not falling too deep in the feeling, Marshall saw and picked up his phone. Turning it on, he found that it was 12:07pm. Marshall looked at the time in disbelief. Barely anytime passed but it felt like a lifetime for him. After rubbing his head and eyes with his forearm he got back on the phone. While looking through his apps, Marshall found Contacts, looked for his best friend Von and called him.

“We’re sorry, you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel this is,” Marshall hung up his phone without letting the rest of the message play out. He attempted to call Von’s number again and got the same message. Frustrated, Marshall tried calling his parents. Again, the call couldn’t go through. In a last ditch of effort, he tried calling the police. Low and behold, the same thing happened without skipping a beat.

Without a shadow of a doubt Marshall knew something was wrong. There was no possible way that the people he called didn’t pay their phone bill, especially the police.

Marshall was about to turn off the phone, before the thought of checking on the internet came to mind. The thought was so infectious he immediately checked on Google. He gazed at the error page stating no internet service. That didn’t make sense, so he checked to see if he was still connected to the Wi-Fi. It was connected so where was the problem. Something was wrong, very wrong. Not giving up, Marshall checked to see if he accidentally turned off his cellular data. There was no problem there either. One thing being wrong was a coincidence but so many things happening back-to-back was a problem.

BAM!

Marshall almost jumped out his skin from the sudden noise. Without having to think, Marshall already knew where the sound was coming from. Scared and trembling he took small deliberate steps towards the window. With a trembling hand Marshall slowly pushed up a slat. Nothing could have prepared him for what he saw. Unblinking lifeless bloodshot eyes. Frightened Marshall stepped back and tripped on his own feet causing him to fall to the floor.

CLANG, CLANG

That was the sound the metal bat made when hitting the floor. It took Marshall a split second for him to register the sound and snap his neck towards the window. He felt his heart about to rip out of his chest.

AaaaaaaaaAAAAAAA, BAM, AaaaaaaaAAAAAAAA, BAM

Marshall’s blood pressure shot through the roof. In that moment of panic the first thing Marshall did was grab the bat and hugged it close to his chest. The soothing feeling the bat usually gave him couldn’t alleviate the stress he was feeling.

While trying to calm down Marshall heard more than one person hitting his window. Every time the window was hit, he flinched making it harder to calm down. Without having a choice Marshall tried blocking out the noise and focusing on the metal bat. It was starting to work. His body was releasing the built-up tension. Marshall remembered to take a long deep breath and release that breath slowly. This accelerated his peace of mind and the release of fear.

As calm as he could possibly be in this situation, he got off the floor. Marshall then took one last deep breath before walking to the window. He paused a second before pulling up a slat. Through that slat he saw multiple people mindlessly trying to walk through the window. Though still scared Marshall scanned outside and found that more of these things were coming for him.

CRACK, CRACK

After hearing the obvious sounds of his window about to break, Marshall saw the fractures start to spread. Seeing the fractures, he had a fight or flight moment. Instead of running away scared somehow, he had the backbone to stand up for himself. As calmly and fast as he could, Marshall took a couple of steps back. Done doing so he stared hard at the cracking window, while holding his bat tightly in preparation to use it.

Seconds passed as if hours. Then out of nowhere he heard the loud noise of the police car sirens and those beautiful flashing red and blue lights. Without warning the cracking of Marshall’s window stopped. Waiting a couple of seconds to catch his bearings he walked back to the window to check on the situation.

Through the slat Marshall saw the ghoulish people walking towards the police car. Releasing a sigh Marshall released all his pent-up tension.

Having time to truly think, all the odd things came to focus. An odd voice in his head that he knew he wasn’t making up, an impromptu event with slowly limping people. To the more bizarre things like walking into a solid object without having the brains to stop. Then those ghastly eyes. If Marshall wasn’t dreaming, he knew what they were … zombies.