"Where are you going?" Alice said.

Walt was opening the door to exit her office. He didn't answer her. He went to his van and retrieved his taser. His work considered him an independent contractor and not an employee, so any delivery driver caught carrying a weapon on them or in their vehicle could lose their jobs. Just another extension of the company's policy. The customer is always first!

So, the drivers had been on their own when it came to protection and Walt knew several who carried guns. You just never knew when you might find yourself in a life-threatening situation. Walt had never bothered to get a gun license, which he was regretting now. But he did carry a taser in his van. On his routes, he was more concerned about unleashed pit-bulls than a crazy Karen with a gun, so he figured the taser would be enough.

But in this situation he also grabbed a crowbar from the back as well. Something fucked up was happening in this building and he wanted to be ready for it. He needed to make it to the tenth floor and find the Starter Deck. The announcer had said that was the best way to survive. The blue barrier was trapping him, so the decision was easy. He didn't like it, but with limited options, this decision yielded the best odds. If they weren’t being lied to, of course.

Walt found himself going back to his old ways of always calculating the odds. He didn't have enough information to be sure, so he was operating off the little information he did have. It required a blind faith. As a man of statistics and odds, he did not like depending on blind faith.

Alice stuck her head outside of the office. "Where are you going? You can't just leave me here!"

He headed to the elevator and pressed the Up button.

"You don't want to go up!" Alice said. Her voice trembled. "There's...you saw the feed. It's not safe."

The elevator dinged and the doors opened.

He stepped inside. "Call the police," Walt said. "Call 911." He knew the barriers wouldn't let them in, and if what the announcer said was true, every government agency was going to have their hands full dealing with the end of the world.

"Wait --"

The elevator doors closed.

#

The elevator headed up. But when it got to the third floor, it stopped. The doors opened and a girl stepped in, but not before pausing and observing Walt. He was in his delivery uniform. The girl had short black hair that reminded him of the vamp actresses from the pre-code silent era horror films. Facial piercings decorated her lips and cheeks. She was shorter than him, petite even and she was wearing torn jeans and a Rob Zombie t-shirt.

The goth girl looked at the crowbar in his hands and he looked at the hammer in hers. He scooted back, giving her ample space. She walked in and put her back against the wall so she could watch him. "Tenth floor?" he said.

She nodded.

The doors closed and the elevator headed up again. But this time it stopped on the fifth floor. The doors opened revealing a tall guy in his thirties. Everything about him screamed yuppie fuck day trader douchebag. His hair was slicked back and Walt thought he looked like a reject from a Brett Easton Ellis novel. He looked at both Walt and the goth girl. He smiled, flashing his perfect white teeth.

He got in and stood in front of Walt and the girl. When he saw that the tenth floor had already been pressed he smiled again. "It looks like we all have the same idea," the douchebag said. He opened his suit coat revealing the gun on his holster.

"I'll play nice in this elevator," he said. "But once we're on the tenth floor, and if you get in the way of me getting the Starter Deck, I won't hesitate to shoot."

Walt and the goth girl traded a look. She began to raise her hammer but Walt shook his head. Don't. Not yet.

Her veneer of calm stuttered and for a second Walt saw the fear and hesitation on her face. He put a finger on the hammer and pushed it down so her arm was back to her side.

It hadn't even been an hour and already norms were crumbling. Before he could reflect on it more, the doors opened again on the eighth floor.

At the distraction, Walt pulled out his taser and jabbed it into the douchebag's side, jolting him with electricity. The yuppie fuck let out a strained gargling sound and fell forward. Walt removed the gun from his holster and gave him another jolt. The guy slumped on the ground, his body taut as he received the electricity.

A younger African American teen wearing a Run the Jewels t-shirt stood there as the douchebag writhed on the ground at his feet.

The goth girl raised the hammer to cave the man's skull in, but Walt put out a hand. "Stop!" The girl paused and looked at Walt. "Don't you think this is enough?"

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"It's the end of the world though," the goth girl said. "And you heard him, he was going to kill us up there."

Walt didn't know what to say to that, but the goth gir acquiesced. She lowered her hammer and cursed.

Walt looked up at the teen gaping at them in the threshold. "Tenth floor?"

"I think I'll take the stairs," the teen said. The doors closed in front of him.

Walt got up and put on the gun holster he removed from the douchebag. "Listen, you're right. It's the end of the world. But I think we have a better chance in numbers if we're on the same page. I promise not to hurt you if you promise not to hurt me. Deal?"

The girl shifted, like she couldn't make up her mind.

“I’m Walt,” he said. He put out his hand. “What’s your name?”

“Joy,” she said.

“Nice to meet you, Joy.”

"How can I trust you?"

"I haven't tased you, have I?"

"How do I know you won't?"

Walt shrugged. "Take me at my word?"

She scoffed. "Last time I took a guy at his word he cheated on me and drained my bank account."

"I'm sorry that happened," Walt said. "But we're not dating and I don't have access to your bank account. I'm just like you, scared and confused and just trying to survive this situation. But when I say I won't hurt you, I mean that."

Joy still seemed to be deciding when the doors opened. They had reached the tenth floor. Walt took a chance and stepped in front of her, putting his back to her. He hoped he wouldn't end up with a hammer to the back of his skull. But he knew, from the way she had been hesitating, that the odds were she wouldn't.

He stepped onto the tenth floor. The hammer never came.

#

Walt assessed the hallway, wondering how he was going to find the Starter Deck. The floor was tiled. There were doors to the condos on each side, with lights placed on the ceiling every few feet. He thought he heard something so he held his breath. Somewhere above, he thought he heard screams and a commotion, but it was feint, muffled through the stacks of floors and insulation.

From the door leading to the stairwell, he heard a bang and a stampeding of feet. He poked his head in and looked up to see people hurrying down the stairs. They were scared shitless, flying down the stairs two or three at a time. Running for their lives. Whatever was behind them let out an inhuman bark and a man's voice yelled in terror. The yell ended abruptly and Walt saw something falling from above.

A human head landed in front of him with a thump, flecking the walls and stairs with blood. It was the head of a middle-aged guy wearing a toupee that was askew. His face was still twisted in terror, the eyes bulging out of their sockets. The stump ended in a nasty tear and Walt saw the white of bone in the gore.

Before he could get the door closed, three people jumped off the stairs onto the landing and headed for him. Walt moved aside as they ran in and slammed the door shut. The last guy, a burlier man, pressed his back against the door and sat on the ground, fear but determination on his face.

"Get out of the way!" one of the others said. He was a thin, nebbish man with glasses. "Let them in!"

The burly man shook his head. "It's too late. They're already dead."

"You asshole!" The nebbish man tried to shove the burly man out of the way. But the big guy, back pressed up against the door, put his hands around the thin guy's neck.

Walt was about to intervene but the door bucked up and a face pressed up against the little square window, fogging it up with panicked breath. It was a woman. Blonde curls a mess. Mascara streaking down her face. "Open the door!"

She banged on the door. Walt could see other people behind her. There was a blur and something landed on the group of people. The screams were jarring, making Walt flinch and back away.

The blonde woman glanced behind her and she started slamming the door with her shoulder in a panic. "Open the goddamn door!" she said. "Please!" Then her face disappeared as the window pane turned red with blood.

The burly man stopped choking the thinner guy, who had tears running down his face. He whimpered, looking at the blood-smeared window. "Rachel?"

There was silence from behind the door.

But the door bucked, shuddering. The burly man stretched out his arms, held onto the wall and dug his shoes into the tiled floor to brace himself. He yelled at Walt. "Find something! We need to barricade this door!"

Walt sensed movement behind him and Joy ran off down the hallway. He had the sense to get out of here. There was no time to establish a barricade. Walt’s odds pointed at leaving them and breaking into one of the condos for shelter.

That's when something smeared the blood away from the window. An inhuman, bestial face appeared in the window. It looked half-dog, half-lizard. Its eyes were red and two sharp canine fangs scraped the glass.

More text appeared in Walt's vision, catching his attention. There was a strange light effect on his interface as if there was something inside him scanning the creature's face in the window. Green light appeared around the creature’s outline as if in the flash of a scan.

A window opened, giving Walt information.

[Examine]

[Gnolux]

Gnolux. Minion. Set: Creature Lab Collection. Rarity: Common. Created in the Creature Labs by Doctor Naxx, the Gnolux are a race of monster minions that are perfect when you need to create some feral mayhem. A dangerous fusion of the wolfen and komodo-kens, Gnolux share the ferocity and agility of their parent trees.

They are scrappy minions with a claw and bite attack.

Health: 2

Bite Attack: 2 Attack, Cooldown: 5 seconds

Claw Attack: 1 Attack, Cooldown: 2 seconds

What the hell?

Walt mentally swiped the information away and would look at it again later, if there was a later. The gnolux rammed the door again from the other side, pushing the burly man forward. One of its brown-skinned claws managed to push through the crack. The nebbish guy rammed the door from his side and Walt heard bone crunch as the door closed on the hand. The gnolux shrieked and began attacking the door with a renewed fury.

Walt ran then, following in the footsteps of Joy, who had made it to the far end of the hallway. She was hitting the doorknob and lock with her hammer. He kept running and reached her just as she hit the doorknob off the door and smashed in the lock panel. She pushed the door open.

Walt glanced behind him and saw the stairwell door explode off its hinges, landing on top of the burly man. The gnolux landed on top of the door, crushing the man. It grabbed the thin guy and lifted him into the air, ripping one of his arms off.

"Jesus Christ," Walt said. He ran for the open door right as Joy closed it in his face.