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Best of luck guys, Ferrah silently wished the others as her eyes tracked their departure, hopefully we’ll see each other soon.
She took in their profiles, just in case. Ferrah closed her eyes, the image of their three selves branded in her mind, Denise, Tina and Rory. She exhaled, slowly steeling herself before turning to face Joseph.
“Ready?” Ferrah asked meeting his baby blues.
Joseph nodded, holding her gaze before turning to head out. They walked through dark corridors, the dim, flickering fluorescent light casting weak, yellow light. Their ears straining and constantly alert. Joseph led, creeping ahead of Ferrah and checking corners before continuing. Their feet made soft sounds, seeming to echo in the eerie silence of the dark. Pit pat pit pat. Bouncing off the enclosed walls, their feet seemed to be calling for trouble. Pit pat pit pat. Ferrah’s heart was beating furiously, it seemed to beat out of her chest, its boom boom felt too loud in the silence. Ferrah glanced over at Joseph, trying to see whether he could hear it too. His 6’2″ frame beside her was moving swiftly and noiselessly, his crown of blonde hair silently mimicking his head as he looked back and forth, silently swishing to and fro. Ferrah unconsciously moved closer to him and almost crashed into his back as he suddenly halted. She froze, praying that he hadn’t seen a pack of zombies heading towards them and steeled herself for the worst.
“Ferrah, look,” Joseph waved his hand, gesturing towards a sign that she hadn’t seen in the oily black of the corridor.
Ferrah breathed a sigh of relief, releasing the air she had unknowingly held in her spooked body. Keep breathing Ferrah, she told herself, the zombies haven’t found you… at least, not yet. Trying to compose her furiously beating heart she slowly breathed in and out. Come on Ferrah don’t let your fear control you, she reprimanded herself, walking forward slowly to peer at the sign closely. It spelled the word hangar accompanied with an arrow pointing to their left.
“Do you think that’s where we can find fuel?” Ferrah whispered, hope quickly replacing the fear in her body.
“’Yeah, that’s where they house aircraft, and I’m assuming that’s where they keep fuel to fill up the tanks when they’ve landed,” answered Joseph quietly, his voice echoing eerily soft, “It’s probably our best shot.”
Ferrah looked back at the sign and then back at Joseph. He reached out and lightly touched her shoulder with a reassuring hand. Their eyes met and Joseph held her gaze.
“We’ll get through this, it’s going to be okay,” His voice was soothing and his hand felt warm on her shoulder.
Ferrah thought that this felt so alien, this warmth permeated by the cold and terror the darkness seemed to ooze. She nodded back at him, their eyes locked for a moment before Joseph turned away. She felt the warmth of his hand leave her shoulder, the cold immediately settling where his hand was. Ferrah shivered and followed Joseph. They clung to the walls as they crept along, pushing through the deadly silence, the walls emanated a chill that seemed to sink deep into Ferrah’s bones. She wondered how the others were, did they manage to find the armory? Were they being run down by a pack of zombies? Were they still alive? Ferrah thought she could see the three of them, being chased by zombies and being bitten, their bodies being taken by the virus, their sickly skin, their infected bodies slowly morphing into rotting flesh…
Ferrah shook her head, quickly dispelling her thoughts. She shouldn’t be thinking this, especially now. Oh god, Rory, Denise and Tina, she couldn’t stand to see any one of them desperately running away from their outstretched, grasping hands, their gaping mouths… She shook her head again, this time more forcefully, her red hair settling on her shoulders. She needed to concentrate, and she needed to find fuel so they could get the hell out of here safely. Now was definitely not the time, the thick darkness around her and the ever present threat of zombies was a testimony to that. She couldn’t afford to lose her head over this.
Ferrah’s head snapped up the same Joseph’s did. The stench wafted around the corner they had just passed and reached their noses. A warning. They both recognized that god awful scent and knew what it signified. Zombies. Ferrah met Joseph eyes and together they sped up, running as quickly as they could, following the signs that pointed them to the hangar. Their feet carried them further away, but Ferrah could still smell it. No matter how far they seemed to go the traces of a zombie followed them. The putrid stench of death, rotting flesh and evil intent, their stalker in this ungodly hell. She could hear their soft, insistent footsteps following them, the darkness carrying the echo of their quiet moans to their ears. Ferrah sped up, fear pushing her next to Joseph until they were running side by side. Her blood was throbbing in her ears, the terror making it easily to envision their slow, yet relentless movement towards them. It was a picture that was firmly stuck behind her eyelids, her every blink sending a new wave of consuming fear through her body as she ran.
“Here!” Joseph panted, his hand reaching out to push open the hangar door and shut it behind them.
Ferrah leaned against the heavy door, the side of her body touching Joseph’s as they panted, their breaths labored.
“Shit, we need to barricade the door,” Joseph responded, exhaling his words with his panting breaths.
Ferrah shuts her eyes and counted to ten to slow her pounding heart before pushing off and finding something to bar the door with. Together they shoved heavy crates in front of the door, desperately trying to barricade the sounds of the echoing moans. After they pushed one last crate to block the door Ferrah slumped to the ground, physically drained.
“I’m going to go find fuel,” Ferrah nodded in response to Joseph’s voice, staying where she was, trying to regain her breath.
Breathe Ferrah, breathe, in out, in out, she repeated it to herself like a mantra. Getting up, she moved to where Joseph was. He was crouching before some overturned crates, pushing them around and rooting behind it to reach the huge fuel tank behind.
“Any luck?” asked Ferrah as she leans down next to him, bracing her hands against her thighs, her hair swinging forward.
Her eyes look and try to see what he was trying to find, she mentally thanked whoever decided to build this hangar with skylights. With some light shining down Ferrah thought she could see what Joseph was trying to grab.
“I think I found it, just give me a sec,” came Joseph’s muffled voice, his head and body straining forward to reach it.
Within moments his hands grasped a pump attached to a hose. His deft hands pulled it out triumphantly and he turned around to face Ferrah, a smile lighting his face. Ferrah smiled back, victory blazing through her like a pleasant heat. Finally, something is going right, she thought. Her smile waned slowly as she realized that Joseph’s eyes weren’t focused on her face anymore, rather something south of it. His baby blue eyes were fixated on her breasts which Ferrah belatedly realized were too close to his face. She quickly straightened up, her eyes noting that his gaze followed her breasts as they ascended. Her face flushed, pink staining her cheeks as she watched Joseph eventually raised his gaze to her face.
“I’m going to go find a something that we can carry the fuel in,” Ferrah said uncomfortably in the charged silence, quickly turning around and heading off, aware that Joseph’s gaze followed her.
Ferrah scoured the hangar, searching for a portable something to store the discovered fuel. She eventually found what was like a larger version of a watering can. It was made out of plastic, a handle and a hole with a cap on at the top and a short nozzle at one end. Perfect, Ferrah thought as she brought it back to Joseph.
“This will definitely do the trick,” said Joseph, avoiding eye contact with Ferrah as he began to pump fuel into the watering can.
“We just need to wait for the others, hopefully they’ve found the armory by now and are going to start the distraction soon so we can get out of here,” started Ferrah, trying to fill the unnerving quiet, “I wonder if everything is going okay for them.”
Ferrah paused for a moment, watching Joseph finish pumping the fuel into the hole and screwing the cap back on. She let out a breath she had unconsciously been holding, a small smile lighting her face. This is it, we are really getting out of here, Ferrah smiles at Joseph as he turns around.
One second she was smiling at him, and the next his mouth was on top of hers. Shocked, Ferrah just stood there, taking in the feeling of his mouth moving against hers, his hands wrapped around her waist. His soft lips were insistent but gentle against hers and soon she found herself responding to him. What about Rory? The thought popped into her mind but she pushed it aside, her hands twining in Joseph’s hair. It felt too good, reassuring almost, that there was a human being here right now with her. The warmth from another human being, blocking out the cold, and the reminiscent feeling of normalcy. It was normal to do this, it wasn’t normal to have a zombie apocalypse happen, and it made her feel safe.
Ferrah was vaguely aware of Joseph lifting her onto a crate and her legs wrapping around his waist. His hands were warm, deliciously so, slipping underneath the back of her shirt and caressing her back softly. She half heard herself moaning into his mouth softly, pulling him closer. Placing her hands on his chest she started to trace the contours of his body, eliciting groans from Joseph.
Kissing Joseph she felt him still and then emit a cry of pain, wrenching his mouth from hers. Ferrah stared at him wondering what had happened, it was then she heard it. Those deadly, low, guttural moans. Looking down she saw a grisly, rotting face attached to Joseph’s leg. For a moment it all Ferrah could do was just stare in detached shock, slowly processing the image of its body lacking legs and anything from the waist down. Its decomposing flesh peeling off and it’s stench wafting up to meet their noses. Distantly she realized that it must have been one of the air force base crew, and when zombies had overrun this place this guy had been bitten, and half eaten, before turning. Ferrah came out of her unresponsive state when she saw the zombies mouth start to move, start to chew. Joseph cried out, desperately trying to shake off the leeching zombie. Screaming, Ferrah jumped down next to it and frantically tried to detach it from Joseph.
It was as if the sight of someone she knew being attacked by a zombie created this blazing fire of anger deep within her, she violently smashed in the zombie’s head by slamming down her booted foot down repeatedly. Again and again her foot struck down, exposing sickly yellow brain, it’s head spurting small showers of brown blood, until it stopped moving. When it was over Ferrah came back to herself, the terror that there were other zombies in this hangar, ones that they missed, that might be out there, replaced her boiling anger.
“Joseph! Shit, my God, Joseph!” Taking in the bleeding wound she gently supported his body, trying to take some weight off his injured leg.
“Are you okay?” Ferrah asked, thinking it was the stupidest question she could have asked right now as Joseph, within twenty eight days, would be one of them.
“It’s okay Ferrah, it’s only a flesh wound, I’ll be okay to walk, we still need to get the fuel to the helicopter,” replied Joseph, determination lighting his features.
Oh my God, Ferrah realized, we still need to get the fuel to the others. What were they going to do? Calm down Ferrah, you’re not the one with a bite, you’re the one who’s going to get us out of here and to the others.
“Ready to get out of here?” asked Ferrah, trying to smile at him reassuringly.
“Yeah, I just want to know how that zombie got in here,” replied Joseph easily straightening up to his full height, but Ferrah didn’t miss the pain which briefly clouded his eyes.
A sudden noise caught their attention and they turned to the back of the building. Zombies were pushing through a hole in the side of the building, which had been hidden by a set of racks they had just pushed over.
“We need to go now,” Joseph cried as he picked up the can of fuel and turned to her.
Ferrah nodded and they ran out the front door, shoving several surprised zombies aside as they bolted.
“Oh crap, the gas!” Ferrah shouted as they ran.
“No time,” Joseph replied as he quickly limped on.
They turned a corner, only to meet the silhouettes of zombies illuminated by the flickering fluorescent light. Their moans followed them, closer and closer, as they turned down another corridor, bursting out onto the runway. Panting, Ferrah looked back and saw zombie after zombie pour out onto the runway, their footsteps and guttural sounds an orchestra evoking terror that took root in her fatigued body.
Joseph was slowing down, his breaths coming fast and labored, Ferrah didn’t know what to do other than to give Joseph a supportive arm. They needed to keep moving. She knew they couldn’t outrun the zombies for long and prayed with all her waning strength that the others were coming. Ferrah looked at Joseph’s face, stained with sweat and twisted with pain, his injured leg hobbling along trying to match pace with his other leg. Her arm was already feeling the strain of extra weight; she could feel her whole self drooping.
Come on guys, where are you?