Infected Parkside Part 1

Ghastly. Lights flashed once and vanished, a moment later the back-up generator kicked on the scarce illumination. Darkness gripped the corners and held fast in every bedroom, where the Parkside students whispered in the silence normally broken by electronics. Power failure. A faint hiss was heard just beyond Garrett's door. Room 440. Instinctively, Garrett awoke his roommate and ran to look through the eye piece. Blackness. A flicker of generator powered lighting. Gone. Whispers. A soft scraping on his door forced him to back away from it in a wave of panic. Mustering up courage, he glanced again through the eye piece, nothing. And yet...he felt watched. Staring intently at the door of room 441 he noticed dime-sized hole in the door, scanning what he could, he saw the cylindrical scope of room 441 lying on the floor and he dared to return his eyes to the opposite door. Crimson oozed down the door in front of him. A muffled scream from the fifth floor, glancing back a humanoid figure fell past the window. Silence ensued shortly after the soft thud. Hurried footsteps.
“Kyle, we have to get the hell out of here. Grab your keys.” He said shortly after briefing him on what he just saw. A nightmare came true in Kyles eyes.
Groggy with fear, Kyle grabbed his keys and bent down into the closet. Shuffling around he came up with several Cut Co. knives that he had sold the previous summer.
“Steak or Chicken?” he muttered.
“Chicken.” Garrett spoke before grabbing the carving knife while Kyle kept the butcher for himself.
Walking over to the towel racks, Garrett hit the bars lose with the palm of his hand tossed one to Kyle and put the other into his left hand. Unlocking the door, he looked back at Kyle, nodded and kicked it open. The generator failed. Pitch black.
“C'mon” Garrett whispered to Kyle. The door across the hall creaked open, Avery glared at us both in the faint glow coming from his cell phone.
“What the hell?” he called out as Kyle hugged him out of fear.
Stepping away from Avery, Kyle muttered,”Dude...you bleedin'?”
Garrett immediately swung the towel bar across his body and connected solidly with Avery's face and ran, pulling Kyle along with him. They heard another thud and Garrett knew that Avery had fallen. The lights clicked on. But all was quiet.
“Man...let's take the elevator.” Garrett said and Kyle agreed also out of breath and high on adrenaline.
The elevator was small and seemed so cramped even though they had ridden in hundreds of times before. Jerking to a stop the lights flashed out with a dramatic powering down sound. The shut-down elevator felt like a tomb.
“We should be right at the 2nd floor landing” Garrett stated blankly.
“Knives?” Garrett handed Kyle his weapons and he began to pry the doors open...Kyle stood ready both arms cocked back with blades ready to take flight.
More hurried footsteps just outside the door. A ear-splitting female scream.
The door was half open, it was enough to squeeze through. Kyle hand him his bars and the lights shot on. The elevator closed and raced to the basement with Kyle still inside. Alone. Breathing heavy, he said a prayer and hissed,”Fuckin' zombies.”
Racing to the stairs without a backward glance, Garrett became aware of a murmuring that seemed to come from the walls themselves. On the first floor landing he heard glass shattering below him...Kyle was stuck in that, if not already dead. As an after thought he turned, went outside and slid over the balcony that overlooked the Ranger Hall parking lot.
*
Kyle was cornered in the elevator, three zombies were pressing in on him. Tactfully he slit one monsters throat, it fell simultaneously with another that he bashed in the face with the towel rack. Kneeing another one and throwing it into the back of the elevator, he was left weaponless.
Sprinting from the elevator, he was clotheslined by a fourth and final zombie. It pinned him to the wall, tore open his chest with it's teeth and dropped him to the ground. Kyle was infected. Bleeding from the chest, he passed out for a brief moment, slipping on the wet floor, he crawled to the knife that he had previously used. He grabbed the blade and without another thought pierced his heart just as he started to choke on his own blood and minutes before he would begin to crave for others.
*
Garrett had arrived at Kyle's Buick. No Kyle. Hustling the the hood of the car, he dropped to his stomach, grabbed the spare key, got up and started the car.
He screeched the tires as he hopped over a curb.
He sped through stop signs and pulled in front of “Guns 'n Gadgets”. Throwing his towel rack at the window cam without hesitation and he walked through the shattered mess without a second thought. Hopping over the counter he grabbed a pump-action shotgun, shells and a 9mm pistol with sufficient ammunition....

To be continued...