Part 5

Two minutes. The group of six walked together. Emily and Courtney remained quiet. Listening to the others' silence as well. They walked in a pack...no real leader was determined by their footsteps. John hesitated, looked back at the group and let out a sigh.
“Court, mind coming ahead with me a bit? Let's make sure we aren't just walking into a trap or something...”
Courtney said nothing but slumped forward a little ways with John around the corner, headed past Greenquist on the outside route to Communication Arts. She turned towards John with a cold smile on her lips. He looked at her for the first time in the last few minutes...He saw blood on her thigh and rips in her jeans...
“What the-”
A scream pierced the air. John sprinted past Courtney only to see Sam and Emily feasted on the corpse of Alex. Ashley's figure could be seen racing away back towards the dorms in panic. John felt himself pulled to the ground from behind. His head slammed on the pavement and he blacked out.
*
They heard the locked click open. Only a human would bother with locks anymore. Garrett peered over the edge of the 4th floor landing where he, Karl and Ryan currently worked on a plan of action.
“Ashley, get the hell up here.” hissed Garrett.
Spotting Garrett's head over the landing, she sprinted up the stairs, met them and sat down, breathing heavy.
“Are you guys going or what?” Garrett persisted.
“Yeah, let's go Karl, scout mission.” Ryan added.
“Right.” And they started walking down the stairs. Garrett spotted them down the stairs and fell next to Ashley against the wall of the fourth floor landing. Fatigue gripped him at the edges. He glanced down the hall, let his eyes shut. Ashley looked at his head as it slid down the side of the wall.
*
His eyes opened. His throat was tight. His nostrils had plugged with coagulated blood and John Nelson peered at his outstretched hands. Dried blood coated them, he could not feel it...it puzzled him. He reached for his cell phone that had fallen from his pocket. His hand could not grip it...lack of feeling made picking up the smooth exterior impossible. Suddenly, almost without warning himself, he lurched to his feet with no ones help but his own. He glared at the flickering lights. He became aware of a soft moaning that he was making...he tried to stop, he could not, in fact, the desire to stop made him moan louder and more persistently. He had begun walking...again, remaining unaware that he was doing so.
He smelt blood in the air. He followed it's trace blindly. His arms grew light. Lighter than air...they began harder and harder to keep down the more he walked. He still argued this motion and it made him stumble forward. He noticed the sound of night owls diminishing, the footsteps grew louder, his mind focused on a nag in the back of his thoughts. Blood? He felt an intense lack of pain. He felt drugged. Then suddenly...he had no feeling at all. His mind went blank.
*
They were all dead. Blood covered his eyes, in between his teeth and in his nostrils. He could do nothing but become one with the serum of life that poured not only from him, but from everyone he had killed in the process. Quarantine. No one could be trusted to not get infected. No one. The length that he had went to determine his own safety...no one else mattered. Not really. He shot her, square in the face. He aimed his 9mm through the glass and fired twice, their turned backs went rigid as the rush of speeding death claimed them and they fell simultaneously.
He walked down the stairs, killed everyone, living, dead, undead. Nothing would stop him. Mike Benson ran toward him, obviously panicked and still breathing. Before he had a chance to say anything he was being propelled backwards with a sudden barrage of pump shotgun shells. Garrett rapid-fired into his chest, threw the shotgun to the ground and dove on top of him. He punched Mike's face, grabbed and snapped each of the flailing arms over his right knee and continued to bash the defenseless man's skull in. He felt his left hand break and started swinging with his right, breaking Mike's jaw snapped him to reality. He rose up, felt himself being shaken and looked around...his eyes snapped open.
“What the hell?! Wake up!” screamed Ashley.
Panting, he rose back to his feet, he put his hand on the rail and felt it slip off the edge, sweat. Chilled and shivering he looked at his mangled left hand and the blood prints on the wall.