Breath

Chapter 12

The window in the hallway opened. A figure climbed inside. The figure sneaked down the hall and towards Joseph's room. The figure stopped in front of the door. Suddenly, there was a small thud coming from another room down the hall.The figure sneaked towards the door of the room. The figure pushed open the door. Stan was lying in bed asleep, the thud had been made by a bottle of water which seemed to have fallen off his bed. The figure sneaked towards Stan but tripped over the rug. The noise woke Stan up. Stan turned on his light, the figure jumped at him. Stan attempted to scream but the figure covered his mouth. The figure took off their mask. It was a man with a large scar down one side of his face. Stan's eyes widened in fear. The man took a knife from his jacket. He twiddled the knife around in his hand. Stan then sprung into action. He grabbed the lamp on his bedside table and smashed it into the man's head. The man let go of him. Stan screamed for help. Stan bolted for the door but the man grabbed his leg. Stan hit his head off the side off the doorframe. The man pulled him back towards the window. He lifted him up and stabbed him in the stomach. Stan gasped. The man repeatedly stabbed him in the chest. Stan gargled blood as the life left his eyes. He reached out to the man trying to grab him but he was too weak. The man dropped Stan and ran out of the room. He opened the window and climbed out just as multiple doors in the hallway opened. Joseph ran to Stan's open door. He gasped. Everyone looked in. Stan's body was lying on the ground next to his bed covered in blood.

"Who the fuck was shouting?!" Samuel asked running into the room looking angry. He then stopped. Everyone was too shocked to say anything. Lisa looked away, tears in her eyes.

"Who did this?!" Samuel shouted. No one answered. Joseph couldn't believe what he was seeing. Then Cathy spoke. "Why is the window open?" Everyone looked over at the open window. No one knew what to say.

Everyone stood in silence. No one knew what to do or say.

"We have to bury him, now." Jay said, there was tears in his eyes too.

"No, we'll do it tomorrow, there's no point doing it now. It's dark, we need to get some rest. I'll move the body outside next to the barricade." Joseph was trying to not think of what happened to Stan. He couldn't see any way he could've died.

"He was murdered." Alan said. "Those are knife wounds, he couldn't have done some of those himself, and even if he did, where's the knife?"

"A psycho couldn't have climbed in, could it?" Kai asked.

"No, psychos can't climb." Cathy replied.

"What if it was a person?" Samuel asked.

Everyone was silent again.

"Come on, we should get some rest." Joseph said trying not to look at Stan. The others seemed to agree.

"I'll ... I'll clean up." Lisa said.

______________________________________________________

The next few days were quiet. No one really wanted to talk about what had happened. It was a big shock.
  The weather was bad. Rain and hail. Joseph walked out to Stan's grave.
"Hey, Stan." He said sitting down.
"We all really miss you, but you're in a better place now."
"Actually.......you're not. Heaven doesn't exist. Neither does God. Why would he put us in this fucking mess?"
Joseph realised what he was doing.
"I have to go Stan. Bye." He got up quickly and left, he wasn't going to sit around talking to someone who couldn't hear him. Joseph opened the door of the base and entered. Jay was talking to Cathy at the stairs.
"Hey, Joseph." Cathy said smiling weakly. She looked very tired. We were just discussing. The bad weather is starting to affect our barricade. The wooden parts are getting soggy, they'll break easily."
"Shit, do we not have any bricks left?" Joseph asked.
"No, otherwise we'd have put them up. We need to go out scavenging again. There's a building site past the shopping centre, near the edge of the city." Jay replied.
"I'm going today then." Joseph said straight away.
"What, today?"
"Yeah, but don't tell Samuel, I need to take some others with me. So are you two up for it?"
"Sorry, I can't. I sprained my ankle yesterday. I can't run."
"Fuck, what about you Cathy?"  Joseph asked.
"Yeah, I'll go."
"We'll be climbing things, so do either of you have some gloves? The rain isn't making climbing any easier." Joseph enquired.
"I have a pair, Joey should have some more." Jay replied. "I'll get them for you."
"Thanks, I'll probably ask Joey to come with us." Joseph followed Jay up the stairs. Cathy then followed.
    A few minutes later, Joseph, Cathy, Joey, Alan and three guys Joseph didn't recognise met at the front door of the base.
"Greg, Steve and Roger are coming too," Alan said nodding at the guys Joseph didn't know. Greg smiled, he was bald and slightly taller than Joseph. The other two looked liked twins.
They were all wearing gloves, each of them had a machete and a bag. The bag contained one bottle of water. The group walked out the front door and climbed over the barricade. There was no psychos around. Joseph ran to the truck they had parked in front of  the barricade. The truck didn't really stand in the psychos way as they could easily climb under it. The truck was there for scavenging missions or quick escapes. Alan hopped into the drivers seat. Joseph sat next to him. The truck took a few seconds to start. Alan drove down the road. Rain was pouring down. Joseph looked as they passed the office building where they had managed to trap a ton of psychos after their last scavenging mission. The door was still standing and the burnt car in front of the door seemed untouched. Joseph felt a sense of relief. Alan drove on. As they drew closer to the shopping centre, there seemed to be more psychos out on the road. Alan just drove over them.
"Fucking hell," Alan gasped as they approached the shopping centre. More psychos seemed to have gathered around the shopping centre along with the ones that had broken in. Alan sped up. They couldn't go around them. The truck crushed several of them. The truck moved on. The psychos began scratching at the side of the truck.
"Shit, shit, shit." Alan muttered as he tried to drive through. Suddenly there was a crash. The window next to Joseph had smashed. There stood a psycho equipped with a hammer. It had raised its arm to swing again but Joseph reacted just in time. He stuck the machete into its face and grabbed the hammer. Now the window was broken, psychos could reach in.
"Fuck, fuck!" Joseph shouted as a psycho stuck its hand in the window and looked like it was trying to pull up the lock that kept the door shut. Joseph smashed the hammer onto the psychos hand. There was a crack. The psycho put its other hand in. Joseph hit it with his machete. The hand fell on to the seat. The psycho was still alive. Joseph stabbed it.
More psychos were beginning to build up at Joseph's window. Joseph began slashing at them. He grabbed the ones he killed and pushed them in such a way that they acted as a barricade for the window. More and more psychos came until the truck stood still even though Alan's foot had pushed the accelerator all the way down.
"We need to get on the roof." Joseph shouted. "We have to climb out the window!"
He smashed the front window with his hammer. "Come on!" Joseph climbed out the front window. The psychos couldn't climb onto the front of the truck. The rain made the front slippy. The others climbed out onto the front. The psychos tried to grab their legs. Joseph scrambled up onto the top of the truck. He helped pull Cathy up. The group stood there. The psychos reached up at them.
"What the fuck are we going to do!?" Joey shouted. Greg looked around and shouted. "Guys, we can jump across to that sign!" He pointed at a huge sign that showed directions to a gardening centre. Part of the sign was missing. There was a piece that was bent towards the truck.
"We can jump and grab that there!" Joseph shouted pointing at the bent piece. He decided to just go for it. He didn't want to waste time. Joseph ran and jumped, things seemed to go in slow motion, he didn't know if he was going to make it or not. Then he grabbed it. He felt a sense of relief. He pulled himself up and climbed on top of the sign, there was a ladder and a small walkway that must have been used to reach the signs that needed electricity. The others followed. Cathy, Alan, Joey and the three others all made it across. The psychos below followed them from the ground.
"What now?" Cathy shouted. Joseph had no idea. The rain and wind made the situation much worse. Alan looked worried. "Guys we're stuck up here, we're fucking stuck."
"We were stuck down there too." Joey said pointing at the truck. Joseph took a sip from his water bottle, then he saw something. A huge psycho was walking towards the poles holding up the sign. The psycho had a sledgehammer.
"Guys, kill that one, quick!" Joseph shouted pointing at the huge psycho. The others gasped. Steve chucked his machete at the psycho. The machete skimmed its arm.
"Shit." Steve muttered. "Guys, I need a new weapon." Joseph handed him his machete as he still had the hammer.
Then there was a bang. The sign jolted. Joseph noticed another huge psycho with a metal pole. The two huge psychos began hitting the poles holding up the sign which was about 13 feet above the road. The other psychos began hitting the poles with their fists, rocks and various weapons. The sign swayed.
"We're dead, we're fucking dead!" Alan shouted. Joseph didn't know what to do, they couldn't jump back to the truck, the huge psychos would easily break part of the truck. Joseph had no idea. This was his fault, his friends were going to die because of him. Then there was a creaking noise. The sign began to lean over. Then there was a snap and the sign fell. Joseph hit the ground. Psychos surrounded him. Cathy landed on top of the truck. Alan, Joey and the three other guys landed in different places near Joseph. The psychos began to close in on Joseph. He hit them with his hammer. He didn't know how to escape. He looked across from him. Greg was struggling on the ground. One of the huge psychos walked up to him. Joseph killed another psycho. There was a crash. Joseph looked back at Greg. The huge psychos sledgehammer was embedded in Greg's head, blood was everywhere. Joseph was on his back on the ground, somehow he was still alive, but Alan was up fighting. Slashing as many psychos as he could. The other huge psycho walked towards him. Alan took a huge swing and chopped the huge psychos head off. He then jumped on the psychos body and jumped onto the truck where Cathy was. Steve and Roger were still fighting. The twins seemed to be experienced with fighting. They eventually climbed onto the hood of the truck and climbed in through the smashed window into the front of the truck. Joseph noticed there was only a few psychos in front of the truck left. When the group had jumped onto the sign, they had dragged a lot of the psychos away from the truck and the sign fell and killed a ton of them. Then he heard the truck engine turn on. The twins were driving it away. Alan and Cathy were on the top alive and safe. Joseph would have been happy to have died there and then. But then he realised, they needed him. He didn't know how he wasn't dead or how he hadn't been bitten yet. He jumped up. The huge psycho that had killed Greg noticed him. Joseph kicked aside other psychos around him and wriggled his way out of the group which had surrounded him. He sprinted towards the truck as it drove away. The huge psycho sprinted after him followed by all the other psychos.
"Cathy, are you okay?" Alan asked looking over at her.
"I'm okay, but I saw Joseph on the ground surrounded... I don't know where Greg went."
Alan gasped. "Holy shit." He said. "Joseph's alive!"
Cathy looked back to see Joseph sprinting towards the truck.
"Guys, I'm alive!" Joseph shouted as he waved his arms at them. "Slow down!"
Cathy crawled along the top of the truck and knocked on the window next to the drivers seat.
Roger jumped. "You're alive!?" He gasped. "We thought you were dead."
"Joseph's alive, you have to slow down!"
"What, Joseph's alive?! Where's Greg?" Steve asked.
"I don't know what happened to Greg but you have to slow down for Joseph!"
"Okay, okay I'm slowing down."
Joseph saw the truck slow down. He smiled. The huge psycho was still on his tail followed by a mob of other psychos.
He was getting closer. The adrenaline was keeping him going. He then reached the truck and jumped up and grabbed the top of the truck. The psychos were dangerously close.
"He's here, go!" Cathy shouted to Roger. Alan helped Joseph up. The psychos reached the truck just as Roger drove off again. The huge psycho threw its sledgehammer at the truck, it merely hit the door at the back.
Joseph, Alan and Cathy climbed into the truck through the front window.
"I can't believe you're alive." Alan said.
"Neither can I." Joseph said smiling slightly.
"What happened to Greg, did you see him?"
"Yeah, he got his head smashed in by that huge psycho with the sledgehammer." Joseph replied. "Poor guy."
The group drove on for a few more minutes in silence. The silence was broken when Steve said.
"We're here." They had arrived at the building site. The rain had turned to a drizzle. There wasn't much psychos at the building site. There was a metal fence around the perimeter of the site. Roger parked the truck next to the entrance.
Joseph turned to the others at the front gates.
"Alright, let's just get what we came for and leave."