"Don't move."
I stopped dead in my tracks, how had I not seen or even heard her?
The girl kept aiming her shotgun at me without flinching.
I nervously gulped and said "I- I didn't know someone was here."
"Is that so?" the woman answered calmy, never relaxing even once, keeping aim on me. "What are you doing here? Or better question, have you been bitten?"
"N- no, they haven't bitten me. I came here in hopes to find a safe place to make as a base."
"Then why is your arm bandaged?" her eyes slightly shifted to where the bandages on my left arm were... was she going to believe my story?
"This is from one of my first encounters with the zombies a few days ago, I cut my arm to make a room I was hiding in seem already scavenged, so they would ignore it."
"Did it work?"
"Not really, although it did draw their attention quite well, though there is still a scar."
The woman shifted her sight away from me for a few moments, it seemed she was wondering if I was worth trusting.
"You should know this building is already falling apart. I've been hiding here for the past few days, and one strange zombie in particular seems to keep coming back," the woman told me, finally putting away her gun.
"I- is that so?" I asked her, nervously sighing in relief, with her seemingly decided I was trustworthy.
"Yeah, there are surprisingly very few zombies that come here, but that one keeps coming back, night after night and leaving just as dawn comes. Yesterday he nearly broke through, but thankfully the sun came up and he left. Now that I say it out loud, it really is strange."
I thought for a moment before responding "Yeah! I've had zombies that would keep trying to barge in day in and out, but they would stay and keep trying to break in, not leaving and coming back, almost like on a schedule."
"Exactly! Every night I can't even sleep from the sounds of him trying to break in, to the point that I have to stay up all night and guard the entrance in case he ever got it, honestly, tonight might be the night he finally breaks in. Yesterday the barriers were essentially holding with hopes and prayers... could you help me?"
I paused for a moment, but with largely no other option, I agreed.
"Oh, by the way, I'm Mandy, what about you?"
"I'm Adam, nice to meet you."
"Next time I promise not to point a gun at you immediately, Adam."
We both laughed for a short time, before I went to look at the current barriers against our opponent.
I asked Mandy where the zombie tried to break in, and she pointed me to the front entrance. As I approached closer, I saw the many remains of wood and other things that had been used as a barrier, only to see the current barrier was almost pathetic.
"I know it's not great, but I don't think there's much left to use for a barrier," the woman who had followed me to the entrance told me.
"Yeah, I can see what you meant by it held by hopes and prayers, there's no chance this holds the entire night."
"Well, it's almost time for him to come, either we try to strengthen the barrier right now, or we brace for the worst tonight."
The answer was obvious, but as I looked around, I saw she really had used nearly everything available to barricade the entrance.
"Have you gotten into that locked room?" I asked her, pointing to the seemingly locked metal door, which seemed to lead into a room which took up about a fourth of the entire small building.
"No... I couldn't find the key and I don't have enough bullets to shoot the keyhole like they do in the movies, not to mention I don't even know where to shoot."
"It seems to be a storage room, it might be worth using a few of the remaining bullets you have on trying to open it, how many do you have left anyways?"
"There's 6 in the gun right now and I have 12 spare in an ammunition box."
I immediately told her "We have to do this now, if you don't want to give me the gun, shoot a bit to the right of the keyhole, that's the best chance we have of opening the door."
Mandy nodded and quickly took aim, knowing the zombie could be breaking down the barriers any minute now.
Bang
One shot fired, I took my hands off my ears and signalled for her to not shoot and went to check if it could be opened. Turning the handle, it quickly stopped... it hadn't worked yet.
"Do it again!"
She nodded, and after waiting for me to take cover, shot two more times.
I went to turn it, only for the door to creek open itself.
Smiling, I hive-fived Mandy in joy and opened the door to see what was inside.
The moment I went inside, I saw countless fliers on many rows of metal shelves, advertising people to come and see this tourism centre for themselves, along with a printer that seemed to be turned on, but it had clearly not been used for days.
Mandy sighed and plopped on the ground, seemingly haven given up.
I quickly encouraged Mandy "Why are you so down? If we take apart at least some of these shelves before it arrives, then our chance of survival will be drastically higher!"
It took Mandy a few moments to understand what I was saying, before her face lit up and she quickly stood up "Yeah! You're right! Let's do this!!"
I chuckled a little to myself, seeing how quickly her mood had changed, before getting back to the task at hand.
We approached the first of many shelves and quickly lifted it in the air, shaking off every flier that had been sitting on it.
For a moment we stood there, unsure how to break it. "So... how do we break it? I know it looks pretty frail, but it IS still bolted together with screws," Mandy asked me while looking into my eyes.
I thought for a moment and told Mandy that we most likely had to either drop it with a lot of force, jump on its connection points while it was on the ground or hit it against a wall or ground.
At first, we decided to drop it with as much force as we could muster up together. A lot of cracking noise could be heard at the moment of impact, but it didn't break. Quickly, I decided to jump on the connection points, and that finally broke one part of the shelve.
I looked at Mandy and told her to help me and jump on every connection point. Just a moment later, the entire shelve had been split into about 8 parts.
I picked up each of the parts and went to the front barrier and placed them at spots I thought would be likely to break first.
Glancing at Mandy, I told her "Let's break as many shelves as we can, before it arrives here."
Mandy agreed and we quickly moved onto the next shelf, now knowing how to break it, the process became many times faster.
Soon after we broke our 6th shelf, faint footsteps could be heard approaching... it was here.
"Go into position! I'll secure these last few parts in the barrier!"
"Okay!" Mandy quickly told me before running behind a desk across the corner.
As she ran, I finished picking up all of the parts. Immediately as I approached the barrier to finish reinforcing it, the zombie'' footsteps stopped before a loud thudding sound could be heard reverberating throughout the entire building, this was just the first of many attacks on the barrier that would happen as the night went on.
Finally, having reinforced the barrier with the last of the parts, I ran over to where Mandy was and stood watch.
The night seemed to drag on and on, each cracking sound sending shivers down my spine, with each kick, it could be seen how the door was giving more into the assaults, surely soon it would be over.
Eventually, after nearly all of the old barrier and some of the new reinforcements had already been destroyed, the attacks seemed to abruptly come to an end. Assuming it was dawn, I glanced through the window from which I had come through, and there it was.
The zombie was walking away, though it looked completely different than any of the other zombies I had ever encountered. Its head was shaped very oddly, along with its legs being almost... bulging with veins.
Before I knew it, Mandy was hugging me in celebration of our survival.
"We did it! Thank God we survived!"
Mandy was in pure joy, when was the last time I had seen someone so happy?
"Yeah! We did it!" I high-fived her, though the image of that zombie leaving lingered in my mind.
"Say, have you ever seen it? That zombie I mean."
"Oh? Now that you mention it, no! I haven't actually seen it, but hearing it was more than enough for me!" she chuckled a bit after she said that.
"Hey, I don't think we should stay here another night." I told Mandy with a straight face.