Nightmare Apocalypse

Enemy In The Shadows

Rawr

A lone zombie staggered through an empty hallway aimlessly, one arm was missing and it's legs had chunks missing, as it was walking, it suddenly heard a noise behind it so it turned around in agitation and roared, but nothing was in sight, it stared around for some time then turned around and left, after some time when the zombie was out of sight, a vent in the wall suddenly opened as a figure dropped down then helped two other figures down before the last figure got down himself.

"You almost got us into trouble again" I scolded Rash who glared at me.

"Hey it was a mistake okay, keep your voice down" Rash said as we sneaked through the hallway.

"In here" I whispered as I opened up a door that read storage, I got in first before scouting the interior for any enemy, the room was fairly large and it had several boxes containing medications and other items.

"Help me move this" I said to Rash as we carried a shelf to block off the door.

"Damn my arm" Rash said with fatigue as he dropped onto the ground.

"Whew at least we're safe now" I said with a sigh of relief, immediately I sat down, I was overwhelmed by tiredness, my whole body grew weak as the effects of overstraining my body appeared.

"Since it's night, we should get some rest, we'll familiarize ourselves with each other, to avoid any incidents, we'll form two shifts, I'll take first shift, Rash will take the second shift" I said with a yawn.

"Naa we can't leave all the work to you, you take the first shift with Christina and I'll take the second shift with Rash" Tasha said with a grin as she winked at Christina who blushed.

"Okay that's fine with me, I'mma go find some painkillers, my whole body feels like I just carried a house" I groaned in pain as I stood up and walked towards the shelf.

"Oh hey wanna come with me?" I asked as I paused next to Christina.

"Sure" Christina answered with a smile as she got up and followed me.

"Okay now that we're alone" Rash said with a smile as he sat up and glanced at Tasha.

"Goodnight Rash" Tasha said with smile as she lay on the ground to sleep.

"So what's your story, what were you doing in the hospital when it happened?" Christina asked as we looked through some of the boxes for some useful medications.

"Me?, um I was actually visiting my brother, he's was in a coma for 8 years, doctors said it's a unique case, they hadn't seen anything like it before, his brainwaves showed that he was alive and active, his body didn't change one bit, his appearance remained the same, but he didn't show any movement…, I was with him when it happened..." I recounted as I paused in my movement.

"I'm sorry if I made you remember those sad memories, I'm sorry about your brother too" Christina said with sympathy.

"It's okay, enough talking about me, what about you, what's your story?" I asked trying to ease the tension.

"We came here to visit one of our friends, at first we were 5 but when everything happened, I got separated from my brother and our friends, I and Tasha hid in that room until we heard you guys outside" Christina said sadly.

"I'm sorry about your brother, I guess we're the same then" I said to cheer her up.

"Yeah I guess we are" Christina smiled as she glanced at me.

"Oh I found the painkillers and some other drugs, we can leave now, why you go to bed, you seem tired and tomorrow might be hectic, so go on, I'll be okay" I said to Christina who seemed unwillingly at first but after my constant requests, she finally agreed and left.

After she left I was finally given some alone time as I thought of today's occurances, I analyzed some mistakes I made in my fight and corrected them like my fight against the zombies, I used too much energy when swinging the axe and even though I was proud of my stamina, my overuse of energy made it useless so I replayed several simulations in my mind until I got the best and efficient way to conserve my energy.

Upon completing that hurdle I was faced with another, which was that of food and water, with all the energy that I consumed today, hunger was also weighing on me but because of the constant fighting for my life, I wasn't aware until now that I finally got my rest.

I suddenly remembered the vending machine that I saw out in the hallway, we could take care of the food problem with that and now the last thing that weighed on my mind was our next moves, we couldn't stay cooped here forever so we had to at least leave but where to go, if we could get to the control room then we could maybe see the places that were maybe safe through the cameras.

"The cameras…" I suddenly remembered something as I looked around and true to it, I could see a camera just above me, I stood up to observe it and saw a red light beep on it which showed that I was active.

"That time in the vent…." I was saying to myself as I suddenly paused.

"It's probably nothing" I said as I stood up and picked up the box and went over to where the others were.

The next morning, I opened my eyes as I watched the sunlight land on my eyes, I quickly closed them and looked away to let my eyes adjust, I looked around and saw Rash walking over.

"You're finally up sleepy head, look what I found" Rash said with a grin as he unrolled a paper he was holding which I discovered was a map.

"And it's the current one, it also contains the route of the vents and the structural plan of the building, there was like a whole box of them lying around" Rash said with a grin as I looked it over, it seemed to be genuine.

"That's great, at least we won't be stranded again" I replied as I watched the girls wake up.

"You guys are up, I hope you had a great night" I said with a smile as they both nodded.

"I have something to tell everyone but first" I said with a serious expression as I picked up the axe and walked over to the camera and smashed the axe into it which destroyed it.

"Woah dude what was that" Rash said with shock at my bizzare actions.

"I had to do that, first off I want you guys to take my next words seriously, I think we're being watched" I broke the news to them and observed their different expressions.

"What?" Rash was the first to respond.

"I'm not done yet, I also think the zombies are being controlled" I dropped another bomb.

"Okay I know that you just woke up so I'm just gonna take it like you're still sleeping so wake up Dominic" Rash said with a sigh as he waved his hand in front of me.

"I'm being serious here okay, man get your hand away from my face" I smacked Rash's hand from my face as I grew serious.

"Do you remember how the zombies appeared exactly as we were about to take the stairs, that means that they were lying in wait for us so that they could ambush us and how would they have known that without.." I gave my theory as Rash completed it.

"Do you think they're having a moment or something" Tasha whispered as they watched us.

"I don't know" Christina said with a chuckle.

"…..the cameras, and the zombies are too stupid to plan that out so it means that either we have an intelligent zombie or another creature that can control them, um Dominic if I may ask, can the eyeless reaper control zombies?" Rash asked with furrowed brows.

"No definitely not, it hates zombies so it's out and so the only one that we know is left is…." I said then paused as I glanced at Rash.

"Spider-man" We said at the same time."What!, spider man turned to a zombie" Tasha said with horror.

"What?, noo it's a long story so buckle up" Rash said as we proceeded to narrate yesterday's events to them.

"Wow that's a whole lot of totally impossible shit that just turned possible, so you guys think that this 'spider-man' or whatever can control the zombies?" Tasha asked with a frown while trying to digest all what she just heard.

"We don't know, it's only a theory but from what I've seen so far, it seems very likely that that would be the case but if that's true, it seems sketchy that it could conjure up a plan so clever" I told them what was constantly bugging me, even if it could control those zombies, it didn't mean that it could create such a good plan.

"So you think there's someone in the shadows, pulling the strings, hmmm, that would mean that we have an even bigger problem at hand, if that is the case then that character would know of our every moves through the cameras" Rash said with a sigh, it seemed like everything wasn't as simple as it seemed, there was more that meets the eye.

"Wait if that person or thing knew where we were, it could have commanded the spider and it's underlings to come for us since yesterday" Christina voiced out her thoughts as the realization struck all of us.

"It's intentionally toying with us, it could have finished us off but it intentionally let us live like a predator playing with it's prey, such a cunning opponent, hmm" I said with furrowed brows as I sank into deep thought.

"So what do we do now?" Tasha asked, they were all out of ideas.

"Well first of all we have to leave here, if we were to remain here, then we would just be sitting ducks" I proposed even though it seemed like the most dangerous plan, if planned properly, it could turn out to be just the thing they needed.

"But whatever it is knows probably knows that we have discovered it's existence and is probably making a plan right now, if we leave then it could probably pick us off easily using the cameras" Rash said with depression.

"Yes and that's our advantage" I said as a dangerous plan started to take form in my mind.

"How is that an advantage?" Tasha asked with a frown.

"It knows of our every move with the cameras, it knows that we have discovered it and it knows that the only viable option is to try to take it out, to do that we need to get to the control room where it will be waiting for us but what if, just what if we make it believe that" I said with a grin as I thought of a plan with a 10% chance of survival.

"So you mean that" Christina said as it hit her.

"Yes we're going to trick the trickster, beat it at it's own game but to do that we need a perfect plan" I said with a smile as I stared at the camera.

Meanwhile in the control room, the figure was holding a Rubik's cube as it stared at the screen while twisting it, in a few seconds, it had solved the puzzle.

"Hmm, I wonder what your next action will be" The figure said to itself as it stared at a screen which was showing static, this meant that it wasn't active anymore.

At this moment a chess board had been set between I and the figure and I had the first move, if I planned it well I could have a check mate and if I didn't, then it would win, our lives were on the line and I wasn't about to lose them.