Live Another Day by Baileigh Higgins (reading in the dark .txt) 📗

The thing growled as it staggered back. With a swing of her arm, she hit it on the side of the head with the flashlight. Turning on her heels, she ran before it could attack again. I'm not sticking around for a fight with that thing!

Her feet pounded across the tar as she put distance between her and the zombie. Her breath rasped in and out of her lungs, and her heart bounded with the adrenalin rush.

After a time, she stopped and sucked in a few precious lungfuls of oxygen. She couldn’t hear any signs of pursuit, but now her surroundings had changed. She was much deeper into the suburbs, and danger lurked everywhere.

Lisa turned in a circle; her eyes strained for more lurkers. At that precise moment, a cloud drifted in front of the moon. It cut off the faint glow of silver and dumped her into a pit of black. Her fear ratcheted up a notch.

“Shit, shit, shit,” she whispered.

As if in answer, a rasp alerted her, and she ducked beneath two outstretched arms in the nick of time. Another pair of fingers hooked into her hair. With a cry, Lisa wrenched her head back. A few strands ripped free with a sharp burst of pain. She fell to her knees and scrambled across the ground between several pairs of legs.

The clouds moved again, and the moon reappeared. Its cold light shone down on a growing throng of infected, all drawn by the noise. They shuffled across overgrown lawns and tripped across hedges. Gleaming eyes peered at her from all directions.

Lisa jumped to her feet and sprinted down the road. Her legs carried her away from the swarm, but they streamed after her like locusts in search of green pastures. Warm blood flowed down her shins, and her palms burned, a legacy of her fall on the road. At least, she still carried the flashlight and knife. I need to hide. Somewhere. Anywhere.

She fumbled for the button until a stream of yellow light illuminated the way ahead. With the flashlight as a guide, she looked for a house with sturdy walls. Her eyes fell upon one such. A quick glance over her shoulder showed her she had a few precious seconds to spare.

She ran up to the gates and rattled them with all her might. They didn’t budge, and a chain confirmed they were locked. She threw the beam around the yard and noted that nothing stirred in the long grass. The driveway was empty too.

A hand grabbed her arm, followed by the scrape of teeth on her sleeve. She tore away before the zombie could bite down on her flesh. With a swift stab, she drove her knife into the thing’s temple. It collapsed, but behind it was another, and another.

Lisa kicked the closest one in the chest before tossing her light and knife across the gates. She threw herself at the metal bars and hauled her body up. A hand grasped her ankle and yanked. With a cry, she slipped down a notch.

Her fingers got a grip on the chill metal bars, and she pulled. Her other leg kicked out and hit something. The grip on her leg loosened. She kicked again before throwing herself over. Off balance, she tumbled over the gate and landed on her back on the concrete. Her breath left her lungs in a rush.

Lisa gasped like a fish out of water even as hands reached through the bars to latch onto her clothes. Bit by bit, her body was dragged closer. She turned her head, and her watering eyes fell on several pairs of gnashing teeth that strained through the gaps to reach her.

The closest infected had a grip on her shoulder. Its face pushed at the bars until the flesh peeled away from its cheeks. Vomit pushed up her throat, and with a cry, Lisa flung herself to the side.

Her jacket ripped and cold air bit at her skin, but she was free. With searching fingers, she felt for her knife and flashlight. She almost cried with relief when she found them and immediately jumped up, prepared to fight.

The flickering yellow beam of her torch lit up the strange yard she found herself in. It cut across the long grass and overgrown beddings before she trailed it up the driveway. Nowhere could she spot any movement. A sigh of relief escaped her lips. “Oh, thank God.”

That didn’t mean the house was empty, though, but she’d take that any day over the crowd of zombies that clawed at the gates with a desperate hunger. She cast a last glance at them over her shoulder before jogging up the driveway and out of sight. The sooner they forgot about her, the better.

The neglected front garden gave way to a concrete landscape at the back of the house. A walkway led from the garage past a row of potted succulents to a patio bare of furniture. There a door awaited, its glass window seeming to stare at her like an empty eye.

She made sure the garage was locked first and did a quick search for anything dangerous. The place was deserted, devoid of either people, infected, cars, or pets, and she surmised the owners had fled when the zombies rose.

“Maybe I’m lucky.” Lisa shook her head and reminded herself that there was no such thing as luck, only caution, and brains. “Use your head, Lisa. There could be zombies in the house. No cars do not equal no people.”

She closed the distance and walked up the steps to the yawning security gate. She nudged it all the way open before knocking on the door. The seconds ticked by as she waited. Nothing happened.

With a deep breath, she reached out and turned the latch. The door swung open with a long, drawn-out creak. The dim interior of a kitchen greeted her eyes. Stale air washed over her face. It was devoid of rot; a good