The man in the suit was the first to speak. "Who the heck are you?"
Thalia narrowed her eyes. "These must be the other survivors," she thought. "Well, some of them anyway."
"Push the ground floor button. Now!" the man barked.
Before anyone could move, a woman toward the middle of the elevator gasped and pointed. "Hey… is that a skeleton?"
They all looked toward the cafeteria where the hoard had piled up. The skeleton Thalia had summoned was being swallowed whole, buried under a swarm of growling, clawing zombies.
"There're more of them?! I'm getting outta here right now!" the man shouted.
Just as the doors began to slide closed, Thalia stepped forward and stuck her arm out to stop them.
"Are you insane?! You'll kill us all!" she snapped.
"No—are you insane?" he shot back. "Where do you think you're all gonna fit? The elevator says max capacity: five people."
"But—" one of the women started.
Before she could finish, the man in the suit cut her off, muscling his way to the front to hammer the button again like his life depended on it.
"So unless you all wanna plummet eighteen stories to your death," he snapped, "I suggest you let the damn doors close."
That's when Thalia lost her patience. With one sharp movement, she swung the butcher knife still clutched in her bloodstained hand. It slammed into the elevator wall with a metallic thunk, barely missing his face. A splash of blood flicked off the blade, landing right on his cheek.
The man flinched, taking two hasty steps back, wiping his face with a trembling hand.
"Now you listen here, you selfish piece of shit," Thalia said. Her voice didn't shake, didn't rise. It was sharp and steady, like the edge of her blade. "These two standing next to me are getting on that elevator with you. So you've got two options. One: I drag your ass off, and we stay here together. Or two: you let them on, and ride to the bottom like a good little man boy."
Nobody said a word. The man stepped back into the elevator, quiet now, wiping his face with the sleeve of his suit.
Thalia turned to the pair she'd saved. "You two—go. Head down with them."
The man nodded. The woman gave Thalia a grateful look then asked "what about you?"
"Don't worry," Thalia added, pointing to the right of the room toward a door with a stair symbol above it. "I'll take the stairs."
The elevator doors finally slid shut.
Thalia turned back toward the cafeteria.
Her skeleton had been overwhelmed, buried under a mess of groaning, stumbling corpses. They couldn't break its bones, couldn't bite into it. All they could do was trap it. Hold it down. Immobilize it.
She gripped the blood-slick knife in her hand, wiped her mouth, and stared into the dark.
"Alright," she muttered to herself, "guess I'm on my own again."
She glanced to her right, the stairwell door. It was her only shot at getting out in one piece. The hoard was still preoccupied with the skeleton, groaning and clawing like moths to a flame.
Thalia kept her back against the wall, slowly inching toward the door, careful not to make too much noise. The butcher knife stayed tight in her grip, still slick with blood. Her fingers ached from how tightly she held it.
She reached the door and carefully pushed it open.
A long concrete hallway stretched before her, dark, narrow, and humid. The only light came from the flickering red emergency bulbs placed at intervals down the stairwell, casting long, pulsing shadows that danced on the walls.
Then a notification window blinked into view:
NOTIFICATION
YOU HAVE ENCOUNTERED THE BOSS MONSTER
THIS ENEMY IS FAR BEYOND YOUR CURRENT LEVEL
RECOMMENDATION: RUN
Before she could even react, she heard it, footsteps. Loud, fast, and chaotic. Whatever it was, it wasn't just running down the stairs, it was colliding with them. Heavy bangs, the crunch of railings snapping, doors being slammed into as it sprinted straight down with reckless speed.
Thalia froze, eyes locked on the stairwell as the sound got closer.
Then, CRASH! It tumbled down the next flight of stairs like a cannonball, then slammed against the concrete landing. Thalia caught her first glimpse of it. It had the same pallid flesh, torn clothes, and dead eyes as the others… but this one had speed. And it was huge.
It rose to its feet, unfazed.
Even in the darkness, Thalia could tell it wasn't like the others. It wasn't stumbling or groaning. It stood still for a second, breathing heavy, then tilted its head as if it had sensed her.
She didn't wait.
Thalia darted back into the cafeteria and threw her weight against the door. She pressed her whole body against it, heart hammering. Then—BOOM!—a thunderous impact slammed the other side of the door, rattling the hinges and nearly knocking her off her feet.
"Shit!" she muttered, adrenaline kicking in full tilt.
Another hit.
She knew the door wouldn't last. Not against something that size.
Thalia pushed off and took off running, straight toward the hoard.
They were slow. Predictable. They couldn't sprint like the thing behind her.
That meant she had one chance.
She vaulted over a fallen chair and weaved through the maze of tables and bodies.
Behind her—CRASH!
The stairwell door exploded off its hinges and went flying across the room like scrap metal. What remained of it clattered to the floor, smoking slightly from the impact.
It was in.
Fully now, she could see it. A zombie, yeah, but one with the build of a professional bodybuilder. The tattered remains of a gym tank top clung to its bloated torso. Muscles coiled underneath its pale, torn skin. It was built like a freight train and just as fast.
Its eyes locked onto Thalia, and it opened its mouth wide, unnaturally wide.
Then it let out a screech so loud, so piercing, Thalia had to stop and clutch her ears.
The sound hit her like a wall. She gritted her teeth and tried to breathe through it, but her head throbbed from the pressure.
When it stopped, she staggered forward, only to realize some of the zombies had stopped crowding the skeleton.
They were looking at her now.
Drawn to the noise, as if it commanded them.
It didn't matter. Because now, she had two problems and she was pinned right in the center of them both.