Arsenal stood by the lift entrance, trying to manage the flow of people. He kept his cool. That was his thing, keeping it together even when everything else was falling apart.
"Look! It's coming back down!" someone shouted.
Heads snapped to the elevator display. The glowing numbers were descending.
The crowd stirred again.
"Wait, it just passed this floor!"
"Why's it not stopping!?"
Arsenal turned to face them, raising his hands calmly.
"Guys, if we could all calm down, we can get out of here unharmed. We just need to keep a cool head." His voice cut through the noise. "I know a situation like this is scary. There are literal zombies walking around, so you all have every right to be scared. And fear? Fear can be a good thing. It keeps you alive."
The murmurs softened. People were listening.
"But if you let it consume you, it can be the very thing that gets you killed."
He took a step forward, scanning their faces. He saw a group of civilians clinging to hope. People who were waiting for a reason to believe.
"I've made it my mission to help as many people as I can. I may not be able to fly or run fast, but I swear to you, I can get all of you out of here alive."
A brief silence followed.
Then someone spoke.
"Maybe we should listen to the kid…"
"Yeah."
"Well said."
"Then… we'll put ourselves in your care."
Just like that, the tension melted away. The crowd settled. Arsenal took a breath, proud. He couldn't get them all out at once, but he had done something almost just as important.
He made them feel safe.
Then suddenly, the building shook.
A deep tremor rumbled through the walls, and the crowd of survivors jumped, startled.
"What was that!?"
"You think it's the military?"
"I think it came from a few floors up…"
Voices chattered with panic as they all looked toward the stairwell.
"Look! It's coming back up!" another voice said, pointing to the elevator display.
The numbers were rising.
Arsenal smiled. "Looks like they made it out. Okay, let's get another six people. No pushing please. We're all getting out of this in one piece."
He turned his back to the elevator, facing the crowd again.
So he didn't see the doors open behind him and he didn't see what was waiting inside.
The man in the suit from earlier, along with another elderly man and a younger woman, were in the elevator. Only, they didn't come back the way they left.
Flesh was torn off in chunks. Their clothes hung in bloody strips. Their eyes, once human, were now cloudy white, veined with cataracts and void of soul. Blood was everywhere, splattered on the walls, the ceiling, soaked into their clothes. It dripped from their jaws, streaked across their faces and caked beneath their fingernails.
They had been zombified.
Before Arsenal even knew what was happening, he felt a sharp pain in his shoulder. A sharp, wet crunch as something tore into his flesh.
Pain.
Immediate.
White-hot.
Arsenal clenched his jaw as the pain throbbed deep in his shoulder.
The zombie was biting him, gnawing into his flesh like a starving animal. Blood sprayed down his arm. But instead of flinching or backing away, Arsenal moved stood his ground. He gripped the zombie's hair with one hand, shoving its head tighter against his shoulder, locking it in place and letting it bite deeper.
Gasps rang out behind him. The crowd froze, paralyzed with fear. No one moved or screamed. No one knew what to do.
But Arsenal did.
"RUN!" He shouted.
The crowd quicky scattered as survivors looked for new hiding spots.
With all the strength he had left, he focused and called it.
A weapon began to form in his hand, first the slide, then the trigger, the barrel, the hammer, all assembling from nothing as the metallic pieces clicked together like clockwork.
A 9mm pistol.
The moment it finished forming, he jammed it against the zombie's temple and fired.
The gunshot echoed across the room.
The creature's head jolted to the side and a stream of red mist sprayed across Arsenal's face and shirt, but he didn't flinch. The zombie dropped limp to the floor, its teeth finally unlatching from his shoulder.
He stumbled back, gripping his bleeding wound with one hand. The gun faded into vapor, it was all he could manage.
"Dammit…" he muttered. "It got me good."
Already, blood was soaking through his shirt, dripping onto the marble tiles. He didn't have time to assess the damage. Not now.
The other two zombies had started their death march.
One dragged a broken ankle behind it, the foot barely attached. The other's jaw was hanging loose, held by tendons and nothing else. Their growls were low and wet, like drowning men.
Arsenal squared up, breathing hard, hand still clutched to his shoulder. He didn't summon another gun. He couldn't, he'd reached his limit.
He glanced toward the stairwell.
"If the zombies have spread there, the civilians would be slaughtered instantly.
The elevator Infront of him was out of the question, going down now would be suicide.
"…Maybe," he breathed. "Maybe I can draw them away."
He turned and ran.
The two zombies followed slowly, dragging blood-soaked feet across the floor, letting out low, guttural moans. Their eyes, milky and empty, were locked onto the warmth and noise of the living.
Three floors up, Thalia stood by the elevator when a loud gunshot echoed up the shaft.
"Whoa… that was definitely a gunshot." Her brows furrowed, adrenaline beginning to pulse. "Someone brought a gun to work? Or maybe there's an officer in the building?"
She didn't have much time to think it through, whoever fired that shot could be in serious trouble. Snapping into action, she moved to the elevator doors and wedged her fingers into the thin crevice. With a sharp grunt, she forced them open until the interior shaft revealed an eighteen-story drop. A draft of cold air rushed against her face, carrying the weight of reality with it.
She turned to face her skeleton. "When you get down there, kill any zombies you see. If you see people, keep them safe until I get there."
Headless didn't hesitate. It stepped forward into the open shaft and dropped out of sight.
Back on the fifteenth floor, a loud BAM erupted from the elevator. The doors were still open, nobody was inside. Then, with a metallic creak, a ceiling tile above the elevator opened up, and a skeleton without a head dropped down, landing in the center of the bright elevator lights.
Arsenal's jaw tightened when he saw the skeleton emerge.
"Seriously? Skeletons too? This has gotta be a joke!" he muttered, barely staying upright from the pain shooting through his shoulder. "How the heck am I supposed to kill a skeleton? I could barely take out a single zombie…"
He raised his free hand to summon his pistol again, but this time nothing came. A sharp snap went off inside his skull, and blood gushed from his nose. He dropped to his knees.
"Damn it…" he coughed, wiping his nose on his sleeve. "Looks like I've hit my daily limit."
The room began to spin. His vision wavered. He could barely think past the searing pain, his body just wanted to give in, to lay down and rest. But he forced himself to look back, checking on the crowd of survivors. Most had fled, scattering to hiding spots, others ducking into rooms or crawling under desks.
That gave him a flicker of peace. At least they were safe… for now.
He looked forward again.
Two zombies advanced, their movements jerky and wet, the sound of dragging limbs mixing with the grotesque squelch of blood-slicked feet. Just behind them stood the headless skeleton, motionless for now.
Arsenal bit down on his shirt and tore a strip from it with his teeth. He wrapped the cloth tightly around his shoulder, tying it with one hand. The pain made him want to scream, and the pressure only intensified it, but at least it slowed the bleeding.
"So… it's three versus one huh?" he muttered, pushing up to his feet again, breath heavy, vision swimming.
"Bring it."