The darkness of the corridor was torn by the beam of the flashlight and he saw Ksenia dashing toward him on the linoleum punctuated with moonlit patches. As she ran up to him, he saw fright and panic reflected in her exhausted face.
“It’s no good.” She was breathing heavily. “They’ve broken through!”
“Shit!” Ramses said. “I haven’t finished here yet.”
He heard deep growling echoing in the hollow space of the stairwell. The shuddersome sounds got under his skin.
“Then do something!” She was on the verge of hysteria. “They’re coming up!”
He dropped the tool and grabbed the edge of the door.
“I’m gonna make a gap,” he said. “And you try to squeeze in.”
“Okay!” Ksenia put the torch into her jeans pocket.
He pulled at the door using his entire force and wrenched it until the gap was wide enough for Ksenia to slip in.
Inside the armory, Ksenia took out the torch and had a look around. It was a tiny room with no windows. There was a rack of weapons on the wall and two rows of lockers.
Ramses put his head through. “What do you got?”
“Not much,” she said, opening a locker. “Most of the weaponry was taken away when the pandemonium began.” She took out a backpack and threw it at Ramses. “Here. Take this!” He caught it with one hand.
She gave him four hand grenades, which he put into the backpack. One by one. Quickly. But very carefully.
“And this,” she said, handing him an AK-47 assault rifle, a shortened variation used by the police.
The morbid moaning could be heard more distinctly now. Ramses turned his head to the left and saw dark creatures lurking at the threshold of the corridor. He held his breath and gulped.
“Get the mags!” he said in a loud whisper. “The dead ones are here!”
Ksenia was slamming frantically the locker doors in search of the ammunition. Her torch beam grew feeble, and the light terminated. It was pitch dark in the room again. She beat the flashlight against her palm and flipped the switch on and off, but it wouldn’t function.
“The cell phone!” she said. “Give it to me!”
He took the cell phone out of his pocket, turned it on and gave it to her. She cast the scanty screen light around and kept on looking. Her face was glowing in the white light of the display. For a second he imagined she was a distant lighthouse showing the seaway in the blackness of the night.
A young woman clad in blood-stained pajamas made shuffling steps along the corridor in the vanguard of the ghastly procession. The moon threw its silver light on her disfigured face. Her bare feet were leaving filthy undulating trails on the floor. She raised her arms and gave a hoarse moan. A police officer in a tunic was walking behind her, his jaws clacking. A group of other automatons followed them slow but steady. Nearer with every step.
Ramses’s heart grew sick. Blood was pulsing in his head. He aimed the Grach pistol and squeezed a round into the civilian woman’s face. There was a wet sound and the female collapsed.
Ksenia’s frightened face appeared in the gap. “This is all there is.” She slipped three banana-shaped magazines into his hands and then pushed through a sniper rifle. Ramses shouldered the rifle, never taking his eyes off the approaching monsters.
“We got no time to be choosy,” he said, attaching a magazine to the AK-47. He fired a series of shots. The hot spent cartridges propelled through the gloomy dark and fell down with a ringing sound. All the bullets hit the policeman’s chest, which did not stop him. “We gotta fall back!”
The crazies were advancing. Frenzied hunger was pushing their unsteady feet forward. And their prey was so close.
Ksenia put her right leg through the gap. The rough edges of the door tore the front of her sweater and scratched her cheek as she tried to shove herself out. The cell phone dropped to the floor. The screen shattered and faded out. Her leg was caught in the narrow space between the door and the door frame, and tongs of pain squeezed her thigh.
“I’m stuck,” she cried out, cold claustrophobia gripping her. “Ramses, I can’t move!”
For a nanosecond, Ramses was bewildered to hear Ksenia say his first name. He pulled the door away with one hand and used the other hand to wrestle her leg out of the metal trap.
The group of the undead was nearing. He fired a series of slugs into the approaching robotic creatures. Two of them sprawled to the floor like logs, others stumbled and fell on top of them. He switched the firing mode of the AK-47 to single shot to use the ammo sparingly. The created pile of bodies bought him some more time. He snatched the cell phone off the floor and shoved it into his backpack.
“Get down on the floor,” he said to Ksenia, “with your head in the far corner of the room.”
“What? But I—,” Ksenia said.
Ramses didn’t try to explain what he was up to. Every second was at stake now. The pile-up on the floor started to untangle. He cast a worried glance and was paralyzed with horror. A living corpse of a teenage boy had risen to his feet and was pushing his way toward him. He was wearing a black Nike woolen cap with a piece of advice saying “Just Do It” written in white letters.
Ramses turned to Ksenia. “Just do it, baby,” he said suppressing a nervous chuckle in his throat. “I’ll get to you pronto.”
“Okay,” Ksenia gave a quick nod and disappeared in the depth of the armory.
Ramses grabbed all his gear and made a crazy dash to the end of the corridor. He looked back. The ghouls walked up to the armory door and slammed their fists trying to break through. More dead visitors were seeping into the corridor through the entrance.
Now, this is a real fuck-up, Ramses thought.
He turned the corner. It was an L-corridor, and he faced a dead end. He put the backpack and the sniper rifle down on the floor, shouldered his AK-47 and clutched a lemon-shaped hand grenade. He pulled out the safety pin and took a wide swing, sending the grenade into the midst of the deadheads. He dived for cover behind the corner just a moment before a loud blast roared in the darkness, tearing the dead meat into shreds and breaking the window glass out. He looked around the corner and saw twitching body parts on the floor. The rearguard ghouls were still advancing.
Ramses grabbed another hand grenade, yanked the pin out and threw it as far as he could. The throw was not successful. The grenade hit the wall, bounced away and rolled right up to the armory door. He hid behind the corner, adjusting the backpack and gripping another bomb in his hand. The bang was humongous and it shook the corridor. The metal door caved in.
The sniper rifle was too clunky to carry around, and he had no ammo for it. He made a quick decision to ditch it. He detached the scope, put it in his backpack and ran toward the living dead.
Ramses stood within the safe distance from the dead and discharged his bullets into them. Bodies covered the floor.
There was one living dead policeman standing. He locked his dead gaze on Ramses. Ramses fired at the dead man’s skull. Dark blood spurted out in a fountain and the dead cop collapsed.
Total silence reigned for a couple seconds. Even the wind outside was still. Then the broken door moaned and came crashing down.
“Ksenia! You okay?!” he shouted, turning in the direction of the noise.
He heard coughing and Ksenia’s voice: “Yes.”
He shuddered, as out of the