This Beautiful World - Book #1 (BxB)

Chapter 10

Arin was out of the door before I even had the chance to react. We weren't finished searching this floor yet, but Arin's friends were more important to him. I didn't want to be left behind, so I followed him. He was quickly up and stairs and out of my sight. 

I was worried about what we would find once we reached the top of those stairs. The guns were only supposed to be used if there was an emergency. There was only one gunshot, so maybe things were okay. I hope that it was only one zombie that they had to deal with and not a horde of them. 

Once I reached the top of the stairs, I looked in each direction for Arin. Yet, I didn't see him. However, farther down the hall, I saw a dead body. My best bet was that was where Arin ran off to. It might have been the zombie that they used the gun on. I would only know once I approached it. It was too hard to see from where I was standing. 

I was cautious as I approached the body. Some of the doors down the hallway were open and I couldn't help looking inside each of them as I passed. I didn't want something jumping out at me. All I had was a knife, and that wasn't exactly the best protection. The only reason why I was able to take down my professor earlier was because his back was turned to me. I didn't know how I would fare if I became a zombie's attention. 

I was close to the body now and I could clearly see that it was one of the infected. Part of me worried that it might have been someone from our group, but thankfully, that wasn't the case. Something was off about this zombie, though. The corpse had what looked like black veins running up its body and some of its appendages looked bloated. The gunshot wound in its head oozed black blood. The zombies at campus didn't look like this. They were close to looking like normal people. I saw something move from beneath the zombie's skin. 

An arm from behind me wrapped around my waist and pulled me away from the reanimated corpse. The zombie that I was inspecting was moving once again. It staggered to its feet and lunged at me, but before it could reach me Xavier stepped in the way. He was holding what looked like a machete and with one swing, the zombie's head was easily separated from its body. 

The creature fell over once again but it wasn't over yet. Though the body was no longer moving, something was. From the open wound of its neck, something was slithering its way out. It looked like a large black worm. It freed itself from the body and when it saw us, the creature quickly moved toward us. It looked like it was about to pounce, but then Xavier stepped on it before it could. The squishing sound made me feel sick to my stomach. 

For now, it seemed like it was over. We waited for a few seconds to make sure that nothing else started to move again. The beheaded corpse lay still with nothing else crawling its way out. Behind us, I heard footsteps approaching. 

When I tried to look behind me, I realized that I was still in the arms of whoever pulled me away from the zombie. I glanced up to see Arin's face. 

"Are you okay?" he asked me. 

I nodded and looked away. My face was burning up. It was embarrassing that he still had an arm around my waist. "Yes. You can let go now."

He quickly pulled away and scratched the back of his head. He must have forgotten after what we just witnessed. His face was slightly red and he wouldn't look in my direction. "Sorry."

Stella and Tyler were the footsteps that we heard. They joined our group and looked down at the body. Stella looked frightened while Tyler seemed confused. He asked, "What happened? Isn't that the zombie that I shot?" 

"It is, but it started moving again and then something crawled out. I don't understand what's going on, but I don't think the guns are going to work against these." Xavier wiped his foot against the floor. Black blood and chunks of the worm he stepped on came off of his boot and were now smeared on the carpet. 

If a bullet to the head didn't work, then nothing else was going to work either. It only seemed like the thing was finally dead once its head was removed, but then you would need to worry about whatever crawled out of the body. My mind drifted back to the students that we left in the classroom. The professor's body was left there. 

My knees became weak and I fell over. If severing the head was the only way to kill these things, then the professor wasn't dead. He would come back to life and attack my classmates. The thing that Tyler shot came back to life fairly quickly. If we would have stayed in the classroom for a little longer, then we would have witnessed my professor coming back to life as well. It was already too late for the others. 

"Aiden, what's wrong?" Arin knelt beside me and put a hand on my back. 

I couldn't tell him what happened. The words wouldn't come to me. Instead, I said, "I feel like I'm going to be sick."

Xavier held a hand out to me. "It's okay. We're almost done searching, so go back downstairs to the others. Stella, could you help him downstairs?"

She nodded. I grabbed Xavier's hand and let him help me to my feet. My legs still felt weak, but having his and Arin's support did help me stay standing. They eventually had to hand me off to Stella, though. There were still a few more rooms that needed to be searched. The three men went their separate way. Stella offered her arm for me to take and lean on. 

While we were heading downstairs, Stella asked, "Are you sure that everything is fine? You became very pale back there and you looked like you were going to pass out."

I had a feeling that she was making sure that I wasn't bitten or scratched. I didn't want her to think the wrong thing, so I knew that I had to tell her. "I abandoned a lot of people on my way here. It was their choice to stay behind, but we left them in a room with a zombie. We thought that we killed it, but if those things are just going to come back then all of my classmates . . ."

I trailed off. I couldn't finish the sentence. Thinking about their fate only made me feel sick once again. 

Stella gently touched my arm. "Don't blame yourself. You didn't know that those monsters can come back like that. We're all only learning about this now. I know that it's hard to think about, but it is not your fault."

I couldn't respond. I knew that it was not my fault, but I still felt terrible for leaving all of those people behind. We could have tried harder to convince them to escape with us. There was no guarantee that they were dead. They could have learned like us how to kill these things, but I had my doubts. It wasn't like they had something that could cut off the head of a zombie. I only hope that some of them were able to make it out okay. 

"Come on. Let's get you to your friends and family. Maybe then you'll feel a little better." Stella continued to walk down the stairs. 

I followed her so that I wasn't standing there alone. Even though I still felt awful about my classmates, at least my family and closest friends were here with me.