A small noise woke Zane up. He jerked to consciousness on his cot, taking several moments of staring up at the struts in the ceiling to remember where he was: in the school gymnasium. There had been a zombie apocalypse. Or outbreak. Or something.

As he allowed these truths to take hold, he realized the room was far too silent and far too dim. When he had fallen asleep, all the lights had been, if not at full brightness, as bright as the generators would allow. He had been surprised that anyone could have slept under the full fluorescent glow, other than the little children clutching dolls and teddy bears and security blankets. It had been after two a.m., after all. Then he himself had fallen asleep.

Now the lights were dim. He couldn't see into the corners of the ceiling. He sat up and looked around.

Everyone was gone.

He turned left, then right, then back again. All the cots were empty. They appeared to have been vacated in a hurry, the blankets tossed aside, forgotten personal belongings poking out from underneath rumpled pillows and out from under the narrow mattresses.

"Hello?" Zane called, and immediately wished he hadn't.

His voice went on and on, a chorus of hellos echoing through the cavernous empty space, seeming to become louder with each reverberation.

Whatever had created the small noise that had woken him now knew he was here.

He threw off his blanket and stood. Where had the soldiers gone, and all the people? Why hadn't anyone dragged him out of bed?

hello Hello HELLO

He had to get out of there.

Weaving through the maze of cots, he actually had to put his hands over his ears. His own voice was screaming at him now, hurling the innocent greeting like a threat: HELLO! This was crazy. Even crazier than a zombie apocalypse.

"Stop it!" he cried, running now, the door to the gym didn't seem to be getting any closer.

"Stop it!" the echo mocked. "Hello? Hello? Stop it hello stop it hello—"

He sprinted. He staggered and fell and got to his feet and the door looked so far away.

"STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT!"

His head ached with the sound, his ears couldn't hear anything beyond it, like a concert where the force of thousands of screaming fans registered as a dull roar, and even one's own screams were lost. He crawled. He clawed forward. The penalty lines painted onto the gymnasium floor mocked him like mile markers.

The door, finally the door. His hand fumbled on the handle. Push, not pull. He fell onto the cold linoleum tiles in the hallway. When the door squeezed shut behind him, the silence was deafening. The dimness here was even worse, so that he couldn't see the ends of the hallway. He sat in the middle, invisible doors on either end, red EXIT signs floating near the dark ceiling.

He lay there, breathing, for countless seconds. His ears rang and the inability to hear made him strain ever harder to some sign, any sign of where everyone had gone.

It seemed like there was a sound. Maybe it was more of a vibration, since he couldn't hear anything. He listened as hard as he'd ever listened before. He hadn't even known you could listen so hard. His ears reached for the sound, rusty, never-used muscles extending outward, seeking it out.

Because there had been a sound. A tiny little sound that would warn him of horrors to come.

He listened and listened and it seemed he could hear every little sound in the whole damn empty school except for that one.

Maybe he was safe. He listened and listened and there was nothing he could hear.

He got to his feet, feeling unsteady. As he rose, his boot scuffed on the floor. The sound was impossibly loud, and then he heard that other noise.

Thump.

It seemed he could feel this sound vibrating up through the floor. He waited, and it came again.

Thump.

He squinted into the darkness to the left. Nothing. To the right, there was now a flickering light just beyond the double doors. Each door had a narrow window filled with chicken wire... safety glass.

Thump. Thump.

Zane stared. The flickering light hurt his eyes, but he couldn't look away. There was something...

Thump. Thump. Thump.

...coming.

He could barely breathe. His knees wobbled.

Thump thump thump.

How could one set of footsteps be so loud?

How could feet make such a sound? It did not sound like heeled shoes tapping along tiles, and there was no way sneakers could be so noisy. This was bare feet. Bare feet thumping like the person weighed five hundred pounds. More, even. But a five hundred pound person could never walk so quickly.

thumpthumpthumpthumpthump

It stopped. Zane could not look away from those tiny panes of glass. His eyes teared up and he wanted to blink, but if he blinked he might miss it—

Her face appeared, all teeth and blood and cloudy eyes.

Harmony's face.

"No," Zane breathed.

She came at him them, walking with the force of a demon, and he stepped back, fell down. She was coming for him, faster than he would have thought possible. She stopped halfway.

Her mouth opened and she made a sound like the velociraptors from Jurassic Park.

Zane had a surreal moment. He had never thought a zombie would sound like a dinosaur. Also, he could see her face more clearly now. Bits of fur were stuck to the gore around her mouth. That's right, she had eaten his cat.

Then she came at him.