A World Apart

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

Logan

Death is actually quite pretty. The cracks that patterned the skylight started off in small, fractal designs, intricate and unique like pepperings of snowflakes. With every punch and stomp though they splintered out into grand webs of art, their spiders working furiously to expand them. Now almost the entire surface is weaved in it, looking more like a tattered veil than a transparent curtain. But it's still pretty, even with each fracture counting down to the inevitable end.

Blood slowly smears the infected from sight, like lipstick against a mirror, their fists kissing the glass. My view of the show becomes a jostled one as the auditorium swells with panic, a chaotic energy sweeping across the dance floor as the rest of the audience start clamouring towards the exits. But I don't. I stay, transfixed, standing, like I'm watching a film, scared to blink and miss a second.

Even as people fall, bash and scrape against me, I don't bother moving. What's the point? If the infected are above us, they'll be all around us as well. Going out, escaping the club will do no good. It's not even a possibility. In no time at all everyone has fled from most of the room, clearing a ring of space for our new patrons to fall into. I can hear people shouting now, their voices rising above the screams.

"The doors are sealed!"

"We can't get out!"

"We're going to die!"

Caught in a mousetrap, waiting for the cats to come and finish us off, I can only hope Stella and the others are in a better position. Safe, far away from the ground, high up in a skyscraper somewhere. Maybe the prison is safer. Stella can wait for the horde to pass, and then reunite with her boyfriend and Maisie and Joey and Gale can join them, and they'll be a happy little family. That's what I choose to believe will happen. A better ending than mine.

Only Ava, standing on the other side of the room, is still watching the show. Everyone else has abandoned the finale, running to find safety. But they won't find it. As soon as the glass breaks, the club will be surging with infected and there will be no where to hide from them. Locking yourself in a room will only delay the inevitable. Better to watch and embrace it now, cut the runtime short and let the credits roll.

But first there has to be an ending, and I get to see it, the final blow. Knuckles already bloody and broken from the assault, they make contact with the glass and breach its surface. Like the first drop of rain falling into a pond, it ripples out, shattering the rest of the skylight, a monsoon of glass and bodies showering down from above.

It's almost like someone has hit the pause button, the way everyone stops screaming, stops moving, unanimously turning to watch in silent horror as the jumble of infected bodies continue to pile up on the dance floor. Then Ava's shouting something out, struggling to be heard over the orchestra of infected, and suddenly it's like we've skipped to the fast forward button. Only when I finally look at her do I register what she's saying.

"Everyone get to the cars! Now!"

She's pointing towards a hallway, and before I've even had a chance to contemplate her words I'm being forced into motion, swept away by a tidal wave of panicked bodies. Soon my legs are moving on their own accord, a newly found desperation taking over me. I completely forgot about the cars, tucked away safely in their under grounding parking spaces. There's a chance of survival with them, maybe even a chance of getting to Stella.

The value for life that I so quickly discarded is now ripping through my chest. When someone shoves into me I don't hesitate to push them back, as determined and violent as the rest of the flock to reach the lifeboats. My moment of hopelessness a promptly forgotten experience. Survival mode has kicked in. I need to get to a car. I need to get to one now. Needing a set of keys is an absent thought in the back of my mind, for now I need to make it there first.