#pdnowayout

Chapter Three

“Oh shit.” He said, but he wasn’t saying it in a panicky way. He just let the words out as if the subject were nothing to worry about as if he forgot his keys in the house or forgot to grab duck sauce at Panda Express. His eyes went down to his blood stained shirt and then up at me.

I started to back up slowly, one step, then another until I felt Sarah’s arms lock around me. She pulled me so close I could feel her heart slamming into my upper back. 

“Get back Richard.” 

She said softly and Richard looked around for a moment, trying to find the cause for alarm “Come on girls, I’m..” He started to take a step forward and Sarah’s hand shot up and her voice, let out a shout that almost blew out my ear drum from being so close.

“Get the fuck back!” 

Richard stopped in his tracks, he just stared at the both of us, the blood was still running down his face. “You’re kidding me, right?” His hand went up to his face and he slowly started to clear the blood away. His eyes must have picked up on how much blood was dripping from his face because his eyes got a little wider. We were scared, I know for a fact that I was. 

“You might be infected” I softly let out and Richard’s eyes started to make their way back to us. He shook his head and just started repeating 

“No”

“No”

“No”

I could see the tears filling up in his eyes. I felt for him, I think anyone would have. If he was infected, we all knew what that meant. It meant he was going to die, but it wasn’t only a death sentence for him, but for us as well. Because as long as he was with us, we risked the chance of him turning and killing us. Yet how could I just leave him? Without truly knowing, I was pulled from my thoughts by a shadow I saw at the corner of my eye. It kept moving, back and forth, back and forth. My head turned fully to see what it was, but it was being cast onto the wall from the floor below. Sarah and Richard were still going at it, he was crying for help and she was putting on her best Mama bear act, they couldn’t see it. 

I pulled free of Sarah, and she shouted out. 

“Where are you going?”

I ignored it, I know it was dumb. Every horror movie I ever saw was told me this is the dumbest thing I could do. This would be the moment I would die. Yet everyone can say what they would do, till they end up hearing the creepy noise or seeing a creepy shadow in my case.

I started down the staircase, my white tennis shoes making a loud smack with each step, that seemed to echo off the walls. I was at the bottom of the steps now, I slowly leaned over the railing to look down the staircase to see what was making that shadow. 

My heart was racing, but as my eyes rested on the letters printed on his back I smiled. It was Atlanta PD. I closed my eyes and sighed “Thank God, I thought you were one of them.” I looked back up the stairs and said. 

“It’s the cops.” 

I heard a sigh of relief come from Sarah, but I think Richard was too lost in his own fate to care about our good fortune. I took another step forward, moving down towards the officer. 

“Do you know what’s going on?” I said softly as I started making my way down the steps.

“It’s like everyone is turning into..”

I got to the middle of the staircase when he started to turn around, he was dressed in full riot gear, with a face shield covering his head, but I could see it. The bloody white eyes, the snapping jaw. I just stood there staring at him. He started walking towards me, moving much slower than  Gabriel. His hand was coming forward ever so slowly, it felt as if time was stopping. I could make out the tears in his neck, and the blood running down his bulletproof vest. 

Sarah came around the corner just as his fingers were moving towards my face .

“Rachel!” She screamed

And just like that, I was pulled back to the real world. I went to turn but as I did, it was like someone hit the fast forward button on the cop and he leaped towards me, causing me to slam into the steps. 

“Sarah!” I screamed out, my hand went up into the air and I could see her moving towards me, but it wasn’t fast enough, not as fast as she could go. She was weighing her options I could tell it in her eyes. 

Let me die or risk her own life.

I shouldn’t blame her but I do. It’s a wicked thing to think about, letting someone die so you can live. How do you live after that, would she be able to look herself in the mirror or go back to her Dick of a husband, knowing I died just so she could get slapped around some more. Mama told me never be like Sarah and now I know why.

Richard came racing down the steps towards me. The cop was trying to bite me, trying to rip me open like some long-awaited candy bar, but his mask kept his teeth at bay. His protection was now my protection. I looked up at Richard and watched as he started kicking the Zombie cop, trying to send him back down the steps where he came from. But he had a good grip on me, he wasn’t letting go. I was his meal tonight, he must have been waiting hours for me, and he wasn’t giving me up without a fight.

“Get him off!” I screamed

“I’m trying”  Richard answered back

My fear and panic came to a screeching halt with one sound. 

A loud bang echoed through my head. I covered my ears, but I wish I covered my face as blood spilled out onto me, giving my dark curls and caramel skin tainted red dye job. I tightly held my eyes closed. 

“You alright?” 

“Are you alright?”

The voice hardly made it over the ringing in my ears, but when I felt a hand on my hand I opened my eyes. It was another officer in riot gear. He stood over the dead cops body, looking at me with his cool blue eyes and five o’clock shadow.

“You alright?”

Some of the promotional artwork I’m working on for Planet Dead: Bloodthirsty (Photo provided by Shuttershock.com)

Follow! The Buzzards!

Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

Okay so as you may know I’m writing a book titled “Planet Dead: Bloodthirsty” due out next year. I know, I know! What happened to the fall release? Well life got crazy and it had to be pushed back. I’ll put up a blog about it later.

So to get the word out about the book and to build a following I’ve created social media accounts like this one and I’ve also created a Prequel titled “Planet Dead: No Way Out” which is a story about 3 misfits as they battle their way out of their Atlanta aparment building at the start of the outbreak.

This story first started on twitter as tweets from the characters, but that was taking forever and was getting hard to keep up with. So I changed the format to short story chapters and now I post them every Friday on Tumblr.

But I’m greedy and I need more readers, so I’m also going to be posting the chapters on Good Read and Wattpad (I think that’s the site)

The plan is to have a fan base before “Planet Dead: Bloodthirsty” comes out.

Now here is one issue I’m facing but I think I got the answer…filling in readers on the parts of the story that took place during the Twitter era. Alot of the story was told on Twitter and it just picks up where Twitter left off.

So the plan is to take that part of the story and compress most of the info into a prologue that has Rachel and Sarah reading Richard’s tweets.

I’ll get all this set up with info this weekend.

Last thing I’ve been thinking about is a youtube channel, but I don’t know what of. I was thinking I could tell my stories but that might be boring. Maybe I could have people tell their stories and interview them about it, but that might be more fit for a podcast.

I don’t know, what do you think?