The corridor exploded into instant pandemonium. The girl's relieved sigh twisted into a shrill, piercing shriek that rattled off the concrete walls as blood sprayed across the linoleum. Students who had just been groggily rubbing their eyes scrambled backward, tripping over discarded backpacks and each other in a desperate bid to escape. The professor or whatever was left of him tore a chunk of flesh away with a sickening, wet crunch, his dull, milky eyes scanning the panicked crowd as he pinned the thrashing girl beneath him.
"What the hell is that?! What is he doing to her?!" Julian shouted. His face turned a ghostly shade of white as he forcefully pulled himself up by the window sill, his hands shaking so violently he could barely stand.
Ryker didn't answer. His heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird, but his hand moved automatically, pushing his taped glasses back up his nose. While everyone else screamed and ran blindly toward the central stairwells, Ryker stayed still, his eyes locked on the attacker. He watched the rapid, ash-gray discoloration spreading across the professor's skin, the lack of coordination in his heavy limbs, and the raw, monstrous strength behind the bite.
Before the crowd could even process the first attack, two more students who hadn't woken up from the collective blackout suddenly convulsed on the floor. Their limbs snapped into rigid, unnatural positions as they pushed themselves up, their throats releasing the same hollow, rattling snarls.
"Ryker, we need to move, now!" Julian yelled, grabbing a heavy plastic chair from a nearby desk, his knuckles turning white as one of the newly turned creatures snapped its head in their direction.
"Wait," Ryker muttered.
He grabbed Julian's sleeve, pulling him back into the shadow of the row just as a stampede of terrified students rushed past, creating a chaotic human shield between them and the advancing monsters. Ryker's eyes flicked from the bottleneck forming at the main elevators to the opposite end of the hall.
"The back stairwell, go!" Ryker shoved Julian toward the secondary exit.
They sprinted down the corridor, ducking past another groaning figure that was just beginning to twitch on the floor. Ryker slammed his shoulder into the heavy fire door, and the loud echo of their sneakers slapped against the concrete steps as they took them two at a time, descending rapidly toward the campus ground level.
"Where are we even going?" Julian gasped, his chest heaving as they burst out of the stairwell into the lower quad.
Outside, the eerie twilight made the campus look like a ghost town, punctuated by thick columns of black smoke rising from the highway gridlock nearby. More screams were starting to echo from the neighboring science buildings.
"The indoor gymnasium," Ryker said, pointing toward the massive brick complex across the lawn. "The doors are heavy reinforced steel, and the equipment cages lock from the inside. If we stay out in the open, we're going to get caught in the crowd."
Julian didn't question him. The two of them sprinted across the open grass, joining a handful of other students fleeing from different directions. They scrambled through the main glass entrance of the athletic center and sprinted straight into the cavernous, hardwood basketball court. A varsity basketball player was already standing by the heavy double doors, ushering a dozen frantic people inside before slamming the steel doors shut with a resounding clang, dropping a thick metal security bar into place.
The gym instantly fell into a tense, echoing silence, broken only by the sound of forty or fifty students panting heavily. Julian sank against the bleachers, burying his face in his hands, while Ryker stood near the center circle, his hand automatically reaching up to adjust the taped bridge of his glasses as he surveyed their enclosed refuge.
A low, trembling murmur rippled through the gathered students. A few rows down, a guy aggressively tapped his phone screen, letting out a frustrated curse. "Signal's completely dead. Not even emergency calls are going through."
Julian finally lifted his head from his hands, staring blankly at the polished hardwood. "My brother's apartment is only ten minutes from campus," he said, his voice dropping to a rough whisper. "If the roads are blocked... I mean, he's probably stuck right in the middle of whatever this is. I need to get to him, Ry."
"We can't leave yet, Jules," Ryker said, sitting down on the bleacher step beside him. He pointed a finger toward the high, narrow windows near the ceiling. "Look at the light outside. It's barely three o'clock and it looks like night is falling. We don't know what's wandering around the quad. Running out now is a bad idea."
Julian ran a hand through his hair, exhaling a ragged breath. "Yeah. Yeah, you're right. We just... we just need a plan."
Ryker nodded, adjusting his glasses. "The gym is solid. We stay put, let the initial chaos outside clear up, and then we figure out how to get to your brother."
The uneasy quiet didn't last. From the other side of the heavy steel entrance doors, a sudden, frantic thumping echoed through the space, making half the students jump.
"Let us in! Please, open the doors!" a guy's voice screamed from the outside, followed by the violent rattling of the metal handles. "There are more of them coming from the quad! Open up!"
The varsity player standing guard by the security bar froze, his hands hovering over the metal rod. He looked back at the crowd nervously. "Should I open it? He says they're right behind him!"
"Are you crazy? Don't touch that bar!" a girl yelled from the top rows, marching down the wooden steps. "What if he's already like that professor? If you open that door, you're letting them all in!"
"He's a student, we can't just leave him out there to die!" another guy argued, stepping down from the bleachers.
The gym instantly erupted into a shouting match, voices bouncing off the high ceiling as the pounding on the steel doors grew faster and more desperate. Julian tensed, his knees shifting as if he was about to stand up.
Ryker reached over, putting a hand on Julian's forearm to keep him anchored. "Let them figure it out," Ryker muttered, his eyes locked on the shaking doors. "Don't get caught in the middle of that."
But Julian pulled his arm away from Ryker's grip, his face hardening as he stood up fully. He strode right past the center line of the court, pointing directly at the guy holding the security bar. "Hey! Open the door. He's right there, just let him in and lock it back down!"
"Are you deaf?!" the girl from the bleachers shouted back, stepping between Julian and the door. "Did you not see what happened in the hall? If that thing is right behind him, you're killing all of us!"
"He's running for his life!" Julian retorted, his voice booming across the gym. "We have a metal bar and fifty people in here. We can handle one person coming through that gap. Open it!"
Ryker stayed firmly on the bleachers, rubbing the bridge of his nose where his taped frames pinched the skin. He didn't move to join the argument, nor did he look away from the shaking steel panels.
"Jules, back up," Ryker called out, his voice sharp enough to cut through his friend's adrenaline. "If you're going to open it, don't stand right in front of the frame. Move to the side."
The varsity player looked between Julian and the screaming girl, his hands shaking on the metal bar. The pounding on the outside of the steel grew deafening, accompanied by a wet, heavy scraping sound.
"Please!" the voice outside shrieked, breaking into a sob. "They're right here—"
The plea ended in a horrific, choked-off gasp. A heavy thud rattled the steel panels, followed by an unmistakable, guttural snarling.
The argument in the gym died instantly, replaced by a suffocating, terrifying silence as everyone stared at the door.