The ZWD Trilogy (Book 1): Zombie World Dominance [The Destruction Begins] (10 page)

In
less than sixty seconds, both men were dead from their wounds. The back door
was held open by their bodies. The six horribly deformed, mutated creatures
slowly shuffled into the building. To look at them, they were hunting for more
people, looking for anyone to attack. They were stumbling and shuffling their
way down the hallway toward the lobby of the building.

At the
stairs, the creatures were drawn to the muffled sounds coming from the meeting
taking place upstairs. They turned, instinctually climbing the stairs as fast
as their broken bodies could go towards the sounds, shuffling, staggering,
dragging themselves up the stairs, hunting for what was making the sounds.

Slowly
the creatures climbed each set of stairs, one floor at a time. The meeting was
on the fourth floor. The stairs between the floors had a landing that turned
the stairs to continue. The creatures made it to the second-floor, and
continued their climb.

The
outer office door to the Head Master’s office suite stood open to the fourth floor
hallway. Mrs. Tannous’ desk was closest to the open door. She could hear the strange
sounds coming from the creatures climbing the stairs. The scraping, dragging
sounds, combined with the low guttural moaning sounds the creatures made, were just
loud enough for her to hear it from her desk.

She
asked her assistant, Mrs. Botros, “Mrs. Botros, do you hear anything out in the
hallway? I think there might be someone on the stairs. I don’t think the
maintenance crew would be back with the food quite yet, but if so, they might
need some help. Would you mind going to see if they do?”

“No, I
do not hear anything, but I’ll go check.”

“It
might not be anything. You know this old building makes some odd noises at
times.”

Mrs.
Botros left her desk, stepping out into the hall. Now she could hear the noise better.
It was coming from the stairwell. It sounded like something was being scraped
or dragged on the stairs. She walked to the stairs to see what was making all
the racket. From the top of the stairs, she couldn’t see what was making the
noise. She started to walk downstairs to find the source of the sounds. On the
first landing, she got a faint whiff of the smell. As she walked further down
to the third floor, she stopped. The noise had gotten much louder. Now the smell
had gotten worse as well. It smelled like an open sewer or rotting meat. She continued
down the stairs from the third floor to the landing. Mrs. Botros stopped,
leaning over the railing.

She
could see the first two creatures coming up from the second floor. She jumped
back, screaming as she ran back up the stairs as fast as she could to the Head
Master’s office. She ran screaming into the office, slamming the door shut
behind her, locking it.

“Nada,
I don’t know what is out there! They are coming up the stairs towards us. They
look like some sort of horrible beast or something! There is more than one! Help
me move a desk to block the door! From here you can’t smell it, but those damn
things smell like something that has been dead for a long while! We need to let
the Head Master know what is going on! He will know what to do!”

“Mrs.
Botros, calm down. What did you see? Stop screaming. The Head Master will have
a fit if we interrupt his meeting.”

“There’s
some sort of horrible creatures down there coming for us. They’re on the
stairs. I couldn’t see how many there were, but there were a lot, all coming up
here. I am not going back out there. We need to keep the door locked. We need
to block it so they cannot get in. We need to find a way out of the building.
We can’t use the stairs; those creatures are on it, but the stairs are the only
way down, and the creatures are coming up the stairs.”

Mr.
Halabi heard the commotion in the outer office, and left his meeting to talk to
both women. He was not happy. He wanted answers and he wanted them now.

“Mrs.
Tannous, what the hell is going on out here? Both of you are disturbing our
meeting. Please tell me it is something important, or I might just fire you
both.”

“Mr.
Halabi, I heard a noise outside of our office. I sent Mrs. Botros to go see what
was making all the noise. She came back screaming, saying that there are some
kind of creatures coming up the stairs.”

“Mr.
Halabi, they look horrible. They smell like something dead. We need to get out
of this office. We need to block the door.”

“Mrs. Botros,
what is wrong with you? Slow down, take your time, and tell me what you are
talking about.”

“The
creatures — or whatever they are — are coming up the stairs. They smell something
rotting, or like death. They have claws. Their bodies are all mutated and torn,
and their flesh is hanging off their bodies in chunks… they smell
putrid!
Their clothes are ripped, and just…
hanging
on their bodies. They are
coming. They are on the stairs. They are coming for us. We need to barricade
the door. We need to get out of this building as fast as we can. We need to do
something.”

With
all of the shouting going on, other meeting attendees started to file into the
outer office. They were listening to what she was trying to say. The remainder
of the meeting participants that could not squeeze into the outer office were crowding
near, trying to hear what the shouting was about. Mr. Baz was one of the first
people from the meeting to enter the outer office, Mr. Halabi spoke to him.

“Mr.
Baz, will you please go into the hall and see what Mrs. Botros is carrying on
about? She seems to think that there are some sort of monsters out there coming
after us. She said that they are on the stairs. Please go find out what this
woman is carrying on about.”

“Yes,
sir, I will. Please excuse me, Mrs. Botros, I need to open the door.”

“Mrs.
Tannous,” said Mr. Halabi, “While Mr. Baz is looking for the bogeyman on the
stairs, will you find out where our food is?”

“Yes,
sir, I’ll call maintenance to find out,” said Mrs. Tannous. “It should have been
here by now. The restaurant is only five blocks away, and they were starting to
box up our food as I was ordering it.”

By
this time, the creatures had made it to the fourth floor. They were slowly
staggering, their broken, damaged bodies shuffling down the hallway, gathering
in front of the closed door of the Head Master’s office.

Mr.
Baz opened the door, and tried to step into the hallway. He found himself
facing the first creature standing in front of the door. Their faces were
inches apart. He was shocked at what he saw, standing frozen in place, his eyes
wide.

Karim
was in shock. He tried to scream, but nothing would come out. His hand was
still on the office door handle. Frozen in place, he could not move. The
creature swung out with its ridged, clawed hand, slashing Karim’s body across from
his shoulder to his hip, flaying him open as it dragged him out into the
hallway, face down on the floor.

A
second creature knelt on the other side of Karim. With their four rugged,
stiff-clawed hands, they began ripping Karim’s back open, exposing his shoulder
blades, ribs and the back of his belly. On the floor, he was able to find his
voice. All he could do was scream about his wounds. His screams were the last
sound that he would ever make. With two creatures busy killing Karim, the
remaining creatures climbed over them on the floor, stumbling into the Head
Master’s outer office.

Inside,
they attacked anyone they could grab in the Head Master’s office. The office
was an old design, and the only way out was through the door in the outer
office. Right now the creatures had the door blocked with a growing pile of the
dead bodies of the secretaries and the members of this meeting.

The
floor of the office was slick with blood. Everyone inside the Head Master’s
office was fleeing into the meeting room. On this day, no one in the Head
Master’s office would survive. The creatures went from one victim to another
until no one remained alive in the Head master’s office. Once everyone was
dead, the creatures crawled over the stacks of dead, bloodied bodies and started
hunting again.

There
were three of the maintenance crew left in the office in the lower basement.
These were Assem, Sheref, and their boss, Zeyad. From their office in the lower
basement, they could hear the screams coming from the slaughter upstairs in the
Head Master’s office. The three began going up the stairs to investigate. The
screams of the dying echoed throughout the building. They cautiously continued
up the stairs, not knowing what was ahead. When they reached the first floor,
they stopped to look around. At the end of the hallway, they could see the rear
door standing open.

“Oh,
no! Look, there is Mohab’s body,” said Zeyad. “He isn’t moving. He might be
dead. He never got out of the building. I can’t see Mahmoud, but I would guess
that he is out there as well and is more than likely dead.

“Come
on,” he continued, “The screams are coming from upstairs. We need to be careful;
if there is anything that is not right, be ready to run. I don’t want anyone
else hurt. Be ready to run if you have to.”

Cautiously,
they started up the stairs to the landing below the first floor. Zeyad was in
the lead, and Assem following, with Sheref in the rear. From the first floor up
to the second, there was nothing out of place. They continued to climb the
stairs to the third floor. They still found nothing wrong. As they started up
from the third floor towards the fourth, the screams were deafening.

There
was now no doubt that they were human screams. Zeyad had spent time in the
Egyptian army. He had witnessed firsthand how people died. Only the dying
screamed like this. when they were nearly to the fourth floor, Zeyad stopped. Lying
on the stairs, he cautiously looked along the floor. What he saw looked like it
was something from a horror movie.

Zeyad
turned back to his men and whispered, “I see Principal
Baz. His body is
ripped open just as Mohab’s was. There is a huge puddle of blood getting larger
on the hall floor. We need to get out of here, now. From what I see everyone in
the Head Master’s office is either dead or dying. There is nothing that we can
do for anyone in there. We need to go,
now.”

They
went back down the stairs as quickly as they could. Reaching the first floor,
they ran to the rear door. They were brought to a stop by the sight of their two
friends’ dead bodies. As carefully as they could, they stepped over them,
running to the cars in the dirt parking lot. They ran to Zeyad’s car. He was
the only one of the three who owned a vehicle. They all piled into his car.
Zeyad pulled out of the parking lot, squealing his tires as they roared down
the street.

They
were relieved to have gotten away. Then Assem shouted, “Look! There are more of
those things in the shadows next to the other building!”

“I see
them, Assem,” said Zeyad. “We need to keep moving. We need to find the police.
I don’t know what else to do.”

“Zeyad,
look there are more down the street!” said Sheref. “We need to get away from
here. Perhaps we should think about leaving Luxor. We could go to Cairo. There
is a larger army there than we have here. It might be safer.”

As
they drove through the streets of Luxor, they could see that there were many
abandoned vehicles that had been left on the street. There were not many other
people out, either. This bothered Zeyad, and he spoke to the other two men in the
car.

“Do
you see any other people outside? There are a lot of abandoned cars on the
street but I don’t see any other people. The streets should be full of people
celebrating the holiday, but I have not seen a single person yet.”

“Zeyad,
you’re right,” said Assem, “I don’t see anyone else except us and those
creatures. What do you make of this?”

“I
don’t know, Sheref. It’s definitely something to be worried about. I would think
we would have seen at least one other person outside.”

“Do you
think the missing people have anything to do with the creatures, Assem?” asked
Zeyad.

“I
don’t know… it’s starting to look like it, though. This is very bad. Is this a
Luxor thing or is it all over Egypt?” said Assem.

“If
this is only happening in Luxor, then we need to get out as soon as we can,
while we are still able. What do you think?”

“I am
willing to leave Luxor,” said Sheref. Assem immediately agreed.

“Very
well, if we are going to leave Luxor, we should go to Cairo. There are more
people there. They have a large military station there. They will have dealt
with the creatures. We should stop at the bank and get as much money as we can.
We will need gas, food and water on the way. I want to go to my home and get my
wife and my two girls.”

The
ABC Arab Bank was on Al-madina Almnora Street, about three kilometers from the school
administration building. As they got closer to the bank, they could see that there
were more creatures milling about in the shade of the bank building.

Assem
shouted, “Look, Zeyad. There are more of the creatures blocking the steps of
the bank. I don’t want to get any closer to them than we are now. We need to
make do with the money we have on us. I have a little over £350. How much do
each of you have?”