Dead of Night

Mark didn't want to be rude, but he threw the woman into the barn and locked the barn door as fast as he could, barricading it for good measure. Gary had fallen well behind, and might not even find the place.

Hopefully he wouldn't, Mark thought. Again, god forbid uncouthness, but good manners had to take one for the team when factoring in the potential end of the world.

Mark looked around, wondering where the woman had gone until she began pulling up the ladder to the hay loft. She glanced down briefly before scrambling towards the back wall, thudding against it loud enough to echo. Mark shook his head, at least thankful that she was safe and counting his blessings.

As far as apocalypses went- this one courtesy of a disease the CDC didn't survive long enough to properly name- Mark wasn't doing too horrible. A little funny even, consider how he was the sort of person who'd get sick at the very start of the flu season.

A distant cry echoed through the trees. (Gary, maybe? Hopefully heading in the opposite direction.) He started scraping his sights around for something to blockade the doors more.

Of course, the flu never turned people into ravenous monsters with a single bite, only the internet daring to refer to them as "zombies." Not that the internet had much time to throw labels around. Mark and Gary- friends since junior high- barely learned about how the zombies manifested black veins by their mouths.

In a matter of weeks, humanity had been reduced to table scraps, Mark having not seen a human for days...

His stomach grumbled. He pushed down as hard as his withered arms would allow, his hands vibrating. He tensed up, waiting for the sounds of approaching snarls. Still nothing outside, not even crickets.

He half-expected his face to heat up with embarrassment. For as many days as he spent in the loving arms of sci-fi and fantasy. For as many nights he spent in playing D&D and watching the more fantastic corners of Netflix. He should have been better prepared for this.

He looked back up to the loft, forgiving himself for not being any better at talking to girls.

"Excuse me? Ma'am? I know I dragged you out here, but...Are you a doctor? You're in scrubs, so I assumed..."

That's what Mark wanted to say. The words mostly came out as groans and grunts. He predicted the silence that followed, but frowned anyway.

"Do you know anything about the disease? Any other side effects or anything? Or if there's...I dunno, another wave of it or a mutation going on?"

More silence. Mark grunted a few half-swears.

A scream- most certainly Gary and within running distance- cut them off. And- no mistaking it- he was trying to call out for Mark to help him don't leave him out here with those things.

Mark closed his eyes tight, clasping his hands and pressing them against his mouth. Not that he knew whether or not God really listened to prayers from his kind...

Mark looked up to the girl. "Listen, I don't want to come off as creepy, but...We were watching you for the past few days. We saw you talking to them."

Gary screamed for Mark's help again. Close enough to just make out his frightened breathing.

"They weren't attacking you. Why not? Did something about the sickness change?"

Gary fell silent. So did Mark.

"In here!" the woman screamed, rushing to the side of the platform and facing the door. "We're in here! Help me!"

"No! What the hell's wrong with you?!" Mark barked furiously. "I'm not gonna hurt you! I swear I won't! Just..."

Pounding on the door.

Mark slowly turned to it. "Just..."

Gary pleaded from the other side. "Please! Don't leave me out here! Mark, if you're in there-"

Snarls ripped in the distance, growing louder by the second. Gary began dry-heaving, having since passed the capability of sobbing.

Mark frantically looked around for any idea of what to do. He found it in a crate that- perhaps- he could use to get onto the platform where the woman cowered. Gary continued to plead Mark's name, saying how he didn't wanna die oh Mark help me God help me I'm sorry please help me...

Mark had just enough of a boost and just enough of a jump to grab onto the platform, the woman shrieking. His gaze burned into her as he clawed into the loft's very wood.

"I've seen them rise up. They look dead. Are dead. Whatever. But they rise up. And you can talk to them. They don't hurt you."

Tears began streaming down the woman's face. Gary screamed from outside.

"Call them off!" Mark cried.

"You both deserve it!" the woman screamed. She let the words hang in the air, the silence only broken by Gary's quiet sobs.

Mark allowed a sad smile and quiet laugh, as if remembering a little joke at his expense. "Okay...I get it. Really." His stomach growled; the woman panicked more. "I wouldn't normally do this, though. Same with Gary. And yeah, it's messed up...But..."

Mark's guts seized sharply within him, skewing his entire body with pain. He fell onto his knees, clutching his stomach.

"But we were just...We are just...." He looked up to the woman and shrugged.

He smiled, the telltale dark crack marking by his mouth standing out against his deathly pallor.

"Hungry."

Mark was always the first to be hit by the sickness, this one no exception. He and Gary practically rushed to the dinner table when the first dinner bell sounded.

He hadn't found another human for days- let alone eaten one- so he only just barely noticed the sounds of Gary being ripped apart outside. But after he had eaten, perhaps he'd get enough feeling to mourn his friend.

"I dunno what's going on-" Mark began.

"The dead are rising from the grave." the woman finished.

Mark pointed to the markings on his face and smiled madly, lost in the throughs hunger madness. "I know."

The woman shook her head. "No, the ones you killed."

A hand shot through a nearby walls, splinters flying through the air like darts. Mark just had barely enough time to freak out as a dozen other hands pulled him out of the barn.

They had climbed the side of the wall; some of them still chewing on Gary's cold remains, and all of them with eyes simmering with either hate or hunger.

Suddenly, Mark felt ashamed. After all those nights playing D&D. After all those comics he devoured like human flesh.

After all those times he had to school newbs on the difference between zombies and ghouls.

Zombies eat living flesh. Plus they usually come from viruses or stuff like that.

Ghouls on the other hand? Different ballpark. Often revived autonomously. Often as the result of being brutally murdered, but always preferring their meat dead and cold.

As Mark felt the ghouls rip him apart, he could swear that he heard the second dinner bell resound in the world.