Chapter 6: Chapter 06: Dream

"... Hamburg 6 am... "

It continued to list the sixteen big cities in Germany and their purge time.

It is 3 pm right now in Hamburg, according to the clock. So we have fifteen hours to get the hell out of here.

Which sounds more than enough, but you can't really move fast or freely on the streets. Because they are full of the infected.

Shana saw my distressed face and asked, "Is something wrong? Did they send something new?"

"Yes, but it's nothing good. They said that they couldn't stop the spreading and would purge the capital cities of each state."

"What does purge mean?" asked Maria.

"It means that they will bomb the cities to kill all the infected."

This made them both look in shock at me.

Then Shana said, frightened, "But they can't do that. There are a lot of people still alive, I'm sure of it."

I hug her tighter and say, "They can and they will, that's why we need to move. The purge of Hamburg will begin in fifteen hours, till then we need to be out of the city."

Fifteen hours and we are still in the middle of this city...

"Let's rest for ten more minutes and then we need to move." I say and close my eyes, to recover as much as possible.

Suddenly, I find myself in the kitchen of our home cooking spaghetti bolognese and hearing a baby crying in the living room.

"Shana is everything OK there? The baby is screaming very loud."

But no answer.

I walked into the living room, where I could see Shana sitting with her back to me and summing something, while our child screamed his heart out.

How long have we had a child? My memories are kinda foggy.

I walk closer to Shana and touch her shoulder, and the baby stops screaming.

"Shana? Is everything alright?"

But still no answers.

Walking in front of her, she looked down. Her face is hidden by her hair and the baby in her arms is wrapped in a blanket.

"Look at our baby Jake isn't it beautiful?" she says and unwraps the blanket.

The sight made me gasp in shock. The baby looked dead... at least until it opened its red glowing eyes and stared at me.

Suddenly it started shrieking so loud that I needed to hold my ears and back off, or my eardrums would be ruptured.

Shana stood up and when I looked at her, it was not Shana. The woman standing before me had a disfigured face where only her horrific grin could be seen.

This bitch again... I wanted to move and get away from there, but my body didn't obey me.

She held the baby towards me, she began walking forward. It felt like death was personally approaching me.

Then I felt someone shake me suddenly.

"Jake!!! Wake up!"

A dream! I jump up from my position and appear in the stairwell again.

 

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When I looked around, I could see Shana having tears in her eyes as she sat on the steps. Maria and the children went down the stairs to the entrance door and looked at me, frightened.

Shana sees my confused state, then stands up and hugs me while crying.

"What happened?" I asked, confused, as I caressed her back.

She gathers herself a bit and says, "We tried to wake you for nearly a half hour, but you didn't react and then you started screaming like someone was torturing you."

The hell...

I wiped away her tears and say, "Don't worry I'm fine now. Let's get out of here."

She nods at me still worriedly, so I take her hand and we walk down the stairs to the entrance door.

"Sorry that I frightened you and your children. It wasn't on purpose." I apologized to Maria, who still kept her children a bit away from me.

She probably thought I had turned. If I were in their shoes, I would have killed that person who did not move for half an hour and played dead in a zombie apocalypse.

Then I wanted to open the door, but a terrible feeling came over me when I tried. To be sure that everything is safe, I placed my ear against the door.

But what I heard was not silence but dozens of groans...

Suddenly as if they could sense us inside, the infected started banging and scratching at the door.

"Damn, get away from the door. We need to find another way out." I say and walk to one of the two flats on the ground floor.

This apartment building has six floors, with two apartments on each floor.

When we got inside, we knocked on a few doors, but no one opened them. Maybe no one was home, or maybe they were hiding inside.

Since it would make too much noise to break the door and they also looked pretty sturdy, we stayed in the stairwell and recovered there.

But being silent is out of the question now.

I chose the right door and inspected it. The door opened to the inside, so we were lucky and I had a chance to kick the door open.

Well, that or breaking my foot in the process...

I take a fighting stance and kick the door near the lock and it breaks open.

Suddenly, there was an awful smell coming from the apartment. Holding my nose, I entered it.

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The apartment was full of garbage and because it was everywhere, it was nearly impossible to walk there.

The goal was the living room, because there should be a balcony or a window that leads behind the building and we can use it to escape.

The others began to follow, but I heard a noise from the living room and stopped them, at the entrance.

I walked forward and looked around the corner into the living room. I could see a half-naked man sitting motionless on the couch.

Knocking at the entrance, the man doesn't react. Is he beckoning me to come closer to him?

"Hello Sir? We are from Clean Fix. Are you alright?"

Once he realizes that I won't come closer, he gets down on all fours and walks around the couch, while staring at me with angry red eyes.

How did someone like that get infected? Or did he simply die here?

The infected had only dirty pants on and looked like it hadn't eaten for a month or two.

Then it screeches and runs at high speed on all fours towards me. It jumps from right to left to confuse me and then directly at me.

However, I catch it in the air by the throat and slam it to the ground. It's fast but weak as hell...

The creature tried to hit and scratch me, but I grabbed its head and snapped its neck, ending its miserable existence.

To avoid traumatizing the children, I hide it in the garbage and say, "Come inside. It's safe now."

Coming inside they held their noses and we walked to the balcony. We put some garbage to the side and opened the door that hadn't been open for months.

We were only a few feet above the ground and it was safe to jump down.

The only problem was that five infected roamed the courtyard. Fortunately it was surrounded by buildings on nearly all sides, otherwise there would have been more of them.

I go back inside the living room, turn over the couch table and break off a wood pedestal for me and two more for Shana and Maria.

"Stay here till I deal with the things in the courtyard. If you hear that the infected start to break through the door in the stairwell jump down immediately."

They nod and I jump down.

 

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I walk to the first infected and when it turns around, I use the pedestal as a baseball bat to smash the head of the creature.

When the infected hit the floor, the others noticed me and started to run towards me.

Man, it's been a while since I played baseball.

Walking forward I practicing some swings, the three infected ran next to each other, while the fourth one was a bit slower and was right behind them.

When they came closer, the two infected at the sides jumped forward while stretching out their arms to grab me.

But I roll under them and they crash into each other and fall to the ground. I use the momentum after the roll to hit the third Infected full force in the head and it drops to the ground dead.

That hit was sadly too much for the pedestal and it broke in half. Yet, I was still able to use it.

I threw the part I still had at the slow infected and it became stunned for a moment. Which gave me enough time to kick it in the stomach and send it flying to the ground.

Then I kick it in the side to turn it around and stomp on its neck twice, killing it with this.

Now to the last two, that have managed to stand up already... they start to screech at me and run forward. But two shots dropped them both instantly.

Looking to the side, I saw two policemen standing there. One was maybe twenty-five years old and the other one looked like he had one or two years until retirement.

"Komm mit wenn du überleben willst." says the older one.

If I understood them correctly, they wanted me to follow them.

"Wait I have other companions." I say and run to the balcony.

"You can come down now."

Shana, who watched my fight, nodded, jumped down and I helped her land.

When the police saw this, they waited for us and stood guard at the courtyard exit, while Maria and her children came down also.

Then suddenly, shrieks and roars came from the apartment.

I looked at my allies and screamed, "Run towards the policemen now!"

Maria and Shana nodded and both lifted a child up and started to run, while I followed right behind them.

The next moment, dozens of infected fell from the balcony and began following us. When the policemen saw this, they began shooting at them to hold them off.

We ran past them and they retreated as well, while firing at the creatures.

Coming out of the courtyard, we saw a police car standing on the road and the old policeman screamed, "Get inside! We will hold them off!"

We ran to the car. I opened the back door and Shana, Maria and the children went inside.

Then they put the children on their laps and I could enter too.

As soon as the policemen saw that we were inside, they also ran from the horde.

The younger one managed to get into the driver's seat and close the door. However, when the older one tried to get into the passenger seat, the infected jumped over the car and tackled him to the ground, eating him.

Following this, the horde began to run against the car and tried to overturn it.

But the policeman started the engine and we could drive off, while dodging cars and infected on the road.

 

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