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the unexplainable sound that came from downstairs. Every time running start up again I would stop and panic, it would stop and I’d move again, green light, red light, green light, red light? I reached the bottom of the stairs and the madness continued in the living room. Sporadically it stopped and started over and over again. I walked through the hallway ready to attack anything that moved with the baseball bat. I took short steps to the living room, still in the same panic. A shadow ran through the shadows. Something slightly hunched over is all I could make out. I freaked out and backed up into a lamp in the hallway - knocking it down. Almost instantly, the thing in the shadows dashed in my direction. I ran away from it, on the way I knocked down random junk I came across in the hallway to the kitchen. Once in the kitchen, I turned and readied the baseball bat when I realized the infected girl I took down earlier was no longer in the kitchen. She’s what ran around the living room and caused all the commotion in the first floor.
    All the infected prior to this one walked at a slow steady pace and could barely moan. Before I could finish my thought, the girl shot out of the darkness with her arms stretched out, reaching for me. I was still in complete panic and swung the bat. I landed one hit on the right side of her head and one on her left ribs. This knocked her back a few feet but didn’t slow her down in the least. She lunged at me and I backed away from her with no idea what to do next. The infected girl slashed her clawed hands as she tried to scratch me or grab a hold of me; I deflected to the best of my ability, but the girl was just too strong. She wouldn’t show any signs of exhaustion or of slowing down. She just kept on with attack after attack. Filled with failure she became frustrated and tried to bite me.
    The girl foamed at the mouth, grabbed my wrist and tried to go in for the bite. I dropped the lantern intentionally this time, and using my now free arm, I jabbed at her head with the handle of the baseball bat and caused enough damage to become free and dodge her next attempt. I kicked her away, stood up, grabbed the lantern and ran around the dinner table, the infected girl still after me. I ran into the hallway that led to the living room, jumped over the couch, and knocked down a TV and the stand that it was on to cause the girl to trip over one of the two, and land on the floor. It worked but she stood back up as fast she went down and continued her chase. The girl was hot on my tail. She tripped and bumped into everything on her quest to keep up, which she was successfully doing.
    Down three steps, the door that led to the garage stood. I ran down the steps and opened the door. To my surprise, the door opened and gave me no trouble. I ran in, pushed the door behind me but didn’t shut it fully because of the infected girl’s arms which she tried to squeeze in through the small open space between the door and the doorframe. I leaned my whole body on the door, and applied more pressure to give myself time to think of a way to get into the car, open the garage door, and leave safely. Seconds later, her arms retracted back into the living room. The door shut and silence overcame the house.
    Why she went silent all of a sudden was more than I could understand, but I didn’t plan to discover the secret behind the silence. In the garage, an extremely old, first generation car, neatly parked awaited me to crank it and drive it the hell out of the town. Again, how sad.
    On top of everything else that took place inside and outside of the house, the car wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to start. There was an instructional manual left on the hood of the car which was just convenient in an odd kind of way considering how inconvenient everything else was. I went as follows: I set the emergency brake and made sure the car was set to a neutral shift. Raised a spark lever and lowered the throttle lever