Chapter 3

"We have to get out of here." Eric answered calmly.

"Yeah, so the thing outside can rip us into pieces." Beth interjected.

Trevor closed his eyes and went through their options in his head, then he chimed in. "Eric is right, we need to leave. I hate to say this but the police is not coming, and we're going to run out of things to eat soon."

"But we can't just walk out there, right? Last time I checked that thing was still lurking outside." Kate mentioned, brushing her curly ginger hair, having gotten out of the shower not long ago.

"You're right Kate, we need a plan," Trevor said, grinning slightly. "I say we fight it, we have things here that we can use as weapons."

"Trevor, I don't think that's a great idea, we even don't know what it is." Kate reasoned, facing the monster head-on was the last thing she wanted to do.

"Then what do we do? I'd rather fight that thing to the death than staying here and rot." Trevor grunted, clenching his right hand into a fist, still annoyed by the fact the police never showed up.

"We need to find out what it is first before figuring out what to do." Eric said.

"Make sense," Trevor agreed and began describing the thing from his memory. "Well it looked exactly like Mr. Morrison, it's was fast and strong...Just like Mr. Morrison...Wait...Is it Mr. Morrison?" Trevor said in a condescending tone.

"Yeah, If you excluded the fact that it killed someone, eat them, and tried to eat us too." Kate argued.

"Welp, I have no idea what it is," Trevor whimpered. "What do you guys think?"

Beth crossed her leg, looking down aimlessly, something was on her mind, she was having an internal debate on what to do, then she looked up, let out a sigh, and started talking. "Guys, I think I know what it is."

"What is it?" Eric quizzed.

"a zombie." Beth said confidently.

"Beth, this is no time to joke around." Kate interjected, rolling her eyes at her childish friend.

"Wait, let her speak." Eric raised his hand to stop Kate from stoping Beth, he was so desperate for an explanation that he was willing to hear whatever the hell people could come up with.

"Bear with me okay?" Beth continued. "That thing looked like Mr. Morrison because it was Mr. Morrison before he was turned into a zombie. That would also explain why it ate people and doesn't need to sleep."

"That's just insane. Zombie isn't real Beth." Trevor disagreed.

Eric thought about Beth's idea for a second, everything clicked, the zombie hypothesis checked out, even if it's not a zombie, it should be something similar to it. Eric's brown eyes glowed and he said. "Good enough for me, zombie it is."

"Eric, you can't be serious." Trevor opposed, his face turned from just confusion to a mix between confusion and irritation, startling Kate. His facial expressions and body language are unique in a way that any face he made that didn't describe contentment or happiness could easily be mistaken as resentment and aggression.

"Well, it's either a zombie or it's Mr. Morrison's cannibal cyborg clone. Zombies make more sense to me Trevor." Eric explained, making a point that he was not joking.

Trevor suffered a loss for word, he looked at Beth in the eyes, then Eric's, then Kate's hazel iris that was oddly big, she averted her gaze when she realized he was looking at her, he closed his eyes, finally, he let out a sigh of defeat and spoke in a half-mocking tone. "Fine, zombies. So what's the plan?."

Eric smirked, he adjusted his glasses, producing a pen and a piece of paper from under the table, then began drawing a map of the camp, surprising Beth and Kate with how detailed the final product was, he said. "So here's the plan, listen clearly."

Eric then proposed the plan he had been concocting in his mind for the past 5 minutes. He was gifted kid, but his brain could only work linearly in term of problem-solving, that is, he could only solve one problem at a time, and if he couldn't solve it, it was hard for him to move on to another problem, and since Beth has already helped him solve the "what was that thing?" problem, he was free to move on to another, more practical problem, which he was exceptionally good at. He asked. "That's the plan. What do you guys think?"

"You motherfucker, that might just work." Trevor said, filled with excitement, he gave Eric a firm hug which he didn't like and attempted to break free but couldn't since Trevor's grasp was too strong.

"You did mention zombies to me before, was there something that I suppose to know about, Beth?" Kate questioned, waiting for an answer.

"I'll tell you, but I have to confirmed it first, trust me." Beth said, reaching for Kate's soft hand, reassuring her.

After some preparation, Eric's plan was set in motion. "Do it." Eric cued.

Having heard the cue, Trevor opened the backdoor and threw a pillow outside while the other three had their eyes glued on the windows, waiting. One minute passed, and from the pillow, a ringing sound echoed through the night, inside it was an alarm clock, and a loud one too. From one of the windows, Beth squinted her eyes, trying to locate the zombie, and she saw it, just like the plan, it was walking toward the direction of the decoy. "It worked, it fell for it." she yelled.

The four quickly sneak out through the front door and crouched away stealthily, no one said a thing, and their footstep was barely audible yet, compared to the complete silence, was terrifyingly loud. Finally, they made it to the gate without a single scratch. "I can believe it worked." Kate whispered.

"Eric, your plan worked." Beth turned to Eric, but couldn't believe her eyes, Eric was nowhere to be found so she panicked. "Where's Eric!?".

"How did we even lose him?" Kate whined.

"Motherfucker!" Trevor cursed, rubbing his eyes brow. "I need to go back for him. You guys stay here."

"No." Unconsciously, Kate grabbed Trevor's hand and refused to let him go, but when he gave her a confused look, she let go of his hand, regaining her composure. "I'm going with you."

Witnessing what had just happened, Beth rolled her eyes. "I'll go too, but when we find him, he's going to get it."

The group sneaked back to where they came from, soon they were close to the girl's dorm, basically square one, but there was still no sign of Eric.

"What if the zombie got him?" Kate whispered.

"Don't jinx it Kate" Beth interjected, not realizing the approaching danger.

"Shit. It's here." Trevor yelled, his eyes widened.

One more time, the familiar bestial grunt echoed through the night, tearing silence apart. This time it was standing between them and the girl's dorm, blocking their easy escape route. and the other buildings were far away enough that there was a good chance they were not going to make it out alive like last time, But they had to try.

Beth, Kate, and Trevor started running, but soon the zombie was closer to them than the closest building.

"I'm going to hunt you down from my grave Eric." Beth regretted her decision now that she was about to become dinner.

When all hope was lost, they heard a loud honk and from nowhere, a truck quickly closed its' distance, stopping between them and the zombie with its' door blasted opened.

"Get in!" Eric yelled, honking the car horn.

Without a second thought, Trevor, then Kate, then Beth all jumped in the backseat, stacking on each other in the process. They were quick enough that by the time the zombie made it way around, the door had already closed shut.

"Go Eric go!" Trevor hustled.

"I'm on it." Eric switched the gear to reverse and turned the wheel, making a sharper turn than he had expected and hit a nearby tree, rocking the truck. "Why is this thing so hard to drive?" He groaned.

The impact made Beth rolled down under the seat, agitated, she yelled. "Careful!"

Hands on the wheel, Eric got the truck away from the tree, It's kinda hard to navigate in the dark, and having a zombie banging on his window didn't help, but he went for a second attempt anyway and make another turn, this time it went smoothly and he made a beeline for the gate, successfully escaping the camp.

When Kate realized what was going in on, she was on top of Trevor, his well-defined abs pressed against her, she felt the warmth of his body, when their eyes met, she blushed, normally she would avert her eyes, but now, since they were so close for the first time, she was trapped in the deep ocean inside his eyes and couldn't seem to snap out of it. Trevor didn't say a word, not only confused by the situation, but he was also distracted by something about Kate, not the fact that her chest was leaning into his, but her eyes, she had really big pupils.

Beth erected from the bottom of the seat, seeing Kate and Trevor clearly was having a moment, she didn't want to interrupt, so she didn't say a word, but she couldn't keep a straight face and looked at her friend with a shit-eating grin.

"Oh, sorry." Kate staggered, she turned her face away to hide the redness and hastily move away from Trevor, her heart rate was off the chart and she looked extremely flustered and embarrassed.

"It's okay." said Trevor, slowly getting himself up, a part of him knew exactly what happened, adding a slight shade of red on his face, but every other part of him was filled with confusion, didn't know what to make out of the awkward situation.

"That was close." Eric said, letting out a sigh of relief, mentally giving himself a well-deserved pat in the back for a job well done, at least that was what he thought.

Beth squeezed her way to the shotgun seat to escape the awkwardness from the backseat, sitting down next to Eric, who was oblivious of what was about to be unleashed upon him. "Eric, where were you?" Beth exploded. "We thought you were dead."

"I was getting the truck." Eric answered absent-mindedly, focusing on the road.

"Well, no shit." Beth sassed. "But that was not the plan."

"Oh, the plan..." Eric pondered a little and explained. "So when I was planning our escape, I remembered seeing Mr. Morrison hid his truck's key under the doormat once so I had to go check."

"And you didn't tell us?"

"Well, I was not sure if the key was actually there and I didn't want to complicate things for you guys." Eric adjusted his glassed, reciting his thought process, he was sure that he did a good job, now, he was having a second thought.

"You should have told us," Beth tried to keep a firm tone, what Eric did was selfless, or maybe just reckless, but she thought it was sweet, although his lack of consideration for others' feeling ticked her off. "We're all in this together you know?"

"Yes, we are," Trevor chimed in. "We went looking for you Eric."

"Sorry." Eric apologized. There was sincerity in his voice, he felt guilty, he didn't think they would go and looked for him which was a miscalculation on his part. He was never good at guessing what people think, and because of that, he put his friends in danger, the save back then was just pure luck, if he had come a little bit later then the outcome would have been dire. "Won't happen again, I promise."

Just a moment ago Eric was smug and prideful, now he had been reduced to just feeling torn. Beth felt bad for going off on him like that, to be fair, he deserved it, but he did save her and the gang. "Hey." She said hesitantly.

"What?" Eric muttered, preparing for another storm coming his way.

"Thanks for saving me." Beth reached out her hand, patting Eric in the back.

Eric's face lit up, he looked flustered. "Thank you, too."

"For what?"

"For calling me out."

"Oh, that. You're welcome" Beth laughed. "By the way, that truck save was dope, when did you learn how to drive a truck?"

"I learned it off the fly, sorry it took so long." Eric elaborated casually, either he was being humble or was not aware that learning how to drive in 20 minutes was not a simple task.

"ehhh?" As soon as she heard it, fear kicked in, giving her a sudden urge to stop the vehicle since the driver was exceptionally inexperienced, and that was somehow still an understatement, the girl who escaped from a zombie, was now in fear of a terrible, horrifying thing called a car accident.

"You know how to drive a truck now, nice dude!" Trevor applauded, having switched seat with Beth, she said it was safer in the back. Unlike her, he was not in fear for his life since he knew what she didn't. Having known Eric from a young age, he knew that Eric was not just your ordinary smart guy, he was a child prodigy, excelling at mathematics and chess, it was hard to talk about him without feeling a little bit envious, the guy had a photographic memory and a full ride to MIT for god sake.

"Hey, Eric." Trevor whispered. "I need a second opinion."

"What?"

"I think Kate is into me."

Eric looked surprised, he adjusted the mirror to get a better glance at Kate, then he asked. "How so?"

"She keeps blushing and the way she looks at me is...um...I don't know how to explain it."

"That might just be fight-or-flight response, and you have a girlfriend right?."

"You're right, maybe I'm just reading into it too much." Trevor said, his eyes were on the road, but his mind was somewhere else.

At the back, Beth played Eric's Gameboy which she extorted from him in exchange for letting him continued driving the car, somehow he was the only person "capable" of driving so there was nothing that she could do besides trying to distract herself from the feeling of impending doom, ignorance is bliss they say.

"Tell me Beth, what do you know?" Kate said, her hands were busy braiding Beth's black hair which was nice and long with some really cute blue highlights.

"I read this um...theory, I can't tell if it's true or not right now, but if it's true, we're doom." Beth stated, her face was dead serious.