Space Cowboy

Claws on metal.... screeching.... 

Scratching as they dragged across whatever surface they chose, and they were getting louder. Fast. 

If a room is empty...it probably isn't. 

"Shit." She muttered to herself, attempting to twist about in the dark to face the direction they were coming from. 

But she couldn't focus. 

The faint moans of the trapped zombies were still audible, and the raptor wasn't coming from one place- it was multiple. 

First she heard scrapping in one direction on the ceiling, then a few seconds later it was on the floor, then a wall. It was hunting her, and the horrifying realization was beginning to dawn on her. 

Kaori knew how to fight now, but the fear of the raptors was from both souls. Please, focus! 

"Deep breath," she told herself, trying harder to focus on the beast attempting to eat her. She squinted her eyes, and finally she could see it; faintly illuminated by the red neon sign, that was directly above her. Her escape was so close yet so far. 

Kaori prepared herself, the gifted dagger at the ready. Though, as it pounced at her, she had the sudden urge to dodge instead of trying to take it head on. My death.... 

The raptor missed Kaori by only a hair as it smashed into the wall behind her, stunning it. However, as she tried to get away, the force of the impact caused her to lose balance and fall; the escape now on the other side of the raptor. 

As she stood up, so did the raptor though on all fours, hissing at her as he snapped its jaws and clinked its claws against the metallic ground; only 10 feet away. 

She readied herself once more, holding her breath as fear filled her body. As the raptor leapt at her, almost immediately it came to an abrupt halt, seemingly floating for a moment, before being slammed into the ground, hard. 

Some remaining blood squirted from its corpse as it let out a pained screech upon impact, it's arms tied to its body with a rope, pulled tight. 

"Well, howdy Princess. This little bitch giving you a hard time?" A thick, southern accent appeared from the shadowy hallway that led to her escape. 

"Jesse?" 

The man swiftly appeared from the shadows as he collected his rope, with the heels of apparent boots tapping steadily as he closed in on the tied up, mutated zombie. 

The bloodthirsty creature could do nothing but wiggle about and screech as it tried to escape its impending demise and sink it's teeth into Kaori's flesh once more. 

Despite it's horrific nature, the southern man seemed unfazed, and it somewhat intrigued her; she's only been with city men after all.

Jesse was wearing dark blue denim jeans with a pair of brown cowboy boots. Tucked into his jeans however, and sealed by a black belt, was a plaid, maroon flannel long-sleeved shirt; the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. 

When he got up to the raptor, he stomped onto it's back; the sound of crunching bones filled her ears as its back broke. He then slightly tilted his brown-leather cowboy hat, before looking her in the eyes; his blues somehow settling her fear a sliver.

"Nice to see you, little lady," he winked at her, with beads of sweat dripping from his brown hair and into his brows. "Would you like to do the honors?" He pulled on the rope like he had wrangled a hog, "everyone else is long gone, but I stayed; sorry Princess." 

Kaori knew the previous version of her would be furious, but how could she? She didn't want to die by being fed to the sun. Silently, she went to the tied-up zombie, stabbing it in its head and killing it; it's corpse now permanently dead as it went limp against the floor.

She felt a strange jolt of power inside her, with the sudden knowledge she was 500 experience points closer to leveling; only 1,000 needed in total. "Let's hurry, please," she said faintly, almost quiet enough to be a whisper as he continued to talk like they weren't inside a ship festering with dead cannibals. 

Jesse paused for a brief minute to eye her with a confused look, "are you infected? You're acting a bit strange." 

Kaori shook her head. "I'll explain everything on the ship. Just please, hurry," she begged. And, as commanded, he did, slipping the rope off the raptor's body and mounting his lasso back onto his belt. He then motioned for her to follow him as he began to jog into the hallway towards the ship area. 

"Our team with the ones we rescued left on our ship, but the Pilot had 1 left of their own still parked. There weren't any signs of being stalled, so I just hoped for the best. The others should be nearly home by now, so you don't have to worry about them." 

She wasn't worried at all, not that she didn't care, but she was more worried about herself in the moment. Kaori smiled as if she cared.

As they arrived at the door at the end of the hall, he typed in the override code to open the door; then again once they were inside. 

The entire ship was barely hanging on with power, the lights flickering over and over, with the sounds of live, yet broken wires snapping about inside the room. The haste some people had left with was apparent. 

"I'm going to override the power and direct it to bay 2, our escape," Jesse began, his voice low as if warning her. "When I do that, all doors will open as the ship enters failure mode. It will be quiet and dark except for those bastards and our ship. They'll be drawn to one place only....." 

"Us" Kaori finished. 

The cowboy gave a stiff nod, "we'll need to be fast. But suit up, even the outer doors will be opened." 

"Suit Up?" She began, there were so many questions rushing to her at once. "How long do we have?" 

"5 minutes of total power before failure, maybe. When the ship loses its anchor with the power failure, it'll get sucked into the natural flow of Earth's orbit. We'll begin to spin violently, before ultimately getting spit out in some random direction- never to stop." His voice got lower and lower as he finished, a sense of doom overcoming him. "Are you alright, Kaori?" 

"I've got a bit of amnesia," she sheepishly admitted. It's a white lie, she thought to herself. Though she still felt a bit guilty. 

He pointed to a set of thick, black space suits hanging against the wall to their right, with their round, glass helmets, and gloves just above them on a shelf; the boots were on the ground. "Without those we'll go...." he imitated his head blowing up, puffed out cheeks and sound effects to match his charades. 

The room was extremely large, with a ceiling that was stories above them, and for good reason; the ships to their left, considered the 'RVs' of the universe, were stored inside, sitting upon a door that would cause it to fall into space. 

The ships were 200 feet long, semi-oval shaped. The flat end had a singular, large, rotating powerful rocket to control the ship, while the opposite end had a large glass window exposing the cock pit; giving a great view for the pilot. 

And there was only 1 left in the room; bay 2. Their only hope to get out of the community ship alive. A ship Jesse didn't even make sure ran first.