Second floor. The elevator shuddered slightly, and for a heart-stopping mont I thought it might break down, trapping in this tal tomb. But then it continued upward, and finally—finally—the doors opened onto the familiar hallway of the third floor.
When the elevator doors slid open, I didn’t imdiately step out. Instead, I pressed myself against the side wall and listened, straining my ears for any sound that might indicate danger. The hallway stretched before , lit by the sa harsh fluorescent lights as the parking garage, but it was the silence that unnerved most. No shuffling footsteps, no low moans or growls, no sounds of life at all.
After what felt like an eternity but was probably only thirty seconds, I finally exhaled the breath I’d been holding and stepped into the corridor.
There were only four apartnts on this floor—mine, Mrs. Chen’s across the hall, and the young couple at the far end whose nas I’d never bothered to learn. It had always been a quiet floor, the kind of place where neighbors nodded politely but rarely spoke beyond pleasantries about the weather.
Now it was quiet for entirely different reasons.
The mont my feet hit the carpeted hallway, I saw them—dark, wet footprints leading from the elevator to various apartnt doors. So were clearly human, but others... others had a dragging quality that made my skin crawl. The beige walls were splattered with rusty brown stains that could only be blood, and in so places, I could make out the distinct impression of handprints, as if soone had been pressed against the wall while struggling.
My legs felt like lead as I followed the grisly trail, knowing with growing dread where it would lead. Each step brought closer to apartnt 3B—my ho, the place where I’d spent the last three years of my life, where my mother and I had built our small but precious ho after the divorce.
When I reached my door, my worst fears were confird. A bloody handprint was sared across the familiar green paint, the fingers splayed in what looked like a final, desperate attempt to hold on to sothing. The print was small and delicate—distinctly feminine.
"No, no, no..." The words tumbled out of my mouth as panic began to claw at my chest. My hands shook so badly that it took three tries to get the key into the lock. When the door finally swung open, the tallic sll of blood hit like a physical blow.
I stepped inside and imdiately closed the door behind . The living room, which had always been my mother’s pride and joy with its carefully arranged throw pillows and family photos, was in complete disarray. The coffee table was overturned, magazines and books scattered across the floor. Dark stains streaked the pale yellow walls, and I could see drag marks in the carpet leading toward the back of the apartnt.
"Mom?" I called out hesitantly.
My heart was hamring against my ribs so hard I thought it might burst. Each breath felt like I was drowning, the air thick and wrong in my lungs. I knew what I was going to find, but so desperate part of my mind kept insisting that maybe—maybe—she had hidden sowhere, maybe she was injured but alive, maybe there was still ti to save her.
I forced my feet to move, following the trail of destruction toward my mother’s bedroom. The door was ajar, hanging at an odd angle as if it had been forced open with trendous violence.
"Mom?! It’s , Ryan! Are you okay?!" I shouted, abandoning all pretense of stealth as I slamd the door open.
The room was empty. Her bed was unmade, blankets twisted and stained, but there was no sign of her. For one wild mont, hope flared in my chest. Maybe she had escaped, maybe she was hiding sowhere else in the building, maybe—
A low, inhuman sound from behind made every hair on my body stand on end.
I turned around slowly, every instinct screaming at to run, and ca face to face with my worst nightmare.
My mother stood in the doorway, but it wasn’t really her anymore. The woman who had raised , who had read bedti stories and bandaged my scraped knees and believed in when no one else would, was gone. In her place was sothing that wore her face like a grotesque mask.
The thing that had been my mother was a ruin of torn flesh and exposed bone. Her skin had taken on a sickly, grayish pallor that made her look like she’d been subrged in dirty water. Half of her stomach was simply gone, revealing the dark cavity within where her organs should have been. Bite marks covered her arms and neck, so so deep they showed white bone beneath.
But it was her eyes that broke my heart. They were the sa warm brown I rembered, but now they held nothing but mindless hunger as she fixed her gaze on and let out a low, rattling snarl.
"M—Mom?" The word ca out as a broken sob.
She began moving toward with that distinctive shuffling gait I’d seen from other infected, dragging her feet across the carpet. One of her ankles was clearly broken, bent at an unnatural angle, but she kept coming with single-minded determination.
"Mom, it’s Ryan," I said desperately, backing away until I felt the wall behind . "M-Mom..."
I reached out with one trembling hand, so part of still believing that human connection could sohow break through the infection. But the mont my fingers ca within reach, she lunged forward with startling speed, her teeth snapping inches from my wrist.
I managed to catch her by the face, my palm pressed against her forehead to keep those gnashing teeth away from my flesh. She was stronger than she looked—infection apparently ca with its own terrible vitality—and she fought against my hold with desperate hunger. Her fingers, still bearing the nail polish she’d applied just days ago, clawed at my chest, leaving deep scratches through my shirt.
"Mom... why..." I choked out between ragged sobs, tears streaming down my face as I looked into those familiar yet alien eyes. "I’m so sorry. I’m so...sorry I wasn’t here."
My free hand found the box cutter at my belt, and I pulled it out with fingers which shook so badly I almost dropped it. The blade caught the light from the hallway, a tiny sliver of tal that suddenly felt impossibly heavy.
I gritted my teeth trying to keep my hand from trembling.
"I love you, M—Mom," I whispered. "I love you so much. P-please forgive ..."
I closed my eyes and brought the blade across her throat in one quick motion.
She made a horrible sound—part growl, part gurgle—as dark blood began to flow. But it wasn’t enough. The infection had made her body resilient to damage that would have killed a normal person instantly. She kept struggling, kept trying to reach with those clawing hands.
Through my tears, I struck again and again, each cut precise and desperate. It felt like an eternity before her movents finally began to slow, before the terrible light in her eyes began to fade.
But it still fought back.
I gathered what remained of my strength and pushed her to the bedroom window.
The window had always stuck, requiring both hands and considerable force to open. Now, powered by grief and adrenaline, it slid up easily.
"I’m sorry," I whispered one last ti before pushing her body with all my force through the opening.
The sound of impact from three stories below was wet and final making flinch.
Then there was only silence.
I collapsed to my knees right there on the blood-stained carpet, my body wracked with sobs that seed to co from sowhere deeper than my lungs. The grief was a physical thing, pressing down on my chest like a concrete block, making it impossible to breathe properly.
I had never felt so alone in my entire damn life.
For five long minutes, I knelt there and let myself fall apart completely. I cried for my mother, for the life we’d built together, for all the conversations we’d never have and all the monts we’d never share. And I cried for myself, for the realization that I was now truly alone in a world that wanted to kill .
When the tears finally stopped coming, I forced myself to stand on unsteady legs. Across the room, on my mother’s dresser, sat a frad photo from my tenth birthday. In it, she was kneeling beside as I blew out the candles on a homade chocolate cake, her hand resting gently on my head, both of us grinning at the cara with pure, uncomplicated joy.
I picked up the fra and stared at it for a long mont, morizing every detail of her face when she was alive and whole and happy. Then I carefully removed the backing and extracted the photograph, folding it gently before tucking it into my shirt pocket, right over my heart.
The practical part of my mind—the part that sounded increasingly like Sydney—reminded that I couldn’t stay here wallowing in grief. I had to gather supplies and get back to the car before sothing else found .
I found an old hiking backpack in the hall closet and began filling it thodically. Clean clothes, first aid supplies, bottles of water from the ergency kit my mother had insisted we keep. Non-perishable food from the kitchen—granola bars, canned soup, anything that wouldn’t spoil. From the kitchen drawer, I took the large carving knife my mother used for holiday dinners, testing its weight in my hand. It was infinitely better than the box cutter.
Before leaving, I allowed myself one luxury that the rational part of my mind knew was dangerous: a shower. The hot water felt like absolution as it washed away the blood and gri, and for a few precious minutes, I could pretend I was just getting ready for another normal day. I put on fresh clothes—jeans, a dark t-shirt, and the sturdy boots my mother had bought for hiking trips we’d never gotten to take.
When I was ready to go, I took one last look around the apartnt that had been our ho. Every room held mories: the kitchen where she’d taught to cook, the living room where we’d watched terrible movies and laughed until our sides hurt, her bedroom where she’d comforted through nightmares and heartbreak.
This had been our safe place, our refuge from a world that often felt hostile and overwhelming. After the divorce, when it was just the two of us against everything, she’d made this apartnt into a ho through sheer force of love and determination.
Now it was just another tomb in a city full of them.
I locked the door behind and dropped the key on the hallway floor. I wouldn’t be coming back.
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