Chapter 1

Chapter 1
I hold the gun in one hand and a cigarette in the other. I’m not sure whether or not the gun is going to come in handy but I know this cigarette definitely will. I take a long, slow drag on the cheap cigarette with slight pink lip marks around the butt and grimace. My head is pounding. The cigarette calms me though and I release the tight grip on the gun a little.
I’m leaning against a wall that is for sure getting my already dirty white shirt even dirtier and I sigh audibly. I’m wondering if they can smell my cigarette smoke. The creatures that is, those things are the reason I have the gun. They are the reason I am alone, stressed out and smoking a cigarette. I quit smoking eight years ago.
Another long drag on the cigarette before I look at it in disgust and flick it on the ground. I pull my self to a standing position and slowly grind out the flickering remnants of the cherry on the cigarette that now lies next to my foot. I do a quick glance around and start walking. My feet are taking me nowhere in particular and I hold the gun tight in my left hand. I need my right hand for hitting. I had always wanted to get into a real fight when I was little. Well, here was my chance. Not exactly what I imagined when I was seven and watching my brothers beat up the neighbor boy for stealing my headphones.
I wish I were back there as I crawl up a hill and over some train tracks. Back to the days where everything was simple and everything was black and white. There was no grey, and it’s the grey that can hurt you the most.
I start to follow the train tracks figuring they should lead me to someone eventually and I grab a candy bar out of my back pocket. I hate candy. I always have, even as a child, my brothers would try to get me to eat a snickers and I would spit it back out at them.
I bite down on some sort of hard yet chewy thing and gag slightly as I chew on it. All the sugar makes me want to throw up but god knows I’ve done enough of that in the past few days. All the death around me made me a bit queasy. I was in Medical school at the University of Washington. It’s the best damn medical school in the country and the sight of a guy with his head chopped off and intestines spilled all over the mall parking lot was enough for me to throw up in the abandoned BMW convertible that had been conveniently to my left.
I throw the wrapper from the candy bar into a trashcan as I descend from where the train tracks had been into a Train station. I stop mid walk and listen. I try to imagine a little dog pricking its ears up. I pretend I’m the little dog as I slowly creep by the ticket booth and towards the bathroom marked with a big white woman stick figure.
I hear a slight noise as I reach the door and I bring the gun into my right hand and put my left hand up. I push the door with my left foot in a little bit and glance around. Nothing. All I see are stark green walls and those gross mirrors that distort your face if you are more than a foot away. I push the door open a bit more and stare at the light switch jeering at me from across the room. Who puts a light switch all the way across the room? I make sure the door is open enough so the light from the station comes in and I creep in. I move in a circle with the gun up as I move towards the other side of the room to the light switch. I wrinkle my nose up at the sick sterile smell. I would have thought it would have smelled like stale piss. But no, it smells like a hospital. I get to the switch and flip the light on quickly with my back against the wall and gun outstretched. Another small noise and I swirl around towards it. It’s coming from one of the stalls. Aw shit, I hope it’s not another kid with his arm half gnawed off. I can’t handle that. I tiptoe over to a door; I take a deep breath and kick the door open to reveal a cat sitting on one side of the toilet. It’s tail is moving slowly back a forth hitting a plastic bag that lies unwanted next to it.
I laugh as I see the cat and it immediately hops down and starts rubbing against my legs. I reach down and start petting it. “Hey kitty, how you doing baby? You doing okay?” I pet it some more and a smile comes over my face briefly. I breathe a long sigh of relief and go into one of the stalls to relieve myself.
The cat follows me into the stall and out of it and as I start to wash my hands and check my blood covered self in the mirror it jumps up onto the sink and rubs against my belly. I pet it a bit more and move to the other sink to splash water on my face and arms. I close my eyes and start rubbing my face vigorously with my hands, scraping at the dried blood. I sense something behind me and scramble to get the soap out of my eyes when I’m hit. I don’t know what’s going on. I can barely see out of one eye. I finally grasp onto the fact in my head that there is a creature in the room with me and I don’t know where my gun is. I set it down somewhere. I can’t remember where. I’m thrown up against the green walls and they no longer look sterile I notice, the paint is actually peeling away slightly. I notice all this before I hit the ground and I scramble into one of the stalls as the creature lunges for my leg. I slam the stall door closed and splash toilet water on my face and eyes so that I can see again. I get my bearings and wrack my brain for the location of the gun. Bingo. I remember. It’s sitting on top of the toilet paper dispenser two stalls over. I jump onto the toilet in my stall and peer out at the creature banging on the door to the stall. “What bitch? You want some food? Fuck you.” I close the door to the stall next to me quickly and jump over and slam the lock in. I hear the creature wail. I thank god or who the fuck ever it is that these things aren’t very bright as I launch myself over the next stall wall and slam the door shut again while I grab the gun. Okay, think, okay. I wonder if the cat is okay as I make the decision to shoot the creature from standing on the toilet. I pull myself up onto the toilet and as I do I realize I can’t hear the creature anymore. This scares me and I whip my head up to glance around the room from the stall. I can’t see the creature and this makes me start to shake. Fuck. I do another once over the bathroom and I step down from the toilet. I hold the gun out with the tightest grip I can manage and I unlock the door. Nothing. I open the door inwardly towards myself. Nothing. There is nothing jumping at me, nothing trying to eat me. I take a step out of the stall and that’s when I’m hit. I can hear the noise of teeth on bone before I can feel it. I eventually realize it’s my arm that is making the noise against this creature’s teeth and I scream out. I can’t hear my own voice. I scream again and still can’t hear anything. I realize that the creature is on top of me, it ripping at my stomach. I can’t stop it; it’s ripping at my skin and it hurts. It hurts so badly. But there’s nothing I can do and the gun isn’t in my hand. I can’t see the gun anywhere.
I look up at the lights on the ceiling. They are fluorescent. Normally, I would have despised the fact that I was about the die under fluorescent lights, but right now, they looked kind of pretty, and then black.