He didn't stop, as he couldn’t with the zombie behind them and Jahla pulling him along, so Ollie just yelled out as loud as he could. “Yeah—”Wheeze.“—thought it would liven it up a—”Wheeze. “—bit. Have fun, kids!”
“Ollie, you need to do something—!” Her words cut off on a squeal when she glanced back, and proceeded to leap forward, dragging Ollie along with her. He could only assume the zombie had lunged towards them, but as he was too busy trying not to fall on his ass, he couldn’t really check.
“Yeah, sort of—”Wheeze.“—figured—”Wheeze. “—that out! Do you happen to know what?!”
“How am I supposed to know?!” she snapped.
“And I should?!”
“JUST DO SOMETHING!”
Without giving it much thought, Ollie yanked out of her hold and turned with his hand up as he yelled, “STOP!”
Jahla paused right beside him when, beyond belief, the zombie had in fact listened. “Huh, I’m surprised—” A frightenedyelp cut off the rest of what he’d planned to say, when the thing started moving towards them once more. They both took off running—again.
Ollie tried his best to keep up, going as fast as his legs could carry him. But when his office door came into view, and there was a sudden burst in his friend’s speed, he found himself being pulled along more than ever. Just before reaching the door, one of Ollie’s shoes caught on the floor and he went down.
Jahla dragged him up by his arm, grabbing for his keys that hung on his lanyard and proceeded to fail to open the door.
“Not that one; it's the smaller bronze one! It has a thirteen on it!” he snapped when she went to try one he knew wouldn’t work.
“Why do you have so many damn keys, Ollie?!”
“Because—” The zombie lunged, and Ollie flailed and screamed as he was dragged down, just as Jahla managed to get the door open.
Kicking out, Ollie twisted onto his back and managed to free his left leg while yelling, “GET IT OFF ME!”
Jahla started grabbing things off his desk and throwing them at it, sacrificing his stapler, tape dispenser, pen cup and more, but nothing seemed to work, as Ollie continued to kick at the thing with his left leg. His foot didn’t seem to be doing much damage either, unfortunately.
“AHH, IT’S BITING ME! IT’S BITING ME!” he squealed. But when he saw Jahla reach for the book currently sitting in the built-in book cradle on his table, Ollie cried out in horror, “NOT THE BOOK!”
“WELL, WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO?!”
Noble randown the hall with Red right beside him, having met the familiar on the second floor. They’d tried to follow the sound of running feet, Ollie’s bells, and this odd, almost constant, screeching noise, but they seemed to be just too far behind to catch up with the pair as they ran through the maze-like library.
As they reached the back stairwell, they found they now only had an inconsistent jingle of bells and screeching to follow. “What do you think…” Noble trailed off when he picked up Ollie and Jahla’s conversation below.
“FUCK!” He heard Jahla swear.
“Don’t know if you realized, but that’s not doing anything!” Ollie snapped.
The question was…what‘wasn’t doing anything’?
“I’m trying, okay!” Jahla snapped. “Is it even hurting you?!”
“Does that matter?!”
Noble pushed out of the stairwell onto the first floor as the woman hissed, “YES! IT DOES! It sort of determines the level of panic, and the speed of things, Ollie!”
“It’s uncomfortable! GET IT OFF ME!”
Noble slowed to a stop, Red right there beside him, as he spotted the pair. Ollie was laying on his back before his open office door, kicking out at the head of what could only be described as a zombie, as it held on and bit his right leg. Jahla had the zombie partly lifted up by the ankles, and appeared to be tugging as hard as she could.
Noble stood there for a moment, his jaw dropped, before managing to rasp, “Is that…”
No,it didn’t actually hurt… At most, Ollie felt an uncomfortable pinching pressure as the zombie bit down. But he was very close to freaking out—okay, that was a lie. Hewasfreaking out! A flipping wax zombie had chased him through the library and was now biting him!
Wait, wax! It may have looked real, but there wasn’t even a smell coming off the thing, because it was still just wax! And wax was meltable, wasn’t it?!
