The Longest Night

“Change the song; it’s making me weep.” said Emily, scowling at me. The song was pretty bad, it was some piece of country crap, a one hit wonder. I stood up and walked over to the jukebox, I found something a little better, a classic Sinatra song with a swinging beat. Most of the others in the bar seemed to approve; the atmosphere lightened up quite a bit after that.

“That better, Em?”

“Much.” she smiled and took a long swig of her beer.

I walked over to the bar, Bob was wiping down a glass with a cloth and talking to some red head.

“Hey, Bob, sorry to interrupt, but could I get a scotch?”

Bob looked up at me, “Ah, sure thing Bruce.” he smiled at the girl and worked on my drink.

The doors to the bar opened and a man staggered into the room. He seemed to be off balance, great, another drunk. Rodney stood up and walked over to the man, “Alright buddy, I think you’ve had enou-” the man sunk his teeth deep into Rodney’s neck, arterial blood sprayed everywhere.

I shot up and grabbed the man, pulling him off of Rodney and throwing him against the bar. Emily and Jim shot up. Emily pulled her cell out while Jim tore a piece of his shirt off and wrapped it around Rodney’s neck, applying enough pressure to slow the bleeding.

“I’ve got an ambulance coming now, they should be here soon!”

“Bruce, I’ve got his neck taken care of, think you can get that guy in cuffs?” asked Jim, handing me Rodney’s handcuffs.

I nodded, “I’ll see what I can do, not making any promises though.” I stood up and looked over at the man. There’s something seriously wrong with this guy; his skin was a grayish color, with the pallor of a corpse. There was also something wrong with his eyes, they had a milky tone to them, definitely not normal. I moved close to him, staying just out of arms reach. Bob came up behind him and smashed a bottle over his head. The man turned around, and lunged at him; Bob, to his credit, had managed to keep the man off of him, shoving his rag into the man’s mouth and pulling it back like a gag. I came up behind the man and slapped the cuffs on him, I threw him back into one of the tables, he struggled to get to his feet, but seemed to have too much trouble and fell back to the floor.

“Rodney? Come on man, hold on!” growled Jim. Rodney wasn’t going to make it, even I could tell that. The wound was too deep, he was going to bleed out, whether the ambulance got here in the next five seconds or five hours. He was done for.

Rodney lurched forward once, let out a loud exhalation of air and slumped to the ground, his eyes grew glassy. “Fuck!” shouted Jim. He slowly stood up, closing Rodney’s eyes as he rose.

WHAM!

I whirled around, there were three more people, all similar to the man lying on the floor. All of them had the same look about them, the grayish skin, the pale, pasty look of a corpse, and those awful, empty, eyes. They pounded on the window, moaning softly. They’re like zombies. That’s just….not possible. I don’t know what I was thinking, or if I was thinking, and not just reacting. I grabbed the gun from Rodney’s belt and lifted it up. The weight of it was weird, awkward.

“What the hell do they want?” asked Jim, looking from the gathered group back to me.

“I don’t know. They’re not normal people, I can tell that much.”

“Are they sick or something?” asked one man sitting at the bar.

“Sick in the head, maybe. This freak is still trying to bite, look!” exclaimed Emily, pointing at the cuffed man. He was struggling to crawl towards us, biting and snapping at the air. I felt the urge to plug him in the skull, but I fought it, don’t know what’s wrong with them, I can’t just go around shooting them, even if he did kill Rodney.

We had backed away from the door, Emily had called the cops, reported Rodney’s murder. Within a few minutes, the ambulance had arrived as well as a cop car. Two cops climbed out and yelled out something at the trio of men.

I watched as the men moved towards the cops, staggering slowly forward. The cops shouted out warnings before the men were on them, tearing at their throats, ripping and biting and rending. I stared in horror before I felt myself reacting. I grabbed the nearest table and pushed it against the door.

“What are you doing? We should be helping them!” shouted Emily.

“That’s not all of them, look!” I shouted, pointing at the growing group of staggering people, they were moving slowly, passing under a street light, there were at least ten of them, maybe more. The others realized it and started to help me, grabbing tables and chairs and stacking them against the doors and windows.

“Bob, is there another way out?”

He nodded, “It’ll be difficult, but we can climb out the window on the third floor. If we get through there we’ll be on the room of the next building over. I don’t know what we’d do from there.”

“We’d be out of here, that’s the important part. Alright everybody, let’s get our asses upstairs!” I shouted, we began the long trek upstairs, to what would be the longest night of my life.