Chapter 6

As the alarm sounded, smoke quickly filled the room. What a way to end your last day at the company, Ricki thought. If she just tended her resignation one day earlier, she wouldn't have to worry about being trapped in a smoke infested room with panicked coworkers running around like headless chickens.

Get a grip, people! We're scientists, she thought. That's when she heard the painful cry for help amid the chaos. The shriek was soon followed by another horrific scream, and then another. The screams were all different in tone and pitch, but they all conveyed the same thought: pure utter terror.

"What is going on?" asked Ricki.

Ricki headed toward the shrieks, which seemed to be mainly coming from the lab. As she approached the lab, she spotted her friend, Kelcie, who was struggling to escape from the locked arms of another scientist. If she didn't know any better, the scientist with the vice-like grip around Kelcie looked a lot like that incompetent Yoshi.

"Yoshi? What are you doing?"

When Ricki grabbed a hold of Yoshi's shoulder, Yoshi turned around releasing his grip on Kelcie. Ricki's eyes widened with terror when she saw Yoshi's sheared, burnt and lacerated face. Yoshi's tongue almost fell out of the gaping hole on the side of his face when he moaned.

"Kel, RUN!"

Before Ricki could utter another word, Yoshi sank his teeth into Ricki's flesh and tore it clean off of her body. Ricki screamed in sheer pain. The scream echoed in Kelcie's mind as she stood on the streets of Boston with Ford.

Ford was keeled over gasping for air. If his burly overweight size were not proof enough, the sucking wind after running a block or two was an indication that Ford's days of being a star track and field athlete were long gone.

"Zombies?!? No fucking way!" gasped Ford. "I'd say cool if I didn't just witness a horde of them eating Kostas."

"Yeah, Kostas," Kelcie solemnly replied. She exhaled a deep sigh of disbelief. "Ricki, too"

"Ricki?!? Fuck no."

Kelcie nodded.

"I need to find a lab," said Kelcie.

"A lab? Um, we were just at your company which has a lab," Ford responded.

"I know, but the place is infested now. As much as I like to go all Dead Rising, I'd rather not chance it with just the two of us."

"Kel, what place is going to let two strangers walk in to use their lab?"

"I don't know and I don't care. I have to do something! I'm responsible for this outbreak. All of these innocent people's deaths are because of me!"