Generation Zombie

Chapter 4: Exploration.

The corridor seemed less creepy to Arthur, now that he was walking with a pissed off Ruby, who counted her steps and avoided the white tiles on the floor. Her bright baby blue sneakers stepped only on the black tiles, as she counted her steps under her breath.

He kept his distance, in case she decided to turn around and punch him for no reason. But he trailed close enough to jump in and do something if a zombie attacked them.

It seemed unlikely. The hospital’s corridor was deathly silent, save for their footsteps, and of course; Ruby’s crazed mutterings of numbers. Arthur scanned the walls. Grime and flaking paint was all he could see, then tiny graffiti here and there. He silently wondered who would paint graffiti inside a hospital.

“I think it’s like Jumanji.” Arthur blurted out; a tiny lopsided grin spreading over his features. He didn’t try to think over the impossibility of it. He was here after all wasn’t he? And he had killed a zombie, saved Ruby’s life on top of that.

It wasn’t real life. It couldn’t be. The only possible explanation was that they were inside the game.

“What’s Jumanji?” Ruby asked disinterestedly over her shoulder, not missing a step or a number, and carrying on.

Arthur stared at the back of her moving head. She couldn’t possibly be serious. “Jumanji, the movie?” He pressed.

Ruby stopped in her tracks and spun around to face him, feet planted firmly on a black tile, eyes staring back at him like he was the most boring thing she had ever come across.

“People play a cursed game and they get sucked into it? Robbin Williams and Kristen Dunst?” His eyes narrowed in disbelief. Was she pretending to not know? Was this one of her ridiculous ways of being sarcastic?

Ruby continued to blankly watch him, showing that she neither had an idea as to what he was saying, nor was she the least bit interested to know.

Arthur sighed. “Okay maybe the more recent adaptation? Dwayne Johnson? Kevin Hart? Jack Black? Nick Jonas?” He felt like shaking her shoulders and yelling ‘It’s Jumanji, Ruby! Jumanji! Everybody knows it!’ Until she admits to watching any of the movies.

Ruby rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her boyish chest. “I know those people individually, I don’t live under a rock.”

“You mean, the Rock.” Arthur interjected quickly, jumping at the opportunity to make a lame joke and relate her words to Dwayne Johnson’s nickname.

She glared at him. “Shut up, your jokes are not amusing.” Her eyes rolled heavenward again before she sighed. “I know who those people are, but I didn’t watch the movies.” She said with an air of importance and self respect, like watching a movie was a disdainful act below her.

Arthur shook his head. “Not even one?” It sounded absolutely incredulous to him.

She raised her chin a fraction higher in the air and straightened her posture; a squirrel with an invisible crown. “Not everyone has time to waste on science fiction movies that are simply imitations of the same set of continuously convoluted ideas.” And that was something for her to be proud of; the fact that she was among that elite, unique group of people who didn’t waste time on unimportant things.

“Literally everyone on Earth has watched at least one Jumanji movie.” He insisted, peering at her.

“Starving kids in Africa haven’t.” She shot back triumphantly.

Arthur was taken-aback for a moment. How was that even related to the situation? He felt bad, remembering that there were really children somewhere in the world that didn’t have the opportunity to watch movies like normal kids because of hunger. However, he recovered quickly. “But you’re not a starving kid in Africa.” He pointed out.

Ruby shook her head, and plastered on a sweet smile. “No. I’m a sixteen year old girl who’s contemplating beating the shnite out of you if you don’t shut up and let me think of a way out.”

Arthur paused. “Did you just use ‘shnite’ instead of...”

Her eyes widened a fraction and she raised a tiny forefinger in warning, cutting him off and shushing him. “Don’t say it. Don’t use swear words in front of me. Please, I’ve already lost a plethora of brain cells from simply listening to you.” She felt her nerves tingling from all of the silliness of the situation. This was overstimulation to her, and not the good kind. Any moment now, she feared her brain would fry, making her eternally stupid, like Jack Cusco in third grade who ate his crayons and never went higher than a D in his report cards.

“But I...”

“Shh! Zip! Zip it. I’m going to find a way out. You can thank me later.” She spun around and went back to avoiding the white tiles, her small body stubbornly carrying on down the corridor.

Arthur stood fixated to his spot. He would’ve been extremely annoyed, if someone else had done the same thing to him. But this was Ruby Bancroft. You could simply imagine her as a chipmunk with a high IQ, and then everything she did would be cute.

He jogged to catch up with her, and when he fell into step next to her, adhered to the no-talking rule.

The two wildly mismatched teenagers navigated the corridors of the hospital, with Ruby leading the search like a professional explorer in pajamas and a loose bun. They turned corners and found dead ends, tried doorknobs and found more empty rooms, but kept going.

After a while, Arthur felt his legs starting to get tired; their movements slacking. “The exit sign is that way.” He spoke up, pointing in the opposite direction they had been straying further and further away from.

Ruby slammed the door of an empty room so hard it rattled on its hinges. “And you didn’t think of telling me?!” She raged; the fatigue of searching making her more temperamental than usual.

Arthur shrugged. “You told me to shut up.” He replied in a ‘see?-you-were-wrong-to-tell-me-to-shut-up’ tone, eyeing her smugly.

“About Jumanji! God, Halifax! How on Earth did you get an A plus in Chemistry?!” She brushed a hand through her hair; stressed, and the little ribbon struggling to keep the bun in place slipped. Neat, acorn brown hair grazed her shoulders. The edges were trimmed perfectly; not a single strand being longer or shorter than the other.

“I...” He was slightly carried away by the sway of her hair.

“Ugh! Forget I even asked!” She rolled her eyes and stomped away towards the right direction, where the exit was supposed to be.

Arthur watched her go, head bobbing in the distance. If this was anything like Jumanji, then he was in deep trouble and had a long, long way to go with Ruby. Why was she so hard to deal with? Back in fifth grade when they used to be seat buddies, she wasn’t this difficult. She had been Ruby; the kind, lunch-sharing smart kid, not Ruby; the critical, finger-pointing smart teen.

Still, he followed her to the exit. Going their separate ways wasn’t an option. If this was anything like Jumanji —and he had a feeling it was, then they had to stick together no matter what.

The bright sunlight outside stole Ruby’s vision for a moment, but when her eyes finally adjusted to it, she felt her breath pause in her lungs. For a split second her heart stopped pumping blood.

A mass grave, half-dug lay to the far side of the back fence. And the bodies that were meant to go in lay rotting atop one another, forming a large pile of decaying human carcass. Some had white cloth covering their bodies, others were bare; thick flies buzzing about them, feasting.

A surge of vomit rose to her throat and she crouched to the fake, technicolor grasses, on her hands and knees, spilling out her guts. Arthur gathered and kept her hair away from her face, trying to push his own feeling of nausea down. To distract himself, his eyes strayed to the main road, where cars, trucks and motorcycles had jammed into each other, in a frantic attempt of escape. Arthur felt a dooming sense of despair. It looked so real. It felt so real. What if he was wrong? What if this wasn’t like Jumanji at all, but something far more sinister and dangerous?

In the distance, he saw a zombie snarling, struggling to crawl towards them. Half of it’s body had been eaten. By what? Arthur didn’t want to know. The skin was peeling off, fattened worms hanging on to an empty eye socket, as the undead fruitlessly tried to reach the two juicy humans; juicy young teenagers with even juicier brains.

Ruby wiped her lips and looked up to the clear skies. “Dear heavens... are we the only ones alive in whatever cursed reality this is?” She whispered to herself defeatedly.

As if to answer her question, someone began to shriek and scream at the top of their lungs.

“I guess not...” Arthur murmured, and took off running towards a sports-car on the highway, where he judge the screaming was coming from.

Ruby took to her feet too, following him because she didn’t want to be left alone, and couldn’t stand a moment longer, close to the decomposing corpses.