Locked in

by Isaac Newman

It was 6pm, in the middle of winter, on the first floor of a collage in England. Two students, Nick and Sarah were staying behind to do photography work in the dark room. Nick was a scruffy boy with quite long, blonde, scruffy hair, he had blue eyes and had thick, black glasses. Sarah was the opposite, she had pefect long, straight brunette hair, soft brown eyes and a perfect face. They had known each other since they were kids. It was just about time to leave, the only people left in the collage were the odd tutor and the cleaners and caretakers, the only sounds were the trickling of the water in the wash and the faint hum of a cleaners hoover in another room. "Got everything?" Nick asked, packing away his negatives,
"Just about" said Sarah, cramming the last few things in her bag. Suddenly at that moment all the lights went out and it went silent. "What the hell?" asked Sarah,
"Hello!" shouted Nick "they must have thought no one was in here" He stumbled over to the door and searched around for the handle, he grabbed it and turned, but the door didn't budge "shit!" he said sounding very woried,
"what?" asked Sarah, now sounding paniced herself,
"the fucking doors locked, they've locked us in",
"your joking" she said,
"hello!" Nick shouted, banging on the door, "were still in here!", Sarah pulled out her phone to try and give a little light, so she could see what she was doing, she pointed it in Nicks direction, but as she moved the light that way, somthing gleamed in the corner, just like a pair of eyes, she imidiatley shone the light back into the corner, but there was nothing there "Oh my god!" she gasped,
"what?",
"I swear I just saw someone right over there",
"over where?" asked Nick, quickly diverting his attention away from the door,
"right there in that corner",
"don't say that" he said "it's not funny",
"i'm not joking! I really thought I saw somthing",
"hang on, I've got a little light on my keyring", he dashed over to his bag and pulled out a set of keys, he detached the small light and shone it around the room, "there's no one in here" he said,
"lets just fucking get out of here",
"oh thats a good idea" said Nick sarcasticly "why didn't I think of that?",
"because your stupid" replied Sarah "can you just break the door down?",
"I dunno, the college would probably bill me for it",
"come on they fucking locked us in here",
"your right" he said, he walked over to the door and began kicking at it, but the door stood it's ground pretty well "It's no good, it wont budge",
"your hopeless" she said,
"well you do it then!", so Sarah took a few steps back and charged at the door, she colided with it, and the door clicked and swung open,
"there" she said "I could have done that in heels",
"that's only 'cause I kicked it first" he said "and it's a differont type of lock to what I thought it was, see?"
"whatever" she said, lets go", but as they walked out into the corridor they found it only to be in total darkness as well.

No one was around, they looked up and down, but there wasn't a cleaner or caretaker in sight, "maybe it's a powercut" Nick said,
"Either that or they closed up this part of the site already", using the small torch they lit the way to the nearest exit, "Look, the fire exit sign isn't on" said Sarah,
"It's gotta just be a powercut then" said Nick, reaching for the door handle of the exit, "oh shit... it's locked too, come on we'll try another one I guess",
"wait, shine the light up there a second"
"where?"
"up on that window, on the door", Nick slowly looked up and shone the light where Sarah had said, there on the window were two bloody handprints,
"shit" Nick whispered, "is that blood?"
"I think so" said Sarah,
"is it on the inside or outside?"
"outside I think", then there was an odd silence for about ten seconds,
"we have to leave" said Nick
"agreed", they both turned to head back down one of the corridors which made up the maze of the college, just as they did somthing shot past them in the darkness at other end where one corridor joins on to another, "what the fuck was that" Sarah cried, jumping back a step,
"I don't like this" said Nick calmly, he then turned back round to try the door again, just as soon as he reached out his arm, a loud bang came from the other side of the door, followed by another one, Nick's arm shot back in fear. There, on the other side of the door, stood a man banging on the door with open hands, his pupils were white, his clothes soaked in blood, he opened his mouth and let out a groan while proceding to bang on the window leaving more and more bloody handprints "Oh my God!" Sarah screamed,
"It's a f... It's a fucking zombie!" Nick shouted.
"Run!", the two jumped around and began running down the corridor, they reached the end and instinctivly turned right, going the other way to the thing they saw shoot past, "come on!" Nick shouted,
"where are we going?",
"I dunno, just keep on going straight!", all of a suddon Sarah stopped in her tracks,
"No!... No!", down the corridor, came the groans of a small horde of zombies, Nick shone the light down towards them, they were steadily shuffling there way towards them, going about half the speed of a man walking, "shit turn back" Sarah shouted, pushing the horrified Nick in the other direction, his gaze was fixated on the zombies in disbelief. Then the sound of shattering glass came from down the corridor where they had been, "shit!" said Sarah.
"Down this corridor",
"but it's a dead end!",
"there's another exit though, we might be able to get out" the two ran down the corridor they had just passed and headed towards the fire escape at the end, Nick pushed on the bar franticly but somthing had been put in place to stop it from opening, the distant groans were now getting louder and seemed to be coming from both ends of the main corridor, "shit! Well try one of the classrooms" Sarah said pulling on on door handle of one,
"this one's locked" said Nick,
"shit this one too! Break it open", Nick kicked the door a couple of times, and the simple wooden door flew open. They both ran into the darkened classroom, Nick slammed the door behind them "it wont shut right" he said,
"here" said Sarah pushing a set of lockers in front of the door,
"good idea" Nick said, dragging a table over and putting it in front of the lockers. The two then got about every piece of furnature in the room and put it in front of the door.

The barricade was now in place, outside of the room zombies were banging and scratching, trying to get in. Nick tried the light switch, but the power was definatley out. Outside, a storm was brewing, the wind whistled in the trees and the rain began to fall upon the windows. Sarah and Nick stood back, looking at the barricade, "I hope it holds" said Sarah,
"I can't believe this is happening, it's like a bad dream",
"it's not a dream, it's too real",
"I know, but... those things out there, they can't be real, there's no such thing as zombies",
"well apparently there is... so what are we gonna do now?",
"call the police, you have your phone on you", the thought of calling the police and telling them they were trapped in a college by zombies seemed crazy to Sarah but nevertheless, they had no other options. Sarah pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialed 999, she put the phone up to her ear, but only held it there for a few seconds, "it's just gone dead" she said,
"unbelievable...",
"don't you have yours?", Nick checked his pocket,
"crap, it was in my bag, I dropped it when we were running",
"fucking brilliant" Sarah said "what would we do without you?",
"well we wouldn't have this light so stop complaining!",
"wait shut up do you hear somthing?",
"yeah about 10 zombies banging on the door",
"shut up, it's coming from that closset", Sarah and Nick walked up to the closset door, Sarah pressed her ear up against it" she heard a faint rustling coming from inside. "Open it" she said to Nick,
"what are you? Fucking insane? There could be anything in there",
"I'll do it then" she said,
"no way, it could be another zombie!" then a quiet crying came from within the closset.
"move aside I'm opening it" Sarah said, Nick obliged but he made sure to take a few steps away from the closset before she could open it,
"ok" she said "here I go" she pulled open the door, and jumped back. For a moment she fealt very silly as she thought there was nothing in there, then she realised there was somthing, a young Asian looking woman was crouched down on the floor with her hand over her mouth, she had short black hair and a pretty face "who are you?" Sarah asked, the young woman looked terrified, she took her hand away from her mouth and began to speak,
"Haruka" she said, "please, what's going on?",
"were not sure" Sarah said,
"what are you doing here?" Nick asked,
"I'm a cleaner, I work here, I was just hoovering in this room when all the power went out, then I heard screaming and shouting and saw this shadow, well... It was like a shadow, but it was crawling towards me, so I ran and hid in here. Working in this college, I see and hear strange things all the time, but nothing ever like this",
"what do you mean?" asked Sarah,
"this college is haunted" she said "somtimes I hear somthing from an empty room and once I saw a ghost of a man, all of the other cleaners have seen this too. What are you two doing here?",
"I'm Sarah and he's Nick, we were working in the dark room when all the lights went out and we were locked in, we broke out but got chased in here by these creatures",
"creatures?" Haruka asked,
"we think they could be zombies" Sarah said, Haruka gasped and put her hand over her mouth.
"Wait a second" said Nick "where are they?", the banging on the door had stopped some time ago, but neiter Nick or Sarah had noticed. They stood in the darkness for a few seconds, listening for the zombies when suddenly, a loud bang came from inside the closset.

Thats it so far, it's not the best thing I've ever written and it's not done yet or spell checked...

[milktoaste]

Where's Scooby and Shaggy during all this?

[Doc Faustus]

Situations where characters do nothing but run from monsters is bad for characterization, a bad way to set a story up and generally not that scary. Look at the great monster movies and see how soon the characters in them scream "ah, zombies!" and get running. I think you need to read better horror fiction and watch more horror films. Being no doubt a person who has indulged in the digestive process, you should know that what you put in changes what you put out. If you want to write horror, read it. Read Lovecraft, Stoker, Robert Chambers, M.R James, Poe, all of them. People running from zombies is not especially horrific. It's where the zombies come from and what they represent that make things frightening.