After taking the train, to 34th street, Rick stopped at his favorite bodega for a black coffee and buttered roll. Something was going on uptown, he could hear the sirens, but two blocks and he would be in the quiet of his photography studio. Another cosmetic photo shoot to look forward to today, but it’s always better to deal with the products then those crazy models.

Getting to the office a little before 8 am, he was surprised to be the first person there. Usually Donna, the receptionist, opened the office for the coming day. By 8:30, only two other people had shown up for work with four employees not even bothering to have the decency to call in sick. David Mears, responsible for lighting on each set, and Karen Stillman the art director, stalled for time at their desks hoping the rest of the crew showed soon. Karen sipped her coffee and David sat at his desk not looking too good, evidence of some kind of scuffle on his jeans and jacket. Rick absentmindedly stared outside for a moment, lost in thought, without paying any attention to the growing disarray in the streets. Once the shades were drawn and the shoot began, the outside world was forgotten.

By 10:00 am, the noise from the streets was so distracting, the team of three stopped working to grab a cigarette break and find out what the fuss was all about. Stepping outside into the bright sun, Rick lit his smoke, and then turned to do the same for Karen and David. Neither had even bothered to reach for their packs, but stood quite still – almost appearing frozen. As Rick began to look around, the just lit cigarette fell from his open mouth, sticking to his bottom lip before hitting the sidewalk in front of him. Chaos. How else to describe the maelstrom in front of him but utter chaos. Cars, delivery trucks, city buses, taxis – all bumper to bumper, abandoned where they sat. Some were involved in minor accidents, others were still running, but all were empty. People were running in all directions and almost all were being chased. Being chased by what looked to be slowly moving, fatally wounded people. Each had some devastating injury, and blood. Dear God, the blood. Not just on these walking dead, but pools and splatters and puddles of bright red blood, everywhere. Each of the chasers was worse off than the previous, one more catastrophically damaged than the last. Now Rick started to look at each more closely: one woman, obviously a waitress from a diner by her apron and order pad still tucked in a pocket, with her intestines slowly spilling out a tattered hole in her abdomen; a city bus driver with only one arm, the other missing at the shoulder; a cop with so little of his scalp left the his scull reflected a shine in the late morning sunlight; a kid, Jesus Christ only a middle school kid, still in her knee-high socks and plaid skirt, but her white button-down shirt stained dark red with the blood that leaked from the hole in her throat mixing with the fresh blood of someone else still dripping from her chin. And others, there were dozens of other undead stretching off each way down the street.

Not that the shock wore off exactly, but a clear sharp panic woke up Rick to his primal flight instinct. Using his pass card, Rick unlocked the door and pulled Karen and David back inside the limited safety of the building. Just in time, too, as a twisted nightmare of what looked to until very recently have been a Wall Street trader stumbled into the heavy glass door, smearing it with a black ichor as it clumsily searched for its next victim. Realizing the relative safety of the office would only be temporary, they retreated back upstairs to decide on a next step.

Weak, pale and sweating now, David fell into a chair. Karen began pacing, muttering to herself, and Rick lit another cigarette. Fuck it, he thought. Who was gonna complain about smoking indoors when the world was going to hell all around. Rick began to look around the office sizing it up for supplies, entrances to barricade and possible escape routes. Just to create some kind of order to separate inside from the hell outside, and quite honestly, to maintain some grip on his sanity, Rick started to think out loud. “We need to block the front door, reinforce it somehow. We should look for something to defend ourselves with, some kind or weapons.” Surrounded by nothing but Swedish furniture and camera equipment allowed for few choices: he took a wooden table leg for himself, gave Karen a pole from a light stand and David a camera tri-pod. “Let’s go up to the roof and look around before anything else.” The trip up the two flights of stairs to the roof was totally uneventful except for Rick noticing that David was now using the tri-pod for support, barely able to walk the stairs on his own.

The view was discouraging to say the least. Nowhere in sight was clear, no street safe. Other survivors could be seen in windows and on other roof tops, as scared and trapped as Rick and his group. Rick lit another smoke as he looked to the sky – planes and helicopters could still be seen crisscrossing the sky. Well, that’s a good sign, he thought. If the airports are still functioning then we can escape. Maybe it’s still isolated places just in New York City.

David started coughing, a fit that didn’t seem to end. The coughs, which wracked his body with spasms, also brought flecks of blood up and out with every grueling breath. Seemingly too weak to stand, David locked eyes with Rick, fear evident even through the blood-shot haze. Knowing there were no doctors, no EMTs, 9-1-1 or any sort of help to call, hell, they were probably all dead or walking dead, Rick moved his chain smoking to the other side of the roof. The scenes were no better here: crashes, fires, running panic and of course people being eaten alive by zombies. Rick turned his attention back to his cigarette and his own rooftop. Karen was sitting with David so Rick decided to go back to the lobby and barricade the front door as best as possible. Using the ugly green pleather couch in the lobby, Rick blocked the door as well as he could, avoiding looking outside. He also tried to avoid making too much noise or being directly seen by the undead keeping watch on the streets for survivors to “save”. With the task completed as best as possible but nothing in particular to look forward to once he got there, Rick slowly made his way back up the six flights of stairs back to the roof.

Rick emerged on the roof to see Karen quietly weeping next to a now calm David. With an unsteady voice Karen said “I think we’re losing him. What happened? How did he get like this so quickly?” Rick just shook his head having absolutely no idea how any of this had happened, and happened so damn quickly.

Staring out at the other buildings, Rick soon lost track of time. Karen’s gasp which suddenly turned to a whimper brought him back to reality. David was getting up and staggering towards Karen as she slowly backed up, clutching the pole from the studio. The low moan and uncoordinated gait answered any questions Rick may have had about David’s sudden recovery. Still backing up, Karen swung the pole like a baseball player going for the game winning homerun, connecting with the side of its head. Unfortunately, being made of cheap aluminum, the pole harmlessly bent at the point of contact and didn’t slow zombie David down at all. It lunged for Karen in its single minded hunger for flesh and Rick listened to her scream as the two figures went over the edge until the sickening sound of two bodies hitting the sidewalk six stories below brought silence.

Rick was alone. With fires spreading, survivors on neighboring rooves and darkness quickly approaching, Rick decided to go back downstairs and take stock. With no other tenants in the building, the unoccupied floors were nothing but bare rooms of unpainted sheetrock. Certainly nothing to use for survival in an apocalypse. In a momentary break-down, Rick screamed and threw his table leg at the nearest window which shattered out onto the street below. Sliding down the wall, he curled into a near fetal position and wept. After two minutes of quiet sobs, he gathered himself, regained composure and returned to the office for a new table leg and couldn’t believe he had not tried the phones. Although slightly disappointed, Rick wasn’t surprised to hear a recorded message telling him the phone lines were currently experiencing heavy volume and to please try again later. Yeah right, he thought, as if this was nothing but a minor inconvenience with Ma Bell. With nothing to do, nowhere to go, totally alone and hope like a slippery fish that wriggled out of his grasp and back into the water, Rick gave in to his exhaustion and fell asleep.

The crash that woke him was like a bucket of icy water in his face – suddenly, completely awake. In hind sight, breaking the window downstairs was incredibly stupid, it must have alerted every zombie on the street that dinner was served. Darkness embraced him, highlighted only by the red emergency exit signs. Rick ran to the office door, bouncing off a few desks in the now complete dark. Making it to the stairs, he saw it was too late for plans, too late to run, too late for anything. Shoulder to shoulder, the undead were streaming up the stairwell like ants over a picnic. Totally panicking now, Rick ran to the only bathroom in his office and slammed the door. It took only moments before dead hands were scraping against the outside of his last sanctuary, desperate to satiate their unending hunger with his living flesh. With no windows, no escape and nothing to block the weakening door, Rick knew he was just counting minutes until the inevitable end. You know it’s bad when you can’t even hope to slowly die of starvation. Trapped and forcing himself to ignore the moaning and banging, Rick figured he might as well have his last cigarette and hope his death would be quick, although he didn’t think the flimsy door would even last long enough to finish.