Jenny darts up the stairs, pulling herself up by the handrail and taking three steps at a time. She arrives at the top in three jumps and runs into the storage room, turning and slamming the door shut with a bang. She turns the pathetic knob lock with a small click that isn't reassuring. She slaps the light on, scanning the junk for something to help her. Heavy footsteps thump methodically up the staircase, unhurried. A raspy chuckle wafts up from under the door.

She starts grabbing boxes and stacking them in front of the door. There's a clank and the doorknob rattles, then a loud crack, and the knob sags, broken apart from its counterpart.

Jenny shakes, staring for a horrified moment, then throws another box on top of the p8ile, covering up the sight of it. The door pushes inward, moving the pile of boxes and Jenny leans in and pushes back. Crazy Tom's arm comes through the open crack and swings his knife at her. She screams and leans out of the way. The boxes burst outward, the door swinging wide open.

Jenny grabs a sturdy bronze lamp. He steps forward with the knife and she swings at his arm. He moves the knife out of the way so that she doesn't knock it out of his hand, but she catches his head on the back swing and knocks him back through the door again.

Moans come up the stairway, more of the neighbors on their way up.

Jenny turns, looks at the window, and runs for it.

She flings it open and the narrow bit of lawn between her house and the next down below seems vacant. She scans rapidly and find a drainpipe. With footsteps behind her giving her a jolt of panic, she grabs on and swings herself out in desperation to get away.

She moves a hand down to start lowering herself, but the drainpipe is wet, and she slips. Her pant leg catches and she gets flipped upside-down, but it tears with her body weight and drops her on her head.

Her head explodes with pain and her neck crooks to the side. The rest of her body, she suddenly can't feel. She tries to move and can't!

The moans are coming closer.

Her neighbors huddle around her and take bites out of her arms and legs, tearing away her flesh and getting her blood everywhere, but she can't feel it, despite her terror.

She eventually blacks out and returns with a hunger that she can do nothing to satiate, doomed to lie on the ground next to her house forever... until a soldier shoots her in the head three days later.