I’ve been standing here for six hours. I climbed in through the window about 3 PM and it's past sundown in August. Time has curdled, much like smell in this apartment. Every time I inhale through the thin fabric of this bed sheet, the stench from other bodies inches away from me challenges my raging bile ducts. Everyone in this apartment has been dead for weeks, eyes stitched shut into a tight, jagged squint. And yet they were... standing.

I saw them all come in. The delivery driver, the girl from 4B, the guy who used to park the silver sedan that got towed three days ago. They walked in behind my neighbor, silent and compliant, like shadows following a master, and never walked out.

Now, I’m one of them. Or at least, I’m pretending to be.

The floor beneath my flip flops is a chaotic map of painted symbols, esoteric and ancient. Everywhere I look, layers of Bible pages are shellacked to the walls. Red light pulses and throbs like a diseased heart.

Thud. Scraping. The sound of rummaging through drawers.

He’s in the kitchen. I can hear the wet sound of something being dragged across the linoleum. He hasn't left since he walked through that front door and sent me diving under this stale shroud, stained stiff with bodily fluids and artifacts of grim death.

My left calf is screaming. Originally resisting sporadic urges, I'm now fighting back violent, spastic tremors. If I don't shift my weight, all my leg muscles are going to recoil, and the sudden movement will audibly ripple the sheet. But it’s not just the cramp. My stomach is a cauldron of bubbling urgency, twisting with pure sudden terror. I really needed to take a shit.

I need to move. My bowels are betraying me, and my legs are vibrating with the need to bolt. This was a fucking stupid idea. He normally works on Saturdays, but of course today is an exception. Curiosity and intrusive thoughts got the better of me. This is how people die in horror films.

Across the room, through an eroded patch in the sheet, I see him. He’s standing in the doorway, drenched in that sickening crimson light, staring straight at my row of the "congregation."

Looks like he's counting.

I think he just noticed that one of his zombified saints has started to shake.