Emily groggily reached for her alarm clock, thinking about pressing the snooze button just one more time until she caught sight of the glowing red numerals. "Holy shit!" she shrieked when the numbers finally registered to her half-conscious brain, 8:00 am, she'd overslept again. Leaping from the jumbled pile of blankets that was her bed, she made a mad dash for the bathroom.

"Dammit!" she swore as she stubbed her toe in her haste to climb into the shower stall. "Please God don't let me be late again," she prayed silently. It was bad enough that she was stuck in a dead end job, worse yet, she worked at an online dating service for what she considered the socially inept, judging by the profiles some of their clients submitted anyway. She blamed her habitual oversleeping and subsequent tardiness on her job, claiming that it filled her with the need to meet her own 'Mr. Right' the old fashioned way, drunk in a bar.

After hurriedly dressing, she rushed back to the bathroom to douse her telltale bloodshot eyes with Visine before doing a quick make-up job, just enough to make her look little bit less like the walking dead, she thought bitterly. In her haste, she barely caught the news report from her still blaring alarm clock.

"Reports of civil unrest and unprecedented acts of violence are sweeping the nation," the disembodied voice said over the radio. "Locally, hospitals are reporting an influx of patients reporting unprovoked attacks on their persons, and exhibiting what one hospital insider described as being human bi..."

"Yea, yea, yea, civil unrest, blah blah blah," muttered Emily as she turned off the radio on her way out of the room. She frantically searched for her car keys, until she remembered that they lay on the battered, old end table she'd placed beside her front door. Snatching them up, she carefully locked her front door and headed for the stairwell. There, she raced down the four flights of steps to street level, bursting out the door and onto the street. As she searched the parking spots in front of her apartment building for her car, she had a bad habit of forgetting where she parked, she noticed a strange absence of people in the street. Shaking off the eerie feeling, she quickly ran towards her ancient SAAB parked on the opposite side of the street, an angry driver honking his horn at her when she darted in front of him.

She paused just long enough to flip off the driver, before unlocking her car door and climbing inside. Just as she settled herself in the seat, she caught sight of a piece of paper wedged beneath her windshield wiper. "Shit, not again," she said, climbing half out of the car and wrenching the paper out from beneath the wiper. Barely glancing at it, she recognized it as yet another parking ticket. Groaning, she stuffed it inside the glove compartment along with a host of others she'd received in the past few weeks. "Gotta take care of those," she murmured as she slammed the little car into gear and pulled out into the nearly empty street. As she sped down the road, she flipped through her favorite radio stations looking for some decent driving music. Instead of music though, every station had the obligatory news reporter talking about civil unrest. Frustrated, she turned off the radio, humming to herself as she navigated her way through the streets towards her office. For some reason she couldn't get that old Gloria Gaynor song 'I Will Survive' out of her head. "Stupid song," she muttered as she pulled into the underground parking garage of her building. Checking her watch while she waited for the gate to go up, she realized she'd make it with about five minutes to spare today, in her mind a good sign.

Instead though, she found a nasty surprise waiting for her, attached to her timecard with a paperclip. After hitting the time clock and punching in, she slowly opened the letter, figuring it was going to be yet another change to the employee handbook, she scanned through it. "What the fuck," she shrieked, reading through the first paragraph again.

"Due to changes with our computer system the board of directors has ascertained it will be in the company's best interests to downsize unneeded support staff in the coming months. Effective the 1st of June your employment with will be terminated," she read aloud, as if vocalizing the words would make them any less true.

"I'm being downsized, fucking downsized," she said angrily, to no one in particular. She earned a few strange looks from passersby, rushing back towards the parking area, but nothing more.

Sighing as she walked into cubicle land, she decided the first course of action was to seek out a fresh cup of coffee. Hastily depositing her purse in one of the drawers of her desk as she passed her cubicle, she made a beeline to the breakroom. Lost in thoughts of how she could possibly win her job back, she was halfway to the breakroom before she realized that the usually boisterous office was uncharacteristically quiet. Glancing around, she was surprised to see many of the cubes around her were vacant, including that of her supervisor. Pondering this turn of events, she was caught off guard by a group of people bursting forth from the breakroom just as she reached the door.

"I'm just going home, packing up the kids and heading up north to our vacation cottage, we'll ride things out there," a heavyset programmer, Emily thought his name was Phil, was declaring to someone she didn't recognize.

"Don't be silly, you heard what the announcer said, if there's no activity in your area the safest thing to do is just stay in your home and lock the doors," Phil's friend replied obstinately as the two of them nearly trampled her in their haste to leave.

"Troglodytes!" she called after them in disgust. She entered the room, heading straight for the coffee-maker, only to be met with the disappointing sight of an empty pot. Shaking her head, she went about the task of making a fresh pot, half-heartedly listening to the handful of people crammed around the small TV set on the other side of the room. She turned to join the others while she waited for it to brew.

"Once again, the latest reports say that the area around the River Walk is no longer safe and there are reports of violence spreading throughout the heart of the city. Police are asking that people remain in their homes with the doors and windows locked if there is no apparent activity in their area. We will be broadcasting a listing of rescue stations which are going into operation around the city at this very moment, just as soon as the information becomes available. City officials are asking that citizens in areas of activity make their ways to the nearest rescue station," the commentator was saying when Emily walked up to the rest of the group.

"So what's going on?" she asked, elbowing the guy standing next to her to get his attention.

He turned and gave her an incredulous look. "Haven't you been listening to the news this morning? People are rioting in the streets, just walking up to anyone and attacking them. And it's not just here, it's all over the country, maybe the world!"

"Right, this is probably just somebody's idea of an April Fool's Day prank, they're just a month late with it," she scoffed.

"Are you nuts!" he said sharply, drawing looks from others around them. "People are evacuating their homes, this is not someone's sick idea of a joke. I've even heard that people are starting to die from these attacks. There's even a network saying that people are out there biting each other. Biting!"

"Okay, I get it, this isn't a joke," Emily said, backing away from him. There was a wild look in his eyes, and spittle was beginning build up in the corners of his mouth. It was at that moment she realized that it was a guy named Chris from their accounting department. He was already a 'high-strung' person, all this crazy news obviously not helping him any. "Look, it's cool man," she told him placatingly. "I'm just gonna go fix myself a cup of coffee now," she said as she backed away.

"Coffee! At a time like this?" he demanded.

"Yea, it settles my nerves, maybe you should try a cup," she suggested. "But, I seriously recommend the de-caf for you," she blurted out before she could stop herself. He just continued to stare at her, as though she'd suddenly sprouted a second head or something. Warily, she turned away from him just enough to fix her coffee, with lots of cream and sugar, and slink towards the door with it.

"Down-sized by computers and psychotic co-workers, this day can't get any worse," she told herself as she returned to her desk and got to work. Throughout the next half hour, she periodically heard people leaving, all voicing the same thing, the violence was spreading. Tuning them out, she continued to work, running background checks on potential customers. She was so focused on what she was doing she nearly jumped from her seat when her best friend, Barry, suddenly bounded into her cubicle.

"Girl, just what in the hell do you think you're doing here?" he asked.

"Um, working, duh! What's it look like?" she asked.

"I see that you're working, the question is why? Aren't you paying attention to what's going on out there?"

"Yea, I heard the news when I came in, chaos in the Mid-West, typical media exaggeration," she replied.

"Honey, this ain't no exaggeration. Take a look outside, I think we should get out of here," he said, gesturing towards the exit.

"Barry, I can't afford to miss a day of work, I just got a termination letter this morning, I'm out of a job in a month and a half," she said.

"Got news for you sweetie, we're all out of jobs as of today, come over here and look," he ordered, walking through the cubicle maze to the nearest window.

"All right, I'm coming," she said,figuring she'd never get any work done until she did what he wanted. When she reached the window, she couldn't hide her amazement over the changes that had occurred in the short hour she'd been at the office. The squat four-story building that housed their offices on its top floor, a new department store that filled the second and third floors, scheduled for its grand opening in another week, and a first floor that housed a trendy mix of boutiques and a hole-in-the wall Italian restaurant, now lay in the middle of an apparent war zone. "Holy shit," she breathed.

The street in front of the building crammed full of cars, trying to make it out to the expressways in an effort to flee a city gone wild. Some people were literally driving onto the sidewalks or plowing into other vehicles in their desperation to escape. Others were abandoning their vehicles all together, walking over the tops of other cars in an attempt to flee on foot. In the midst of the chaos, looters were scavenging through stores. While Emily and Barry watched, one of the looters, he looked like a teenager struggling to carry a TV from the smashed out front of an electronics store was suddenly surrounded by a pack of people.

"At least there are some people out there still trying to preserve law and order," Barry exclaimed. Then, to the duo's utter dismay, the pack suddenly charged the boy, who screamed, dropped theTVand tried to run. They tackled him to the ground and literally tore him to pieces, feasting upon his flesh.

"Oh my God, Barry, please tell me I didn't just see what I just saw," Emily said hoarsely.

"Okay, you didn't see what you just saw," he stammered, turning to face her. "But you know I'm lying, right?"

"Jesus, we gotta get out of here!" she yelped, groping for his hand and pulling them both away from the window.

"And go where Em?" he asked. "You just saw what's happening out there. Now I'm thinking that maybe we'll be safer here."

"We'd be sitting ducks here," she protested. "Those people could break in any minute, eat us just like they did that kid."

"You won't be any safer out there, it's suicide to try," rasped a voice from behind them. The two friends jumped, whirling about and saw a chubby, middle-aged blonde man standing there trembling. Blood was smeared across his forehead, and his once neatly pressed suit now hung in tatters. Emily's eyes widened as she recognized the man who'd left with Phil the programmera merehour before.

Without thinking, she blurted out, "Where's Phil?"

The man's trembling intensified and tears began to run down his cheeks. "They got him. He...he saved my life, stopped them when they tried to attack me, and I just abandoned him to those things," he sobbed, obviously overwhelmed with guilt.

"It's okay," Barry told him soothingly. "We've seen from the windows what those people can do, if they had hold of him, I doubt that there was anything you could have done to help him. Now, what's your name?"

"Jonathan, my name's Jonathan," he said, wiping at the tears on his cheeks.

"Nice to meet you Jonathan, I'm Barry, this here's Emily."

"Okay, if we're all done with our socializing boys, we need to figure out what we're gonna do before those things get in here," she told them stubbornly.

"They shouldn't get in, at least not right away," a deep male voice said from behind her.

"For the love of God you people gotta stop doing that to me!" she shrieked, leaping about a foot into the air. Behind her stood a tall, stocky black man clad in a tan security guard uniform stood. The name tag on his uniform read 'T. Johnson.' He was an older man, late forties, maybe early fifties judging from the streaks of gray that showed in his closely cropped hair.

"What makes you so sure of that, Mr. Johnson," Barry asked, squinting a little as he read the name plate.

"Thomas, you can call me Thomas. And as for safety, for one thing, I just came from the ground floor, was on my way back to the security offices when I heard your voices," the guard explained.

"That doesn'ttell uswhy you think we're safe?" Jonathan said, trying to sound tougher than he looked.

"If you'd have let me finish, I would have told you, I checked the front and back doors to the building. They're both locked up tight. The Italian place, they don't upon up until the lunch crowd, and I doubt anyone will show up for their shift.Now, I'm not certain, but I'm pretty sure we'reall that's left here," he told them.

"But what about the other entries? There's got to be more entries in a building this size," Emily said, waving her arms wide to emphasize.

"Not really," Thomas disagreed. "This is an old building, built in back in the twenties. They may have gutted the old first floor and turned it into a garage, but it's still old style architecture, only two main points of entry. There's the front entryway out to the street andthe rear one that leads into an alley,other than that,the remaining access areas are through the elevator from the parking garage and the fire-escape. That's it. The way I see it, the elevator is our main weakness right now."

Jonathan started rubbing his temples and pacing in a tight circle. At last he spoke. "There's got to be a way to disable the elevator, maybe we can wedge the doors open on one of the floors. What would that do?"

Thomas nodded. "It might work, nobody would be able to call for the elevator if the door was open. Question is what would we use?"

"I'm not really an electrician," Emily said hesitantly, "but couldn't we just short out the elevator? I remember one time when I was a kid, my uncle George tried re-wiring his house and it was weeks before anybody could get everything running again. Sorry," she said, looking sheepish, "It's probably a pretty dumb idea, I'm just babbling 'cause I'm scared."

"Nah, it's a good idea sweetheart, I think you might be right on the money with that," Thomas said. "In fact, it makes me thint that we should be able to get at it from the maintenance hatch, I think there's some kind of master shut-off switch for the thing that they use when they're working in on it."

"Okay then, I say our first order of business is getting that elevator turned off," Barry said. "Then we can work our way through the rest of the building, see if anyone else is still here, make sure that nobody got in while we've been standing around here with our thumbs up our asses." He gestured to the pistol strapped to Thomas' hip, "Are there any more of those around this place?"

"Yeah, all the security officers are assigned their own pieces and we're not allowed to take them home, obviously, it's not like we're real cops or something. Anyway, there's 9 more pistols over in the security office, couple rifles maybe. You know how to use one?"

"Me? No," Barry said, shaking his head in emphasis, before pointing at Emily. "But she does."

"Me too," Jonathan said nervously. "At least, I know how to handle a rifle that is, I used to go deer hunting when I was younger."

"Good enough for me," Thomas replied. "Now let's get to work."

It took them over an hour to take care of the elevator and search the top three floors, plus arm themselves from the security office. Slowly they made their way across the bottom floor, searching for any signs of life that they might have missed. The back door was solid steel with two locks, reasonably unlikely to be broken down too easily. The real threat was the main door, it's shatterproof glass would only hold for so long if any of the looters decided to try breaking in.

"We can use some of the tables and chair from the restaurant, make a barricade or something," suggested Emily, grasping the door handle as she spoke.

"Door's locked," Thomas started to say, starting in surprise when the door in question glided open smoothly.

"Oh really?" the girl said skeptically. "Are you sure you checked these doors before you came up and found us?"

"Well no, I guess I just assumed what with the lights out and everything that it was still locked up from the last night. It doesn't look like anything's been disturbed," he said defensively.

"Let's check it out," Jonathan said nervously, grasping the rifle he'd procured in the security office clumsily in his hands.

In the kitchen, they found a teenage girl, cowering on the floor behind one of the counters, crying softly. She was a waitress there at the restaurant, she'd come there that morning in search of the purse she'd forgotten the night before, getting trapped inside the building when the elevator quit working.

"What's your name?" Emily asked softly, kneeling beside the girl.

"Tara," she whispered.

"Well Tara, you're safe here," Emily said, trying to reassure her.

"No, we're trapped here," the girl whispered. "I tried, but there's no way out."

"It's safer in here than it is out on the street right now, Tara. You have to believe me, there are some very unfriendly people out there right now, you're safer staying inside right now until help comes. Guys, why don't you take care of the door, I'll handle this," Emily said.

"I can't stay here!" Tara blurted out after the others had left. "My family, they don't know where I am. They think I'm at school right now."

"We'll try to contact them, there arephones up in our office we can use, but right now I need you to come with me."

The two of them left the others to construct the barricade, and made their way back up to the office. Once there, they sat at the nearest desk, picking up the phone, Emily handed it to Tara. "Try to call home, let them know you're safe," she said.

The girl dialed the phone and waited. "Nothing's happening," she whimpered.

"Oh, shit. I'm so sorry, I forgot you have to dial a seven first to get an outside line, otherwise you can only call to different extensions here in the office," Emily apologized. "Here, what's the number, I'll dial it for you."

They tried once more, this time getting a recording: "We're sorry, all circuits are busy, please hang up and try your call again later."

They sat dejectedly, staring at the phone until the others returned. Emily grabbed Barry's arm and dragged him over by the windows to the front of the office, affording them a view of the street outside. "The phone lines are as good as down, circuits are either jam packed with people trying to see if their families are okay, or else there's nobody there to operate things," she whispered harshly to him.

"I don't think there's going to be anyone coming to help us," he replied. "Whatever's going on out there, it's getting worse." An explosion burst out from down the street, punctuating his statement.

"What was that?" called Jonathan, pausing in his own efforts of dialing the phone.

"It looks like a couple cars collided the next intersection down," Barry replied, craning his neck in the attempt to get a better view.

Time slowly ticked by, Thomas and Jonathan killing time playing a game of War with a deck of cards retrieved from the security office. Emily sat at her desk playing a game of solitaire on her computer, scanning stations on her radio as she did in the hopes of getting more information about what was going on. Barry sat at a nearby desk, presumably doing the same. Tara timidly approached Emily's desk carrying a pair of Styrofoam coffee cups with her. "It's got cream and sugar in it, I wasn't sure how you take it," she said, placing one of the cups in front of Emily.

"Thanks kid, it's fine."

Pulling up a chair, the girl sat down beside her. "So, what exactly is it you guys do up here?"

"We take money from lonely suckers in exchange for offering them up other lonely suckers, who've also paid us, all in the hopes that they'll finally meet their true love," Barry said sarcastically.

"No, really, what do you do?" Tara said, looking a little bewildered.

"Prince Charming over there handles the job of reviewing pictures submitted by the lovelorn for their personal ads to make sure that there's nothing indecent being posted. I've got the fun job of doing some background checks on new applicants, try to screen out any potential murder suspects or the lawsuits-waiting-to-happen types," Emily explained.

"Speaking of Prince Charmings darling, how's your lovelife doing?" Barry asked.

"Not really the time to worry about it, Bare."

"No time like the present. It's not like we have anything other than time on our sides right now," he pressed.

"I'm in hell and it's a matchmaking service," groaned Emily.

"Now that I can't argue with, but while we've been killing time here, I've been checking out the database and I think I found some candidates with real potential for you," he said, smiling cheerfully at her.

"Barry, with the possible exception of the males in this room, all the men in the world have either gone crazy or have 'victim here' tattooed across their foreheads by this point. Besides, why would anyone desperate enough to join a dating service hold any interest for me?"

"Oh come on, play along would you. Here's one that's a doctor, 33 years-old, five foot ten, with blonde hair, blue eyes...you don't mind someone who's a tad overweight do you Em?"

As Emily cast him a scathing glance in reply, Tara's head bobbed back and forth between the two like a spectator at a tennis match.

"Okay, okay, how about this one. 32 years-old, six foot four, black hair, green eyes and a cop. Just think of all the creative uses for his handcuffs you could find. Hell honey, if I was into heterosexual males I'd be all over him myself."

"Enough already," she said, rising to her feet. "I'm gonna go see if there's anything on the television in the breakroom, so please, do me a favor and stay here. Okay?" she asked, not bothering to stick around for his reply.

"Suit yourself," he muttered, making a note of the profile number before scanning through more.

"Can I see the cop?" Tara called out.

Barry smiled broadly at her, "A fellow matchmaker, come on over."

The television in the breakroom was nothing but straightforward news. Flipping through a few of the stations, Emily saw that they were all pretty much the same, reports of ever-spreading violence across the country, loss of contact with some of our foreign allies, no idea what was causing it. Across the bottom of the screen there was a neverending scroll of rescue stations appeared. She was about to give up, when one channel had something new to say.

"This just in, our own Tricia Parker, reporting live from Mercy General Hospital," the announcer declared.

"Thank you Tom. It's been a disturbing few hours, victims of violence from all across the city are being brought in, and the hospital is practically overflowing with casualties. Most disturbing of all, the reports of armed gangs being behind the initial outbreak is nowprovingto be false. I've spoken with several victims as they wait for assistance and the one thing that rings true with all the stories is this, they are all reporting that their injuries sustained are bites and scratches. The mobs out there aren's using any weapons beyond their own teeth and hands. These wounds are vicious, with large chunks of flesh being torn from the victims' bodies and, as I've been told by the victims themselves, the flesh is being eaten by their attackers. I've been able to get one hospital insider to speak on the condition of anonymity, and he tells me the most disturbing news of all, every person who has been bitten and admitted to this facility succumbs to a coma-like condition within just a few hours of being injured."

Emily's face was white as she slowly backed away from the scenes of carnage being shown. Turning, she fled from the room, returning to the others to tell them what she'd heard. Together, the five of them stood in front of the windows to the front of the building once more, staring out at the city falling apart before their eyes.