text: [Themes: horror, female protagonist, zombie, horror]
  
  Jenny reaches over and clicks on the lamp by her bedside, throwing a yellow glow over the room that makes her squint.
  
  A deranged keen comes from outside the window and sends a chill down her spine. Then arms throw out from under her bed and army crawl out, and a shaggy brown head turns and looks up at her; she stares down at Crazy Tom, the creepy guy from across the street who she once saw crack the head off of a squirrel, with his bare hands, and the chill becomes a painful fear that locks up her body.
  
  Crazy Tom grins up at her, and there's blood in the cracks between his teeth. His eyes are completely white except for the pupil, and his skin has grayed and dried up, and is peeling in places. There's a sharp looking knife in his hand.
  
  There's a thunk from the window, and Peggy and Maggie from next door are there. Peggy bangs her head on the window frame again before managing to push her head through, and falls onto the floor. They both grunt and moan and bare their teeth as they're clambering up, and more come behind them, including six year old Mindy and her father, both glass-eyed and baring their teeth. Crazy Tom scrambles up and dives at Jenny.
  
  Jenny twists and leaps off of her bed, running out of the room. She screams down the hall to the living room, glancing around for an escape in the dark as she skids across the laminate floor in her socks.
  
  Through the largest window of the room, she sees old Henry in the street light, the senior that could be seen most mornings out watering or weeding his lawn and flowers. He and Hailee, the postwoman, are attacking Michael, the man that Jenny considers her 'hot' neighbor, as he fights them off with a weed puller. More dark figures of her neighbors are heading for him, drawn toward the fray, and the way they are walking and holding their hands out, they're clearly not there to help him, but to get a piece of him.
  
  > Jenny takes the side door into the garage to her car
  Jenny darts to the side door that leads into the garage, yanking it open and swinging herself inside, then slamming it closed behind her. She slaps on the light to find the chair by the tool table, and jams it up under the knob. She's not a second too soon, as the door begins to rattle and then vibrates as Crazy Tom pounds on it and shakes it, trying to get it open.
  
  Jenny runs to her car, punching in the code on the driver's handle to open it, then hops in and slams it shut, pounding the lock down. She grabs the keys from the sun visor, and twists them in the ignition, the engine rumbling to life. Then she grabs the garage door remote from the center console and jabs the button. The light blinks, but the door doesn't move or make a sound. She hits it again, then again, but still nothing happens. She looks up through the windshield at the door motor. Frayed wires are splitting and sticking out, and she freezes at the sight. Someone has sabotaged it.
  
  The door is still rattling, and the chair has been knocked out a few inches, the door cracked open now, Tom's gray fingers wrapped around the edge of the door.
  
  > Jenny opens the garage door manually
  Jenny shoves open her door and runs to the garage door. She inclines her head to it and listens for a tiny moment, but the moaning and shaking from the interior door masks anything that might be coming from the other side of the garage door. The huge door isn't shaking, so nothing is pounding on it, at least.
  
  She bends down and grabs the handle, and heaves upward, lifting it above her head. Cool air rushes inside and she gets a glimpse of the driveway and the street, dark and empty. She turns back to her car, but the chair under the knob topples with a clatter, the door flying open, and she falters. Crazy Tom steps in and shoulders the door closed again behind him, replacing the chair, the others pounding on it again for entry.
  
  Several moans come from behind her, and Jenny turns her head to look over her shoulder, and sees Janet and her husband Dave, moaning and reaching and coming up the driveway. A teenager she doesn't recognize and a man that looks familiar but she doesn't know join the couple and head toward her.
  
  She grabs a hammer from the corner and runs for the car, and Crazy Tom rushes to meet her. She swings the hammer at him, but he deflects it with his knife, and then slices her arm open.
  
  She grabs the wound, the pain burning, and warm blood seeping out between her fingers. Crazy Tom shoves the car door shut and pushes her to the ground and slices her thigh, bleeding her again. Then he leaves her there crying in pain and goes to the door, pushing Janet and Dave out and slamming the door down and flipping the lock. They moan and pound on it, and the sounds of all of them is deafening, echoing in the large space and off of the cement floor.
  
  Crazy Tom stoops over her and takes her hand against her will. She reaches with her other hand to stop him, and he stabs her in the shoulder. She screams and squeezes her eyes shut, then struggles more, with less success. He takes his time, bites her fingers off, one by one. She cries, losing her will to fight, until she passes out from blood loss five long minutes later and rises as a ghoul, no longer any fun for him, and he opens the garage door and walks away.
  
  Jenny wanders out of the open garage and follows her new hunger to the sounds and smells of humans.