Chapter 03: Her name is Daniela

Chapter 03: Her name is Daniela

Once the door is open, I do not expect the attack and pull it suddenly, investing against the zombie. We both fall in the wet bathroom floor.

“Stop it. Are you crazy?”

“Whatta?”

A girl. She is probably my age, around twenty-two, with dark hair in a ponytail a bit wet. She wears a white-and-red sports uniform, with a 6 printed on the chest. Her appearance is more vivid than any survivors I have ever encountered. Not even looks scared. Rather, I notice one of the corners of his mouth tugging, a smirk. She must taking me as a fool, because I do not understand diddly about what is happening, and that's clear.

“Who are ya? Where do ya come from?” I ask, still in shock.

“If you let me breathe taking your leg off my stomach, I tell you,” she says, sounding amused with the situation.

After complying with the request, I lean the bathroom door after a brief peek, just in case. I watch her ​​stand calmly, fix the fringe behind the right ear and pick up an iron bar which must have fallen from her hand when I threw myself like a madman.

“The name is Daniela. Yours?”

“Tiago.”

“Glad to meet you, Tiago. I would not say it was a pleasure to fall like I just did, your guilt, but anyways,” she says, smiling.

I do not express the minimum draft to be amused like her.

“You're pretty serious, aren't you?”

“Lately I haven't had many reasons to laugh. Except when I step close to being eaten alive. But this should not be news to you, which, incidentally, has not told me where you came from. What about the zombie that was behind me?”

“Zombie? I was near the entrance when I saw him chasing you. Soon as he passed, I busted his head with this bar. My own He-Man's sword. So I came into the bathroom to look for you.”

“And why you didn't call me?”

“I wanted to scare you.”

Well, it seems that, of all possible survivors, I found the craziest one.

“You have a very peculiar sense of humor, huh?”

“Oh, I like to—”

“Let me tell ya something, kid. If ya did not notice, the city became an inferno. People killed each other. Everywhere we went through there defunct and blood. My family is dead. Your family is dead. We have to live in constant running to not die in the hands of those freaks wandering around. And when ya see someone fleeing desperate, what ya do? Sneak yourself to... Scare them? Ya have fed on what? Shit? I could have killed ya.”

“Well, Tiago, I do not seem to be very attentive, but yes, I noticed that my friends died in the hands of these cannibals. That's not reason to let my live and high spirit die too. Do a favor to yourself, ok? Next time you see a bunch of them, run up for a hug. They maybe  are funnier than me. By the way, go wash up yourself. You're stinking.”

Morality poured over me, the so-and-so girl turns and leaves the bathroom. I stand astonished, motionless. Who does she think she is to tell me how I should or should not live after all that I went through? This discussion is not over yet.

I look if nothing of mine fell on the floor and I follow her. At the exit of the aisle, I pass over the zombie that chased me earlier. His face is distorted, the skull smashed. That nuts had no mercy. I understand why he had not shouted as others when he saw me. His mouth is lacerated, the tongue completely uprooted.

I run into the empty sport court. There are several red stains on the floor, crates and bags spread in the stands. More ahead I see the girl going by where players used to enter when alive. My attention turns to the purses, backpacks and bags scattered around. Can I find something useful or my good-natured fellow will have already made ​​the clean?

In the locker room the light is brighter. In a corner there is a jumble of sleeping mats, empty packages of cookies and pan breads, fruit peels and plastic bottles, all consumed. The locker doors are open, displaying clothes, shoes, toiletries, towels, mobile, notes, coins. Lots of junk.

“You can stay if you want,” Daniela says, appearing from behind a cabinet.

“Scaring people is a hobby of yours?”

She smiles shyly. I did not try to reciprocate. I don't know her. With a gesture she indicates a blue seat behind me while she sits on a mat. From behind it, she pulls a bottle and take a good drink of water. She must have noticed my bright eyes when I see the bottle; she throws another to me then, which I catch in the air. While I quench my thirst, she tells her story.