Poor Mrs. Williams. Her mind is starting to go.

<<set $phone = "yes">>You fumble for your phone, but it's not in your pocket. It's not down the back of the sofa, either. Realising you you must have never picked it up this morning, you head upstairs. Sure enough, there it is, sitting on your bedside table.\n\n//31 messages//\n\nThere is definitely something going on. You unlock your phone to check what it is, but as you do you hear the sound of shattering glass from downstairs. You could [[make a break for the front door]], but without knowing what's going on downstairs, you may be better off [[locking yourself in the bathroom|lock yourself in the bathroom]]. From there you could try to call the police, and you'd still have a chance to escape if necessary: your experiences fixing the dodgy TV antenna suggest you can reach the roof of next door's extension reasonably easily.

You put your toothbrush down in the sink and stop to stare at the door. Are...are you being robbed? It seems weird that anyone would break in just after you turned all the downstairs lights off.\n\nIn any case, you're already standing in a locked room. Whoever's downstairs is probably more preoccupied with making off with your TV than anything else. The obvious thing to do is to simply [[call the police]].

Slack mouths hang and dead eyes watch. Already half a dozen bodies are tumbling into the room, each one torn, eaten, slick with rain and blood. You realise that there is no stopping them. That they will pursue you now like a dead tide, and your only chance is to run. Knowing the Williams' house is basically a mirror image of your own you head for the [[back door]].

You stare at the screen, waiting for something to happen. This has got to be like one of those things where the camera's rolling, but the newsreader hasn't been told to start. It happens a lot on live TV, and if there's some kind of emergency, you imagine it's bound to happen a lot more.\n\nFinally, a man in a suit walks on from the right. It looks as though he might be talking to someone offscreen--his mouth's moving--but you can't hear anything. He looks dazed, like he doesn't realise he's on air. Then he turns towards the camera. What you see captured on the screen makes your blood run cold.\n\nHis right eye is missing, as is most of that side of his face. His cheek has been completely torn away, and you can see his teeth moving as his mouth twitches. His face is only visible for an instant before it is replaced by the image of the girl and the clown once more.\n\n[[You are too stunned to move.]]

<<set $phone = "no">><<set $horde = 0>>Warning: This game contains scenes of explicit violence and gore.\n\n[[I acknowledge this warning and wish to proceed.|Proceed]]

You put your ear to the door and listen. You hear nothing at first, but then there's the unmistakable creak of that one loose stair. You wonder if you should turn the bathroom light off, but it's too late now: it would be better to leave it on than to do anything that might tell the intruder exactly where you are. But as you remain frozen, listening through the wood, you think you hear sniffing, though it might just be heavy breathing.\n\nSuddenly, the door lurches in its frame, catching you hard in the side of the head. Whoever is outside has just thrown themselves against it. This definitely seems like a good time to leave. [[You climb out the window.]]

You step into the bathroom and turn on the light over the sink. You just want to finish up here and get into bed, but you're tired enough that everything takes ages. Or feels like it takes ages. You're not sure. You squeeze the toothpaste onto the brush. You hear glass shattering downstairs.\n\n[[Suddenly you are wide awake.]]

The still image of the clipshow host is replaced by a test card of a little girl and a toy clown playing noughts and crosses.\n\n"This is an emergency broadcast. Please do not turn off your device."\n\nThe screen cuts to a dark grey swivel chair behind a white desk in a white room. But there is nobody in it. Suddenly wide awake, you keep watching, but nothing happens. There is no sound, and the chair remains empty. This is serious stuff. The only question is whether to [[keep watching]] or [[find out what's happening online]].

You land in a puddle, soaking your slippers. Reaching the street involves climbing the garden fence and heading down a little alleyway. As you do this, you realise that the night is eerily quiet. There are no planes overhead. There are no cars down on the main road. Something is very, very wrong. When you reach the pavement outside your house, you realise immediately what it is: there is a crowd of shambling figures, and they are headed this way.\n\nKeeping to the shadows as best you can, you reach your neighbours' front door: the best chance of shelter you have. To your dismay, you find it is already ajar--that can't possibly be a good sign--but with the horde already on its way, you have no other choice: pushing the door open as quietly as you can, you [[step into your neighbours' house]].

"Mister and Missus Williams?" you whisper as loud as you dare. There is no response. Fortunately, that also means that nothing bursts out at you. You close the front door. Taking your lighter out of the pocket of your hoodie--since turning any lights on would be liable to attract attention from outside--you find that you are in a dark [[hallway]].

It is the end of a long day. You promised yourself you would go to bed at 10, then 11, but that hasn't happened. There is something interesting on TV--one of those 50/100/whatever greatest internet clips things that costs nothing to make but keeps people reliably entertained--and you have let yourself get sucked in. You were busy all day, you tell yourself. You need to [[give yourself some time to relax]]. But really you know you should [[go to bed]].

You open the window as wide as you can and clamber through. Clinging to the sill with your hands, you struggle to swing a foot onto the edge of next door's roof. <<if $phone eq "yes">>As you do so, your phone slips out of your pocket and hits the concrete below. You don't look down to check, but it doesn't sound like it survived the fall.<<endif>>\n\nEverything is slippery from the rain, but at last you manage to get a foothold. However, you can't work out how to get the rest of you across the gap without just making one really dangerous leap for it. The sound of crunching wood from inside renders this a moot point. [[You throw yourself across.]]

Suddenly, you hear glass breaking. The sound came from the front room. You get there just in time to see a man drag himself over the frame, apparently unconcerned by the shards of glass jutting from it. For a moment, you aren't sure whether to help him, run away, or kick him in the head. Then you catch sight of his eyes--milky white, and almost glowing in the dim light--and you make your choice. [[You run for the front door.]]

Shutting the door behind you, you head for the pavement. The rain comes down in streaks, illuminated by the yellow streetlights. You look around, but there's nobody about. In fact, you can't even hear any cars going by on the main road. It's not just quiet: it's ridiculously quiet. Something is wrong here.\n\nYou wonder for a moment whether or not you should knock on the door of the elderly couple who live next to you. Having seen the man who broke into your house, you're ashamed to realise you're less concerned about helping them than you are what you might find. However, in the dark with nowhere to go, rainwater soaking through your slippers, it seems like helping them could be the best way to help yourself. [[You walk up to the door.]]

You begin to creep down the stairs, remembering to avoid the one that creaks. The upstairs hall light is on, but downstairs it is dark. You're confident that if you can get down unnoticed, you'll have little trouble slipping out. However, just as you're stretched out over that one tricky step, a man appears at the bottom. His pupilless eyes seem to glow in the darkness, and mixed with the rainwater that has soaked his hair, there is a great deal of what looks like blood.\n\nHe lunges towards you. Instinctively, you throw the only thing you have to hand: your phone. It hits him square in the face. Though that is not enough to stop him in itself, the blow causes him to miss his footing, and he slips forwards. Taking your chance, you jump over him--taking four or five steps at once--and make it to the bottom of the staircase. [[You run for the front door.]]

Spring Rain

You sink a little deeper into the sofa and watch the panda sneeze, the fox lick the window, and the small child say "I like turtles." The problem with arranging these things by number of YouTube views, you consider, is that it means everyone's already seen everything in the top ten, and almost everything in the top thirty. It's still kind of engaging, and it's interesting to see what attracts the most attention online, but it makes it hard to justify staying up so late. You know you won't be missing anything if you [[go to bed]], but still you kind of want to [[wait and see #1]].

The B-list celebrity presenter makes a terrible joke, and you realise the #1 video is obviously going to be //Gangnam Style//. Except the #1 video never comes. Because the screen has frozen. At first you think there's a problem with the aerial--the weather hasn't been great recently, and that can mess with the signal--but pretty quickly you realise that's not it, because rather than the barely-intelligible stutter that comes with a bad signal, there's a single, steady tone coming from the speakers.\n\n[[You watch.]]

The hallway is perfectly still. It is also quite plain. Though there is a shelf running the length of one wall, just above a long radiator, it is empty. As far as you can tell, the only decoration is a passage of embroidered text in a gilded frame.\n\n//April is the cruellest month, breeding\nLilacs out of the dead land, mixing\nMemory and desire, stirring\nDull roots with spring rain.\n\n~The Burial of the Dead//\n\nYou're not sure whether it's because of the verse, or just the rainwater running down the back of your neck, but you shudder. And the front door shudders too. You duck into the living room, and in the faint butane light, you see a multitude of hands banging on the window. [[The glass breaks.]]

Crouching on the roof of your neighbours' extension, you wonder where to go next. You could [[climb down]] and make your way to the road, but you notice that one of your neighbours' upstairs windows is open. You could instead [[climb inside]].

By [[Damon L. Wakes|http://www.damonwakes.wordpress.com]]

<<set $phone = "yes">>You head to your room. You're about to get undressed when you see your phone lying on your bedside table. You thought you had it in your pocket all day, but apparently you didn't. It doesn't really matter--you hardly had time to meet up for drinkies anyway--but all the same you pick it up to check.\n\n//31 messages//\n\nYour stomach lurches. You've definitely forgotten something. Something important, for anyone to try and remind you this much. But what was it? You tap the icon to read, but are stopped by the sound of [[glass shattering downstairs]].

"Exactly how much did this cost?" you ask.\n\nMr. Williams answers for her: "Three thousand, two hundred and eleven pounds." He looks a little glum.\n\n"But it was worth it!" Mrs. Williams cackles. "Yes it was! I got you, and by extension [[any hypothetical person controlling your actions]]."

Panic overwhelming you, you drop your lighter, but even in the darkness you recognise the face of the creature before you--the creature that was once your neighbour. [[Mrs. Williams lumbers towards you.]]

As you reach up to knock on the door, you realise that it is already ajar. That can't possibly be a good sign. You know you aren't going to just walk inside, but still you wait on the doorstep for a minute, wondering if you shouldn't at least call out to your neighbours. However, you have a feeling that would be a really bad idea.\n\nYou make your way to the pavement once more...and immediately run back to your neighbours' door. Whatever broke into your house, whatever was //hunting// you, there is a whole crowd of them on the road outside now, and they are heading your way. You take your chances and [[step into your neighbours' house]].

<<set $horde = $horde +1>>The key is not there. <<if $horde eq 1>>The first of the creatures in the next room begins to bang on the door, and you begin to panic.<<endif>><<endif>><<if $horde eq 2>>You can hear wood splintering, and rotting fingers push through the cracks. Your own hands begin to shake uncontrollably.<<endif>><<if $horde eq 3>>The door bursts open under the sheer pressure of the bodies behind it. You struggle to think of some other way out of this room, but half of it is already full of walking corpses. The window is too small to climb through, and you have no time to find anything with which to break it. [[The horde closes in.]]<<endif>> <<if $horde lt 3>>You can search [[the pot|search]] by the window, [[the drawer|search]] under the worktop, [[the box|search]] by the door, or the [[pile of clutter|search]] next to the oven.<<endif>>

"April fool!" all the zombies shout in unison. Some of them begin to peel off their flesh wounds. Somebody flicks on the light.\n\n"Your face!" Mrs. Williams laughs, pulling several chunks of gory latex off her own. "Oh, your face! This was worth every penny."\n\n[[Incedentally...]]

With great force of will, you manage to lever yourself off the sofa and pick up the remote. You wish you'd just kept lounging there, even as you realise just how tired you really are. Still, you turn off the TV.\n\nUpstairs, you realise that you can hear rain hitting the roof. It's a soothing sound, steady and quiet. You should really [[brush your teeth]], but then again, it couldn't hurt to [[skip it just this once]].

Unfortunately, though you find the back door easily enough, it is locked and there is no key. You are in the kitchen now, and there are any number of places where such a thing might be kept. You could try [[the pot|search]] by the window, [[the drawer|search]] under the worktop, [[the box|search]] by the door, or the [[pile of clutter|search]] next to the oven. You shut the kitchen door to buy yourself some time.

Tugging the window open all the way, you heave yourself in. The room is dark, and you knock several knick-knacks off a shelf with your foot as you do so.\n\n"Hello?" you call into the darkness, wondering if that's even a good idea. "Mister and Missus Williams?"\n\nThere is no answer. You can't hear any sign of anybody in the house at all. You can make out a doorway ahead, so you feel around for the lightswitch. It doesn't work. Neither does the one for the hallway. The power is out. Using only the tiny glow from your lighter, you look around the room for a torch, but you can't find one. You head downstairs and find yourself in a [[hallway]].

You are in a bathroom, which limits your options somewhat. You've got a soap-on-a-rope, a nearly-full bottle of conditioner, a roll of toilet paper and a fusty towel. Unless you rip a pipe off the wall--and you're pretty much certain you won't be able to--nothing in here is going to do a lot of damage.\n\nYou pick up the toilet brush. It's not sharp or heavy, but it is seriously unpleasant. No burglar is going to want a faceful of that. Thus furnished, [[you head out into the hall]].

"April fool!" she shouts.\n\n[[Wait, what?]]

As you head towards the upstairs bathroom, you see a figure on the stairs. Apparently they see you too, because they're already running, each step thundering beneath their feet.\n\nYou duck into the bathroom and slam the door shut, locking the door as you unlock your phone. You dial 999 but the door's really shaking, even with you leaning on it. It sounds like the frame is starting to splinter, like whoever's on the other side is throwing their whole body against it. That kind of door was never meant to stand up to this kind of punishment. [[You climb out the window.]]

You fish your mobile out of your pocket. Except you don't, because your pocket's empty. The phone is either on your bedside table or down the back of the sofa.\n\nObvious thing no longer an option, there are two possible courses of action: [[wait quietly]] in the bathroom and climb out the window if anyone tries to get in (you're pretty sure you can reach the roof of next door's extension from here), or [[grab a weapon]] and head downstairs.

As the intruder rushes you--mouth snarling, arms outstretched--your manky toilet brush suddenly seems like an extremely poor choice of armament. Eyes milky white, nails crusted with dry blood, nothing but brute force will see off this assailant. But the brush has at least one thing going for it: it gives you something to keep his snapping teeth at bay. As the force of his charge carries you both to the floor, you press the flexy plastic against his neck.\n\nLike this, you could almost gain the upper hand, but the man struggles furiously, and his peculiarly dead eyes suggest that there is no life to choke out of him. You stand suddenly, thinking to make a rush for the stairs, but are forced to let go of the brush: he has hold of it now. [[You run for the front door.]]

Your first thought is that you're being burgled, but then you realise that you only just turned off the lights downstairs. Whoever's breaking in already knows you're here. That's a really unsettling thought. A lifetime of bad horror movies suggests that upstairs is the last place you want to be: if you're quick, you could try to [[make a break for the front door]]. On the other hand, you have no idea where the intruder is. Since you're already upstairs, you could [[lock yourself in the bathroom]], call the police, and then escape through the window if anyone tries to get in. Your experiences fixing the dodgy TV antenna suggest you can reach the roof of next door's extension reasonably easily.