Chapter 4

Elise couldn't work in silence, she had to have music blasting out of her speakers at the highest decibel possible. She didn't hear the banging at her door until there was a moment of silence as the track changed. She tried to remember if she had ordered a package or was expecting anyone, but nothing came to mind. And anyway, this wasn't the normal kind of knocking, this was frantic pounding at her door.

She turned her music off, looking at the clock and realizing it was after 6p.m. Milo was still by the windows, pacing anxiously back and forth. The banging wouldn't stop and she got up to look through the peephole. It was a woman in her 40s, someone she had seen a few times in the halls. She looked terrified and feeling obliged to be neighbourly and help out, Elise opened the door.

The woman practically fell on top of her, but Elise moved aside at the last moment as she splashed into Elise's apartment, turning and screeching to close the door. Elise did so, feeling panicked as he looked around for her cell phone. The woman had blood on her hands and face.

"Are you hurt?" Elise saw her phone on the coffee table and went to grab it.

"He's dead!"

Elise froze, turning around slowly as the woman curled up on her floor and started bawling her eyes out.

"Who's dead?" Elise asked slowly.

"They got my husband! He's dead! He melted! HE MELTED!!!"

Elise didn't know what to say, and the woman keep ranting.

"He brought it home! He thought it was cute! I told him to call animal control! THEN IT BIT HIM!!!"

"Brought what home?"

The woman hadn't heard her, she just kept on screaming. "He started changing!!! He melted and... and... another one of those things crawled out of him!!!"

"What thing???" Milo had started hissing at the window again and Elise grabbed her phone to dial 911.

"A giraffe," the woman sobbed, sounding defeated.

"A... giraffe..." Elise paused. Was this a joke? She almost wanted to laugh, but the woman looked serious.

"So... a giraffe crawled out of your husband?" Elise sat down on her couch, trying to think of the scientific possibility of something like that. There was none.

The woman was starting to look sick, her face becoming more and more pale with every tear she shed.

"They came after me... so I ran here."

"That blood on you..."

"They bit me too," she buried her face into her hands and cried.

"Okay," she decided to let someone else figure this one out. There was clearly nothing she could do to help this insane woman. "I'm going to call for help."

911 was busy.

"Sorry, did you really say a giraffe?" Elise looked back at the woman, but something was wrong. She seemed to be... melting. There was really no better way to describe it. Her flesh looked gelatinous and clear and it was all just melting into a puddle on the floor. Milo looked on, cocking his head slightly.

Elise didn't have enough swear words in her vocabulary to describe the fear she felt, but she gave it her best shot as she started screaming.

Then, its head emerged. It was, as far as she could tell, a perfectly formed tiny giraffe. It was a little smaller than Milo, like a lap dog. It was a lap giraffe. A lap giraffe had just crawled out of the gelatinous ooze that used to be her neighbour. It looked at her, its tiny beady eyes glaring at her, then it charged.

Elise was too shocked to move. It reached her, opening its jaws to bite into her exposed ankles, Milo sprang, grabbing it in his own jaws, snapping its long neck instantly. The giraffe wailed as Milo shook it furiously. Then it went still and Milo looked displeased, clearly not liking the taste as it started to hack.

She almost vomited then, but there were noises outside. She went to her window, pulling her drapes apart - and there were dozens more miniature giraffes on her window sill, screeching at her and baring their teeth. Elise shut the curtains, but it was too late. They had seen her and were banging on the glass, a second later one of the windows shattered and the giraffes started pouring in.

With her phone in hand she grabbed Milo and ran out of her apartment. Her phone was ringing, it had been for some time, but she was anxious to get out of there and didn't check it. She opened the doors of her apartment and stopped. The street was littered with human corpse, each one surrounded by tiny giraffes suckling at their flesh.

She saw a car with an open door, the key in the ignition. She ran into it, slamming the door and throwing Milo in the back. She sat there for a moment shaking. The giraffes had noticed her. Slowly turning their necks to stare. She stepped down on the gas pedal as hard as she could, running over a few of them as she drove away. Her phone rang again and she answered.

"What?" She shouted, swerving to miss abandoned cars on the road.

"Elise! Are you still at home?"

"Fuck no, those things got in!"

"Those things? Is it zombies? I told you this day would come!"

"Not zombies! Giraffes!"

There was a pause. "I don't think I have anything in my apocalypse kit for giraffes."

Her phone beeped at her, and Elise realized it was dying. She hadn't thought to bring her charger.

"Doesn't matter," Meagan continued. "I'm coming to get you!"

"Don't go to my apartment! They're everywhere! I left! I'm in a car!"

"Where are you?"

"I don't know!" She hadn't been paying attention to the direction she was driving in, all she knew was that there were less giraffes now. She started feeling less panicked.

"Tell me the street-"

The phone beeped a final time.

"Meagan? Meagan?!?" She looked at her phone, dead. She would have to find a store and get a charger. Suddenly the car jerked and she looked up at the windscreen just in time for a cyclist to crash into it. The glass cracked and she hit the brakes, Milo hissed in the back as the car spun.

Then, there was silence.