by Bonds, Javan
☠☠☠
The large enclosure of the school lunchroom was what saved Mrs. Haugen’s class; at least, the children willing to follow her deeper into the building. More than one simply panicked when the crazies started attacking. A few dropped where they stood, curling into the fetal position. Some ran back down the hall from the direction they came. Whether back to the classroom or some of the other exterior doors behind, she would never be certain. Of course, they were never seen again. Keeping it at the back of her mind, the teacher could only speculate at their fates.
Thankfully, the large eating area was relatively empty. There were some servers preparing lunch from the kitchen, but there were yet to be any students crowding around the tables. The first priority of the educator was to explain the situation to the other adults present. After that, she would do her best to secure the cavernous room for everyone inside.
“But shouldn’t we wait for Larry?” A lady wearing a plastic hairnet and apron asked. She pointed over to the janitor’s supply cart. “He just went to the restroom.”
Remembering stories from the news, how once infected by whatever it was that drove people insane and turned them blue, it took hours for signs of the sickness to start showing. Mrs. Haugen spoke seriously. “I don’t think he’ll be coming back. Even if he does, he’ll have been bit. You’ve seen what’s been happening on the news. These people are those people.” She waved her hand all around, encompassing everyone outside. “He’ll have it.”
“But we can help him!”
She sighed. “No you can’t. You’ve seen it all over TV. There’s no fixing it. No cure. No treatment.”
“Well... what if he doesn’t have it?”
The teacher was adamant. “Then he can sit outside until tomorrow and prove to us he doesn’t!”
“But he could be attacked by those naked people.”
Thinking back, the instructor remembered those blue lunatics ignored anyone already bitten. “I’ll bet you they just walk right by him.”
“Listen bitch, nobody died and made you king!”
Standing firm, Mrs. Haugen looked at her coldly, “No. But I’m not letting you put my kids at jeopardy.”
“Well fuck you lady! We’re not gonna live under the fist of some kind of fascist. Right, girls?” she looked back over her shoulder to the other cafeteria workers.
Though unwilling to follow these commands, none of them could bring themselves to possibly endanger children. They would rather leave than take orders from a Nazi. Every one of them shouted agreement to their leader.
When they all walked out the cafeteria, Mrs. Haugen and a few of her students started moving the long, heavy lunchroom tables in front of the doors. The locked exterior exit at the front of the building wouldn’t pose a problem, with its thick security glass. Their goal was sealing the entrances from the hallway first.
☠☠☠
I looked confusedly to either side, not sure which entrance we should use. Devin shook his head. “We’re here for a food pantry. Where would they keep food at a school?”
Nodding in understanding, I moved to my left. The doors to the cafeteria were on the far side of the front of the structure. At least we wouldn’t have to walk through any darkened hallways. And perhaps we could just get in, get the food, and get out. Convenient. Too bad things can’t really be that favorable.
☠☠☠
Whatever cleaning solution the custodian used to mop the floor of the lunchroom was strong. Mrs. Haugen remembered the odor of what she assumed was bleach on the Day the Earth stood still. Not one infected even attempted coming into the domicile.
The small hands of children beat on doors, pleading for entry and safety. Though it broke her heart, she knew better than to allow what turned out to be infected children into the protective sanctuary of the cafeteria. After only roughly 8 hours, there were no thinking humans attempting to come inside.
At first, she wasn’t sure if it was a memory or just wishful thinking. Either way, having the children clean the floor every day from the solutions in the janitor’s cart not only kept things smelling fresh and them busy, they weren’t attacked by any of those monsters. “The infected are repelled by disinfectants like alcohol.” she thought she remembered hearing on the news.
Remaining in the spacious eating area and attached kitchen, the class was still alive for an extended period after the blue animals attacked. On strict rations, the food could last for a long time. They continued to wait for rescue from the government... or anyone. Someone had to be coming.
Though there hadn’t been electricity for what seemed like years, the class continued learning and overall staying happy. At first, a few found it difficult to survive without modern luxuries, but most not being born in America meant these youngsters weren’t as reliant on first world commodities as most. They could find enjoyment without Wi-Fi or computer animation.
That bottle of cleaning solution they first used was finally empty. Having got the final drops yesterday, the children now had to open one of the other containers on the cart. Grabbing a bottle that was surely Windex or some other type of cleaner, one of the kids unscrewed the lid. A tangy odor immediately began filling the area.
Sitting in an aluminum chair, soaking up some sun through the safety glass of the front door, Mrs. Haugen was thinking of the substance that saved their lives. Alcohol and most disinfectants were claimed repellents of the infected. If there were solutions the plague victims found repulsive, there also had to be attractants. Racking her brain for any memory on what the naked people would find appealing, for some reason her mind centered on vinegar.
Strange, since it was another fermented liquid like alcohol, she couldn’t wrap her mind around the science. Even so, just thinking about it nearly made her jaws lockup. Like most people would, she started dreaming about Pringles.
Jumping up, she realized it wasn’t just her imagination. Vinegar was actually in the air! Yorley Garcia, a cute, six year old, little Mexican girl came bounding up to her. “Mrs. Haugen! Mrs. Haugen! Que es esto?” The small child held up a bottle in question.
In such a tizzy, she could do nothing but take the container from Yorley. Screwing the lid on, she sprinted over to the cart resting in the middle of the room. Opening bottles of Clorox, toilet bowl cleaner, window cleaner, and every solution not seeming to contain vinegar. She gave some of her kid’s orders. “Take these and empty them on the floor around the doors to the lunchroom.” In confusion, they stared at her. “Go. Now!” They started running as fast as their little feet would carry them.
There was a slim hope that she might just be misremembering. Perhaps the intoxicating substance wasn’t vinegar. As she made a silent prayer for safety, the catastrophic melody of cries from uncountable inhuman monsters sounded from every direction. As with all her prayers lately, it seemed to have gone unanswered.
☠☠☠
We were at about the midpoint of the sidewalk on the northwest side of the building. Out of nowhere, the air nearly became thick with the deafening shriek of what had to be millions of peevies. Think of a cat the size of an elephant being caught in an impossibly slow blender of the same scale. Now, imagine this blender is on top of a massive fire truck continuously blowing its foghorn. Make it a little more high-pitched, and you’ve got a pretty good idea of the sound we were dealing with. There was terrible, and then there was this fucking noise. It was excruciating!
Being almost knocked to our knees, we attempted to hurry to the cafeteria door. The metal of the door was red, with an area of safety glass just big enough to break and get an arm through to unlock the door from the inside. At least, even if it was locked like it always was when I was a kid, and we had to break through it, it would still provide us with relative safety once inside.
Reaching the door, I began shaking the latch. Of course, it was locked. In that instant, I noticed a tall woman standing in the midst of dozens of children inside the cafeteria. They were making their way behind the lunch line.<
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They either weren’t infected or were just bitten today so I felt pretty safe in calling them out. “Hey!” I beat on the door.
The lady froze and looked at me. I’m sure it was terrifying to hear a human voice from outside. There was no way to know how or why she was alive.
Automatically, I assumed she locked herself and the children with her away into the lunchroom on the day the peevies came to town. My yell was probably the first noise coming from beyond the doors that wasn’t the scream of a hungry animal. Though there were a million questions either of us wanted to ask each other before she unlocked that door, there was no time.
I simply reached into my pocket, pulling the American flag patch which had been on my uniform and smacking it against the glass. She ran to the door and started fiddling with the mechanism. It didn’t really matter if she thought we came specifically for her class. We could be their saviors. That’s all she could think. I wish to God we were.
After a click, she retched the heavy barrier open. Her questions came as the four of us poured in. “Who are you? Why are you here? Have you come to save us? Do you have a way out of here?”
There was only one answer I could be positive about. “Benjamin Collins, United States Navy.” even though military branches didn’t mean the same thing they did before May Day, being a serviceman still carried an equal weight with most. Plus, I was betting she thought there was still a United States.
Running at me, she threw her arms around my neck. “Oh my God. Thank you! Are you here to save us?” Thankfully, she paid no attention to our strange garb.
Inhaling, I spoke the truth. “Yes. We save everyone we come across,” Actually, that’s not really true. Since, you know, almost every person we stumble upon dies in a horrible fashion, but we try to rescue them.
Looking over my shoulder, I noticed Robert locking the door behind us. Speaking to her, we all looked out the entrance. “Do you know what got the peevies riled up?”
Her eyebrow arched at my name for the infected. “It was us. The children were opening bottles of cleaner and one of them turned out to be vinegar.”
My team’s collective jaw was set. “You need to get these kids into one of the walk-in freezers or something.” I hated locking children into a box, setting up the zombie buffet in a small enclosure, but there was more of a chance they’d get bit in the open.
Pointing in the direction of the cooking ovens, she gave an alternative. “We used some of the stainless steel tables to build a fort in the kitchen. It’s just large enough to fit the kids into and is pretty stable. Plus, all of the freezers are full of food.” I wasn’t going to assume she meant frozen food; that was just a convenient storage area.
I clicked my tongue. “That works. Hurry!”
“Kids, follow me!” the teacher barked, making her way around the serving line. She was quickly followed by over a dozen children.
As the innocents marched basically single file out of sight and mind for the moment, I turned to my compatriots. “There’s no way they’ll be getting in the door we came through. We just need to worry about the two sets of interior doors. Those long tables might be heavy, but I don’t think they’ll be standing up to too much punishment.”
Seeing that the children and Mrs. Haugen were safe in their stainless steel fort I spun on my heel and pointed to one of the tables turned on its side. “Robert. I need you over there. And Amy, you take position close to the lunch line. I’ll be moving to where I’m needed at any given time.” What was the purpose in even bothering to give Devin orders? I could tell he already knew where to go.
We waited. The roars started getting closer. Finally, the peevies were in the halls. They obviously honed in on the exact location of the scent. Were dogs this proficient at targeting the origin of a smell?
Let’s say most animals are really good at zoning in to the vicinity of the creation of an odor... Did the olfactory systems of these things, humans only a short time ago, evolve into those of something like bloodhounds? It was unfair!
☠☠☠
Within just a few minutes, every undead able to even think about catching a whiff of intoxicating vinegar swarmed on the Albertville Community Learning Center. The exterior door to the cafeteria was basically impenetrable to tooth and nail, so the zombies decided to make their push against the clearly weaker, flimsy wooden doors opening to the lunchroom from the hallway.
Animalistic barking and growls quickly became a desperate, group heaving against the doors. There had to be hundreds if not thousands of keening, bloodthirsty monsters doing everything they could to break through the entrances. Even the barricaded entries only slowed the inevitable wave of horrible creatures. We all prepared for hell to burst through those gates.
If you can consider the evil dead, living and sane, these had been driven mad with hunger. They either didn’t care nor had no clue we had firearms trained on their entry points. I’m going to believe they just didn’t know we were there.
It’s unimaginable to think they would see the losses we were about to inflict on them as completely worth it. All so they could devour completely pure children. Would I be willing to accept the deaths of multiples of my squad if I was starving? Could I possibly get to a point where a piece of veal would be worth untold numbers of my fellows?
☠☠☠
Noticing a gleam in the eyes of Captain America, he lifted a frag grenade and pulled the pin. My girlfriend also realized what he was doing. “Like, good idea, dude! You take that one, I’ll get this one.” She similarly readied a grenade.
Getting to his feet, Robert still had his shotgun pointing at the barricades one-handed. He was aware just like the rest of us, the temporary fortifications would soon be nothing but splinters. The enemy would soon breach the perimeter. He pulled back his grenade in preparation.
As if scripted, both sets of doors exploded inward simultaneously. A cloud of dust and wood chips was the only thing that could be seen for the briefest of instants. Amy and Robert both must have already loosed the spoons of their explosive devices. Before either could land on the ground in the midst of the ghouls, two supernovas consumed everything within yards of the portals.
Surprised creatures not simply vaporized by the initial explosions were eviscerated, maimed, and ripped into pieces by the fragmented shards. Superheated fireballs were the only thing visible for what seemed like an impossibly long time. I started firing into them, hopefully sinking rounds into the monsters still standing. This preemptive strike had to put most of the enemy out of commission. That was a nice thought.
When the smoke cleared, blue movement was immediately detectable. The impersonator of Steve Rogers began rocking both barrels of his side-by-side pump action. There was no perceived kickback from his weapon as he started his unrepentant volley one-handed. Those not yet put down by the frag were trapped in the kill zone. Unable to do anything but slip in the crimson gore of their brethren, they became the emaciated bluefish in Robert Coe’s drum.
On my reverse side, Elektra tossed another object at our opposition. This time, the handheld bomb was cylindrical, not spherical. It hit the pocked linoleum and started skidding. White phosphorus plumed like a blazing mushroom, incinerating everything it touched. Monsters not yet fleeing the open air microwave area were melting into unrecognizable piles of screaming, steaming slop. Our constant rifle fire only added to the disgusting mayhem. Every color of the spectrum blended to become a sickening former people paste.
Standing somewhere near Amy, my copilot began launching 5.56 rounds into the enemy. Simultaneously, he was humming and rocking his head back and forth. It was beyond disturbing to hear what I instinctively knew was Drowning Pool’s “Bodies... ” accompanied by single shots from a man who could clearly see through walls! His rifle was pointing at where the head of each infected would appear. I swear, bullets were leaving his gun before the demons actually stepped into the open.
No matter how much spent brass littered the floor around each of us, t
he undead were still gaining ground. If one zombie dropped into a shit covered pile of bleeding blue, it would be instantaneously replaced at least double the rate. We four couldn’t reload fast enough to stop the inhuman tide.
You guessed it; the creatures knew what we were defending. Every one of them that made it just one step further, than the last, were inches closer to the kitchen and to the treasure that lay inside. No longer interested in vinegar, they only wanted to eat the guiltless souls, hiding behind us, one inch at a time!
Did they get advanced copies of the screenplay like Landers did? Maybe they had smelled the youngsters since infection but had never before attacked as a group. None of them have the strength as a single unit to break through the barricades. Ambushing as an infinite army, they were now able to take what they had been yearning for; for so long.
☠☠☠
Amy, realizing fighting from range was futile, decided it was now time to get up close and personal. Dropping her rifle she somersaulted over the table before her, landing at the front of one horde. The dirty sumbitches were about to taste cold steel!
Pulling the sai free from the thighs of her red leotard, she forcefully slammed the prongs into the genitals of a zombie at either side. Without pause, she yanked her weapons upward. The infinitesimal balls burst open, dumping what looked like cloudy maple syrup. I didn’t look close enough for the pinto bean sized testicles, but I’m sure I could’ve seen them!
The rapidly deflating penis of each cannibal flopped up against matted pubic hair as the center needle dagger continued its journey up. If you can imagine a miniature, deformed, blue banana being cut in half vertically, you have a nice mental image of the scene I was witnessing. Just imagine the insides of these fruits were pink and chock-full of rotten tomato juice. The deathblow was so quick; neither infected had registered it yet.