Josefina’s skin color had become ashen in appearance. Her lips were blue and skin was blazing hot like an iron. Her eyes rolled upwards as if she was gazing up into the ceiling. The onset of seizures began. Josefina bit her tongue during the spasm causing her mouth to fill with dark red blood and thick viscous saliva. Black veins arose and replaced the blue ones. Death ran prominent through her once caramel colored skin.
“Man, is somebody going to do something?” Drew barked, his pouty full lips turned into a frown.
“No, you can’t. She has to work through the seizure on her own. We are supposed to place her in recovery position once she stops seizing,” Mater said. “You don’t remember what your Mee-maw taught us?”
Mater remembered Drew’s grandmother talking about her adventures with her patients when she served in the military. These stories would occur when Mater would go over to bring firewood. Mater usually chopped wood from the time she got home from school to nightfall during the fall and winter months. Her sister Marley would always tag along sucking her thumb even though she was in the sixth grade.
“Just great…. She has stopped breathing!” Mrs. Kissing gasped as she checked for Josefina’s pulse.
Mrs. Westwood grabbed her belly and eased herself down to the floor to offer assistance, if needed to Mrs. Kissing. Josefina’s body went limp after the last seizure. Her eyes remained open, fixed looking upward.
“Is she?” Mater stopped short, she flipped her long French braid behind her shoulders and grasped Sue Ellen’s hand.
Josefina’s over heated body began to cool. Mrs. Kissing checked for a pulse. No heartbeat. She immediately initiated Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, CPR. The plump teacher pressed into Josefina’s chest with brute force, thirty times, in an effort to restart her heartbeat. Mrs. Westwood took over the chest compressions while Mrs. Kissing administered the breaths. Mrs. Westwood glanced up at the clock on the wall. She was already tired with her baby nearly due. They had been working on Josefina for ten minutes.
“I don’t think there is nothing else we can do for her,” Mrs. Westwood stopped and leaned back.
Mrs. Kissing halted her breathing and checked Josefina’s pulse. Nothing. She shook her head.
“I mean look at her. She looks like she has been deceased for a week.” Mrs. Westwood grabbed Josefina’s damaged arm and studied it. “The blood in her arm is black?” The fresh, bright red blood that once coursed through Josefina’s arm was thick and dark like tar.
“She is turning cold. I think we should give it another try,” Mrs. Kissing said as she bent down to give Josefina’s lifeless body another breath.
“You should move away from Josefina. I think she is gone.”
Mrs. Kissing ignored Mrs. Westwood as she administered another wind of air. Mrs. Kissing nodded her head in disappointment.
“No…. Josefina….” Mrs. Kissing stopped and sat with her shoulders slumped. Josefina was one of two students she managed to save in her classroom when the outbreak occurred. Sue Ellen and Mater hugged each other. Karley softly whimpered. The other students looked on sadly. Mrs. Westwood tried to grab Mrs. Kissing’s attention.
“Rebecca, there is something you need to know. It is about the information I found on the internet. We might need to move away from Josefina. If you are bit—“
“Ahhh!”
Josefina had risen up and clamped down onto Mrs. Kissing’s face. Blood spewed up into the ceiling like a fire hydrant under pressure. Mrs. Kissing tried desperately to break free from the deathly embrace. The students in the classroom resumed the screams and yells as they observed the soulless creature chew off Mrs. Kissing’s face. Mrs. Westwood sprang into action pulling Mrs. Kissing free from Josefina’s grasp. Mrs. Kissing’s arms jerked as she tried to grab what was left of her face.
Josefina’s eyes were rolled back into her head, stuck from the apparent seizure, revealing dilated black pupils. Her eyes, mouth, and ears oozed dark, gelatinous blood. Her skin was ghastly and gray like a cadaver. Josefina opened her mouth and grated her teeth over and over with thick gooey blood pouring out. She was hungry and chewed madly as bits of Mrs. Kissing’s face felt out of her orifice.
“My nose! My nose!” Mrs. Kissing said in between frantic gasps. She began choking on her own blood as she fell back onto the floor.
Mrs. Westwood had managed to pull Mrs. Kissing away from Josefina’s death trap, her mouth. She took off her sweater and placed it on Mrs. Kissing’s face and began to say something until she felt an excruciating pain in her leg. It felt like someone had taken an iron placed on the hottest setting and stuck it to her bare skin. Mrs. Westwood let out an ear-deafening cry and fell to the floor with a forceful clunk, splitting her skull open on the concrete floor. The teacher’s body made squiggly movements like a snake, as Josefina continued to feast on her flesh.
“The dead has risen!” Royal Carter shouted from the back of his shielded corner. He peeped out from beneath a group of girls huddled together in the back of the classroom.
Drew ran up behind Josefina and swung his backpack against her head like he did his baseball bat. A blow as such would have rendered someone semi unconscious but not Josefina. She fell back, unaffected, with her neck twisted at an unnatural angle. She rose up again gnashing her teeth and began to shuffle towards the nearest victim, Lakely Roland, the best friend of Royal and the kicker on the football team.
Lakely swung at Josefina with his fist but not before she caught a portion of his knuckles in her mouth. Lakely yelped out from the sharp, stabbing pain as he heard his own bones crush in the folds of Josefina’s mouth. The strength she possessed was inhuman fueled by the rage of desperate hunger.
“Help meeee!” Lakely screeched as he looked back for his best friend, Royal’s assistance. They had both been apart of the popular jock group at the school and had run of the mill with all the girls wanting to date them. Royal looked away as he hid down further in the shadows of the corner.
“Help me, man!” Lakely called out in one last act of desperation.
But it was too late Josefina had enveloped Lakely into her web and lacerated his neck with her teeth. Blood sprayed out hitting the wall as the students who shielded the group in the corner fought to get into the back. Drew pushed a desk up to Mater and Sue Ellen and gave them instructions. Sue Ellen and Mater hurled the desk into Josefina pinning her up against the wall. Drew jumped in the air from the desk and stabbed Josefina in the heart with his knife. Josefina did not flinch once from the inflicting injury. Drew quickly withdrew his knife as he watch Josefina continue to wave her arms and gnash her teeth in an effort to grasp at the next meal. The hits from Josefina’s wildly swinging arms stung Drew’s face. Drew shook his head in bewilderment that the stab wound did not subdue the zombified Josefina. He pushed another desk behind the first desk that had her pinned to the wall.
Drew backed up slowly eyeing the overpowered Josefina as she continued to moan and wail with waving grasping arms. Dark thick blood drooled from her mouth as she stared at him with unseeing eyes. In the process of backing up, Drew tripped over the leg of Mrs. Westwood and jumped back from the ghastly sight of her anatomy. Mummified skeletal remains replaced his teacher’s once lively body, which rejuvenated life just moments earlier. Mrs. Westwood’s sclera was as black as the night. Her mouth was frozen open and stiffened. The dark pool of blood that lay at the base of her skull looked like grape jelly. Drew knew there was no hope for Mrs. Westwood or her unborn baby. He instantly felt sick and dizzy.
Drew noticed that Sue Ellen and Mater were staring down at Mrs. Kissing’s lifeless body. Both girls were stupefied. Mrs. Kissing’s corpse resembled that of Mrs. Westwood’s…. Mummified and blackened.
What is going on here? Drew thought. Why didn’t they turn into a zombie like Josefina? This was not something that he had seen in the movies.
Drew surveyed his surroundings. He glanced outside the classroom window and noticed that the rain was falling in waves in conjunction with the winds. For
mer classmates littered the yard like trash scavenging in hunt for something. Drew figured human flesh. He took note of the shuffling like the students were discombobulated or confused. Bringing his attention back to the room, he scanned the scene. The number of arms and hands that tried to come through the small opening in the door decreased. Josefina was currently pinned behind two desks moaning rashly, waving her arms like she wanted a hug. The thick blood that oozed from Josefina’s mouth was as dark as chocolate. Lakely lay on the floor shivering and fluttering as students attended to the deep gash in his neck. Karley had wrapped Lakely’s hand that was literally chewed off with tissue and stuffed his neck with a sock to stop the bleeding. Then there were the teachers, Mrs. Westwood and Mrs. Kissing, who lay on the floor ossified like bones.
Chaos continued to erupt from the classroom as Drew tried to figure out a way to get out. He thought of his sister Maryann at school and Grace sick at home. I wonder if Mee-maw knows what’s going on here? Drew thought. He was quite sure that if zombies were ravaging his sibling’s school then surely she would not survive. How would they? Nobody believed in zombies.
Fight or Flight. Fight or Flight. Were thoughts that plagued Drew’s brain. If you are going to survive Drew Jacks, put your thinking cap on. Fight or Flight.
“Guys! Guys!” Drew yelled, waving his arms wildly. “We must keep quiet! Listen!” He tried to calm everyone down with no success.
Sue Ellen dashed over to the light switch and flicked the lights off and on again. Drew continued to shout over the loud fuss.
“We need to be quiet!” Drew attempted to say in a shushed voice. “Look!” He pointed towards the door. “There not as many of them now. It’s because of the noise!”
The classroom came to a sedative still as all eyes fell on Drew.
“We need to figure out how to get of here and fast,” he managed to say. “Those things out there,” Drew pointed towards the outside classroom window with one hand and then to the classroom door with other hand, “are going to eventually break through that door and those windows, once they find out we are in here. They want to eat us.” Drew was unaware that his bloody knife was still in his hand as he went through his descriptive motions.
“People don’t eat people. Those things are our classmates,” Sue Ellen said with a shaky voice.
“Not anymore there aren’t,” Drew replied.
“Did you just see what happened, Sue Ellen? Like really?” Mater said in a wobbly voice. She shook her head in disbelief at Sue Ellen who put her in head into her hands. “What do you suggest, Drew?” Mater nervously glanced over at Josefina who still waved her arms and clasped her jaws.
“For one… No more screaming. It attracts them to the door,” Drew nodded his head at the door, “and the windows.” He used his knife to point towards the classroom window.
Drew had to get to his younger sisters and grandmother no matter what. He did not plan on becoming the next zombie meal. He walked over to Josefina and pushed the desk back into her tightly making sure it was secure. He folded his knife and put it back into his pocket as he walked over to where Lakely lay on the floor. The boy was being attended too by Karley and Cookie. His skin was pallid like lead in a pencil. Lakely’s eyes were slightly opened. He bit down on his blue lips as he shivered.
Drew knelt down. “How’s it going man? I’m going to get us out of here and get you some help. Alright buddy?”
Lakely weakly nodded his head. He pulled at Drew’s blood spattered shirt and slowly opened his mouth in attempt to say something.
“I-am-sorry-about-yo-your-mo-mo-mom….”
Drew instantly remembered what Lakely was referring too. Two years ago Lakely started a rumor about Drew’s mother abandoning him and his sisters every night for booze and drugs. It hurt Drew to his heart because he knew the rumor was true. The ending result was a fistfight between the two. Drew ended up in detention and not starting for four games during baseball season and Lakely a broken nose.
“It’s okay man. I’m over it. We are going to get you some help in a minute. Just hang in there.”
Drew stood back up and began to look around.
“Are those computers working?” Drew pointed towards the other side of the room.
“No. The way the administrators had it set up, computers can’t operate on the generator. I think the system only supports the main circuit which supplies the lights, phone system, and coolers in the cafeteria,” Mater said, “and that won’t last long.”
Drew continued to search the room. “Does anyone have a cell phone?”
No one said anything.
“Man, are you guys serious? No one breaks the rules but me?” Drew stated as he patted his pocket where his hunting knife sat.
“Why don’t you have one?” Royal squeaked from behind the girls.
“Because your mom couldn’t afford to get me one,” Drew shot back.
Royal narrowed his eyes as he glared at Drew.
“Here. Mrs. Westwood’s cell phone,” Mater handed over the blood-crusted device to Drew.
Drew fidgeted with the cell phone until he found the on button. “What’s the password?” He glanced up. “Anybody know the password?”
“One, zero, three, one,” Sue Ellen muttered as she slowly walked towards Drew and Mater.
Drew stared at the wallpaper photo on Mrs. Westwood’s cell phone. It was a photo of her and Mr. Westwood with his hand over her extended belly. The picture haunted him as he caught a glimpse of Mrs. Westwood’s calcified body on the floor. He tried the combination and it immediately unlocked the teacher’s phone.
“How’d you know the pass code?” Drew wondered.
“It pays to pay attention in class, Drew,” Sue Ellen smirked as she stood next to
him. “Can you guys imagine what buzz this would generate in the school’s yearbook this year?”
“Something tells me that school is cancelled for the rest of the year,” Drew replied to Sue Ellen. “Gotta call my Mee-maw first,” Drew said dialing his grandmother’s cell phone.
“What about the rest of us? We need to use the phone too,” another kid shouted from the back.
“Hold on a second. Let me speak to my Mee-maw and then we will all take turns calling after I check the internet,” Drew said. After five rings his Mee-maw picked up.
“Hell… Hello?” Drew’s grandmother sounded worried.
“Mee-maw! It’s me, Drew!”
“Oh thank God! Are you okay?”
“Where are you?”
“Listen, there is some pediatric infection going around that is killing children all over the place. I can’t explain much about it now. I am headed to pick up Maryann. I have Grace with me,” Mee-maw said. She sounded to Drew as if she were choked up.
“I, I am scared Mee-maw. We are stuck in the class and the teachers are dead—“
“You listen to me, Drew. Get out of there and get out now! That school is a death trap! Meet me at the front of the school! I am riding in Big Thunder and have Strawberry sitting in the dash. Get to the front and—“
The phone call failed. The last words that stuck in Drew’s head was Big Thunder, his Mee-maws red Ford F250 with a raised suspension and Strawberry his late grandfather’s 357 Magnum. Drew knew that once his Mee-maw arrived then everything would be okay.
“Um… The call dropped,” Drew meekly said holding up the phone. “Everybody can make calls once we find out what’s going on here.” A few mumbles were apparent but Drew ignored them as he navigated through the phone in attempt to find the internet icon.
Mater strolled over to Drew and Sue Ellen as the three ogled over the last screen that Mrs. Westwood pulled up on the local news website.
The Apocalypse Is Here. The World Meets It End. Zombie Children Roam The Earth.
The homepage was crowded with news alerts about the Eaters, the undead children who walked. Pictures of body parts, blood, and deathly ill looking children infested the website page like a diseased plague. Major cities wer
e the first to fall to this mysterious illness. The news station listed New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and Chicago amongst the hardest hit.
Drew, with his hands trembling, thumbed through the pages. From what he gathered from the website, there was a rapid acting infection affecting children that was transmitted through biting. The Eaters could transmit the infection through any bodily fluids that was passed on to the living host. Preferably a child. It would kill them instantly only within minutes to a couple of hours for them to reanimate with the hunger for flesh and blood. Once bitten, there was no hope. Death was imminent. Adults almost died immediately after high fevers fried their brains sending them into hemorrhagic seizures and then eventually death. The children, however, were a different story as they became resurrected in their former soulless bodies.
Rumors plagued the website about how the infection started… A vaccination gone badly, a conspiracy to turn America’s children into weapons, a tampered water supply, and the list went on. Some of the accounts were outlandish for no one really knew the reason as to why the hysteria was occurring. Nevertheless, one report stood out to Drew. Hurricane winds blow in death that affects children’s brains…. That could be logical. The environment had become so toxic that the government had considered implanting air stations to provide fresh filtered oxygen. Drew had to write a report on air stations. There were so many accounts of how the infection started that they all blended together.
“My mom works at the health department—”
“I know that,” Drew interrupted Sue Ellen.
“Well, type that in. Mississippi Health Department. There might be more information on what’s going on out there.” Sue Ellen peered over Drew’s shoulder as he typed in Mississippi Health Department in the search engine.
“We better hurry, Mrs. Westwood’s battery is low,” Mater nervously pointed out. Drew scrolled through the page rapidly
“Slow down,” Sue Ellen directed, “we might miss something. Look, that might be important.” She pointed to the topic, SYMPTOMS AFTER BITTEN. The Mississippi’s Department of Health had tons of information.
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