by Tom Leveen
He goes on into the auditorium before I can ask—if I even would—if he’s referring to Dave, his father, or someone else.
I look back one last time at the kids in the hallway. Most of them aren’t paying any attention to me. Only Dave is watching, mouth set in a determined scowl.
“I’ll take care of them,” he says.
“I know. Just be fast with that ladder.”
“I will.”
I follow our team into the auditorium.
Travis and Kenzie hike up the spiral staircase to the grid as Jaime jogs to the scene shop for one of the screwguns. Kat and Dave will still have one to use to unboard the doors. Chad and I linger at the base of the staircase, waiting for Jaime.
“Hey, dude,” Chad says to me as we listen to Jaime searching in the shop.
“What.”
“When we get out there … try not to kill ’em.”
“Right, go for the cripple.”
Chad looks me in the eye, and something invisible stabs me hard in the chest. “Naw, man. I mean you. You don’t kill ’em.”
Chad takes a breath through his nose. “It ain’t like I thought,” he says. “Killin’ a person. It ain’t nothin’ like what I thought. If I get outta here alive, I’m ditchin’ the Corps. I don’t care if they lock my ten ball up for life, I ain’t goin’ in.”
“You mean that zombie kid outside the library? And the librarian? You didn’t have a choice, man. It was them or us. You know what they’re capable of. John was right, much as I hate to say it. They’re monsters.”
Chad shakes his head. “Naw, you were right, Brian,” he says. “They’re still us. I wouldn’t be feelin’ what I am if it was otherwise.”
I shift my weight to square up with him. I keep my voice low. “If one of those motherfuckers is about to hurt Mackenzie—or Laura, or you—I’ll do whatever I have to do to stop them.”
“That’s cool,” Chad says. “But I’m tellin’ you, man, try not to kill anyone. I don’t fancy gettin’ my ass eaten up today, either, believe me. But you don’t want what I got inside me right now. You don’t want it. And I ain’t talkin’ about this infection shit. That’s nothin’ compared to it. Nothin’.”
He slaps my shoulder.
“But I got your back. It comes down to it, you let me take the swing. I’m already screwed.”
“You’re not screwed, you’re—”
Chad grabs the back of my neck and pulls me close.
“Don’t shit me, Bri. However long I got, I don’t know, but just don’t shit me.”
I force myself to nod.
Jaime walks across the stage from the scene shop. He’s got a tool belt slung around his hips with a screwgun in the holster, like a ray gun straight out of Star Wars. Only this gun has a thick drill bit on the end.
“Ready,” he says.
We follow him up the stairs, where Travis and Kenzie are waiting by the ladder beneath the trapdoor. Chad starts climbing up first, his bat dangling from his belt. He grimaces with each step, but I think I’m the only one to notice.
“All right,” Chad says, breathing hard as he takes hold of the trapdoor handle. “Let’s go fuck this monkey.”
“Hey, man,” I say to Jaime. “Just out of curiosity, is there a Spanish word for zombie?”
Jaime considers this before suggesting: “Zombrero?”
And despite everything, we all giggle as Chad opens the trapdoor and climbs out onto the roof. But our laughter comes out sick and distorted. Like it’s the last time any of us will ever laugh again.
WE CLIMB UP AFTER CHAD, AND AS SOON AS WE hit the open air, we’re wincing. The smell is horrific: rotten meat and piss and burnt hair. Fires still burn brightly from all corners of the city. The parking lot lights are off—they probably only get turned on if there’s a play or a game of some kind—but I can see movement, lots of it, between the cars and along the fence. Worse, I can hear them. An insensate moaning chorus bellows up toward us from below, monsters craving our bones.
“Or we could go back inside,” Travis says, and I’m not sure if he’s joking.
Jaime heads over to the air-conditioning unit, where the extension cords we used last time are still tied up. Jaime tests them and nods.
“We’re good,” he grunts.
As the others start in that direction, Kenzie grabs my hand, pulling me back.
“Brian.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re a part of me. Remember that?”
My heart skips a beat. She said that after she came home from the transplant procedure.
“I know.”
“I never told you this before, but … I don’t think it was the transplant that saved me.”
“Of course it wasn’t. You were already in remission. The transplant just—”
“I was ready to go,” she says. “I really was. I know that’s probably hard to believe since I was only nine, but it’s true. And then when we found out you matched, you just said yes. Just said it. That made me want to fight again. I was so tired, but I wanted to fight for you because you were going to fight for me.”
My throat constricts as she speaks, and I turn to watch a fire burn downtown. I don’t want her to see my face. My eyes start to burn from forcing them not to blink. If I blink, my whole face will flood.
“Mom will be here,” my sister says. “I know she will.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” I can’t think about that right now. I clear my throat and say, “Listen, can you hang off the edge of the awning and drop from there?”
“Sure, I guess so. But—”
“I don’t want you in the shit with us if it comes down,” I say. And I don’t want her to see us not surviving a fight, but I won’t say that. “Just stay on the awning while we look for Laura. Wait for us to come back this way for the ladder. Then you come down, okay? If we don’t come back, then climb up the extension cords and go inside.”
She starts to argue, but I cut her off. “Do it, Mackenzie.”
“Fine,” Kenzie says.
“Brian,” Travis calls softly. “You coming or what?”
“Love ya, bro,” Kenzie says.
“Love ya, sis.”
We line up to take turns climbing down to the roof over the sidewalk. I hug Kenzie, making sure the handle of my Starfire doesn’t poke her. I follow after Jaime, landing softly on the angled aluminum roof. Travis comes down next.
I look up, waiting for Chad. He’s standing beside my sister, saying something, one hand on her shoulder. After a second, she gives him a hug. I see Chad close his eyes and squeeze her tight, then let her go.
Chad groans as he scales down the cord, the skin on his hands cracking as he clutches it. There’s no blood, just a sound like breakfast cereal being stepped on across a tile floor. The rest of us glance at each other, but Chad still appears to be in his right mind.
Chad grits his teeth but refuses to make a sound. God, he must be in so much pain by now.
Kenzie climbs down last. That’s everyone.
Jaime looks back to make sure we’re all together, then begins inching along the peak of the roof, followed by me, then Travis, then Chad. Kenzie hunkers down beside the wall beneath the auditorium roof.
Focus, I order myself. Get the job done. Focus on getting the hell out of this school and somewhere safe.
We go slow, taking our time, not wanting anything below us to hear us moving around. We pass the cafeteria and admin buildings. But halfway along, as we pass the library on the way toward the C buildings, the drama department starts feeling a lot safer. Maybe we should stay behind, wait for help. With the doors boarded up good and solid, it’s probably the safest place in the entire school right now, and here we are dropping into the unknown, in the dark, not certain if Laura is even—
“We’re here,” Jaime whispers at me.
I blink. We’ve arrived at the C buildings.
The A, B, C, and D buildings are all two stories each. Like at the library, the roof we’re on is too far from
the buildings for us to jump; we’ll have to drop down to get into the western C building and then go room to room, upstairs and down.
If Laura understands what we do about the monsters being unable to climb anything easily, then hopefully she’s on the second floor. The monsters seem physically capable of climbing stairs, but I hope it’d hurt too much for them to attempt it. Like how they haven’t figured a way over the fence yet. But most likely, with those things bearing down on her from the gym, Laura just jumped into the closest classroom she could, shut the door, and hopefully barricaded it with desks or something.
“We’re clear below,” Jaime whispers. He thumbs the button on his headset, quietly saying Kat’s name. He waits. Tries again. Shakes his head.
“Too far out,” he says. “We’ll have to wait till we’re closer to the drama department to signal her.”
I nod. Carefully, the four of us dangle from the edge of the awning, then drop down. For one insane moment, I feel truly badass, like a commando.
That moment passes when Chad hits the sidewalk and crumples into a heap, groaning.
“Shit!” Travis hisses. He grabs Chad by the jacket and drags him to the corner of the western C building. Jaime and I scuttle over to both of them, looking around wildly for anything that might have heard. So far, the coast is clear.
“S-sorry,” Chad mutters, eyes still shut tight with pain.
“You going to make it?” Jaime demands.
Chad nods. “Yeah. Yeah.”
“They’ll be coming,” I say. “We got to hustle.”
Chad climbs to his feet, wincing the entire time. His back is so curled now that he has to rest his forearms on his thighs to stay on his feet. He’s taken off Jaime’s sling to have the use of both hands. But Mom told him to keep his hand in place, below his heart; what if letting it go speeds up the infection and—
No time to worry about it. We dash along the first-floor row of classrooms. None of them are locked, but all of them are empty.
Goddam it.
I bite my lips between my teeth to keep from screaming Laura’s name.
Jaime checks the last classroom, shakes his head, and lets the door shut quietly. I jerk a thumb upward, and Jaime nods. We gather at the base of the stairs and start to go up, but Chad lags behind.
He shakes his head. “Can’t.”
That’s what I figured. And I hate to say it … but it’s good news for us. If it hurts Chad too much to get up the stairs, then maybe the climb will keep the monsters away too.
“I’ll wait here,” he says.
I don’t hesitate after that. I take the steps two at a time up to the next floor and start pulling doors open. Jaime and Travis do the same, starting at the opposite end of the floor.
“Laura!” I call into each doorway. Jaime gestures for me to be quiet. But I can’t, not now; with every empty classroom I get closer and closer to seeing Laura turned into one of those things, like Chad, like Hollis, cramped and hunched and turning into some—
The next door won’t quite open.
God, yes, please.
I smash my shoulder into it. It budges about an inch. I throw my entire weight into it and flinch at the cacophony of desks being thrown to the ground.
I push my way through the jumble of upended desks in the dark. Someone—Laura, I pray—must have barricaded herself in here.
Just as I take a breath to call out to Laura in the dark classroom, something smashes into my stomach and sends me sprawling out the door.
“BRIAN!”
I pull myself into a sitting position, holding my gut. Laura stands in the doorway with a wooden flagpole in her hands. The flag has been ripped off it.
“Laura,” I croak.
She drops the pole and rushes to me. “You’re okay?” she says, kneeling down and grabbing my arm. “You’re really okay?”
I stand up, with her help, trying to breathe into the pain to loosen the knot she’s given me. “I’m fine. We need to …”
I hesitate as I search her face for blood or wounds. I don’t see anything. Her pulse throbs wildly in her neck, her breathing is shallow, eyes wide; all the usual symptoms of one of her panic attacks.
Only … she’s not shaking. And she’s on her feet.
“Are you all right?” I ask quickly.
“Fine,” she says. “I ran in here from the gym when they … God, what’s happening? All these people were like—”
“You’re not panicking?”
“I’m scared to death and I’d rather not be here right now, but no.”
I don’t have time to talk about it, but this is last thing I expected from her.
“Are we going home?” she asks.
“We’re going to try,” I say. “Where are your meds?”
“My meds …?”
“Your drugs, your panic stuff, where is it?”
“In my bag.”
I hear footsteps. Echoing from some nearby part of the school.
Running. Scraping. Like crystals over concrete.
Travis races past me toward the stairs, sword aloft. “It’s on,” he says.
I go to the railing and look down. Six students—former students—on all fours are gunning full-tilt toward Chad, who’s still at the bottom of the stairs, back bent, bat raised.
“Go, go, go!” Jaime screams at me, following Travis down the steps.
I turn to Laura. “Get your bag. We need your pills, and we need them now.”
“Brian, a little help!” Travis shouts.
Laura shakes her head like there’s too much happening. “But my bag’s in the gym.”
Oh, goddam it.
“Come on,” I say, pulling her toward the stairs. “We have to get those pills.”
“Brian, what—”
“It’s the only way to try to help Chad. He’s sick. Now stay behind me.”
She doesn’t ask questions. I almost trip going down the dusty concrete steps but keep my feet under me and skid to a halt behind Travis and Jaime.
“Bring it!” Chad bellows as the six zombies gallop toward him. Then he coughs, that same wet, hacking cough Hollis had this morning. He spits yellow sludge on the concrete.
I drop Laura’s hand and put mine on the handle of my sword. As the last of the six passes under the awning, someone dives from the awning behind the monster. A flash of something maroon slaps over the zombie’s head, disorienting it.
“Kenzie?”
“Watch out!” Kenzie shouts as the zombie she’s blinded with her overshirt tears the cloth off its head and continues to rampage in our direction.
Here we go.
THE FIRST ZOMBIE REACHES CHAD. HE LIMPS toward the monster, this white girl in a tight blue miniskirt and tan blouse, her face grotesque, saliva swinging from her misshapen mouth. She leaps; Chad swings.
The bat catches her in midflight, slamming into her neck. I almost expect her head to get hammered off, but it doesn’t. The blow disrupts her trajectory, and she careens ass over elbows into the sidewalk. She’s slow to get up.
Still—it’s a victory, and it flushes adrenaline through my body.
“Yes!” I shout, knowing it’s a bad idea, knowing it will only draw more creatures this way, but unable to stop myself. Kenzie dashes toward a classroom door but doesn’t go inside; she crouches down, hands balled into fists, watching the fight begin.
I can’t believe she came down here. I told her stay, I told her …
As the zombies rush us, Laura breaks away, tearing back up the stairs. Probably for the best. Safer.
I turn back to the zombies. Chad chokes down on the bat with both hands.
“It’s Chad o’clock, motherfuckers!” he howls, and even though I’m about to fight for my life, I start laughing my ass off. Laughing, or shrieking.
Chad thunders down the sidewalk toward the next two closest monsters, a black girl and a white boy. They bound toward him, their crystalline arms sparkling beneath the overhead sidewalk lights. Yelping wildly, they close in on
my best friend.
I run to Chad. He clocks the white boy solidly on the skull, sending him skidding into the wall, jaundiced eyes rolling in his head. Before I can even reach Chad, he re-cocks his arms and fires the business end of his weapon at the black girl. Her head snaps backward, taking her feet out from under her.
Jaime appears beside me, and Travis rushes closer as the other three monsters ignore their fallen buddies.
“We gotta move!” Jaime shouts, but stands in place and raises his Starfire.
“The gym!” I yell back. “The meds are in the gym!”
No one answers. Chad breaks left, picking out the largest of the three monsters. I circle a white guy in jock apparel. Jaime swears and breaks right toward a Latina girl—the flesh of her right shin is torn and mangled, and it hits me this is the same girl we saw outside the auditorium. One of her front teeth is missing.
Chad dodges his attacker, pivots, and swings for the back of the monster’s head. The monster spins to attack from another angle, and the bat whiffs past him. Chad dances painfully away, keeping the bat between him and the kid, but the kid is relentless, growling and swiping his inflamed hand at Chad’s legs. Chad swings the bat, catching the monster in the face. In the time it takes the monster to shake off the blow, Chad brings the bat down in a beautiful arc square on the monster’s crown, sending him flat.
The girl jumps toward Jaime, mouth wide, preparing to bite. Jaime sticks the sword out with one hand, but it’s a flimsy grip, and the girl’s weight knocks the weapon out of Jaime’s grasp. Jaime pinwheels his arms, backing up as she closes on him. She pounces. Jaime goes down, screwgun clattering out of the holster. They wrestle, the girl trying to pin Jaime’s shoulders and snapping her jaws at his face as her spit dribbles down Jaime’s skin.
Then from behind me, Laura rushes past, lifting the flagpole high over head. She’s screaming and, I think, crying at the same time. She runs straight at the girl on top of Jaime and brings the pole down on her back. Again. Again.
This gets the girl’s attention away from Jaime for a split second. Jaime’s right hand scrambles for the screwgun; he finds it, presses the trigger, and jams the drill bit into the girl’s ribs.