by Tom Leveen
Thank you, God.
Dave goes next as Kat hollers at him to hurry from the sidewalk on the other side of the fence. But his feet slip, and one leg shoots between the rungs on the ladder, wishboning him. Dave grunts, cusses, and tries to extricate himself.
But now he’s blocking the way for my sister. I jump onto the hood beside Kenzie and shove her as she tries to climb the fence.
“Go, go,” I chant at her, pushing her ass up.
A hand grapples for my foot. I spin and kick out. The zombie kid takes the shot in the shoulder and spins away from us.
When I look past him, my guts clench again and I wonder if I just shit myself.
A swarm of diseased living dead is rushing for us. They clamber over one another, hunched and starved, lurching toward us in a relentless flood.
We have maybe ten seconds.
“Kenzie, please,” I whisper, because my chest is so tight with fear I can’t scream anymore.
Kenzie puts two hands on the fence. Laura, temporarily safe on the other side, urges her to keep going. Kenzie pushes down to boost herself up, but her strength fails, and she slides down to the hood again. Dave is completely tangled in the ladder now, twisting his hips, his legs, trying to get back onto it proper.
I fire the gun into the throng. My ears ring with the report. A white chick spins and falls, causing three other monsters to stumble over her. But all four of them recover quickly; the bullet caught the girl in the stomach, and it barely slows her.
“Kenzie, go,” I say, and my voice is muffled in my own ears.
“I can’t!”
I crouch down and put my left shoulder under her ass and shove.
“Go!”
The keening from the zombies increases, puncturing my deafness. Kenzie squeals, then manages to get her feet on the top crossbar. She’s hunched over, grasping the spikes in both hands to steady herself. Her legs quake.
I’m grateful for all those days of ditching; my muscle reflex kicks in, and I’m up and over the fence in less than a moment, landing in a heap beside my girlfriend.
I made it! I shriek in my head, or at least I think it’s in my head. I made it, you bastards, I’m safe!
Kenzie screams.
A high-pitched, heart-searing cry that punches through my chest.
I spin back toward the gate as Laura cries out. Dave thumps to the ground beside her, finally free from the ladder.
Kenzie has slipped off the fence. She’s on the hood again, on the school side of the fence, the monster side. Why doesn’t she try to jump again? I wonder stupidly. The zombies are only a few feet away, clawing at one another to reach her.
That’s when I see the fence has punctured her left arm, pinning her in place. Blood runs down the fence post beneath the limb. Red flows down the white bars. School colors.
The zombies reach the fence.
And Chad is in the lead.
Awesome! I think deliriously. If anyone can get Kenzie over the side in one piece, it’s—
Kenzie screams my name, eyes wide. She’s trying to use her right hand to pry her left arm off the spike, but she can’t make herself do it.
Chad reaches the hood in front of the horde.
His face—
Arms—
Oh, god, no.
My best friend, now utterly one of Them, grabs my sister by the back of the pants and hoists himself up to her, teeth bared, lip fat and drooping. He swings his other swollen, encrusted hand to grab Kenzie’s long hair, using it to pull himself toward her.
“Brian, help me!”
The zombie cocks his head back, thrusts it forward to her neck.
My mouth falls slack as I raise the gun and pull the trigger.
CHAD FALLS AWAY FROM KENZIE, LANDING facedown on the car, arms and legs splayed.
I scuttle for my Starfire and shove it between the bars and onto the hood of the car. I scramble recklessly back over the fence, dropping beside Kenzie.
Our problem just got a lot bigger, my brilliant plan backfiring in our faces: the ladder is still in place, creating easy access for the monsters to get free from the school, over the fence, and target Laura, Dave, and Kat.
“Kenzie,” I say over the roar of the oncoming horde. “Look at me.”
Kenzie does, eyes narrow with pain.
Before I can stop to think about it, I grab her arm in both hands and yank it up. The sound it makes twists my guts into knots.
Kenzie’s mouth falls open, but the pain must be so intense that it cuts off her air. She doesn’t make a sound—not at first. A heartbeat later, staring at the blood cascading down her arm, she releases a cry of exquisite agony.
No time.
I drop the pistol to the hood, pick her up in my arms, and find the adrenalized strength to toss her onto the ladder. Despite her wound, Kenzie crawls up and falls to the other side of the fence. When she sits up, holding her wounded arm to her chest, I nod once, to myself. She’ll be fine, for the moment.
The horde is closing in. Clawed hands and jaundiced eyes seek my marrow. I start to grab for the fence when I see the last thing I expected.
The stagecraft kids. All of them, by the looks of it. Pouring out of the box office doors and running full speed toward me.
Then those in the vanguard—led by John, who is running as if he doesn’t care one bit if anyone else is following—come to a halt when they see the zombies stretching toward me.
They’ll never get through this many zombies and to the ladder. And they know it. But their panic at seeing the wreckage of bodies in the lot, the horde in front of me, and freedom so close … not a single one of them makes to run back to the box office, where it would be safer.
Or maybe they’re wondering if anyone will ever come back for them.
I focus on the zombies coming closer.
All right, fuckers. All right, then.
I grab the collar of Chad’s leather jacket and pull. It whisks off with surprising ease. Like he’s handing it to me. I try hard not to hear the sound his mutilated face makes when it slaps against the hood again. A beat later, his body slides to the blacktop.
I pull Chad’s jacket on, shrug into it so it falls just right, and zip it up to the collar.
Then I pick up the pistol in my right hand, the sword in my left.
I take a wide stance on the hood of the car, face the zombies, and scream.
“Come on!”
The four monsters closest to me drop dead when I shoot them in the face, aided by the laser sight of Damon’s gun. When the cylinder dry-fires on the next round, empty, I let the pistol drop and jump off the hood.
I charge at the monsters, swinging the Starfire with both hands, cutting a path to meet the stagecraft kids in the middle. There’s no skill involved. I’m no warrior. I just swing right, left, right, left, cursing and screaming until my breath burns like fire. I aim high every time, slamming the sword against as many heads as I can. Screw Chad’s order to go for the cripple. These things aren’t human anymore …
There’s no shortage of targets. Every swing connects somewhere, against someone. Every hit moves one monster out of the way or drops it flat. I fill the space and swing again, and again, and again.
A crash over by the auditorium catches my ear. I pivot in the middle of a swing to see what’s going on and notice two figures on the roof.
Then I see one zombie drop as a lighting instrument smashes into his back.
I risk a prolonged look and see Serena and Tara cheering themselves. A moment later, they chuck two more lights. One smashes uselessly against a car; the other trips up a zombie.
I scream incoherently and start swinging my sword again. The two of them may as well be the cavalry.
I imagine hearing tires squeal down the street behind me in the distance. Fevered dreams of Green Berets or Army Rangers flash in the back of my mind as I swing. Swing. Swing …
John and the others break from their paralysis and run toward the ladder. The zombies, uninterested in climb
ing anything when they have me to feed on, pay no attention as the other students start going up the ladder in a human chain. A few monsters catch sight of them and begin to grab but are kicked away long enough for people to keep climbing.
Yes! I think. They’re gonna make it.
A guy falls beneath my sword. Then a girl. But my arms are heavy now, tired. My lungs feel like they’re going to collapse any second. I can’t keep up this pace, and they just keep coming …
A bellow resounds through the parking lot. I spin, blink to make sure I’m not still imagining things, then burst into exhausted laughter as Travis and Cammy appear from around the side of drama building, weapons raised. They charge into the mass of the infected, maybe five yards away from me, swinging hard. Zombies fall beneath their blows, and for several heartbeats, it almost looks as if they are dropping two, three monsters at a time. The monsters are falling so rapidly around them, it’s as if their weapons are enchanted.
The sight of them gives me one last burst of energy, and I slam my Starfire into some girl’s stomach, one of the prissy cheerleaders.
The bodies are piling up now. I swing for another kid, open a gash on his scalp, and then fall backward over some dead thing, some body.
Before I can get up, another infected kid jumps toward me, mouth open, teeth glittering, bone sticking out from his arm. Keith.
I figure he’ll be the last thing I see as I hear a thousand voices screaming my name into the cold November air.
All right, I hear myself think. This is it. This is how it ends.
SUDDENLY KEITH ROCKETS BACKWARD, LANDING in a jumbled pile, his sneakered feet twitching.
“This way!” someone shouts from behind me. From the fence.
I pick myself up to half-sitting position, leaning back on my hands. Something is ringing in my ears. Then I hear another gunshot, and another kid goes down.
I look back toward the fence. Two cops are shooting between the bars, picking kids off one by one. I see my mother behind him, holding Kenzie and Laura to her beside her car, her face drawn and strained.
Mom.
“Come on, come on!” one of the cops shouts.
I didn’t imagine it, I think stupidly. Some of the zombies around Cammy and Travis—they were shot by the cops.
I try to pull myself up but can’t. I let go of the Starfire and try again, but it’s no good. Too exhausted, too spent.
Then Cammy is standing in front of me, holding out a hand.
“Hurry,” she says, panting. “There’s more coming.”
I take her hand. Cammy pulls me to my feet, and we dart around lifeless bodies to get to the two cars crashed in front of the gate. Travis is already there, battling a handful of zombies lurching for him. From around the east corner of the drama department, a fresh wave of the infected races at us. The creatures from the gym. Travis must’ve led them on a chase all over campus.
One of the cops swears and adjusts his position to assist Travis. He pumps three rounds into the crowd, then hurries to reload.
Cammy hops onto the ladder and climbs easily over the fence. I grab Travis by the collar to urge him to follow.
Travis hauls himself onto the hood of one of the cars and tosses himself carelessly onto the ladder, then on over the fence. I look up at the auditorium roof; Serena is waving both arms, a shadowy figure outlined against the burnt orange sky. I raise a weak hand, not sure if she can see me do it, then hike the ladder and drop over the fence.
I hit the ground ass-first, which hurts, but I barely register it. Laura and Kat pull me by my shoulders a safe distance away just as the second wave of zombies hits the fence, growling and reaching for us. Hollis is there among them, his blue shirt starched and cracked with old blood.
Travis, tall sucker that he is, runs to the fence, lifts the narrow end of the ladder off the crossbar, and pushes hard. The ladder bobbles up off the fence, then clatters to the parking lot.
“Brian!” my mom cries.
Laura helps me to my feet, and I stumble over to my mother. She wraps me in a hug.
“Thank god, thank god,” she says, over and over, squeezing me so tight I almost lose my breath.
“You should sit down,” Laura says.
I nod, and Mom leads me to the sidewalk on the opposite side of Scarlet. She pulls a cylinder of antibacterial wipes from her car and starts cleaning my face. For a moment, I’m five years old and she’s wiping my nose free of allergy snot. But when I open my eyes during the pause it takes her to grab a fresh one, I see nothing but red and black on the cloth. Blood. Sweat. God knows what else.
“Water,” I croak.
“Oh, of course,” Mom says, and reaches into the car again. She hands me a warm bottle of water and says, “Wash your mouth out first. My god, you’re a wreck. I should make you gargle with peroxide.”
Who knows if she’s kidding. I do as she says, rinsing the tang of blood and salt of grime out of my mouth. I wonder if I’ll ever taste anything else. Once the worst is out and I down the water, I almost throw it back up.
“Infected?” I say.
Mom arches an eyebrow, now cleaning off my neck and hands.
“Am I?” I say. “Because of … the blood …”
Mom scrubs harder. “It’s unlikely,” she says. “But I’m not taking any chances. We’ll do the best decon we can, then run tests and make sure. But you’re probably okay. Were you bitten?”
I shake my head, only nominally sure I haven’t been. Mom pauses in her cleanup to hug me again.
Once she’s satisfied with my skin, she moves to tend to Kenzie while barking questions and orders at the stagecraft kids. I sink to the pavement and lie back, trying to catch my breath, staring at the smoky sky. My eyes shut.
I lose track of time for a long while. I don’t pass out; I can hear the monsters in the parking lot moaning and keening for us, hear their mutated arms cracking against the bars.
Finally I open my eyes. I’m still on the ground, on my back. The night sky is pale gray, and only the brightest stars poke their light through the gloom.
Laura is kneeling beside me. Her hair hangs limp around her chin, tangled and clumped.
She takes my hand in both of hers and begins to cry. Quietly.
“Looks like we got survivors on the roof,” one of the deputies says.
“And in the school,” Kenzie tells him.
I lift my head, wincing, and watch Mom wrap Kenzie’s arm in gauze. Both of their faces are ghastly pale. Mom reaches into her medical bag and prepares a slender syringe with something from a bottle.
“We’ll take care of it,” the first deputy says.
“How?” I ask him. My voice is still dry and rusty despite the water
“Tear gas has been working,” he says. “They might not feel much, but they still need to breathe. We’ve had some luck with Tasers and beanbag shots. We’ll get them.” He’s watching the fence as he says all this, and rubs his mouth with one hand. “Jesus, what a mess.”
Mom jabs the needle into Kenzie’s arm. Kenzie’s either so used to needles or her arm hurts so much that she doesn’t seem to notice.
Mom rubs the spot, somehow frowning and smiling at the same time the way only a mom can. “That’ll take care of the pain for now, baby,” she says. “We’ll get you all patched up as soon as the hospitals are open again.”
“Might be a while,” the deputy mutters.
Mom shoots him a look, and the deputy motions to his partner. They approach the fence but don’t get too close. Then they spot Tara’s dad and move toward him, checking for signs of life. Some distant part of my brain is glad that Tara hasn’t made it out yet. That it’ll be someone else’s job to tell her about him.
Mom returns to her car and comes back with a thermos. She pours out some coffee, which has lost most of its steam. Laura helps me into a sitting position as Mom hands me the cup. I take a sip, which at least replaces the worst of the gory taste in my mouth, but that’s all I can stomach. I hold it back out for some
one to take, and Kenzie, Travis, and Cammy approach us.
Travis gestures to the thermos. “Mind?” he asks.
I shake my head. He pours himself a cup and drinks it down at once. Cammy does the same. The rest of the stagecraft students, who stay huddled together on the far sidewalk, watch enviously, but even John’s not dumb enough to demand some for himself.
“Never seen anything like it,” Travis says.
“No,” I say, as my eyelids begin to fall. It takes an effort to open them.
“I mean you,” Travis says. “In the lot. Man, you were going to town.”
I say nothing. From where I’m sitting on the sidewalk, I can see Chad’s bare, crystalline arm draped across the blacktop. It dawns on me I’m still wearing my best friend’s leather jacket.
“Why’d you come back?” Cammy asks. “You were free and clear.”
“Why did you?” I say, drawing myself further into Chad’s jacket.
“Because we saw you out here,” Cammy replies. “That’s all. Couldn’t let one of my boys slug it out alone.”
Alone.
That word vibrates in my skull, rattles my brain. I’ve got my sister, my mom, my girl. And I’ve never felt so alone in my whole life.
What did I do?
Kenzie seems to sense my thoughts. She puts a hand over mine. “He would have killed me,” she whispers. “You had to do it. I’m so sorry, Brian.”
A thousand and one action movies unspool in my mind, starring me as the Hero: ways I could have tried to save everyone, ways I could have done something—or everything—different. When the credits roll on the last one, I realize Kenzie’s right.
Travis and Cammy glance at each other and silently move off to one side. Laura hugs me close.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
I nod. It’s about all I have the strength left for. “How did you … I thought you’d be catatonic,” I say.
“I came pretty close,” Laura says. “But they’ve been having me taper off the meds. That’s what I was going to tell you. I’ve been doing a little better.”