Friends Against The World (Book 1): Bite Me

by Walters, Geneva

  “Today’s top thing to do is still that gate, but we start on the wall tomorrow.” Liam finishes.

  “I think I speak for us all when we agree, this sounds like a great idea.” I say, and Molly barks.

  Laughter rings through the hall and we gather our items. Lee, Liam, Anthony and James disappear out the front door to work on the gate and we split up again. Idris turns to Violet and me, and Lynx comes to stand beside him.

  “So now that the plants are taken care of, want to help us make the classrooms liveable as rooms?”

  We nod, and all four of us walk towards the stairs, discussing what room to start with first. Xavier heads back to the cafeteria with Sonji, discussing something I do not understand. Violet loops her arm through mine at the elbow and we head to the second floor. Lynx and Idris pair up, and we split off to opposite ends of the hallway. Violet and I go to the corner classrooms, and we open the door to see the desks lined up in row.

  “Remember, this was Mrs. Smith’s classroom…” Violet reminisced, and I nodded. “Math is still my worst enemy, I am so glad that we have Anthony and Liam here.”

  I laugh, and open the window, looking down to see Anthony walking by below us, hauling three four-foot pieces of gym floor.

  “Hey, were going to start tossing desks to you!” I shout, and he gives a thumb’s up with his free hand.

  I pop the screen out of the window frame, leaning it against the wall by the window. Violet picks up the first desk and we wedge it out the window, letting it drop with a loud clang of the metal legs. We work side by side, methodically clearing the chairs and tables and dropping them out of the window. Violet mentions to leave the desk, whoever takes this room might want a writing surface, so we leave that alone. Soon enough we finish that room and move onto the next.

  Time passes as we continue clearing out the classrooms, soon James and Quiyl join us, going about halfway down the hall and clearing the rooms there. On each floor there is about twenty classrooms, then a bend in the hallway to ten more classrooms. The entire school is almost in an ‘L’ shape, going up to the third floor. Two hours pass, according to the classroom clocks, and we finish the last room. Everyone agreed upon leaving the teachers desks where they were, so all the student desks were now outside. Lee and Liam were taking the desks apart below us, the loud sound of an electric drill rings through the hall.

  “We should draw out a floor plan for this floor, and designate each room to someone, a pair, or other uses.” Idris proposes, and gestures to the stairs. “Shall we grab a bite to eat and draft it out?”

  “You mean I draft it out because I think that might be for the best.” Violet teases. “If you drew it I don’t know if we could tell the difference between a classroom and a hallway.”

  “Hey, my skills aren’t that bad.”

  “You showed me a piece once, and I thought it was a person, but it was actually a tiny landscape drawing.”

  He glares at her as we open the first-floor door, and Violet giggles.

  The smell of garlic is drifting through the hallway as we walk towards the cafeteria, waving to Dainan who is sitting in the front hall, taking a break. Anthony, Liam, and Lee come in from outside, covered in sawdust and sweat.

  “We have got half of the back wall completed.” Anthony announced, and we cheered. “Between four people, we can get half a wall done in half a day. If we can gather some other hands I am sure we can finish the back wall and the spike idea today.”

  “After we grab some food, we can see who we can rustle up. The second floor is cleared, and we were going to draw out a floor plan as we ate.” Idris replied, and Anthony nods.

  “Sounds good, lets see what my lady has cooked up.”

  Chapter 39

  We open the doors and Avyanna is stocking a table in front of the kitchen, and Anthony goes and kisses her cheek.

  “Thank you.”

  “You are welcome!” She responds and discusses something quietly with him.

  A delicious spread of food is in front of us, a heaping bowl of spaghetti and sauce, a small bowl of shredded cheese, and a bunch of dinner rolls.

  “My first experiment of baking bread, I hope I did well.” Avyanna wonders.

  “Mmmmmm…” James mumbles, the dinner roll already halfway eaten.

  “I’ll take it as a success.” We all chuckle, and James’s cheeks turn rosy.

  Violet is already at a table with pencils, erasers and a ruler. She is quickly drawing out a floor plan, Idris brings her a plate of food. We sit down one by one, Xavier walking in and kissing my forehead before walking to get his food. Sonji and Lynx nod to each other, and then Sonji sticks her tongue out at Lynx, who laughs.

  “So, we have thirty classrooms in total on the second floor, plenty of space for storage as well as our rooms. Xavier and Geneva have already claimed a corner classroom, but from there its free reign.” Violet announces, finishing outlining the classrooms.

  “Which one do you want, hun?” Xavier grabs a pencil, and I point to the one closer to the front of the school, one I know has lots of windows.

  He writes our names across it, and then passes the pencil onto Lee and Quiyl. Soon everyone has claimed a room, deciding out of sheer laziness to keep the bedrooms towards the lower floors, because dragging a mattress up two sets of stairs sounds like a lot of work. All the rooms chosen were closer together, all in the same hall.

  “How many hands do you need for that fence fortification?” Idris asks Anthony, who quickly swallows what he was eating.

  “To be honest, as many as we can spare. We can chip in after to drag the mattresses up the stairs.”

  “Xavier and I can do the cleanup from lunch then we can come help?” I say, looking to Xavier who nods in agreement.

  “Quiyl is resting right now.” Lee pointedly says to Quiyl, who sighs and rolls her eyes. “But she could keep watch, I was already helping so I can continue.”

  “I got to feed the animals.” James says, gesturing to Molly who licks his arm. “Or else Molly and the rest might eat me.”

  “After can you come help?” Anthony askes, and James nods.

  “So that is four, plus me and Avyanna makes six.”

  “My foot is still hurting so I am going to keep watch with Quiyl.” Liam says, gathering plates and limping over to the sink.

  “You say your foot hurts then you get up and walk?” Lynx states, and the rest of us shrug.

  “That’s Liam, him admitting he needs a rest is shocking, because usually he is too stubborn to take care of himself.” Violet says, and Liam flips her off.

  “I am pretty handy with a drill, I don’t mind helping.” Lynx says, then looks to Sonji. “Where as Sonji is handier with the planning stages, she will probably just want to be on standby.”

  “Honestly, if I touched a drill someone would need to use medical knowledge on me.” Sonji chuckled, and Lynx smiled affectionately.

  “Seven, that should be enough to be honest. Dainan, are you going to keep working on that truck?”

  “Yeah, I might need another set of hand’s, but I will let you know. She just needs some coaxing, I think the battery is dead to, so I should be able to just jump it.” Dainan mentions, then turns to Idris. “If you don’t mind being the other set of hands?”

  “As long as you show me what to do?”

  Dainan nods, and Violet finishes the floor plan finally.

  “I’ll help with the perimeter too, I can at least hold boards to places.” She places the pencil on the table, and then holds up the floor plan. “I think I’ll go pin this to the second-floor bulletin board, that way we can just refer to it.”

  She disappears, and Xavier begins to gather the rest of the plates. “When we were at our houses, did anyone grab plastic containers for leftovers? We could just freeze half of the leftovers in case we are too exhausted from a day and decide to warm them up.”

  Liam gestures to the boxes by the kitchen door. “Those boxes should have that in them, I know for sure we gr
abbed some from my house.”

  I grab the pot that was on the table and bring it to the cafeteria counter, where Xavier brings some of the containers over, and I begin divvying it out. We finish packaging the leftovers quickly, and the cafeteria empties as our friends go do their tasks.

  “How has your morning been?” Xavier asks, letting his hand run across my lower back as he moves to the sink, and begins to clean the dishes.

  “Tiring, tossing desks out windows is harder as you do it more.” I laugh, and Xavier smiles.

  “It’s weird to think this is our new life, if you had told me this would be happening two weeks ago I would not have believed you.” Xavier says, and then turns to me. “How many people do you think are doing what we do?”

  “I hope a lot, so the world has a chance of living out this epidemic.” I answer, and then let the towel I was drying with fall to the counter. “I really miss my Mom and Will, and I really hope my Dad can make it here. It’s been…three days?”

  “Something like that, he should be here within the next few.” Xavier says, and then snaps his fingers as he turns off the water, all the dishes washed. “I just thought about something…want to come on an adventure?”

  I nod, hanging my drying towel off a rack. Xavier takes my hand and we walk off in a direction only he knows. We walk down the hall to the right of the cafeteria towards the woodworking and auto shop.

  “Can I know what you just thought of?”

  “Well, as you know we have an electricity classroom full of old electronics. I am wondering if there are any old radios, so we can hook it up and listen if anyone else is using the radio waves to call out for survivors.” We arrive in front of the closed door; which Xavier pushes open.

  We split up and begin searching through cabinets and leaving parts we think would be useful on the benches. Xavier finds a few textbooks and a box with a mess of wires and a speaker sticking out of it, he begins to mess with it as I find various other parts.

  “I had a lot of free time on my hands last summer and started to learn how to build these, I know, weird skills. But with the parts here, I should be able to get it running again.” He tells me, grabbing some tools from under the work bench and begins disassembling the box with the wires. “Might want to go inform the others what I am working on, so they don’t assume the obvious about the pair of us just disappearing…”

  My face turns rosy and Xavier smirks, and I walk to the auto shop, leaving him to his box of parts. A loud engine roar echoes through the hall as I enter the shop, seeing Dainan behind the wheel of a rusty, old truck. Idris is standing off to the side, grease everywhere on him, and Dainan slides out of the truck at the sight of me. Idris and Dainan come over to me and we walk out into the hall, away from the rumbling of the ancient engine.

  Chapter 40

  “Xavier had an idea and is currently in the electricity classroom, putting a radio back together. He figures that maybe we will pick up something on the waves maybe?” I explain, and Idris nods. “Just figured I would tell you two, then go to the perimeter work. I see you got the old beast going?”

  “Just needed the battery charged and the sparkplugs changed, easy as pie.” Dainan explains, and Idris laughs.

  “You say easy as pie but between the two of us, I think we could identify maybe five baking tools, let alone how to follow a baking recipe.”

  “True enough.”

  “Anyways, maybe after you finish with the truck you could go help him? I am much better at nailing things together then the delicate wiring work.” I ask, and the pair nods.

  “No problem. Shouldn’t be longer than half an hour, just want to change the oil on the truck and Idris’s car. We need to go out soon for those farm animals, like a few pigs and chickens, and if we are on a farm we should look for large containers we could store gas in. I think tomorrow we should do alternating raiding parties, heading into the country side of the region.”

  “Agreed. Now I am going to go help the outside crew. See you all at dinner! Pass along my regards to Xavier.” I say, and we separate. I push open the side door of the school and begin walking to the back fence, where everyone is steadily working, Sonji pointing to where the next floor piece should be attached to the fence.

  “Eva! Good to see you, we only got about a third to go now, work is going much faster now that we have more hands.” Lee says loudly, stepping back from where he was working.

  Lynx grins at me, wielding a drill, before turning back to the fence with a flourish, putting the next screw in effortlessly. She giggles, starting on the next piece.

  “Should we be concerned at her skill with power tools?” I say, noticing the maniacal glint in her eye.

  “Nah, she just likes having power.” Sonji explains, and I turn to her with a raised eyebrow. “Kidding, her Dad was a carpenter and she loved to help out.”

  “Okkkaaayyy…” I trail off, still not trusting that answer fully, then turn to Lee. “So how do you want me to help?”

  “Honestly, if you can just keep handing us materials, tools, and holding pieces to where they need to go that is help enough.”

  I nod, and then roll my sleeves up. Lee goes back to where he is working beside Avyanna, who is holding a piece of wood to one side as Anthony screws the other side in place. Their strategy seems to be sandwiching the fencing in-between two pieces of wood and screwing them into each other.

  “What are your fence hopping skills like?” Lee challenges me, and I wink at him.

  The fence rattles as I haul myself up it, finding hand and footholds in the diamond shapes. As I reach the top I balance myself on it, then jump off to where Anthony, landing in a crouch beside him. I straighten up, and Lee claps.

  “Congrats, didn’t think you had it in you!”

  “My family’s version of vacations when was younger is camping, and to amuse myself I climbed trees.” I turn to Anthony. “What do you need me to do?”

  He shows me where to hold the piece of wood, and he drills the screw through it and into the other. We work quickly, putting up piece after piece as the sun lowers in the sky. As we reach the last little bit we slow down, letting a slower pace happen. The last screw goes into place easily, and a loud groan sounds from behind us. Anthony and I look to each other and toss the bag of tools over the fence. There’s a bush surrounding the end of the fence, and it parts when a rotting hand passes through it.

  Anthony and I quickly grab the fence and begin to climb, people on the other side of the fence finding weapons. I realize I forgot my knife inside and kick myself internally. Anthony reaches the top and begins to drop down the other side. Just as my hand closes around the top bar a hand closes around my leg, luckily my jeans prevent skin to skin contact.

  A scream erupts from my throat as the hand tries to pull me down, and I wiggle my leg, finding something hard with my heel and kicking down with all my strength. Anthony quickly drops down and the groaning stops, a wet thump is the only sound I hear. The hand releases my leg, and I turn to see what happened. Anthony is removing his knife from its neck, then brings it back down, severing the head from the body. The blood seeps out into the infected’s long brown hair, its reddened eyes wide open. My eyes close and I shiver, before my friends encourage me to climb back over. Lee quickly goes to Anthony’s aid, dragging the corpse further away from our fence. I drop down with less grace and Violet hugs me, and I let myself relax.

  “You are okay, breathe.” Violet comforts, as Lee and Anthony both reappear and join everyone on the safe side of the fence.

  “Where was your knife?” Lee scolds, and I look to him, a bit ashamed of my forgetfulness.

  “Inside…” I mumble, and Lee sighs.

  “Geneva!” He scolds, and my eyes grow blurry. “You need to carry that with you at all times! What if we hadn’t been here? They would have taken you and you wouldn’t have stood a chance!”

  “I’m sorry…” I say quietly and meet his eyes with my blurry ones.

  He shakes his head and
stalks away, Anthony and James follow him, the rest gather around me. They quietly gather the tools and lead me inside, and I barely noticed. Soon Violet’s hand around my waist draws away, and I feel firm, strong hands wrap me in a hug. I listen to Xavier’s heartbeat, recognizing his smell as he holds me close. His fingers run through my hair and I cry, loud, the sound amplified by the long hallway.

  “Oh hun, you are okay. You almost got hurt but you are safe now. I don’t believe you forgot your weapon on purpose, why would you? Breathe Evie, breathe.” He mumbles, his fingers massaging the back of my head gently.

  “I can barely defend myself, I always get saved by you guys. I am a liability, I can barely use a knife where Anthony can take down anything…and I couldn’t even help him. He had to defend me!”

  “Geneva.” His stern voice captures my attention, and my mumbling goes quiet. “You might not be able to defend yourself all the time, but that can be worked on. Did you forget Liam has some sort of self defence certification, I am sure he can teach you!” Xavier suggests, and I mull over the decision. “Plus, you have a lot of knowledge about things a lot of us don’t understand, and that is helpful.”

  “Everyone here is a team and we have our strengths and weaknesses, but that’s why we stick together. What one person cannot do, others can.” Idris announces, and I turn to where he is standing beside Violet. “So, you forgot something once, we all can’t be perfect. I understand forgetting things, do not beat yourself up about it. Lee was just scared for you and took his emotions out the wrong way.”