Zombie High Chronicles (Book 1)

by Amy Miles

  “I’m here. The others have barricaded themselves in the bathroom down the hall. Vaughn sounds pretty cheerful, though. I guess Ember took off her shirt to shove into the bottom of the door to keep the gas out.”

  I smile at her cunning, both for survival and distraction. “Smart girl.”

  “Help me clear the rest of this floor then we need to arm everyone. We’ve got company so keep your head down and move fast.”

  As the rumble of engines begins to grow in the distance, Austin limps beside me as we check each room. We find seven guards in total but only three are left alive.

  “Go out into the hall and wait for me.”

  Austin starts to protest when I press my gun to a soldier's head, but he turns and walks out as the first of three shots ring out. Austin may have been a fast runner but he is no killer.

  “Alright,” I say as I close the door behind me, sealing the bodies inside. There is a slight tremor in my hands but I grip my gun tighter and force myself to focus. “Go grab those masks for the others and load them up with ammo. You are going to need to barricade this floor before the whole base comes down on top of us.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m going to clear the upper floors.”

  “I don’t think it’s such a good idea to do that on your own.”

  I nod and check my magazine then slam it back into place. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

  Racing down the hall, I peer out through the front door. I count three separate beams of laser light searching the windows of the first floor as I crawl my way up the stairs, keeping well out of reach of the strobe lights littering campus. So far reinforcements have yet to arrive but they are on their way.

  Already the sky to the east has begun to show pastel colors of daylight’s approach but the time no longer matters. We no longer have the shift change to worry about. We have the whole military on its way to wipe us out.

  The second floor is darker than the first as I move away from the stairs and into the hall. Every shadow seems to move, growing and expanding to swallow a hidden soldier whole. It takes longer than I want to clear the floor but I have to be thorough or risk having a bullet pierce one of our heads from the back if we leave a single enemy alive.

  Making my way to the third floor, I start in the western wing, ducking low to look under the science tables, checking inside closets and searching every ceiling tile to make sure none have been shifted in an attempt to escape. When I enter the first classroom on the eastern wing I know that I’m not alone. I can smell something different in the air.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” I call out and hear a scuffling sound and turn instinctively toward the sound. It comes after a moment near the rear of the room. From downstairs I hear shouting and the scrapping of tables. Austin must have assembled the troops and begun operation “save our asses with piles of school desks blocking the entrance.”

  “If you come out with your hands up, I promise not to shoot.” This time, I hear the scuffling off to my left.

  How did he manage to get way over there so fast?

  Removing my mask, I test the air but none of the gas fumes have made its way up to the third floor. After a moment of breathing fresh air, I set my mask on a desk and make my way down the aisle, using all of my senses to locate the hidden soldier.

  “Come on, man. I don’t want to have to do this. I’m tired of killing you people. Just come out nice and peaceful and we can settle this.”

  This time, there is no sound to give away the man’s location. I wait through several long breaths, trying to get my bearings when I hear an engine pull up to the gate out front. Muffled shouts are followed by the clanking of the metal gate opening.

  “I’m running out of patience, man.” My shoe slides and I throw out my arms to keep my balance as I recover. Lifting my foot, I feel something sticky on the sole of my shoe. “If you don’t come out on the count of five I will just start shooting.”

  This time, the sound comes from my immediate right and I swing my gun just in time to see a man diving toward me. I barely have a chance to note the wide expanse of blood across his chest before he strikes and takes me down hard.

  The man’s fingers dig into my neck as I fight against him. He is crazy strong and his breath is rank. I lose my grip on my gun when he smashes my head into the ground hard enough for lights to flash before my eyes.

  I grunt and fight back, trying to land punches into his side but he barely reacts except to lash back out at me.

  “Roan, kick out!”

  I instantly do as I am commanded and I send the man toppling off of me. A second later a bullet pierces through his brain, splattering me with warm mush and he falls still, his legs and hands going limp against the floor.

  Breathing hard, I sit up and tug at the collar of my shirt. Even though it is not pulled tight around my neck, I still feel as if the man’s hands are suffocating me.

  “You ok?” Flynn asks, dropping down beside me.

  “You...you shot him?”

  “Nah, that was Ember. I was already on my way to join you in the fray when she grabbed me and told me to stay out of her way. I gotta say, man, she’s a good person to keep around.”

  Rubbing my neck, I look up to see her watching me from the doorway. One again there is no fear or guilt in her gaze, just determination. Flynn is right. She is a total badass that has most likely just saved my skin for the second time. I’m never going to live that one down.

  “Thanks,” I rasp.

  “Don’t mention it. You already cleared the rest of the floor or should we expect more freak like that to show up?”

  “I just started this wing.” Gripping onto Flynn’s shoulder I push upright but feel a wave of dizziness wash over me.

  “Stay with him. I’ll take care of it.” With that, Ember is gone. I grit my teeth in annoyance. It isn’t her job to clear the floor. It is mine.

  “Dude, are you seeing this?”

  I turn to look back and see Flynn crouched down beside the downed soldier. “You never saw a dead guy before?”

  “Not one that’s been killed twice.”

  “What?” I crawl over to him and feel as if I’ve just jumped into one of those polar ice plunge pools for those stupid enough to dare each other to see how long they can stay in. Flynn is right. The guys throat has been torn away, almost like something snacked on him. Bits of flesh dangle down his neck and spread out on the floor in a gruesome fan of gore.

  “Oh man, he is ripe!” Flynn covers his mouth and turns away, his stomach making retching sounds as he moves to the corner.

  “How is this possible?” I say to no one in particular. Yes, the guy smells like rotten eggs left out in high summer for a month but I need to see more. Grabbing a pen from off a desk, I spread his lips and wrench back when I see a finger wedged between his teeth.

  “Holy mother of spaghetti!” Flynn upchucks on that one in the corner. He is shaking when he cleans his mouth and looks back at me. “Whose finger was that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Flynn slowly walks back over to me, skirting around the man’s legs until he’s closer to his torso. He leans in closer to the man’s face. “Dude, his eyes are really messed up.”

  “Well, he’s dead. I’m sure that has something to do with it.”

  “No, seriously, Roan. Come and take a look.”

  Despite my better judgment and the raging headache that I seem incapable of escaping today, I move close and notice that the man’s eyes are indeed weird. The outer edges of the whites are streaked with red like every blood vessel has suddenly imploded and spilled blood out of his eye sockets. The rest are solid white.

  “So let me get this straight,” Flynn rubs his temples as he begins to pace. “The dude gets mauled by some whacked out dog or something while on his rounds, somehow makes his way past a group of highly armed soldiers and up three flights of stairs and then what...waits in hiding for you to attack? What gives?”

  I star
t to speak when I hear a scream followed by gunfire. Shoving Flynn back as I lurch to my feet, I race down the hall and find Ember huddled in the corner of the classroom at the far end of the hallway.

  Her shirt is torn and her face bloody when I arrive. Her chest rises and falls as she sucks in great gulps of air.

  “Are you ok?” I drop to my knees in front of her.

  She raises one hand and points behind her. There, lying slumped over the back of a table is a very dead Bo Thompkins, still covered in the spaghetti sauce spilled on him earlier. “He...he growled at me and then just fly out of the dark. I didn’t think I would get him off in time.”

  Ember clings to me when I wrap an arm around her. “He tried to bite me, Roan. I...I think he was going for my throat.”

  Flynn arrives in the doorway a moment later and stops short when he spies Thompkins. “What the hell is going on around here?”

  “Nothing good,” I mutter and look back at the soldier. I hadn’t seen him in the bunker. I should have suspected something was wrong earlier. I just assumed he was off duty or called away during the breach but something else happened to him.

  There, on the right side of his neck, I can see a distinctive bite mark and it doesn’t look like it came from an animal.

  “Has the rest of the school been locked down?” I ask Flynn.

  “Yeah, all apart from the gym but the doors were shut so we assumed—”

  “Don’t assume,” I interrupt him. “Get back downstairs and grab Vaughn and Coleman. Got check it out and chain up the doors when you are done. Something did this to them and we need to make sure it’s not still here.”

  Flynn hesitates, struggling to pull his eyes away from Thompkins. “So we are rolling with the zombie theory now?”

  “You see any other choice?”

  “Nope.” He shakes his head. “Just checking. I’ll be downstairs if you need me.”

  Ember is still trembling in my arms when Flynn leaves and I sink fully down onto the floor to sit with her. She’s a tough girl, tougher than any I’ve known. Whatever Thompkins did to her it must have been a close call.

  “They did this, didn’t they?” She whispers and leans her head against my shoulder.

  I don’t have to ask who they are. We both know she’s talking about the military, the powers that be and the doctors who do their bidding. I knew something smelled fishy and now we know why.

  “I think so. Hell, we know that MONE vaccine screwed with people. Why should anything else they try be any different?”

  Ember places a hand on my arm that is slung over her shoulder. “Thanks for coming for me.”

  “Sure. You did for me.”

  She smiles as she looks up at me. “That almost sounded like a thank you.”

  “Hey, I said it when you arrived.”

  “I know.” She presses closer to me, pulling my arm tighter around her. “I’m just playing.”

  I breathe her in, smelling the sweet scent of vanilla that always hangs around her. I like it. “I can’t quite figure you out. One minute you’re taking a jab at me, the next you're flirting with some bat faced soldier and now you’re snuggling with me?”

  Ember laughs softly. “And yet you seem to be missing the one key factor that connects all of those together.”

  “What?”

  She leans forward so that she can look at me. “You.”

  I’d like to state at this point in time that I’ve never had any trouble in the lady department. In truth, I’m usually the one running out the back door the morning after when a girl’s dad gets home or her boyfriend shows up, but Ember is different. She’s not like the girls I usually go for.

  Which is exactly why I should not be going for her now, idiot!

  Clearing my throat, I ease my arm back from around her and crawl over toward Tompkins. “Do you think there are more of these? Was he part of the breach or a result of it?”

  “Who knows. At this point, I doubt anyone truly does.” To her credit, she allows me the space that I need without complaint or clinginess. I respect that. “Maybe he’s a bit of both?”

  “I just don’t get it. The bite marks are new as is the aggression. Austin mentioned that the teachers were discussing hunger. What if that’s why they snapped at us? Not out of anger but out of an actual physical need?”

  “I’m going to pretend that doesn’t creep me out,” she whispers and crawls over to sit beside me. We sit together, staring down at Tompkins and knowing that nothing will ever be the same again.

  “The people downstairs can’t know about this yet,” I say.

  “Agreed.”

  “It would only create a panic,” I continue

  “Definitely.”

  I look over at her. “This is messed up, isn't’ it?”

  “Beyond belief.”

  It’s nice to know that at least I’m not the only one shaken by this turn of events. Dead Heads are one thing but this...this is something entirely new.

  11

  AND THE OTHER SHOE DROPS...

  As military trucks flood through the gates and enter the half circle outside the front doors of Zombie High, Ember and I work to load sniper rifles.

  “Are you entirely sure that this plan is the best use of our ammunition stores? I only ask because it seems like we might be in need of those in other capacities in the near future.”

  I turn to look back at Roderick over my right shoulder and wish for the fiftieth time I hadn’t let Vaughn go down to the shelter to recruit more help. Of course, we need it, but did he really have to bring back a guy like this pansy know it all?

  “I’ve heard your concerns several times, Roderick and I am choosing to ignore them as the idiotic suggestions that they are. If we don’t fight now to hold the school, what will be left for us to defend later with all of those saved bullets?”

  Roderick looks away as heat stained the tips of his ears with embarrassment. “Now why don’t you go find someone else to bug before I shot you in the leg for being a pain in my ass? I’m sure Sammy would love to have a chat about food supply rations down in the mess hall.”

  Roderick puffs up his chest with indignation and mutters something about how the heathens are going to get everyone killed before wandering off. Ember shoots me a knowing glance and finishes loading her magazine.

  She looks like a female version of Rambo all decked out in gear and I have to admit, it looks damn good on her. With rifles slung over both shoulders, a holster attached to each leg and a knife hidden under the jeans on her right leg, she is a walking killing machine that gets me all hot and bothered just thinking about it.

  “You look pretty comfortable holding those firearms. Care to spill any more details about your shady past?” I ask, checking the sights of my rifle for the second time. If there is one good thing my father taught me it is to always be sure that you can trust the accuracy of your weapons. One misfire and everyone will know where we were. We need that first shot to count.

  “What’s to tell? I was daddy’s little soldier from the time I could walk. Mom didn’t really approve but I’m kinda stubborn.”

  “Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

  She laughs and adds a spare magazine to a camo bag and hefts it onto a shelf to stock. “I’ll admit that I may have my moments, but it only annoys you because we’re so alike.”

  I grab a .45-caliber and a rifle and follow her into the hall. “We are nothing alike.”

  “Yeah, I would have said the same thing.” She shoots a wicked grin over her shoulder as we pass the blockade at the front entrance and drop off a bag of guns to Austin where he has placed himself in charge with Coleman.

  While the military has worked to amass outside our doors, with far more firepower than we could possibly hope to withstand, our crew of forty students and two wrangled soldiers have reluctantly agreed to assist in saving their own asses once they witnessed the truth of my words unfolding before them. It was really hard for me not to say “I told you so,” to Ugly Face when his
eyes practically bulged out of his face when he saw his commanders body upstairs.

  I trusted that his examination of the body was proof enough to keep his trap shut and him in line long enough to wage this war. Jacobson was sufficiently ill at the sight of the bodies but handles it better than Flynn did. Together they perform a quick perimeter check of the gymnasium which shows that the back door lock has been smashed open and the door left ajar but no further freaks with white eyes jump out at the search party. They give me the thumbs up when they return.

  The four unwilling teachers are locked away in the gun cage where they won’t be in our way. Maybe they will come around. At this point, I just don’t want to mess with them.

  “Can I trust you with that gun, soldier?” I call out to Clockman as I pass.

  “Bite me.” The former venom in his response isn’t there and I don’t blame him. We are all scared, some from the guns outside pointing in and for those select few, from the monsters we found upstairs. Looking death in the eye sucks and there is seems to be a whole lot of it waiting for us to make our first move.

  How are forty people supposed to hold this massive building on our own? We are outnumbered, out gunned and without a prayer of a chance to survive. Of course, I don’t dare tell anyone that. A couple of people have been smart enough to think it through, though. I can see it in their eyes as I walk by. Those are the ones I know that I can rely on to fight dirty until the very end. They are the survivors in the group and that’s exactly what I need right now.

  Vaughn and Flynn have seen to the barricading the western wing of the first floor to make sure any attack from that direction will be slowed down. A wall of desks, chairs and anything else they could find with substantial weight behind it has been stacked four-feet deep and nearly to the ceiling. It won’t keep the soldiers out but it might slow down the bullets a little bit.

  All nonessential students, pretty much the ones who got on my nerves with their whining and whimpering, have been sent to the upper floors and crammed into windowless supply closets. It almost feels like we are prepping for a tornado drill, only this time, we know that it’s going to be a direct hit.