Blood Type Infected (Book 1): No Future For Man

by Marchon, Matthew

  I sit down next to Doug, Shane and Kristen like I do every day. But today there’s a sort of hushed silence over the room that makes me feel like I have to whisper.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know,” Shane says with a worried shrug. “You think someone has a gun?”

  “I don’t think so. It seems like they’re trying to keep something out. I just saw them locking the doors.”

  You can tell when the higher powers know something you don’t. People get this air of confidence about them when they know something the rest of us are unaware of. Like with fire drills, you can tell when the teachers were told it’d be taking place and you can tell when it takes them by surprise. They have no clue what’s going on. It took a vice principal and a couple women from the office to lock the door and not a single one of them knew why they were doing it.

  “This doesn’t feel like a drill.” Kristen’s really scared, shaking almost. “You know Petey, the JV goalie? When I walked by Nurse Dickens’ office, they were trying to hold him down. He was bleeding like crazy, screaming.”

  Doug snorts a little and smiles. “Norwood probably found out Petey was banging his little sister and fucked him up. I knew I shoulda put money on it.”

  “I don’t know,” Kristen says with an irregular quiver in her voice. “He looked really bad. I think his jaw was broken, there was all this blood, like pouring out of his mouth. Everyone yelling. Scared yelling, not telling him to calm down. Something’s really wrong. And this text I got from my mom...”

  She holds up her phone for us to see. Two words. STAY INSIDE.

  “She won’t get back to me. It’s been half an hour.”

  “Fuck,” Shane growls, running his fingers through his hair. “You don’t think it’s something from the lab, do you?”

  “What if it is?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Doug asks, his eyes bouncing from Shane to Kristen and back again before looking to me for answers I don’t have. Her mom’s some sort of bio-chemist so I assume that’s what they’re talking about but you know how couples are, they could be speaking their cute little secret relationship lingo that goes over our heads because you had to be there to understand.

  “I don’t know,” Kristen whines, shaking her hands in front of her like she’s having a panic attack. “Whatever she’s doing at work, it’s got her acting all weird.”

  “Weird, how?” Doug can’t handle things like this. He freaks out after a scary movie and has to sleep with the lights on for a week or two. You should have seen him after watching Monsters Inc when we were kids. Oh, yeah, I realize that’s not a scary movie by any stretch of the imagination but try telling him that. Why is he asking and why are they answering?

  “She’s stressed the fuck out, that’s how,” Shane answers for his over-analytical girlfriend. “Like, she seems bothered by whatever she’s working on which doesn’t even make sense because it’s just supposed to be some cure. She’s been acting funny ever since they started testing it.”

  “Wait wait wait,” I interrupt. “You guys are talking, like, diseases? Like those mice a while back, with the outbreak, when they were puking up their insides?”

  “What if it’s not mice this time?” Sure, Shane’s a bit of a conspiracy theorist, but nine times out of ten he turns out to be right.

  “Why would they have guns aimed at the hospital though?” Something doesn’t add up. “They’d be quarantining people, with hazmat suits and all that, right? You’re not gonna shoot someone because they’re barfing up their intestines.”

  “It’s gotta be a coincidence,” Doug says, shaking his head in tiny bursts. “When those mice got out, they were on top of it. It was only like, what, those two stray cats that died. And that’s only because they ate the infected mice. They wouldn’t lock us down for that. None of us are eating mice. It’s gotta be a shooter. Someone trying to get in the building. Probably Norwood’s crazy ass, you know he’d do it.”

  “Holy shit!”

  Our heads spin like they’re not attached. Mr. Adams slams the door so hard I’m surprised the glass didn’t shatter. He locks it the second it clicks shut. Maybe someone does have a gun. Could Norwood really be that pissed about Petey sleeping with his sister? That seems a bit extreme. We’ve always been cool so I’m not really worried about him shooting me. I mean, we go way back, hunting trips with our dads since we were little. We’ve shared tents I don’t even know how many times. But my eyes are still glued to that skinny window leading into the hall. I highly doubt it’s bulletproof.

  I can probably talk him down. The last thing I want to do is get involved but I don’t want to see anyone get hurt. Or worse. He’s got a temper but he’s a good guy. And a good shot. If he took one of his dad’s automatics, shit, I gotta talk to him.

  Someone crashes into the door with the force of a battering ram. Mr. Adams collapses to the floor, panicking, reaching frantically for his inhaler. A flurry of expletives fill the classroom when Nurse Dickens thrashes her pudgy body against the door like the holy ghost has gotten into her. Why would Mr. Adams slam the door in her face? Yeah I see the blood but Jesus fucking Christ, she’s desperate.

  I’m the only idiot getting up to rush towards the door rather than away from it. The doorknob is jiggling so hard I wouldn’t be surprised if she breaks it off. Why would Norwood go after sweet Nurse Dickens? What, did she supply the condom Petey used to nail his sister? Norwood’s sister, not Petey’s, just to clarify here, although they do look alike now that I think about it but so not the point.

  My hand touches the rattling silver knob but I’m not sure I should open it. The moaning from the other side sounds sickly, a noise I would expect a dying bear to make, not a sixty year old nurse who appears to be missing half her neck. What kind of fucked up gun does he have? It’s got to be a sawed off but I didn’t even hear a shot. He took out half her freakin’ neck. I mean I don’t even know how her head is still attached. Or better yet, how in the hell this woman is still standing, let alone trying to break the door down.

  She stops. The adrenaline must have worn off. I’m expecting her body to drop to the floor in a lifeless heap any second but it doesn’t. Through the bloodstained glass, I swear I can see her nose twitch. Her nostrils flare. Her eyes dart to the side. Animalistic. A predator stalking its prey. What the hell is happening?

  I’m certain, she smells the two kids running by before she even hears them. Out of nowhere, the school nurse spins around and launches herself across the hall. Her body crumples against the lockers in a horrific landing that would stop the action on any football field. Her neck just bent sideways. Her ear is touching her shoulder. Bones are sticking out of her neck, or whatever’s left of it. What in the holy hell am I looking at?

  She grabs the dude by the leg and pulls him down. The girl continues running, barely taking the time to look back.

  His haunting scream pierces my soul.

  I have no choice but to look away when Nurse Dickens sinks her teeth into the kid’s ankle. Blood sprays and splatters the nearby lockers as she tears through his flesh with her teeth. I tell myself it’s just his shoe she tosses down the hall. But his foot is still inside.

  I spin around and press my back to the door, sliding down until I’m out of view. Mr. Adams is preoccupied puffing on his inhaler. Understandable. I would have locked the door on her as well. There’s too much blood gushing out of that gaping hole in her broken neck, no way should she be alive. The puddle where she was standing is slowly seeping under the door. That kind of blood loss. Her spine sticking out of her neck. For god’s sake, she bit off a dude’s foot.

  The screaming stops. Although stop isn’t accurate, it’s been cut off. The uncomfortable silence is broken by a faint slurping. What the hell is Nurse Dickens doing to that poor boy? I can’t look, the sound alone is making me sick to my stomach.

  I don’t want to call her Nurse Dickens because she’s not. She can’t be. Something must have possessed he
r or, I don’t know, maybe she’s been turned into a vampire. Or a zombie. Or something that actually exists in real life like whatever that drug was called that had people eating each other’s faces. Bath salts. That’s it. Nurse Dickens is tripping off bath salts. Damn it. The mice, it’s gotta be the mice.

  Curiosity gets the better of me. Through the bloodstained window, I can see her, hunched over the kid, his chest and stomach ripped apart, organs visible through a pool of blood. She’s drinking, and unfortunately it’s not from the water fountain a couple rooms down.

  My eyes dart to the window. We have to get the hell out of here and there’s no way I’m going into that hall. I like my body parts right where they are thank you very much. We’re on the first floor, getting out won’t be difficult, but the window doesn’t lead anywhere. It’s just a courtyard.

  Why don’t I hear the slurping anymore?

  Another bead of blood slithers down the glass, leaving a red slime in its wake. He’s getting up. That kid is getting up. He pushes Nurse Dickens off, sits up and slowly gets to his feet. Foot, I suppose.

  His head whips in my direction, sending a stream of blood and god knows what else, flinging off his body. What I can only assume is his lower intestine hangs from his split torso and rests on the ground. I shudder, trying not to puke all over myself. The smell hits me, even through the closed door. He takes a step, landing hard on the stump where there was once a foot. Something falls out of his open chest cavity and dangles from his body for a moment before detaching and hitting the floor. He takes another step.

  His eyes aren’t right. It almost looks like they’re bleeding. But it’s beyond that. They seem, empty, as if the person behind them is no longer there. They don’t flinch or show any signs of pain, even when he steps on his stub of an ankle.

  His eyes show no emotion because he’s dead.

  And dead people aren’t supposed to jump!

  He lunges for the door, slamming what remains of his body on the hard surface. His tail of intestines slaps against it a second later. I try to scream but get nothing more than a choked gurgle that catches in my throat. One look at those evil, pus oozing, demented eyes, tells the story. This is the end.

  CHAPTER 3

  “Noah, what the fuck is that kid doing?!” Doug knows damn well what that kid is doing. We all do.

  Before I have a chance to answer, a burst of feedback cuts through the loudspeaker. Principal Lambert’s panicked voice fills the room.

  “We’re asking at this time that all classroom doors remain locked. The entrances to the building have been sealed. Please remain calm and stay away from the doors and wind ̶ ”

  The intercom falls silent.

  Our eyes are glued to the door, to the kid licking the last of the blood off the window. The pus from his tongue leaves a phlegmy residue on the glass. What I can only assume was Principal Lambert’s last breath was wasted, we didn’t need to be told to stay away.

  The kid begins slamming himself against the door like a nutcase in a straightjacket trying desperately to break free. His head bounces off the glass repeatedly. The cracking noises make my heart race.

  Blood is again staining the window he licked clean. It’s not the glass that’s breaking, it’s his skull. He continues ramming himself into it, oblivious to the crack emanating from his swollen forehead. Uninterested in his own blood, he pounds and pounds. Desperate. The entire side of his face is collapsing in on itself but he never slows his pace.

  It’s hard to make out through the mess left on the narrow window, but I see it, through the blood and scraps of flesh, a small fracture is beginning to form. He’s breaking through. If he keeps this up there won’t be any window left. I take a small amount of comfort in the fact that it’s too small for someone to fit through, but an arm could easily slip right in and turn the knob.

  My eyes dart from one object to another, hoping for something to use as a weapon. But it’s a classroom, what am I gonna use, a textbook?

  Why am I the only one moving? Everyone else is huddled together in the center of the room, whimpering. I want to scream at them to do something but can’t because I’m too scared. I don’t want to be the one taking action. I’d rather be cowering with them, letting someone else stand on the frontlines. They’re staring at me, not even trying to help. They’re just crying.

  Mr. Adams is too busy hyperventilating, never taking his eyes off the crazed student bashing his own brains in on the door. The yellow puddle on the floor where our teacher is sitting solidifies it, he won’t be any help. Figures, I always got the impression he still lives at home, relying on his mother to cook his meals and pick out the underwear he just peed in. I’m alone here.

  I snap a yardstick in half over my knee and hold the broken pieces in each hand. The splintered edges aren’t the most intimidating of weapons but they’re sharp.

  The sight of brain matter on the window makes me cringe. The crack is spreading like a spider web smeared with blood and other liquids that should remain inside of one’s body. I sure hope he stops moving altogether, and soon, before ̶

  The glass breaks. It’s too late.

  I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t want to be standing here. There’s nothing but a broken door separating me from whatever’s on the other side. I’m pretty sure I know what it is, but I don’t want to think it because it can’t be. What the fuck did they do in that lab?

  My heartbeat quickens. I’m really not feeling confident in my choice of weapons at this given time. The lives of everyone in this room depend on me, but I didn’t ask for this. I assumed they’d have my back, that they’d find their own weapons rather than huddle together and whimper like wounded animals. That is not going to save them. This broken yardstick just might.

  I step towards the bloody head squeezing its way through the broken glass, the remaining shards ripping whatever flesh is left off his mangled face. The wood is slippery against my sweaty palms but I hold on tight, well aware of what I have to do. With all my might, I jam the broken yardstick toward his deformed head, all the while telling myself he’s not human. He’s not human.

  And there goes my breakfast. I puke up this morning’s cereal as the broken wood glides through his softened skull. I think it was the popping of his eyeball and the goop that drained out that did me in.

  I jump back immediately, trying to avoid not only the bleeding head in the window but my erupting stomach as well. I don’t know if the awful aroma is coming from his exposed brain, the blood and pus, or the organs falling out of his open body. I’d rather sniff vomit any day.

  I wipe my mouth before looking to the door. My god. The stick through his head did absolutely nothing. He’s thrashing around even more violently, mouth open so wide it makes me wonder if his jaw might be dislocated. His eyes are locked on me. Emotionless. Unblinking. Ravenous.

  A state of shock has taken over the room. I get the feeling they think I should have some solution to get us out of here. I don’t.

  As he tries to squeeze through the opening, the glass rips and tears at his already ravaged skin. Blood cascades from his open wounds. He must be running out, it’s all on the floor. How much longer can he keep moving if there’s no blood pumping through his veins? Maybe that’s why he’s so desperate to get mine.

  If I stab him through the other eye then at least he won’t be able to see us. But I stop before thrusting the remaining half of the yardstick into him. A quick mental image of Nurse Dickens flashes before my eyes. She didn’t need to see those two kids run by, she smelled them. Then she turned him into this… this monster. I’m not going to call it what I know it is because that’s not possible.

  Distant echoes of screams travel down the empty hallways, barely audible over the barbaric noises coming from the creature before me. Those screams could be my friends, my date tonight. I have to do everything I can to help them.

  I pull back to get the momentum needed to shove the broken stick straight into the poor kid’s forehead, or what’s
left of it. The bone has been shattered, making it soft enough to slide right in. He pushes towards me, probably smelling my blood, the sweet scent torturing him. The stick meets resistance. It’s scraping against the backside of his skull. With one last push, I let go.

  Only, he doesn’t stop moving. I just pierced his brain with a giant freakin’ ruler and he’s still going. I was sure that would put him down, it had to. Why is he still trying to kill me? I don’t get it.

  A strange thick liquid fills his mouth and dribbles down his chin while I stare at his exposed brain. If he keeps moaning with his jaw wide open, he’s going to squirt it everywhere. Then, every you-know-what movie comes rushing back to me. I can’t let his blood infect me.

  Shit, he’s about to spew brain soup all over us!

  “Get back! Get back!” I yell at the top of my lungs. But they don’t. It’s like they’re frozen stiff. I want to save them but I have to save myself first.

  I get ready to jump out of the way, trying to forget about everyone else, but can’t. If they get infected, I’ll have a whole room of them to contend with, as well as whatever’s out there. I run towards my classmates and make a stage-dive leap of faith. No one catches me. I slam into the center of the group, knocking most of them over. They continue staring at the doorway as blankly as the face peering in at them.

  A loud cough fills the room, followed by the sound of chunky fluid splattering off the floor. The groaning doesn’t stop. He threw up whatever was left in his broken body but it’s not enough to incapacitate him. If I hadn’t moved when I did, his insides would be all over me, us. Odds are we’d become just like him. I pray it isn’t airborne. If it is, we’re all screwed.

  Oh no. Mr. Adams.

  A thin layer of blood and bile coats his pale face, dripping slowly from his glasses onto his quivering lips. He barely seems to notice. He’s too preoccupied, trying frantically to wipe it from his arm in a state of horrified shock, feverishly scrubbing, smudging bits of stringy brain matter into his arm hair.