The open lockers give me an idea. If it were someone bigger this wouldn’t work but it’s worth a shot. He’s a skinny kid, probably a freshman.
I back up to the nearest locker and let the zombie chase me down. At the last second I jump out of the way, thanking my lucky stars these fuckers aren’t very smart. He goes slamming into the open door, a sloppy hole in one. The lockers are tall and narrow on the second floor so it takes a little shoving but a few seconds later he’s completely stuffed inside. I’ve heard of varsity guys doing it to incoming freshmen but never actually saw it done, I swore they were nothing more than urban legends, much like the thing I just shoved into it.
I slam the door and spin the lock into place. There’s no way he’s getting out of there unless some idiot with the combination comes along and opens it. That or one of his undead buddies learns how to pick locks.
The other one’s approaching, I can hear his moans, but they sound different, probably because he’s currently losing his head. If my neck were partially lopped off, I bet I’d sound asthmatic too. I spin around and swing the power drill, knocking his head off the bloody stump it’s currently attached to. It doesn’t fall off completely, insisting on hanging there by a stubborn piece of mangled flesh, blood gushing from the fatal injury.
Even with his head resting on his shoulder, I swear he’s still looking at me like I’m dinner. If he were to take a bite, it’s not like he could swallow.
I press my finger against the trigger and slam the drill down on the remaining bridge of skin. A second later, his head plops to the floor, followed by his body. What really disgusts me is the fact that I didn’t flinch this time.
My eyes focus on the bloody locker across the hall, hand prints smudged against the sky blue paint. They weren’t banging on the wall, they were trying to get into the locker. Someone’s inside. I can’t decide if it’s the best place to hide or the worst. The zombies can’t get in but at the same time, whoever’s inside can’t get out. I wonder if there’s some sort of safety handle in there like they put in car trunks.
I run across the hall, realizing what a stupid move this is. I just trapped a zombie in a locker thirty seconds ago, he’s over there trying to bang his way out. Why am I assuming there’s a person in this one? What if it was a person when it got trapped but no longer is?
The handle lifts with ease.
CHAPTER 9
She springs from the locker the second I unlatch it. Her eyes meet mine. After a moment of confusion she rushes me with her arms open. I fall backwards to dodge her, like a kid in first grade trying to avoid the cooties. She doesn’t get it and drops to her knees beside me, clearly wondering why I don’t recognize her, why I would turn away her hug. I want to wrap my arms around her and hold her tight, breathe her in, kiss the caramel skin I’ve been dying to let my lips explore since the first time I laid eyes on her. I want to cry with her and tell her everything will be alright even though she knows it won’t. But for that brief moment when our bodies are intertwined, it’ll be the truth. In that moment everything will be right with the world. I’d give anything for that moment.
“Caylee, stop. Don’t come any closer. Their blood is all over me. I might be infected.”
“What? No.” She covers her mouth in horror, tears causing her makeup to stream down her rosy cheeks. “Noah, no. No, you can’t.” She gives me a pleading look that breaks my heart but nothing I say will change what already is.
“I’m sorry Caylee. I’ve liked you since the first time I saw you. This morning was like, the single greatest moment of my life.”
“Noah, I’ve been trying to build up the courage to talk to you for months. You can’t leave me already. My mom was gonna be so proud of me. She’s been telling me to talk to you for so long. I didn’t think I had a chance.”
I smile at her through watery eyes. “I don’t think there’s a guy in the world who could resist you.”
She smiles and laughs a little as more tears fall from her eyes. The thought of wiping them away is almost worth the risk.
“I’ll get you out of here. I promise.”
“I don’t want to leave you.” Her Spanish accent is beginning to peek through on some of her words and it’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. It breaks my heart that I can’t be her boyfriend. If only I had the guts to talk to her sooner.
“You’re getting out alive Caylee. If it’s the last thing I do.”
There’s so much more I want to say but a couple corpses come running around the corner at full speed. She must smell as incredible to them as she does to me. I jump to my feet, ready to fight them to the death if it means protecting her.
“Caylee, run. Marty,” I yell over my shoulder.
“Say no more, I got her. Here, take this.” He hands me his bloody power saw even though it’s clearly hard for him to say goodbye to his baby. “With the cord, it don’t reach far but it’s effective. You sure you wanna do this?”
“I can’t go with you. If I turn–”
“But what if you don’t? You didn’t get bit, you might be alright.”
“Shit, I don’t know, I don’t fucking know. My homeroom teacher, he didn’t either. There was no bite, it was just their blood on him. He still turned.”
“How long?”
“Five minutes maybe. I don’t know. Marty, time is fast and slow and everything all at once. I can’t risk turning and infecting you two. Once the change starts, it’s quick. You gotta get her out of here.”
“Fuck me,” he moans reluctantly. “Yeah, yeah okay. I’ll do it.”
“Just get her someplace safe. I don’t know, find her parents or something.”
“You be safe you stubborn son of a bitch. If you don’t turn in the next ten minutes, you get the fuck out of here. No more saving anyone but yourself. You hear me?”
“I hear you. There’s a few more friends I gotta find. If I haven’t turned by then, I’ll leave. I promise.”
He nods and the last few years flash through my mind. The older kids always sat toward the back of the bus, not me, I sat behind Marty. Maybe it’s weird but I consider him a friend. He took me to my first bar last year. Then a strip club for my seventeenth birthday. I insisted that I didn’t want to go but he said I wouldn’t become a man until I got a lap dance from a professional. I’m still trying to figure out how he got me in with what was clearly a fake ID. I think he’s always looked at me like the son his ex-wife took in the divorce, but friend was always good enough for him.
Caylee’s reluctant to leave, even with zombies quickly approaching. The water from the sprinklers is washing everything away, my life included. I can’t tell if the water streaming down her cheeks is from the sprinklers or her eyes. It washes the blood from my face and hands but I only wish it could cleanse it from my soul.
Everything moves in slow motion. From the corner of my eye I spot two zombies racing down the hall. Marty’s removed his glove and is trying to lead Caylee away. She puts her finger to her lips and kisses it. All I can do is watch as her index finger moves towards my face until it gently presses against my lips. This is the closest I will ever get to kissing her. Lips pursed, I touch them to the tip of her finger the way I would her mouth. Her eyes close for a second. The footsteps draw closer. I see my window of opportunity and slip away while she’s not looking.
It kills me to pull away from the last moment I want to remember. The droplets of water run over us as I try to hold on to the fleeting memory. This is what I want to feel like when I die. But I don’t want to remember her tears, I’d rather remember her glowing smile.
I spin around and kick the first undead band geek to reach me. He slams into my foot, knocking himself backwards into his cohort. They both fall but won’t be down for long. Behind me there’s footsteps and crying, two distinctly different sets of tears. Marty will take care of her for me, he’s been telling me to talk to her since day one, even feeding me lines, none of which were appropriate to utter in the presence of a woman.
I lower the power saw onto the first kneecap I come to. My hands want to let go and end all this madness. I’m not a violent person, I don’t even kill spiders, I’d rather put them back outside where they came from.
I fight every instinct to pull the saw away from the boy who sits in front of me in geometry. It tears through his bones and tendons, not stopping until it meets resistance from the tiles below. I yank back and press it to his other knee. Within seconds both legs are detached. I know it won’t stop him from trying to kill me but at least it will hinder his ability to move.
By now the girl is back to her feet. I think it’s Melinda, a senior, graduating in a couple months. I’m pretty sure she’s dating one of the football players. If it is her, Doug’s had a crush on her for a while, he actually kissed her at this party but I have a feeling she was too wasted to remember. It’s hard to tell if it’s her or not, half her face has been gnawed off. If I didn’t know better, I’d blame it on Doug. I could so see Zombie Doug munching on her cheek.
I hold the spinning blade in front of me as she comes in for a meal. Her mouth crashes right into it. I have to look away. She was so beautiful. I can’t bear to see her eyeball hanging from its socket, flopping around, smacking off her exposed cheekbone as I reluctantly slice through her jaw. Even the sound of it makes me want to hurl or pass out. What did any of us do to deserve this? What the hell did we do? Just let me die already!
The lower portion of Melinda’s mouth bounces off my shoe and lands on the floor. I can’t look. I can’t do it. So I kick her away and she falls over the kid from math class. I helped him with his homework last week. He bought me nachos at lunch to thank me.
I don’t open my eyes until I’ve turned around, unable to look at the destruction I’ve caused. I can’t watch Brian crawl away from his own legs. I can’t look at the mouth Doug dreamt of kissing again, laying on the floor in a stream of blood. I certainly don’t want to see what’s going on with her tongue, or her remaining hazel eye. It’s too much for me. I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to picture Caylee standing in front of me, smiling. I want to remember her finger on my lips. Now all I can see are Brian’s stupid stumps and Melinda’s desecrated face. I’m not even sure it is Melinda.
Inhale.
Exhale.
I press down on the button and watch the blade spin.
I’m ready.
If I jam it into my throat full force, I’m hoping it’ll kill me instantly. At this point, I’d rather be one of them. They don’t feel. They don’t care. It’s almost preferential to this. I’m stuck in a bad dream with no chance of waking up. They say that if you die in a dream, you die in real life. Your mind believes it and tells your body to shut down. I’m ready to end this nightmare. I don’t want to be awake anymore.
A hand grabs my ankle. I don’t know which of them it is, No Mouth or No Legs. Does it matter? I stomp down. Bones crunch beneath my size thirteen. Fine, it’s a ten and a half, close enough. Without bothering to look, I walk away. I don’t run. I don’t quicken my pace. I walk across the blood coated tiles, between body parts where my classmates have been massacred as the water from the sprinklers tries unsuccessfully to wash away nature’s mistake.
I walk as far as the yellow extension cord will allow. So this is how the Noah Britton story comes to an end. I’m doing it. It’s not even a choice anymore. Whether I’m infected or not, I can’t live like this. I don’t think I want to. The things I’ve seen. The things I’ve done. I can’t see anything except death. Death in the most gruesome of ways. The smells. The sounds. I can’t. I can’t see anything else. I can’t go on any longer. They need me, I get that, I really do. They need me to save them because no one else will but I can’t do this anymore.
The sick and twisted soundtrack to my death plays in the background. The most pleasant of the sounds is the constant howl of the fire alarm. Screams come from every direction. I hear the saw spinning but there’s more than that now. Echoes of horrifying memories come along with it. I hear it cutting through her jawbone. His knees. I hear Caylee’s tears. Marty’s tears. Paul’s. My heart racing in my chest. My tears. I hear so much more than I want to. The cries, the groaning, the slurping of blood and ripping of flesh. Shaun Mayer rocking back and forth mumbling to himself. Mr. Adams scrubbing their blood from his arm until he hit bone. Felecia Harmon begging for help.
She’s still crying out for someone to rescue her. She’s not the only one. They’re screaming all over the place. Scream after scream.
I’m sorry.
I can’t do this.
CHAPTER 10
God damn it. I can’t do this.
They need me. With my final minutes I can make a difference.
My finger slides off the trigger and the high pitch squeal of the blade lowers in frequency. I hope that with it, the sounds stuck on repeat in my head will fade. They don’t. If anything, they grow louder.
I put down the saw and open the toolbox Marty left for me. My eyes stop on the blowtorch. It feels full. I may not have much life left in me but with what little I do have I plan on saving those around me. The blue flame hums in my hand. Even over the sound of the fire alarm I can hear it, feel it reverberate through my wet fingers. It’s time to kill some zombies. It’s time to save some lives.
I jog down the hall towards the sound of the nearest commotion. The groaning reminds me of feeding time at the lion cages as what must be twenty of them stand huddled together, looking up at the ceiling. They should have smelled me by now but they don’t seem to notice my presence.
A nearby door sits ajar. It wasn’t open last time I walked by. On second thought, it’s not open, it’s broken. How many hungry zombies does it take to break down a door? No, that wasn’t the start of a bad joke, I’m serious. Dead serious. Okay, now that was a bad joke.
I peek inside the room while tiptoe-ing by, the flame still burning bright. The windows are smashed to pieces. I can’t decide if someone threw zombies out, or if humans jumped. I hope it’s not the latter but something tells me if I were to glance over the edge, I’d find a pile of lifeless bodies. Felecia’s voice is coming from the ledge above the courtyard. How the hell is that bitch still alive?
Half eaten carcasses litter the floor. They attack like malnourished carnivores, eating everything but the bones. I think I have this figured out. After they bite a person it takes maybe a minute to turn, the person rises and the zombies lose interest, zombie blood must not be as appetizing. But if the person is eaten to a point where there’s nothing left, it stays dead. When multiple zombies feed on one human, they devour it too quickly for the person to un-die.
This is from the lab. I know it is. This is what Kristen’s mother was working on. Biochemical warfare. Medical cures my ass. They deny it up and down but the rumors have run rampant since the escaped mice incident last year. Intentional or not, this is man-made. It’s more than a feeling in my gut. Sometimes you just know. I know.
I grab the can of disinfectant off the teacher’s desk and give it a quick squirt. If mankind survives this nightmare, they’ll never be able to get the smell of human remains out of this building. For our future generation’s sake, I hope they tear this place down and start again. Maybe next time they should use steel doors and bulletproof plexiglass and surround the place with a flaming moat of gasoline, maybe that’ll keep them out.
With my canister of death spray in one hand, blowtorch in the other, I make my way towards the cluster of corpses. Oddly enough, there’s a desk in the middle of their little huddle, arms all outstretched towards the ceiling, heads tilted up. All I can think is ‘praise the lord’. If only there were one to save us.
They don’t smell me coming or notice me standing here until I’m spraying them with the disinfectant. Now I see what they’re looking at, Tyrone and Darius are up there, their heads popping out of one of the vents. They’re alive. I thought the black guys died first in these types of situations.
“Noah, up here. Is that really
you?”
“It’s me. Get back in the vent, hurry.” They look surprised to see me, maybe more surprised that there’s blood all over me yet I’m still human. If they only knew.
Their heads disappear a second later. By now, most of the zombies have spotted me. With one last squirt, I step back and turn the crackling flame on them, trying not to look at faces. I don’t want to know who I’m about to charbroil. It’s better if we keep this anonymous.
They go up in flames while I back away. The sprinklers aren’t enough to put them out but I’m ready to spray again if I have to. I just need to be careful not to spray too much and cause an explosion. With Tyrone and Darius right above the flames, they’d get burned as well. It makes sense why the desk would be in the middle of the hall, they must have climbed up into the vent to escape. Not a bad idea, except for the fact that Darius is claustrophobic. And scared of heights. And blood makes him squeamish. Oh and he’s also kind of scared of girls which I understand doesn’t have any bearing on our current situation but it’s just another fun piece of trivia we like to give him crap about.
The band of zombies don’t go down as fast as I’d hoped but one by one, their charred bodies collapse to the floor. The stench has been burnt into my nose hairs, making me never want to eat again. I hope that sentiment carries over if I turn, that I’ll still be too sick to my stomach to devour some poor human.
The foul odor of melting flesh makes my eyes sting. I can’t decide if it smells more like burning rubber or rotten maggot-infested porkchops being roasted too quickly over an open flame. Either way, it makes my skin crawl. Humans, the other other white meat.
They’re still moving. Their bodies are too frail to pose any real threat but it’s not stopping them. The sprinklers have put out most of the flames but I can’t bring myself to look down while stepping over the blackened remains of this high school zombie Auschwitz.
Blood Type Infected (Book 1): No Future For Man Page 6