I opened, ransacked, and closed drawers all around me until my fingers landed on a dishtowel. Wrapping it around my bleeding hand, I continued feeling for what I wanted. My good hand fell upon a rectangular, cardboard carton. I shook it and heard the familiar sound of wooden matches rattling against each other. I tucked the box under my arm and felt around for the bottle of oil I’d seen Jordan messing with.
The shrieks continued, chilling me to the bone. My hand was shaking as I found the glass bottle. I reached into the overhead cabinet hoping to find more. There were two additional bottles, and I took them down, pinning them against my torso with my arm. I pulled a handful of dishcloths from the drawer and turned to leave. Gingerly, I weaved my way around the obstacle course of chairs, sewing machines, and other furniture. I had to be careful not to fall and break the glass containers of cooking oil. I bumped into chairs and desks as I went but finally found the door. I traced my steps back toward Matt and Harley.
“Here!” I called out to them. “I need your help.” As I reached them, I handed one of the soon-to-be incendiary devices to each. “I need you to screw the caps off these bottles and help me stuff a dishcloth through the mouth. It needs to go down into the oil on the inside to make a good wick. Leave a few inches hanging out.”
“What are you talking about?” Harley cried.
“Where did you learn how to make a Molotov Cocktail?” Matt asked. I could hear the disbelief in his voice. “And what did you do to your hand?”
“My dad,” I answered, as I struggled to stuff the rag into the bottle. “Small accident.” A dark stain of blood was oozing through the fabric I’d wrapped around my hand.
“I can’t get the cloth through the opening, Casey. The dishcloths are too bulky. They won’t fit!” Harley’s voice cracked.
I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the knife. “Here, cut it into strips,” I said. “Don’t cut them too thin though, they should fit tight at the bottles’ necks. Hurry!”
Harley half cut, half ripped the material, and we stuffed the strips into the bottles, sloshing oil onto the sides. “Careful,” I warned. “This is all the cooking oil we have.” I pulled the box of matches from under my arm, withdrew several wooden sticks, and handed some to each. “Come on,” I cried. “We’ve got to+- help Jordan and get Mr. Woods back in here.”
“Wh-what about that Robert guy?” Harley asked.
“Yeah, him too,” I answered, “if he’s still alive.”
I led them out the door, and we hurried to Jordan’s side. “Matt, give Harley your torch and help me with Jordan.”
Matt handed the bottle to Harley
Jordan was holding his leg. When I reached him, his face was twisted in a grimace of pain. “Jordan, you’ve got to get up.”
“I can’t stand up,” he said. “I can’t put any weight on my foot. It might be broken,” he said.
A piercing wail sounded in the street and reverberated off the buildings. “Listen to me Jordan. Do you hear that? If you don’t help us get you inside, you’re going to die. Now get up!” Matt and I forced Jordan to his feet, and he cried out with pain.”
Mr. Woods cried out. “What the hell?”
I turned and saw him standing there over Robert’s body, what was left of it. Clearly, dropping the trunk had jarred the guns inside, causing an accidental discharge. From the looks of it, he’d been hit with multiple rounds. Pieces of his corpse were scattered across the lawn, and Woods’s flashlight illuminated the splay. I followed Woods’s gaze, and there, coming through the grass was a mass of black figures. I peered at Matt, who was struggling under the weight of Jordan’s body. He was more than six feet of lean muscle compared to Matt’s considerably smaller frame. They were moving far too slowly.
“Harley,” I called to her. My voice trembled. “Give me the bottles, and help Matt.”
“Why? What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Don’t ask questions, just do it. You’ve got to get him inside, now!”
Harley rushed to my side and held out the bottles for me to take. One slipped out of her hand and fell onto the walkway.
“Damn it!” I yelled. I dropped to my knees and felt around for the torch. “Please don’t be broken. Please don’t be cracked,” I muttered as I groped. “God, Harley! You have to be more careful.”
“What the heck, Casey? Why are you yelling at me?” she cried.
My hand landed on the fallen bottle, and I snatched it up, holding it against my body with my otherwise useless hand. Suddenly, the beam illuminating the figures shifted away, and I could no longer see them. What was Woods doing? I rotated and saw that he was shining the light in another direction, and its flood fell upon another group of dark figures moving toward us. Harley shifted in the direction I was looking and screamed.
“Harley,” I uttered, trying to keep my voice calm, “Go help Matt and Jordan. I’ll fend them off. Go!”
Harley scrambled backward and fell over her own feet. She cried out in pain.
“Harley?” I cried out, “What was that? Are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” she wailed. “I’ve hurt my ankle.”
“Keep moving!” I said, fighting every impulse I had that made me want to scream at her, to make her understand what was coming. I couldn’t though. I knew if I did, she might withdraw into a quivering mess. We had no time for that. “That’s right.” I kept my tone urgent but encouraging. “You can do it. Go as fast as you can. Fight through the pain.”
I returned my attention to Woods. He seemed frozen in the reflected beam of his flashlight. “Mr. Woods,” I called. He just stood there, sweeping the light back and forth. “Mr. Woods!” I screamed again. “We need your help! You’ve got to help us get Jordan back into the building. Come on!” He seemed oblivious to my shouts.
He was much farther out into the yard than I was, and I knew the zombies would be upon him soon if he didn’t move. I checked back and saw Harley had made it to Matt, and they were both slowly lumbering toward the door.
Woods’s beam shined across the yard, back and forth, and the zombies continued lumbering forward. I could see some of their features coming into view. The faint odor of decaying flesh drifted through the air. My stomach retched, but I willed myself to blot out the stench. The realization hit me that if I didn’t get to Mr. Woods, he was going to die. “Mr. Woods!” I screamed again.
He seemed to be unaware of my presence. Was he in shock? Had seeing Roberts body blown to pieces pushed him into some kind of psychotic break? I clutched the cocktails against my body and charged forward. I reached Mr. Woods and saw that the creatures continued moving toward us. They moved with slow, jerking motions, seemingly dragging themselves forward. Some appeared to bump into each other without being aware of it as they moved. I grabbed Woods’s arm. “Mr. Woods!” I spoke in a stern but calm voice. “Mr. Woods, we’ve got to go inside.
He turned and looked at me. I could tell by the look on his face he wasn’t himself. The danger we were in didn’t seem to register with him. I tugged on his arm, and he took a step in my direction. “That’s right,” I coaxed. “Walk faster, this way.” He moved with me, coming back toward the building. “You’re doing great. Come on.”
The rattle of phlegm gurgling in dying lungs could be heard carrying on the wind. It was the sound of possibly a hundred walking corpses breathing death into the night. Every fiber in my body, every nerve, every cell screamed in terror, and I fought the urge to turn and run and leave Mr. Woods where he stood.
“Okay, I need you to move fast, Mr. Woods,” I told him. You can do this.”
His pace quickened, and we had made it to the edge of the alcove. I glanced back and saw Harley and Matt struggling to pull Jordan through the door. “That’s right, Mr. Woods. Do you think you can run with me? Can you run and help me get Jordan inside?” His pace quickened, but he still wasn’t moving fast enough. I knew I had to take a chance and let go of his arm in order to help Matt and Harley. I loosened my grip on his arm as we
moved, and I continued talking him through it. I let go, and he continued to follow me.
“Okay, keep walking,” I urged him. “You can do this.” I took several steps backward and then turned to help Harley and Matt get Jordan through the door. Harley held the door, and Matt backed up the steps as he grasped Jordan under the arms.
I put the cocktails down beside the walkway. I turned and grabbed Jordan’s ankles and lifted with all the strength I could manage. He screamed in pain. “Jordan, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” I hated the sound of desperation in my own voice. “I can’t help it. I have to lift your legs to get you in the door.”
“My knees, Casey! Grab my knees.”
Of course, what was I thinking? I lowered his feet to the ground and then stepped between his knees. I bent down and wrapped my arms around the fuller part of his thighs and pulled up, hoisting his knees over my hips. Using the full force of my leg muscles, I was able to lift him over the threshold and push him inside.
As I lowered Jordan onto the floor, Mr. Woods’s voice rang out in the darkness. “I have to get Robert!” he yelled. My gaze met Matt’s and Jordan’s, and their expressions confirmed what we were all thinking; Mr. Woods had gone mad.
I turned and saw the school safety officer walking with a heavy-footed gait back toward where Robert’s corpse was scattered in the grass. “Harley, get inside!” I called. “Be ready to bar the door.”
I went back down the walkway and found the bottles of oil and the matches. I took them in my arms and ran toward Woods. “Stop! Mr. Woods, you can’t get Robert. He’s dead. Please stop!” I reached Mr. Woods and pulled his arm. He didn’t stop walking. “Hey! I screamed at him. You have to get inside!”
He shined his light toward where Robert’s remains were scattered. Dark figures were crawling on the ground, and the sickening realization struck me that they were eating pieces of Robert’s body.
“Hey! Stop that!” Mr. Woods yelled.
“Oh my God, Mr. Woods. Shut up! Don’t yell at them!”
“You kids are in so much trouble!” he yelled.
Some of the figures on the ground seemed to stop what they were doing. They looked at Mr. Woods. A few of them stood up and began moving toward us.
“Oh, Lord! What am I going to do?” I put two of the bottles down and struck a match to light the wick in the remaining bottle. I noticed some oil had seeped out of the bottle, and the cloth was slippery. It ignited with a flash, and I threw it in the direction of the closest zombies. “Mr. Woods! Come with me” I screamed. “We’ve got to get inside.”
To my horror, he turned and looked at me with rage in his eyes. “I told them to keep you locked away,” he said. He pushed me backward, and I stumbled. As I hit the ground, the cocktail exploded. Screams erupted in the direction of the blast. I could feel the heat from the flames as I sat up and looked. Several of the zombies were on fire. They writhed and screamed, falling against others in their midst and setting them afire. Mr. Woods stood looking at them.
“Come on! I screamed! If you don’t get inside, I’m leaving you here! Do you hear me? I will leave you here!” I ran to his side, grabbed his shoulder, and shook him. I pointed at the zombies who were still moving toward us. “They will kill you if you don’t come inside with me now!” He stood like a statue, gazing into a walking wall from Hell.
I lit the fuse of the second cocktail and hurled it into the advancing horde. It exploded within seconds. Flames engulfed the throng. Some fell to the ground and curled in agony. Others continued to move toward us as if unaware they were burning.
Mr. Woods’s stony silence told me I wouldn’t be able to save him. If he was going to survive, he would have to save himself. I lit the final cocktail and flung it toward the closest group of zombies. The flames shot out in several directions and spread rapidly through the throng. “This is it, Mr. Woods. You come with me now, or it’s over! They’ll kill you!” I grabbed his arm again and pulled. He turned and glared at me and backhanded me.
I hit the ground hard, electric shocks shot through my neck, and I saw sparks before my eyes that I knew couldn’t be real. I looked up and saw Mr. Wood walking toward the zombies.
“You kids need to learn the rules!” he yelled. “I’ve had it with you!”
I watched, stunned, as he yelled at them, flailing his arms as if he were addressing a group of unruly students. The zombies moved closer to him, several of them in flames.
I felt strong arms grabbing me and pulling me backward. I looked up and into the faces of two men I recognized from the gym.
“It’s too late for him now,” one of them said to me. “You did all you could.”
They pulled me back into the building, and Matt and Harley pulled the door closed. They positioned the volleyball poles as they’d been before, with the steel bars crisscrossed and braced against the doorjambs. Inside the doors, I watched in horror as the throng of zombies surrounded Mr. Woods. The flames were spreading. The undead writhed in the fire; ungodly wails filled the air.
“My God,” I heard myself saying. “Is this the end for all of us?”
Chapter 6
ONE MONTH LATER
From where I stood on the rooftop of Carver High School, Bronson looked dead. I didn’t have to go outside the wall to confirm that. The late morning sun cast short, shadowy fingers like marker flags pinpointing the locations of his parts. I lifted my sunglasses and squinted to home in on the damage. He hadn’t made it far past the front gate before being attacked. The scene suggested he’d been swarmed upon by a large group. A sizable, discoid stain darkened the blacktop where the apparent attack occurred, a blood-drenched denim clump near its center. Other bits of clothing and fragments I didn’t want to identify were strewn in several directions for maybe 60 yards. Tears didn’t come anymore, and my stomach no longer heaved in revulsion at such things.
A broken-down school bus sat vacant in the middle of the street a few yards from what was left of the attack site. If only Bronson could have made it that far, he might have been able to barricade himself inside the vehicle until we could get him back inside the gate. It was a shame. I didn’t know him; not well anyway. We were both stuck in detention with five other students on the day of the explosion—the day everything changed.
I hadn’t made an effort to get to know Bronson or many of the others in our camp. I knew most people’s names but not much more than that. We weren’t friends. We supported each other mostly because our survival depended on it. Still, seeing my detention mate’s remains out there left me hollow inside. He’d been annoying, but harmless. A stoner. If I’d been asked to deliver his eulogy, that’s all I would be able to say. It made me not sad, but devoid of feeling. That was as close to sad as I could get these days. With each death, it felt like we were losing a little bit more of whatever it was that made us human. I sensed there wasn’t much of it left in me.
“Do you see him, Casey?” Harley called out from the ground, three stories below. I squinted in the sun’s glare.
“Yeah,” I yelled back. “He made it a few yards from the front gate.” I withdrew the wire-bound notepad and pen from my jeans and flipped past the comments and sketches we’d been making over the last month or so. We’d been conducting a daily inspection of the outer walls and gate to ensure no damage was sustained from the zombie onslaught each night. The notes served as observation logs and helped us learn more about their behavior based on what changed over time. Finding a fresh page, I sketched out a rough diagram of the area, marking the body part splay with small arrows.
I slipped the pad and pen into my waistband and picked up the shared patrol rifle from where I’d laid it nearby. It was the only weapon we’d managed to salvage from the soldiers’ supply. Sliding the carrying strap over my arm, I looped it over my head and positioned it across my chest and midriff, bandolier style, to secure the firearm across my back. Its weight was a comforting reassurance. I walked toward the corner of the roof toward the fire escape. It grated and groaned against
the brick and mortar as I grasped its railing. Swinging my leg over the building ledge, I mounted the short ladder and began to climb down. The rungs felt gritty and warm from the morning sun. It felt good against my palms as I descended to the platform below. The rest of the rust-flaked structure consisted of stairs and landings, and it reverberated with the weight of my hurried steps. Harley waited at the foot of the last flight at the edge of the parking lot. She’d taken to wearing the Stetson wherever she went. I wasn’t sure why it seemed to comfort her, whether it reminded her of her ex-boyfriend or her hometown back in Texas. I didn’t ask. If she wanted me to know, she’d tell me.
The black hat tipped downward as Harley stared at her boots, another remnant of her Lone Star past. She stabbed her toe into a mass of crabgrass poking through a crack. “Why did he have to do it?” she asked in a rhetorical tone, her voice breaking with emotion.
“Why do any of them do it?” I asked. Bronson was the ninth person who lost it and tried to run from the high school, and he was the ninth person to die.
“You gonna’ tell the others what happened?” Harley’s eyebrows formed teepees over her questioning expression.
“Have to, I guess.” My shoulders shrugged. “They’re going to see him when we go out today.”
Harley nodded and gnawed at a chapped spot on her lower lip.
“Stop that,” I said. “It might get—”
“Yeah, infected. I know,” she answered, cutting me off. “I just hate it that we have to explain this. It’s worse every time.”
“I hate it too,” I admitted. Harley was nervous. We all were. We had been sheltering in the school for a month, our supplies were running low, and tension was thick in the air. It seemed that whenever someone tried to escape, it set off a series of copycat attempts. In the coming days we would need to be watchful because runaways weren’t just putting themselves at risk, but the rest of us as well. No one knew for sure if the others ran with an actual escape plan or if they’d just given up and made suicide runs.
Viral Series (Book 1): Viral Dawn [Extended Edition] Page 14