She did the only thing she could think to do: she pushed and kicked at the nurse’s body until it cleared the door, closing the zombie into the stairwell.
#
Shin looked at his watch lunch had come and gone many hours ago. It was dinner time and the sun was fast moving towards the horizon. Much of the land he’d covered was already in shade. Like the daylight, Shin’s mood was growing dim. He had looked everywhere he could think of on the walled grounds of the academy. From the fire watchtower that was a frequent student trysting spot to the guard shacks on both the front and back campus entrances to the beginning construction of the astronomy tower to the garden shed at the farthest point of the wall where he sat now.
If Kimberly was still on campus she was well hidden…and most likely dead. Shin could not imagine a woman as forthright as the dorm mistress fleeing at the first sign of danger. The more plausible answer was that Professor Leeds murdered her and got creative with disposing of her body. Still, he had had to check out here because Kimberly had once mentioned coming to this garden shed from time to time to get away from everyone.
The only buildings he hadn’t thoroughly searched were the chapel and the gymnasium. Tomorrow he would search the former and figure out a way to examine the latter from the roof. It was still possible that Mrs. Hood had entered the gymnasium in hopes of rescuing a student or in determination of killing the zombies therein. Shin did not want to think about having accidentally locked the dorm mistress in the building with zombies.
He raised his hand to the sky, putting it under the sun, and saw that the bottom edge of his hand touched the horizon line. About an hour before sunset. He wouldn’t make it to the campus until after that.
Suddenly the hair rose on the back of Shin’s neck. He looked in the direction of the campus and listened hard. He didn’t hear anything but he was so far from campus that he shouldn’t hear anything. Still, it felt as if he had heard something…a cry for help? He didn’t know. All he knew was that he needed to get back to campus.
Something was very wrong.
Fourteen
Joe rushed in and caught Heather as she fell. She cried out as he jostled the arrow that punctured her low on the right side of her stomach. He looked up at the open closet and saw the small round opening where the arrow shot out next to a door inset in the closet wall.
“Holy crap!” Nicholas moved in to help hold Heather up.
Heather continued to look down at the shaft protruding from the side her abdomen. “It’s an arrow.”
Joe reached towards the missile but Rachel’s sharp command, “Don’t touch it!” stopped him cold. Rachel gestured to the boys, “Put her on the floor and don’t touch that arrow.” She knelt next to her bleeding friend, putting her backpack to the side. “Well, shit. Either she’s going to be very lucky or very dead and soon. I need to know what the head of the arrow looks like. See if you two can find out.”
Heather swore quietly under her breath.
Nicholas walked over to the closet and looked in. He kept to the left of the open hole. The closet looked like it should hold a washer and dryer set. Instead, it had a couple of slender shelves on either side and the inset door. He looked at the floor and scanned it tile by square tile until he saw the seamed crack. “Okay guys, I’m about to do something stupid. Maybe you want to move out of here.”
Rachel shook her head. “Can’t. Don’t want to move Heather.”
“I think I found a pressure plate.”
“I got an idea.” Joe jumped up, left the bathroom, and returned with a bulletproof vest, a heavy one filled with ceramic plates. He handed it to Nicholas without comment.
“Okay,” Nicholas said, “here’s the deal. Rachel, you stay flat next to Heather. Joe, you get to the other side of the closet and touch that tile right there when I say ‘Go.’ I’ll hold this up to catch the next arrow. Heather, you stay put.”
“I’ve got a fucking arrow in me! I’m not going anywhere.”
Nicholas grinned at her. “There we go, anger to keep the shock at bay.” He held the vest about a foot away from the hole. “Go.”
Joe pressed the tile. They all heard a click like the one they heard before. An arrow shot out of the hole, bounced against one of the plates in the bulletproof vest, and clattered to the side.
Rachel grabbed the arrow as it stopped moving and held it up. “It’s a crossbow bolt. Smooth head. Damn lucky for you.” She looked down at Heather. “I think you’re going to live. You may not enjoy it but there you go.”
Rachel discarded the other bolt, then dug through her backpack for the first aid kit. “This is going to suck but…” She got out the tools she needed.
“Just get it out of me!” Heather’s snarl was weak but fierce. “Do what you need to do.”
“All right.” Rachel reached over and pulled the bolt from Heather’s side in a smooth motion. She covered the wound with sterile gauze and medical tape.
Heather yelped, then relaxed as Rachel pulled her hands away. She laid there for a moment, panting softly, getting the pain under control before she asked, “Can we move me to someplace not freezing?”
Rachel nodded. “Yeah. The couch will be fine.” She left the bathroom, Joe and Nicholas stepped in and scooped Heather up in a modified basket seat. By the time they got her to the romper room Rachel had blankets waiting. She also had a book in hand. She raised it up. “When There Are No Doctors. I saw it on the shelf. I thought it might be a good book to look through right now. I’m hoping the bolt didn’t hit any vital organs.”
“Sounds like a plan. Let me know if you need anything. Right now, me and Nicholas need to see if we can run that trap out of ammo and then get into whatever is behind that door.” He leaned down and kissed Heather on the forehead.
Heather smiled up at him. “But I found it.”
“The only thing I want you finding with your body is me. You stay put.”
The two of them grinned at each other until Rachel shooed him away. “Go be manly and stuff. But let me know before you open that door. There might be zombies behind it.” Rachel pulled her field hockey stick close.
#
“Jeff!” Julie yelled as she sprinted from Bonny Hall towards the Commons. She knew Shin was out looking for Mrs. Hood and Professor Leeds. Of the people she thought she could count on, it was Jeff. He was a natural leader and he’d know what to do. “Jeff!” she yelled again as she burst through the front door of the Commons. “Zombies, Jeff!”
Jeff came out of the kitchen, smelling of pine cleaner. He had his bat in hand. “Where? Here? Where?”
“Bonny Hall. They’re in the dorm.” Julie collapsed to her knees and started crying. “Nurse Krenshaw…oh God.”
“But they’re not here? They’re not outside?” When Julie didn’t answer Jeff hurried to her side and pulled her up by the arm. “Just in Bonny Hall? Nowhere else?”
Julie shook her head. “I don’t think so. I didn’t see anyone else.”
He let go of her arm. “Start at the beginning.” Without waiting to see if she would follow him he returned to the kitchen. Once inside he finished up the task he was on, putting away cleaning supplies.
Julie stared after him for a moment and pawed at her tears. She grimaced when she realized that she’d spread some of Nurse Krenshaw’s blood on her cheek. With no napkins in sight she wiped her hand on her jeans, then wiped at the blood on her face before she followed Jeff into the kitchen.
“I don’t know what happened. I heard Nurse Krenshaw call for help and saw that she’d fallen. She was in the doorway of the stairwell. I thought she’d just had a bad fall. But when I got there Shane was behind her. He was a zombie. He was eating her leg.”
Jeff did not look at her as he put the cleaner away and wiped his hands clean with a dish rag. “What then?”
Julie hesitated. “I kicked her body back into the stairwell and ran the other way.” She kept her gaze on the tiled floor as she spoke. “
That’s it. Shane’s a zombie. I guess Nurse Krenshaw’s one too, now.”
“It didn’t follow you out?”
“No.” Julie glanced up at Jeff.
“Ron! No!” Ron, who had crept up behind Julie, wrapped an arm about her neck and put a 9mm Smith and Wesson pistol to her head. Jeff knew that pistol. It was a twin to the one he had on him. The two of them used to go target shooting all the time. Jeff put his hand in his pocket and stroked the comforting weight of the gun, then clicked the safety to off. “Don’t do it.”
“Why not?” Ron tightened his grip on her throat. “She’s infected. The blood. Don’t you see it? If Krenshaw was dead, then the blood’s infected. She’s dead anyway.”
“No. No.” Julie squeaked. “She wasn’t dead until after I touched her. Jeff, please!”
The plea sounded so much like his sister, Jeff had his pistol out and pointed at Ron before he realized he was going to do it. “Let her go.”
Ron stared at Jeff, first with surprise, then with the wounded look of the betrayed. “But she’s infected. I’m doing this to save us.”
“I’m not.” Julie sobbed. “I swear I’m not. The blood, she was alive when I touched it. He bit her after—”
Her words were cut off as Ron tightened his hold on her neck. “I’m doing this for both of us because I have to.”
The sound of the guns firing at the same time made it look like Jeff shot both Ron and Julie at the same time. Ron dropped Julie with a bullet through her temple before he crumpled to the floor, a bullet through his forehead. Jeff rushed to them, silent tears springing to his eyes. He touched Julie’s red hair, then pulled his hand away.
They were bleeding on his clean floor. There were zombies around. Zombies were drawn to the smell of fresh blood. Jeff stood. He needed to dispose of them. He looked around the kitchen, not really thinking until his eyes fell on the walk-in freezer. It hadn’t been opened since the power went out. Most of the frozen meat had been eaten in a hurry or dried into jerky. It was a good enough spot.
Jeff’s gorge rose at the fetid smell that wafted out of the air tight room. Instead of placing both bodies neatly as he had planned, he dragged them in just far enough to allow the door to close and dropped them. Closing the freezer door behind him he vomited in the sink, silently swearing never to do that again. He cracked a window to help deal with the lingering miasma and fled to the Commons dining room.
There, he stood, feeling alone, scared, and indecisive. If Shane was a zombie it was a good bet that Aaron, Toni, and Rose were, too. Jeff realized that his poisoned broth had hurried along the inevitable. Now he wondered who was still alive. Ken and John most likely weren’t. They delivered the meal. Nurse Krenshaw wasn’t. Maybe Sophia. Maybe Pria and Maya. Shin was looking for Mrs. Hood. He shook his head. No. The girls probably weren’t still alive. It was probably nothing but zombies over there.
The only way he was going to know was to go and find out. Jeff hesitated even as his hand checked and rechecked his weapons: pistol, bat, knife, collapsible baton. What if he just locked down the doors to Bonny Hall with chain? The zombies wouldn’t be able to get out and he had all the food and water here. Those still living, who could escape, could move over to Hadfield Hall or, better yet, turn the Commons into a communal home for the winter.
Jeff nodded to himself. That was best. Lock down Bonny Hall. No one out who wasn’t smart enough to get out through the windows would get out, if anyone was left alive. At this point Jeff doubted it. He knew exactly where to get the chains and locks. At least it was something he could still do as things spiraled out of control.
#
Pria wiped sweat from her brow as she and Maya closed in on the last of the flood water in Bonny Hall’s basement. “They should give us a medal for this.” She looked at her abused hands. “Or, at least, some Neosporin.”
Standing tall and stretching her back until there was an audible pop, Maya agreed. “No kidding. I don’t think this basement’s been this clean in ages.”
“I’m starved. Shouldn’t it be time for dinner?”
Maya nodded. “Yeah. Can’t really tell in this light but my stomach says it’s time for food.”
Pria dropped her mop. “Break time…dinnertime. Whatever.” She grabbed her field hockey stick as she headed towards the stairwell at the far end of the hallway. “Coming?”
“Nah.” Maya shook her head. “I just want to get this done-done-done. Bring me back something good. I’ll finish it up, eat, and then collapse into bed.”
“Okay. I’ll get you dinner and something for our hands.”
Pria ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time. She was tired but it felt good to stretch her legs after spending the entire day mopping up the basement floor and getting rid of the flood water. The scent of peanut butter struck her as soon as she entered the first floor. Following her nose to the lobby she found a stack of napkin wrapped tortillas, packages of crackers, packages of peanuts, and a refilled water dispenser.
For a couple of minutes all Pria did was drink water and eat one of the peanut butter tortillas. It was the best damn thing she’d eaten in forever. Once the first one was gone Pria stuffed four more into the pockets of her coat. She glanced around, looked at the pile of sandwiches left, and stuffed two more into her pockets. She and Maya deserved a little extra after all the work they’d done.
Next, she went to the infirmary, looking for Nurse Krenshaw. She found the room empty. “Where is everyone?” Digging through the basket of supplies Pria found an open tube of Neosporin. She made a note to herself to tell Nurse Krenshaw she took it as she put it in her top pocket.
For a moment she debated going to back to Maya to deliver dinner. Pria shook her head. She needed to figure out where everyone was. If they were having a meeting without her and her sister she wanted to know why. Gripping her hockey stick tighter in sudden wariness and suspicion Pria walked quietly up the central stairs to the second floor. Maybe they were meeting in Toni’s room.
She opened the door, stepped into the dimly lit hallway, and froze. There were students wandering about around Toni’s door. Students who turned as one to look at the noise and at her. Students who were no longer students.
Pria didn’t wait for the zombies to vocalize or to start stumbling towards her. She turned and ran, bolting down the stairs, knowing the second flood doors opened outward and wouldn’t hold the zombies for long now that they had the scent of prey. She ran full into the front doors of Bonny Hall, gasping in pain as she rebounded against the barred doors and hit the floor hard. She scrambled to her feet and tried to open the doors again. And couldn’t.
With the zombies on their way Pria fled towards one of the side doors at the end of the hallway. She slammed it open and came face-to-face with Nurse Krenshaw. “Zomb—!”
Pria’s warning cry was cut off as Nurse Krenshaw thrust herself forward, snapping at Pria’s upraised hand. The zombie tore part of Pria’s left hand and wrist away before the girl could backpedal. She screamed and hit Nurse Krenshaw in the face as hard as she could with the hockey stick. Turning and sprinting for the other end of the hallway, Pria dodged Rose and Ken, who had already made it to the first floor.
She burst through the double doors at the end and slammed into the outer doors only to find them locked too. She shook the door and saw the chain wrapped around the outside handles. With the zombies still coming there was only one way to go: down into the basement.
Without waiting Pria continued through the heavy single door that bracketed each end of the basement hallway. As soon as she was through she threw the doorstop to keep it from easily being opened. With the door opening outward from the basement, Pria didn’t think the zombies could get through that way.
“Pria!” Maya’s shout of fear and dismay echoed in the long hallway. “What? What?”
“Get the other door. Block it. Bar it. Keep them out!” While she shouted she took her hockey stick and wedged it into the door han
dle and against the door. The zombies would have to figure how to pull the door open and have the strength to break the hockey stick if they wanted to get through.
Maya hesitated for the barest of seconds before she sprinted back the way she’d come, grabbing rope from the honey pot room, and splashed through the last of the flood waters up to the basement door. There, she tied one end of the rope to the door handle and the other end to the largest pipe. She stood there for a moment, panting. She froze as she heard something on the other side of the door. Backing quietly away Maya returned to the basement hallway.
Pria was standing there, tears flowing down her face as she held a bloody towel to her bleeding hand. “I-I got you some dinner.” She hiccupped as she spoke.
“Pria.” Maya took a couple of steps closer to her sister.
“You’re going to have to pull it out of my right pocket. I don’t want to get blood on it or you.”
“Pria.” She reached for her sister with a trembling hand.
Pria backed away. “I brought you dinner, Maya. And Neosporin. Get them from my coat. Please.” Her voice cracked on the last word.
Maya could do nothing but obey. She gingerly slid her hand into Pria’s coat pocket and pulled out two napkin wrapped sandwiches then the tube of Neosporin. “I—”
Pria cut her off with a sharp shake of her head. “Don’t. I promised Father I’d take care of you. And I’m going to. Until the end.” She paused. “Until you end me.”
Maya’s eyes grew wide and round with shock. “I can’t,” she whispered.
“You must.” Pria’s voice was tired but resolved. “I’ve been bitten. It’s the only thing you can do for me now.”
#
Jeff hurried back to the Commons, his heart full of ice. He closed the doors behind him and walked on numb feet to the kitchen…his domain…his safe haven.
Someone had still been alive in there. Someone had tried to flee through the front doors. He had heard the hit against the chained front door. The desperate shaking. Then silence. Then another hit against a side door and more desperate shaking. He hadn’t thought to bring the lock keys or bolt cutters with him. There had been no way to rectify his mistake.
The Last Days of Salton Academy Page 13