“So you two get to watch. And if three courses are enough, maybe you even get a chance to run.”
She nibbled Morgan’s earlobe but drew no blood.
“But you taste so sweet. Maybe I’ll save you for dessert.”
I saw Tammy smile. Her teeth were suddenly brown. How had I not seen it before? Was it some kind of zombie mind trick? Or had the light just been that bad in her dorm room?
Tammy pushed Morgan to her knees and took a chunk of her long dark hair in her gray hands.
Tammy was turning. No question about it. I remembered the other zombies fleeing when she waved them off with the bit of bark. Was it some kind of initiation courtesy? Did they understand enough to want her to just enjoy her first meal?
Or was it something else?
“Which one ?” Tammy demanded as she pulled Morgan off the floor by her hair. Tammy looked at Neal.
“That one seems close to his expiration date. Maybe I should sample him before he spoils ?”
Morgan cried out and tried to protest. Tammy twisted her around and hit her face hard.
“Leave her alone!” Neal said.
Tammy kicked Morgan into the corner and approached Neal and Lana with a look that meant lunch.
“Sure,” Tammy said. “For now. Come on. I’m really hungry.”
Lana held Neal where he stood. I found the courage to take a place at Neal’s other side. Again I glanced at Gabby’s body on the bed. I wasn’t about to fail another friend.
“Prof, we can take her.”
Tammy laughed. It sounded like burnt rice being forced down a garbage disposal.
“You ? Come on, kid. You can barely run.”
I rammed my body against hers and forgot the threat of her teeth. I had her on her back and saw a throw pillow that had left its proper home, and I stuffed it into her mouth. Tammy bit down and shook her head in every direction. She managed to spit the pillow out and sprayed bits of cotton stuffing in my face. When I could see her teeth again, I got back on my feet. Morgan whimpered as she looked up at me. I grabbed her wrist and started to pull her back to the others. But Tammy recovered and caught Morgan by her ankles. All three of us struggled to get Morgan free. We’d be able to take Tammy. Even if she was oozing, she was small and---
A quick smack of her hand across all of our faces at once sent us flying. I recovered in time to see Tammy lift Morgan up. She had her brown teeth poised against Morgan’s neck.
“So I should start with her ? Your funeral, guys.”
She was ready to bite.
“No!” Neal cried.
The sound had just left his throat when a shot rang out. Tammy’s head exploded and was separated from her head. What was left of the head rolled towards me, and I inched away from it. I looked up and saw Tom fire the gun again into Tammy’s heaving chest. She stopped moving, and I was finally able to breathe.
Morgan hurried away from her dead, really dead captor and found her way to Neal’s waiting arms. He barely had her close when Lana intervened.
“What happened? What… how…?”
I was on Lana’s wavelength, and I joined her at Morgan’s trembling side.
“I don’t know!” Morgan screamed. “I saw the cuts. The bites ! I started to ask her about them, and she… she… she just changed !”
Morgan was beyond hysterical as Neal held her. Tom had made his way down to us.
“You’re welcome,” he said.
Tammy changed. And with her, everything. I took the gun from Tom and aimed it at Gabby’s corpse.
“Sam! What are you doing?”
I ignored him and waited. Tammy had survived hours, maybe days with her bites before she’d turned. It could be the same with Gabby. Or worse. But I couldn’t fire until I was---
Gabby stirred under the sheets and flashed her brown teeth at me.
“No!” Lana said. She was dead. I know she was dead. I… Sam !”
I fired without thinking and had her back against the bed. Morgan screamed as Neal dragged her away from something else I had done to Gabby. She started to move, so I shot her again. This time I aimed for her head. It came off like Tammy’s, and I took a step back as her green blood started to pool under my feet.
“It’s… it’s… there’s no rules anymore.”
Lana’s head turned from side to side as she spoke. But I knew where she was going. People turned in the seconds after death or took their time coming back or made like Tammy and dwelled in a kind of limbo as they waited for their first meal. So no one was a sure thing.
Morgan.
I walked towards her. She was on the floor in Neal’s arms as I scanned her neck. There were marks, but nothing was bleeding. So she was okay.
Lana was explaining the situation to Tom when he rushed me and took the gun. He aimed it at Morgan.
“No don’t. Please !”
Neal shielded her with his entire body and held up a single hand in surrender.
“No. She’s not bit. You don’t… you don’t have to…”
Tom seemed to roll his options around. I saw him disbelieving and terrified. But he relaxed enough for me to get the gun and pass it back to Lana. She took it in an instant and aimed it at all of us. We’d all come into contact with Gabby and Tammy. Add Morgan to the equation? Where would it stop?
“Listen up!” Lana said. “We’re leaving. She stays.”
Her gaze twisted to what was left of Gabby.
“Same goes for it.”
Lana pointed the gun at Tammy’s torso.
“And you ?” she said to Morgan. Lana handed me the gun again and beckoned Morgan to her feet.
“Come here.”
Neal helped Morgan up. The doctor in training examined her neck then swiftly stripped her of every shred of clothing. She probed her flesh in search of punctured flesh. I kept the gun aimed but turned my eyes away. I saw Tom following suit. When I was able to look back to Morgan, Neal had his hands on her shoulders. He was whispering into her ear as Lana stopped searching and helped her back into her clothes. Neal’s jacket still served as her only shirt.
“Okay,” Lana said. “She’s clean . Now let’s move.”
She was on her way up the steps, and we all quickly followed. When we reached the main room, I peered through one of the boarded windows again. Coast was still clear. It was now or never time. Tom and I pried the boards from the door. Lana led the charge with her shotgun aimed and ready to fire at anything that moved. The others were right behind her. I was almost out the door when I remembered my bat. I scanned the room. It was resting under the coffee table. I grabbed it quickly and got out of Dodge.
We moved through the stillness, all of us looking back over our shoulders at the softest sound. Whether a leaf fell or a twig snapped under someone’s foot, we thought it was the return of the zombies. What scared me more than that possibility was their absence. Where were they? And if they weren’t eating us, who was on the menu?
We passed the outer dorm and the remnants of Lana’s bomb before making our way back to gate.
“Let’s get back to the med wing,” Lana started. “Fill the others in, try to figure another way out---”
Tom cut her off. The quickness of his motion startled Lana to the point where I thought she might pump a hole into him.
“Whoa!” he cried out as he held up his hands.
“Don’t do that!” Lana ordered. “I told you I know how to use this thing.”
“Well obviously I’m not such a bad shot either.”
So true. Tammy’s head, dead or alive, hadn’t stood a chance.
“What ?” Lana hissed.
“I gotta find Leslie.”
“Tom---”
“I’m not going anywhere else until I know that she’s okay.”
Lana started to protest when I slowly slipped to her side. My best option was top tread lightly while she still had hold of the gun.
“You’re not gonna change his mind,” I whispered. Lana stared at me hard before focusing on To
m again. She shook her head and groaned.
“Fine. Whatever.” Lana crouched down and dropped the gun in the grass. She crawled through to the other side then reached back for her weapon. Tom placed his foot on her wrist.
“What the---?”
“I’m taking the gun.”
Lana jumped up and glared at him from the other side.
“Oh you are ? And what about the rest of us?”
The fact that everyone else was still literally on Tom’s side took some of the zing out of her attempt to prove a point.
Tom held his ground.
“The med wing is like what ? Couple hundred feet or something? I have to make tracks.”
“Fine,” Lana said. “Great. Do it without my gun?”
“When did it… that wasn’t your house.”
“I found it.”
“You---”
“Enough!”
Neal stepped in front of Tom and held out his hands.
“This is what’s going to happen. We’re all going back to the med wing---”
“No way!”
“We are all going back as a group. With the gun. And then…”
He patted Tom’s arm.
“Then you get it and do what you need to do.”
Tom appeared to spin the idea around in his mind three or four times before nodding and consenting. Then we all went back under the gate. We ran until the med wing finally came into view. Just like the first time, Tom knew how to gain access to the building, and I wondered if Neal had remembered that when he suggested the compromise.
All of us stood at the open door. Lana slowly handed Tom the gun.
“Good luck,” she said.
He smiled and nodded.
“Thanks.”
I watched him sling the gun over his shoulder and gripped my bat tighter. The prospect of the safe basement and food was so tempting. But I couldn’t just leave him to fight whatever was out there alone. I had to go with him.
I knew he’d do the same for me.
“Sam!”
Lana grabbed my arm as I started to follow him.
“You’re not ---”
“I have to, Lana. He’s my friend.”
“But it’s too dangerous. You can’t---”
“I’m going.”
She blinked fast and bit her lip. It hit me that there was every chance I would never see her again. Tom and I were on a suicide run. If we made it back, and that was a big if, Lana might be gone. I imagined the zombies capturing the med wing and everyone within. Nothing but a zombie would be left in the place of this girl I really liked.
I leaned forward and kissed her cheek, and I could taste a tear as it fell. She turned away from me, and Morgan took her arm. I held my hand up in a suspended wave. Then Neal stepped forward. In that instant, he looked every inch a dad.
“I am fairly certain that I’m going to regret this, but count me in.”
I expected Morgan to burst into tears on cue, but she simply took Neal’s hand and nodded.
“Then I’m coming, too.”
Guess that her almost fate as zombie meat had cried her out for the moment. Neal tagging along was one thing. Morgan could easily prove a liability. But there was no getting around it. They were now a matched set.
Lana smacked her hands together and stretched them over her head.
“Hold on a second! So I’m the only one who’s not going?”
“Looks like,” Tom said.
I was torn. Part of me wanted her to run and hide, but I liked being with her. Maybe that was selfish or something but---
She stomped forward and seized the gun from Tom.
“No way. And I’m handling this.”
So we were staying a team. It felt right. Leslie, if she was still alive, probably needed as much as help as possible. And not just Leslie. I had to think of any others who weren’t rocking long cons the way Tammy had. Heck, the future of humanity as we knew it was on the line and there was no time…
“Wait!” I cried out.
They all looked at me.
“No reason we can’t like split a can of cream corn or something before we go.”
Tom spoke for the group.
“Agreed.”
The sun was just starting to rise, so we entered the med wing in search of some kind of breakfast.
***
Lana went first, aiming the gun as she moved. I knew that she wasn’t going to kill Clay or Josh or any of the others that we had left behind. But what if they were gone and there were more Gabbys or Tammys in their place? We had to be ready for whatever we might find. I wasn’t up for another zombie surprise. A can of Del Monte peas would do.
We neared the second door. Tom was already fumbling in his pocket for his keys and his flashlight when Lana stopped and gasped. I pushed past Tom and saw what Lana did.
The second door was wide open.
“Why is it---?”
Lana stopped Morgan’s question with a raised hand, and she got quiet. I held my breath and listened for any sound of life or death from the med wing.
Nothing.
I looked over my shoulder at the others.
“Wait here,” I said.
I lifted my bat and shot Lana quick glance. She nodded, and we stepped into the med wing, ready for anything.
The place was trashed. All the salvaged equipment was smashed beyond use. Cans of food were drained and empty. I should have been more bummed at the reality that we weren’t going to get anything to eat, but I was too scared to focus on my rumbling stomach. Lana and I slowly stepped among the glass and other debris. The light was still dim, but it was on. And it revealed no one, human or zombie, hanging out among the wreckage. I could hear nothing but Lana’s breathing when there was another sound from one of the other rooms.
We turned together, and Lana pointed the gun at the noise. I was getting ready to bring my bat down on anything that moved.
“Hello?”
I recognized the voice as Clay’s. He sounded human.
But so had Tammy.
“Lana?” I whispered.
“Yeah?” Her voice was shaking.
“Keep your finger on the trigger.”
“Don’t have to tell me that twice.”
Clay appeared. He looked smaller than ever, and his glasses were broken. He was looking at us through one lens and one frame of nothing. He quickly held up his hands when he saw us.
“Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!” he begged. Clay sobbed as he fell to his knees.
Lana kept the gun on him.
“What happened here?” she demanded. “Where is everyone?”
Clay just kept crying. Snot dripped from his nose like milky strands of rope.
“I… I don’t…”
I slammed my bat into the floor. Clay flinched and started to crawl away from me. I brought the bat down again.
“Don’t move!” I ordered.
Clay stopped and started offering tons of apologies. I wasn’t interested in them. I wanted to know what had gone down here.
“Okay, okay. Sorry. Just don’t hit me or whatever. Please !”
He screamed his last request. The sound of his voice brought the others into the room. Tom looked around the med wing. I could tell he was crushed. All his hard work to build a sanctuary was destroyed. He focused his anger on Clay and started to charge towards him. I pushed my arm against his chest to stop him from getting too close.
“What are you doing, Dude?”
“Stay away from him.”
“What?”
“We don’t know what he is.”
Clay raised his hands and shook his head from side to side.
“What? I… no ! I’m still me. You guys gotta believe me.”
“Make us,” Lana said.
Clay wiped his nose with his sleeve.
“We… we thought it was help. They were knocking on the door and they talked. Like people.”
It was understandable. I’d misjudged Tammy. But I still broug
ht the bat down again. Clay cried out as if I had actually made contact with his skull.
“Keep talking,” I said, needing more.
“Like official. Like cops or security or whatever.”
So were the zombies now taking a more human form to lure their meals out of their hiding places?
“And what?” Lana asked. “Zombies?”
“No. No they were legit. They said everyone had to go with them. Said we had to wreck the place so there wouldn’t be any evidence.”
“Evidence?” Neal asked. “Evidence of what ?”
“Of what’s going on, man! What do you think?”
I remembered Lana talking about the guarded package. It arrived mysteriously, and then people started turning. There had to be a connection. Zombies just didn’t spring up out of nowhere. Movies or books usually linked zombies to viruses. But no one had felt any sicker than usual before this all started. So there had to be another cause. The package made as much sense as anything, but I was pretty sure that zombie chaos was not intended on campus. So if something had gone wrong, it made sense that security or government types or whoever Clay was talking about would lay siege to the med wing to destroy the evidence.
But how had they gotten past the zombies?
“Then why are you still here?” Lana asked.
Clay started to laugh. I thought he was losing it and actually felt kind of bad for the guy. No doubt he had been and was still scared out his gourd. I guessed we were going to have to take him along on our journey to Leslie’s. Clay struggled to his feet and reached into his pocket. His hand reappeared, and his fingers were curled around some kind of remote control device. His tears stopped, and his face twisted into an evil smile.
“I’m waiting for you !”
It was like slow motion as he started to push a square green button.
“No! Run!”
I pushed Lana and Tom into Neal and Morgan, and we fell together just outside the second door. The place behind us exploded. The smoke was so heavy and the noise was so loud that I couldn’t hear or see anything in the moments just after the blast. For a second, I thought I was dead. Then I heard Tom coughing. I turned my head to see him on his feet. He was wiping ash and plaster from his face. I watched him peer back into the room. He got another hit of smoke in his lungs and started to cough even harder. He looked away. When our eyes met, he stumbled over to me and shook me hard.
Zombie University (The Complete Series): How I Survived the Zombie Apocalypse Page 8