by A. Rosaria
His left leg cramped and he stumbled in the dirt, rolling sideways in pain and clamping his hands around his calf. Gritting his teeth together, he pulled his hands away. The zombies were steadily closing the distance between them. He tried to stand and fell again, crying out in pain. He could not walk until the cramp subsided. He rolled to his stomach. Clawing the dirt, he pulled himself forward, dragging his legs behind him. Between cries of pain, he cried out for help.
The moans sounded louder by the second. He was too afraid to look back. He crawled forward, expecting any second the bite that would signal his end. He kept his eyes focused on the ground, putting all of his energy in his arms to pull himself forward. Footfalls sounded ahead of him. Damn. He had been too late, so close yet too late. He lay down, unmoving and waiting to be put out of his misery. He regretted not having the chance to know Lauryn better and not seeing his family again.
“What has gotten into you, lying in the middle of the street? Get your ass up,” a man said.
Hands grabbed him and hoisted him up. He was tall and broad. The zombies were almost on their heels. The man held him up while they hasted for the open door. Yellow light basked over them, hurting his eyes, but there was nowhere else he would rather be than inside with those lights. Moving just a tad faster than the zombies, they kept out of reach.
A few steps led to the door. He would have to climb, though he could barely support his weight on his leg with his cramp still in effect. He slowed down, not sure how to manage it.
“Move!”
The man grabbed him around the waist and hoisted him up the steps. He jumped on the landing and pulled Ralph along. One zombie tripped over the step and fell; its fingers grabbed onto Ralph’s shirt as it went down, pulling Ralph with it. The man turned, raised his boot, and stomped on the zombie’s skull before it could dig its teeth into Ralph's flesh. The cracking sound sent shivers down Ralph's spine. The man grabbed him by the collar, dragged him inside, and slammed the door. He was safe for now.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Sarah sat next to Lilly, her best friend since junior high. She liked her a lot. She was shy, pretty, loyal, smart, and totally unselfish. She long ago stopped feeling guilty about also liking her for being pretty. It was a fact that girls got along better when there wasn't a huge gap in looks. Less envy and jealousy. She glanced sideways. Lilly was staring ahead, still shocked about what had happened earlier today. First, Lilly had been upset when she heard Ralph was quarantined. Ralph, yeah he was nice and all, but she never would have thought Lilly liked him. He wasn’t exactly relationship worthy, at least not in high school.
That had been in the morning; it wasn't what had completely upset her friend. What had was what had happened an hour earlier during their history test in Mr. Turner’s class. It was silly really to take a test when only seven of the twenty-five students were present. The whole high school has been drained of students. She had no idea how many were still left, but going on how many people were left in their history class, there weren’t a lot.
Mr. Turner, a teacher of retiring age, was dealing out the test. His face was flushed and he sweated a lot. She suspected he had the flu, but she was wrong. He had something else. Mr. Turner suddenly clawed at his chest, his eyes rolled back, and he collapsed. Lilly immediately rushed to him and started giving him CPR. George, a classmate, called for an ambulance, but he reached a recorded message instead, telling them that all lines were occupied. With no help coming and Lilly only able to do so much, Mr. Turner died. George went to the principal’s office to get help, but he was sent back with the message to wait for help. An hour passed and no one came for the body; it still lay there at the front of the classroom.
Mr. Turner dying was bad, but it wasn't what shocked them all and put Lilly in her current comatose state. What did do that was when one of the hazmat men walked by the door, stopped when he saw what was happening, shoved Lilly aside, and shot Mr. Turner in the head. His corpse still lies where he died in a pool of blood, covered with their jackets. The soldier told them not to leave the classroom, and since then, they had stayed inside.
“Lilly.”
No response.
“We can't stay here all day,” Jake said.
Sarah turned to face her boyfriend, who was sitting at the desk behind her. “We can't leave her behind.”
He was tall, muscular, athletic, handsome, and rugged with a square chin, blue eyes, and blond hair. The perfect picture of a man. His blue eyes focused on the back of Lilly's head. Contempt oozed out of them. He still couldn't take it that she would not drop Lilly as a friend. He wanted to be the only person in her life, which was endearing but not enough for her to cut ties with her best friend. Lilly was the only real friend she had left.
“Why can't we? She would be safe here.” He pointed at the fat kid. “Fat Tommy could watch over her. He wouldn't mind.” Jake threw his eraser against Tom's back. “You wouldn't mind, would you, fatso?”
Tom froze in his seat, ducked his head between his shoulders, and kept silent.
“I asked you a question! Fat fill your lips so that you can't move them anymore?”
Sarah didn't like or dislike Tom. He was gross and smelled, but she liked less the way Jake treated people like him. It spoiled how she felt about him. She wished instead that he was a better guy, too good for petty teasing.
“Jake, please, leave him alone.”
“Why? Are you going to protect this loser too? What are you, saint loser or something?”
“Come on, stop it. I'm on your side.”
“My side?” Jake stood up. “Sam, George, are you with me?”
The two boys stared at him, scared, and quickly nodded yes. They knew better. Sarah had seen Jake throw a fit before because someone did not agree with him. God, if he were not so good looking and popular, she would break up with him. No, not true, it was not only because he was popular and handsome that she liked him; he was sweet when they were alone. He was attentive, though not so much around people.
“Come on, guys. We'll go and find out what's going on.”
Jake held the door open for them. Anna, a short teen with rather large breasts, wanted to go with them. Jake pushed her back. “No, you girls stay here. Let us men do what we gotta do.”
He smiled at Sarah while slowly closing the door. She felt no love in that smile; he might think he was her lord, but she wasn't about to allow him to tell her what to do.
“Lilly, I'll be right back.”
Lilly nodded slightly. Progress. Hopefully she'd snap out of it soon. She gave her a quick hug and kiss, then left.
“Sarah,” Tom called after her.
Door handle in hand, she turned her head his way.
“Thank you for standing up for me.
“You know what, Tommy? You should man up and stand up for yourself.”
She slammed the door shut behind her.
The hallway was empty. Where did he go? She heard a sound come from the classroom opposite theirs. She opened the door. Two teens sat at their desks, no teacher present. A boy with wooly hair and large, thick glasses looked up from a book he was reading.
“You're not supposed to be outside.”
She closed the door, not ready to get into a discussion with a guy about why she was outside. It was none of his business. She heard muffled talking. Sarah closed the distance so she could hear. It was Jake, saying something to a man. She hurried down the hallway toward the stairs that lead to the main hall. She pressed her back against the wall, slid along it, and peeked. Jack stood on the stairs with George and Sam behind him. Below, a soldier pointed a rifle at them. This one didn't have on a hazmat suit, not even a surgical mask.
“Boys, this is your last warning. Go back to your class. This school is under quarantine; no one leaves.”
Jake backed down a step. His neck was straight and tense, and his hands were balled into fist on the ends of his arms, which were stretched at the side of his body.
“Please, listen to him,”
she mumbled softly.
The soldiers face was set in stone, his eyes ice. His hand on the rifle was steady. He meant it. They better back down. She thought about calling them, but she was afraid she would spook them, and Jake was unpredictable when she was around. He might feel slighted and not want to yield if he knew she was there.
Slowly, Jake raised his hands; his palms faced outward. “Calm down, sir.”
“Leave!”
Jake turned his back to the soldier, still holding his hands in the air, and climbed the stair. George followed him, but the Asian boy, Sam, didn't. Oh God, she thought. Sam took a step down.
“Sam,” Jake called out, “come back up.”
“He ain't gonna shoot. I'm an American citizen; I know my rights.” Sam turned to the soldier. “You won't shoot me. You took an oath to protect and serve us.”
“Boy, you better go back up there. This is martial law. You'll get shot if you take another step.”
Sam took a step. The bullet hit him in the right eye. Blood, brains, and bones blasted out the back of his head and painted the wall and stairs in red and gray. His body crumbled and rolled down the stairs.
Jake and George fled up the staircase. The soldier trailed his rifle in their direction. He would shoot again if not stopped. Frantic, she looked around for anything but found nothing she could use. Desperate, she ran to the balustrade and hung over it, screaming. The soldier, startled, shot high, riddling the wall above as Jake and George dove out of sight. The soldier swung his rifle in Sarah's direction. She threw herself back just in time; the bullets flew where she had been standing a moment earlier. She fell on her butt. Ignoring the pain, she crawled back in the hallway away from the stairs.
“Let this be warning,” the soldier yelled. “Anyone who dares show his face will be shot without warning from now on.”
Jake and George sat with their backs against the wall, eyes set wide and staring at her. They didn't look like the tough men they were when they left to find out what was going on. They looked liked the scared kids they were. She was sure that Jake now felt sorry for not listening to her.
Her heart still raced and the weight of what had happened hadn’t really registered yet. She felt as if she were to grab on to it, panic would surge. Sam had been killed. They could be next; they almost were. She forced her thoughts away. Something had to be done to prevent this from happening again.
“We have to go and tell someone what happened here,” she said.
“You go back and tell everybody,” Jake said. He had regained some color. “I don't care; I'm going back to our classroom. I'm done with this.”
“George, are you coming?” George didn't respond. “George!”
“Leave him be. Can't you see he's in shock?” she said.
“You want to be like this?” He paused, waiting for an answer he didn't get. “So be it, go fuck yourself, bitch.”
The words stung, but not as much as they would were she not numb because of what had just happened. His anger seemed insignificant.
Jake walked away, not looking back.
George sighed. “I should have never followed him out, never should have, maybe Sam would have stayed with me.” He looked at her with teary eyes. “Sam is dead. He killed him just like that. Just shot him dead.”
She grabbed his hand and pulled him up. “Come, we need to move before that soldier comes back and finishes the job.”
“Thank you, Sarah. You saved us; never expected that from you.”
Never expected that from her? Did they really think she didn't care about others?
“Just follow me.”
The first few classrooms were empty. The first they found occupied was with a single girl sitting in a corner, huddled in a ball, crying. She was shaking all over and looking around wildly. She answered their questions with sobs. Sarah asked George if he could take her to their classroom and spared the girl the details of what had happened. She must have heard the shots and that seemed to have stricken her; no need to add to that by telling her that Sam had been killed.
George was glad to comply, obviously uncomfortable with the idea of speaking to a crowd. He greedily accepted helping take the girl away and didn't offer to come back. She was left to do this alone. Whatever was happening today was beyond normal. People had to know, to prepare for whatever was coming, and not try to leave and get shot. After a few more empty rooms, she came upon one with five sophomores, all boys. They listened to her story but didn't believe her. They insisted on going to look. She barely convinced them not to, and they rejected coming with her to her classroom.
Something similar happened with the next group of eight kids, though they believed her. They thought it better to stay together in their class instead of joining people they didn't know. It amazed her how stupid people could be or how they took a serious situation so lightly. Maybe it was because they had not seen a classmate's brain blown to pieces. It was something unreal, difficult to grasp. She had trouble coping with it. The only way she knew how was to dull herself against it, making it something distant. She gulped down the fear that had accumulated at her throat. She could not afford to be led by it.
There were two rooms left. She couldn't get to every classroom in school. Downstairs there were more and the other wing past the principal’s office had a few classrooms, but she couldn't get to them without being shot at. For all she knew, the downstairs was crawling with trigger-happy, testosterone-overdosed soldiers. The two teens still sat in the room. The wooly haired one asked again what she was doing outside without permission. They seemed more sensible than the others and agreed to come over to the other classroom.
Sarah entered the classroom next to hers. Two seniors sat in a corner, kissing. She knew them. Melanie and Victor, or Mel and Vic as they liked to be called. She harrumphed. They kept going at it. Once Jake and she were like that, but that was a long time ago. A lot had changed after three years together. Could it be they had outgrown each other? No, Jake had stayed the same; he never changed and maybe never would.
“Mel! Vic!”
They ignored her and kept going at it. Lips on lips and tongues locked in a passionate struggle. She walked up to them and kicked Vic. He and Mel broke out laughing.
“Jealous much, Sarah,” Mel said.
Sarah blushed. In a way, she was, but that was beside the point.
Vic chuckled. “Stop teasing her, between her and her admirers, she has no reason to be jealous of anyone. She could have a sea of men, me excluded, naturally.”
If she wasn't blushing already, she was now. Quick to change the subject back to why she came, she said, “Didn't you hear the gunfire?”
All play left their faces and they nodded. The rooms were soundproof, but up close, gunshots could be heard.
“On and off shots have been fired and just a while ago, one was pretty close,” Vic said.
She had not heard any other shots. Had they been too busy with their own problems to be able to hear the outside problem going on? Was the world about to end or something?
Mel held on Vic tighter, worry on her face. “What happened?”
Sarah told them how Jake, George, and Sam went down to take a look and to find out what was going on and that she had followed them. “A soldier stopped them at the stairs and shot Sam.”
Vic jumped up. “Sam Wei? He's dead?”
Sarah lowered her head. She had forgotten that Sam was Vic's childhood friend; of course it would hit him hard.
“I'm sorry. I—”
Vic shoved her aside and rushed for the door. She ran after him and grabbed his arm. “Don't.”
“Let me go!” He pulled his arm free and opened the door.
“They'll shoot you too.”
His shoulders sagged. Mel ran into his arms, consoling him. He cried out.
Sarah felt like a real killjoy. They had their moment of happiness in a shitty day in the corner of this room and along she came, the harbinger of bad news. She should have left them alone in their h
appy cocoon.
“What's going on?” Mel asked.
“I...I think...sorry, guys, I don't really know. Come with me. Maybe with everybody together we can figure out what's happening.”
“Yeah, that might be for the best,” Vic said. “Could you go ahead; we'll join you later.”
She wanted to protest but thought better of it. They had to cope first with what had happened before they joined the others. She left them standing, embracing each other.
CHAPTER NINE
Sarah entered the classroom to the sound of brawling. Jake stood over George who had a hand clasped over his cheek.
“Leave him alone,” Tommy said.
Slowly, Jake turned to face him. “What did you say? Tell it to my face, you fat piece of trash.”
“I said leave him alone!”
Sarah cringed. Tom should have backed off. She was to blame really; she should not have told him to grow some balls, because now he was at the worse time. Although, at the same time, she admired him for it.
Jake jumped over a desk to get at Tommy. He grabbed him by the collar and pushed him against the window. Tommy tried to push back, but Jake kept pressing on. The two nerds that she brought in ran to the back of the room and stood gawking. No help would come from them.
George stood up and limped away. Sarah grabbed him by his denim jacket sleeve. “Are you not going to help him? He stood up for you.”
George averted his eyes. “I didn't ask him to. Why don't you stop Jake? He's your boyfriend; he might listen to you. I would just be another victim.”
He shoved her aside, dropped into a chair, and slumped. No help there either. Lilly still sat half comatose at her desk. Anna was swooning over Jake, a weird excited look on her face. It was a wonder that drool wasn’t leaking out of her mouth. Jake pulled back a fist, pushing Tommy's head with his other hand against the window.