Rise

by Wood, Gareth

  We found a door out of the offices, leading to the hallways of the school itself. To the right was a main door, to the left a gymnasium or machine shop. Lockers lined the hall, some open and some not. The main door to the left was thick with the undead, but the doors were solid and the zombies appeared to have no idea how to get through them other than pounding of fists. They’d break them down eventually, I had no doubt, but we could reinforce with furniture or plywood or even metal from the machine shop. First things first though. Fortunately for us the schools of this era are more like prisons. Few ways in, few ways out, and many smaller windows. We headed for the stairwell, and as we were climbing we heard a sound above us. Immediately I was aiming up the stairs, and Jess pressed the children to the wall and got in front of them. No zombie appeared, so I climbed up to the landing and looked up. The door at the top of the stairs was closing slowly and I wondered if there was a zombie up there, or if it was a survivor. I whispered to Jess that I was going to check it out, and I stepped quietly up the stairs. At the top I glanced through the glass, and I thought I saw a light in a room down the hall. Leading with the Glock I opened the door, pulling it with my broken wrist. That stung a little, but it wasn’t too bad. I pulled the door open and entered the upper hall, quietly walking down the hall towards where I had seen the light, or thought I had. It was a classroom, and there was a pile of stuff in there on the floor. I saw motion in one corner, and trained the gun there. I was pretty sure it was a survivor at this point, but I wasn’t ready to rule anything out. I called out for whoever it was to come out. The person was behind a set of metal file boxes. I stepped into the room, and from my left I felt something cold press against my temple and I heard a female voice say “I’m armed.”

  “So am I,” I said right back.

  The voice was shaking, and she told me to drop the gun. I could tell she was nervous, but I think I was on a level of nervousness previously unattained on earth.

  I told her there was not a chance that I would drop the gun, and that there were about fifty undead just outside at the moment, trying to get in. I also assured her that I was not there to hurt her.

  We stood there a while…neither of us moving, and I thought I saw a girl, maybe 16, peek out from behind the boxes. My attention wasn’t on her though, right at that second. And then Jess, bless her, called to me from down the corridor. The mystery woman asked me who that was.

  I told her that it was my girlfriend, and that we also had her son and another eight year old girl with us. I lowered the Glock, careful to do it slowly. I tried to plead with her and again assured her that we were definitely not there to hurt her. And I asked her to aim the gun somewhere else. She lowered it, and I let go of a bunch of tension I hadn’t even been aware of. I turned, careful to keep the Glock pointed at the floor, and saw a woman in filthy clothes, maybe thirty or so, with reddish hair and a haunted look in her eyes. She had a revolver, and her hands were shaking as she lowered it. She still looked like she expected me to try to kill her, but when Jess walked in to the room she started crying. She started apologizing and sobbing, saying she thought I was one of the gang of bikers who’d come through a few weeks ago. Jess and I calmed her down, and I went over to the girl hiding in the corner. She was still crouching behind the boxes, and I was careful to put the Glock away before I went over. She cowered, and her eyes looked even more haunted than the other woman’s were. She actually flinched from me when I asked her name. I backed off, thinking she’d been through some trauma.

  We learned that the woman was named Phillipa, and had been a teacher here, before. The girl was one of her students, Janice. They’d been here hiding for weeks. Phillipa had been living inside the town when the dead walked, and had helped in the defence of the town and the building of the barricades. She’d been given the gun by someone, and had fled here when a gang of raiders had arrived and breached the barricade. They’d ignored the school, but had killed a lot of people in town and then left when the undead had breached the defences too. Seeing the undead around town, she’d stayed here on the second floor. She’d seen Janice running through the field outside later that evening, and had called her and let her in. The walking corpses had gradually wandered off after that. Jess asked what was wrong with Janice, and Phillipa told her that the girl had been assaulted by several of the raiders.

  Supplies included what food they had recovered from the cafeteria, which wasn’t much, and about fifty large water jugs, the kind for water coolers. They had some basic first aid supplies, a few blankets, and whatever they could steal out of lockers. I figured with us there, we had enough food for a week. If we could get to the Odyssey we could stretch that to three or four weeks easily. She also had a gun, a .38 revolver, with about a dozen bullets. That and a few fire axes were the only weapons they had.

  Saturday

  We’ve been here two days, and haven’t seen a sign of Sarah, Darren, or any of the others. Good. I hope they got away clean, and get to Cold Lake. I hope I get there soon too, and I hope they are smart about how they do things.

  The undead outside show no sign of losing interest. They stopped trying to push over the Odyssey sometime during the first night, and are content now to lurk outside and hope for a free meal. We spy on them through the 2nd floor windows, carefully using mirrors.

  Jess managed to get Janice to talk to her after a day, and confirmed the worst suspicions we had. The poor girl was gang-raped by several of the raiders before she managed to escape, and wandered through the town until she was spotted by some undead. She was rescued by her teacher, and had spent the last few weeks here with her. When I barged in she was afraid that she was going to be attacked again. She’s coming out of it slowly, but still won’t talk to me. I’m not taking it personally.

  Jess and I talked to Phillipa about escaping. We all know the school is a deathtrap, either by starvation or the undead getting inside. So we are trying to put together a plan to get out. We’re working on the details.

  August 31

  Still here. The school is secure, though the undead are still hanging around. Our plans have evolved, and we have a course of action in mind. There’s a Jeep Cherokee that belonged to some townsperson in the school auto shop. It needs some basic work done, and Jess and I are tackling it. Once it’s done we’ll get going, hopefully distracting the zombies with some noisy thing while we sneak out and away. I hope we can get to the Odyssey and grab the supplies we left there. Some food and ammo would be wonderful, as well as some of the other things. Painkillers. My wrist aches. And some extra clothing, since the weather is definitely cooler these last few days.

  Phillipa is getting herself together now that we have a plan. She hadn’t heard about the military in Cold Lake, but wants to come with us. Janice needs medical care and some counseling, and they’ll be able to help her there, I hope. She’s withdrawn, but she talked to me for the first time yesterday. She just said thanks for the food I handed her, but I think that’s progress.

  Bed time now. It’s late and the light from the laptop monitor is keeping Jess awake. I need to conserve battery power anyway, so I may not update until we get out of here.

  September 2

  10:34 a.m.

  The Cherokee is ready. It needed an oil change, new filters, new brake pads, and some tweaking here and there, but we got it done as quietly as we could. All six of us would wait together in the auto shop while Jess and I worked. The only time we’d separate was when somebody needed to go to the bathroom, and even then we went in threes. That bears mentioning. The facilities no longer have water, so they don’t work. What Phillipa figured was that waste would have to be deposited someplace to keep the smell down. She found a big oil receptacle in the auto shop, and had been slowly filling that up. When we arrived, she showed us the tank, and I noticed it was on wheels. We hauled it down the corridor to the far end of the hall, into a music room. There were screens there so we set up some privacy areas. The top of the tank is sealable with a large cap, so the only tim
e we have to smell it is when we remove the cap to dump waste in. The oil inside helps make it not be quite so foul smelling. We put a large sign on it saying “Human Waste! Careful!” so it can be disposed of properly when someone finally gets around to cleaning up this mess.

  We are going to distract the undead outside with a stereo and some rap music we found in a locker. That done, we’ll get what we can out of the Odyssey, and load it into the Jeep. Then tomorrow morning we’ll get out of here. We might even catch up to the others, if they kept to the route we planned.

  7:55 p.m.

  An aircraft went over. Not a big jet like last time, this one was a small passenger plane, a Cessna of some kind, I think. We heard it flying low, and rushed to the windows. It went over heading west, and then turned south and circled. It was flying at about 500 feet. Phillipa said she knew how to get to the roof, so we ran up there as fast as we could. I ended up carrying Michael, since it was easier than waiting for his little legs to carry him up.

  On the roof we looked, and spotted the plane overhead. We waved and jumped around for a while before the plane leveled out and flew straight towards us, and the pilot waggled its wings back and forth as he went over, then he turned and came back, and waved at us out the window. Something fell from his hand, a shiny cylinder with something hanging from it. It fell towards us, and we saw a small parachute open. The cylinder still fell pretty quickly, but it landed gently enough that it didn’t break anything. It fell on the roof near us (a really good shot), and proved to be a short cardboard tube wrapped in bubble wrap, with a mini parachute strapped around it. Inside, after peeling away some tape, we found a radio! There was a note handwritten on loose-leaf paper that read “Set the radio to Channel 6. Range is short, so conserve battery power!”

  We set the radio to 6 and turned it on. Immediately a voice was talking to us. He identified himself as Gavin Thompson, a civilian pilot working for the military in Cold Lake, and asked us if we were all alright. We told him we were fine, and who we were. He asked if we could hold on a day or so, since that would be the quickest he could get a unit from Cold Lake here to bail us out. We told him about the Jeep. He advised us that the area was heavily infested, and travel in anything less than a military convoy was very dangerous. Apparently there was an SAR (Search and Rescue) unit nearby, and could be here by midmorning tomorrow. We told him we could wait for the military, and he told us that they’d call us when they got into town. With that he flew off.

  Salvation comes in the strangest forms.

  September 4

  I wasn’t sure at first that this was a good idea, but they’ve let us have our gear and weapons back, as well as my computer, and a hot shower can do wonders for my state of mind.

  Late on the night of the 2nd Phillipa and I were walking through the lower halls of the school, checking the doors quietly and making sure all the windows were secure. Three times a day we did this, just to be safe. We were walking silently down the main hallway when we heard a crash from the far end, and I thought it was from the room where we had come in through the window. I told Phillipa to go upstairs and tell Jess what we heard, and then come back. I’d wait for her right there in the hall. She took off, and was back in a few minutes. We went down the hall, guns out and pointed towards the noise, and I waved her to the far side so we were both walking along opposite walls. There was another crash, this time sounding like a table falling over, maybe? I thought one of the things might have gotten in the window. We got to the corner, and I looked around it with the flashlight. I was glad to see that the hallway was clear, and the door to the office was still shut. I had been half expecting to come around the corner and see a pack of the damned things.

  Phillipa looked pretty scared. I was too, but I think I’ve seen enough of these things to know what their limits are. There were a few more sounds from the office. Shuffling and some papers falling. I suspected only one had gotten in, though how? Had they pushed the van clear of the window finally? Or had one gone through it? We had to know. If the van was moved then we’d have to secure the window with something bigger and solid. I really didn’t want to open that door, but if it was just the one, then we should be able to handle it. If not, we’d run and shoot as we fled. I whispered all this to Phillipa, and made sure she understood what I had in mind. I told her to let me do the shooting.

  I prepared myself, and went to turn the handle. It was locked. Then I remembered we’d locked it when we first came in. I little chuckle escaped me before I could smother it, and even before I could stifle it all the way, the thing in the room was slamming against the door, groaning and trying to break through to us. Me and my big mouth! Phillipa jumped as the thing slammed the door the first time, and looked like she wanted to run away. She actually backed up a step. The door slammed again, and I heard a crack in the frame. Damn, I knew this thing was going to get through. How they do that without breaking bones in their arms is beyond me. Or maybe they do, and just don’t feel it.

  The door frame splintered, and the door started to open. It got stuck a few inches open, and we backed off to the corner. The walking corpse inside shoved its arms through the gap and pushed, and the door flew open. The smell hit us almost instantly, and the gag reflex was nasty, but I fought it down. The zombie that appeared looked terrible in the light from my flashlight. A businessman by the looks of the shredded clothes he wore, his torso was nearly bare, covered only by the tattered remnants of a white shirt. There were long bloody scratches down his chest, and a lot of blood had leaked onto his pants. He was missing one shoe. He was also missing one eye, and a big chunk of his cheek, so we could see teeth inside his jaw. He turned around towards us and his one eye locked on me. I raised the Glock as he took a step forward, and I fired once. The bullet smashed into his face just under the remaining eye, and pummeled his head sideways. He fell, and started to get up again. Shit! I stepped forward and took aim, and fired as he started to stand again. This one took him in the top of the head, went though, and exited out where his spine met his skull. A spray of black blood and rotten grey matter went splashing across the floor, and he went limp. I turned to Phillipa and assured her that there was nothing to worry about, and then a second zombie lurched out the door and grabbed my left arm.

  It raised my arm before I had time to react, and bit down hard. The cast took the bite, cracking in one spot, but protecting me pretty well. I didn’t have time to aim, so I just shoved and took three steps forward, driving the rotten thing before me. It fell, and I landed on top of it. Immediately it was trying to bite my face, and I forced the cast under its chin and shoved down. The teeth missed me by an inch. I pinned its neck to the ground and raised the gun, while its arms tried to pull me closer. Damn it was strong! I forced the gun up between us, and shoved the barrel onto its face. One shot and it was done, but the sound was deafening. My ears were ringing as I rolled off the corpse. I checked for Phillipa, and she was about a dozen paces away down the hall, shaking and crying. She shrieked then, and raised her gun and shot over my head. I just scrambled forward, and got up as she shot again. A quick look over my shoulder showed me a few more zombies had made it inside, and there were probably more out there attracted by the gunfire. They’d be inside soon enough. I yelled, “Run!” to her, and she turned and fled. I was right behind her.

  Phillipa made it to the stairs ahead of me, and I stopped once she’d gotten through. I turned and saw four of the fuckers walking towards me. A fifth turned the corner behind them. God damn it! I took careful aim with the Glock and fired at the leader twice. He went down as his brains were scrambled. I waited a few seconds to aim again, and shot the next one down too. Three more had entered behind them, so there were six in the hall now still animated. I wasn’t going to have enough ammo.

  I went through the door, and as I closed it I threw the locks and barred the door with the 2x4’s we’d placed there for just this possibility. I heard scraping from up above, and I looked up to see Jess hauling a huge desk to the edge of the s
tairs. I climbed up to her and she and I hauled the desk down as well as we could, and used it to blockade the doors at the bottom. We threw more furniture down as well to make it harder and harder to get through. Finally, we retreated back through to the upper hall, closed and barred the upper doors, and went back down to the classroom we’d adopted as home. I used some water to clean the rotten corpse goo off me, and Jess checked me carefully for bites or scratches. I was clear, much to my relief. My cast had saved me. I could see the tooth marks on the cast, and it took some scrubbing to get all the rotten flesh off. My ears were still ringing, but I could still hear the thumping and pounding down below. The vast host of walking dead was inside now. This was bad news. The Jeep was down there. Our way out was down there.

  We spent the night hardly sleeping. The noise kept the kids awake and scared, and we spent some time reassuring them. Megan came and sat with me, and I wrapped her in a blanket and settled her next to me for the night. Once in a while one of us would get up and go listen at the stairwell, to make sure they weren’t getting through the piled furniture. They appeared to settle down a bit after a few hours, though the moans and groans didn’t let up at all.