by J. D. Bishop
With a sigh of relief, Jeff said, “Thanks, man.”
“Several students have already turned,” Becky informed them before Dante could reply. “This whole place is going to be a walking corpse den soon. We need to get out of here like now.”
Jeff shook his head. “First, I want to tell people over the intercom how to kill these things.”
Becky rolled her eyes. “Haven't you done enough already? I doubt anyone will hear you anyway. Everyone is terrified and running for their lives.”
Dante nodded his head. “I'm with Becky on this one. Straight up. There’s a time to be a hero and a time to bounce.”
“Do any of you have the text numbers of the entire student body?” Jeff asked them. “Because I sure as hell don’t.”
When they all shook their heads, he said, “Okay then. I can send out a mass alert to everyone at once on what's happening and how to kill those things. The kids that escape here will see it when they can get out their cellphones, including those who didn’t come to school today. Communication is key in times like these. My sister taught me that.”
After a moment, Becky sighed. “Fine, whatever. Let's do it and do it quickly.” She looked at her girlfriends. “You guys can try to make it to your cars if you want to take your chances. Just remember that nowhere may be safe. Your brothers, sisters, mothers, and every other kind of relative may be one of those things already.”
The girls shook their heads fearfully. “We'll take our chances with you,” one of them said in a small voice. “Better chance to live.”
“Okay, let's go,” Jeff ordered the group. “The office is down the hall. We need to move fast.”
“Wait. Hold up!” Dante ran over to the teacher's wooden chair and smashed it against the floor repeatedly, breaking the chair's legs in several places. When he was done, he was left with four wooden shafts that resembled stakes. He picked them up and handed them off. He gave one to Sean, Becky, and one of her friends. The last girl who received the stake, Tara, stared at the thing like it was a snake.
“Jeff, you take this thing and let me have the gun instead,” Becky ordered, holding out her stake to Jeff. Jeff began to protest, but she cut him off, “You said it was jammed. I can fix it. Also, no offense, but I've been shooting with my dad all my life. I'm probably a way better shot than you with that thing. I know you've done a lot of hunting, but it's not the same thing.”
Jeff glowered, his neck burning in shame. There Becky went again, making him look weak in front of others. This was worse than the night in the car. They didn't have time for an argument with the shit hitting the fan, so he reluctantly handed her the gun. In return, she handed him the stake and began quickly fooling around with the gun. She jacked the slide, and a single brass round popped out, Becky catching it before tossing it away. It must have been damaged somehow. “It's fixed,” she said after a moment. “A misfeed, nothing you did wrong. Let's go.”
It was wild in the school hallways. Kids were running for the exits, fighting for their lives against the zombies that had turned and started eating their friends. Jeff saw the girl from earlier who had been bit by Kimberly, now a zombie, attacking some poor freshman kid, ripping gobs of flesh from his skin.
"The only way to kill them is to injure their brains!" Jeff yelled as they moved through the hallways. He doubted anyone really heard him, though.
Dante heard, though, and tapped him on the shoulder. “Wait a sec, white boy,” he said with a bloodthirsty grin, and he raised his voice to a boom that rattled off the walls. “BUST THEM IN THE FUCKIN’ HEADS!”
A group of zombies ran toward their group at the sound, moaning with their dreadful hunger. Dante rushed to the forefront, using his spear as if it were a baseball bat. He smashed one upside the head, causing it to stumble to the side, before kicking another through a door, the pneumatic arm slamming shut and trapping it. Apparently, the zombies were stupid too. Becky promptly shot the first one in the direct middle of its head before the door had even clicked shut.
Dante turned and whistled as the zombie dropped to the floor. “Nice shot, girl! You my kind of chick!”
Another zombie was already upon Dante, grabbing his arm and trying to bite it off. Jeff quickly ran to his aid and speared the snarling thing through the head, the chair leg slamming it through the mouth at an upward angle. There was a sick wet sound as the wood passed through flesh, combined with a deep crunching sound as wood passed through skull. Jeff pulled the spear out of its head with a sharp jerk, and the thing collapsed to the floor, his shoulder aching from the impact of the wood through bone. This was a lot harder than it looked in the movies, that was for damn sure.
One of the zombies, a girl who Jeff remembered was on the JV cheerleading squad, reached Sean, almost succeeding in biting him. Sean let out a strangled cry, stabbing the thing through the chest. It had no effect on the zombie as it fell forward onto Sean, grabbing at his flesh. They collapsed to the floor, the zombie mounted on Sean, dangerously close to biting him.
Becky let out a curse and reached down to firmly grab the thing by the long hair that hung off its head, yanking it up in a swift jerk. It flailed madly, trying to reach its meal. Becky brought her gun to side of the thing's head and fired, blowing a large piece of its skull away, splattering blood and matter over Sean's face, who stared up at Becky in complete shock.
The final zombie had grabbed on to Cindy, one of the defenseless girls, biting into her neck hungrily. The girl let out an ear-piercing scream as a large chunk of her neck was torn away by the zombie's hungry jaws. It was ghastly wound to look at.
With an angry roar, Jeff pushed the zombie away from the girl and impaled the thing through the skull with all his might, nearly cleaving the head in two. It dropped to the floor, lifeless. Jeff stepped on its back for leverage and reached down to pull his stake out.
The girl was still screaming, holding her neck, gushes of blood flowing down her neck and arms. The group looked around at each other uneasily as Sean finally brought himself up from the floor, retrieving his stake out of the zombie that he had stabbed.
"Next time, go for the head," Jeff told him, staring at the screaming girl. People were still running all around about them, fleeing for the school exits. A few zombies were nearby, feasting on a pair of sophomore students. The group needed to keep moving before they got overrun.
“What are we going to do about her?” Becky asked, looking to Jeff and nodding toward Cindy. Jeff was relieved that she was at least deferring to him for the moment. “She's going to turn into one of those things.”
“Please, don't hurt her,” Tara begged. “Cindy's a nice girl. She’s my friend.”
Becky looked Tara directly in the eyes, and in that look, Jeff wondered where this Becky had existed until this day. He’d seen flashes of strength before—it was part of what made her so fucking sexy when combined with her normal flirty demeanor—but the girl who looked back was all warrior, and there was no pity in her eyes at all. “Honey, it's not about good or nice anymore. It's about survival. If you think about how nice these people were before they turned into one of those things, you'll be taking it with you to grave. They don't care about being nice after they become that. They only want to eat you.”
Tara burst into tears, hugging herself and moaning. “No, no, no . . .”
Becky gave Jeff a look, and at least there, he could see some humanity. Jeff sighed inwardly. He supposed they could just leave her, but that would just mean one more zombie on the loose that they could have put down. She might live to take someone else's life, someone whose life could be saved if they ended her now.
Feeling despair, Jeff nodded at Becky. He wasn’t going to shy away from this. He’d already killed three times. Sure, Cindy wasn’t turned yet, but he wasn’t going to shrug off that extra load now. “Do it.”
Becky stepped up to Cindy, bringing the pistol up. "I'm sorry," she told her in a sad voice. “I wish there were another way to do this.”
The girl was
shivering, having stopped screaming, struck by some terrible fever as she held her hand over her wound. Jeff thought she didn't comprehend what Becky was about to do.
Becky took in a deep breath, closing her eyes, as if preparing herself for what she had to do. When she opened them, her eyes were strong, cold. It seemed as if something had snapped inside, and the coldness was now complete.
Tara was alarmed as she assessed the situation. She tried to make a grab for Becky, but Dante pulled her back. “No, bitch! What are you doing?”
Jeff didn't think Becky could actually do it. He knew he probably couldn't. Just a few days ago, all she could talk about was how she wanted him on top of her, pounding away her frustrations from putting up with Greg, and now she was some total hard ass, ready to hand out executions. It was difficult adjusting to this, as Jeff thought of her as some delicate thing who only cared about hair, makeup, and getting fucked on a regular basis. He knew she went shooting with her dad regularly, but it never seemed to interfere with how tough he thought she was except for the little flashes of steel in the fluffy cotton candy that was Becky—until now.
“Rebecca, please!” Tara screamed in desperation, resorting to using Becky's full name and squirming against Dante's grip. “Don't!”
Becky ignored her, staring into Cindy's eyes. She gave her a pitying, soft stroke along her hair. She looked like a person who was about to put an animal out if its misery.
Jeff looked around with anxiety. They were sitting in one spot for too long. The traffic in the hall was becoming lighter as a lot of kids had made it outside the building. It was only a matter of time before they would be attacked again by zombies, maybe more than the last time.
“Let me go, you black cockroach!” Tara yelled, elbowing Dante hard. “Let go, goddammit!”
Dante looked as if he wanted to snap Tara's neck, which was puny in comparison to his massive size, and he shook her around a little. “What? Bitch, you lucky we in the middle of some serious shit or I'd show you a black cockroach, you ol' skank ho.”
Becky raised the gun. Realization finally dawned in Cindy's eyes. “Please, no,” she said weakly, her strength being sapped by the virus. “Pl . . .”
Her voice faded, and she just stared at Becky, her eyes pleading slightly. It looked like it was only a matter of minutes before she would be a zombie. Her skin was almost without color, her lips going blue. Apparently, the virus moved fast if you got bitten.
“Fuck you, Becky!” Tara screamed. “I'm going to tell Greg you're fucking Jeff!”
Becky froze. She turned her head to regard Tara slowly, her eyes cold. “If you don’t get your head right, Tara, you'll be lucky to survive until the end of the day.” Without even taking her eyes from Tara, she pulled the trigger on the pistol and blew Cindy's brains out. “That’s the way it’s got to be.”
Tara immediately crumpled in Dante's arms, sobbing uncontrollably. The whole group sat for a moment, stunned. Jeff honestly thought she wouldn't have been able to do it. This wasn't the Becky he knew, but he supposed her survival mode had kicked in. He realized something unsettling then, something that made him feel less manly. Becky had just been able to do something that, while a necessity, Jeff himself couldn't do. He had complained about her making him look weak, but could he only have himself to blame for not taking control of matters?
“Damn, nobody’d better fuck with that bitch,” Dante said, eyeing Becky with newfound respect. “You one bad bitch, Becky.”
“Let's go,” Jeff ordered, trying not to look at what remained of Cindy. They began to move down the hall toward the principal's office, which lay near a school exit, each one gingerly stepping over Cindy's body. Dante had to practically carry the sobbing Tara.
They ran into three young teachers who were trying to control the situation when they were halfway to the office, Jake Morris, Heather Huntington, and Andrew Macintyre. Jeff had Mr. Macintyre, and he actually liked him. He wasn’t a jerk like a lot of young teachers who thought they knew everything.
“You guys need to get outside quickly. We don't know what's happening to these kids. They’re biting each other! We have called for a school evacuation,” Mr. Morris told the students. “Get outside. Get to safety.”
Becky shook her head. “They aren't kids anymore. They're dead. They're zombies! Just look at them. They can't understand you.” Becky pointed at a group of zombie students eating a poor girl. “They’re not human anymore. You need to get out of here too.”
The teachers were all pale and white-faced. Miss Huntington, who was pretty in the sort of girl next door way that had gotten her a lot of crushes from the guys in school, swallowed and shook her head. “You guys get on outside. We'll try to handle this.”
“There's nothing to handle. If you have something sharp or a gun, shoot or stab them in the head. Otherwise, you're just wasting time. They're beyond your help,” Becky said. “They’re going to attack you if you try.”
Mr. Morris looked at Jeff, and it confused him. In his eyes, Jeff could see that Morris knew Jeff was telling the truth but refused to accept it. “We'll try to talk them down until the police get here.”
Jeff spoke up. “Sir, you can't talk to them. Please just leave or come with us. If you have to, like Becky said, stab them in the head. It's the only way.”
Morris still had that look of blank refusal to accept reality on his face, his voice still soft. “We're not committing any crimes here, son. We'll see if we can get to the bottom of this madness. You guys need to leave now.”
“But . . .” Jeff began, but he stopped when Becky put a hand on his arm. He turned to look at her, and she shook her head.
“Forget it,” she told him in a soothing voice. “They're doomed. We don't have the time to try to convince people who don't know any better. Let's just go do what you wanted and get the fuck out. Time is running out.”
Jeff hesitated, but after a moment, he nodded. They continued on to the office. It was deserted when they got inside, which immediately had the hairs on the back of Jeff’s neck standing straight up. It looked like the Principal and his secretaries had abandoned the office in haste. Papers were scattered about all over the room, and even the computers were left on.
“Dante, Sean, guard the door,” Jeff ordered as he went to the secretary’s computer. He brought up the computer's desktop. He dabbled at the keyboard for a moment before sighing in disgust.
“Problem?” Becky asked from where she was watching the door with the other two boys. She held the gun in both hands, her grip relaxed but ready, and her eyes were still cold and no-nonsense as Jeff cursed and sat back.
“I don't know how to access the broadcasting system. I know it has the texts of all students and even law enforcement tied together for an emergency broadcast. Remember we got that one last year when the tropical storm went through town and they shut the school? It can send out a message that states exactly what's going on and how people are supposed to kill these things. Those people who are still alive, anyway.”
“Tara knows," Becky said, staring hard at her despondent friend. “She's on the student council and has done aide work in here plenty of times.”
“I'm not doing anything, you murdering bitch,” Tara hissed. “I'd sooner watch you die.”
“Oh yeah?” Becky asked in a coldly daring voice.
Tara glared. She’d been pushed a step too far, and Jeff could see that she wasn’t thinking straight. “Yeah. Fuck you.”
Becky pulled the gun on Tara, pointing it at her friend and cocking the trigger. “Still feeling tough?”
Tara wasn't afraid. She just didn’t give a fuck anymore. “What the fuck is wrong with you? You just killed one of our best friends from childhood like she was nothing. I don't know you anymore. So go ahead and shoot me if that what's going to make you feel better. I won’t help a heartless bitch like you.”
Becky shook her head, her eyes cold. “I told you, Tara, she wasn't our friend. Not anymore. And as far as shooting you, it will be
my pleasure.”
Jeff jumped in between the two, manning up. He put a hand on Becky’s arm, pushing her gun down and away. “Hey, stop this now! This has gone far enough. Becky, put the fucking gun down. I get it, it’s time to be tough, but it’s not time to start shooting our friends. This isn’t the fucking Lord of the Flies.”
Becky stared hard at him for a second, then relented, storming to the door to watch the hallway. He turned to Tara, turning on his best charm he could manage under the circumstances. He lowered his voice, giving her a chagrined smile and speaking softly. “Look, Tara, I know what Becky did seemed heartless, but the truth of the matter is, she's right. After Cindy was bitten, she wasn't the Cindy you knew and grew up with anymore. In a few more minutes, she was going to be one of those things out there that are eating people, and the Cindy I knew wouldn’t have wanted that. She was a nice girl who never wanted to hurt anyone. But right now is not the time for grieving. It's the time for survival. Do you really want to give up and lose the chance of seeing your family ever again? Please do this, if not for us, then for them, your family. It might save someone you know.” Jeff gave her the puppy dog look his mom used to be so fond of when he was younger and she was much nicer. “Do it for Cindy. She’d want to save people.”
Tara sighed, dropping her shoulders. “All right.” She walked over to the computer and typed around for a bit, bringing up the broadcasting system. “What do you want me to say?”
Jeff took a deep breath and started talking. Tara typed, and three minutes later, a text was sent out over the emergency system.
ATTENTION: ALL STUDENTS, PARENTS, AND LAW ENFORCEMENT
THE OUTBREAK CURRENTLY AFFLICTING LOUISIANA'S POPULATION IS DEADLY. NOT ONLY WILL YOU DIE, BUT YOU WILL COME BACK AS A FLESH-EATER. A ZOMBIE. IF YOU GET BITTEN BY ONE OF THESE THINGS OR ITS BLOOD GETS INTO YOUR SYSTEM, YOU BECOME ONE OF THEM WITHIN MINUTES. THE ONLY KNOWN WAY TO KILL THESE THINGS IS TO DESTROY THEIR BRAINS. IF YOU HAVE GUNS, TREASURE THEM DEARLY. IT'S YOUR BEST PROTECTION AGAINST THESE THINGS. IF NOT, ANY STRONG, SHARP OBJECT WILL HAVE TO DO. IT IS NOT KNOWN HOW THE VIRUS IS BEING SPREAD, BUT THE BEST THING TO DO IS TO USE COMMON SENSE AND STAY AWAY FROM PEOPLE. I BELIEVE THIS INCIDENT IS BEING COVERED UP BY THE U.S. MILITARY, BUT I HOPE SOMEONE FROM A HIGH CHAIN OF COMMAND WILL GET WORD OF WHAT'S HAPPENING AND COME TO OUR AID. IF YOU HAVE LOVED ONES NEARBY, GRAB AND HOLD THEM. DON'T LET THEM OUT OF YOUR SIGHT. THIS HAS BEEN JEFFREY WALKER SPEAKING. MAY GOD BLESS YOU AND YOUR FAMILY. I’M OUT.