Zombie High

by Shawn Kass

  Pulling your head back mentally from internal debate on the morality of stealing during the apocalypse and physically from the horrific scene in the cafeteria, you turn and begin to stand up, careful to lean forward so that your new plastic backpack doesn’t scrape against the wall and give away your position. Unfortunately, as you face back the way you came, intent on going to the vending machine, you find three of the undead closing in on your position. You have no idea where they came from, and can only assume that the ceaseless moaning and wails from the ones in the cafeteria covered up the sound of the approach. Pulling your two-by-four up to your shoulder, you ready yourself as the closest one steps within range.

  Letting a small grunt slip between your lips, you bash the zombie in the side of the head and hear a distinctive and satisfying crack as you do so, but as you lift the wood back to your shoulder you notice two things. First, the zombie only stumbled to the side and is now reorienting himself on you, and second, the two-by-four in your hands feels quite a bit lighter. Looking at the wood, you find that it is now only half the length that it was a moment ago, and the other end is now lying on the floor. Perturbed by this, you angrily lift the remaining portion of lumber over your head and step forward, bringing it down on the same zombie’s head. This time, the thing falls backwards and lands on its backside, but you see it already trying to get up. Apparently, you’re not generating enough force to crack their skulls now that the board is half its original size. Throwing the broken piece at the next zombie, you reach down and grab for the hammer at your belt.

  The next few minutes become a blur of swings and messy black fluids mixed with bits of skulls and gray matter, but after killing two of them with solid blows, and the knocking the third into a display board hard enough to knock it down from where it was hanging on the wall, you are able to step over to it and deliver the coup de gras. Breathing hard from the exertion, you take a second to assess your condition and satisfy your belief that you haven’t been bitten, scratched, or otherwise infected. That’s when you notice the shadow in the piece of glass from the display board leaning against the wall.

  Spinning around, you lift the hammer instinctively and feel the claw end of it sink into the side of a zombie’s head. The parasite’s connection to the rest of its host’s body now permanently extinguished, you feel the sudden dead weight of the creature pull on the hammer as it drops to the floor. Normally, this wouldn’t be an issue as you could, given a bit of time and effort, manage to wiggle the hammer back out of the corpse, but as it drops you see that he wasn’t the only one to have come out of the cafeteria following the sounds of your grunts and fighting with the first three. Rather, you stand there in the hall now with nearly ten zombies quickly closing in on your position, and you have nothing left in which you can use as a weapon.

  Turning, you try to run, hoping you can out pace them and make it back to Mr. Ray’s, but you find that you are pulled off balance and land squarely on your butt when the closest zombie yanks on your backpack. Not willing to give up yet, you try to get on your feet, but the zombies have had more than enough time to close in on you, and you fall beneath their mass screaming as each of them helps themselves to a bite or two of your yummy, yummy flesh.

  The End

  Head to the Vending Machines

  You reason that the food in the cafeteria will mostly be either frozen or in those large economy sized cans, and neither of which will do you much good. Frozen obviously won’t work, because then it will need to be heated up, and the cans will suck because you’ll need a can opener. Then even if you do manage to find a can opener, you figure that if you lose it, the food will be sealed in there forever while you starve. Add to that, you remember that time your mom brought you to one of those warehouse type stores where everything they sold was in giant packs like thirty tubes of toothpaste and eighty rolls of toilet paper in one container, and she told you she forgot something while in the checkout lane. The one can she had you get was only from two aisles away, but it felt like it weighed a hundred pounds by the time you brought it back to her and the cart. Sure, that was a few years ago, and you were a little weaker then, but seriously, walking around the school with a can or two like that would not only be really heavy, but would seriously impede your ability to defend yourself. Dismissing the idea of the cafeteria all together, you turn and set off for the back hallway where the vending machines are located.

  Making your way to the back hall only takes a couple of minutes, but it feels like at least three times that long the way your nerves are hyped up the way they are. Along the way you pass a couple of open lockers where some other the students’ stuff has fallen out, but seeing nothing worthwhile that you can use as a weapon or call food, you continue on towards your goal. When you get to the rear intersection, you peek around the corner and find that the vending machines are both sitting at the other end of the hall just like they do on any other day, completely lit up like beacons calling to all those who would rather have their salty and sweet snacks rather than something healthy.

  Seeing no other movement in the hall, you quickly slip around the corner and make your way to the machines. As you get closer, you easily identify the labels of various brands of chips across the top rows, and several types of candy along the lower rows. In the middle, however, you spot the familiar and disgusting Pop Tarts in their tin foil packages and almost think twice about raiding the machine, confident that the little nasty things will somehow find a way into your bag and that you’ll be forced to eat one in the future. Shaking off the disturbing thought and clearing the memory of their dreaded taste from your mind, you approach the machines and in one fluid motion, lift your two-by-four and break through the glass display window.

  As the glass breaks and falls to the floor, you hear a voice which sounds like it’s coming from inside the machine say, “What the …,” but don’t make out the last word as the sound of glass covers it up.

  Startled, you ask, “Who’s in there?” and lift your two-by-four instinctively as if they’re about to attack you and you’re going to have to defend yourself.

  From behind the machine, Jake pokes his head out far enough to see you and says, “Whoa, there’s no need for that. I was just caught off guard by you smashing up the machine here.”

  Lowering the two-by-four you ask, “What the heck are you doing back there? You trying to be a troll guarding the vending machines are something?”

  Looking back at his little space, he says, “Ha, ha, very funny. No, I was out here when the zombies started attacking and figured they wouldn’t find me back here. Besides, even if they did, I doubt they’d be able to move these things out of the way far enough to get to me.”

  Stepping around to the side of the machine you take a look in and see that he has himself a fairly nice little campsite here. It’s a bit small as it is, but still enough room for him to sit down and do some drawing. Looking back to him you say, “You’re welcome to stay here if you want, but I got some people up in the teachers’ lounge who are counting on me to bring them some food and stuff.”

  Hopping out to look at the damage you caused to the machine, Jake asks, “Is the teachers’ lounge safe?”

  Shrugging your shoulders you say, “I guess, but there are a couple other places around the school some people are held up in. Mr. Ray’s is one of them. I just came from there.”

  As you slip out of the shoulder straps of the backpack and let it drop to the floor behind you, Jake asks, “So does anyone have a plan beyond junk food?”

  Reaching into the machine, you start pulling out cookies, candy, and chips while you say, “I heard Mr. Castle is out here somewhere, and he plans on bringing a group up to the second floor somewhere after he swings by Mr. Ray’s. I am guessing he’s got a plan, but as for me, I’m just trying to fulfill a promise I made and hope to get to use the phone in the teachers’ lounge to call my parents.”

  “I don’t want to sound like a Negative Nancy, but the phones probably won’t work. Most
of the time, communications are one of the first thing to go in these situations. Either the government shuts them down so that people don’t start panicking others, they get overloaded as everyone tries calling for help at the same time, or the lines get brought down when an infected person drives a car into the pole as their last act before turning,” says Jake.

  Stuffing another handful of treats into your already overflowing bag hard enough to ensure that the chips and candy bars at the bottom are crushed and broken, you say, “Well, until I get a chance to try for myself, that’s my plan,” raising your voice a bit as you let some of your anger seep into your words.

  Backpedaling, Jake says, “I didn’t mean…I was just…you know that’s just from the movies. I’m sorry.”

  Realizing nothing else is going to fit, you take a breath and say, “Well, it doesn’t matter. As long as we have electricity, then I figure we got a shot at the phones working.” Then as you begin to heft the backpack on, you ask, “So, the question is, are you coming with me or staying here?”

  Looking behind you, Jake says, “Well, I would say I’d come with you, but it looks like we have a problem.” Turning around you spot several zombies, and curse under your breath. Chiming in, Jake adds, “Yeah, and to make matters worse, that’s the only way out of this hall. The other end’s been blocked off by someone.”

  Cursing again, you unhook the hammer from your belt and hand it to Jake saying, “I think we can take them if you help.”

  Still looking back to the other end of the hall, Jake says, “I don’t think I like our odds.”

  When you look a second time, you see what he means. The number of zombies in the hall seems to have doubled. Looking back to him, you ask, “Do you think we can both fit behind those machines?”

  Shaking his head, Jake says, “No way. If we’re both back there, then they’ll be able to reach us shoving their hands in from either side. I have to be crouching right in the middle for them not to be able to get me.”

  Cursing for a third time, you look around quickly and find nothing else useful, and no rooms to hide in. Then looking back at the machine, you come up with a plan and say, “All right, hurry up and get back there.”

  “What about you?” asks Jake.

  “I’m going to climb up top.”

  Looking up to the top of the machine, Jake nods and says, “That might work, but then what?”

  Exasperated, you say, “We’ll figure that out later, now go.”

  Hesitating for only a second, Jake does as you ask and slips back behind the vending machines. Once safely ensconced there, you turn and place a foot on the bottom frame of the display window you broke out only a moment ago, and hop up onto the top of the machine. Once up there, you realize two things. First, the ceiling is lower than you expected, and you are forced to crouch up there if you want to avoid hitting your head, and second, the top of the machine is only about six, maybe six and a half, feet off the ground, a fact that becomes all too important as the first of the zombies reaches the machine and begins to grope up towards you.

  Looking down, you see Jake huddled up on the floor centered behind the two machines, and true to his word, the arms reaching back for him are just a few inches away on either side. So long as he doesn’t lean one way of another, he should be fine. This gives you a minute to try to come up with a plan. You know it’s impractical to think you two can stay here forever, and the noise the creatures are making is bound to only attract more of their kind to this location. That means you have to act, and you have to act now.

  Lifting your two-by-four so that it’s touching the ceiling in front of you, you try to chop downward at the zombies’ heads with an awkward hacking motion that looks like what you imagine Presidential candidate John McCain looks like if he were to try to chop wood despite the fact that his arms cannot rise above shoulders. To call your strikes ineffectual at cracking zombie skulls would be putting it mildly. You simply can’t generate the speed or force from this position with the limited room you have.

  Desperate for results, you try to switch tactics, and swing the two-by-four in a downward arc as if you’re golfing, hoping that by coming in from the side you’ll be able to do more damage. Instead, you are rewarded with the sound of something cracking with the first hit and realize that it’s the two-by-four in your hand that’s breaking and not the zombies below you. Winding up once more, you try to hit the closest zombie with the splintering wood and find yourself holding a section that measures only half its original length while the remaining section falls to the floor beneath the feet of the zombies to your right.

  Calling down to Jake, you say, “Hand me back that hammer.”

  Without saying anything back, as if doing so will only serve to enrage the mob of undead around the two of you more, Jake holds up the hammer straight above his head and lets you turn around and reach down behind the machine to get it. As your fingers grasp hold of the clawed end, you feel a hand grab hold of your ankle, and before you can react, you find that your leg is being pulled back off the front of the machine. You kick violently, trying to break free of the creature, but its hands are like a vise, unwilling to let go of you before it’s had its way. A second later, you feel another pair of hands grab hold of your other leg, and together they manage to pull you off the top of the machine. As you fall into the crowd, the hammer slips from your fingers and falls in front of the machine, just out of reach of Jake, and the candy which explodes out of your overstuffed backpack when you hit the ground. The last thing you see, aside from the gnarled teeth with the string of infectious saliva that come in to bite your left cheek and end up taking your eye with it, is a pack of Twizzlers about three inches from your face.

  The End

  Head for the Teachers’ Lounge, Alone, and Without Food

  Knowing that Mr. Ray and Mr. Castle are still here and on the side of the living, you reason that they will come up with a plan which includes a rescue, or at the very least, food. Mr. Ray himself even said Mr. Castle was going to bring everyone upstairs to safety, so it makes sense to just go upstairs and deliver the stuff you have along with this new information, then you can use the phone, and everyone can meet up. With this in mind, you abandon the rest of your quest, choosing not to go to either the cafeteria or the vending machines, and just head up to the teachers’ lounge.

  It only takes you a minute to make it to the closest stairwell, and when you find the coast clear, you head up with two-by-four in hand, careful not to make too much noise as you ascend. At the top of the stairs, you find the face of Jesus staring at you from his crucifix painted in the mural on the wall, but otherwise, nothing seems to take notice of your presence. Cautious not to let the plastic backpack you’re now carrying rub up against the wall and thereby make a noise loud enough to give away your position, you put your back to Jesus knowing He’ll keep it safe and poke your head out around the corner.

  There are three zombies in the hall down towards the end where Miss Millstone’s class is, but the other direction which heads to the teachers’ lounge is clear as far as you can tell. The thought crosses your mind to go down there and take out the three in the hall, except something about them makes you feel like if things had gone another way that they would have killed you and devoured your flesh like a fat kid eating at McDonald’s, but you push the thought aside, unwilling to take any more risks when you’re now this close to your goal.

  Estimating the distance, you figure it’s a little less than ninety feet from the stairwell door to the teachers’ lounge, a distance you remember having something to do with the bases in baseball. To be thinking about sports right now doesn’t seem right, but in this instance you are trying to get to home plate, and anything other than the ump calling it safe will mean you’re ejected from the game of life. Shaking your head, realizing that you let that analogy go on way too far because you didn’t want to think about the next part of what you have to do. Psyching yourself up, you tell yourself that you can do this, and then take one la
st look towards the zombies down by your old history classroom and notice that they are at least a hundred and fifty feet away before you go for it.

  If your hand was on a stack of Bibles, and it was up to your ability to tell the truth which determined whether your dog would be allowed to live or be put to death in front of you, you would swear that your shoes had it out for you. Just as you take your first step into the hall and pivot towards the teachers’ lounge, you feel your shoe slide out from under you and make a horrifically loud squeaking sound across the highly waxed floor. When you look, the zombies, who up to this point had no knowledge of you, now are infuriated that you have ventured into their domain and have already somehow begun to move and look to be doing so faster than the ones downstairs. Clearly their aim is to catch you and make you their dinner, not invite you over for a tea party. By the time you stand back up, the zombies have managed to gain at least fifteen feet on you, and you find that something in your leg is sending back painful signals every time you step on it. Determined to make it, you fight back the pain and kick in the speed the best you can, even as the sound of zombies’ moaning pleas for your flesh reach your ears.

  Covering the distance to the teachers’ lounge doesn’t take but a few seconds, but when you knock on the door and beg to be let in, you are met with opposition similar to before. From inside the room, you hear a cold callous voice ask, “Who is it?”

  Watching the zombies close in on your position, you answer, “It’s me. You know, I’m the one you sent out to get supplies.”

  “Did you get them?” asks the voice. “Most of them,” you respond. “Just hurry up and let me in, and I’ll show you what I got.”