Donna of the Not Undead (...of the Not Undead Book 1)

by Bryan Mosier

  “No, let’sgo check out the chemistry lab” comes Brandon’s suggestion.

  “I imagine the shop class would prove to be a bountiful repositoryof useful items to enhance our arsenal” suggests Justin reverting to his unnaturally formal speech now that he’s back in the presence of the girls.

  “You guys are stupid, we need to think about food” says Carla.

  “You want to go to the Home Ec. room?” asks Bryan with a confused look on his face?

  Giving an audible sigh, Carla looks at him and says“Cafeteria?”

  “Oooooohhh. Yeah that would be a good place to look wouldn’t it” says Bryan, his voice trailing off as the words fade to an almost inaudible trickle from his mouth.

  “It’ll take us forever to search’em all and it’s already getting late. We need to get what we can and get out of here. Remember, we got a code 36DD to take care of” says Bryan.

  Confused and looking to Alex for explanation Darla mouths a silent “What?”

  Face blushing, Alex cups his hands up to the bottom of his chest and with a wide arching rocking motion explains“D-amselin D-stress”

  Rolling her eyes Darla just gives an exasperated“Boys!?!” shaking her head in a half mocking protest of feminist disgust.

  “You know what we gottado” says Bryan.

  With a look of recognition followed by a look of wide-eyed shock, Alex gives a sudden“No, not gonna happen”

  “Yes it is. You know it’s the only way” continues Bryan

  “But it breaks the rules, you know that!”

  Confused again by theboys’ sudden verbal detour having left the rest of the group stranded, Darla and Carla give each other a shrug.

  Suddenly realizing what the two are talking about, Justin chimes in with a“No, this is a bad idea. Statistically speaking the odds of survival decrease exponentially with that type of scenario”

  “What are you guys talking about?” ask Darla, finally unable to contain her frustration at the boys’ lack of communication skills beyond their own group.

  “We gottasplit up” says Bryan

  “No!” exclaims Alex

  “I agree, bad idea. Bad, bad, bad idea” says Justin

  “Why not?” asks Darla,“I mean it sounds like a good idea to me. We can cover more ground faster if we split up.”

  “But the rules…” starts Alex.

  “What rules?”

  “The rules of every horror movie ever made.”

  Seeing the confusion on her face Alex continues. “In every horror movie ever made when the group decides to split up somebody inevitably ends updead.”

  “This is true, I haveseen the calculations” adds Justin.

  “So you’re basing your decision on scary movies?” asks Carla.

  “And hard scientific data” adds Justin.

  “Wait a minute” interjects Carla,“you guys all split up back at the hardware store.”

  “And look where that got us” offers Bryan,“hemmed up like a bunch of pigs just waiting to be eaten by a bunch of hunger addled cannibals.

  “And there was not a key variable back then that is now in play” say Justin, trying to regain the momentum of the discussion.

  “Oh really? What“variable” is that” asks Darla.

  “You girls…that is most definitely what.”

  “He’s right” adds Bryan,“You girls change everything.

  “What? We can take care of ourselves” declares Carla, her face starting to flush with frustration.

  “Oh, of that I have no doubt, but that ain’tthe reason.” Seeing the confusion on their faces Justin offers,“When females are added into the mix they offer the potential for a major plot twist. If and when a group decides to split up, in nearly all cases it ends up with a boy-girl pairing. As each“couple” goes their separate ways, the isolation from the rest of the group coupled with the emotions of dealing with such a high stress situation of trying not to be dead, inevitably leads to some level of romantic interlude.”

  “What is he saying” asks Caral, looking to Bryan for clarification.

  “He’s saying that in every horror movie splitting up the group means boys and girls being alone and being alone with girls leads to smooching and smooching leads to fooling around and them BAM! Before you know it your slurping brain smoothies through a straw.”

  With a look that could either denote utter disgust or a total sense of sympathetic pity, Carla places a hand on Bryan’s shoulder and offers“Well big boy, trust me when I say this…you fellas don’t have anything to worry about here.”

  “Wait a minute” starts Melody,“how come this rule didn’t apply back at the store when you and Helga were giving each other the tonsil cleanings?” she asks as she pokes a tiny finger into Justin’s belly.

  Surprised, everyone’s eyes widen, with the exception of the terribly embarrassed Justin and Helga who didn’t understand a word of what was said.

  “You and her?” asks Bryan.

  “Full on tongue?” adds Alex.

  “Well, um…” starts Justin but the embarrassment of the moment catches the words in his throat.

  “Oh yeah! There was slobber a flying everywhere. It was gross” adds Melody.

  With a grin creeping across his face Bryan gives Justin a little punch on the shoulder and says“You dog you. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

  Feeling, for perhaps the first time in his life a sense of masculine glory, Justin basks in the adulation of his comrades.

  “I mean I always figured the only thing you had in you was...” starts Bryan shattering any illusion of respect or admiration that his peers might have had for his romantic success with a member of the fairer sex.

  “Yeah, what will the hobos down by the overpass say when they hear you been cheating on them. They may not give you anymore Oreos.”

  “Ah, man I didn’t think about that. Do you think your“buddies” made it out okay?

  “Aw, they’ll be fine…” adds Bryan,“They already smell so bad the zombies won’t even want to get near‘em.”

  “What are you guys talking about?”

  “Oh, we just like to give Justin a hard time is all. We got this thingwhere we say he likes to perform certain“activities” for the homeless people that live under the overpass.”

  “Yeah, like community service and I do mean“service” adds Bryan with a chuckle.

  “We say he gets paid in crumpled packs of Oreos since, you know, their bums and they don’t have any money.”

  “But don’t ask what he has to do to get the double-stuffed ones” says Bryan, giving a fake cringe and shiver at the notion.

  Fueled by years of frustration now sparked by this last insult, Justin feels a rage begin to burn in his belly. No longer able to contain his frustration, Justin explodes with a loud“HORRIBLE…FUCKING…PEOPLE!”

  “Jeeshdude, calm down.”

  “Yeah, making that kind of noise you’re gonna have every zombie from here to the All-Mart cominafter us.”

  Looking at Helga and seeing the confusion on her face and feeling ashamed that he let his emotions get the better of him, Justin retreats back to the only place he can find solace. Cold hard facts. “Back to the discussion at hand. If you take a statistical analysis of every major motion picture of the horror genre of the last twenty years and break it down by individual kill scene the vast majority of deaths occur as a direct result of the victims placing themselves in harm’s way by separating themselves from the group, thus providing the assailant slash monster slash undead creature of the night with the opportunity to strike the killing blow.”

  Unimpressed by Justin’s logic,“That may be all well and good but I think splitting up is the best idea” counters Darla.

  “Famous last words” says Bryan shaking his head in mock sadness.

  Caving in to Darla’s side of the argument, Alex starts“Okay, butif we’re gonna do this, we gottahave a plan…so what’s the plan?” posing the question out loud more to himself than
the group. “The art room and the chemistry lab are both upstairs and are just down the hall from each other so one group can take those. The shop class is way off down on the far end of the school by the gym so one group can go there. The cafeteria is out by the back doors so that’s another group.”

  “I got the chemistry lab” says Brandon.

  “And I got dibs on the art room” shouts Melody.

  “Well I guess me and Brandon will take the Chemistry lab and Darla, you and Melody take the art room?” says Alex, looking to Darla for agreement.

  “Okay, sounds good to me.”

  “That leaves the cafeteria and the shop class.”

  “I got the shop class. You wannago with me Carla?” asks Bryan as she gives him an affirming nod.

  “That leaves the cafeteria for you and Helga Justin.”

  Giving a quick glance over at Helga he agrees.

  “Okay, let me just say this once. Nobody does anything stupid. You see trouble you get back here ASAP, you got that” commands Alex. Looking around at each member of the group he adds,“We all meet back her in twenty minutes”

  With a collective agreement each group sets off to their chosen locations. As the light from the flashlights fade off down the darkened corridors of the school with a heavy feeling growing in his chest Alex gives one last command“Be careful!”

  Chapter 20

  Making their way down the long, dark hallway to the far end where one of the only two sets of stairs in the two story building are located, Alex, Darla, Melody and Brandon walk in silence. Brandon, deciding to take point,as he put it, walks in a half crouched manner, almost resembling an old man with really bad back problems but moving in a much more deliberate manner. Melody, taking his cue, walks in a similar fashion but spends most of the time walking backwards, covering Brandon’s back as to not be taken by surprise. Watching this from several feet behind Alex and Darla look at each other with a roll of the eyes and a shared grin between them.

  “They really are taking this whole thing pretty well don’t you think?” asks Darla.

  “Shoot, I think this is exactly the world they wanted to live in.”

  “Yeah, it’slike they somehow had been preparing for this kind of craziness to happen.”

  “Do you thinkthey’re really doing okaythough. I mean bub, he acts tough but I know he’s worried about mom and dad.”

  “Yeah, Mel puts on a strong face but she has to be worried. I mean, I know mom and dad, they were prepared for this. Well not this, you know with stumble bumsand all but they always thought that there would be a time when we had to fend for ourselves.”

  “Was it hard growing up like that? I mean, it seems to me like you would spend a lot of time just worrying about what might happen.”

  “Yeah, there’s a lot of that I guess” says Darla, a somber expression falling over her face.

  “How did your boyfriends take it? Did they just go along with it or…” starts Alex but stops when he sees Darla turn her head away. “I’m sorry. Did I say…”

  “No…it’s just that…. thisis embarrassing…I never had a...a boyfriend.”

  “Really?” says Alex with a genuine tone of surprise in his voice. “I mean, you, um you’re a…a pretty girl and all and I just assumed that…well y’know.”

  “I guess growing up like we did, doomsday preppers and all, a lot of people thought we were kind of weird and, well, most boys didn’t really want to hang out with us I guess.”

  “Wow” says Alex. “Well, I guess I can say that I know one thing about the boys in Tennessee.”

  “What’s that?”

  “They are either totally blind or completely stupid…or both.”

  Shining his light over so that he can catch a glimpse of Darla’s face, Alex sees that his comment has achieved the desired effect when he sees the smile filling her face, just before she turns her head in embarrassment.

  “Hey guys, c’mon. What’s taking you so long?”

  “We’re being careful” replies Alex.

  Catching up to the two young would be zombie slayers impatiently waiting at the end of the hallway the open entrance to the stairs looms ominous, like a black hole, with not even the faintest spark of light coming from the windowless passageway to the upper floor. Shining their lights into the blackness, the narrow stairs take on an eerie, ominous air. Narrow and made of concrete and metal with round maroon painted metal railings the stairs first lead up to a small landing and then, making a complete one-hundred eighty degree turn another short flight of stairs finishes the ascent to the entrance to the second floor.

  Unable to contain it, Alex lets out an audible giggle.

  “Um, what’s so funny?” asks Darla.

  “Oh, its’…it’s nothing, you wouldn’t… “says Alex as he starts to dismiss it but then, allowing another audible giggle to escape, decides to continue. “When we were juniors, Mrs. Baker, the Anatomy teacher sent some of us boys to come downstairs to get some textbooks out of storage. Me and Bryan and Justin and some other guys all went to do it. One of our other buddies, Mark, well, you see he had broken his ankle sliding on some ice as he was running to the bus earlier that winter and he had just gotten the cast off the day before.” he says, a slight chuckle escaping as he pauses, seeing the confused look on Darla’s face Alex says“Hold on, you’llget it” and then continues. “So we all come downstairs and load up on textbooks and of course it becomes a competition to see who can pack the most books. Well Mark decides that he’s gonna out do us all and he loads himself up heavy with the most books of any of us. So there we go carrying the books back but we gotta go up thestairs. These stairs right here. So, loaded heavy we start up the steps. Mark was the last one of us and he was struggling. You could tell he had too many books but he wasn’t about tolet up. So we make it to the top of the stairs and he’s still coming up this first set and all of a sudden he catches his toe on the step and falls. Books go flying everywhere and he falls right…you guessed it…. onhis ankle…yep, the one he just got the cast off of. We look down and see him crawling up the stairs, cussing and yelling. We we’re sure he broke his ankle again”.

  “What did you do?” asks Darla.

  “We left his sorry buttthere.”

  “What?”

  Barely able to speak now, trying not to laugh at the memory of the moment, Alex goes on,“We just took off running back to the classroom. We dropped the books and went to our seats as if nothing had happened.”

  “So what happened to your buddy?”

  “About five or ten minutes later here he comes in crawling on the floor.”

  “What did you say?”

  “We couldn’t say anything. We were just trying not to laugh. Mrs. Baker didn’t know what was going on but she was really cool and when she looked over at Mark, crawling into the classroom she calmly said“Where’s my books?” and that was it. We lost it. We all burst out laughing, even Mark.”

  “So…you see your friend get hurt, possibly severely re-injuring himself and you abandon him and then laugh at him when he finally makes it back?”

  Eyes watering at the humor of the story, Alex can only manage a“Yep”

  Rolling her eyes Darla simply sighs and says“Boys? I’ll never understand you guys.”

  “Oh come on that was hilarious. He was crawling on the floor and…and the books…and Mrs. Baker...“as Alex tries to argue the humorous merits of the story he loses control again and breaks out into a raucous, belly shaking laughter.

  “C’mon, let’sjust get upstairs” says Darla, trying not to let slip the grin that is trying to break free on her face over the farcical story she just heard.

  Shining their lights upward the foursome slowly creep step by step, making their way up to the top of the stairs. Reaching the summit, they find the large painted metal double doors leading into the main hallway of the second floor closed. Trying to look through the two tall, narrow windows in the doors the group can’t see anything but more impenetrable blackness beyo
nd.

  “Okay, let’s go but take it slow” orders Alex.

  As Brandon pushes the long horizontal metal handle bar and shoves the door open Alex suddenly remembers too late“Wait!”

  As the door opens the darkness is filled with a loud screeching sound that, in the context of a zombie apocalypse and a dark, abandoned building, some people might find to be a bit unnerving.

  “What the hell?” asks Brandon.

  “I forgot, these doors, they always do that. They did that the whole time I went to school here. No matter how much people complained they never fixed it.”

  “Well if there are any freakinzombies in this hallway they’re a cominthis way now.”

  “Let’s go then. The art room is the first room at the end of the hall here.”

  Rushing through the door and scanning the upper hallway with their lights the group hurries across the hall to the recessed entrance of the art room. With their four bodies crammed into the tiny niche of art the room entrance way Alex can only imagine the dangers that might be coming their way, attracted by the noise of the screeching doors.

  “Did any of you see anything?”

  “I don’t think so” says Darla“but it was pretty quick. I don’t know.”

  “Well let’s not sit here waiting like a bunch of sardines, let’sget in the room and see what’s what” declares Melody.

  “Good idea. Grabbing the door knob Alex lets out a sudden gasp.“Holy crap, it’s locked! It’s never locked! We used to come up here all the time and hang out after school. Mr. Carroll would let us play D&D all the time. It’s never locked” he says again in shocked exasperation.

  “Let me see” says Brandon as he squeezes down by the door knob.“Hmmm, doesn’t look to difficult.” Reaching into his pocket Brandon pulls out a pair of thin metal tools with hooks on the ends. Gently inserting them into the key hole of the door knob he jostles them up and down for a bit. With a quick“Gotcha” followed by an audible click, he grabs the doorknob and gives it a quick turn and much to the amazement of his big brother the door opens with ease.

  “How the helldid you know how to do that?” asks Alex in stunned amazement.