by Bryan Mosier
The shop class is one of the largest classrooms in the building with different areas devoted to different aspects of the class. One whole side of the large rectangular room is filled with a variety of power tools. Table saws and drill presses and all sorts of other equipment that Bryan has no clue as to what they would be usedfor. Giving a quick shiver Bryan mumbles to himself“I never wanted to be back in this room”.
“What was that?” asks Carla.
“Oh, I just said that I never wanted to have to come back in this room again.”
“Why. I thought all boys loved this kind of stuff. You know, power tools and stuff. Don’t they make you want to grunt like an ape or something?”
Getting the reference, Bryan smiles and says“No. I’m not the tool man type. They put me in this class when I was a sophomore but I was only in here for a few days.”
“Why, did you not like the teacher?”
“No the teacher, Mr. Blanchard, he was pretty cool. I just didn’t get along well with the Ag kids is all.”
“Ag kids?”
“Yeah, the Ag kids. Short for Agriculture. You know the type. All they want to talk about is farming and tractors and the best brand of horse manure and stuff.”
“Oh, you mean kind of like rednecks.”
“I mean exactly like rednecks. I saw more tobacco spit in those few days I was in this class than I ever did anywhere else.”
“Gross!”
“Tell me about it. And most of that was on the floor.”
“YUCK!”
“So you got out of the class because you didn’t like the other kids.”
“No, I got out of the class because they figured it was in my best interest after I nearly cut off my finger with a saw.”
“What! You’re kidding?”
“Nope. See, look here. Holding up his left hand Bryan points to a small white scar that nearly encircles his left pinky finger. Went all the way through the bone. Only had a little piece of meat holding it on.”
“What did you do?”
“I screamed like a little girl is what I did.”
“No, I mean how did you do it? Did you get it caught in one of the power saws?”
“No. I kindadid it with a hand saw.”
“Oh. Okay…wait a minute. A hand saw?”
Seeing the realization of the absurdity of what he just said crawl across her face he starts to explain but she manages to get the same question out that everyone he has told this story to comes to ask.
“Why didn’t you just stop when you felt it hit your finger?”
Trying to sound as rational as possible and to minimize the ludicrousness of the event Bryan begins with“You know how you can be doing something and not really paying attention and you don’t even know that you’ve done something until something else brings you back to what you were doing in the first place.”
Not really sure about what he just said Carla gives him a nod just to continue the story along.
“Well, we were having our first lesson on how to saw a board in half…”
“They had to teach you how to saw a board?”
“Apparently it’s an important skill not to be taken lightly. Anyway, here I am with my board and my handsaw and I’m doing what the teacher says and all of a sudden a couple of the other boys in class decide it would be funny to try out the power saw instead. Maybe they thought it would be faster or something, I don’t know. Anyways they fire up the saw and being the idiots that they are, one of them got their shirt caught in the blade and it’s all a big mess. Flannel everywhere. Everybody is laughing and the teacher is all pissed off and it was just, you know, chaos. I’m laughing at what’s going on but I’m also still sawing on my board. I see one of the other kids look over at me and his face just turns completely white. He points at me and says something like“He cut his finger off” and everybody looks at me. I ain’t got a clue as to what they’re talking about UNTIL I look down and see a whole lot of blood and my finger hanging at an angle it was never meant to.”
“You didn’t feel it?”
“Nope. Not until I lookeddown and saw it then I felt it. Oh boy did I feel it.”
“What did you do?”
“Did I mention screaming like a girl? I freaked out. The teacher freaked out. Hell, everybody freaked out. Somebody grabbed a rag and wrapped my hand up and rushed me down to the office to see the nurse. When she saw it SHE freaked out and they sent me on to the emergency room.”
“And they just sewed it back on.”
“Yep. The doctor said it was one of the cleanest cuts he’d ever seen. Mr. Blanchardwould’ve been proud.”
“Does it still work?”
“Oh yeah. I can move it and stuff. See” as he holds his hand up and wiggles his pinky around in little circles. “It’s a little numb but I got most of the feeling back after a few months.”
Shaking her head Carla moves on around the room looking for anything that might be useful. “You know if we had electricity some of this stuff could be used to make some better weapons. Here’s some old metal files. My dad used to take these and make knives out of them.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, he’d take a grinder and would shape them down into knife blades. He’d make these really neat looking handles and everything.”
“That’s awesome. Did you ever help him?”
“Yeah, he’d let all of us girls work with him in his shop. He said we should know how to make things on our own. He didn’t want us having to depend on other people for our survival.”
“So was that part of the whole doomsday prepper thing?”
Looking over at Bryan and giving hima dirty look, she starts“Y’know, that doomsday prepper stuff gets old pretty quick.”
Hearing the anger in her voice Bryan quickly backtracks.“Hey, I think it’s cool that he thought like that. I mean it had to be way more interesting than my life living here in the burbs of a po-dunk town in the hills of eastern Kentucky. I mean the most interesting thing that ever happened around here is…well…this, the whole world going to crap”.
Appeased by his attempt at self-deprecation, Carla drops the angry tone and continues with her search. “I’m sorry about snapping at you, it’s just, that’s the same thing we’ve heard all our lives. Going to school in Tennessee wasn’t much different. You had your preppy girls with their fancy clothes always looking down on us for wearing our army surplus stuff and you had the idiot jocks and rednecks who couldn’t do anything but make funny noises at us. Even the outcasts, the nerds and geeks, goths and emo kids, none of them wanted anything to do with us either.”
“Why?” Comes the shocked response from Bryan.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you seem pretty cool to me. I can’t see why anyone would treat you like that. It’s…well…it’s just stupid.”
Trying to hide the smile on her face Carla just looks at her feet and manages a quiet little“Thanks” before turning to look at something on a shelf, feigning interest in an effort to avoid eye contact.
Suddenly, Bryan and Carla both jump when a loud crash comes from somewhere nearby.
“What was that?” asks Carla, a note of fear creeping into her voice.
“Don’t know but it sounded like it wasn’t too far away, maybe down by the cafeteria?”
“That’s where Justin and Helga went. You think…” starts Carla but cuts the thought short.
“C’mon, let’sgo check it out.”
Chapter 22
As Justin and Helga make the turn to go down the short auxiliary hallway that leads out to the cafeteria, they pause for a moment to survey the area. The short hallway, as typical of most schools, is lined with rows of drab colored metal lockers on each side, broken only by the doors leading to the various classrooms. At the end of the hallway are two large wooden doors with narrow windows that lead out to a small canopied court yard that separates the school from the cafeteria. Trying to make conversation and take his mind off of his ow
n fears, Justin points to the last door on the right and says“That iswhere I had AP English. I loved that class”. Looking over at Helga he can see a mix of confusion and fear in her eyes. “Don’t worry, I will notlet anything happen to you” he says even though he’s pretty sure she doesn’t understand a word of what he is saying. Maybe it was the look in his eyes or the tone of his voice but he knew that she understood when she came closer and put her hand in his. With that touch, any fear that he had washed away and with his new found confidence Justin say’s“Come on, we got this”. Carefully walking down the hallway, making sure to scan each room for any lurking zombies, Justin and Helga reach the large double doors. Looking through the windows, the evening light is dimmed further from the shade of the canopy but they can still see clearly enough that the space outside is free of zombies. Opening the doors they walk out into the narrow courtyard and take in the evening air.
Looking around Justin sees that Helga has taken notice of the large metal screens that serve as fences, effectively walling off both ends of the courtyard as if to prevent any would be escape attempts. “They put those up my junioryear” says Justin,“after two kids decided to sneak out during lunch and go downtown and rob a gas station.” Giving him a confused look Justin just smiles at Helga and motions for her to come with him.
Walking up to one of two sets of double doors that allow entrance to either side of the cafeteria, Justin puts his face against the glass and tries to shade his eyes to allow better visibility through the milky glass of the windows. “I cannotreally see anything…I guess we should…just go on in?” he suggests, the confidence he had gained earlier having been completely exhausted at this point.Not sure if the look on her face is one of agreement or confusion, Justin decides that the best course of action is to go in. “What would the others say if we came back empty handed?” he thinks to himself,“I wouldnever hear the end of it.” Slowly pushing the long metal bar handle Justin gently nudges the door open. At first the door resists, as if jammed but with a little more effort the old, worn out hinges relent and allows Justin and Helga access to the cafeteria. A fairly large room the cafeteria is filled with an assortment of small round tables interspersed among a scattering of longer, rectangular ones. Ugly little green plastic chairs are scattered about, some neatly stacked in the far back corner of the room while others seem to have been shoved randomly here and there without any real concern for placement. The far back wall of the cafeteria is divided into two halves. On the side of the cafeteria closest to where Justin and Helga find themselves the wall is broken by two doors separated by a short expanse of the ever ubiquitous drab khaki colored painted block wall like those found throughout the rest of the school, are lined with tables and carts full of plastic forks and spoons, napkins and assorted canisters containing ketchup and mustard packets and the like. The first door on the right would be used for entering the food line and after moving through to collect your daily ration of governmentally apportioned servings of instant mashed potatoes or rehydrated scrambled eggs, you would exit through the second door to the left. The other side of the cafeteria was a mirror reflection of this near side where Justin and Helga now stood. The two sides were divided by a large rectangular opening where students would return their trays to the awaiting lunch ladies, usually drenched in sweat, their hair nets sticking to their foreheads from the billowing clouds of steam as they cleaned the trays and silverware for the next group of students to file through the lines like so much cattle at feeding time. The room seems much more foreboding now, dimly lit by the weak evening light coming through a bank of small windows that run along the top of the right hand wall creating a type of clerestory like arrangement.
“Okay, we should go towards the back and see if we can find anything we can use.” suggests Justin.
Looking at Helga he gives a quick jerk of his head to motion for her to follow him. Moving to the nearest door used for entering the lunch line, Justin pauses, trying to see into the next room but its lack of windows makes this room much darker than the main dining area. With what little light that is trickling in from the door, Justin catches the gleam off of the familiar glass and stainless steel counter where, for the last four years he would receive his daily regimen of watery scrambled eggs for breakfast and soupy mashed potatoes for lunch. Beyond the counter though is nothing but darkness. Shining his light into the space and slowly stepping into the room, Justin pushes aside the large freezer like container that used to house the assorted juices and milks that came standard with the school breakfasts and lunches. Other than an initial squeak, the caster wheels on the freezer allow the massive object to roll with relative ease on the smooth brown tiled floor, allowing Justin enough room to squeeze past and gain entrance into the no man’s land beyond the serving counter.
“Huh, never been back here before. Let us see what we have here.”
Following closely behind Justin, Helga begins to feel nervous and instinctively grabs Justin’s hand for comfort. Feeling her touch revitalizes his resolve and with renewed strength Justin moves on into the darkness of the kitchen area. Shining his light around the area he’s surprised at how small the kitchenreally is.“I would have figured it would have had to be much bigger to be able to make enough food to feed everybody” he says out loud, not really intending it as a point of conversation. As the light passes from one area to the next, it gleams off of one shiny, metallic stainless steel surface after another. Almost surgical in its cleanliness Justin wonders at the contradiction, recalling the many horror stories about what really went into the food that was being served. If the stories were to be believed it could be anything from beef fallen ill with mad cow disease to horse meat to the occasional wayward rat, like the one that once ran through the cafeteria while he was eating lunch only to be stomped to death under the muddy boots of a group of redneck boys. Looking more carefully Justin can see the large industrial mixers, broilers and steamers that were used to prepare the many staples of high school cuisine. Moving slowlythrough the space, checking under counters and behind the large warmers that kept his favorite Thanksgiving dinner rolls nice and toasty, Justin’s nerves begin to ease as he is convinced that the area is free from any hidden threats.
Looking to the back wall of the kitchen, Justin sees two large stainless steel doors. Thinking they look like the same kinds of doors you would expect to find on a bank vault, minus the combination lock and the big spinning wheel handle like you see on a pirate ship, he realizes that this must be the freezers where they keep all the perishable foods. “Hmm, what do you think?” he asks Helga“We do not really know how long the electricity has been off so whatever’s in there may have spoiled. Then again if it were frozen and the insulation on these things is good, then whatever is in there could still be edible. Should we check it out?” he asks Helga who, reading his body language and his interests in the large metal doors, gives him a quick nod of approval. Walking over to the first door Justin grabs the handle and looks back at Helga. As if to offer backup, Helga motions for Justin to wait as she steps out of the beam of light to return after a brief moment, now brandishing a large metal ladle that she has picked from a nearby rack of industrial sized utensils. With a quick nod from Helga, Justin pulls the door open and almost instantly the two explorers are hit with the sudden, overpowering stench of rot and decay.“Oh my god that is disgusting” says Justin, trying to cover his nose and mouth while talking. Shining his light into the large walk in freezer he sees that both sides of the space are lined with shiny metal shelves that have been loaded with all sorts of meats. Once frozen, the shelves are now burdened with oozing gelatinous mounds of decaying pork and beef and“hey does that say equine” thinks Justin as he closes the door of the freezer in an attempt to free himself from the stench.
Shining his light back at Helga, even in the darkness of the room Justin can see that her complexion has taken on a slightly greenish hue and he can only imagine how he looks as he tries his best not to throw up in front of her. “Well, s
hould we check the other one?” he asks. Not really expecting better results Justin walks over and grabs the handle of the second freezer. Anticipating a similar olfactory assault and opting for the all at once band aid approach he gives the handle a hard jerk and again the room is filled with the smell of rot and decay. Not wanting to risk turning his stomach even worse Justin chooses not to look in the freezer but rather looks to Helga to see how she is coping with the stench. When he shines his light on her the look on her face is nothing like what he had anticipated. Rather than gagging from the stench Helga is standing with her hand covering her mouth but not in a way that would suggest she is trying to avoid the smell but rather as if she were trying to muffle a scream. Looking at her eyes they seem to be conveying a sense of fear rather than disgust at the terrible odor. Finally, lifting the large metal ladle Helga points at Justin, rather to the space beyond the freezer door where Justin now stands. Confused Justin turns to see what Helga is pointing to.
As his light shines into the small space of the freezer he sees that the tiny metal lined room is not filled with mounds of rotting meat but instead is populated with a quartet of rotting corpses that are now lumbering forward, drawn to the light and sounds created by these two new sources of tender, juicy warm flesh. In an instant, Justin is filled with sadness as recognition takes hold. All of them female wearing pale blue surgical scrub like uniforms, white plastic disposable aprons, and delicate black mesh hair nets now encrusted with hair matted with dried rot, a sense of losscomes over Justin. “I know these people” he says. Pointing to the nearest zombie, once a short, stocky built woman in her mid-fifties, Justin mutters“That…that is Lou. She always gave me extra chicken nuggets.” Frozen both in fear and at the loss of his belovedfood service workers it’s not until the four lumbering figures are within inches of him that the reality of the danger sets in and, with as much force as he can muster he slams the door shut. Pressing all of his weight against the door he tries to lock the four formerfood serving foursome back in their metal post-apocalyptic tomb. Catching the lead zombie in the door, its body pinned at the chest between the door and the frame of the freezer, one arm flailing about trying to grab hold of Justin’s shoulder, it’s everything he can do to hold the door shut and avoid being snared by its bony fingers. Feeling the weight of the other three zombies now pressing against the door he realizes that he won’t be able to hold the door closed much longer. Straining with all his might, Justin looks to Helga who now, having dropped his flashlight in the struggle is just a dark outline behind the bright glow of her own light. “GO!” he yells as he feels his feet start to slip on the tiled floor of the kitchen. When she doesn’t move Justin yells again even louder this time“GO! NOW!” Suddenly the light of the flashlight dims and fades away as Helga turns and runs away from the freezers.