All Together Now: A Zombie Story (8 page)

He snarled. There was nothing of Mr. Goodwin in that sound.

I tried to yank my leg away, but he held me in place as easily as an owner holds an excited pet.

He lifted my calf and bent to bite my heel.

I kicked at his face with my free leg hard enough to peel back more skin.

That was when a group of students came running around the corner. They were running away from something, and they kept running, dodging me and Mr. Goodwin.

Mr. Goodwin glanced at them, but he already had me.

The last student to come into the hall was Ben Tobin. At first I thought he'd keep going.

"Ben!" I screamed. "Help me!"

Ben didn't stop moving, but swung as hard as he could and punched Mr. Goodwin in the face.

Mr. Goodwin's head snapped left, but the impact never registered in his expression. He dropped my ankle and reached for Ben.

I crawled until I was out of his reach, then stood.

Mr. Goodwin looked at Ben, to his right, and me, to his left, as though uncertain which of us to attack first.

"Run," Ben said.

I nodded like I understood, but stayed right where I was.

Ben took off, skirting around Teresa, who was starting to stand. At her feet, Molly Hale, the first girl I ever French kissed, lay still. The blood from her throat pooled around her, soaking her hair.

Mr. Goodwin took a lurching step after Ben, swinging an arm for balance.

"Ben!" I yelled. That was just dumb of me, but you have to remember I'd never seen a zombie or even heard of one until that day. I was learning the rules as I went.

Mr. Goodwin turned back and the expression on his face told me he'd forgotten I was there until that moment.

Behind him, Molly sat up, her damp brown hair dripping blood. More blood spilled from her opened throat.

When she turned to look at me I saw her eyes were all white.

That got me running.

I ran to the end of the hall where Ben had stopped.

"What's wrong?" I asked. Then I saw what was waiting for us at the end of the next hall.

29

SURPRISE, IT WAS ZOMBIES. THE next hall was full of them. I didn't know they were zombies then, but I could tell by their all-white eyes and jerky movements that I didn't want to get close to any of them.

At the end of the hall were two floor-to-ceiling soda machines with the Kirkman's logo across their fronts glowing neon green and pink.

Angie DeLaRosa
, senior, editor for the school web site, member of the band. She had glasses with lenses as thick as magnifying glasses and short mousy hair that curled under her jaw.

I was hoping to join the web staff next year (only juniors and seniors can join), so I attended some of their info meetings and Angie was always nice to me.

She was in the center of five other students, none of whom I recognized and all of whom had white eyes. They were on their knees reaching into Angie, feeding. Her stomach had been ripped from its base to just below her breasts.

She was splayed open on the hall floor like a patient on an operating table, except Angie was awake and screaming.

Jason Leach
, junior, AV club. I don't know a whole lot about Jason, and what I know isn't good. He used to bully underclassmen and he had one of the worst cases of acne in the whole school. His face looked as though it had been chewed. And he smelled.

All I can say is you probably can't judge someone based on who they were in high school. For all I knew, Jason might've gone onto college and his face might've cleared up, and he might've purchased deodorant.

He might've grown up to be all right. But we'll never know.

Robin McKelvey
, freshman, gamer. Robin was way into video games. Or at least, I assume she was. She was always wearing hoodies and T-shirts with Mario on them.

Robin had hold of both Jason's shoulders and was trying to bite his chest. Jason took a step back and tripped, landing with Robin straddling him.

Robin lost her grip momentarily, then slapped Jason so hard some of his zits burst, spraying pus. Jason screamed and she bit the other side of his face.

I don't want to think where that pus went.

In every classroom down the hall I heard human screams, and everywhere that awful low monotone moaning punctuated with inhuman snarls.

The students not already eating Angie or flocking to Jason to finish him off turned toward Ben and me.

"We'll never get out this way," I said. "The gym!"

I turned and ran. Ben followed.

30

TODAY IS DAY TWO OF living on Ernie's roof and the dead surrounding the station don't seem to have tired of our little game yet.

Michelle and I hide in the center and they moan below us, seeming to lose interest. One of us goes to use the bathroom and gets too close to the roof's edge where some of the zombies can see, and they all start snarling.

Michelle pretending to shoot them didn't help any. I was writing this afternoon and Michelle sang:

"See the zombies going by, every zombie, it must die. Aim your gun, it takes some skill. How many zombies will I kill: One, two, three, four." As she counted she aimed her pistol at zombies below.

For one terrible moment, I was sure she was going to pull the trigger. But she didn't. She only aimed. "...five, six, seven, eight—"

"What are you doing?"

Michelle was lying on her stomach in the corner of the roof, both hands holding her gun out in front so she could aim. She was low, but by the way the snarling intensified below, I knew some of them could see her.

Michelle shrugged. "It's a jump rope rhyme. You know, 'Cinderella, dressed in green, went upstairs to eat ice cream. How many spoonfuls did she eat: one, two...'"

She frowned. "Didn't you ever play jump rope?"

"I'm a boy."

"Sucks for you."

"Get away from the edge," I said.

Michelle glared at me, but I just stared right back at her.

Slowly she rolled away from the edge and sprawled on her back. She put her hands on her face. "I'm so bored."

"Can you be bored quietly?"

I turned away and went back to writing.

Michelle grumbled a bit, but finally she took
Destiny Takes a Lover
from her pack and settled in to read.

The sun will be going down before long, and then I'm going to stop writing. I'm worn out. I'll tell you the whole story, but not tonight.

Tonight I have only a little more to tell.

31

THE GYM WAS CLEAR. THERE were basketballs in the center of the court, one still rolling, so I knew there'd recently been people here. There appeared to be no one here now.

But I didn't look that closely.

My eyes were searching for the big blue barrels beside the bleachers. I ran to them and by the time Ben asked, "What are you doing?" I'd tipped them over

We didn't have time to dig through them.

Basketballs, red balls, soccer balls—they all spilled out across the floor along with rackets and other sports paraphernalia. But what I wanted were the baseball bats at the bottom of the barrel.

I took my favorite: a steel bat with a black grip, a familiar dent in its tip.

It was my lucky bat, not the one I used in games—that was in the coach's closet with the other game gear—but I'd hit more than a few good pitches in practice with the bat. It's the same bat that's lying on the roof beside me as I write this.

I tossed another bat to Ben. I considered a golf club, but decided I'd need both hands to swing the bat... if it came to it.

Even then, I knew it would.

"Up here!"

Amber
, freshman. I don't know Amber's last name. I don't even know if she died. She might've gotten out. I suppose I don't know enough to write her memorial and thanks to the zombies, I guess I won't ever know, so I'll just say she had spectacular red hair.

There were bleachers along the walls on either side of the gymnasium. During the week they were folded against the wall to give the gym classes maximum floor space.

There were the bottom bleachers, an aisle, and then the top bleachers. All the bleachers were pressed in too tightly to sit on, but Amber was standing in the aisle with four other freshmen.

"They can't climb," Amber called down to us. "They already tried."

She didn't have to define "they."

The rear gymnasium doors banged open and four students staggered in, more behind them, all with white eyes, all moaning.

"Let's go!" Ben said. He grabbed onto the bleachers and began to climb, which we never would've been allowed to do under normal circumstances.

"No!" I said. "We'll be trapped!"

"Hurry!" Amber screamed.

I looked back. The zombies were already halfway across the gym. Four students had become 12. They weren't running, but their eyes were focused on us and they were walking in jerky steps as fast as their stiff legs would allow.

Ben looked at me, considering, and then climbed back down.

"Outside!" I pointed at the double doors with the word EXIT printed above them in green. They led out to the football field, and beyond that, the baseball diamond.

Ben nodded and we ran.

A dead girl lurched from the side of the bleachers, blocking our path to the exit. A flap of skin had been peeled back from above her right eye to the top of her skull. The flesh of her stomach and side from her armpit to her jeans had been ripped away. She moaned and reached for us.

Ben gave her a wide berth, but he couldn't reach the exit door without touching her.

The snarling behind us grew louder, closer.

"Please move," I said.

The girl cocked her head and stepped toward me, her lips drawing back to expose her teeth, and I knew she didn't understand. She was beyond understanding

"Move," I said, flinching.

I glanced back at the approaching corpses and did what I had to. I swung my bat into the girl's face as hard as I could.

She fell over with a screeching thump on the glazed hardwood floor.

"I'm sorry."

The left side of her face was now mangled and bleeding where I'd struck her, but the girl started to stand again anyway.

"I'm so sorry." My hands were trembling so badly it's a wonder I didn't drop my bat.

"Come on!" Ben said, opening the exit doors.

I ran around the girl without looking back.

By the time the fire alarm sounded, we were outside, the gym doors closed behind us.

32

JUST UNDER THE HIGH RINGING of the fire alarm was the low wailing of weather sirens in the distance. Usually these could only be heard for two minutes on Friday mornings during their weekly test or when conditions were suitable for a tornado.

The sky above was light blue and the sun was bright.

On the baseball diamond, a gym class was milling around, listening to the sirens. They'd been playing ball the whole time. They didn't yet know how many of their friends and teachers were either dead or ought to be.

"What—" Ben said and stopped. He tried to speak again and choked.

Tears dripped from the corners of his eyes and he slapped them away as though beating them out.

I shook my head. I didn't feel like crying.

I didn't feel anything. I was numb.

Something disgusting bubbled up from my guts to my throat, but I swallowed it before it got past my teeth.

It was a pleasant summer day. If not for the alarms, we might've heard birds chirping.

Ben was wearing a
Star Wars
shirt. A red smear marred Yoda's forehead.

"We should go," I said.

Ben slapped his eyes again and nodded. "Where?"

"I don't know. We should—" I remembered the office memo I received in third period. "What time is it?"

"I don't know—I'm not..." Ben reached into his pocket and withdrew his phone. "11:17."

"My dad's coming," I said. "He'll be coming to the front office, so we—"

The metal exit doors behind us banged open and the zombies from the gym poured out into the sunshine. They batted their white eyes in the daylight, but lurched toward us without breaking stride.

We ran.

We raised our bats, but there was no need. We could've outpaced the zombies if we'd been walking briskly, and in no time they were too far behind us to be a threat.

The problem with zombies is not speed. It's that they never sleep, never get tired. If not distracted by other prey, the dead students of Harrington High School would've followed us forever.

We had to stop sometime. They didn't.

As we rounded the side of the school, we understood the reason for the fire alarm. Through the windows of a classroom in the science wing we saw flames. Inside, students stumbled and staggered as though unaware they were on fire.

They didn't scream, only moaned.

Brock Hussong
, junior, basketball team. Brock was mostly quiet, but he was always nice. He dated Kelly Westerfield forever. I think they planned to get married after senior year. I didn't see Kelly, so maybe she got out. I know Brock would've liked that.

Brock was standing on the outside of the building, beside the burning classroom.

Flames rose several inches from his shoulders, and beneath them I could hear crackling and popping. His hair was melting to his face the way a plastic action figure melts in a camp-fire.

But Brock only stared off, vacant, until he caught sight of Ben and me.

Then he stepped toward us and raised a hand, causing the flame to spread from his shoulder down his arm.

Just behind Brock, the emergency door opened and a group of living students came running out.

Kendra Jordan
, sophomore, swimmer. Kendra wasn't popular. She was a bigger girl, not fat, but thick, and she had bad skin. But she swam the butterfly faster than any of the other girls.

As the students streamed either side of Brock, he reached for them. They all dodged him, save for Kendra.