Dead Quarantine (10 page)

“Just follow me.”

The first few classrooms were empty. The
first they found occupied was with a single girl sitting in a
corner, huddled in a ball, crying. She was shaking all over and
looking around wildly. She answered their questions with sobs.
Sarah asked George if he could take her to their classroom and
spared the girl the details of what had happened. She must have
heard the shots and that seemed to have stricken her; no need to
add to that by telling her that Sam had been killed.

George was glad to comply, obviously
uncomfortable with the idea of speaking to a crowd. He greedily
accepted helping take the girl away and didn't offer to come back.
She was left to do this alone. Whatever was happening today was
beyond normal. People had to know, to prepare for whatever was
coming, and not try to leave and get shot. After a few more empty
rooms, she came upon one with five sophomores, all boys. They
listened to her story but didn't believe her. They insisted on
going to look. She barely convinced them not to, and they rejected
coming with her to her classroom.

Something similar happened with the next
group of eight kids, though they believed her. They thought it
better to stay together in their class instead of joining people
they didn't know. It amazed her how stupid people could be or how
they took a serious situation so lightly. Maybe it was because they
had not seen a classmate's brain blown to pieces. It was something
unreal, difficult to grasp. She had trouble coping with it. The
only way she knew how was to dull herself against it, making it
something distant. She gulped down the fear that had accumulated at
her throat. She could not afford to be led by it.

There were two rooms left. She couldn't get
to every classroom in school. Downstairs there were more and the
other wing past the principal’s office had a few classrooms, but
she couldn't get to them without being shot at. For all she knew,
the downstairs was crawling with trigger-happy,
testosterone-overdosed soldiers. The two teens still sat in the
room. The wooly haired one asked again what she was doing outside
without permission. They seemed more sensible than the others and
agreed to come over to the other classroom.

Sarah entered the classroom next to hers.
Two seniors sat in a corner, kissing. She knew them. Melanie and
Victor, or Mel and Vic as they liked to be called. She harrumphed.
They kept going at it. Once Jake and she were like that, but that
was a long time ago. A lot had changed after three years together.
Could it be they had outgrown each other? No, Jake had stayed the
same; he never changed and maybe never would.

“Mel! Vic!”

They ignored her and kept going at it. Lips
on lips and tongues locked in a passionate struggle. She walked up
to them and kicked Vic. He and Mel broke out laughing.

“Jealous much, Sarah,” Mel said.

Sarah blushed. In a way, she was, but that
was beside the point.

Vic chuckled. “Stop teasing her, between her
and her admirers, she has no reason to be jealous of anyone. She
could have a sea of men, me excluded, naturally.”

If she wasn't blushing already, she was now.
Quick to change the subject back to why she came, she said, “Didn't
you hear the gunfire?”

All play left their faces and they nodded.
The rooms were soundproof, but up close, gunshots could be
heard.

“On and off shots have been fired and just a
while ago, one was pretty close,” Vic said.

She had not heard any other shots. Had they
been too busy with their own problems to be able to hear the
outside problem going on? Was the world about to end or
something?

Mel held on Vic tighter, worry on her face.
“What happened?”

Sarah told them how Jake, George, and Sam
went down to take a look and to find out what was going on and that
she had followed them. “A soldier stopped them at the stairs and
shot Sam.”

Vic jumped up. “Sam Wei? He's dead?”

Sarah lowered her head. She had forgotten
that Sam was Vic's childhood friend; of course it would hit him
hard.

“I'm sorry. I—”

Vic shoved her aside and rushed for the
door. She ran after him and grabbed his arm. “Don't.”

“Let me go!” He pulled his arm free and
opened the door.

“They'll shoot you too.”

His shoulders sagged. Mel ran into his arms,
consoling him. He cried out.

Sarah felt like a real killjoy. They had
their moment of happiness in a shitty day in the corner of this
room and along she came, the harbinger of bad news. She should have
left them alone in their happy cocoon.

“What's going on?” Mel asked.

“I...I think...sorry, guys, I don't really
know. Come with me. Maybe with everybody together we can figure out
what's happening.”

“Yeah, that might be for the best,” Vic
said. “Could you go ahead; we'll join you later.”

She wanted to protest but thought better of
it. They had to cope first with what had happened before they
joined the others. She left them standing, embracing each
other.

CHAPTER NINE

Sarah
entered the classroom to the sound of brawling. Jake stood over
George who had a hand clasped over his cheek.

“Leave him alone,” Tommy said.

Slowly, Jake turned to face him. “What did
you say? Tell it to my face, you fat piece of trash.”

“I said leave him alone!”

Sarah cringed. Tom should have backed off.
She was to blame really; she should not have told him to grow some
balls, because now he was at the worse time. Although, at the same
time, she admired him for it.

Jake jumped over a desk to get at Tommy. He
grabbed him by the collar and pushed him against the window. Tommy
tried to push back, but Jake kept pressing on. The two nerds that
she brought in ran to the back of the room and stood gawking. No
help would come from them.

George stood up and limped away. Sarah
grabbed him by his denim jacket sleeve. “Are you not going to help
him? He stood up for you.”

George averted his eyes. “I didn't ask him
to. Why don't you stop Jake? He's your boyfriend; he might listen
to you. I would just be another victim.”

He shoved her aside, dropped into a chair,
and slumped. No help there either. Lilly still sat half comatose at
her desk. Anna was swooning over Jake, a weird excited look on her
face. It was a wonder that drool wasn’t leaking out of her mouth.
Jake pulled back a fist, pushing Tommy's head with his other hand
against the window.

“Stop it!”

Jake sneered at her. “You too? Protecting
this.”

He punched Tommy's temple. Tommy's eyes
rolled back and he slumped. The room fell into a hush. Jake spat on
the unconscious teen and sat at his desk with a satisfied smile on
his face. This was who she was with? Loved? She felt sick to her
stomach. No sweet words or gifts could ease this hurt.

She put two fingers on the side of Tommy's
neck. She felt a weak pulse and his chest moved up and down
slowly.

“Don't bother with him; he'll wake up in a
minute or two,” Jake said.

“You bastard, what has gotten into you?”

She felt the tears surge, begging to be let
out, to let her cry. Everything that had happened overwhelmed her
at once. She should have stayed home to take care of her mother and
baby brother. Now, she was cut off from them, quarantined at school
against her will, while her family was probably being kept locked
up at home with no one to look after them. She was left with her
jerk of a boyfriend.

“Come on, baby; it's your fault really. You
made me do it.” Her skin crawled in distaste. “It's all good now. I
forgive you,” he said with a smirk.

“You forgive me?” She approached him. He
leaned back, waiting for her. The smirk was still etched on his
face.

She slapped him. Her palm print shown red
hot on his cheek. His eyes grew wild. He burst forward, grabbing
her by the throat and slamming her back on a desk. She couldn't
breathe. She tried to scratch his face, but he pushed her back and
pinned her by the throat on the desk. He pulled his head back out
of reach for her nails.

“You shouldn't have done that.”

He had never hurt her physically before. For
all the things wrong with him, she never expected this. Tears
streamed from her eyes, and she hated herself it. Her eyes darted
sideways. No one did anything. They stood staring with their mouths
open. She tried to call out for help, but only managed a small
croak.

Lilly jumped on Jake's back and screamed for
him to let go. He tried to shrug Lilly off, but she kept holding
on. Lilly's arms slung around his neck. His hands loosened around
Sarah's throat. Air slipped back in Sarah's lungs.

With her voice still hoarse, she yelled at
Jake. “You're choking me!”

He let her go and recoiled. His wild eyes
turned into shock. “I...I...”

Lilly let him go and dropped off his back,
pushing him aside as she rushed to Sarah. “Are you all right?”
Lilly snapped her head at Jake. “Have you seen what you've done,
you prick! Are you happy now?” She turned her fury to the others.
“Cowards, you all, standing there doing nothing.”

Sarah sat upright. Bewildered, she looked at
each person in the room. Lilly was right; not one would have lifted
a finger. They would have let her die. Her eyes rested on Tommy. He
would have done something and he paid the price for it. She sure
knew who she could trust from now one. She sobbed. Lilly embraced
her. It felt good. And to think, she had once considered giving her
up for that monster.

The comfort did not last long. Shots were
fired outside. George ran to the window. It was dark now. More
shots fired.

“God,” George said. “They are shooting at
people.”

Lilly let go of Sarah and went to stand next
to George. Sarah would have rather stayed at her side. She could,
at the moment, care less about what was happening outside.
Everything in her life was turning to shit anyway.

The other kids joined them, Jake reluctantly
trailing after them. He dared not look at her. It was over; there
was no way she would ever go back to him after how he behaved
today. No words were needed to state that, and no words she would
dirty to make that clear to him. She hopped off the desk that had
almost been her deathbed and went to stand next to Lilly.

Sarah became rigid. A group of a
hundred-some men and women approached the gates. The spotlight the
soldiers put in place lit them up. Some were injured and limped
along, clothes torn and blood caked on them. The soldiers formed a
line and almost immediately started shooting, mowing the crowd
down. A soldier called the order to stop firing and one by one they
stopped shooting. They held their rifles tensely aimed at the
corpses strewn all over the high school's parking lot.

“Why are they doing this?” Lilly asked.

No one answered. No one knew. These soldiers
seemed to have overreacted, like unarmed people posed any threat to
them. Sarah gasped and her heart jumped a beat. Several of the
people shot down were standing up.

“Take aim,” a soldier yelled. “Make your
head shots count.”

They shot, alternating shot after shot,
taking time to aim. One by one the people fell down. They stopped
shooting when no one else stood up again.

“What the fuck was that?” George said.

“They are killing unarmed people, just like
that,” said Anna, the blond, short girl. “What if they are coming
for us next?” Anna ran over to Jake and clamped on him, and he
allowed her. He was actually comforting her. Sarah looked away.

“Look!” Sarah pointed. “More are
coming.”

The soldiers were reloading and talking
among each other, unaware of a group of people coming their
way.

“We should warn them,” Lilly said. “The
soldiers will kill them.”

Sarah watched as the mob moved like drunks,
shoving against each other, walking unsteady on their feet, a few
even tripping over themselves. The way those who had been shot
stood back up with their bodies riddled with bullets was not
normal. Humans could not take that kind of punishment and live. And
this new mob moved carelessly about; they must have seen what
happened. Were they drugged?

“Maybe we shouldn't,” Sarah said.

Lilly turned, shocked at her. “You can't
mean that.”

“Something is wrong here, don't you feel
it?”

Lilly shook her head, but she didn't attempt
to warn them. She must feel it too. Everything that happened today
must be part of something bigger. Maybe they weren’t being kept
inside to keep others safe, but kept inside to keep them safe from
whatever was roaming outside.

The soldier closest to the incoming crowd
spotted the mob. He shot his magazine empty. However, he was caught
by surprise. He aimed high and most of the bullets flew over the
mob, only hitting a few, but not stopping anyone. The other
soldiers scrambled to position, but before they could form a line,
the mob was on them. The line broke before it was even formed. Five
men jumped on the closest soldier. The soldier tried to beat them
away, but they tore at him, tearing off his helmet and vest. They
started biting the soldier. The soldier screamed while chunks of
him got torn off by hungry teeth.

In horror, Sarah watched, not understanding,
unable to fathom what could get people so far beyond that they
could do that to a human being. The other soldiers backing down got
overwhelmed one by one. They tried to shoot their way out, but
there were too many. A few dropped their guns and fled. Others shot
indiscriminately at anything moving, shooting fellow soldiers and
zombies alike, until they got shot or pinned down and eaten. The
last one alive was surrounded; they were closing in on him. He
switched his rifle to his left hand and went for his pistol. He put
it against his head, but before he could shoot, a woman grabbed his
arm and bit him. He shot in the air. The others bore down on him,
chewing on him.