Zombie High (20 page)

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.

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 last 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.”