The Failed Coward

by Chris Philbrook

  None of the women could keep their emotions in check. The videos were the worst thing they had ever seen, and no matter how bad they were revolted, none of them could look away. No matter how many times she replayed her Lady Gaga CD, she couldn’t shake the reality of what was happening.

  Only a few hours into the day the concerned parents began calling, and then showing up frantically on campus. When she could steal a moment Amy went back to her office and checked out more videos that were being posted hastily by people across the world. London, Brussels, Moscow, Cairo, Rio, Beijing , and the list went on and on. The longer the day went, the larger the spread of the violence, and the more obvious it became to her that this was the worst event mankind had ever faced.

  The Dean of the school handled it professionally. He sent out emails every thirty minutes to advise the staff of what was happening. Late in the morning the hoity-toity parents of the spoiled brats attending the school started calling to make sure their wunderkind were still safe, and by one in the afternoon the parents started rolling into campus in their luxury sedans, and freshly waxed SUVs to rescue their children from the ravages of a worldwide apocalypse. An apocalypse that had yet to arrive on campus, mind you.

  Campus was like grand central station for hours as parent after parent streamed in to rescue their child. Amy lost her entire afternoon dealing with asshole parents arguing and looking for their kids. Every system was abandoned as she and her admissions co-workers tried to connect child with worried father or worried mother as fast as humanly possible. She would call into the classroom the kid should be in, and tell the teacher to send the child to the admissions building at the entrance to the campus, near the bridge over the river that fed into Auburn Lake.

  The child would come running, and the parent would spirit their offspring away, worried to death over them. Occasionally the child wouldn’t be where they were supposed to be, and the parent would shit a pile of bricks while Amy made the chain of calls to find the kid. If she had to watch one more yuppie bitch cry about their darling “Hannah” or “Emily” or “Thad” she’d retch.

  At a little after five, right when she should’ve been going home for the night, she actually did throw up. Amy was standing in the lush green grass just outside the admissions office talking to yet another sad faced moron looking for his son. She reiterated her “don’t worry, everything is fine” speech for the Nth time as a small BMW zipped towards the bridge like a bat out of hell, and swerved to avoid a freshman trying to cross one of the campus streets.

  The male driver jerked the wheel far too fast for even the luxury car to cope with, and the BMW instantly barrel rolled down the street with a horrendous series of smashes. Like a scene out of a movie car chase, the black luxury vehicle flew over one of the granite benches situated next to a sidewalk. Amy could see the look of terror on the mother’s face straight through the windshield. Amy’s blood ran cold and her breath emptied out of her lungs. The entire front end of the car crumpled on the final roll and the BMW came to a rest leaning on its side against the center school building. Amy stood slack jawed for what seemed like an hour as onlookers rushed in to help.

  Chaos ensued. Dozens of students stood around, sobbing as the rescuers pulled three people from the wreckage. Amy herself couldn’t build the courage to run in to help. All she could muster was one slow step at a time, compelled to get closer to see, but not brave enough to become part of the scene and actually lend a hand. One of the school’s athletics coaches yanked the driver out of the overturned car. The driver’s left arm had been pinched in the rollover, and was smeared like brie all over the street and car door. His arm from the elbow down was a crushed, bloody pulp. The bones were torn into shards, and all Amy could think of was that it looked like giant, red chopsticks protruding from a mangled stump. He bled out as Amy lost the contents of her stomach onto the street.

  The mother’s legs were crushed by the dashboard. Her moans of agony were so powerful every time her lungs expelled a scream the crowd retracted as if they felt every moment of her pain themselves. Amy had never seen so much human emotion, and was utterly overwhelmed. Her eyes widened in shock as the backseat passenger was removed. He was one of the school’s freshmen, just a tiny little boy practically, with short, dark brown hair and freckles that stood out like chocolate chips on a cookie. He was adorable, and he was struggling to find the strength to breathe. She heard someone say under their breath that he had a crushed pelvis. Amy’s eyes filled and overflowed with moisture, and she crumpled in the middle of the campus street crying. Amy scuffed her knees badly on the pavement, but felt none of the pain. Her shock was too deep, too thorough.

  A bowel wrenching scream broke her misery. Amy couldn’t make out what was happening through the crowd in front of her, and she lurched to her feet just in time to see the now bleeding coach stagger backwards, away from some impending danger. The coach’s grey sweatshirt had a wet red halo spreading from the neck down, and his color was visibly draining away. The crowd obscuring her view started to dissolve. Many were backing away slowly, their eyes locked wide open at whatever she couldn’t see. Those not watching had turned tail completely, and were running away screaming as if their mortal souls depended on it.

  When the crowd had dispersed, Amy saw that the father had died, and was now nearly on top of his own son. The son’s wheezing breath suddenly caught the attention of the clearly zombified father, and with a savagery Amy had never seen before in her life, the formerly loving father ripped down into his son’s body. The auburn haired office worker stood in the middle of the street with rivers of screaming people running past her, trying to get away from the father murdering his own son. She was jostled about to and fro as they ran for their cars, or ran for shelter behind locked doors.

  All Amy could do was sit in the middle of the street with her skinned knees and watch. The corpse-father dug his teeth deep into the soft, smooth skin of his child’s stomach, and tore back viciously, ripping a wide ragged hole in the flesh. Amy watched as he buried his face in the bloody hole, and pulled back a mouthful of his son’s pink and purple intestines. His teeth snapped shut on the ropes of meat, causing them to pop like fresh sausage.

  Amy dry heaved suddenly, and as her rationality returned, she backed away, and started to run for the admissions office.

  That had a nice thick door.

  *****

  Many hours later banging on the door and the yells of clearly living parents brought her out from under her office desk. The sun had just about set, and Amy had just gotten used to listening to her phone ring over and over. She was far too paralyzed with fear to reach up and answer it. Plus she knew no matter what the call would be, she didn’t have the wherewithal to deal with any more problems.

  She listened to the evening radio host on her favorite top 40 station instead of answering the phone. He was normally a veritable fountain of wit and humor, but tonight all he did was take calls from people trying to share information about how bad things were. She was particularly frightened when she heard the tenth person say that the bitten are infected. All she could think about was black and white horror movies from the 60’s, and the bite of the infected zombies. She felt her body head to toe in the darkening office to make sure she hadn’t been bitten somehow unknowingly. She was clean, and thus would survive. In a moment of irrational panic she almost grabbed her phone to call Jason, but after their awkward morning, her guilt prevented her from using him once again. This time, she’d figure it out on her own, or die trying. No more hurt for Jason.

  The parents outside banging on the door of the admissions office finally broke her fear sometime around 7:30 in the evening. When she heard them yelling for help, her nerve finally reached critical mass, and she crawled out of the dark office, checked them all through the windows to make sure they weren’t bitten, and opened the door.

  She immediately wished she hadn’t.

  A man wielding a shotgun pushed his way into the doorframe forcibly, and unleas
hed a frustrated insult at her, “What the fuck lady? What were you waiting for? We could’ve died out here! Where the fuck are our kids? Where is my son you dumb cunt?”

  Amy swallowed the thick mucus in her throat and choked down her fear. He was just scared like her, she told herself. She took a deep breath and assessed the ten or so parents arrayed in the front yard just outside. They looked frazzled at best, and emotionally broken at worst. “Sir, who is your son?”

  “I’m Dan Haggerty. My son is Dale Haggerty. He ain’t answering his cell phone, and he isn’t in his dorm room either. There are dead people all over this goddamn place too. Can you find my son so I can get the hell out of here?”

  “Dan I’m sorry you can’t find Dale, but calling me a dumb cunt doesn’t make me want to help you faster. In fact, it makes me want to tell you to go fly a kite. Now if you can ask me nicely for help finding your son, I’d be happy to do so.” Amy’s sudden courage gave her a rush. She couldn’t even believe she’d just told off a man holding a shotgun. A big one at that. It looked bigger than Jason’s.

  Dan’s face went from angry to embarrassed in the beat of a drum. He obviously was operating on adrenaline and fear by this point, and his mouth had apparently gotten away from him. “Look, I’m sorry miss, but my son is missing, and I’ve seen a lot of dead people walking around today. Some of them got up and ate other people, and then those people got up and ate other people. I need to find my son, and get out of here before he gets eaten. I’m sorry I called you a nasty name.” Dan turned and gave his apology half to her, and half to the crowd of worried parents gathered around. Far off in the background of campus they could hear yells and hollers. The flicker of fires could be seen dancing on the sides of some buildings where other cars had crashed while Amy was hiding.

  Amy was struck at the absurdity of it all. This morning she’d been laying pipe with her ex, and now she was stuck late at work, trying to calm down a shotgun wielding fuck face in the midst of an entirely unbelievable zombie apocalypse. The drama of it all was silly. “Thanks Dan. Who else is everyone here waiting for?”

  A chorus of parents burst out the names of their children, and with experience born from years of listening to parents bark out their kid’s names, she mentally noted them all down, and went back to her office. The parents huddled together, backs to the admissions office door, watching for any undead maniacs that might come at them from the darkened campus.

  Amy daintily made her way through the pitch black building to her office in the back. Without a thought she hit play on her small radio and Lady Gaga issued forth again. Force of habit. The network was still up on her computer, and she accessed the school schedule for Dale. Within seconds she had where he was supposed to be for the entire day, and moments after that she had the schedules for the other kids the parents were here for. Amy wasn’t gifted like some of the kids here, but she saw the pattern immediately. They all had 3rd period English with Mrs. Goodell.

  She reached for the phone and dialed the extension for the offbeat English teacher’s classroom. After three rings, the phone on the other end answered, and Amy recognized the soft lilt of Mrs. Goodell’s voice. “Hello, Amy.” There was a strange pause, and a pain in her tone that came over the wire and hit Amy. She knew instinctively something was amiss in the classroom.

  “Erica, I’ve got some parents here that are looking for their kids. I’m thinking they might be with you? Or maybe you know where they went?” Amy tried to keep any accusatorial tone out of her voice.

  Erica’s response told her she failed, “I didn’t do anything to them Amy. I’ve got them all locked up in here until the police arrive to escort them all safely away. I just can’t open the door and let them out. We’ve been watching CNN all day and it’s clearly not safe to let these kids out.”

  Amy could hear panic in Erica’s voice. That was highly uncharacteristic of the laid back and bohemian woman. She was always about calm, and peace, and working together to overcome obstacles. Hearing her talk like that made Amy shiver. If Mrs. Goodell was freaking out, then the world really had unraveled.

  “Erica I’ve got a pretty pissed off Dad with a shotgun here that wants to get his son out of your classroom. I think we need to open that door, and let those kids go now. He might take that gun to your door and open it without your permission and people could get hurt.” Amy turned to face the doorway, twirling the phone cord in her hand. She froze when she saw Dan standing in her office doorway.

  “Where is my son?” Dan asked her in a threatening voice. The steady beat of Lady Gaga in the background made the situation almost humorous. Almost.

  “Third floor of the classroom building. Mrs. Goodell’s room. She’s got him safe there.” For no reason Amy could decipher she sat the phone back down in the cradle, hanging up on the English teacher.

  Dan nodded as if the world suddenly made sense. “Why is he there? Is he hurt?”

  “No Dan, Mrs. Goodell has him in there to keep him safe, she was waiting for the police to come. I think if you go there, you might be able to calm her down. Just gotta be calm, okay Dan?”

  “That crazy bitch. There are no more police. They’re all fucking dead. I’m gonna go fix that bitch. Get my son and get the hell out of here.” Dan jabbed a finger at her and spun on his heels. He marched out of the building and right past the confused and frightened parents in the lobby. Amy felt the dread grow in her belly with a twisting ache.

  *****

  Less than half an hour later a dose of salvation walked up to Amy. One of the overnight dorm supervisors had arrived on campus for reasons unknown to Amy. He had no reason to think he had to work that night, but she was glad he arrived. Adrian was the definition of man, holding a military style rifle and a pistol sitting menacingly on his hip, and when he walked silently onto the lawn to see what was going on with the worried group of parents, each and every other person shut their traps loud enough you could hear their teeth clinking together. Adrian had a presence that politely demanded respect. Amy noted that her worry dissolved at the same time. One person’s fear is another’s salvation, she dimly noted.

  “What the fuck happened to you Ring?” Most of the staff here at Auburn Lake Preparatory Academy simply called Adrian “Ring.” That was his last name. As she asked him, she eyed the head to toe blood spatters and smears on his face and clothing.

  Adrian Ring looked down at his clothing and after a second to let the situation soak in he looked up at her and smirked. “It’s kind of shitty out there, and I’ve had a very long day in that shit.” He nodded in the direction of the bridge that led towards town.

  Amy swallowed hard. His expression said a lot. Ring was a veteran, Army she thought, and she knew the scuttlebutt on campus said he had been in the shit in Iraq. If he said it was bad, then it was bad. Really bad.

  Adrian looked at the other parents with a mixture of sympathy and disgust. Much like the other staff at the school the parents were often tolerated with disdain. They were usually rich, usually assholes, and almost always got in the way of their children’s education and happiness. Amy noticed that the longer Adrian was there, the less afraid of him they became.

  “What’s happened here today? I was hoping this place would be empty.” Adrian asked Amy as he slowly assessed the campus, looking for danger. His wariness and experience with danger was as obvious to her as a street sign. She felt safer and safer with every moment’s passing.

  Amy filled him in as the summer’s heat faded into the comfortable June night. She had to stop a few times as they heard loud booms emanating from the direction of the school building Dan had headed to. The parent’s frantic demeanors nearly leapt out of control. Adrian calmed them down with a simple shush and a stare. Amy couldn’t believe his presence and calm, even as she told him about the horror of watching the car crash turn into a horror scene. All he did was nod at her, and smile gently as the emotions came back.

  She suddenly wished she’d talked to him more before today. He was a pillar o
f strength, and she desperately needed someone strong to lean on. After she’d stopped for the last time to listen to a gargantuan series of shotgun blasts, she told Adrian about the situation in the school building. He stood there, impassive in the face of the parents pleading to him for help, until finally he spoke to all of them.

  “Get in your vehicles, or get in a building. It isn’t safe out here. I’m going to go to the classroom, and make sure that moron doesn’t kill a kid, or kill Mrs. Goodell, and I might even stop him from killing himself.”

  That elicited a small burst of nervous laughter from the parents. Amy didn’t think any of them would lose sleep over Dan getting shot. Amy smiled at Adrian as he turned to her last.

  “Get safe inside. I’ll be back in a bit. If I’m not back after twenty minutes, try calling the cops, or just get the hell out of here. This is bad news Amy, and things will never be the same again okay?” His big brown eyes looked right into her core, and even in the waning summer light she saw the fear inside them.

  He was scared just like her, but he had the guts, the skill, and the willpower to do what needed to be done. She envied him immediately, and felt disgusted about herself all at the same time. Her thoughts raced to Jason as she walked inside the Admissions building.

  Jason and Adrian were cut from the same unbreakable cloth.

  *****

  Gunfire tore the relative silence apart not long after. Just as the first handful of missing kids came streaming across the campus towards their thankful parents there were two loud booms from the building. Amy flinched powerfully when the noise of the heavy shotgun blast reached them. All she could think about was if Adrian had been shot. Amy dimly wondered if her heart could take being walked away from by one man today, and the loss of a guy she may or may not have just realized she had a crush on. She struck the thoughts from her head as the kids ran into the clutching arms of their parents.