Z Poc: Young Brains

by catt dahman

  Anyone normal would have ducked or been hit. Sian reached up casually and perfectly snatched it from the air, her hand right where she would hold it. I had never before appreciated how quickly her reflexes were.

  “Damn,” Lance whistled.

  Jerico nodded. “Impressive.”

  “Let’s go,” said Brandon as he went back to being bossy, but Nick was so impressed with Sian’s catch that he didn’t argue at all.

  For all of our glances and comments to show we were impressed, Sian walked by the window, looked out at the carnage for the first time, and clenched her jaw.

  Then, she went with Team Three. “Batter up,” she saluted Miss Crater with the bat and a small smile.

  Miss Crater smiled proudly, “Batter up, indeed.”

  Chapter 8

  Evening and Night One

  Upstairs were four classrooms across the front, restrooms, and then four classes on the left side of the hall. The fifth graders had a stairway of their own that they shared with sixth graders, and that was the one we had used to run down to the gym earlier. It was best for a person to plan where he was going before choosing a set of stairs to get to class.

  On the right side of the right hallway were restrooms and five more classrooms. The right side at the back had no stairs, so the seventh graders used the middle staircases.

  Brandon and his team took the right side of the upstairs; we took the left side.

  As we asked Nick questions, he became the leader even if we didn’t take a vote. We had the easy side. We were already using the two front rooms as our base after having moved across to them; one was for food and eating, and the other was for socialization.

  The set of bathrooms, which we had been using, were clear.

  We had already decided we would check the auditorium when we had time and pull stuffing out of the seats to make beds, which would be in the next two classrooms, cleared as well.

  Right across from that second classroom was the crossover hallway, and I felt my belly tense as I looked at it.

  Brandon’s group walked through and came to meet us more than half way.

  “We’ll put guards on this one and the main and the back,” Brandon said.

  Everyone agreed.

  “Anything?”

  “Nah, we were in sets of two at first, and we’ll keep one as look out and a guard there to see the parking lot; it’ll be okay.”

  We knew to leave the last classroom in the middle and the back of the school alone. We had put it as far away as we possibly could, and it would not be opened, for that’s where poor Mr. Tryon and the children were locked away to hunger and thump on the door and moan,which was very unnerving.

  My team went to check out the last classroom on the left. Unfortunately for us, two events happened at once, and we found ourselves in deep trouble.

  On one side of the hallway, Lance yanked open the classroom door, and Tom went in first. We would have been right behind him and managed the fight, but from the right, two ghouls shambled up the staircase with two more behind them.

  To their credit, Nick and Lance didn’t back off but stepped in to hit the creatures, knocking one back down the stairs and taking the next two out with him. That left one for them to beat at.

  But we were in a hallway with little room to maneuver.

  Tom yelped and shrieked like a girl; I reminded myself that this was his first time up close with one of the creatures. Shanna and I were right there and through the door as he, whining and spitting with disgust, kicked furiously at one of the things.

  The creature had been a woman but was eaten down to the bone; leg bones and arms had been ripped away and eaten as well.

  Despite the fact that it was horrifying to see, it was also pitiful to think someone’s mother had been eaten alive and left to snap its teeth and claws.

  Tom dropped his bat and was slapping at himself as if bugs had gotten on him from the mangled corpse.

  Shanna popped its head open, and messy brains leaked out.

  Inside, we had faced a student who had walked out of our class earlier with his mother and his sixth-grade little sister, but we had not seen him again.

  A heavy-set mother and her sixth-grader child, a tenth-grader we knew, a small second-grader, a lone fifth-grade student, and a big, tall, twelfth-grader were coming at us fast.

  “Oh, hell, no,” Shanna screamed as she slammed her bat into the

  twelfth grader’s head.

  First, I went after the moaning, hissing heavy-set mother and watched her brightly painted-red nails slash at me. Behind me, Marshall started dodging and trying to knock down the tenth grader whom we knew.

  Bevvon began hitting the sixth-grade girl in the side, trying to get her to the ground, and Lance took on the others: the fifth-grader and the second-grader, both at once.

  Nick still faced the creature, which had come up from the stairs, and he knew the other three were going to be back at any minute.

  “Jerico…Jerry, we need some help,” he yelled, “Jerico.” He hoped for the best and made the choice to run into the classroom where we were, slamming the door closed behind him.

  That decision saved our lives. Without him, we wouldn’t have had the power to fight all of them.

  Bevvon finally broke enough bones in the little girl to get her knocked down; then, she broke both of the girl’s knees so the girl wouldn’t rise, and finally, Bevvon beat the girl in the head with all her strength.

  When she was almost finished with her fight, Bevvon told Tom to finish up since the action had ended up cornering him. He picked up his bat, and barely able to stand because he was shaking so hard, he started hitting the little girl.

  Bevvon joined Shanna, and they tag-teamed the big kid, trying to knock him down so that they could hit him in the head. When Bevvon’s bat broke, she used it to stab and poke. They fought as well as trained warriors.

  I was lucky that the mother I was fighting had been chewed up and had weakened legs because to my relief, she finally fell. I was going to ask Tom to help me, but he already had run out the door.

  I felt a wave of anger surge through me because Tom had run away when we were in the middle of a fight. I stayed at my job, smashing and hitting, but it took a while to crack the skull and put the zombie down. I felt strong, but I suppose that the woman could have had a very hard head.

  Those things looked easier on television, killing people, I mean, because it was just a person, and he went down, stopped moving, and was dead after a few blows to the head.

  I didn’t have the luxury of an easy kill. The woman’s face was pulped; her teeth littered the ground, her nose was sideways and was just a lump, and her jaw was sideways, but she had many more broken bones: her arms and collar bone. But she didn’t feel pain and kept coming at me until I finally popped her skull open and landed a few more blows.

  By that time, I was tired from all the swinging of my bat.

  Zombies didn’t get tired, either. That was a big advantage for them.

  I went to help Marshall. He was tired, too but was still swinging at the tenth-grader, Bobby Page, whom we all knew. The boy was broken open, and globs of fat and blood were all over, but he was still clawing to get up. It took both of us to beat him down, and by then, his head was a mass of pulpy tissue; he was unrecognizable.

  “Just stay down and die,” I yelled at him. It was silly, but it came out of my mouth anyway.

  Marshall puked again.

  I had a lot of respect for Marshall then. He was affected by the smell of the blood, the opened guts, and infection, and he was scared.

  He was tired and repulsed by having to beat someone to death, just as he had been downstairs. It seemed to make him sick enough to vomit, but the guy didn’t hesitate or run away; he was a fighter. He didn’t make excuses or shirk a job.

  Bevvon and Shanna had finished the boy, and Bevvon punched the last hole with her broken bat, stabbing the kid in the eye socket before she caught herself with her hand on the wall an
d vomited, too.

  Shanna patted Bevvon on the shoulder.

  Together, Lance and Nick had finished the mother, the sixth-grader, and the little second-grader.

  For a minute, we just looked at each other. Then, we looked at the floor. I can’t describe how badly the smell was in the closed-up classroom. I can only compare the smell to an open sewer, rotten meat, vomit, and then blood, all mixed. It was bad. I had never smelled anything like it, but this was the scent of the world dying around us and going to hell.

  Marshall was pale, and every time he got another whiff in the room, he was sick again.

  “Nick? Lance?” It was Jerico calling.

  “Yeh, we’re all okay.”

  Nick opened the door, and we went out to the hall. Jerico,

  Scooter, Sian, and Robin were there and had put down five ghouls and had tossed the bodies down the stairs, and Nick then tossed a few desks and chairs down the stairs to block them.

  “Damn…that stinks,” Jerico said.

  When we were out of the room, we closed the door. Nick shrugged, “Try being in there with them.”

  “No, thanks. All dead, huh?”

  Lance nodded, “We got them all. We had eight, and one was Bobby Page. Thanks for the back-up, Jer.”

  The boy wrinkled his nose at the mess we had tracked out of the room. “We had it. We told Brandon and his team to stay over, finish their job, and hold the right side. Sorry, we couldn’t come help you but….”

  “But we had to handle it. I agree. You were the last safety if we failed,” Nick agreed.

  “Sian was a monster; the girl can fight,” Jerico said.

  “Bobby Page.” Sian shook her head. “Yuk.”

  I don’t know if that meant she hadn’t liked Bobby or if it bothered her that we had to kill him. She had no idea how horrible it was to have to beat someone to death when he looked like someone we knew. But it was important to keep in mind that the creatures were no longer people we knew.

  “Your boy, Tom, came running out of there like a scalded cat.

  What’d you do to him?” Jerico asked.

  “I forgot him,” Lance said.

  “He’s forgettable,” I muttered.

  Nick called him a few names. “Where’d he go? He didn’t help you?”

  Jerico laughed, “I told you. He ran. I guess he ran all the way back to the rest.”

  “He almost got us all killed with that,” Nick said. “I’m gonna whip his ass.”

  Lance clasped his hand together and rubbed them with glee, “This I gotta see.”

  “Wait,” Marshall said, “you can. He may need it, but we’re not all cut out for this. Just think about that.” He looked at me, embarrassed that he had puked again.

  “I think it’s normal to get sick and puke or to be scared so bad you shake and get jelly-legged. It’s not as if we asked for this or knew how to deal with it. I think we’ve done fairly well,” I said, “except for Tom.”

  “Hey,” Brandon came up with his group, “take a breather, and we’ll finish blocking off this stairwell. We were clear on the other side.

  We blocked one of the middle staircases.”

  I was glad to be relieved of duty.

  Shanna, Bev, and I cleaned our shoes and washed up in the restroom.

  “You were like Amazon warriors,” I told them.

  “You did great, Arisbe. After this, Loveta will need to fix your hair again.”

  I laughed, “That was funny. The most popular girl in school fixing my hair.”

  “She’s gonna have problems,” Shanna said. “When we looked at her, she had been brushing her hair, right? She had on high heels and was worried about her hundred-dollar manicure.

  What’s gonna happen when she has to fight a zom?”

  “When will she is the key phrase. She’s avoiding it. It would be easier to avoid it, ” Bev said.

  “That’s what I mean. Seems at some point, people will get tired of doing all the dirty work and will demand everyone pitch in or fend for himself. Yanno what I mean?”

  I didn’t see it. “She’s the most popular girl in school.”

  “She was. Beauty and being cool won’t get any one far now.”

  I thought about that. Shanna was smart to be thinking ahead about socialization; I wasn’t good with knowing what was popular, or I would have been.

  “Being brave and a good fighter are important. Not being an ass is important.” I didn’t know how Brandon fit now, but Nick was suddenly a star.

  “Just keep it in mind, Arisbe. Bev.”

  I nodded. This was the first time since grade school I had been an important part of a team and visible.

  Suddenly, I wasn’t being picked last in gym class. Not being ignored was a new experience for me, and I kind of, carefully, liked it. I liked that Shanna was giving me advice and actually talking to me as a friend and not as part of the scenery. Bevvon didn’t seem to care, but I liked being noticed.

  For the first time, a positive attitude and hard work were getting me noticed.

  The teams began keeping guard duty, half at the main staircase and half at the middle stairs. We blocked off the right side, just as we had blocked off the downstairs.

  Although some of the kids refused to eat dinner and were depressed and sitting alone, Mona wasn’t given their share even though she asked several times. The boys had handed out some food.

  “Shut up,” Jerico said.

  “If you aren’t helping, then why are you asking for seconds? Why are you even asking for any?” Brandon asked.

  “Brandon, we don’t withhold food from people if they can’t help,”

  Mrs. Smith said, “hand her some food.”

  “Can’t? Won’t. She won’t help ‘cause she’s too fat and clumsy, but is that any excuse? I’ve been out there risking my ass, and she sits on her lard ass.”

  Jerico laughed. “Damn.” He laughed with Brandon.

  “That’s not right,” Mrs. Smith said. She handed Mona her apple.

  “What’s she doing? And her?” Mona pointed to Loveta and Natalie as she took a bite of the apple.

  I glanced at Shanna and Bev.

  “I did first aid,” Natalie said, “so don’t be pointing your finger at me. Fat ass.” “It didn’t matter. You wasted your time. We went in and put them down.” Brandon shrugged. “There’s no sense in doing first aid on those who are gonna die anyway or have to be put down. We had to take care of the infected ones that you tried to save. What a waste of time.”

  “You killed them?” Natalie asked.

  “It had to be done. Zombies have to be put down,” Curt said happily, “so that’s what we have to do.”

  “I can’t believe you enjoy doing it,” Deana spoke up. “That’s not right.”

  “Another who eats our food and doesn’t do shit.” Curt pointed at Deana.

  “I didn’t even ask for food. I’m sick to my stomach,” Deana snapped, “and I didn’t eat our food.”

  “No one voted you as boss, Curt. No one decided on a leader here or a dictator,” Natalie said.

  “Someone had to make choices. All of you want to eat like pigs, but you aren’t out there helping and risking yourselves, are you? The time to give to the slackers is gone.”

  “Jerico,” Mrs. Smith was shocked, “that isn’t like you.”

  “Oh, trust me that is soooo Jerico,” Natalie said.

  “Bitch.”

  “That’s enough,” Mrs. Smith stood and pointed fingers.

  “It isn’t your choice. You decided to kill the things; don’t blame me for staying safe,” Mona snapped.

  “You’re safe because of us,” Brandon said, “but these people amaze me, asking for things when they do nothing.”

  “Maybe they shouldn’t even be here with those who work,” Jerico said.

  “Like her,” Mona again pointed to Loveta.

  I don’t know what would have been said next or if Loveta would have been back in the hot seat because Tom, in the corner
with a trashcan, began vomiting.

  He hadn’t eaten anything.

  “Come on.” Scooter reached for him and pulled him to his feet while Tom struggled to get away and whined that he was sick. Miss Crater tried to help but then backed away as Tom unleashed obscenities as all three thumped into a desk.

  The boy stumbled and struggled to keep his feet under him, trying to get across the room and to the door; he kept leaning to one side, and Scooter and he fell. Scooter kind of laughed, but Tom looked terrified.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Jerico asked.

  “Are you feverish?” Miss Crater asked. “You look feverish.”“Is he sick?”

  Miss Crater leaned down again, “Let me feel your forehead.”

  Tom pulled away from her hand as she reached for him. “Leave me alone.”

  “What is it? Show us, or we’ll hold you down and look,” Brandon said. He and Jerico looked ready to do that. “You smell like those rotters.”

  “I was in the room with ‘em.” Tom looked afraid.

  “Count of three. One. Two.”

  Tom held out his leg. When Brandon ordered him again to show us, Tom raised the leg of his jeans, and we saw his stupid white sock was yellow and wet.

  It smelled terrible, and several of us stepped back away from him. When Tom pulled the slimy sock down a little, we could see the bite on his shin which leaked infection into his shoe. Purple and black bruises covered his leg.

  “I feel better now that it’s draining,” he said. “It doesn’t hurt as much; it’s still draining, which is good, right?”

  “You got bit,” Lance accused him.

  “Maybe it was a scratch. It’s better now except I feel a little sick.”

  “He’s infected,” Jerico hissed.

  “He can’t stay here,” Brandon said.

  “He’s gonna turn. Ooohhh…nasty,” Lance said, “you’re gonna become one of them.”

  “I’m okay. I’m not infected,” Tom said.

  “You have to go to a room. Alone.”

  “No way. You went in and killed the ones whom you said were infected. You killed them,” Tom said.

  Brandon shrugged at Tom, “Only after they were changed. Come on and go, or we’ll take you.”