Closed Campus

by Gayle Katz

  “Should we go back and try to get the professor’s 4x4?” I ask.

  “No way. We can’t go back now,” Jack says.

  “Well, what are we gonna do? We can’t stay here,” I say.

  In our little metal snowplow box, we lay out all the weapons and materials we have on us, with the exception of my beauty products, and try to figure out our next step. Meanwhile, I can’t ignore the banging from the zombies trying to get in.

  “Focus, Jane,” Jack says.

  “Uh-huh. Yeah.”

  I open up my backpack and rummage through it. I grab my hairspray and pick up Logan’s lighter and say, “Let’s set them on fire. It probably won’t kill them, but it should distract them long enough so we can escape, or at least get a head start.”

  “Won’t that set other things on fire too?” Jack asks.

  “I don’t think so. The snow will take care of it. Besides the goal is to have as little contact as possible with them,” Bill replies.

  “OK. We can do that, but let’s come outta here with weapons at the ready. Bring everything we have. Once we’ve dealt with them, let’s continue north until we get off campus,” Jack says.

  “And you wanted me to dump my beauty supplies,” I smile as I look at Jack, “shame on you.” He smiles back.

  “Is everyone taped up? Even if you taped up before, do it again. Another layer can’t hurt,” Jack says.

  We all start to tape up our arms and legs again just to be on the safe side. Jack runs out of tape, so I offer him mine.

  “The professor said I’m immune. If that’s true, you’ll need this more than me.”

  “Thanks, Jane.”

  “OK, people, are you ready for the shit? Grab your weapons. Let’s kick some ass,” Jack says.

  Jack and I grab our trusty metal desk leg weapons while Bill seems comfortable with the heavy iron pan. I give Logan back his lighter, and he takes my hair spray.

  “As soon as I kick open the door, come out ready to fight. Ready?”

  “Ready!” I say.

  Bill and Logan nod without saying a word.

  Jack slams the door open hard and fast, crushing the zombie who happened to be on the other side.

  “That’s one down.” Jack jokes.

  Jack and Bill come out swinging. Logan, who seems to be having a blast lighting the zombies on fire, follows them.

  I’m still in the cabin watching them.

  “Come on, Jane. You can do this.” I say to myself.

  Tired as all heck, I finally come out of the snowplow cabin when a zombie is heading my way. I hit him in the face and watch him fall to the ground. It feels good to defend myself.

  All I can hear is the constant clang of the iron pan as Bill bashes one zombie after another in the head. The bad part is that it seems to be a ringing beacon telling all their friends where to find us.

  Setting them on fire doesn’t seem to help much either, except for causing momentary disorientation. Between the constant sound of the pan banging heads and the flames produced by the lighter and my hair spray, more and more of them head our way.

  I run over to Jack, grab his arm, and shout to him, “We have to go. There are too many of them.”

  “Head to North Campus everybody!” Jack yells.

  As I turn to take my leave, something catches me by the leg and I fall. I try to get up, but he’s crawling on top of me. It takes all my strength to keep him at arm’s length. Ugh. He’s ghastly-looking, and he makes screeching sounds that are even worse.

  “Jack! Help me!”

  I reach for him, and he reaches for me, but he’s being overwhelmed and swinging his weapon as fast as he can to defend himself.

  Out of nowhere, I hear barking. The dog! He jumps on the zombie, tearing at its head, its arms, its legs, like it’s a chew toy, distracting it enough so I can get out from underneath it and make a break for it.

  Chapter 14

  ________________________________________

  “Gotta keep moving. Gotta keep moving,” is my exhausted mantra.

  Despite the fact my legs want to give out on me, I run as fast as I can to get away from the growing mob of zombies. Looking back I see Jack, Bill, and Logan aren’t far behind. As they catch up, I can see the zombies are occupied by the fire and mayhem we left behind. We’re finally able to catch our breath.

  “What the shit, right? That was freaking crazy back there!” Logan says.

  “Let’s pick up the pace and head up to the dorms. Once we reach them, it should only be a hop, a skip, and a jump to get to town,” Jack says.

  “What about the dog?” I ask, “I don’t feel right leaving him behind. He totally saved me back there.”

  Just then I hear what sounds like leaves rustling and the pitter-patter of paws on the ground.

  “You might not have to,” Jack says with a smile. “It looks like your hero has arrived.”

  I smile back at him and wink.

  The dog runs up to me. Once he reaches my feet, he sits down and drops something from his mouth.

  “Ew! Gross.” I say.

  “What?” Jack asks.

  “He brought me the zombie’s hand.” I say. “Ugh. That reeks. I think I’m gonna throw up.”

  Jack laughs.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “That dog has a serious zombie hand fetish apparently.”

  “Double ew.”

  Choking back my revulsion, I pat his head and tell him, “Good boy!”

  He wags his tail. Despite all this craziness, it seems that he’s in good spirits.

  “This dog is so happy,” I say pointing at him. “I wanna be a dog in my next life.”

  “Oh, be quiet. You’re not done with this one yet. Let’s get moving,” Jack says.

  With dog in tow, the five of us head off to the dorms. Instead of running, we decide walking quickly is a better course of action since nothing is chasing us, at least nothing we know about. We need to regain our strength.

  8:30 p.m.

  We finally make it to one of the dorms. We walk around the building until we find an escape ladder.

  “Let’s go up. I need a break. I’m really tired,” I say.

  “OK, but only for a few minutes. We’ve got to keep going,” Jack replies.

  Jack picks up the dog and hands him to Bill, who is already midway up the ladder. He hands him to me because I’m already on the roof.

  Once the dog is safely on the roof, the rest of us decide to follow so we can rest and plan our next move without having to worry. Logan is the last one up so he retracts the ladder so nothing else can follow. I don’t know if the zombies can climb ladders, but I know we don’t want to find out.

  As we rest, Jack makes sure to remind us of the basics.

  “Don’t move around too much. We really don’t know how strong this roof is nor do we know what’s going on right below us.”

  “Speaking of what’s going on below us, maybe we should take a peek?” Bill says.

  Bill takes the initiative and leans over the side of the building so he can see into the top floor of the dorm. Both Jack and Logan are holding his legs so he doesn’t tumble over.

  “OK. Pull me back up.”

  “What do you see in there? Can you see anything? It’s pretty dark.” Everyone peppers him with questions.

  “Those things are in there. They aren’t running around or anything, but it looks like the place is overrun,” Bill replies.

  “Crap,” Jack says.

  From the roof, we can almost see the entire campus. It would have been a beautiful view if it weren’t for the random packs of zombies stumbling about when they see people or hear them scream.

  “We have to help those people,” I say.

  “Except for what we’re seeing, we don’t know what else is going on down there. If we go back now, we won’t be able to help anyone, and we’ll be dead too,” Jack says.

  “But the professor said I’m immune to all this crap. Maybe I can go and help,” I t
ell him.

  “You might be immune if they bite you, but I wouldn’t count on that. Plus, I don’t think you’re immune if someone takes your head off or if a zombie eats you for dinner. And even if we can believe for just a moment that the professor is telling us the truth, they’d capture you in a heartbeat and take you back to him. Is that what you want?” Jack asks.

  “No,” I say. “Of course not.”

  “Then we have to follow through on our plan to get off campus and find help,” Jack says.

  I sigh and sit down on the roof. Looking up at the sky, I stare at the snowflakes. For a moment things are peaceful.

  “What happened with the professor? Didja find out why all this shit is happening?” Bill asked.

  “Yeah, and you’ll never believe it,” Jack says.

  As Jack tells them about what we learned when we were with the professor, I just stare off into the night sky. I really don’t want to see their faces when Jack tells them they’re stuck here because of an obsessed professor and me. This is all my fault. Maybe I should just give myself up. Maybe that would appease my professor and this mess would all go away.

  Sitting on the roof, it seems like the ground is so far away. “They’re only three floors,” I say with a sigh. “But I never realized just how tall these dorms are, how vast campus is, or how sloped the land is. We can see the entire campus from here, but we still have a ways to go if we’re gonna make it off campus.”

  “Yeah. Looks like it. We’re gonna have to get to the next building somehow,” Bill says to me as he put his hand on my shoulder. I look up at him, and he smiles. I smile back.

  “How are we gonna get over to them?” I ask. “Should we risk getting back on the ground with those things running around or should we see if there are more underground tunnels between the dorms?”

  “We were able to get over here without incident so why not try to make a break for the next building?” Logan says.

  “Without incident, Logan?” Jack asks, “That’s funny because I remember things a little differently.”

  “We’re all here and accounted for, right?” Logan asks. “To me that’s without incident.”

  “Ah! Well consider this. If we try to hoof it, we’re gonna have to move quickly. We don’t know if there will be zombies waiting for us. They have a way of popping up when you least expect them,” Jack says.

  Bill adds, “Another problem is it might take us longer to get there than we think. It doesn’t look like a long hike, but it might be longer than we expect. How far can we run before we get tired, and we’re forced to stop? I’ll tell you this; I don’t want to be cornered down there. It’s dark, and we’ll be out in the open. Vulnerable.”

  “So you think going downstairs in the dorm is a better idea then?” Logan asks.

  Jack replies, “There are tunnels between the classroom buildings just as Bill said. There’s a pretty good chance that we might find tunnels between the dorms too. On the other hand, entering the dorm might be troublesome too. Do we know how many students live here? Probably a lot of them. And if they’re still here and they’ve been infected, we might not even make it to the basement.”

  “I hear ya. I’ll also add that it’s a lot darker in the dorm than it is outside right now. At least we have the light of the moon,” Bill says.

  As I’m listening to their conversation, neither way sounded appealing. “Either way, we have flashlights,” I say.

  “Yeah, good point, but a couple little flashlights don’t really take that much darkness away. It’s still gonna be fucking scary,” Bill replies.

  “No doubt you’re both right. Hmmm. Does anyone have any other suggestions?” Jack asks as he looks at all of us.

  No one say anything. The dog just looks at us. And the three of us look at Jack for a decision.

  “So what will it be, almighty leader?” I say to Jack. “Which way?”

  Chapter 15

  ________________________________________

  9:00 p.m.

  “Let’s try to keep to the rooftops as best we can,” Jack says, “I feel like there’s less of a chance of running into problems that way.”

  We nod in agreement.

  He says, “All of these dorms have emergency fire escape ladders, right? So let’s sprint to the very next building. Make sure we’re on the ground for as little time as possible. Then we hop from building to building until we have a clear view beyond campus.”

  “But what if there are zombies milling around?” I ask. “They’ll see us.”

  “Not if we create some sort of diversion in the other direction so we have a fighting chance. If we want to go this way, we’ll create a distraction that way.” Jack is pointing in a lot of different directions.

  “Do you have anything we could create a distraction with?” Jack asks as he looks at me, “I know you didn’t dump everything in your bag like I said to at the radio station. Hence the hair spray.”

  “We’re lucky we had that hairspray! It made Logan’s lighter into a decent weapon, after all,” I say.

  “Yes. You’re right. I’m sorry for doubting you,” Jack says lightheartedly.

  “But back to your original question,” I say. “I guess I can rip out pages of my notebook, the ones I didn’t write on. We can ball them up, light them on fire, and throw them the opposite way.”

  “Sure we can totally do that, but just be aware my lighter won’t last much longer, OK?” Logan says. “Plus, I haven’t had a smoke in forever.”

  “Chill out, Logan,” Bill says, “We hear you. And you’ll be able to smoke all you want when this is over.”

  “So what’s the plan now?” I ask.

  “See the ladder over there? That’s where we’re heading.” Jack points. “The plan is to quickly and quietly get down this emergency escape ladder, run to the next dorm, and get up that ladder as quickly and as quietly as we’re gonna get down this one. Everyone ready to go?”

  I tear a few blank pages out of my notebook and hand them to Logan. He balls up the papers in his hand. The papers shouldn’t be balled up too much, though: we want any zombies in the area to see and follow the fireball we’re creating.

  “Ready?” Logan says with the paper ball in one hand and his lighter in the other.

  With a flick of his wrist, he sets the paper ball on fire and throws it to the opposite side of the dorm as far away from us as possible. Despite the darkness, we see movement. They’re taking the bait.

  “Go! We don’t have much time. We gotta move now,” Jack urges.

  Bill goes first. I follow. I scoot down the emergency escape and run to the next dorm’s fire ladder. Jack is close behind me, and Logan is pulling up the rear. We’re running fast and climb up the next building’s ladder just as fast. We pass the dog between us up the ladder again so he’s safe too. It’s just like playing hot potato.

  We make it to the roof. We’re winded, so we sit there to catch our breath and rest for a few minutes.

  “Good job. We might just make it out of this thing after all.” Jack smirks and slaps Bill on the back.

  Despite our momentary success, our view off campus is still blocked. I know we’ll have to make another run so we can get to the next building. I’m not a happy camper.

  “Ready to go again?” Jack asks.

  “I knew you were gonna say that,” I say.

  I take my notebook out again. I’m getting a little concerned because I’m running out of blank pages. I really don’t want to use the pages with my writing. I tear out a bunch of blank pages and hand them to Logan again. He follows the same protocol of balling them up, lighting them on fire, and chucking them behind us by the building we just came from.

  “Let’s go again. Move it!” Jack says.

  We all go down the fire escape ladder and are crossing to the next building when we see zombies heading right for us. Bill and Logan are in the lead this time and make it far enough across to bolt to the next building.

  I guess we didn’t realize that s
ince we’re in the middle of the quad now the zombies would be able to see the fireball from all angles. Unfortunately for Jack and me, the zombies come between us, and we have no choice but to retreat back to the building we came from.

  “Where’s the dog?” I ask.

  “I don’t know, and we don’t have time to find him. He’ll be fine. We’ve gotta go now,” Jack says as he grabs my hand.

  After feverishly running back to the building and climbing back up the ladder, we see the twosome climbing the escape ladder for the building we are supposed to be on.

  Once on the roof out of harm’s way, I turn to Jack. “Well that didn’t work like we thought it would.”

  “No. No it didn’t.”

  “I hope Bill and Logan aren’t trying to sabotage our plan and leave us for zombie snacks, especially now after you told them why all this is happening.”

  “Look at me, OK? This isn’t your fault. You didn’t do anything, and they don’t blame you. I agree that right now trusting anyone is difficult, but we have to stay positive and keep moving. Do you hear me?”

  “Yeah. I hear you. What do we do now?”

  “We gotta go into the dorm. Since Plan A is out with all those zombies running around, let’s try Plan B and see if we can find those tunnels.”

  We both pull out our flashlights and check them.

  “Mine is still working, but it flickers sometimes. It might not last very long,” I say.

  “Same here. Switch out the batteries. We brought new ones with us, right?”

  “Yeah, but only enough for one flashlight.”

  “Geez, that’s it?”

  “That’s all there was.”

  “Will that be enough? It’s dark in there. We’re gonna need both flashlights working,” Jack says. “Take the batteries from the walkie-talkie. As soon as we get to the guys on the next roof, we can switch ’em back.”