21
Jessie
Day 2
Escape
Jessie was trying to pee as quietly as possible, but it was still embarrassing. They had decided to hunker down for the night, hoping the infected in the building would wander off if they kept quiet. They had moved the trash can over to one corner of the room, and put the white board in front of it to act as a simple barrier for privacy, but it didn’t cover the splashing noises.
Whatever. At least he didn’t have to take a big stinky poo. Yet. Wouldn’t be so bad if it was just the guys, but he wasn’t in the habit of going to the bathroom in front of a girl.
It was morning, the hazy sun filtering through the quarter windows set high up along the walls. They had barricaded the door as quietly as they could yesterday, and then waited. They never did get through to anyone on their phones, and the longed for police sirens coming to rescue them never came.
Late in the evening, as fewer and fewer people were trying to use overburdened cell towers, they started to get internet access, although it was spotty. They learned enough, though. It was zombies that had been prowling the hallways, and it wasn’t just their school.
They had surfed the net, looking for information until, one by one, their phone batteries were nearly dead. By then, they knew it was over, that the world was lost and no one would be coming to save them. The game servers were empty, only NPC’s populated them. Nobody was updating their Facebook status. Instagram had nothing new. Snapchat was dead and there were no tweets on Twitter.
The news reports and updates they found on websites that still worked were all hours old. No new stories were being reported and in the end, they could only log onto traffic and city camera feeds, but there were enough of those from around the world for them to know the outbreak wasn’t isolated. It was global. Sheila had cried quietly and the guys would never admit it, but they had, too.
Their world was dead. It had happened so fast, was so complete, it took them a while to wrap their heads around it. They whispered long into the night about how it could have happened, and why they hadn’t been affected. It must have been an airborne virus, they reasoned. And they were all immune.
Gary said that was mathematically impossible, but it was the only thing they could come up with. They had slept fitfully on the tiled floor with only books as pillows. When they awoke to the gray light of morning, they had all accepted the end of the world and were pragmatic about it.
They had watched thousands of zombie movies, apocalypse films, and dystopian futures, played out on the small screen. They had spent hundreds of hours in the wastelands with various video games. They understood it like no adult ever could. Sure, they were worried about family and friends, but hadn’t they come through it unscathed? They were smart enough not to panic and break out of the room yesterday, and lucky enough to be where they were. No one would come out and say it, but they all felt like they were the chosen ones, the heroes of the movie and they would battle their way through and come out victorious in the end.
They were teenagers and each felt invincible, to a degree. They had nibbled on their lunches, making them last through dinner. The problem was water. Sheila had brought an apple juice, the boys figured they would get a drink from the fountain if they were thirsty. Now they were all craving something to quench their dry throats.
Jessie was shading his eyes, trying to see out of the door, trying to spot any movement, but was having no luck. The glass was just too opaque, like a shower door. They had tried to pick the lock like they’d seen done on hundreds of TV shows and movies, but it was futile. They knew they couldn’t break the glass, it would bring the undead running.
Late last night, after the phones were nearly dead, they went over plans to escape and had decided to slip through the quarter windows. Their first idea had been to hotwire a car, then drive to each of their homes to look for family. That was quickly shelved after the frustrating and useless try at picking the door lock.
They came to the conclusion that stealing a car wouldn’t be as easy as the movies made it seem and they didn’t want to be exposed in the parking lot for an hour trying to figure out how to do it. The plan they finally came up with was to sneak into the woods behind the football field and cut through them toward Jessie’s house. It wasn’t the closest by roads, but out of all of their homes, they could get to it without having to go through any neighborhoods.
Jessie’s place wasn’t exactly rural, but it was on a lake and the lots were huge, so it wasn’t built up too much. When they had first moved, he thought they were kind of rich, having their own dock and living on the water. But in Georgia, there were so many lakes the homes on them didn’t cost much more than ones that weren’t.
The lake was between the school and his house and by bus, it was a thirty-minute ride to go all the way around. If they could steal a boat and paddle across, it wasn’t far as the crow flies. Most of the houses had kayaks or canoes on their back porches and Jon boats or pontoons tied to their docks. They only had to go on land for maybe a half mile or so.
With the last of the battery life on his phone, he texted both his mom and dad to let them know he was fine and would be heading home. He would wait for them there. He put the phone in one of the Ziploc baggies he had brought sandwiches in and offered the other bag to Sheila. She had a Lunchable yesterday. Just cardboard to throw away.
Jessie ran his dry tongue over his dry lips and tried to clear his dry throat. He was so thirsty. They all were. They had to do this today, they would be crazy with dehydration if they waited any longer. “We ready?” he whispered, and they all nodded in the affirmative. The one good piece of luck they had was that the detention room was at the back of the school, with only the outdoor lunch area, the football field, and the soccer practice fields between them and the woods. And the lake.
And then home.
Doug pulled on the window slowly, anticipating a screech of rusty hinges, but it came open smoothly and quietly. It was hinged at the bottom, opening from the top, and Gary had the armrest of his chair already off, handing it to him to use as a pry bar to pop the retaining arms off so they could remove the window completely.
Doug did so as quietly as he could and in seconds had it off and handed it down to Jessie. He cautiously stuck his head out and looked both directions, then quickly pulled back. He motioned frantically for the window and Jessie gave it back to him. He slipped the bottom hinges back into place and closed it, hurriedly twisting the lock shut, then climbed down.
“How bad is it?” Sheila asked.
“There’s four or five of them just wandering around in the patio area, kind of aimless like,” he said in a hushed voice. “I think one of them was Mr. Prater.”
“That sucks,” Jessie said. “I liked him.”
“What sucks worse,” Gary said. “Is that he’s between us and freedom.”
“We need a decoy, something to distract them,” Sheila said. “Who’s the fastest runner?”
“That would be you,” Gary said dryly. “I’m not so quick anymore.”
“It WOULD be you,” Doug said quietly. “You run track. We don’t. You volunteering?”
Sheila realized they were right and quickly backtracked. “You saw how fast they were in the hallway yesterday,” she said in a loud whisper. “I can’t outrun that, they’re like super human, or something.”
“We don’t need to sacrifice anyone,” Jessie said. “We just need a distraction, something to make them take off in the opposite direction so we can sneak in behind the bleachers. From there, it’s a straight shot to the woods and we’re kind of hidden the whole way.”
They looked helplessly around the room for anything they could use. “I could throw a stapler or something, but I don’t think I can get any distance from the angle down here,” Doug said. “It would have to go around the corner of the building to draw them away.”
“Right,” Jessie said, still glancing around the room, unconsciously running his hands around
his belt line, tucking his thumbs in his underwear. Then his eyes lit up.
“Sheila, give me your bra,” he said, eying her chest. She had a pretty good set of hooters, although he couldn’t begin to guess what size they were.
“What!!” she whispered, so loudly it was nearly a normal tone, looking at him in shock and crossing her arms across her breasts.
“Nobody wants to see your boobs,” Jessie half laughed, raising his hands in a placating manner. “We can use it as a slingshot.”
“Speak for yourself,” Doug said. “I wouldn’t mind seeing them.”
“Yeah, that will work! I made an improvised grenade launcher out of a bra in Battle of the Wastelands 3,” Gary jumped in with a little excitement in his voice as he worked the arm loose from his wheelchair again. “We can tie the ends to this.” He held it upside down and it was just about perfect. Sheila saw what they were talking about, but was still too busy giving Doug her dirtiest look to acknowledge them at the moment. He wilted under her stare and mumbled something about looking for that stapler as he headed over to the teacher’s desk.
It only took her a few seconds to slip out of the bra, with all of them watching. It was like a magic trick. One moment she’s wearing it, the next she was sliding it out from the bottom of her shirt and handing it to Gary. All three of the boys looked a little perplexed at what just happened, but quickly tied either end of the sturdy bra to the ends of the armrest. “Glad you weren’t wearing some frilly, dainty thing,” Gary said, using teeth to pull the knot tight.
“Speak for yourself…” Doug started to quip, but it quickly died on his lips at the glare from Sheila He busied himself looking for anything else that might be slung out of their improvised slingshot and make noise as it clattered on the concrete.
Jessie opened another window quietly and removed the stops holding it in place so it could be taken out quickly when they needed it. They moved a student desk under it so it would be easier to climb out, and placed the teacher’s big desk under the slingshot window. Jessie helped Gary onto the desk and took his chair and folded it up. It was a lightweight modern wheelchair and collapsed in on itself, so it was no bigger than the wheels when he was finished. Last night Gary had told them to just leave him behind, come back and get him later, but they wouldn’t hear of it. There was no guarantee any of them would make it, and even less of a chance they would be able to sneak back over here with a car.
The school had hundreds of students and they were probably all over the front of the building. If he didn’t go with them now, he would die a slow, painful death by thirst, locked in the dungeon. It would be like never getting off the first level of Dungeon Crawl. Besides, now he could get those bionic legs from the rehab center, make some modifications and be like Ripley from Aliens. Become a badass zombie killing machine.
They were ready. Or as ready as they were going to be. They quietly removed the windows and Jessie prepared to slide the chair through the opening as soon as the milling crowd was drawn away by the slingshot distraction. Sheila stood by, ready to help boost Gary through.
Doug stretched the bra back, bracing the armrest against the block wall with his feet. He aimed the best he could, shooting for the metal umbrella that was half visible over the picnic table at the edge of the building. They all held their breath as he let it go, the air filled with flying pens, staplers, and the empty glass apple juice jar. Some of the closer zombies started to turn at the twang from the bra being released, but their attention was soon diverted by the clatter of breaking glass and the cacophony of metal pelting metal.
There was a roar from the front of the school and an answering one from those few in the back, as they started running toward the noise. Jessie had the chair out of the opening and followed in seconds. As he was unfolding it, Doug and Sheila had Gary through the other window.
Jessie ran the few feet over to them and held the chair steady as Gary grabbed it and threw himself in, Doug placing his feet in the stirrups like they had practiced. It only took seconds, and then they were running toward the bleachers, hoping their movements wouldn’t be noticed.
But they were.
Halfway across the end zone, a keening howl went up from under the bleachers. Someone had been bitten and crawled in there to escape, but only managed to die and come back, trapped by the crisscrossing bars, unable to figure out how to get over or under them. They glanced over at her as they ran past, it was Carly from Jessie’s biology class.
She ran at them, ignoring the bars and supports she kept slamming into. They were smashing her face and body, but with the sheer intensity that she was slamming into them, she was bouncing over or under the bars. They ran. They had to get to the lake.
Behind them they could hear her crashing into the steel supports, her howls never ceasing, and with them, she brought the rest of the pack. If they came at them through the bleachers, that would slow them down. Hopefully enough so they could make it to the woods, maybe they could lose them in there.
Jessie ran flat out, pushing Gary’s chair, with him helping as much as he could, pumping the wheels, his hands flying, urging them faster. Sheila was leading, she was past the bleachers and running in a sprint across the soccer practice field, aiming for the trees. Jessie chanced a look behind and his blood seemed to freeze.
There were hundreds of them streaming around the end of the school, and the fastest ones were already at the other side of the end zone, screaming with outstretched arms. There were a lot of them getting tangled up in the maze under the bleachers, but not enough. He couldn’t go any faster, he was already at 110%. Had it cranked up to 11.
Sheila was at the edge of the woods, disappearing into the gloom, with Doug only twenty yards behind her. Jessie was halfway across the soccer field and already scanning the wood line, looking for the best entrance. His breathing was ragged, his thirst nearly unbearable, his lungs aching and the stitch in his side was screaming at him.
He wasn’t used to running flat out and rarely ever did, unless he was late for the bus. He hoped the woods weren’t wall to wall kudzu, like a lot of places in Georgia were. There was no way he could get a wheelchair through it if it were. Hell, you could barely walk through it. But they couldn’t plan for everything.
Sometimes you had to trust fate. He pumped his burning legs, one of his old man’s stupid sayings popping into his head, “Pain is just weakness leaving the body.” He spotted where Doug and Sheila had gone into the gloom and aimed for the same path, it looked clear from what he could see, not too much undergrowth. He couldn’t see much past the shadows a few feet in, and silently cursed them for leaving him behind. He shot a look over his shoulder as he entered the dimness, the mass of keening undead were clearing the end of the bleachers and charging out onto the soccer field.
“Watch out!” Gary yelled and Jessie turned around just barely in time to stop, before he plowed headlong into a fence. Sheila and Doug were there, arms outstretched to pull Gary over.
“Hurry,” they said, as Jessie could do little more than try to get his breath, taking in huge, gulping lungs full of air. He got the chair against the fence and Gary was over in a heartbeat, Doug dragging the chair over next and getting him in it. It only took a few seconds, and they were off, Jessie still panting, holding onto the fence.
“Come on!” Sheila said, and she was chasing after them.
Jessie didn’t have to be told twice. This fence was a godsend. He took one last deep breath then sprung over, hitting the ground running. He was sure the horde would get through it, but it looked fairly sturdy, it should hold them back for a few minutes. Maybe long enough for them to get to the lake.
Jessie quickly caught up with them, the chair was difficult to maneuver through the underbrush and around the trees. Gary was helping to steer and still pumping the wheels as hard as he could, but they had slowed a lot. Doug was already breathing in short ragged breaths when they heard the mass of zombies hit the fence. It held the first ones in place, their desiccated brains
unable to figure out what was stopping them, their legs continuing to try to propel themselves forward.
They kept piling on, kept slamming into the simple wire fence. Within seconds, it seemed, they had enough weight pushing against it and it went over easily, the unfortunate ones in the front being trampled underfoot of the rampaging, howling, horde.
Jessie and Sheila had taken each side of the chair and were pulling frantically toward the water as Doug still pushed and Gary tirelessly spun the wheels with his hands. The undergrowth was getting thicker, the ground muddier and they could hear the horde crashing through the fence.
“Not much farther!” they panted to each other. “Almost there!” But then they were faced with a massive fallen pine between them and the water. They wasted precious seconds, each trying to go in a different direction to get around it, with the sounds of the undead crashing through the trees getting louder.
They saw them coming. Screaming, keening, gnashing classmates, arms outstretched and heedless of the branches slapping their faces and whipping across their bodies. “Leave me!” Gary cried out to them in despair. “Just go!”
“Not a chance,” Jessie gasped. “Forget the chair, Doug, grab his other arm!”
“The water is just ahead!” Sheila panted. “Come on, come on, come on!”
They draped Gary’s arms over their shoulders and quickly climbed over the fallen tree, his feet dragging uselessly behind them. They could hear the crashing of the undead behind them, close now, right at the downed pine. A few of the sprinters in front found themselves impaled on the branches, but that didn’t slow their raging lust, their number one priority, their need to replicate their numbers, to infect the uninfected, to spread as fast as possible to as many as possible, in any way possible.
The Zombie Road Omnibus: The Road Kill Collection Page 18
