by Reece Hinze
“You have always been the enemy of God, sir, and therefore it is my duty to defy you, to purify you.” Devreaux leaned forward to look into his prisoner’s pained eyes. “And on the morrow, you shall receive your purification.
Chapter VIII: Flight.
Police Sergeant Wade Slaughter waved his aging companion through the gym door and followed him into the darkness.
The high ceiling of the Cibolo Middle School gymnasium shut out the chaotic cacophony of the storm. Both men, drenched to the core, stood still as stone while their eyes adjusted to the darkness. Wade’s heart beat to the same ferocious rhythm as the water dripping from his clothes. His younger eyes adjusted to the darkness first and he shot a frantic hand to Clifford’s shoulder, urging him to not move.
In the darkness all around them, standing, laying, or softly shuffling, were countless shadows. Some as tall as adults and others as small as children. Psychotic moans and sudden screams echoed through the tall chamber. A bolt of lightning flashed through the high windows and the gym floor lit up like a picture no person should ever have to witness. The crowd was mangled and bloody. Children and adults alike sported open wounds and terrible gouges. One near Wade had an eyeball dangling freely while others were missing major body parts. More, maybe twice the number of the standing, lay dead on the floor, succumbing to their injuries with frozen tortured faces.
And all of them were drenched in blood. Blood that flowed from a wound or continually oozed from a number of orifices.
So many children...
The only emotion that matched the outrage in Wade’s heart was the terrible fear.
He calmed himself and scanned the area rationally. To their left, stood the forever unclean gym floor and a large crowd of mumbling shuffling humans. To their right, the doorway to the rest of the school stood outlined like a beacon amongst the carnage. The emergency lightning in the hallway beyond strobed harshly. The two push doors had their windows smeared with bloody handprints. The arm of a corpse held one of them open, pointing their way to freedom.
Wade grabbed Clifford’s hand, finding even the old war vet was trembling at the carnage, and placed it securely to the back side of his wet belt. He squeezed it to make sure the old man knew to hold tight and began the slow journey towards the door and the strobing emergency lighting. He shuffled his feet to make sure he didn’t trip on any obstacles hiding in the darkness. Slowly, foot by precious foot, the duo headed towards the light.
Suddenly, Wade’s boot struck something soft. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. Somewhere in the darkness, somewhere close, a quick shrill scream echoed through the place. He held his breath, scanning desperately for an object hurtling at him through the dark but the attack never came. He looked down at his boot and found the object in front of him didn’t move. Nerves nearly at an end, Wade led his partner around the corpse. Step by step, the duo shuffled through the gym of death towards the white strobing hallway door.
Welcome! The corpse at the door seemed to say to Wade. Come on dooooowwwwnnnnn!
Lightning flashed outside and lit up the gym once again. A tall slender bald man with sunken cheeks looked directly at Wade with his bloody red eyes. In the split second the lightning shown his face, Wade saw the man’s face turn to surprise. In the darkness, they heard his gasp and roar.
“Shit!” Wade shouted, firing three rounds into the shadow in front of him. The muzzle flash outlined the backwards spray of the man’s lifeblood.
The deafening shots were followed by the echo of screams and running of feet.
“Run Clifford!” As he sprinted towards the doors, Wade felt the old man’s hand break loose from his belt. He blasted two people who sprinted at him from the right. Ten more rounds dropped three attackers on his left. Behind him, he heard the great booming of Clifford’s shotgun. Wade vaulted the corpse holding the door open and kicked it out of the way, pointing his rifle back into the gym. A blast of lighting showed a running Mr. Worsby with scores of infected hot on his tail.
“Run, run, run!” Wade shouted, squeezing off round after round at anything close to the old man. Clifford, over ninety years old, was limited by his aging limbs. His sprint was a younger person’s mall walk.
“Run! You have to run!” Wade screamed. He spotted an enormous woman in a flower print dress sprinting, with amazing speed, at the old man. Wade aimed true but the heard the click of an empty magazine. Years of combat training allowed him to instinctively drop his empty magazine and reload another within seconds. Loud booms rang from Clifford’s shotgun.
“Almost there!” Wade yelled, picking off the big woman with a clean head shot. Clifford moved with all the grace of an AARP century club member, dodging and weaving.
Fifteen feet from the door, the old man tripped and the infected piled on top of him like a rugby scrum.
“No!” Wade screamed, blindly emptying another magazine into the dog pile. When the chamber clicked empty, Wade slammed the double doors shut. The blinding white strobe light flashed above. He leaned back against the doors just as the horde of infected school goer’s slammed into the other side. He spotted a nearby corpse, ripped the belt off of them, quickly lashed it to the door, and closed his eyes. The strobing denied him the peace of darkness, shining through his eyelids. A lonely tear rolled down his cheek.
I’m sorry Clifford.
“You bastards!” Wade yelled.
He opened his eyes a started. A figure was standing feet from him. Through the rotating darkness and white light, he recognized the bloodied and battered face of the Principal. Her lips had red tendrils of dried blood flowing outward like demented lipstick and formed an “O” while her red eyes showed surprise as if she couldn’t believe her luck.
Wade reached for his sidearm but she was already on him.
He shot his legs outward and slammed his boots into the middle of her chest. While she strained for him, her growling face inches from his own, Wade reached for a combat knife, hidden in his boot.
The strobing white light of the fire alarm flashed in the darkness.
Light.
Dark.
Light.
Red.
Like the infected, Wade saw red. Rage controlled his actions, occupied his entire world.
“How many of those children did you kill you sick fuck,” Wade asked. He kicked her away but the principal charged again. He swung the sharp blade, slicing her nose in half.
“They trusted you!” He slashed hard at her outstretched hand, nearly severing it completely. Blood spurted past Wade’s face, splattering on the doors behind him where a group of infected children were still trying their best to break through and kill him. Wade pushed her aside, stood, and kicked the principal hard in the chest. Her palms smacked the tile as she fell on her back.
“Did you kill my Mother too?” He asked, snarling with rage. “Did you?” Wade’s boot held her fast to the ground. “You bitch!”
He stabbed down with all of his force. The sharp knife easily split her eye socket and skid on the floor beneath her skull.
“How could you?” Wade screamed, stabbing and stabbing until his arms hung tired and limp. He pushed away from the mangled corpse and fell to the floor, crying hysterically. He rocked back and forth. All of the sudden, the hot desert sun baked his skin. He sat in the sand, instead of buffed tile. The smell of spent gunpowder hung in the air. His hands were covered in blood, pieces of sand littered the sticky red. Wade blinked and he was back in the dark hallway. The white light strobed. He raised his hands in front of his face. They were soaked in blood.
Holy shit. Get it together.
Wade stood, shaking his head. His knife stuck out of the principal’s ruined skull and made a sucking sound when he plucked it out. He wiped it on her expensive dry cleaned suit, and placed it back in his boot sheath. Wade saw an antibacterial dispenser, one of many in the sickness prone school environment, and squirted out a great amount of the stuff, cleaning his hands on another piece of the principal’s expe
nsive suit. He wiped the tears away, grabbed his rifle, and took a deep breath. As he walked through the dark lobby of the school towards his mother’s wing, a shiver rolled down his spine.
After so much gunfire and shouting, Wade deemed it useless to continue in stealth. He strode boldly past the empty reception desk and into his mother’s hallway. The bright strobe near the gym was replaced by emergency lighting that cast a dull reflection on the freshly buffed and gore free floors. At the end of the lengthy hall, two figures stared blankly out the doorway he and Clifford had approached before going into the gym. Wade calmly checked his weapon, making sure everything was in order, and laid prone on the floor. He took a deep breath and whistled as loud as he could. The two pivoted instantly, staring at him as if they couldn’t believe their bloodshot eyes. Wade stared through his red-dot scope, placing the reticle in the middle of the taller one’s torso. He cut their screaming short with hot death from his AR-15. Wade missed the shorter one with his first shot, which ricocheted dangerously back down the hall at him, but his second round entered right above her eye. The body hit the ground before the splash of her skull and brains.
“Fuckin’ ass holes,” Wade growled.
Wade checked to make sure his makeshift belt barricade held firm on the gym door but mysteriously the maniacs in the gym had calmed. There was no immediate danger in the strobe flashed corridor so he continued on, seeing his mother’s room halfway down the hall on the left.
Wade peeked through every door window he passed. Every room was empty and orderly, showing no signs of struggle or violence. His boot’s echoed. A soft boom of a thunderclap rumbled through the silence. Wade wasn’t a man to take religion with much seriousness but nevertheless, as he approached his mother’s classroom, he prayed.
Lord, I know I’ve been an asshole. I’ve killed, and not only when I had to. I ask only that you spare my mother. She is a good person and…
An image of the principal’s mangled face shoved its way into his mind’s eye.
…she doesn’t deserve to die like that.
Wade raised his rifle to his mother’s door.
Just as before, there was no sign of life. He tried the door but it was locked. Everything seemed normal inside. No desks were out of place and no blood painted the walls. His heart felt like it weighed a thousand pounds.
“Mom?” Wade softly called out.
Her face appeared in the door. An opened mouth and look of surprise etched across her face.
“No…” Wade said, staggering a few steps from the doorway, training his rifle on his mother’s face.
“No…” He repeated. His hands tightened around the rifle. His finger fell to the trigger. “Mom, I’m so sorry…”
“Wade?” He heard the words and saw her lips move but his panicked mind refused to process them. “Wade!”
Anne Slaughter’s face disappeared from sight and a second later the door swung open. Wade kept his rifle trained on his mother as she stood in the doorway.
“Say something!” He shouted.
Anne recoiled at her son’s forcefulness. A few heartbeats passed in tense silence. Finally, she took a step towards her son. Her eyes were the same brilliant blue as Wade’s brother Luke. “After they get sick, they never speak.” Her tone was matter of fact.
Wade let his rifle drop in its sling and hugged his mother ferociously. “I’m sorry Mom. I didn’t think I made it in time and…”
“Shhh,” Anne patted her son’s armored back as he wept on her shoulder. “Everything’s going to be okay. Come inside now. Come on.” She looked down the hall before leading him through the doorway and locking it behind them.
“Mom, I…” Wade began but stopped when he saw, through his tear stained eyes, twenty other sets staring back at him. “Oh my God,” he said.
“I kept them out of sight of the doorway,” Anne explained, careful not to let the children overhear her. “If the sick don’t see you, they don’t come looking.” Soft crying and excited murmurs emanated from the children huddled in the corner.
Wade sniffed the air and cringed.
“I had them go in the opposite corner, also out of eyesight from the door,” she said.
Wade dried his eyes, put on the tough man routine, and walked towards the children with his normal confident swagger. A little girl who wore her backpack as a makeshift breastplate, stood up and ran to him. “Are you here to take us home Mr. Policeman?” She asked, hugging his leg. He remembered her from career day.
Wade looked towards his mother, then to the scared children huddled in the corner, and back to the little girl. He patted her reassuringly on the back. “You’re safe now sweetheart. Go back to your friends okay?”
She held tight to his leg. “But all my friends went to gym period,” she said, tearing up.
Unsure of what to do, Wade just patted her on her head. “Everything is going to be okay guys,” he said, addressing the children. “I’m a policeman and it’s my job to keep you safe. You guys stay back here, out of sight until I say so, okay?”
Almost in unison the class replied, “Yes, Mr. Policeman.”
Wade managed a thin smile, detached the little girl and walked back towards his mother, quickly giving her another hug. “I’m so glad you’re okay, Mom.”
“I’m glad too, baby. I prayed my heart out. The Lord delivered.”
Wade said nothing but looked at the children.
I guess he did.
“It’s time to get you and the kids out of here,” Wade said. “I saw a bus barn and…”
“Wade.” She stopped him, lowering her voice. “Earlier today, Principal Woolston called for an evacuation to the gymnasium. Before we went, I gathered my neighboring teaching partners. I had the news on and realized we weren’t dealing with something you just call the parents to come pick up their kids. I convinced some others to stay in their classrooms and hide their kids like me.”
“That was the right call Mom and probably saved your life. I was just at…”
Anne held up her hand and shook her head. “I don’t want to know. We had barely walked back to our classrooms when we heard the screams. I don’t know how it got in the school so fast but people, infected people, have been running back and forth down the hallway ever since.”
Anne took her son by the arm and looked dead into his eyes. “Wade, there were six of us who stayed behind. Six teachers with roughly twenty kids each.”
“Oh my God,” Wade gasped. He slumped into one of the miniature school chairs. “That’s over 120 children.”
“Not a single parent has come and it’s nearly midnight. What’s going on Wade?”
“There won’t be, nor any authorities either.” He stared blankly at a globe on a nearby desk. “I haven’t heard shi… uh, anything about the State or the Feds and... I lost Smith tonight. John’s mother killed him and she’s dead too. Mom, I don’t know what’s going on but it’s bad. Really, really bad.”
Anne covered her mouth with her hand.
“Judging from what I saw on the way here, half these kid’s parents are already dead… or worse.”
The two sat in silence for a moment. One kid farted and some others giggled. Anne straightened her back and looked directly at her son. “We will just have to take them with us then.”
Wade looked at his mother as if she were crazy. “But how are we…”
“No but’s. We’ll take the kids to the ranch. I’ll leave a note on each classroom with our address.” She held her son’s cheeks in her palms. “I’ll make the signs. You gather the other teachers.”
And so it was decided. In a few moments, Wade returned with the other teachers. Anne ushered them out of ear shot of the students. A slender, flamboyant man spoke up first. He wore freshly polished shoes. His thin face was framed by designer glasses. He wasted no time showing his annoyance.
“It’s about Goddamn time the police show up,” he said. He had a lispy haughtiness that grated on Wade’s last nerve. “Do you know how long we have be
en sitting in those classrooms with our kids shitting and pissing everywhere?”
As she often did, Anne took the lead. “Mr. Swinney, this…”
“Listen Anne, I know you have been here since the Stone Age and everyone thinks they should kiss your ass and all but it’s time for some real answers.” He drew out his S’s for a long time. “Where is your backup Officer? Where is Principal Woolston?” He looked at Anne, “Ugh, why did I take your advice? I should have gone to the gym.”
Anne started to say something but her son held up his hand. “Listen, Mr.?”
“Charles Swinney.” Even after his tirade, Charles offered a smile and a limp handshake for the handsome officer.
“Charles, you want to know where Principal Woolston is?” Wade pulled out his bloodstained knife and showed the group. Even his mother recoiled at the sight. “I killed her,” he said matter-of-factly.
Wade let his words linger for a moment. Mr. Swinney looked horrified.
“She was sick and aggressive. If you had listened to your own domesticated sheep instincts, you would be a dribbling screaming psycho, like everyone else in that gym, and I might have killed you too. I just came from there. It’s…” Wade looked towards the ground, his mind far away. “It’s terrible. Following my mother’s advice saved your life.” He looked directly at Charles. “So shut the fuck up.”
After an awkward silence, a short, terribly obese Hispanic woman spoke up. “Your mother?” She asked softly. She had a gigantic head of hair that was nearly as big as her wide torso. Her eyes flicked from side to side like a timid animal.
“Yes my name is Wade Slaughter. Anne is my mother, Mrs.?”
“Miss. Garza… ugh... Susanne Garza.” Her eyes darted back and forth even faster as if the revelation of her name might spawn danger.
“Mr. Swinney, Mrs. Garza, and the rest of you.” Wade pointed at his mother with his bloodstained combat knife. “I came here to rescue her, not to evacuate all of you.” The teachers looked at each other uneasily.
