“So they’re not really dead,” Todd mused, and brushed some lint off his Cannibal Corpse shirt.
“No, but they’re not really alive, either,” the teacher answered. “They’re mindless now. Base creatures that serve the twisted, man-made virus they were given, or transmitted by attack. They seek to spread their sickness, eat anything to fuel their existence, and the byproduct of that, was the near extinction of mankind. Eight people in ten were taken the first year of the outbreak.”
“Why do they eat people?” Mary asked the teacher.
“Convenience, it seems. It’s also a bit of a myth. The virus works best with human hosts, and they attack humans to spread that contagion. In the bite attacks, they eat some flesh, but on an instinctual level, once the virus is transmitted, they give up their attack. They will eat dead bodies though.”
“Gross,” Todd said, and made a retching sound.
“And you kill them by shooting them in the head?” one of the students asked.
“That’s the fastest way. Technically, any mortal wound will kill them, but their basic functions are so lethargic, it takes a good long time for them to die. Even when they’re spun up, trying to kill someone, they take a minute or more to perish after being mortally wounded. Hence why people said they were unkillable, why they called them the undead. Now, if you destroy the nerve center of the infected; the brain, or spine… they can’t control their bodies, and they become harmless until they die.”
“Crazy,” Todd said. “I always thought it was like those old movies.”
“It kind of is,” Officer Tamani interjected. “Listen to your teacher. She’s good.”
“Mrs. Parker…?” Mary asked.
“Yes?”
“Have you… killed any of these things? When they were still all over?”
The teacher stiffened and adjusted her purse so she could smooth out the fabric of her long dress. Her hands lingered on a large peony in the floral print, then came back to the purse. She started to say something, then stopped, tried again and stopped again, then finally nodded.
“I’m sorry,” Mary said, and put a hand on her teacher’s arm.
“Thank you. I survived. I’m lucky. Feel sorry for the people who didn’t learn fast enough. Or run fast enough. The people in there,” she said, and inclined her head towards the giant fish tank filled with animated semi-corpses.
“How many did you kill?” Todd asked her, almost salivating at the idea of an answer.
“Todd, Jesus,” Mary said.
“Sorry, shit. Just curious,” Todd said, shying away from Mary as she clocked an arm back to whack him. Suddenly the Cannibal Corpse shirt seemed a bit ironic to everyone.
“More than I can remember. But I can recall a special few. The people I knew. Look, that’s not important. Just listen, and learn, kids. See them. Watch them. Know that this happened. Know that your parents experienced a world teeming with these things. Never mind food, water and shelter. They sought safety for ten minutes, then another ten minutes. Know that they had to do anything they could to survive. Know that despite all hope being lost, they persevered. They lived, they loved, and they brought a new generation into this world. Your generation.”
“Are you insinuating that my parents were badass, Mrs. Parker?” Todd surmised.
“Yes, Todd. They were metal.”
Todd laughed. “Alright. I can get behind that idea. My mom does strike me as the ‘stabbing type’ after all.”
“Knives were good. They didn’t make any noise,” Mrs. Parker said, and after an awkward, horrified silence, the class let out a collective, nervous laugh.
Suddenly, the footing in the room shook.
“Earthquake,” the tall security guard named Tamani said. “Everyone to the hall, please. Exit to the south,” he pointed in the direction they had come from. “Follow the exit signs.”
“Everyone out,” Mrs. Parker said, spinning on her heel and opening her arms to corral her posse of teenagers out the way they came.
The ground shook harder and several of the students lost their balance and fell to the floor. A loud series of cracks reverberated through the room as the newly refurbished museum’s stone structure warped from the quake. Something metal groaned as it was pulled and twisted by the building’s suffering.
The class fled, led by the pleasant and large officer and followed by the teacher towards the hall. Todd looked over his shoulder towards the habitat and his mouth dropped. Mrs. Parker turned and looked.
A steel beam the width of a student’s torso and 30 feet long broke free from the center of the glass roof above the habitat. The shattering glass on both sides fell like a rain of daggers, breaking further and scattering all throughout the room. But worst yet, the enormous beam struck down on the top of the unbreakable glass, cracking it in every direction across the top, and sides.
But it held as the world continued to shake.
“Holy shit. Did you see that?” Todd exclaimed, making devil horns with his hands. “That ain’t no regular glass box.”
Mrs. Parker let slip a rare grin of satisfaction. “So it would seem.”
“Alright everyone,” Officer Tamani said, “we still need to exit, and we still need to do it fast. Quake isn’t over, and I don’t trust that—“
A new groan of metal interrupted him. The entire class spun and looked. It took seconds to happen.
The minivan the curators of the exhibit brought in and placed carefully on its side shook from the quake. It tipped towards the glass, breaking free of the bolts that held it upright. The heavy vehicle struck the glass where the shattering was worst, and the dam broke. With a terrible crescendo of snapping and shattering the wall of the habitat broke apart, spilling the car off the platform and into the room, crushing several slow moving visitors and trapping more.
One compromised wall gone, the weight of the beam grew impossible to bear, and the whole house came down. Glass and metal exploded in every direction.
A klaxon sounded and behind the students, teacher, and security officer, a giant metal gate fell from the ceiling and blocked off their exit. The two other corridors that led away from the zombie habitat had gates of their own that slammed down. They were locked in the atrium with the infected.
The guard drew his pistol, and prepared to do his job.
Almost everyone else screamed
- Part Two -
Phys. Ed.
Mrs. Parker took control. The veteran survivor of what the kids now thought were a hundred battles against vicious undead corralled her charges against the gate and into the corner, putting her body between them and the zombies that spilled off the platform and onto the floor.
The lethargic, disinterested zombies got to their feet and surveyed the world that had been denied them inside their mirrored prison. They changed. Their sluggishmetabolism sped into overdrive, and every ounce of energy inside them was released. Snarling, hissing and wild they sprang into a frenzy, storming the nearby museum visitors like rabid football linebackers hungry for flesh.
A couple in their 50s–elderly by the standards of the new world–were taken first. Tackled to the floor as they clutched each other’s hands, they punched and kicked against the half dozen undead but their defenses were futile. Their savagery coupled with their dulled senses made strikes ineffective. They only slowed when their teeth met warm skin, and the blood and muscle beneath.
The room soon filled with the sound of biting, and sucking as they ate their victims until they gave up fighting. Then they moved on, leaving the wounded to ripen with infection, and join their ranks. The change was fast; less than a minute from multiple bite wounds. The survivors had little time left.
Officer Tamani already had his revolver up as he moved out of the alcove in the hallway created by the shut gate. He carried the standard .357 magnum pistol most armed guards carried, though his weapon was loaded with the less powerful–but more accurate and available–.38 special rounds. He cocked the hammer.
Th
e horrified field trip watched on as he drew a bead on the blonde woman with no arms as she stormed directly at him. He pulled the trigger and the gun barked, echoing in the room like a clap of thunder. His shot slammed into the soft flesh of her chest, perforated her bloody blouse and blowing a hole out her back. A fine mist of the woman’s blood fell to the tile floor as she opened her mouth and growled a wet, angry noise at him. The guard fired again.
His second shot tore a hole in the center of her neck, puncturing her trachea with a wet slap and ripping a hole in the back. The bullet severed at least a portion of her spine and she reacted in what might’ve been dismay. She furrowed her brow and fell to the floor, smacking her skull off the tile. A pool of blood spread around her head.
The kids cheered. The monsters heard.
The sound of the jubilant and terrified teenagers was a clarion call–a dinner bell that rang out over the sounds of the small crowd–for the undead, and they abandoned all other potential victims to seek out the source of the noise. They scrambled over the diorama like animals, using their hands and feet to move fast, oblivious to the pistol-wielding guard who fired into their number.
Tamani was accurate; he was well trained, calm, and wasted few shots despite the floor of the museum trembling from the earthquake. He fired the 4 rounds remaining in his revolver and stood his ground as he pulled the cylinder open and dumped the spent casings out. He went to his belt to pull out a speed loader as the closest zombie reached out to grab him. It would test the strength of his leather jacket without doubt. He couldn’t reload in time.
Mrs. Parker did her job.
In her knee length floral print dress and cardigan sweater she reached into the purse she’d clutched and produced a Glock. Gun in hand, the calm teacher wearing a pretty floral print dress tossed the purse off, and went proper ape shit on the zombies trying to kill her kids.
Her first bullet dropped the entrails-drooping, polo-wearing monster that grabbed at Officer Tamani. She put the round right through his cheek and after his brains flew out the back of his head he went to the floor like his plug had been pulled. She stepped forward and aimed her second shot at a zombie with arms that had been degloved of flesh to the elbow. Its brains went for a trip sans the skull they originally came in, and she stepped further forward, deeper into the escaped zombies that surrounded and closed in on her and her babies.
One by one–one shot each–Mrs. Parker dropped the undead. She was a machine, a well trained, battle honed veteran who had a job to do, and did it without hesitation, and without question. At her side, brave and calm just as she was, stood Officer Tamani. Both hands on his pistol like her, he fired in one direction, controlling his area.
When her pistol ran dry she ejected the magazine, lifted her skirt and pulled a spare from a thigh mounted strap that carried several, and slapped it home. She was up and dangerous again in seconds. Shot after deafening shot she and her partner built a bigger and bigger pile of bodies, stacked up 3 deep in places as the newly fallen museum visitors consumed by the infection they’d just contracted in the attack stood and became aggressive. When the gunfire stopped, the air was thick with the smell of gunpowder, and the floor was covered in spent brass and blood.
“Clear?” Mrs. Parker asked the man at her side. Her breathing was ragged, but controlled.
“Clear,” he replied, almost out of breath. “I’ve got six doses of serum on me. There’s a few bitten over there I think I can save.”
“Be careful,” she said.
Officer Tamani left to render aid, and she turned to the kids. Her pistol went to her side. The children were open mouthed. Shocked and utterly in awe of their teacher. Aiden–the toughest kid in the school–stood and looked at her as if she was the angel Azrael, come down from the heavens to visit death upon God’s enemies. He had never seen anything more badass, and never would.
Mrs. Parker slapped a fresh magazine into her pistol and put the depleted magazine into the strap under her dress.
“And that kids, is why teachers carry guns now.”
About the Author
Chris Philbrook is the creator and author of the urban fantasy series The Reemergence, as well as the dark fantasy series The Kinless Trilogy and the post apocalyptic epic Adrian's Undead Diary.
Adrian's Undead Diary, the story that got Chris on the literary map now has all eight titles available in print, eBook and audio. In order, they are Dark Recollections, Alone No More, Midnight, The Failed Coward, Wrath, In the Arms of Family, The Trinity, and Cassie. Also set in the world of Adrian Ring are Unhappy Endings and London Burns.
Chris' first book in print was The Wrath of the Orphans, the initial book of The Kinless Trilogy, set in his Elmoryn fantasy world. You can get it here on Amazon in print and for the Kindle as well. Book two and three are The Motive for Massacre, and The Echoes of Sin.
Tesser: A Dragon Among Us is Chris' first foray into the world of urban/contemporary fantasy, followed by Ambryn & the Cheaters of Death and Fyelrath & the Coven's Curse, with more planned.
Chris is the owner of Tier One Games LLC, his game development company.
Chris calls the wonderful state of New Hampshire his home. He is an avid reader, writer, role player, miniatures game player, video game player, painter and procrastinator. He and his wife welcomed their first daughter Willow to the world in April of 2016.
If you would like Chris to sign your eBooks, head over to http://www.authorgraph.com for a personalized message from him.
For more info on Chris, head over to his official author website and sign up for his newsletter at: http://www.thechrisphilbrook.com
Or follow him on Twitter @PhilbrookAuthor
Also by Chris Philbrook:
Reemergence
Tesser: A Dragon Among Us
Ambryn: The Cheaters of Death
Fyelrath & the Coven’s Curse
Colony Lost
Elmoryn - The Kinless Trilogy
Book One: Wrath of the Orphans
Book Two: The Motive for Massacre
Book Three: The Echoes of Sin
Adrian’s Undead Diary
Book One: Dark Recollections
Book Two: Alone No More — Book Three: Midnight
Book Four: The Failed Coward — Book Five: Wrath
Book Six: In the Arms of Family
Book Seven: The Trinity — Book Eight: Cassie
Coming Soon:
The Last Resort
Tales from the World of Adrian’s Undead Diary
Unhappy Endings
London Burns
Only the Light We Make
The Shed
An Ill Wind
Short Fiction:
Resurrections: A Short Story Collection
Don’t miss Chris Philbrook’s free e-Book:
At Least He’s Not On Fire:
A Tour of the Things That Escape My Head
Can’t get enough of AUD?
Visit http://www.thechrisphilbrook.com/merchandise/ for stickers, hats, and a wide variety of awesome shirts!
Can’t Wait for More?
Look for Chris Philbrook’s FREE short fiction eBook, At Least He’s Not on Fire.
Find it on Amazon, Goodreads, or Smashwords today!
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JSGEKIK
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21948978-at-least-he-s-not-on-fire
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/430970
An Ill Wind: Tales from the world of Adrian's Undead Diary Volume Five Page 7
