“No way,” He muttered before turning and running into the cafeteria which sat on the other side of the hallway. Fortunately this had happened in the morning, and there were no students populating the common area. He looked around, determined that there was no immediate danger, and sat down at one of the tables, head in hands.
People had talked about the zombie apocalypse for decades. Literally decades. Even living a sheltered life he'd heard some tales, even if they were mostly fiction. Could it have actually happened? Logic said no, the Bible said no, but what if both were wrong? What if everything he'd been taught, and everything he'd been brought up to believe, was wrong? It was a tough concept to wrap his head around, and frankly he didn't have time right now. As he cocked his head and listened intently, he could hear the sounds of growling and scuffling emanating from the classrooms just around the corner. Most of the doors had been shut at the start of class, but there was always that one teacher that forgot, and it could be on either end of the building.
Somewhere in the school, students, whether they were zombies or not, were piling into the hallways, ready to attack, or simply have a fresh meal. He shook his head and stood up, gun in hand, and walked slowly toward the edge of the cafeteria. On the other side there were two exits, though they both led to the same hallways. Opposite that would be the music room, and for some reason, the music room connected to the locker room. While that tended to make little sense, Ross was in no mood to argue trivialities with himself. Instead, he stood and made his way toward the music room, checking the hall to ensure there were no dead, undead, or whatever they were lurking in the florescent-bathed hallways. As far as he could tell, he was safe, or at least as safe as he could be given the circumstances.
The music room was empty, and eerily quiet. Normally, at any time of the day you could hear an aspiring musician belting out the words of their favorite song whether they were good at it or not. There was always a strong chance that they weren't good at it however, and the school had a zero tolerance rule against bullying. The school, apparently, felt it would be better for these musicians to find out they were terrible upon entering the real world. It made sense of course; less drama for the school to deal with on a daily basis, and fewer lawsuits to worry about.
The music room was a bare concrete room with tiered seating. For some reason, the band room, which was directly across and connected by a small brick hallway, was identical other than the fact that it was properly carpeted and the walls were painted with the school logo and mascot. It seemed that the school cared much more about the marching band than the music program, which was sensible considering the football team brought in the vast majority of the funding.
“Why am I thinking about this?” Ross asked himself as he ran through the locker room door.
The door actually led to yet another white brick hallway and after two turns, the locker room. This locker room was not exactly the epitome of the television high school locker room. Instead, it was simply a small, yet long space, each wall lined with lockers. The room was actually a bit of a rectangle with concrete benches beneath the lockers, and at the far end of the locker room, he spied Kyle Hanson, the school jock/bully. Amazing how that worked out.
“Hey asshole,” Ross said, walking toward him, holding the gun at head level.
Kyle looked up at him, his face half covered in blood. Kyle had clearly been in a fight with something, and Ross could easily guess what that something was. Right now, Kyle was terrified – Ross could see it on his face rather easily. He stood there, gun pointed at his head, trying to work out whether or not he actually cared about Kyle's feelings. Outside the locker room he could hear growling and shuffling of feet. The zombies had finally made it to the music room. Maybe they were aspiring musicians as well. Ross shrugged and steadied his aim.
“Any last words?” He asked.
“Dude, I'm not one of them,” Kyle choked on his words, cowering against the lockers. “Please, don't kill me!”
“No, you're worse,” Ross said as he cocked the hammer for dramatic effect.
“Look, I'm sorry okay, I'm sorry for whatever I did to you--”
Kyle was silenced with the pull of a trigger and a roar that emanated from the cylinder of the .38 revolver. He slumped against the locker and became still. Ross had been prepared to kill, but the thing he had not prepared for was the amount of blood that would be involved with said kill. It was as if the floodgates of the Nile River had been opened, and his revolver was Moses' rod. The blood covered a good portion of the lockers behind him, and the rest pooled at Ross's feet.
“My god...” Ross muttered. As he tried to take in the bloody sight, he heard a noise behind and spun around. It was a girl, standing in the doorway of the shower room. Her name was Jill, Jill Anderson. She was a natural blonde, or so Ross thought, and she stood at about his own height. He recognized her immediately as Kyle Hanson's girlfriend of two years at least, and today she had a black eye. Ross raised the gun defensively, not sure whether he should fire or let her go. It seemed more productive to simply let her go. She would be dead soon enough anyway, wouldn't she? Unless, of course, she was actually upset by the departure of her dear boyfriend, now splattered all over the wall, the floor, and the way the blood was moving, everywhere else.
“I'm trying to get to the gymnasium,” she said. “When I was on the cheerleading squad, we used a service tunnel to get under the stage. Bring your gun with you.”
“Jill, I just killed your boyfriend,” Ross pointed to Kyle's dead body.
“He hit me this morning. He hit me last week too, and the week before that. You saved me jail time. Let's go.”
Ross did a double take of the body on the floor and mouthed “What the hell” before following her into the shower room.
Chapter 2
Thanks for listening to KHLA radio. We've just been informed of a virus going around. We're not sure what it does, but the Center for Disease Control and local police request that everyone stay indoors for the duration of the emergency. You know what we recommend? We recommend you listen to KHLA radio, your home for classic rock!
“Dad! Dad!” Mark Hosier burst through the back door of the house, tracking mud across the freshly cleaned hard wood floors. He ran past the kitchen, ignoring the objectives of his mother, Virginia, as he sped into the living room to find his father working on the television. It was broken, as usual, and more times that he could remember, he and Amber had tried to persuade their father to simply give in and purchase a newer model. Where their father had even acquired the skills to work on an old LCD television was simply beyond them. Half the time the sound only came from a single speaker, and the other half, the picture was too dark. Frank, of course, was of the opinion that the family would spend too much time sitting around the television if he gave into his children's demands and insisted on continually repairing the old broken down device.
“Dad!” Mark yelled for the final time, causing Frank to drop his screwdriver. He peeked his head up from behind the television to see his son standing in the living room, out of breath and tracking mud.
“You'd better have a good reason for ruining your Mom's good carpet, son,” Frank said.
“It's Mister Graber, from next door,” Mark used the word 'next door' loosely as their farms were more or less half a mile apart. “He wandered over here, looks sick as a dog!”
“Did you bring him up to the house?”
“Tried, he's not answering to anything we say. He just kind of groans and stumbles around. Eyes look weird, too.”
“Where is he now?” Frank finally stood up, pushing the television aside.
“I think I saw him wander into the barn,” Mark said.
Frank walked out of the living room, past his son, who followed, and exited the house. It was a short walk to the barn, though long enough to have a short conversation.
“Did he say anything?” Frank asked.
“Not a word.”
Frank reached the barn and started
to pull the heavy siding door open, but then opted to simply walk through the side door. Upon entering, the barn was pitch black. No one had been in here today, apparently, which annoyed him.
“Mark,” Frank said. “It's 8 am, who was supposed to feed the animals?”
“Kelly, I think,” Mark said, brushing off the question.
“I don't hear any animals, are they in the field?”
“May be dead.”
They stepped through the doorway, landing on a pallet that Frank had placed below the door to serve as a step. It wasn't the sturdiest thing ever made, but it did the job most days. That of course was excepting the broken plank on the other side, which no one spoke of. Frank ran his hand along the wall, searching for the light switch. In this endeavor he managed to find two hanging pitch forks, a shovel, and the white standing cabinet in which he kept various chemicals.
“Dammit, where is it?” Frank muttered.
“Oh,” Mark said, explaining. “I moved the cabinet over a couple inches yesterday, it might be behind.”
“Well, get over there and help me move it back,” Frank said. “Wait, why did you move the...never mind.”
Mark took to one side of the metal cabinet while his father began to push it out of the way.
Mark was the eldest of three children, and at eighteen years old, he had not quite found adult life to be as he pictured. He had in fact hoped to be free of the farm at this point in his life, but this was anything but accurate. As his father and mother liked to say, “Finish high school and then you can think about moving.” They liked to say it a lot, much more than Mark actually wanted to hear it.
As they moved the cabinet out of the way, they both became aware of a rumbling in the driveway.
“That will be your Uncle Carl,” Frank said. “Let's get this done.”
With those words, Frank flipped the switch, illuminating the entire barn with a series of lights affixed to the rafters. The main portion of the barn was lit, though the lights under the loft would have to be activated with separate switches. As their eyes adjusted, they beheld what anyone would describe as a horrifying scene.
It was Mister Graber. He was standing over their horse, Palenteer, eating it, for lack of a better word. He had apparently tackled the beast and sunk his teeth into the jugular, causing himself, the straw on the floor, and the walls around him to be drenched with blood.
“Well, ain't that some sh...” As Frank spoke, he heard the horn from Uncle Carl's truck sound. “Out of the barn, find your sisters. I'm calling the police or animal control.”
They stepped out of the barn and Mark closed the door behind him.
“Get the girls and meet me in the living room.”
***
In the opinion of their mother and Amber, Kelly spent far too much time in the woods and not nearly enough time in the kitchen. Today in particular she was climbing a tree – the tallest and biggest tree in the woods as far as she was concerned. Of course there were many other trees in the woods, some even bigger and taller than this one, but in her limited experience, this was the tree to end all trees.
As she had done many times before, she placed her left foot on the nub that had once been a branch and pushed herself up toward the next full branch. It was a chore, but she was able to do it – much better than Amber, she might add. There was a rumor that Mark, her older brother had been quite the tree climber himself once, but these days he was far too busy to participate in such silly games. She swore to herself that she would never be too busy for fun, and continued to climb the tree. Hand over hand and branch by branch she propelled herself upward until she finally reached what she liked to call the point of no return. This was the point in the tree that she had reached many times, but had never been able to move past. The branches above this point were either too skinny or too small to get a grip on.
She sighed and sat down on the nearest branch. She could try to continue climbing, of course, but what if she fell? Her mother would be up in arms, and she would never be allowed to climb a tree again, let alone return to the forest. Her mind had wandered so far, that she almost didn't hear her brother, Mark, calling her name from the base of the tree.
“Kelly!” He hissed. “Kelly, get down from that tree right now!”
“Oh no,” she muttered. “Did Dad send you? Am I in trouble?”
“You're going to be in even more trouble if you don't get down from that tree right now!” He hissed again. It seemed as if he didn't want anyone else to hear him. Maybe Dad hadn't sent him after all.
Branch by branch she worked her way down from the tree in a manner not unlike she'd used to make her way (almost) to the top. As she neared the bottom however, her brother simply grabbed her and pulled her away.
“Hey!” She protested “I'm old enough to--”
“Shh!” He shushed her insistently. “We have to get back to the house, now!”
She studied her brother's face for a moment. It was devoid of color, his eyes were huge. Was he...scared? In all her life she'd never actually seen fear in her big brother's eyes, save for the time he'd broken the living room window with a baseball.
She decided to follow him in silence for the time being, not bothering to ask what was going on, because in her experience, she would always find out later, whether her parents intended it or not.
They made their way through the forest, feet crunching against the branches and other debris on the forest floor. The fear she'd sensed from her brother made her nervous, to say the least, and for once, she couldn't wait to be outside the tree line.
As they ran, a growling could be heard behind them.
“What's that?!” She said, almost breathless from the swift run.
“Just keep running!” He shouted.
“Is something chasing us?!”
“Probably!”
They broke the tree line, emerging onto the back side of the family farm. The back of the barn was visible, and Kelly thought she could see the faint outline of a person stumbling around the red exterior. She brushed her blonde hair out of her face and looked again. Yes, it was definitely a person, but who was it?
“Just keep going; get to the house!” Mark said, clearly worried.
They made their way toward the white fence line attached to the barn. Normally this space would be filled with grazing horses, but today was a different affair altogether. The pasture was empty, but they could hear distinct thumps emanating from the barn. Something was inside trying to get out. Mark briefly wondered if it was Mister Graber, but dismissed the thought as they reached the fence and climbed over. Rather than climbing, Sarah simply crawled through, and they continued their run toward the house.
“Be careful,” Mark warned as they entered the pasture, though it was too late. Kelly ran into a pile of manure and slid into the ground. It would have been funny on any other occasion, but not today. Mark simply picked her up without a word, placed her under his arm and continued the run. As he did, he surveyed the ground beneath his feet carefully, ensuring he would not suffer the same embarrassing fate.
“Put me down!” Kelly screamed. “I can walk, put me down!”
“Not the time, little sister,” Mark muttered as he reached the opposite fence line. He grabbed her beneath both arms and lifted her over the wooden fence before vaulting over it himself. As he did, a barely audible creak could be heard from the wood. Perhaps he'd vaulted over this particular fence too many times.
Just as they'd cleared the fence, they heard a loud bang, the sound of fence panels being rattled, violently. They both spun around to see Mister Graber staggering against the fence planks, arms outstretched and blood dripping from his jaw.
“Mister Graber?” Kelly said. “Mister Graber, what are you doing in there?”
Mark grabbed his little sister by the arm and began to pull her away.
“Come on, we have to get to the house,” He said. “Turn around and run!”
“But Mister Graber's sick!” Kelly protested. “We have
to help him!”
“Come on!” Mark screamed in such a tone that Kelly decided to simply listen to him rather than asking any further questions. This lasted only about thirty seconds, at which point she started asking questions that Mark simply did not have answers for. She kept it up until Mark, at long last, pushed her through the back door of the house, dragging her into the living room where the rest of the family stood waiting.
As soon as Mark entered the room, his father handed him a black assault rifle.
“It's a modified AR-15,” His father explained quickly. “No, not legal by any stretch of the imagination, but I get the feeling there won't be anyone to prosecute us.”
Virginia, Frank's wife of almost twenty-five years shot him a rather disapproving look but kept quiet. Somehow, she didn't think complaining about his questionably legal activities at this point would prove fruitful.
For themselves, Frank and Carl had chosen semi-automatic hunting rifles. Mark was well aware that there were plenty of other rifles in the house, but these had been chosen for their reloading and firing speed.
“What do we do?” Mark asked his father.
“I killed five of them on the way here,” Carl said. “I was coming to warn you, believe it or not. You need to aim for the forehead. You shoot anywhere else; they'll just heal. Don't let them bite you or you turn into one of them, and we do you like we do a rabid animal, got that clear?”
Carl had always been one to speak his mind, a fact that Virginia always had a hard time accepting in her house. Mark recalled a three year period in which Carl had not even been allowed to approach the driveway. The children, even Mark had been told that Uncle Carl was 'on vacation'. It could have been the alcohol, or it could have been his abrasive personality, but despite all of that, Mark was glad his uncle was here.
Zombies Ate My Neighbors, Family & Friends (Book 1) Page 3
