Alive?

by Melissa Woods

  Violet smiled at Matt, but suddenly felt aware of how cramped it was in the small stall. She was practically standing on his feet.

  “Sorry,” she spluttered, clumsily tripping over him in her haste to get out.

  Smooth, Violet, very smooth.

  On their way back to the teachers’ lounge, Matt and Violet ran into Tom. He was standing on top of the wall at the front of the school. He faced the street, holding several small rocks in his hand. Matt caught Violet’s eye and raised an eyebrow.

  “What are you doing?” Matt called over.

  “Practicing,” was Tom’s lazy reply. Matt climbed onto the garbage can by the wall, joining Tom at the top and holding out a hand to help Violet up, too. She looked down at the street. It was empty except for one zombie—a woman. She had no legs and was on the ground by the wall, reaching out her arms and hungrily snapping her jaws. Tom threw another rock, which hit the side of the creature’s head. She hissed, but continued to reach up toward him.

  “Practicing for what?” Matt asked.

  “Just practicing. You never know when we’ll next have to fight these things.”

  “I’m not sure throwing rocks at one that can hardly move is that useful,” Matt replied, watching the creature almost pityingly. “Where’s Emily?”

  Tom shrugged. “Went inside, I think.”

  “Can’t imagine why,” Violet muttered.

  “We should go, too,” Matt began. “Doing this will just bring more over.”

  “So?”

  “We don’t want a big crowd of them outside.”

  “We’ve locked the gates. It doesn’t matter.”

  Violet frowned. “Listen, Tom, I don’t want to sound rude, but what you’re doing is weird and creepy. If you want to be weird and creepy on your own, go ahead, but we don’t want the dead piling up at the gates.”

  Tom glanced at her momentarily, then threw another rock. Matt sighed, motioning for Violet to climb down.

  “He’s a jerk,” Violet whispered.

  “Yeah, he’s been through a lot.”

  “So have all of us.”

  “It was a nice touch to say you weren’t being rude before you called him creepy.” Matt sounded serious, but there was a smile playing on his lips. “Otherwise, it could’ve sounded really mean.”

  “I do what I can.”

  The school was secure, with no biters inside. Sam had locked the gates, and the group came back to the teachers’ lounge to eat. There wasn’t much: a few packets of chips, cans of beans, and candy bars taken from a pried-open vending machine. Violet wondered how long they had been surviving on stuff like this.

  She was hungry, which was something she added to her ‘things that prove I’m not dead’ list. It wasn’t very long. In fact, it was the only thing on it so far. And she’d had to add ‘food has no taste’ to the other list she was mentally compiling of ‘things that suggest I might be dead.’ Everything she put in her mouth had virtually no flavor whatsoever. Still, she tried not to think about it, and was just grateful she hadn’t accidentally eaten anyone today.

  Sam sat forward on his chair, clearly about to speak. Everyone looked over, and Violet realized he was the leader of the group. No one had said it—not Sam, not the others—but they didn’t need to. He could hold their attention without saying a word.

  “We’re safe here now,” he began, meeting each of their eyes. “The school is clear of biters, and the gates are locked. Now we need to think long term.”

  “Long term?” Amy asked. “Aren’t we waiting to get rescued?”

  “The chances of that get smaller every day. Of course, being rescued is the ideal scenario, and we’ll keep waiting, but we need to take steps to make sure we can survive here in the meantime.”

  Matt nodded. “I agree. We don’t know how far this thing has spread. Probably across the whole state by now. Otherwise, we’d see signs of rescue, or at least quarantine. But there are no road blocks, no helicopters. Nothing.”

  “It could be even further,” Joe suggested. “Might have spread across the whole country. Maybe the world.”

  “Let’s not think about that right now,” Sam interrupted. “We need to focus on making this place somewhere we can call ‘home’. For now, at least. So let’s talk about what we need.”

  Violet spoke first. “We need more water. It may still be running at the moment, but the power’s off and we don’t know how long it’ll be before the pipes run dry.”

  Sam began to write on a notepad. “Okay, so we’ll set up buckets to collect rainwater, as many as we can get.”

  “We also need more food,” Matt suggested. “We’ve got enough for a little while longer, thanks to Emily finding those boxes in the storeroom, but not enough. We could get bottled water, too.”

  Joe nodded. “We could start to think about places to go for this stuff. Matt said most of the houses around here haven’t got much. There are a few stores in town. Those are probably our best bet, but we should draw out maps to find the best route away from places we know there are likely to be more biters.” He looked at Violet. “You’ve been out there. Maybe you could help.”

  “I didn’t see much. I was too busy running,” Violet said doubtfully, not wanting to get his hopes up.

  “Anything’s better than nothing.”

  “Sure, okay.”

  “We should also make a sign, put it on the roof or something,” Amy added. “For when the rescue comes. We want them to know we’re here.”

  The others murmured their agreement, but Violet wondered if they were thinking what she was, which was whether there was anyone left to rescue them at all.

  Good. Let’s keep that positivity going.

  Joe and Violet were searching for any containers they could put outside to try to catch rainwater. They grabbed a cart from the science block, then began their hunt. So far, they had three buckets, some jugs, and a couple of mugs.

  “I always hated biology,” Joe muttered, passing Violet another measuring jug.

  “I was never very good at it,” she admitted.

  “I was okay, but Mrs. Addams hated me.”

  “How do you know?” Violet asked, examining a coffee mug, then putting it back with a grimace. She wasn’t sure any amount of soap would get rid of that much mold.

  “She always used to give me bad grades,” Joe continued.

  “Maybe you’re just not that clever?” she teased.

  Joe smiled. “Nah. Well…maybe. But I remember one time I didn’t study for a test, so I copied Sam’s paper. Literally copied every answer, yet I got a D and he got a B!”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And she didn’t say why?”

  Joe waved his hand absentmindedly. “I don’t know, something about some of my answers being put on the wrong questions. I wasn’t really listening.”

  Violet laughed, finding another bucket and adding it to their collection. Joe picked up a couple of test tubes. “Do you think these would be any good?”

  He reached to put the tubes in the cart, but then lost his balance, tripping over his own feet and stumbling into the table in front of him. One of the glass tubes shattered in his hand as he reached out to stop himself from falling. Joe swore, dropping the bloodied pieces. He examined his hand before grinning at Violet.

  “I bet that looked pretty cool. No woman can resist a man who struggles to stay upright when standing completely still.” He laughed, but Violet barely heard him, unable to tear her eyes away from the blood dripping from the cut on his palm. He followed her gaze, misinterpreting the stare.

  “I’ll be okay. Can you pass me that cloth?” He gestured over her shoulder.

  Violet could barely think straight. Everything was becoming hazy. Her head was pounding, and she could hardly breathe.

  No. No, not this. Not again.

  She grabbed the cloth, threw it at Joe, and then ran from the room, barely able to put one foot in front of the other. Fighting every instinct she had
, she ran from the building, not stopping until she was at the edge of the playing fields. The cold air whipped around her face, and slowly things began to come into focus. Violet dropped down onto the wet grass, her head in her hands. That had been too close.

  Okay, so now I know. If I want to avoid zombieism, I need to keep away from blood.

  Violet had been in self-imposed isolation for a week. She’d found a classroom down in the art block, and spent her days alone, other than for Ben. Amy usually came down once a day to paint in the room next door, but the others had kept away. Violet might’ve felt hurt by that, if it wasn’t for the fact she was terrified she’d lose control and eat them if they got too close.

  Violet filled her days with reading. She’d grabbed a suitcase full of books from the library, setting up in one of the smaller studios, and had barely left since. She slept down there, too. So far, no one had really questioned it. The rest of the group stuck together, sleeping and eating up in the teachers’ lounge. She ate alone, which was less depressing when food had no taste anyway.

  She’d finally completed her ‘am I or aren’t I dead’ list, but had yet to come to any conclusions. Things that suggested she was dead included the change in her skin tone and eye color, food having no taste, and the small fact that she’d killed and eaten at least one person.

  Then, on the opposing side, were the few things that suggested she was alive—like the fact the zombies still tried to kill her, she could feel her heart beating, and she still bled. She’d tested that last one the old-fashioned way—with a knife. A small cut on her arm was enough to check, and though the blood had been darker than she remembered, it was warm and flowed quickly. The fact she still ate and still went to the bathroom also suggested she wasn’t full-zombie. However, proving she might still be alive didn’t change the fact that she wasn’t altogether ‘normal’.

  Living or not, eating people was a switch, and it meant that whatever infected the biters had done something to her, too. At least the others didn’t suspect anything. Amy knew about the bite, of course, so didn’t question Violet’s change in appearance. She seemed to assume it was a harmless side effect of being ‘immune’ to the virus. It hadn’t put her friend off coming down to eat lunch with her most days. Violet knew Amy wanted to ask why she had suddenly shut herself away, but she didn’t. Perhaps she was frightened about what the answer might be. Maybe that was why she mostly left her alone.

  Until now.

  Violet raised her head at the sound of the door opening. Amy and Matt stood in the doorway, both observing her as though she were a sick relative they were visiting. They approached tentatively.

  “Hi?” Violet began.

  “We thought you might like some company,” Amy said. “We brought breakfast.”

  Violet smiled, trying to seem grateful for the candy bar she held.

  Mmm, unflavored. My favorite.

  Violet had run out of water, so Matt went to get some. The taps ran dry a few days ago, so they’d had to resort to the buckets and containers spread around outside. After he left, a guilty expression crossed Amy’s face.

  Violet scowled. “Why are you really here?”

  “Like I said, we thought you might like company.”

  “You know I don’t. I’ve been alone for the past week.”

  “Yeah, and it’s not healthy. I don’t know what’s wrong, but you need to snap out of it. We miss you.”

  Violet lifted a brow skeptically. Amy continued, her tone changing a little. “Matt insisted. He’s worried about you; we all are. I know you want space, and I managed to keep him away so far. I told him you had diarrhea.”

  “Oh, thanks.”

  Amy missed the sarcasm. “You’re welcome. I said it was really bad, and you’d be mortified if you had an accident in front of him.”

  “What an awesome thing to share.”

  Amy was still oblivious, beaming at her ingenuity. “I know, and it seemed to work, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer today.” She grinned. “I think he missed you the most.”

  Violet groaned. It was like they were back in Amy’s room again—Amy teasing her about boys, Violet denying they even existed. She didn’t get a chance to argue, though, because Matt reappeared with three cups of water.

  “Did I miss anything?” he asked, sitting beside her.

  “No,” Violet insisted before Amy could embarrass her even further.

  “How are you doing?” he asked, looking more than a little concerned.

  Violet glared at Amy. “Fine.”

  The three of them ate in comfortable silence, though Matt watched her closely and kept asking how she was feeling.

  “Make sure you’re drinking lots of water. You can get dehydrated when you have di—”

  “Thanks, Matt, but I’m fine,” she interrupted, plotting all the ways she could punish Amy for her ‘helpful’ lie.

  When they were done, she noticed Amy and Matt giving each other sideways glances.

  “What?” she asked, feeling like she was missing some secret. “Do I have something in my teeth?”

  Amy laughed, but Matt looked serious. When he spoke, his voice was full of concern.

  “Why are you down here?”

  Violet was momentarily surprised by his bluntness. Even Amy hadn’t asked outright. She didn’t really know what to say.

  I’m here so I don’t eat you.

  “I just…” Violet searched for an answer. Amy offered no help, smiling a little at Matt’s forwardness. Violet scowled at her before answering: “I needed some space. To take everything in.” It was a weak answer, and even she could hear how unconvincing it sounded. Matt was nice enough not to probe any further. However, Amy seemingly couldn’t resist the opportunity to push it.

  “But you’re ready to come back now, right?”

  Violet shot daggers at her. “I guess so.”

  It’ll be your fault if I eat you, Amy Lowe.

  Matt smiled, “That’s great! Anyway, we should get upstairs. Sam wants to have a meeting.”

  “What about?”

  Matt shrugged, “Not sure, but maybe it’s about the food situation. There’s barely anything left.”

  Back in the teachers’ lounge, the rest of the group were already gathered in the seating area. Eyes were on Sam, but heads turned when Violet walked in. She supposed she had been a bit of a ghost recently. Sam smiled at her, and then addressed the group.

  “Okay, as I was saying, our best option is the supermarket in town. We know it’s guaranteed to have lots of food, and it’s unlikely to have been fully looted yet.”

  “Yeah, and we know why,” Joe piped up. “Emily said when she was out there, she passed loads of biters outside the front doors.”

  Emily nodded. “There must have been almost a hundred.”

  “There’s a back entrance,” Sam continued, undeterred. “If we go in that way, they’ll never even know we were there. We just make sure we steer clear of the front of the building, it’s made of glass.”

  “This sounds super fun,” Joe said sarcastically.

  Sam shrugged. “I know, but we have no choice. Not only is it the nearest place, but it’s our best chance at getting a good amount of supplies. I don’t want us to have to go out again for as long as possible.”

  “There’s another place,” Violet said. “There’s a convenience store not too far from here. I was in it the morning I got here. It has food.” She shuddered, remembering the man she killed. He would still be on the floor.

  Matt cocked his head. “Are you okay?”

  “She’s still getting over her illness,” Amy piped up helpfully.

  “What illness?” Joe asked.

  “She had diarr—”

  “I’m fine,” Violet interrupted, shaking her head. She continued, “It’s not as big as the supermarket, nowhere near, but last time I was there, it was clear of the dead. It’s got food, water, and a few other things we might need.”

  “Candles?” Sam asked. “Batteries?”


  Violet struggled to remember. She hadn’t had much time to browse before she’d started eating the guy who lived there. “Maybe. I’m not sure.”

  “It’s worth a try,” Joe said to Sam.

  Sam considered this for a moment. “Okay, let’s give it a shot. Now for the big question. Who’s coming?”

  There was a silence. Violet knew none of them were exactly keen to go outside again, back into the unknown with the dead.

  “I’ll go,” Matt said, raising his hand.

  Joe sighed. “It’s not like I’ve got anything better to do.” Sam smiled.

  The three of them turned to Tom, who had been silent throughout the whole discussion.

  “Me?” Tom asked, almost incredulous that anyone would suggest he should go.

  “I need at least one more person,” Sam explained. “It will mean more supplies, and keep us safer.” Tom said nothing, and Violet couldn’t help but bite her lip when she saw the expressions on Joe and Matt’s faces. Clearly neither of them was thrilled with the idea of spending the day outside with Tom.

  “Fine,” he finally gave in.

  Sam grinned. “Good, okay, the rest of you stay here. We’ll probably be out most of the day, but we’ll be back before dark.”

  “Unless we get eaten,” Joe added, and Emily slapped him on the arm.

  The guys made to leave, but Violet stepped in front of Sam. “I want to come, too.”

  “You don’t need to,” he replied. “You can just tell us where the place is.”

  She shook her head, not entirely sure why she was pushing this, but feeling like she needed to. “I’m the only one who’s been out there recently. And I can’t sit around here waiting.” She didn’t break eye contact. “Please.”

  Matt shook his head, but Sam agreed. “Okay. Grab your weapon.”

  Sam and Tom left the room, but Matt and Joe stayed behind. Both looked nervous.

  “We’ll be fine,” Violet said, sounding more confident than she felt.