I tuck them into my sweater pocket while Aaron grabs a duffel bag full of weapons and ammunition. While Aaron stuffs more weapons into the already full bag, I peek out the door to see what’s going on. The hallway is empty, but I notice something almost as frightening as zombies. “Uh, Aaron? I think the kitchen is on fire!”
He shoves me aside and steps into the hallway, which is quickly being filled with smoke. “Dammit!” He pushes me in the opposite direction and we set off at a run down the hall, trying to distance ourselves from something we can’t fight. When we reach the stairs leading up to the science department, Aaron and I take the stairs two at a time.
We pause at the top of the stairs and take in the bloody massacre around us. Blood splatters the walls and the floor, and body parts litter the ground. A few feet to our left, a zombie chews on the remains of one of the pregnant women, and my stomach rolls. I fight back the nausea, knowing it will just get me killed right now. I’ll think about that poor woman later. Aaron aims and pulls the trigger, and the zombie’s thick, congealed blood splatters against the wall.
“Aaron, how can they do so much damage in such a short amount of time?”
“There are only thirty or so soldiers left. We don’t have the strength to fight them all for long. I’m going to help the remaining soldiers. Maybe we can hold the majority of the zombies in the stairwell. It’s narrow. Only a few can get through the doors at a time.”
“What about the fire? That’s just as deadly.”
“Maddy, this place is lost. Gather up as many survivors as you can, and get them out of here—”
“Aaron—”
“Don’t argue with me, Madison! We don’t have time for it. Now, do as I say and round up the remaining survivors. I’ll meet you later if I can. And Maddy?”
“Yeah?”
“Save who you can, but don’t be a hero,” he says, pulling me close for a hug. Despite the dangerous and deadly situation we’re in, I give myself just a minute to wrap my arms around Aaron and hold him tight, just in case this is the last time I ever get to see the man that saved my life, fed me, trained me, and protected me. All too soon, the hug is over, and the two of us break away and we head in different directions—me to find other survivors, and Aaron to possibly give his life to give us a chance to escape.
Trying not to think about Aaron, I run down the hall, passing the science department. Several survivors have shut themselves in the stairwell that leads up to the third floor and to the history department. Two soldiers with shotguns keep the zombies at bay while a group of survivors flees through the nearby exit and out onto the street. They don’t get far before a small horde of zombies descend on them.
I block out the screams as I turn the corner, trying not to step on the bodies that lie sprawled across the hall. “Felicia!” I scream her name, hoping she’ll hear me over the screams and the gunfire. “Felicia! Where are you?” Please, let her be alive…
“Madison!” Felicia screams, and I put on a burst of speed, rounding the corner and coming face to face with a handful of zombies. Two are bent over a still squirming survivor, and before I can do anything, they sink their teeth into his stomach and neck, silencing his screams as he begins to choke on his own blood.
I take aim at the nearest zombie and pull the trigger. He drops to the ground and doesn’t move again, and I step over his body and dart into the room Felicia shares with several other young girls. When she sees me, she jumps up and throws her arms around my waist and holds onto me for dear life. “You came for me!”
“Of course,” I say, pulling away to look at the other girls in the room. Daisy and Rose are both here, along with a couple more I don’t know. “We need to get out of here, now. A fire broke out in the kitchen and the school is gonna burn to the ground, with or without you all inside. Grab whatever you can to use as a weapon, and let’s go!”
Daisy grabs an umbrella that is hidden under her bed, and Felicia produces a crowbar. I don’t know where she got it or how she’ll be able to swing it, but I don’t have time to question her about it now. Rose doesn’t have a weapon, but she moves closer to me and Daisy as Michael fires off two more shots. “Hurry up, Madison! I can’t keep them at bay forever. If we’re to leave, it has to be now!”
I reach for the two other girls who haven’t moved since I arrived, and they flinch away from me. “Get up or I’ll leave you here!” I shout, hoping to motivate them into some kind of action. But they don’t respond. They just sit there on their beds, staring at the open doorway behind me, and at all of the blood outside.
I reach for them again, and one of the girls slaps my hand away. “I’m not going out there!” she screams, moving closer to her friend. “It’s not safe!”
“The building is on fire,” I say, pleading with her. “Please, I can’t just leave you here…” Aaron’s words come back to me, even though I don’t want them too. Save who you can, but don’t be a hero…
I don’t want to just leave these girls here, alone and weaponless, but I can’t let Felicia die because of them. So, I make a quick decision that I’m sure will haunt me for the rest of my life—however long or short that life may be—and I leave the girls to their fates. I shoo Daisy, Rose, and Felicia out the door, and Michael forces them to get behind him so he can lead the way to safety. “What about—”
“They’ll just slow us down,” I say, trying to sound less affected by my decision than I am. “Let’s get out of here while we still can.”
Michael nods his head, and he leads the way down the hall. The girls all stay huddled close to me, and Felicia grabs my free hand in hers, looking like a scared little girl in need of comfort. Knowing that she trusted me enough to come back for her has me realizing just how close I’ve gotten to this girl, who might be like a little sister to me at this point.
We reach the end of the English department without a hitch, but a gruesome sight awaits us at the top of the stairs leading into the cafeteria. Several zombies are feasting on the bodies of fallen soldiers, and Michael and I immediately get to work. I take my time and pick my shots, leaving the more difficult ones for Michael. I fire six shots and four of my targets go down. A zombie gets close, and Felicia swings her crowbar, caving in part of its skull and sending it crashing to the floor. Daisy stabs it in the eye with the pointy end of her umbrella, and the zombie goes still.
A zombie lurches out of a nearby doorway, knocking Daisy to the ground. Before any of us can react, she clings to Rose. Rose screams and reaches out to me. My fingertips brush hers and I grab onto her hand, trying to pull her free while Michael tries to get a clear shot. The zombie latches onto Rose’s throat, cutting off her scream with a wet gurgle. Daisy, Felicia, and I all begin screaming, and I try in vain to get Rose free.
Michael fires off one shot, and the zombie collapses to the ground, dragging Rose down with her. “Rose!” Daisy drops down beside her sister and wraps her hands around Rose’s neck, trying to staunch the flow of blood that is rapidly soaking into the carpet beneath her. “Rose, don’t die on me! Please,” she begs, forcing her twin to look at her. “You’re gonna be okay, just don’t give up. Keep fighting, keep breathing.” Bloody spit dribbles from Rose’s mouth, and Daisy wipes it away with her sleeve. “Please don’t leave me,” she says so quietly I almost don’t hear her.
Rose’s labored breathing slows, and in the blink of an eye, it stops. For a second, Daisy just stares at her sister’s lifeless eyes, almost as if she’s trying to digest everything that just happened so fast. “Madison, we don’t have time for this,” Michael says quietly, moving closer to me. “This place is gonna be crawling with zombies in another minute or two. If you wanna get out of here alive, we have to leave now. She can mourn for her sister later, when it doesn’t put us all in danger.”
I know that he’s right, but it won’t make this any easier. I crouch down next to Daisy and gently touch her shoulder. She flinches under my touch, but she doesn’t look away from Rose’s bloody face. “Daisy, we have t
o go. We can’t stay here or we’ll die,” I say. Smoke billows up from the opposite end of the hallway, and I wonder how long we have until the entire building goes up in flames, not just the west side of the school near the kitchen.
“But, what about Rose?” Daisy asks. “She’ll be mad if I leave without her.”
I’m not sure what to say to that, so I try to be as gentle as possible, hoping to spare Daisy any more mental anguish than she’s already in. “Rose isn’t there anymore. She’s gone, and you can’t bring her back. Do you think she would want you to end up like this?”
Daisy hesitates. “No,” she admits finally, looking over at me. “She wouldn’t. She’d hate me if I died.”
A group of zombies spots us, and with animalistic growls they advance on us, gaining ground quickly. “Daisy, if we don’t leave right now, we’re all going to die, too.” She gets to her feet, and I steady her as she wobbles a little uncertainly. I look at Michael. “Lead on.”
We follow Michael down the stairs and into the cafeteria, which is little more than a graveyard. A few zombies shamble mindlessly around the room, moving from one corpse to the next, feeding as they go. Michael quickly picks them off, leaving a room empty of everything except bodies, and one living person.
Levi is lying over a small, bloody body that can only be Lucy’s, and I can hear his sobs from the other side of the room. He doesn’t notice us as we approach, and he doesn’t even seem to realize that the building is still on fire. All he sees is what’s left of his cousin—who he was supposed to protect. Michael clears his throat, and Levi finally looks up at us with a tear-streaked face.
“I got here as fast as I could, but I was too late…”
“Levi, the building is on fire. We have to get out of here,” Felicia says, putting her hand on his back. “Come with us or you’ll die here.”
“Good!” he shouts, startling us. “I should die. It should be me laying here, not her. Not Lucy. None of this was her fault. She did nothing wrong!”
“Levi—”
“Leave me alone!” he snaps, swatting Felicia’s hand away before she can touch him.
Michael strides forward, grabs Levi by the shoulder, and hauls him to his feet. “I won’t have any of this nonsense. Now get a move on!” He ignores Levi’s protests and shoves him towards the nearest door. We all follow him, hoping that we can make it to the main entrance without getting eaten or losing anyone else from our group.
We exit the cafeteria, and we’re back at the bloody main entrance. The first thing I notice is the footprints in the blood. They don’t belong to any shuffling zombie, meaning at least one or two more people got out. We follow the footprints and duck out the nearest door, exiting onto one of the main streets that run through this portion of the city.
A small group of zombies are milling about the far side of the street, and before Michael and I can even raise our guns, Levi screams, and charges them with nothing but the crowbar Felicia gave him. Even though he’s small for thirteen, he has pure rage on his side, and as he slams into the nearest zombie, it falls to the ground with Levi on top of it. He brings the crowbar up and uses it to beat the zombie’s head into the pavement. Congealed blood and brains ooze out through the cracks in the zombie’s skull, painting the sidewalk red.
Michael raises his gun and takes a quick shot, taking out the zombie coming up behind Levi. Three more shots take care of the remaining zombies. Oblivious to the danger he was in, Levi continues to beat the zombie’s head with his crowbar until it’s nothing more than a pile of gross pulp and squirting blood. When he’s finished, he gets to his feet and wipes his bloody hands on his pants, smearing blood down his jeans as it begins to sprinkle.
Hopefully the rain can help put out the fire…
When I turn to look back at the school, I’m met with a welcome sight.
“Aaron!”
He’s covered almost head to toe in blood that isn’t his and he looks incredibly tired and worn out, but he’s alive and that’s all that matters. With him are, unbelievably, Todd, Janelle, and Rachel—a woman who lost her two children to the original outbreak. They’ve battled their way out of the school with Aaron’s two handguns, and Todd and Janelle’s shotguns. Todd has his weathered navy blue backpack over his shoulder, and I can see supplies poking out from the unzipped pouch in back.
Aaron rushes over and hugs me, and I’m just so happy to see him alive and mostly well that I don’t even mind that his clothes are covered in zombie blood. When he pulls away and looks over the other survivors with me, I take a quick second to reload my gun, just in case anymore try their luck with our group. “Is this everyone that you could save?” he asks sadly as he realizes that out of the two hundred and fifty survivors or so, less than ten of us survived the attack.
“I saw a large group make it out to the street, but they got attacked. I’m not sure how many survived. We may not be the only ones,” I say, hoping to keep Aaron from feeling too sorry for himself. “There could be other survivors out there, scattered around the area. What are we gonna do now? Do we look for them?”
Everyone looks to Aaron, and he looks up as the rain begins to come down harder. “For now, we need to get out of the rain, and get away from the school. The fire will spread, and there will probably be more zombies in the area. We’ll camp out for the night, and in the morning, we’ll come back and see if we can’t find any other survivors. Sound like a plan?”
“Not a good one,” Todd mutters.
I narrow my eyes at him. “It’s a better plan than anything you could come up with. And if you don’t like it, you’re welcome to leave and try your luck on your own,” I challenge. Todd and I glare at each other for a few seconds, neither willing to back down. Everyone watches us, waiting to see what Todd chooses to do. Finally, he looks away.
“Let’s go. I hate being wet.”
We walk for almost an hour until we find an abandoned two-story home nestled in an equally abandoned neighborhood. Aaron, Michael, and I take our weapons inside and do a quick check of the home while Todd and Janelle keep watch outside with the others. Satisfied there are no zombies or survivors, Aaron calls the others in, and we head up to the second floor. After raiding the kitchens, Aaron and Todd push a dresser in front of the stairs, just in case anything sneaks in during the night.
We strip off our wet jackets and hang them over the banister to dry. Then we settle in for the remainder of the day, trying not to think about the school that burned to the ground, along with our survivors inside. Honestly, I’m not sure which death would be worse: being eaten alive, or burning to death. Both seem equally horrible, and unfortunately, none of us can get those images out of our minds.
*****
Later that night, after we’ve sat around an empty house doing nothing for hours, we gather in a circle on the floor of the master bedroom to divvy up whatever supplies we have with us. Aaron sorts through his duffel bag full of ammunition and though the count isn’t bad, it isn’t good, either. “We’ll have to be careful we don’t get swarmed,” he says, passing me two magazines. There are two boxes of shotgun shells, which he hands over to Todd and Janelle. “Split those up between the two of you and take your time and make your shots count.”
He divides up the rest of the ammunition between Michael and himself, and then he looks to Todd. “What kind of supplies do you have in your bag?”
“Not much,” Todd says, pulling his backpack closer. He reaches into the bag and pulls out four energy bars, two bottles of green Gatorade, a half empty package of chocolate cookies, and a can of thick ham and potato soup that thankfully has the pull top and doesn’t require a can opener. “If we split it up fairly, everyone should get a decent meal tonight. But come tomorrow, we won’t have any food or water.”
“We’ll scavenge for supplies then,” Michael says, taking the package of cookies. He quickly counts them, and begins handing out two and a half of the chocolate cookies to everyone in our group. Aaron hands out plastic bowls and spoo
ns to everyone, and divides up the soup as best as he can. He tries to make sure everyone gets a bit of the ham and potato, but I can tell he’s making sure to give himself less than Levi and Felicia. If anyone else notices, they don’t say anything.
“What else did you find in the kitchen other than the bowls and spoons?”
“Nothing edible,” Aaron says, passing me a bowl with little more than an inch of soup in the bottom, along with three hunks of potato and a single hunk of ham. “Mostly boxes of rice and potatoes that were left behind for the mice to get into. We can’t risk getting sick from food contaminated with mouse shit.”
“Nothing else?”
“No. Whoever lived here must have cleaned out early into the apocalypse. Maybe they tried for someplace a little less populated than New York, which is what we should do next.”
“Where are we gonna go?”
“Someplace out west. Someplace without a lot of people. Smaller population means fewer zombies to worry about. I’m thinking like Colorado. I know it would be a hell of a journey, but I think if we stocked up, it would be doable. What do you think?” Aaron asks, looking around at all of us.
Daisy and Levi both look miserable and don’t seem to care, but Michael, Todd, and Janelle are thinking about it. “I don’t know, Aaron. We’ve got kids with us,” Michael says, looking over at Felicia and Levi. “I don’t know if we could make it, especially with them. Do you have any idea how long it would take us to get there?”
“It could be anywhere from twenty-four to thirty-six hours,” Aaron says, but he doesn’t sound totally sure. “I’m not sure how the abandoned roads will affect the time.”
“And that’s if we don’t break down, if we don’t get eaten, if we don’t get murdered by other survivors, and if we don’t starve to death first. That’s a lot of ifs, Aaron,” Michael says. “I don’t think we can make it.”
“We have to. If there’s any chance of us surviving, it’s out west, where there are less people to turn into zombies. Look, I know this is going to be difficult, but it’s our only hope. With the school gone, we won’t last long in this city. The dead have officially claimed New York City.”
Zombie Country (Zombie Apocalypse #2) Page 9
