Zombie High

by Shawn Kass

  Defensively, Jake says, “First of all, you never said not to do that, and second, maybe the physics class used up more juice than he thought, and he sent you out here with a bunch of half dead batteries.”

  “Well, it’s a little late to go assigning blame. We got to get out of here.”

  Shaking his head, Jake says, “I knew I should have just stayed put behind those machines.”

  “Too late,” you say as you use the cart to keep something between you and the hungry zombie.

  Standing up, Jake begins to head up the hall towards Mr. Ray’s room, spilling snacks from his overly full arms as he goes. When he has a comfortable enough lead, you push the cart hard into the closest zombie causing it to fall backwards and then spin the cart and send it crashing into the other before taking off in a sprint. You’re huffing and puffing as you round the corner, planning on forcibly bowling over any zombies that get in your way as you come around the corner when your foot lands on something soft and slippery. For just a moment you think you’ll be all right, that you might be able to ride out the slide your foot is doing beneath you, but then you lose your center of balance and go toppling over into the lockers.

  Blood immediately springs up from where your leg got caught on the vents at the bottom of the lockers, and as you try to stand, you feel something click in your knee a split second before pain surges up through your leg causing you to scream out.

  From up the hall, Jake looks back and says, “I’ll get help,” while he continues to run and more snacks spill from his arms.

  That’s when you realize what happened. Looking over, you spot the shiny familiar tin foil wrapper sitting not more than a few feet away up against the wall and recognize the half smushed cherry Pop Tart for what it is. Taking a quick second to look back the way you came, you know that there’s no chance his help will arrive in time as both of the zombies are now almost upon you. So instead of offering up any prayers or wishes for your loved ones, you use your last breaths to curse whatever satanic demon it was who unleashed those disgusting cherry flavored things on the world.

  The End

  Use the Chemicals

  Thinking about the time Mr. Ray did that experiment which ended igniting the fire blanket and scorching the white tiles of the ceiling, you pick up one of the flasks and say, “I think we should try this first.”

  “As long as you’re careful, I’m willing to let you try.”

  “What is it?”

  “Well, I thought about making a few things. The first was picric acid, but we don’t have the stuff here to make it. Then I thought about a hydrofluoric acid, but that stuff isn’t safe to store anywhere. It can actually eat through the very container that’s holding it, so I ended up making a sulfuric acid and put it in the flasks with the red stoppers on them.”

  Not really having noticed the difference in the colored stoppers, you point to the other flasks and ask, “What about the ones with the black stoppers?”

  Smiling a mischievous grin, Mr. Ray says, “Those are something else. For now we’ll just call them Mr. Ray’s Secret Sauce. It’s a potassium chlorate mixture which will basically speed up the reaction and help it turn into hellfire. I figured with these being flesh eating zombies and all, we wouldn’t want to have to wait for them to start dissolving.”

  Looking at the tray of 125 ml flasks, you ask, “Exactly how strong is this stuff going to be?”

  Thinking about it, Mr. Ray answers, “You remember when we talked about hydrochloric acid in class, and someone wanted to know how strong it was, and I answered that while a high school can’t order it, the strongest is seventeen molar and has to be kept under lock and key by those who do use it with very special conditions?” When you nod, he says, “Well this is like that, on steroids.” Then after a moment he gives you a devilish grin and adds, “Make that level twelve steroids.”

  “So basically it’s gamma infused,” making a reference to the popular Marvel comics hero, the Incredible Hulk.

  Being the scientist that he is, Mr. Ray misses the reference at first and says, “No, there’s no gamma radiation in there,” before he catches on, shakes his head, and says, “Oh, you meant the superhero guy. Yeah, well, it’s strong like that, I guess.”

  “That should work then,” you say with a

  combination of excitement and nervousness in your voice as you pick up the tray of flasks, sixteen in all. Luckily, it’s not too heavy, and Mr. Ray put a foam divider at the bottom which had holes cut out for each of them so none of the flasks roll around or knock into one another. Walking over to the door where Mr. Ray stands, you manage to balance the tray on your left hip using just your left arm, which leaves you with your right arm for grabbing the flasks.

  “You got that?” asks Mr. Ray. “I mean I could strip the batteries off the cart for you if you want.”

  Shaking the tray a little to show that it isn’t slipping or anything, you say, “No, I’ve got it. Besides, I want to be able to try the cart out later, and it would be too much to strip it all down just to have to put it back together.”

  Nodding, Mr. Ray says, “All right, here goes it then,” and opens the door.

  There in the hall waiting for you, as if he followed you from the previous chase when Mr. Ray let you in the classroom door down the hall, is the zombie. The idea of that alone is a little unnerving as you think about the implications that this zombie might have it out for you personally, but then you reason that the thing is probably just wandering around in the hall, and you happen to be one of the few, if not only, people crazy enough to be out here this much. Seeing the movement, or perhaps smelling the life within your flesh, the zombie stumbles forward ready to sink his teeth into you.

  Instinctively, you take a step back and reach for a flask. Selecting a red stoppered one, you fling it into the creature’s face allowing it to break on impact and soak it in acid. As the flask hits it, the zombie pauses, as if confused about what’s just happened, but then continues on, now entering the room. Not seeing it dissolve right away, you reach down and grab another flask, this time making sure it has a black stopper on it, and smash the flask into its face.

  From behind you, Mr. Ray says something like, “Two Ohs,” but it doesn’t make sense, and you’re a little too preoccupied with the zombie, now less than an arm’s distance away, to stop and ask him to clarify. That’s when you see the white smoke, and then a moment later, the flames engulfing the zombie’s entire head as well as the spots where it dripped onto its clothes. The heat being produced is beyond anything you’ve ever experienced, and it feels like your face is only inches from a campfire. You attempt to shield yourself as you back up and raise your right arm in front of your face just as the fire flares up one more time making it so bright it leaves spots on your eyes when you close them and turn your face away.

  A moment later, the reaction finishes, and the fire puts itself out, leaving you with a headless zombie standing before you. Turning to Mr. Ray, you prepare to say something about how cool that was, but then the body falls forward and lands against your side. Even headless, the thing weighs about a hundred and fifty pounds, and you are unprepared to take on the extra weight. Before the body has a chance to slump off you to the floor, you find that you’ve dropped the tray.

  Watching the flasks fall to the ground, it seems like everything is happening in slow motion. You feel the zombie’s body as it slides off you and down your side. You notice as the tray hits the ground, first one corner, and then then flattening out, and how the flasks seem to cut themselves in half upon impact. You hear Mr. Ray yell at you, “Get out of there,” but by the time you brain catches up to everything, the tray at your feet is already smoking, and the beautiful flames are growing, as if they are almost reaching out to you.

  To be honest, Mr. Ray tried to warn you that you were too close, but you didn’t hear him. Now, as the chemical flames climb upwards, lighting a pillar of fire from floor to ceiling, you realize that those were the words he said, but obviously,
now, it’s too late.

  The End

  Head for Nurse’s Office with Weapon

  Weapons in hand, you decide that the first aid kit in the nurse’s office should be your next goal. Thinking about the layout of the school, you’ll have to make your way down three long halls to get there, passing the main office along the way. It seems like a crazy plan. Actually the whole thing seems crazy, and you would have much rather been sitting through another history lecture right about now, but it’s too little too late for that. Gripping the two-by-four, though, you feel like you have a little more confidence that this mission of yours will actually work.

  Mustering up your courage, you head out seeking the supplies you need and hoping that you won’t run into too many of these undead things. Your hopes, however, are shattered as you reach the first intersection and find that there are in fact two of the walking dead monsters shambling in the next hall. The first one is facing away from you, which should give you the advantage, but the second one appears to be turning in your direction. Not wanting to give them a chance to notice you, you decide to attack first.

  The first zombie, a smaller one than most, was clearly a student here. His school uniform is still in relatively good condition minus the ugly stain of questionable dried fluid running down the front, and his short blonde hair is remarkably well combed for him being a member of the undead. From the side, you think he may have been that one kid who was always late to class and just sort of poked along in the halls, not really in a rush and always forgetting stuff. You never really disliked the kid, but at the same time, you never really had a conversation with him either. It’s probably for the best that you never got to know him though, considering you now find yourself with no real alternative but to smash the two-by-four in your hand up against the back of his skull.

  As you do so, you feel a vibration run up through the wood and sting your hands, and you internally scold yourself for not grabbing a pair of gloves from the shop class to protect your hands while you were there. Too late now, you don’t have time to worry about it, because the second zombie, now fully turned to face you, is already advancing. As he does so, you wonder if he’s at all aware that you just caved in his afterlife partner’s noggin, but since he seems relatively focused on attacking you, you figure that it doesn’t much matter from here out.

  Swinging the wooden plank a little early this time, you catch the zombie in the mouth, and watch in disgust as not only did you dislocate the zombie’s jaw, leaving it hanging at a strange unnatural angle, but that a chunk of skin is peeled away and left hanging, revealing the stark white bone beneath surrounded by necrotic muscle and reddish black blood. Grossed out as you are by the sight, you don’t let it stop you from bringing the makeshift weapon up on the backswing and hitting the creature in the temple, causing its head to lean so far over that its ear touches its unraised shoulder. With its neck broken like that, it crumples to the ground and lets you move on with your quest.

  Praying that the encounter with these two hasn’t been so loud as to attract more of their kind, you leave the corpses and continue on towards your goal. You make it all the way down the rest of this hall and turn onto the last before you find your next problem. The area around the nurse’s office has several more zombies milling about, and you can see more inside the small room beyond where you have to go. The creatures here look a little worse than the last ones you encountered and maybe easier to put down, but still you figure there is the alternative of turning around and heading for the science labs instead. Guess you’ll have to make a choice.

  Turn and go for the science labs, turn to page …………. 199 Fight your way to the nurse’s office, turn to page ……. 202

  Turn Around for the Science Labs

  Two zombies were manageable, but this, this looks downright scary. They keep moving around, and you don’t have a direct line of sight into the nurse’s office, but from your position, crouched down up against the wall, your best estimate is that there seems to be about five outside here, and another four or more in the office. The way you figure it, fighting your way through there would just be like asking to get bit, kind of like that time you threw a stick you were using as a makeshift spear into that hornets’ nest as a kid. Pretty dumb move, sure, but as a kid you don’t always think things through and ask yourself how bad can this get. Now of course you know better, and there’s no reason to go rushing in there, risking life and limb, when there are other places you can get what you need.

  Turning around, you try to stay low as you begin to head back down the hall planning to go check out the science labs when you hear the scrape of a shoe just behind you. Looking back, you find you’re looking at the all too familiar Hawaiian shirt the German language teacher wears every Friday. Apparently, he was just around the corner leading to the nurse’s station, and now he’s standing right behind you with some kind of nasty looking goop drying into his mustache. For a split second, your mind flashes back to the Castle Wolfenstein game you played years ago where the Nazis were doing strange experiments to win World War II, and they somehow created zombies. Unfortunately, this is the wrong time for your mind to be going off on a trip down nostalgia road, and you pay for it when your teacher leans down and grabs you.

  With no room to swing the big two-by-four and too flustered to think of doing anything else, you make a desperate attempt to wiggle away, even going so far as to punch him in the face a couple of times, but when you pull your hand back for a third blow, you realize nothing you do from here on really matters. Not only does he have you, but in the process of hitting him, you managed to catch your fist on one of his teeth, and now you’re infected too.

  Given enough time, maybe an hour or so, you would feel the unnatural desire to start consuming living flesh, and your body would, in fact, give in to whatever is infecting you, but that kind of timeline clearly isn’t what your teacher has in mind. Instead, as your mind reels from the consequences of your actions and how the events of the day have lead you to this moment, your German teacher takes the opportunity to bite into the soft chewy flesh running between your pinky and wrist with his half broken teeth scraping against the bones in your hand.

  As he does so, your mind snaps back to the present and you let out a horrific scream. A scream which only serves to act as a dinner bell for the rest of the zombies who have been milling around just a few feet away.

  On the bright side, now you’ll never have to know what it feels like to transform into one of the walking dead monsters because there won’t be enough of you left to come back by the time they all help themselves to your tasty flesh.

  The End

  Fight Your Way to the Nurse’s Office

  Staying low, you try to get a more accurate count, but at the best you can only see about nine, maybe ten, zombies. As you count them off, you also try to judge their speed and the amount of decay their bodies have gone through. Whatever it is that has reanimated them is clearly not in full control of them, and it seems like the best it can do is drive them to move forward in the direction of prey in a slow shambling pace. Considering the number of zombies you’ve seen put down in movies and the fact that these things are as slow as molasses, you feel confident that you’ll be able to take them out with your new weapons.

  Gripping one of the two-by-fours in your best approximation of a samurai’s two handed grip, you slowly stand up and prepare yourself for the onslaught. As the first zombie, your ex-German teacher stumbles closer, you raise the board overhead and begin to bring it over to crush his head. As you do so, however, the board catches on the ceiling tiles above you and slows your brutal swing to something a child would most likely laugh at. Realizing your mistake, you curse in frustration and take a step back before swinging again, this time coming in like Babe Ruth aiming for the outfield. The sound of the wood cracking against his skull is both sick and satisfying, but you don’t have time to think much about it as the rest of the zombies have now taken notice of you and decided that you shoul
d be their honored guest for dinner, I mean as dinner.

  As they approach, you continue to take measured steps backwards, keeping yourself out of biting range while also keeping them within hitting range. You end up taking out two more staff members and two other kids, each of them requiring at least one and usually two solid hits with the board. Heaving from the strain a bit, you take a minute to catch your breath while keeping an eye on your surroundings. That’s when it happens. If this were a video game, this guy would have been the boss fight. The principal, Mr. Jameson, comes stumbling into the hall, his heavy footsteps sounding even more ominous than the desperate moan of hunger which pours from his mouth. His buttoned up white shirt with the thin blue stripes now appeared to have several patches of dried blood splashed across it which matched the horrific chunks of human flesh which clung to his normally white beard.

  Readying yourself, despite not having had time to get in as much oxygen as you wanted, you lift your twoby-four back onto your shoulder and prepare to swing even as the adrenaline is dumped into your bloodstream. When the ex-human who used to be known as Mr. Jameson steps in, you twist your hip and swing with everything you’ve got, aiming for the zombie’s neck and hoping for a quick clean break.

  You are not that lucky.

  Whether it is due to the fact that Mr. Jameson has a bit of bulk to his frame or the fact that in a really powerful swing, like the one you just did, a person’s aim gets sacrificed, you end up missing the creature’s neck and hit him instead in the shoulder. To make matters worse, as the two-by-four you’ve been using makes contact, it breaks in the middle, and the striking end comes flying back at you. The one saving grace you get in all of this is that you have just enough time to raise your forearm and block the wood before it hits you in the face.