Zombie High

by Shawn Kass

  Stepping back, you almost slip in the blood of one of the zombies at your feet even as three more come rushing in. Apparently, your scuffle with the others was loud enough for them to hear, or they were just running a little late to the party. When you get your footing back under you once again, you find the first of the trio already close enough to spit on. Bringing up the two-by-four, you swing, hoping to send him back into one of his friends like a scene from one of those old black and white TV Land shows about the three idiots, or stooges, or whatever. The swing, however, never connects, or at least it doesn’t connect with its target. Instead it gets caught up about halfway through its arc as it hits the wall, and you remember during your initial assessment that you didn’t have enough room in here to fight them off with that thing. To add insult to injury, your body was dedicated to the swing far more than the physics and space around you would allow, and your hands slide down the lower end of the two-by-four collecting splinters and cuts as they go.

  Dropping the board, you take a step back feeling like your hands are on fire and realize that you have nothing left to defend yourself with. Your hands are practically immovable, and the only weapons you might be able to use in quarters this tight are stuck inside other dead bodies, covered in their infected blood. Touching those would be tantamount to suicide with the open wounds on your hands.

  With no other option, you rush over to the bathroom stall and lock yourself inside. As you sit down on the toilet feeling defeated, you watch as the walls and door of the stall shake from the zombies’ continued attempts to get in, and you understand that this is the end. At some point in the next couple of minutes, they’ll come crashing through the door, and you have nothing left to use but a mostly empty roll of toilet paper.

  The End

  Fight Them Straight On

  Figuring that you’ve run far enough, and that the window is out of reach anyway, you decide this is where you’ll have to make your stand. With the limited room around you, you go ahead and set the two-by-four down, leaning it against a nearby wall and pull out you next best weapons. In your right hand you hold the hammer and in your left, the screwdriver. They’re not much, and you know you won’t have the reach you would like, but they’re going to have to do considering the circumstances.

  It only takes them a few more seconds, but soon you hear the sound of the door opening as your uninvited guests arrive and push their way in. From the look of it, they are so eager to get in here, they almost seem to be fighting with one another as they push and shove to get to the front. Part of you wonders if there is a way you could use this to your advantage, but you don’t see how as they keep coming in. Determined to do to them before they can do to you, you lash out with the hammer and hit the first one, who is too stupid to duck, in the face. The blow doesn’t kill him, but it does make him take a step back and run into some of the others who are filing in behind him.

  At first, this seems like it might be the beginnings of a decent plan. If you can just keep the first one away, the others won’t be able to reach you either. That’s when you find out that while stupid, the zombies aren’t completely brain dead. The two creatures closest to the front man each take a short step to the side and begin to fan themselves out.

  Realizing where this is headed, you decide to try to dispatch them all as quickly as possible. Lifting the hammer, you bring it down on the closest zombie’s forehead as hard as you can, causing the zombie to fall to the floor at your feet. When the next one steps forward you attempt to jam the screwdriver into the side of its head only to have it stop about halfway. Seeing this, as well as the fact that the zombie continues to advance, you swing the hammer across your body and drive the screwdriver into the creature’s head all the way to the hilt.

  Reaching out, you attempt to retrieve your tool, but it stubbornly refuses to come loose, and you resort to pulling out another screwdriver from your pocket to fend off the remaining three zombies in the room with you. Noticing that one of them used to be a kid you knew named Jason is more aggressive than the other two, you turn to face him bringing your hammer to bear. As he steps in for his next attempt, you swing the hammer into the side of his face, clearly dislocating his jaw.

  Unfortunately, in doing so, you leave too much of your other side exposed, and before you have a chance to spin back around, you feel the cold grip of another zombie as he grabs your left forearm.

  Turning quickly, you clock the creature in the head with the hammer a half second before it bites your flesh and find yourself smiling a wicked Joker smile as you do it. Clearly the delusion that you might make it out of here alive is really going to your head. It’s in this moment that Jason with his broken jaw steps forward and sinks the top half of his jaw onto your shoulder. The bite itself doesn’t break the skin because he lacks a bottom jaw to apply much force with, but it proves to be the only distraction the last remaining zombie needs.

  As you turn back to Jason and kick him off you, sending him reeling back where he cracks his head on the urinal hard enough to crack the porcelain and have filthy water and urine gush down over his face, the fifth zombie makes its move and bites into your left arm. You struggle for a second with this zombie, already knowing the outcome, but determined to kill it before you turn. With it dispatched, you find yourself slumping down to the dirty blood-streaked floor cradling your bitten arm. You don’t know how long it will be until you turn, but as tears soak the front of your shirt, you think to yourself that this has got to be about the worst place to die.

  Immediately Go for the Window

  Deciding that it is pointless to hide in such a small space because the creatures would probably smell you and that fighting them all is tantamount to suicide, you choose the only remaining option, escape. Running over to the window, you realize that there is no way you’re going to be able to reach it and climb out, at least not from the floor. That’s when you get the bright idea of climbing on top of the toilet.

  Opening the door to the stall, you find the typical things in the typical places including a cheerleader’s phone number scrawled onto the wall in black marker. If it wasn’t for the zombie apocalypse, you have a feeling said cheerleader would probably be either making out with someone in a somewhat semi-secluded spot in the school or planning to do so this weekend while under the bleachers at the next game. As ill as it may be to talk about people behind their backs, some people do tend to bring it on themselves with the actions and choices they seem to habitually make. Either way, you don’t really have the time to contemplate this right now, and you promise yourself that if you do ever see her alive again, you’ll tell her it’s in here.

  Stepping up on the toilet, you lean as far as you can and reach for the window just as the zombies come walking in the bathroom. Your fingers are able to reach the ledge, and you try to push against the glass, but the window refuses to budge. That’s when you realize that the latch is closed. Desperate to escape, you lean over even further, stretching your body to its limit, and that’s when you feel your feet slide out from under you. Apparently toilet seats weren’t meant to be stood on and were certainly never designed to have the weight placed upon them all coming from one side. The toilet itself stays put, but the two hinges holding the seat in place simply snap off from your leaning on it, and as you fall, your foot lands calf deep in the toilet water.

  Disgusted and out of time, you try to lift your foot from the toilet so that you can try again only to feel a sharp pain in your ankle. You immediately realize that you either broke or twisted something internally when your foot went in, and that it is stuck down in the bottom of the bowl where all the nasty stains are. Desperate, you try to block out the pain as you wiggle the foot with a little pulling to try to get it out, but the thing refuses to move, and your whole leg seems like it’s been lit on fire every time you try to move it.

  It’s at this point that the first zombie, the one who used to be known as Jason when he was part of the living, bumps his way into the stall. Looking back you
realize that in your haste you neglected to lock the bathroom door, and now with your foot stuck in the bottom of a toilet, you are pretty much guaranteed to have a crappy ending.

  Head Next Door

  Clearly you can see that this is not someone you want to mess with. He might be old, and he might even be senile, but the way he holds that shotgun tells you that if you make one wrong move, you’ll find yourself with a lot of extra lead in your diet. You risk trying to back away slowly with your hands raised, but find that your bad leg still can’t support your weight and end up falling on your butt. The old man with the gun, however, shows you no mercy despite your predicament, and simply closes the door.

  Shaking your head at his lack of sympathy and rudeness, forgetting the fact that technically you did trespass onto his property, you steady yourself against the house and stand back up on your good leg. Gritting your teeth, you prepare for the throbbing sensations which are going to come with each hop because staying out here isn’t an option worth trying.

  Making it back to the corner of the house isn’t too bad, and when you turn to head for the fence you manage to stay upright, only at the cost of a few branches from of the old man’s bush. Oh well, you think, I’m getting out of here like he asked as fast as I can. Once at the fence, you find that the lock for the fence door is easily within reach, and you figure that finally you caught yourself a break. Unfortunately, when you open the fence door, you find that you have company in the form of two hungry zombies. You try to back up, hoping you can close the door again and leave them outside, but it’s too late. Maybe if you hadn’t jumped out of that window and injured yourself, you could have done more.

  The End

  Food First

  Having had a miserable excuse for a breakfast this morning, and figuring that with this most likely being the beginning of the end of the world and all, you decide that food is your first priority. Granted, weapons might make the looting a bit easier, or at least survivable, but no, you listen to your stomach first. The way you figure it is that you have no idea where your next meal is going to come from, and if you’re fixing to team up, you want to make sure you get yours before they go dividing up your stash. Speaking of stash, you remember the fact that you still have some food in your locker, but that, you figure, is under lock and key so to speak, and you can always retrieve it later. The rest of the available food in the building will probably disappear before too long as any other scavengers like yourself realize that they’re going to be getting hungry, too, in the next hour or so when the cafeteria ladies fail to have that yummy piece of cardboard covered in cheese and re-hydrogenated bacon bits that they call pizza ready at the next bell.

  Considering your options, the best you can come up with is that there are two good sources for food in this school, the cafeteria which should have already begun their preparations for lunch and the vending machine in the back hall. Both areas are pretty close together, and there is a chance you could score food from both places, but that might weigh you down too much. Looks like you’ll have to make a choice.

  If you go to the cafeteria, turn to page ……………… 301 If you go to the vending machines, turn to page …… 316

  Cafeteria

  While the vending machines would have food, you realize that you don’t have that much money on you and decide to head for the cafeteria. You’re not exactly sure about what will be down there, and you have no intention of carrying around a half dozen styrofoam trays ladled with whatever goop is in those warming vats today, but you figure you’ll probably find something in the back. Worse case, a Costco sized can of chocolate pudding or Spaghetti-Os could always be used as a weapon if it comes down to it.

  Heading for the cafeteria first, you trek back up the hall to the stairs and then go down to the first floor. When you reach the bottom of the stairs, you cautiously poke your head out to make sure the coast is clear and then quickly head towards the cafeteria - which lucky for you is only about a hundred feet away.

  During the day, the cafeteria is typically used by over eight hundred students, the five hundred plus that attend St. Mary’s and another two hundred or so that walk over from the middle school across the street because they don’t have a cafeteria in their building. Luckily, all of the high school lunch traffic doesn’t get started until third hour, and the middle school doesn’t come over until later after the high schoolers have eaten.

  Entering the cafeteria, you expect to see the usual setup of tables and chairs positioned around the room and the standard five or six posters with celebrities telling you to drink milk hanging on the walls. What you find, however, is that the main dining area has been converted into a last-stand type of barricade. Tables have been moved to block your path just a few feet in, some of which were actually attached to the floor but have since been removed by force as if someone ripped the bolts out rather than unscrew them. Chairs and trash cans have been used to fill in any gaps and it takes you a second before you can find a safe way to get through. Stepping over to the far end, you try to peer over to see the rest of the cafeteria only to find what little view you have is nothing more than that of a newly cleared space. Considering this is the probably the only good way in, you reach up to grab hold of the first chair leg so that you can climb over the mess when a voice stops you.

  “Halt right there!” You’re not sure who it is, but you can tell the voice is that of another student. Rather than continue and risk being hit in the head with something, you freeze in place, and say, “I’m just trying to get to the kitchen.”

  “You’re not going anywhere,” says the voice. “How do we know you’re not one of those things out there?”

  Dropping your hand back to your side, you opt for a sarcastic remark when you say, “Well there is the fact that we’re talking right now, and I’m not a mindless zombie whose only purpose in life is to eat your brains.”

  Another voice from somewhere behind the stacks whispers, “I told you they were zombies.”

  “Shut up,” says the first voice to whoever is back there before it begins to address you again. “Okay, so you might not be one of them, but maybe you’re going to turn into one. We don’t need you getting on this side of the wall.”

  Stretching your arms out to either side, you do a slow turn and say, “Look, genius, no bite marks. I’m clean. Now let me in,” making sure to put some attitude into your words.

  “What if the bite is somewhere other the arms?” whispers the second voice.

  Responding to the whisperer you say, “Yeah, and what if monkeys flew out your butt?” Then lifting your shirt enough to expose your stomach and your lower back, you do another turn and say, “Look, this is all you get.”

  Calling back, the first voice says, “We still don’t know if you’re clean. All we have is your word.”

  “Well, I’m not stripping down out here while you’re safe behind that wall.” Then deciding to mess them a bit since neither of them sounded very smart, you add, “Besides, how do I know you’re safe? Maybe one of you got bitten, and you’ve been hiding it from the other one.”

  From the other side, a still silence settles over everything for a full minute, and you know the two of them are staring each other down. Then one of them breaks in with a whisper, asking, “Did you get bitten?”

  “No,” responds the other one. “Did you?”

  “No,” answers the first incredulously. Then he adds, “Let me see.”

  “You first,” responds the other one.

  There is an awkward pause from the other side as the two consider things, and then you hear one of them suggest, “Same time?”

  “Same time,” agrees the second one, and then you hear the two of them begin unbuckling their belts and pulling down their zippers.

  Figuring they are preoccupied now with their mistrust, you take advantage of the situation and begin to quietly climb the stack. When you get to the top and are able to see the other side, you find two of the school’s football players standing on t
he other side wearing just their jock straps. Why they’re wearing them this early is beyond your comprehension, but the sight is one which you wish you could burn from your eyes as neither of these guys are what one would consider ‘at their peak’.

  Swinging your other leg over, you hop down and say, “You boys play nice with each other. I’m just going to go to the kitchen for a minute.”

  “Hey, wait. You can’t go back there,” says the larger of the two as he steps forward. “We still don’t know if you’ve been bitten.”

  Stepping out from the kitchen into the main dining area, you see Andrew Werth, another football player, and he says, “Clearly this one isn’t a zombie. If so, that would mean you two meat heads were even more brain dead than one of those things out there. Now put your friggin’ clothes back on and get back to guarding that wall.” Pointing to you, he says, “And you, come with me.”

  When he gets you into the kitchen, he says, “They’re not as bad as you might think, so while that was funny, try not to confuse them any more than they already are. Trevor, Cable, and I found those two lugs hiding out in the bathroom across the hall when this whole thing started. We decided it would be easier to defend ourselves if we could find someplace to hold up and barricade ourselves in. They suggested the cafeteria. At first, I thought it was just because they were hungry, but then they said the tables and stuff could be used as cover. Those two brutes ripped the screws right out of the walls and built that whole thing. Since then over a half dozen of those zombie creatures have passed by and not a one of them have found us.”