by Grivante
The dark haired girl tugged on Jonah’s pant leg. “It’s not a zombie dog is it?”
“No,” Jonah shook his head. “We didn’t bring the zombies, we’re here to get rid of them.”
The crying girl moved out of his way and he stepped onto the toilet, reached up and flipped the latch on the window.
“What’s his name?” the scared, crying girl asked.
“Xanadu.”
Part XII - Zombie Swirly
The sleek, charcoal gray Charger screeched to a stop behind the brothers’ red Prius in front of Savini Charter School. JJ had one hand on the wheel and the other keeping Xanadu from flying out of his seat.
“Where the hell are the cops?” She scooped Xanadu under one arm and hopped out her door. “C’mon boy, were probably going to need you.”
She set him on the ground and ran over to the brothers’ car. Finding it locked, she turned back to her own and popped the trunk. She had her revolver strapped to her hip, a knife on her belt; what else was back here she could use? The trunk resembled the dumpster outside a thrift store donation center. Clothes, books, bags of stuff were everywhere.
She shoved the debris aside, revealing a black leather satchel stuffed into the left corner. A small cardboard box marked ‘Xanadu Droppings’ was behind it with an even smaller wrapped box beside that. I’ve got to remember to grab the baggy out of the glove box and put it in there, she reminded herself. She reached for the satchel and saw the handle of a riding crop and a pair of black vinyl panties sticking out of the zippered opening. “That’s not going to help now is it...” She shook her head.
She spied something that caught her eye: a bright orange, v-necked t-shirt, with two dark brown shapes across the front. “Oh, I’ve been looking for that. They’ll love it.” She slipped her leather jacket off, glanced around to see if anyone was about - it was eerily quiet - then peeled her tank top off, tossing it in the trunk and yanking the vintage t-shirt over her shoulders. The pair of large peanut butter cups, with the slogan, ‘Two of your favorite things’ underneath it, lined up perfectly with her breasts. Her smile widened as she slid her coat back on.
Underneath where the shirt had been, she found a rusted crowbar. “This’ll work.” She grabbed it, closed her trunk and ran for the front door of the school. At the top of the stairs, she found Judas’s knife. “What the hell is this doing out here?”
JJ picked it up and slid it in her belt. “I bet he’ll want this back.”
She pulled on the door handle and found it locked. Looking through the window she saw the metal barricade behind it and cursed. “No way I’m getting through that.” She pounded on the door to see if anyone would come and peered through the grates at the bloody debris in the hallway.
After a moment, a form came around the corner inside. It was a woman, her mouth, and throat covered in red, her white blouse torn open, exposing a pair of large blood stained breasts. Despite the fact the woman was dead, JJ felt a twinge of jealousy as she looked at the woman’s blood-covered tits.
“That better not be Jonah or Judas’s,” she growled. The woman slammed into the barricade. “I’m gonna need to find another way in. C’mon boy!” She took off at a jog, following the outline of the school, Xanadu at her heels, his new bandana flapping in the breeze.
In the bathroom, Jonah lifted Emily, the short dark haired girl to the window, as he balanced himself, being careful his foot didn’t slip into the open toilet bowl. “Just drop to the ground on the other side and go climb the tallest piece of playground equipment until help arrives.”
“Ok, Mr. Jonah,” the girl said. “Thank you for being so brave.”
Jonah smiled.
“I can’t wait to meet your dog Xanadu.” She climbed through the small window.
Jonah opened his mouth to say it wasn’t his dog when a loud growl came from the entrance. He spun and watched as the lunch lady sunk her knife into the head of another PTA member. Green rushed out, covering the knife, some of it spraying on Janet’s apron.
“Get back,” Jonah shouted. “Let go of the knife.” He stepped off the toilet and ran up behind her. “Remember, that green stuff is poison. Don’t let it get on your skin.”
“Ok,” she nodded, “but what are we gonna do? We don’t have enough weapons to fend off very many.” She picked the cleaver up off the sink.
“Let’s hope Judas and Nat get that bomb made quick!”
“Do you really think that’s a good idea?”
“No, but right now, I ain’t got a better one.”
Jonah turned to go help the boys out the next window when Janet let out a cry. Turning back, he saw four more hungering dead looking for some of that lunch lady special. “Shit! Get in the empty stall!” he shouted at her. “Close the door and make them come to you. If they come under it, either bash their heads in or stomp on ‘em if you have to. I’ll get these boys out of here.”
He opened the stall door and squeezed in with the four young boys huddled there. From the stall next to them, Nick cried out, “Hey, what about me?”
“I’ll get to you next. Just lock your stall door and stay off the ground.”
The first zombie smashed into Jonah’s door causing the remaining children to shriek as the stalls rattled.
Jonah hefted the first boy to the window. “Go-go!”
From Janet’s stall he heard a loud creaking, she cried out. “Oh shit! The lock’s broken.”
A moment later cries rang out from Nick’s stall. “They’re coming under!”
The first lunch bell sounded.
In the science lab, Judas paced the floor, his tongue repeatedly probing the empty space in his lip for tobacco that wasn’t there. His hands absentmindedly searched his pockets for more of the hard candies, ending with the peanut butter cups which he considered for a moment. “No, those are for JJ. Gotta save those for JJ,” he said to himself.
This same, absent minded frenzied behavior looped over and over until Nat interrupted him.
“Mr. Judas?”
Judas stopped, turned to the kid and blinked, shook his head a few times, stuck his tongue out and said, “Yeah?”
“The bomb’s ready.”
Judas parroted what she had said, the words at first empty of meaning. “The bomb’s ready?” He tilted his head and stared at her, “The bomb’s ready?” Then, at least temporarily, he snapped out of his chemically induced daze. “The bomb’s ready!” He rushed over to the counter where Nat stood. The large metal tube stood upright between them, with the end cap off and a beaker of liquid waiting next to it.
“All we need to do is add this,” she raised the beaker, “and screw the lid on. The chemical reaction will start immediately.”
“How long will it take?” Judas’s head vibrated back and forth as he spoke.
“Thirty seconds to two minutes. The casing will swell and then,” Nat made exploding sounds and threw her hands into the air. “Scrambled Zombies!”
“At least it’s not an omelet this time.”
Nat’s brow furrowed. “Are you okay Mr. Judas?”
“Yeah,” Judas twitched. “Don’t do drugs. Those Energy-O’s are messed up.”
“I told you, you shouldn’t eat the whole packet.”
He stopped moving a moment and looked at her. There was a silence in which Judas’s stomach gurgled so loud, they both looked down at it. He shook his head. “Look, I’m as green as I’m gonna be.” He turned and ran to the door. “Shit, they’re all bunched up by the bathroom.” He ran back. “We can’t explode it right there. I’m gonna have to get their attention and lead them back down the hall.”
“Ok, what do we do?”
“You hide.” Judas grabbed the beaker of liquid and poured it into the open cylinder. It hissed and a puff of chemical smoke rose from the top. He grabbed the lid, spun it on and twisted it tight. “I’m gonna run really fast.” He swooped the heavy cylinder under his arm and bolted for the door.
The first lunch bell rang.
&
nbsp; “Hold ‘em off!” Jonah shouted to Janet over the ringing of the lunch bell. “Use that cleaver.” He glanced over the top of the stall to where Nick screamed from his precarious position on the toilet seat. “Stomp on ‘em if you have to, kid. I’ll help as soon as I can.”
Nick blubbered something back, his words a jumbled stuttering mess, his eyes wide and wet.
Jonah hoisted the second young boy up to the window, then reached down and grabbed the other two. Holding one in each arm, he pulled them up from the grasping hands coming under the stall. They cried out in both fear and relief. Beneath them, the toilet rocked and Jonah struggled to keep his feet from slipping off the porcelain edge.
He looked out into the restroom. There were eight to ten zombies in with them now, and more bunched at the door. Their hungry groans filled the air.
Janet pushed back against her door, keeping it from opening, but the dead were reaching around the edge, grasping at her. If she pushed too hard, she would end up right in their midst.
Jonah got his footing on top of the toilet seat and lifted another of the boys. “C’mon, out you go.” He counted the seconds as he waited for the boy to scramble through the opening. “Could really use Xanadu right about now,” he muttered under his breath and wished he had time to check if JJ had called.
Both Janet and Nick were screaming. He could see the bloody hands reaching under his stall and knew time was short. He got the last of the boys out through the window and turned to find Janet sinking the cleaver into a zombie’s skull. Blood sprayed out, covering the wall next to her. Two more were pushing in right behind it, trampling their dead brother as they came to feast on the lunch lady.
Jonah pushed the soggy cigar from one side of his mouth to the other and turned to Nick’s stall, noticing as he did so that the room had emptied out some, and the entryway to the bathroom stood clear.
Nick’s horrified screams filled the air and Jonah leaned over the top. One of the dead had crawled under and was grasping the edge of the bowl, pulling itself inside. Nick huddled against the back wall, kicking his foot out like he was pushing over a dead animal to see if it was alive. His shoe tapped against the zombie’s skull and then pulled away.
“C’mon kid,” Jonah said, reaching out his arm. “Kick and let’s go.”
The boy looked up, terror painted on his face.
Despite the kid’s earlier arrogance, Jonah felt sorry for him.
“C’mon, c’mon! Grab my hands!”
The boy stared at him, frozen until the creature’s hand wrapped around his leg and a fresh scream ripped from Nick’s lungs.
The zombie pulled and Nick slipped, one foot splashing into the bowl, the other flailing.
Jonah grabbed one of his wild, waving hands. “I’ve got you! Grab my other hand.” He pulled on the boy as the zombie got hold of his leg and yanked in the other direction, bringing himself in for a bite.
“Mr. Erickson, no!” The boy cried.
Jonah grabbed the boys other hand and heaved, the zombie tug-of-war bringing both of them up.
The dead Mr. Erickson was halfway inside the stall now, his body contorted into an S. The dead man’s mouth gaped open and it came up from beneath the boy, pulling himself up by Nick’s pant leg.
The boy watched the gaping mouth come for him and screamed.
Jonah did the only thing he could think of. He let go.
Out in the hall, the mass of dead were pushing and shoving to get inside the bathroom. A few stragglers littered around back by the chair barricade. In the distance outside the large window, Judas could see a shape moving in his direction, he hoped they hadn’t gotten outside the school. He shouted toward the bathroom, “Jonah, if you can hear me, the bomb’s ready. Get somewhere safe!”
A few of the group turned, growling in Judas’s direction. He spun around and saw the cafeteria cart with its ignored bag of meat product oozing off the top of it, smiled and said, “Perfect.”
He ran over to it and shoved the cylinder in the middle of the pink mess, grabbed the cart handle and spun it around, the little wheels rattling like thunder.
“Come and get it,” he yelled. “It’s feeding time!”
The racket he made got their attention and more zombies poured from the bathroom and came for him. Judas glanced behind himself to make sure none of the stragglers were to close and started backing up.
“C’mon, you hungry buggers!”
They came, slowly. Certainly much slower than the frenzied pace at which Judas was moving. He belched as his stomach rumbled. The cylinder in front of him swelled. He shook the cart back and forth, making as much noise as possible.
The second lunch bell rang.
A pounding sounded on the large plexiglass window in the hall. He turned and JJ stood there, eyes wide.
“Judas!” her muffled voice shouted and she pointed behind him.
He whirled to find one of them was now almost on him. He twisted the cart around and bashed into it, knocking it over. He pivoted back to JJ and smiled. “Thank you!” he mouthed and pointed at the cylinder. “It’s a bomb!”
The crowd of zombies grew nearer.
Her face scrunched in confusion as she shook her head, “Huh?”
“A bomb!” Judas pointed at it and threw his arms wide illustrating an explosion.
JJ nodded, mouthing back to him, “Bomb.”
“Yes,” Judas nodded, waving his arm at her to run. He shoved the cart toward the zombies. The cylinder on top of it bulged with hundreds of little bumps as the pressure inside built, pushing the beads into the metal.
JJ bent and came back up with Xanadu in her arms.
Judas yelled, “Throw him!” motioning with his arms as he turned and ran.
JJ ran parallel on the outside, guessing at how far to go before throwing her dog into the air and shouting his name.
“Xanadu!”
In the bathroom, Jonah couldn’t hear the boy’s scream over the second lunch bell as he fell. He only saw the panicked face as Nick cried out. His feet landing on top of the zombie’s head and smashing it into the open toilet bowl.
Jonah dove over the top, his mid-section balancing him atop the stall wall and causing him to gasp, spitting his cigar to the floor.
The kid’s shoes splashed in the water as he thrashed about, trying to escape the remains of Mr. Erickson. The zombie gurgled in the toilet water.
Jonah grabbed the boy’s flailing arms and yanked, pulling him up and over, just as a familiar disco beat filled the air, followed by a slow building, ‘Booooooooooom!’
Part XIII - Eyeball Bomb
Dust. Chaos. Debris.
Jonah blinked.
The sound of a toilet flushing over and over again came from the remainder of the stall next to him. He remembered the music. Xanadu? JJ? A vague image of eyeballs shooting through the air flashed through his mind. Judas. What? The door lay atop him as did the boy he'd pulled from the other side. He shook his head to clear it and heard the moans of Janet, followed by the groans of the dead. “This job isn’t done yet,” he said and pushed the door away, struggling to get up. He slid Nick's unconscious form to the side and checked the boy’s legs; no bites that he could tell. The haze of dust in the room kept visibility low, but from what he could hear, others were moving in the room. Water rushed from broken pipes and electricity crackled. All three bathroom stalls were in pieces.
“Miss?” Jonah crawled over the wreckage toward the lunch lady. “Are you okay? Can you hear me?”
“Grrrooowllll,” the voice of a zombie rose from somewhere close.
Jonah’s hand found the cleaver handle sticking out from a pile of debris, he grabbed it and stood on shaking legs. He stared into the surrounding haze. Something touched his boot, and he looked to find the partial remains of a zombie crawling across the floor, its intestines trailing behind it.
Thunk!
He sunk the cleaver into its head. Another groan sounded behind him and he spun.
“Are they dead?�
�� the lunch lady asked in a raspy voice.
“Not quite,” Jonah said, feeling around with his free hand. “They’re in pieces though. Any that remain should be easy to deal with. But watch out for the green goo.”
“And the kids?”
“Out the window, except the older one. He’s okay though, no bites at least.” Jonah knelt when he found the lunch lady’s arm. “How about you?”
Janet coughed. “I’m okay, I think. They didn’t get a piece of me.”
Jonah flashed a smile that changed to a look of concern as he saw her face, grimacing in pain in the settling dust.
“I think maybe my arm’s broken. It was the strangest thing, I was swinging the cleaver toward one of them and then it was like everything stopped. I watched the explosion happen. There were…,” she shook her head. “There were eyeballs everywhere?”
“Yeah, I saw that too.”
“And then,” she continued, “the stall door broke away and knocked me back against the wall. I felt my arm snap, watched the cleaver fall and then it was now. What the hell was all of that?”
Jonah turned and surveyed the room. The pieces of half a dozen zombies littered the demolished restroom. He made a note of which ones were still moving. “I’ve no idea on the eyeballs, the rest, that was Xanadu.” He pulled the cleaver from the head of the zombie he’d killed and moved to leave. “I need to go check on my brother. Will you tend to the boy?”
“Yes, but wait a sec,” Janet said.
“Yeah?”
“What’s a Xanadu?”
“A dog.”
“A dog?” she shook her head, confused.
“Yep. I can’t explain it either. Belongs to our girlfriend, JJ.”
Janet nodded. “Jonah, I’m sorry I gave you so much grief earlier. You did a good job. You saved a lot of kids.”
Jonah smiled and nodded at her. “Thank you. We couldn’t have done it without you.” He started away, stopping at each still moving corpse and sinking the cleaver into whatever looked like a head. Some were more obvious than others.
