Ophelia

by Briana Rain

  Mom was in the same position I was when Clyde and I went to get Addeline. The wooden door was splintering. Her head was being thrown forward and snapped back in place. She was wordlessly struggling to keep the door in place, her knee locked against the counter close by.

  The shelf finally budged, and started leaning toward Mom. Dangerously leaning. Before Clyde or myself could stop it, the leaning turned to falling, and over one hundred pounds of Amish oak came rushing straight towards Mom.

  Mom, strangely always knowing what to do, as most moms, dove out of the way just in time, getting away without a scratch. The shelving unit landed with a thud, blocking the door. The only downside being that between the time Mom left the door and the shelves taking her place, the door was wedged open about two or three inches, so that rotting fingers, hands, and faces were all being shoved into the gap. I think I even saw a foot.

  Wow. That's cliche.

  And it was. The whole “zombie arms waving through the door” thing would actually be funny to me if this wasn’t real life and death wasn't constantly lurking around the corner.

  “Will that even hold?” Mom asked, as she got back up. It was like she was keeping the end of the world on track, as if there was schedule to be kept too.

  Running away from death at noon, followed by postponing death at three and hopefully somewhere in between we can squeeze in a small snack. Ha.

  “It's gonna have to.” Clyde sighed.

  With that, the door problem was behind Clyde, and he started checking the pockets of the Crazy he’d taken down for anything that could help.

  I was about to do the same with mine, when I noticed that he was crouched over an ancient lady with an unmistakable piece of cloth over her head, the name of which I couldn't recall.

  Clyde was standing over a nun.

  Now, since I attended public school all of my life, I never had the chance to make any friendships or bonds with nuns or priests or anyone like that. But, for some reason, it felt wrong. Weird. Like they should be immune to whatever the hell— excuse me— heck this was, and if they were turned into mindless zombies with superhuman strength and the desire for human flesh, then maybe we should just let them be, or something.

  I shrugged off the uneasy feeling and tried to clear my wandering mind, which was no small task. I focused on what I had to do, which was search my Crazy and find anything useful to get us out of this box we'd trapped ourselves in.

  I noticed Vi climbing out from under the desk, trying to get Luck to do the same. When he wouldn’t, she gave up and started searching desk drawers by herself.

  The one I’d taken down was big, fat, and gross. It looked… Fresh. The skin wasn't rotten to the bone yet and its clothes weren't destroyed. His cartoon design tie, though stained with blood, was still in the right place. He could've been the principal. Spelled with a P-A-L at the end instead of a P-L-E because principals are your pals.

  Principals have important things, like keys. We might need them later. I poked him with my bat and nudged the sports jacket to the side. There, on his bloody hip, where the bone was jutting out of the flesh, was a ring of keys.

  Coolio, I guess.

  I kinda wanted to take them, but I also kinda didn't, because they were covered in blood, and who knew what else.

  “Here.” My little sister presented me with some piece of cloth she’d found in one of the desks with her small hands.

  I nodded and took it instead of saying thanks. I don't think the verbal part was needed. She knew. Or, at least I hoped she did.

  I used the scarf, or whatever it was, to take the keys from the guy’s belt.

  “Guys! Look.” I held up the keys with a soft jingle. If the others couldn't see them in this light, then the unmistakable sound would tell them what they were.

  Clyde came over and took them, then walked over to the open window and stuck the keys out in the rain.

  He's washing off the blood. That's... That’s actually a good idea.

  The swarm of Crazies below went bananas over it. Good. Maybe they'd wear themselves out.

  “Okay,” The keys must have been clean enough to pass his inspection, “These could help us later, but won't do jack-squat until we get out of here. Suggestions?”

  Clyde, the man with the never ending plan, was struggling for ideas. After he tossed the keys to my mom, he looked around the office.

  The noise was starting to get to me. The drumming of the rain, the Crazies outside, the Crazies inside, and my heartbeat. I wanted them all to stop. Well, all of them except for my heartbeat. I kinda needed that.

  Think, Ophelia. Think! What needs to be done?

  We needed to get out. We couldn’t wait this one out and hide while everything fell apart around us and people died. We couldn’t hide. We had to fight. Or run. Running was a good option here, too. Or maybe a combination of the two.

  Busting through the walls was a no, because three of the four had a crazy amount of Crazies waiting for us and the fourth one was a wild card. I didn't want to go through the floor, because once again, what was waiting for us was unknown. Plus, our goal was to get to higher ground, and needing to go up an extra floor didn't sound too appealing to me.

  I looked up, because the only thing left was the ceiling. It had those weird tiles that you could just push up, and…

  I raised my bat, stood on my tippy toes, and poked one of the tiles, then poked one of the metal beams that held them up. The tile was light, but the beam didn't budge.

  Okay. This could work. Maybe.

  “What about the ceiling?” I asked.

  The four of them looked at me like I was insane, which probably wasn't too far off from the truth.

  “Where else are we gonna go?” I asked.

  Clyde shrugged, and poked the ceiling himself with his shovel, the end of it wet with who knows what. It left a mark on the tile and beam where he jabbed each one.

  I climbed on top of the desk, then got on top of the counter in front of it. While standing on it, I could actually reach something for once. What a time for it to start.

  The tiles looked like they should’ve had some weight on them, so it felt insanely weird in my hands when I moved it.

  Or I'm just not aware of my own strength. Ha. What strength?

  “Ophelia, what you're gonna want to do is use those little bars to find the main one that'll support all our weights, alright?” Clyde gave me directions from where he stood by the desk.

  Mom was a couple feet away, holding onto the twins, looking like she was holding her breath. She probably was.

  I awkwardly put my hands on the sides of the smaller beams, prepared to do what Clyde had said, but when I tried to use the upper body strength I didn't have, I failed epically. I could barely hold myself two inches off the counter.

  Well. That was anticlimactic.

  I heard someone snort, and looked over in betrayal to see that it was my own mother. I made a face at her, curling my upper lip up, and scrunching the rest of my face up sarcastically.

  “Oh, for Pete's sake!” Irritated, Clyde climbed up onto the counter next to me.

  His arms moved, and I looked down to see that his hands were interlocked, waiting for me to put my dirty boot in.

  Gross.

  But I did, bracing one hand on his firm shoulder and the other on the beam of the hole I was preparing to be launched through.

  “1,2—“ He didn't say three, instead he lifted me like I barely weighed anything. When I got high enough, I switched the hand that was on his shoulder to the other side of the gap to hold on. In the next second, I was up and looking around in complete darkness. Great.

  “Clyde!”

  He was still supporting me, and I felt him jump slightly.

  “Still here!”

  Well, obviously. If you weren't, I'd be on my ass right now.

  “There’s a flashlight hanging on a clip on the right side of my backpack.” I said. “You see it?”

  I could feel a shift as my weight
went from both of his hands to one. I felt him move my bag to the side, and heard the click of the clip coming off.

  “Here it is. Wait. Turtles? Why the hell do you have a flashlight with turtles on it?” He asked, like this was the time to criticize my choice of flashlight.

  The hand that was holding me up was shaking. I looked down and saw that I was balanced on his shoulder, and that he was laughing while examining my flashlight I got when I was, like, twelve.

  “Shut up! I like turtles, okay? Just hand me the stupid thing already!” I reached down and felt the cold metal placed into my palm.

  I got it up and quickly turned it on, a bit desperate at this point to see what was in front of me. With the click of the light, I screamed.

  “What!? Ophelia!” Clyde jumped, and got a death grip on my ankles as I almost fell from his shoulders.

  I took a second to calm myself before I answered.

  “It's nothing!” I took another deep breath. “There's just a bunch of... opossums off to the side up here. It's okay!”

  I was not expecting anything else to be up here with me. What really got me was what they were eating. Fingers, and a lot of them. Small fingers.

  But my screaming scared them away, so, it was all good, I think.

  Okay, Ophelia. Time to get this show on the road.

  I grossly put the flashlight in my mouth, and with the help of Clyde, got myself up and into the ceiling. The small bars bent under my weight, so I carefully crawled away from the opossums and to the next biggest beam I saw, which was about a yard away. It held my weight.

  There was some shuffling and my little brother’s soaked figure started rising through the gap. He looked at me and my flashlight, blinded for a moment by the bright light in the total darkness. I tilted the flashlight to the side so that it wasn't directly in his face.

  Whoops.

  He looked scared as heck, but Lucky still crawled forward, ignoring the terrifying chomping and breaking sounds of the rodents and their meal in the depths of the shadows. I didn't realize I was holding my breath until I let it out when Lucky was kneeling safe and sound on this beam next to me. I wondered if it would hold the weight of all five of us, but it was way too late to go back now and slap together another plan.

  “All good.” I whisper-called out.

  Did the virus infect animals? Was it even a virus? It could be bacterial, or something. It would help if I knew anything about this kind of thing.

  Viola was up next, but as soon as her face was illuminated in the flashlight, she disappeared back through the gap. No sooner than it took for the blood to drain from my face, she was back up.

  “My fault, my fault. Sorry little Miss.” Clyde apologized.

  I didn't know what was going to come first at that point: a heart attack, or Clyde's untimely death.

  She nimbly crossed the small space over to us, where Lucky was struggling to balance himself on the beam. Vi helped him.

  There was the sound of something seriously splintering in the room below us, and it killed me that I couldn't see anything. For a second, I considered lifting up one of the ceiling tiles to find out what was happening, but was too afraid of losing my balance and falling through. So, I was forced to kneel here, hunched over in the dark, listening. Just listening. Just waiting. Just watching.

  There was far too much adrenaline pumping through my veins for this.

  “Up you go, Ma’am.” Clyde grunted, my mother obviously being heavier than the twins.

  Her pack got caught on the edge of the hole. She un-wedged it, and crawled towards us, the beam creaking when she joined us. Not a good sign.

  First, his shovel came up, landing way too close to me for him to not be aiming, however he may have done that. Then he grabbed either side of the hole.

  He's not going to make it.

  The flashlight beam was shaky, which meant my hand was shaking.

  Then, a bunch of things happened at once. Again. There was the deafening sound of the door splintering open and the shelf in front of it crashing to the side. Thunder clapped, the kind of sound that would wake the comatose. The opossums disappeared, having better judgement than us humans. And, finally, as I screamed Clyde’s name, he hauled himself through the hole in the ceiling. His feet dangled for a second and I thought he was safe, but the thin strips of metal beneath him began to bend profusely under his weight.

  He scrambled for our already overloaded beam. It, too, groaned and protested under the weight of Clyde, but didn't bend. Below us, chaos resumed its role, as the Crazies knocked things over and added to the assault on my ears.

  I hit Clyde’s face with the light of the turtle flashlight. He was smiling, out of breath, and chalk full of adrenaline produced by his brain by yet another near-death experience, but smiling, nonetheless.

  That was too close. We have to be running thin when it comes to luck now.

  “Miss me?” His eyes were squinted because of the light I still hadn't moved, but I could still see the fear behind them. I could tell that he couldn't focus on how close that was, for his own sanity. So he smiled, and played it off with sarcasm, not allowing himself, and the kids in this case, to fully grasp the closeness of death in this situation.

  I'll have to remember that. That for Clyde Salmons, a smile isn't just a smile.

  I looked at all of them, and they all looked at me. I was in the front of the line, so I guess that meant that I would be the line leader for now.

  The gross metallic taste of the flashlight was once again present in my mouth, my hands too busy holding on for dear life to this stupid beam that creaked and groaned with every shift as I crawled painfully slow. I cringed because of all of it.

  “How are we going to find the roof?” Vi asked, her voice soft and high-pitched.

  “That's a good question, little Miss.” Clyde said.

  He was probably concentrating, and struggling the most out of all of us with his wide build. Poor Clyde.

  At least, I hoped that he was concentrating, and not waiting for me to answer, because I didn't have an answer. Mom also didn't answer Viola.

  The sounds seemed to follow us. The thunder. The Crazies. The horror movie sounds of the opossums crunching and gnawing on bones somewhere in the darkness where my flashlight couldn't reach. It was all too loud, too close. I felt like everything in the shadows was either a opossum or a Crazy. Waiting for me to slip up. Waiting. Watching. Waiting. Watching.

  I heard something in the darkness, close and loud enough for me to hear it over the rain, thunder, and shrieks. I turned my head and scanned the light to the side, only to see—

  Clyde cursed. There was a demonic screech. Clyde, yelled. There was a crash. Clyde, fell. There was a thump below us.

  “Clyde!” My family and I yelled.

  The opossum that’d lunged at Clyde squinted in the light and hissed at me.

  The others might’ve said something, common sense told me that they probably did, but I didn't hear it. It was that gosh-darned adrenaline again, zeroing all my senses onto one thing.

  I rushed to remove the closest panel, almost falling over in the process, and saw Clyde just starting to recover from the fall, body crumpled over a pair of small desks pushed together.

  The fall was loud, loud enough to attract the You Know What's. Clyde wasn't a small guy, so I knew that falling ten feet and having his pack and his back absorb the whole thing must have hurt. Before I knew it, I was lowering myself out of the ceiling, like an idiot. But, what was I supposed do? The ceiling was a lot higher here than it was in the office, and in this room, all Clyde would have to boost himself up was a child's desk and plastic chairs.

  “Ophelia!” Like, at least three people yelled at once.

  I dropped myself gracefully (yeah right) into the classroom, not at all stumbling and definitely not hitting my knees on a desk. Good thing I didn't do any of that, because my knees are already extremely banged up and that would've hurt. A lot.

  “Damn it, Ophelia! What are
you doing?”

  Clyde shouted at me. He got up, and groaned as he did so. He was angry. I just hoped that it was mostly directed at the opossum, and not me.

  “I've been asking myself that question a lot these days.”

  This was no time to be sarcastic, O.

  Apparently some higher force had deemed that moment just dandy to obliterate the classroom door, sending splinters and Crazies everywhere. There were some good aspects about this, though. For one, none of the wood flew our way. And two, the Crazies were forced into a bottleneck situation, so all of them couldn’t overwhelm us right away. Instead, it was two or less at a time, which was good for us. Third, Clyde was forced to not yell at me any more, which I was relieved at.

  The Crazies that came in seemed to be extra drooly, extra old, and a little extra holy. At one point, at least according to their attire, they were nuns.

  Time to go to work.

  Wow. That was a really cool thing to think.

  The first ones to come in were a pair of them. Both nuns and both shoved in the door at the same time by the ones behind them. Come skin was missing on the parts of their arms that came in contact with the door frame. Blood was oozing and flesh was exposed. Flies swarmed around them. They paused when they entered the room, and turned away from the dead end that was a chalkboard with basic safety procedures written in blue and orange chalk in block letters. Once they turned around, their eyes locked on us, and their drooling lips curled back as they let out a heart-attack-inducing roar. They snapped their arms to their sides, and charged.

  I think I screamed. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I screamed. But because of the shrieks and bangs that came from the Crazies, I don't think that anyone heard or took notice of me. Which was good, I guess.

  Two of them, two of us.

  Splat. Smash.

  Clyde smashed the first one’s face, like a pancake. I swung my bat and caved in the side of the second one’s head, it's weird nun hat thing stuck to the blood and gooeyness. It was gross.

  But I didn't have time to think about the grossness, as the rest of the herd started piling in. The first two went for Clyde, probably because he was like, a foot closer to the door than I was.