by Briana Rain
We entered the gym (“Look alive people!”) and we were all hit with the smell. Assaulted by it. It… it was bad. But what it originated from… was even worse. I hope the kids were closing their eyes, but I could feel myself getting traumatized. I could feel the little glimpses of the children being burned into my skull.
G. R. O. S. S.
I felt like crying. They, they were just torn apart. All of them. Shreds. Blood and guts and flesh and flies. Everywhere a flashlight landed there was red.
I was actually glad that there were no lights just then. The darkness prevented me from seeing the whole scene and I wanted to keep it that way. It was too new. Too recent. Too fresh.
There was a door at the other side of the gym, and there were steps outside of that door. And at the top of those steps, there was grass. And in that grass is where I puked my guts out.
I looked around, and I wasn't the only one.
Motors started up, and I spit out everything I could to get rid of the vile taste.
There were a bunch of four-wheelers and everyone was jumping on, eager to get away from this place. I got on the closest one, which was being driven by the guy who’d held the gym door open.
There was shrieking. I know, there was always shrieking. But the fireworks and Rogers gang had taken care of most of the nearby Crazies, so the background noise had been reduced tremendously until now.
A horde. A good sized, about thirty strong, hole riddled, shrieking horde came around the corner of the brick building we just escaped.
Great.
“Go!” Many of us shouted at once.
The wheels lurched forward, and I barely had a grip. I felt like I was still stuck next to that puke-covered grass while everything around me kept moving. I wrapped my arms around the stranger's waist with a death grip.
I would not go out by falling off of a fourwheeler. Nuh uh. Not today.
We were facing the horde, so all five vehicles had to make some pretty dramatic u-turns before any distance could be put between us and them.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHEHHHHHHHHHAHHHEHH
These things couldn't speed up fast enough. The Crazies were too close.
Way too close.
We pulled out of the school's driveway and onto an unfamiliar road in unfamiliar territory.
The shoulder flashlights were still on, but now with the added bonus of five pairs of headlights, everything was lit up like Christmas, including about a dozen more of the infected sprinting out from a side street. They cut off my four-wheeler and one other from the rest. A drastic right turn into a different side street was taken by both. I screamed.
“Hold on!” My driver yelled.
Yeah. Like I already wasn't doing that. Please. I'm surprised you can even breath right now, given the amount of pressure I have on your diaphragm.
We were going fast now. Really fast. Like, I wasn't aware that these things could go this fast. The lights just illuminated everything for a fraction of a second, being just as useful as a strobe light. Besides, we were going too fast to maneuver around something, should this guy actually see anything.
He led the other four-wheeler forward, quickly turning to swerve around parked cars and fallen garbage cans.
There was a bump. We hit something. I think it was a cat. I hoped it wasn't.
Crazies were fast. Holy crap were they fast. They didn't have human things, like pain and exhaustion and death to slow them down. They shoved at each other with their shoulders to get ahead. It was like Jesse Owens, Usain Bolt, and Bert McCalley duking it out to win a race, if they were alive at the same time, that is.
This breed of zombies… Well, there was one thing that the movies did prepare us for. It was that their goal in life was to be the first. To be first to the meal, whatever or whoever would be on the menu. They were greedy.
With their heads down, arms to their sides, they charged and kept up with us.
“Hey! Hang on!”
Hang on? HANG ON? WHAT DO YO—
We were airborne. Up some sort of ramp or something. That would be the logical thing to assume, but so many things were happening that I couldn't grasp anything. I think I screamed when we landed, but I wasn't sure. I leaned my head against this guy's back and closed my eyes, wishing for it to be over soon.
I felt my bat slide down, all of the jostling loosening it from its place. Much more of this, and I'd lose it.
I had a sneaking suspicion that there would be more of this.
I couldn't lose my bat, my only weapon against this hell I was thrown into, so I let go with one of my hands and readjusted the metal.
Big mistake.
A sharp left turn was taken, which was unfortunate because I was holding on with my right hand. We both leaned to the right, but there was nothing to stop my leaning, so it was more of a shift to the right. Long story short, I almost fell off.
But my bat was okay, so I was okay.
I went back to my preferred position of holding on for dear life with my eyes closed and waited for us to get wherever we were going. I didn't have to wait long, because the next thing I knew, I heard metal rattling, and we were slowing down. I opened my eyes, and saw a silhouette pulling a ten-foot chain-link fence open. Our four-wheeler and the one behind us sped in, and then the fence was closed.
We were at a police station.
As soon as we slowed down enough, I scrambled as fast as I could away from the thing. I wasn't staying on it any longer than I had to. I was experiencing one of those moments where my anxiety felt very similar to what a heart attack probably felt like. Extreme chest pain. Numbness in my arms and legs. Headache. Trouble breathing. And about ten other things that weren't good for me.
“I'm Wires, by the way.”
I was a good five feet away from the death trap before he said anything.
It took me a long moment before I could respond.
“O.”
He stuck the keys in some sort of compartment in the handle bars. A hidden compartment. Then he turned around and stuck out his hand in the proper way of greeting someone. Like we both didn’t just almost die. Like, we were really, really close back there. I was still in a bit of shock, so I just stuck out my hand. Wires shook it, and then started walking towards the police station.
I knew it was a police station because most, if not all, of the available lights were on and shining bright. Like… Why? Did this not attract Crazies?
The other vehicle was parked next to the one I’d just disembarked and was shut off. Clyde jumped off of the back and came towards me, looking worried and like he felt almost as bad as I did. I was glad to see a familiar face, and to hear him sincerely ask me if I was all right. He held my shoulders like he did when we were getting Addeline from her apartment.
I felt glad. I felt safer. Clyde wouldn't have let anything happen to me or my family any sooner than he'd have let something happen to his sister.
“Yeah. I'm somewhat safe and, well, somewhat sound.” I said. “As much as I can be.”
It dawned on me once again that Clyde still thought that I was a child, and I felt weird.
“Hey Clyde?” I just remembered something.
“Hmm?” He had let go of my shoulders with a pat and started following the two men into the station.
“How old are you?”
I was going to ask him earlier, but then we were in the woods and looking for Lucky and hadn’t had a free moment since. I was surprised, actually, that I hadn’t asked the question before now. I was usually obsessed with knowing people's ages. But that was before I feared for my life every second of every day, even when I slept.
“Twenty years of age since last month.” There was a flicker of a smile, but it vanished real quick. Like he started being happy, but then thought better of it. Or because he was remembering something. Or someone.
Or I was reading too much into it. I was being dramatic because this lighting was dramatic and my heart was still doing its spot on impression of a hummingbird.
; Or we’re both just really, really tired. Almost dying, man. It really takes it out of you.
Ba dum tiss.
We followed Wires and the other guy, and entered the building.
Immediately, I was dowsed with light. It was everywhere. It made an impression on me, to see actual, functioning electricity and stuff. Like we were back in time, back before The End. Almost like Crazies couldn't possibly get us here!
Apocalypse? What Apocalypse!
This place had that sort of vibe to it.
It was also really clean, the white walls were absent of bloody handprints and bugs. Not that I was complaining.
“Wires! Sparkplug! You guys made it!” Roger greeted each of his men with a hearty slap on the shoulder and a can beer.
He knew they were coming back. It would take more than a detour to break down his guys. The Astors and Addeline, on the other hand, all rushed forward to hug us, thankful that we were not dead instead of undead. Addeline gathered Clyde in her arms, but my family stopped when they saw my face.
“Darling, you got…” Roger pointed in a circle around his face.
I cringed as I became hyper-aware of the stickiness of my face. More of his men appeared down the hallway and in doorways, staring at me. For a second, I was reminded of Jamie, and how his gross concoctions would always find their way, via plastic spoon, on my skin. One time, he grabbed a squeeze bottle of mustard, and as I was leaving, he jumped out of nowhere and got the stuff down the back of my neck and uniform.
Eventually, Roger broke the silence, and instructed me on where I could take a shower. A real, actual, clean shower, and I was brought back to reality. It was easy for me to get distracted again, in a place like this, where it looked like the apocalypse hadn't touched it. But I didn't have the time. I couldn't think about, remember, or mourn that stupid sixteen year old. I had to stay in the present.
Wires was instructed to get me some supplies. He disappeared for a moment, then came back with a plastic grocery bag with some travel-sized bottles in it. He was extremely careful not to touch my hand when he passed it to me.
I followed Rogers directions. My family didn't say a word. They didn't hug me, or touch me in any way. I started down the hallway, and the men backed away from me, suddenly busy with other things.
I looked back, and found them all staring at me in horror and fear. All except Roger. He was squinting his eyes, his forehead wrinkled, and lips pressed together under his mustache.
He looked like he was studying me.
It made me uneasy.
I went continued forward, thinking about Jamie again.
When he first started his job, his mother had come in without him knowing. She couldn't believe that he’d actually gotten a job. She followed him one day, thinking he was hanging out or something. I guess there wasn't much communication in their house, because with Jamie being only sixteen, the Clucket Bucket required a parents signature in order for him to work there.
Okay, I really had to stop thinking about the past, because doing so almost made me fall down these metal, and painful looking, steps.
Way to go, Ophelia.
Past the lockers and to the right… Past the lockers and to the right… I walked past the grey lockers, wiggled my right shoulder, then went through that door instead of the other one on the left. I'd always had a problem or two with my lefts and rights. As you can imagine, Driver's Ed was a nightmare because of this.
The showers/bathroom didn't look like anything special, except they were. They worked. The toilet flushed and the sinks gave me a choice of cold or warm water and everything.
After looking at myself in the mirror that took up the whole wall above the sinks, I understood all of the reactions toward me. I even gagged at my own reflection.
I didn't recognize myself.
My hair. It was matted into one, thick nest. Nest was actually a great word for it, given that there was a leaf, grass, and several of what I hoped were twigs included in the mess. My hair was matted by mostly mud, but spots of red were visible in the remains of a braid that rested over my shoulder.
My ear. Thankfully, I had grossly over-exaggerated the injury, and instead of the lobe hanging on by a string, it actually looked like it would heal. There was just a rip, which I could deal with, though it was still pretty gross.
My face. Now that was the most concerning part. The horror show. The showstopper in the worst way. Yes, it understandably had some spots and streaks of dirt that I hadn't had a chance to wash off, and some mud caked to my neck. In terms of mud and dirt, Clyde’s case was so much more worse than mine. But we weren't talking about mud and dirt. We were talking about drool. Drool with drops and swirls of blood caked on the right side of my face, the opposite side of my injured ear.
I used my index finger to push aside my layers of clothing, revealing my shoulder. In the mirror, I could see that my bra strap had a small tear in it, smaller than the one in my jeans. Next to the tear was an angry red color on my pale skin that was in the shape of a nail. I knew that if I looked on my back, I would see the four other nail piercings from the Crazy that’d ambushed me and tackled me to the ground.
I ran to the nearest toilet and vomited.
It had scratched me. The skin was broken. I'd been exposed to its bodily fluids. Are there different rules for different fluids? Maybe drool would infect you, but blood wouldn’t. Because if that was the case, then even though I was screwed no matter what, Clyde could still help keep my family safe. He only got blood on him. I, on the other hand, had both drool and blood, and scratches in two places. I was screwed. No matter what. I was infected.
I was going to die.
There were three metal stalls with curtains for doors. The benches outside of those was where I set my bag and bat down and I managed not to hit myself in the head this time. A leaf drifted down and landed on the floor, and I shook my head, disgusted.
My flannel was still miraculously tied to my waist, and I had the stupid idea to take it in the stall with me to wash it off.
There was guys body wash and two-in-one shampoo/conditioner in the bag Wires gave me. It was Axe brand. I cringed, hating the smell that used to plague the hallways and classrooms of high school. But, hey, it was soap.
Before taking any clothes off, I moved my bag from the bench to in front of the door. I was paranoid about someone coming in. The bag wouldn't stop them, but maybe I’d have a warning if someone entered.
There were bars on the walls on either side of me and I hung my rain-soaked clothes there. If I rinsed them off in here, then I'd know that they'd be clean, and damp with water, and nothing else that may or may not had come from the mouth of a zombie.
The water was actually hot— well, warm, but I'd take that any day. It had been almost two weeks since my last shower and every part of me felt gross. Almost nonhuman.
I felt… Not myself. But somehow I didn’t think I could equate that to my hygiene issues.
I kept my hawk eyes locked on the curtain. I had already triple checked the gaps and noted the lack of them, but I was still paranoid.
My back was to the water and my rat's nest— or hair— was finally freed of all of that mud and other dried liquids. In a way, I was somewhat glad of my paranoia. It meant that I was still on my toes. Still human. And staring at the curtain meant I didn't have to see what dripped off of me, or the objects I combed out of my hair. I still stood by the hope that they were just twigs.
I used up all of the two-in-one bottle, rinsing and repeating until it was gone, and even then, it didn't seem like enough. Although I got all of the crap out of my hair, it was still very, very knotted. I ended up ripping out a lot of the mystery object, and in turn, a lot of hair.
I used about three-quarters of the body soap and most of that was on my face. Even when I got the stuff up my nose, on my lips, and in my eyes, I still kept using it. Obsessively scrubbing my face again, and again, and again. I lost at least two layers of skin.
My ankle wasn't that b
ad. Yes, there were holes in my boot, but I’d had worse scraped knees than the marks on my ankle. The top layers of skin were barely scratched.
I was starting to feel good— clean, warm, and absolutely not infected, when I heard a horrible scraping sound from the other side of the room, around where the door was. I heard my backpack being pushed along the tile floor, and a thump when the door was released and it hit the frame as it closed. There was a squeak. The same sound my shoe made on the slick floor of the school.
Someone was in here with me.
My heart jumped into my throat, and I quickly reached back to turn the water off, but jammed my index finger before I could do that.
Way to go, Ophelia.
“Hello?” Great. Nice job Ophelia. Creepy killer who's waiting outside while you shower now knew that you were on to him. Great. Great great great.
“Hi.” I had a heart attack right then and there. It was a voice I didn't recognize. One that wasn't southern, wasn't from a child, and wasn't feminine. It was, however, from someone that I was sure that I didn't want in here.
I glanced at the shower head, to see if it was the type to come off of the wall. I think my mind automatically went to ‘find a weapon’ mode, which was weird. I never used to do that.
FYI: the shower head was bolted into the wall.
I grabbed the shower curtain, beyond careful, beyond paranoid, and pulled it back just a smidge in one place so that I could stick my head out. With my other hand, I held the fabric below it in place.
It was… Sparkplug, I think. He was standing closer than he was when he answered, looking at my bat, which rested in one of the grooves in the bench. Now that we were in the light, I could see more of him. He had a long, slicked-back, black mullet that's length rivaled my braid. He was lanky, with the type of arms that when he was a child, you could probably wrap your hand around his wrist and get your thumb and index finger to touch.
He was pale. Weirdly pale, like a vampire in a bad movie. Like he spent all of his time indoors. Even I had more color than him, and that was saying something.
