Dead Quarantine (13 page)

She had been so transfixed with what had
just happened that she had forgotten why she was here to begin
with. She quickly pressed her ear against the door. She heard the
creaking of furniture, grunts, moans, and a shrill scream. Someone
was being attacked. She pushed the door open. Blinded by the light,
she blinked until her sight returned. The ruckus stopped upon her
entrance. Anna lay naked on the teacher's desk, her legs wrapped
around Jake. Their bodies were sweating. Her large breasts swayed
under her heavy breathing. Sarah's mouth must have fallen open; she
could not utter a word. It felt like a thousand nails pricked her
body at the same time. She wanted to scream, yell, make a scene,
but she knew it was pointless. In fact, she was glad her
astonishment gave her a second to think before she had let loose.
She had no idea how to react to this.

Jake broke the silence. “It's not what you
think.”

She didn't know what to think; she didn't
want to be with him anymore after he attacked Tommy and her, though
she still felt hurt over the fact that he could dismiss her so
easily. Just minutes ago, she was almost eaten and he was fucking a
girl down the hall. No, she shouldn't be thinking like that
anymore; their relationship was in the past now, and she would not
give anyone, especially not him, the satisfaction.

She swung the door shut and stomped away. He
came running after her while Anna yelled for him to come back. He
didn't. Instead, he grabbed Sarah's arm before she could turn down
the hallway to their left.

“Babe, don't be mad. It meant nothing to me.
I was mad and one thing led to another.”

She couldn't believe the shit dropping out
of his mouth. It shamed her to think that she once liked kissing
him. Her stomach turned as he continued to spit out manure-laced
words. If he kept at it, she would puke.

“You made me mad; you made me do this to
myself, to us. I didn't want this, but you didn't come after me.
You let me go with her alone. What else did you expect?”

The shame she felt only kept growing. She
was ashamed that she allowed this to happen. She cut her eyes from
him and looked into the light swallowing the darkness. She would
rather be there.

A high-pitched scream rang from the room
they left.

“Shit,” Jake said. “They got her.”

Anna. She had closed the door, how...Jake,
of course, had left it open. “We need to save her!”

“Are you crazy? She will be dead by the time
we get there.” He pulled her back. “We need to get to safety.

Anna cried for help. Terror trembled through
her voice. Sarah yanked herself free and pushed Jake away. She
hurried to help Anna and cared less if he followed her or not. The
door was wide open. The desperate cries came from within. The moans
and growls were frantic. Sarah rushed inside the room. Anna lay on
the desk. Eyes white with fear. One zombie in soldier’s fatigues
was chewing her thigh, blood spurting with each bite. The other bit
a chunk of her breast. Anna howled in pain. She was dead; Sarah
knew that. Yet still, the urge to run in and pull them off her was
great. Anna's eyes found hers. They filled with hope. She yelled
her name, for her to help her, but Sarah couldn't, wouldn’t. She
couldn’t help or she would be next to her on that table.

Sarah grabbed the door handle and slammed
the door shut. She heard footfalls behind her. The jerk had
returned, at least he had done that. She couldn't help smiling; old
habits died hard. She turned around. A zombie in a hazmat suit bore
down on her. He pressed her against the door. It tried to chew her
cheek, but the plastic visor he wore prevented its teeth from
getting to her. A thin sheet of plastic saved her. Her heart
bounced in her chest. She struggled to get loose, but the force he
used didn't give way.

One thing she remembered on the few
obligatory self defense lessons all the girls had to take by per
the school board was that once grabbed, you had to let go and use
your weight to get free of the assailant. She dropped. The zombie
didn't hold her; she slid down to the floor. The zombie bashed
against the door. Its hands flapped around, trying to get hold of
her. She pushed herself between its legs, causing it to lose
balance and trip over her.

Just in time, she stood to see another one
come her way. They were coming from the stairs. Her face turned
pale, realizing that they could climb stairs. Granted, it was slow
and unbalanced, but they could climb them. One reached the top and
another one was just behind. She ran to the zombie and kicked it in
the stomach. The zombie fell backward onto the one behind it. They
tumbled down the stairs. She heard a loud crack when the one she
kicked hit its head on the tiled floor.

She ran back the way she came, not daring to
look behind her to see if the zombies were following her. Out of
breath and near her wits end, she reached the classroom. Jake
waited in the hallway.

“You're alive.”

“No thanks to you.”

“I was about to go look for you...I waited
for you. I didn't give up, you hear me!”

No, he hadn’t given up but he hadn’t tried
to save her either. Did he ever really love her? She hoped he did,
or else everything these last few years was worthless. She wasn't a
total fake, was she? A mean girl deserving mean things? Her lips
trembled.

“Come on. We need to get to safety before
any of those things comes this way.”

Jake walked to their classroom, not the one
they had taken refuge in after George’s attack, but the one the
George zombie was still waiting inside. Wouldn't it be poetic
justice if he ate Jake? It would make a nice end to it, and he kind
of deserved it. Anna was just a silly girl. Sarah couldn't blame
her. It was Jake who had taken advantage of Anna and her. His hand
was on the handle. If she kept silent, it wouldn't really be
murder. Her palms sweated.

“Jake, stop. George is in there.”

He looked annoyed. She immediately regretted
warning him. It slowly dawned on him what she meant, and he let go
of the handle as if it was a burning, red hot coal.

“Of course, he's a zombie. Fat guy probably
too. Guess I hit him too hard after all. No big loss there.”

Emotions had left her; once again, she had
made a mistake and hoped this was the last one she would make. She
entered the other classroom and sat next to Lilly. She joined her
in staring at the whiteboard. For now she was done with it all and
wanted to rest. Come morning, she would try to get away. Staying
here meant they would be picked off one by one, and if she had to
die, it would be only after she knew her mother's and brother's
fate.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Ralph had locked the door of the office, or construction shack as
Norm called it. He had not dared to turn the lights on. He was
afraid he might attract any zombies that happened to wander in the
neighborhood. He would hate to end up trapped in this cramped space
surrounded by a hungry heard of shambling dead. He locked the
door.

Nothing eventful happened. He woke up with
the sun streaking the clear sky. Red rays chased away the last
signs of darkness. It was a beautiful sight. A sight he might have
enjoyed under different circumstances. He was sick with worry for
his family. He only slept as well as he did because he had been
exhausted, which had left his body stiff and sore.

He crouched, not daring to stand and risk
being seen. He peeked out. No one, not a soul, dead or alive.
Great. He wondered if Norm had made it wherever he was headed. If
what had happened here was happening everywhere, there wouldn’t be
much life left anywhere. This thought didn't help him with his
worries. He had better hurry and get on the road home.

He gave the wall phone near the door an
angry look. Much help that was. It was the first thing he had tried
before locking up. Not even a tone. Norm had lied or the line had
been cut. He searched the office. He found a few car keys in the
jackets hanging on hooks near the door. In the back, in a toolbox,
he grabbed a nasty looking hammer. The room was bare for an office.
A table, four chairs, a Nescafe coffee machine, the toolbox in the
back, a calendar with today's day marked as
fuck off day
. It
seemed the company really had laid off Norm and his coworkers, the
bastards. Not that they would ever work again. It wasn’t as if the
zombies had a union. They also didn’t need to pay for food when all
they had to do was catch it. Norm, the bastard who had left him
stranded, must have had something else on his mind other than
worrying about his job.

Ralph opened the door, expecting to be
jumped by a zombie hiding behind it. It was safe and eerily silent.
He looked around. The houses were beautiful. They were large
mansions, houses that when the economy was booming went before the
plans hit the designer’s desk. Not much need for these anymore. It
seemed to have been part of a larger, gated community project, but
only these houses were built. Norm was right; the higher ups should
have canceled the project. As it was, without infrastructure
nearby, like a mall, no one would want to live here. The closest
attraction was the newly created fire pit of discarded buses and
the humans in it. Come burn ye humans.

Ralph’s face soured. Remembering the pit
brought back the previous day, and with it Lauryn's face. He had
left her to die. His mind fought against it. She could still be
alive, but he knew how unlikely that was. Even if the flu didn't
get her, the zombies would. There was no way the helicopters got
them all. He felt an urge to go back and look; after all, he had
promised her that he would. If he found her alive, he knew for sure
it made sense to return home. If not...he didn't want to think
about it.

He walked around the structure to where an
old, rusted sedan and the van he saw the night before sat; a
motorcycle was nestled between them. The sedan looked like it might
fall apart, so it was a pass. The bike would expose him to foreign
entities that liked to chew on humans, and he had no idea if he
could ride a motorbike. The van was really more of a truck—a 2003
Ford model e-series wagon. A bigger car than he had ever driven
before. His car was a two-door hatchback. He would have to manage,
not that he really had a choice.

He picked the key with the Ford logo and
threw the others on the ground. No one had any need for them
anymore. The truck was well maintained; the interior was meticulous
clean, no rusts or dents. You would never expect this to be a
construction worker’s car. He expected it to be covered in mud and
equipment strewn all over. Two baby seats were in the back. His
heart wrenched. It felt wrong taking the car. It felt worse knowing
that these kids would never again see their dad or know what
happened to him. He shook his head. He couldn't afford to think
this way. He had to get to the pit and find Lauryn.

The engine started in one go. The fuel meter
showed it was three-quarters full; it should be enough to drive
home. He turned on the dirt road toward the main road. Norm had
gone to the right; he went left.

He was the only one driving on the roads.
There was not a soul in sight, and it couldn't be any other way
with the roads being closed off by the military. The construction
workers most likely had been here since before they closed the
roads, passed through in the nick of time, though not fast enough
to not catch the flu. Eventually, he would have to get around the
roadblocks and he would figure out later how he would do that. It
didn't take him long to reach the charred remains of the buses.

Getting out the truck, the odor of charred
meat hit him. He retched and fell on his knees in front of the car.
What little he ate that morning—a chocolate bar he had found—gushed
out his mouth in a sour hot stream. He knew from where that smell
came. He could see the carbon bodies hanging from the buses and
strewn around, baked more than well done by the explosions the day
before. The walking dead and those still alive were both charred by
destruction from above. The area was now a haphazard cemetery lined
with steel coffins for miles. It was a cemetery and he was the sole
visitor.

He made his way to the pit. The fire must
have gone out during the night, because only thin lines of black
smoke found its way up. The bus he was transported in had turned
into a melted hunk of metal. No one inside survived but him and
maybe Lauryn. Anton, the jackass jock extraordinaire, was dead and
would never harass him or anyone else again. Not that there would
be any schools for the likes of Jake and Anton to pester him.
Although, in this apocalyptic world, he was likely to attract
predators much worse than the likes of Anton.

He retraced the path he took in his escape
the day before. Down the decline to the ditch. He saw the plywood
from a distance. Still intact and in place. He guarded his heart
against hope and dread. He prepared for a corpse or worse; he
shoved the cover aside. The spot was empty. He cast his eyes around
his surroundings; there were no signs of her walking around. A
smile broke out on his stern face. She made it. Zombies seemed to
stick around the place they died. She was not around; she must be
alive. His parents and little sis might also be alive.

His spirits lifted; hope again coursed
through his heart. He walked back to his borrowed truck. Maybe,
just maybe, things were not as bad as he thought. He left the
place. For ten miles, he followed the line of destroyed buses and
charred bodies. The sight dashed his newfound hope that it might
not be so bad.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Sarah woke up after only an hour of sleep. Jake sat in a corner,
awake and staring at her. A stupid smile was plastered on his
face.

“Like seeing an angel sleep and rise on a
new day,” he said.

Really? He thought he could get her back
with stupid one-liners? Outside, sunlight broke the dark sky.
Before moving on and leaving the building, she had to find Vic and
Mel. She had to try every classroom in this wing; elsewhere in the
school was practically suicide to search. Most of the hazmat people
were downstairs, and they probably were as dead as the one that
found its way up and attacked her. She planned to go alone. She
could rely on Zach, but she preferred he keep an eye on Lilly and
Emily. She hoped Lilly was better now after some rest, but she
could not count on that.