Demise of the Living (18 page)

“Karen?” Shan called.

Karen didn't stir.

“Karen!” Shan shouted.

Karen sat bolt upright, panic
in her eyes. She looked around the sick bay and slowly her mind
focused on her surroundings.

“Karen, I’m choking for a
drink,” Shan said.

“Yeah, sure,” Karen
replied.

“Pass me another couple of
painkillers while you’re at it.”

Karen stood up from the
chair where she’d fallen asleep, still slightly dazed by her sudden
awakening. She scooped up the packet of painkillers and passed them
over to Shan. With an expansive yawn, she turned and opened the
door. The force of the pull aggravated her injury and her arm
throbbed. She looked down at the white patch just visible at her
neckline. It was itchy and she had to resist the urge to scratch as
she walked down to the refectory.

It suddenly dawned on
Karen she shouldn’t have given Shan the painkillers. She had
already given her the maximum amount and she doubted Shan was due
her next dose. Besides, she knew she would have to ration what
meagre supply they had. Shan’s injuries would take weeks to heal,
at least, and the two packets of headache tables in Miss Gilmore’s
drawer wouldn’t last more than a few days.

Karen got to the smashed
vending machine and reached into its guts for a can. The behemoth
lay on the floor, its garish neon-lit facades shattered across the
ground like a discarded jigsaw puzzle. It had proven impossible to
get inside simply by breaking the front open. The girls, Shan in
particular, had vented their frustration with the world on this
poor, stalwart piece of equipment. With the machine on its side
they had managed to buckle the lock by violent and repeated thumps
with the same stone hammer they used to break into the school.

Karen was about to leave when
she heard a splash. She looked down to see a pool of water running
out of the refectory. She followed it back and saw that it was
coming from the closed kitchen door. She tried the handle but it
was locked.

The flow of water was steady,
but not torrential.

Overflowing
sink?
she wondered.

She decided to get Shan her
drink, then investigate. She turned and walked back to the sick
bay.

Shan was asleep when she
returned, so she left the drink and headed straight for the
janitor’s office. Inside there was a case on the wall labelled
‘Keys’. It didn’t take Karen long to jimmy open the lock. She
grabbed the keys, stuffing the ones she didn’t need into her
pocket, but kept the key for the kitchen in hand.

When she got back to the
kitchen, she saw the pool of water had slowed. There was a thin
film of glossy water covering most of the refectory floor, but it
didn’t seem to be spreading.

She unlocked the kitchen
door and stepped in. This part of the school was foreign to her.
She had been to many of the off-limits areas, (teacher’s lounge,
secretary’s office, and the like,) but she had never seen the
kitchens other than what she could glean from the other side of the
serving hatch.

The serving area ran the
full length of the kitchen and was barricaded by the shutters and
the bodies of the Bain Marie’s. Behind that was a tiled wall and
stainless steel counter. Under the counter were various containers
and items of kitchenware. The tiled wall didn’t cover the full
length of the kitchen. Instead it formed a partition separating the
ovens and hobs from the service area. From here there was a faint
gurgling noise.

Karen cocked her ear and
listened more intently. The gasps and wet slurps came randomly and
without reason. She pulled a large green-handled knife from a row
of utensils. She walked round the wall, her trainers splashing in
the thin film of water, her hand tight around the hilt of the
knife.

As she turned into the room she
heard the gurgling noise again. She looked down and saw a small
grate in the middle of the floor. The grate was completely
submerged and the water was making a faint swirl around it. As
Karen watched, another bubble of air popped through the surface
tension.

She breathed a sigh of
relief. The disturbing noise was nothing more than the blocked
drain’s feeble attempt to swallow the flood.

With renewed confidence, Karen
surveyed the room. There was a large metal door at the far end
where the water was trickling out. She walked up to it and eased up
the lever handle. The door flew open and a tsunami in miniature
came tumbling out. Karen stepped backwards, but lost traction on
the wet floor and fell on her butt.

She squealed at the pain and
the cold water soaking her backside.

She stood up, shaking the
dampness from her sleeves and trying to brush the water from her
jeans.

She huffed, realising she’d
never be able to shake herself dry.

In front of her the walk-in
freezer lay wide open. Judging by the remaining pools, the water
being held back by the door could only have been a few millimetres
deep,, but it had had enough force to knock her off her feet. The
air in the giant freezer was still cool and the walls still held a
coating of frost.

She walked into the doorway and
immediately blocked her own light. There was a florescent strip in
the freezer, but with the power off it was as useless as the
freezer it hung in.

Peering through the murk, Karen
couldn’t tell what was inside. She squinted, coaxing her eyes to
become accustomed to the darkness. Her breath and the dripping of
water echoed off the close metal walls. Slowly the abyss started to
reveal itself in hues of grey.

The freezer was about a
third full from what Karen could make out. Soggy cardboard boxes
and plastic bags of slowly defrosting school dinners sat slumped on
the shelves. She managed to locate a bag of hash browns and some
battered fish.

She brought her bounty over to
the cooking area. The ovens were electric and therefore wouldn’t
work, but when she turned the gas on there was a satisfying hiss.
She lit the hob and a steady blue flame burst to life. It didn’t
take long to find some oil and a pan and within minutes Karen had
plated up two meals.

Triumphantly, she exited
the kitchen, a plate in each hand. The floor was still covered by a
film of water and Karen, keeping an eye on her footsteps, was
careful not to slip. She emerged from the miniature lake that
covered the refectory and began following her wet footprints back
to the sick bay.

Halfway there she stopped and
froze in place. A second set of footprints turned right along a
corridor where the marks trailed off into oblivion.

Karen looked down at the
fresh wet marks she had just made alongside the first set. The
water had begun to dry and the definition was weak. The trail
wasn’t as evenly set as hers; they didn’t keep an even pace. She
trod her foot down beside one of the tracks. Lifting her foot away,
she examined the two marks side-by-side. Her trainers left a
slimmer, shorter mark with a more rounded toe.

She felt the breath in her
chest falter.

Quickly she
scurried
back to the sick bay.

***

“
Do you have to be so
noisy?” John asked.

“I’m hitting a lock with a
hammer. What do you think?” Thomas replied.

John cringed as Thomas
punctuated the sentence with a fresh strike.

Thomas slid the drawer
open.

“
Looks like a bust,” he
said, peering into the drawer.

“We still need to check them to
make sure,” John said, leaning in.

“Fire away, chief. I’ll get the
next one open.”

Thomas moved over to the next
desk.

“Look, you missed a packet of
mints,” John said, laying the sweets on the keyboard to stop them
from rolling off the desk.

“
Hurray. We’re saved.”
Thomas twirled the screwdriver in the air like he was waving a
flag.

“Ha-fucking-ha,” John said
sardonically.

Thomas nodded over to where Liz
and Melissa sat.

John turned to see Liz’s
furrowed brow and chastising gaze. He threw a hand to his mouth,
realising he’d uttered a profanity in the presence of a young
girl.

“Oh… sorry,” he said.

Melissa seemed not to
have noticed. She was sitting on a swivel chair, spinning herself
round and round.

Thomas walloped another
lock.

“
Can’t you keep it down?
That noise is going straight through me,” John said.

Thomas ignored him. He
slid the drawer out and gave the inside a cursory look.

“Melissa,” he called out,
reaching in the drawer.

“Uh-huh?” Melissa answered,
putting her feet down to stop her makeshift fairground ride.

“Here,” Thomas said handing
something over.

“What is that?” John asked.

“For me?” Melissa asked, taking
the object. She turned to her mother. “Can I?” she said
hopefully.

“What is it?” Liz asked.

“It’s a hand-held games console
of some kind,” Thomas explained.

“That’s someone’s property,”
John said.

Again Thomas ignored him and
moved onto the next drawer.

“
You can’t just give that
away,” John argued. “It belongs to someone.”

“Write it down on your notepad
and give it a break,” Thomas said without looking up.

He battered the next desk
drawer and pulled it opened.

“Can I have it, ma?” Melissa
asked, confused.

“
You can
borrow
it,” Liz said. “You need to remember to give it back when
all this is over.”

“Which desk was that?” John
asked impatiently.

“That one there,” Liz pointed
out.

John pursed his lips. He
knew very well which desk it had come from, but something officious
inside him wanted to make Thomas acknowledge his casual
theft.

Thomas looked
disdainfully at the contents, then puffed out a sigh.

“Next,” Thomas said in a
singsong tone as he moved onto the adjoining desk.

“Whoa, what are you doing?”
John asked.

Thomas waved the hammer
and screwdriver at John. “The same thing I’ve been doing for the
last half hour.”

“That’s my drawer,” John
said.

“Doesn’t mean we don’t have to
check it,” Thomas countered.

“Yes it does. I have my
personal items in there.”

“Sorry, I’m under orders.”

“That’s my desk and you’re not
busting it open,” John snapped.

“Why?”

“
Why
what
?”

“
Why don’t you want me
opening it? You got a chicken dinner in there?” Thomas asked. “Or
are you maybe stealing office supplies?”

“What?! No!” John
protested.

Thomas lowered his voice
and leaned in.

“Maybe a stash of porno mags,
eh?” he said with a wink.

“No!” John said, flustered.

“
Butt plug and a copy
of
Big Boys in
Boots
?” Thomas teased, careful to keep
his voice down.

“What? Shut the hell up—you’re
sick,” John said, his face flushed red.

Thomas stood back, a wide
smile on his face. “Nah, I’m just fucking with you—”

“Thomas!” Liz chastised.

“Sorry, Liz,” Thomas said.

He moved on to the next
desk.

“
You’re not funny!” John
spat. “You’re not funny in the slightest.”

Thomas broke the lock open and
pulled out the drawer. He took a glancing look inside and quickly
moved on to the next one.

He looked over at John. The man
was still flustered from his ribbing. He was hiding something in
his drawer, Thomas knew it. But he also knew it would be nothing
special. Maybe a couple of bars of chocolate, a sandwich at
best—hell, maybe it was some gay porn. Thomas didn’t care, but what
he did care about was his smokes. He knew they would be in here a
good few days, at least. Without food, things would be difficult.
Without cigarettes, they would be impossible. By distracting John
and getting ahead of him he now had the opportunity to swipe any
cartons of cigarettes he came across. Of course, he’d have to be
subtle about it, but at least now he had some leverage. He could
always call John out about the contents of his drawer.

“What was that?” John
asked.

“What was what?” Thomas
replied, smashing open another drawer.

John walked over to the
window.

“
I’m sure I heard a
bang,” John said, casting his view out of the window. “There! A guy
with a gun—and he’s shooting his way through those things out
there.”

“Good luck to him,” Thomas
said, feigning interest as he slipped a packet of cigarettes into
his pocket.

“He’s almost at the building,”
John said excitedly.

He opened the window and
the crack of a firearm could be heard more clearly.

Thomas stopped his pilfering
and walked over to the window.

“
Up here!” John shouted.
He waved to the man on the ground.

“Hold on, there—what are you
doing?” Thomas asked.

“He’s seen us,” John said.

“So what if he has?”

“We’ll open the front door!”
John called out, waving to the man.

“
Hold on. You’re just
going to let a complete stranger with a gun come in here?” Thomas
asked.

“
He’ll get eaten alive
out there. There’s hundreds of them,” John said, marching to the
stairs.