The Zombie Chronicles - Book 4 - Poisonous Serum (Apocalypse Infection Unleashed Series) (3 page)

I took a deep breath every now and again, but other than that, we walked in complete silence. Eerie shadows danced on the walls from my flashlight beam. I motioned left, down a long, wide hallway. I couldn’t help but notice the crayon drawings on the walls, childish depictions of much happier times, before the undead ruled the earth. The glittery rainbows, sunshine, smiley faces, and blue skies seemed like ancient hieroglyphics, representations of a world long lost, a distant memory. My feet crunched over debris and crumbled paper with each step I took. At the sound of another ominous moan, I swept my light across the hallway, darting my eyes around in every direction. My stomach twisted into knots, but I couldn’t see anything in the unkempt, empty hallway, littered with papers and trash.

My heart pounded fiercely in my chest when I heard the telltale guttural
moans coming
from nearby zombies. I swung my flashlight again, and this time the beam landed on those horrible white, lifeless eyes, the glazed-over orbs I’d seen so many times in my nightmares and far too often in my waking hours. As one zombie lumbered toward us, I feared his moaning would attract a horde of others, and I was right; a few seconds later, I could only gasp at the sight of several more sets of eyes. They were so short, those children-turned-monster, with white eyes and green skin. I pulled out my gun, but I didn’t know if I’d really have the nerve to shoot end their young lives—again—just to save ours.

Val pulled my arm. “Don’t, Dean!”

“
I-I’m not. I just…can’t.”

“
Let’s try the other way!” whispered Jackie.

I spun and turned in the other direction, cringing at the ghoulish moans and heavy footsteps behind us. Val took a sharp left into a huge classroom, and we bounced our flashlight beams into every corner of it. A red banner of musical notes wrapped around all of the walls, and music stands, tubas, drums, and violins were everywhere.

“
How do we get up to the vents?” I asked, frantically looking for a table or shelf to climb.

“
There’s no door!” Jackie said in a panic. She’d hoped to shut it to stave off our mini-monster pursuers, but it had been ripped right off its hinges. Dried blood was smeared on the walls and floor in the corner. I bet people had hid out in this room previously when zombies broke in and devoured them. The thought made me shudder. I knew the fear of zombies breaking through the door up-close and personal. I had lived it not too long ago myself.

Before any of us could answer or offer a better solution, zombies flooded through the doorway. Garbled moaning and muffled footsteps made my heart race all the more.

“
The piano!” Val said, shining her light in that direction.

We all hopped on top of the baby grand, kicking down the childlike undead who kept snapping at us and trying to climb up after us. Droplets of sweat rolled down my face as I kicked at them with my boot, hoping to keep them at bay. I didn’t want to hurt them, but I couldn’t have them getting on top of the piano with us either.

“
What are we gonna do?” Jackie screamed. “We might have to shoot them, whether we like it or not!”

“
What about the window?” I asked, pointing. “If we can kick the glass out, we can escape.”

Jackie kicked at the little jaws beneath her, snapping like a school of hungry piranha. “I hope one of the other teams has had better luck.”

I shined my bright beam around again. “I’ve got an idea!” I shouted over the loud snarls. “You two can create some kind of diversion. If I can make it to the fire extinguisher, we can spray them.”

“
That oughtta cool them down,” Val said. “I like it!”

In an instant, Val reached for the drums next to us and started pounding on them while Jackie strummed a guitar. I’d never heard such beautiful music in all my life, considering that it could possibly be an off-key, inharmonious symphony that would save our lives. The zombies seemed distracted by the duet, so I rushed to the fire extinguisher. A gut-wrenching shriek came from one of the little monsters when he curled his fingers around my leg. I shoved the little boy away just as he was trying to sink his teeth into my legs. Another boy sank his tiny incisors into my shirt and pulled like a rabid dog, though he didn’t manage to tear through the fabric and graze my skin. A little girl in brown curls, dressed in a filthy dress that billowed around her, stared at me and growled. I grabbed the fire extinguisher, pulled the pin at the top, and squeezed the lever, covering the whole horde with a thick coating of white foam. If any got close to me, I sprayed them in the face, and their hissing stopped momentarily when they glanced around, as if disoriented.

My sister and Jackie jumped off the piano and carefully made their way over to me.

“
It worked!” Jackie said, running toward the door.

Val motioned us into the hallway. “This way, guys.”

We ran down a hall and took a turn to the right, trying desperately to outrun the much shorter predators who wanted to make a meal out of us. We were in desperate search of a room with access to the ventilation unit, but we weren’t sure which one to enter.

“
Let’s try this one,” I suggested. I peeked in to make sure it was clear, illuminating every dark, menacing corner with my flashlight. It was a typical classroom, with the wooden desks still in neat rows, a chalkboard in front, and a teacher’s desk. “Math,” I muttered as I noticed a smudged chalk problem on the board and saw the times tables poster on the wall. Best of all, there were shelves that would make for a perfect ladder for us.

“
It looks safe,” Jackie said.

“
C’mon.” I grabbed her hand and rushed in, shutting the door behind us, but I was mortified when I tried to lock it. “No lock!” I yelled, holding it shut. “Now what?”

A choir of gurgling moans echoed outside the door. I had no idea how the sickening student body had managed to track us down so fast; I was sure we’d outrun them, considering our legs were twice as long and that we were alive enough to have some common sense and a whole lot more coordination, yet there they were, clawing at the glass with their little greenish hands that reminded me of some awful leprechaun horror film I’d once seen. Even if they broke the glass in the door, I knew they couldn’t squeeze through, but they were gathering, hoping to get inside, and there was no way to lock it.

“
They can’t open doors,” Jackie said, as if trying to ease our nerves.

“
Lackluster doorknob skills aside, Jackie, they’ll just bust through the hinges like before,” Val said. “We’ve gotta find those ventilation ducts and haul our butts out of this hellementary nightmare.”

Val was right because I’d seen zombies burst through the door I’d personally boarded up back at that country store. I was convinced that once they heard a dinner bell ringing, nothing could stop them, and those zombified kids didn’t seem like they’d have a problem with the cafeteria special of the day—us! I pointed up to the grate on the other side of the room. “There!”

Val pulled out a revolver. “Watch out! I’m gonna shoot it.” As soon as we were out of the way, she pulled the trigger and let off a few shots that caused the grate to drop to the ground with a crashing
thud
.

“
Good shooting,” Jackie said.

“
I’ll go up there,” I said. “Empty the bottle.”

Val nodded. “Hurry!”

Floor-to-ceiling metal shelves lined the wall. I began to climb them, holding on to the rods that held them together. On the smooth surface, someone had arranged large art projects, covered in glue, markers, and glitter. I stepped on one of the rickety bottom shelves and pulled myself up to the next horizontal surface. I placed a foot on the hard surface and, after testing the shelf with my leg, I realized it was strong enough to support my weight. I carefully moved up to the next level and used the shelf as a ladder to help me reach the top. Beneath me, zombies were pounding on the oak door. I just prayed they wouldn’t figure out how to turn the knob and come bursting in there in a feeding frenzy. I wish I could sentence every single one of those zombie brats to detention just long enough for us to get out of there.

Bang
!
Crash
!

Suddenly, a rain of bullets rang out in the room.

“
What’s going on?” I asked.

“
Val’s shooting out the window!” Jackie shouted. “So we can get out of here.”

I glanced through the hole in the grate; it looked ominously dark and cold. I hoped the ventilation area cold hold my weight. As I wiggled through the square opening, my nostrils were suddenly assaulted with the sulfuric stench of musk and urine. The cramped space felt slippery, and there was grime plastered along every surface, as if it had been untouched for years.

A loud
thud
echoed through the air, and I gasped when I looked down and saw a screaming Val and Jackie desperately trying to break through the bullet-riddled glass with the small desk chairs. We were simply out of time. I gasped as zombies burst through the door.

“
Quick! Get up here!” I shouted as zombies oozed into the room, filling every square inch of space. As Val and Jackie clambered up, the relentless juvenile undead shook the metal shelves back and forth, but finally, the girls were close enough for me to help them squeeze through the hole. “Let’s go!” I said.

“
Wait!” Jackie said. “Knock the shelves over!”

I wasn’t sure they could even climb up them, but there was no sense in taking the chance.

Val reached down for only a moment before there was a loud crash. “Mission accomplished!” she said. “Hand me the bottle. Since I’m last in line, I’ll pour it out behind me.”

“
Sounds like a plan!” My voice echoed over the moaning below us, and I passed the bottle back to Jackie, who then passed it to Val.

A few seconds later, the deed was done. “It’s all poured out,” Val said.

Jackie let out a sigh. “Thank God! Now let’s get out of here and find an empty room so we can make it out a window.”

“
Sounds like a plan,” I repeated again, then led the way with Jackie and Val moving along carefully behind me.

A current of cool air blew across my face as we inched along, as if we were caught in a dust storm. I continued forward, crawling on my hands and knees through the narrow aluminum airshaft. As I moved away from my point of entry, everything grew dark.

We crawled around like rodents, trying to find our way out. It was a labyrinth of a ventilation system, and I feared we might be forever lost. We turned left, then right, then left again, and suddenly I heard the distinct hissing of a brain-sucker up ahead. I gasped, unable to believe that thing had found its way up there. Though we couldn’t see it, we could hear it, and it was far too close for comfort. I kicked it with all my might as it snapped at my leather boot. “Zombie!” I yelled back to my troops to warn them. “Go back and turn right!”

“
They’re up here?” Val gasped.

“
Hurry!” I yelled when something grabbed my ankle and pulled. I was so glad I was wearing pants, as the last thing I wanted was for one of those things to take a chunk out of my ankle. With every burst of adrenaline, I kicked again. I knew it was one of the school kids, and that freaked me out even more; never in my life had I been forced to kick a second-grader, even when I was one.

We scrambled and squeezed backward through the ducts as fast as we could. When a
creak
echoed in the air, we didn’t even have time to panic before the ventilation tubing gave way and sent us tumbling to the floor below. Pain shot through my back, and the wind was knocked out of me, but I knew I wasn’t dead because I was able to flutter my eyes open. From my place on the ugly tiled floor, rows upon rows of tables flanked with gaudy orange plastic chairs came into view. I recognized instantly that we’d landed smack dab in the cafeteria.

I jumped to my feet as elementary kids stumbled in our direction surrounding us. We all pulled out our guns, even though we had no desire to kill any of the children. Unfortunately, it was kill or be killed. My eyes teared up at the thought, and I swore then that I had to do something to change what the world had become.

As the zombies approached, I cocked my gun. I was sure I couldn’t take them all on. Just as I was about to shoot, one of the kids fell to the ground, followed by another and then another. One by one, the little ones fell into the same stunned trance I’d seen Val, Jackie, and Claire fall into when I thought I had killed them on the football field. “The cure! It’s… It’s working!” I shouted. “We did it, you guys!”