Zombie High (12 page)

When you wake up, you have no idea how much
time has gone by, and you have difficulty remembering
what happened. You know that there were people you
were watching. People on the TV. People who were
looking for someplace to go, but where they were going
and who they were completely escapes you. From
somewhere outside, you think you hear the sound of a
helicopter, but you can’t be sure because everything
sounds like it’s being filtered down, kind of like when you
submerge your head in the bathtub under the water.
That’s when you see Mr. Castle rush into the office. He
takes one look at you and then steps over to the PA
system’s console and flips the switch to ‘off’.

Looking down at you, he says, “I’m sorry. I thought
you’d be safe here until I could get to you, but I knew
when you screamed, they must have gotten to you. We
all heard you go down, and worse was the sound of the
zombie chewing on you. I wish I could have gotten to you
sooner, but a promise is a promise. Remember, I came
back for you.”

To your ears however, none of his words make
sense. You know that he is trying to talk to you, but it’s
like that part of your hearing is just gone, and as you try to
communicate back to him, your voice is gone. All you are
able to do is make a low moaning sound. Confused, you
reach out to him, and that’s when you see your own hand,
covered in your own dark congealing blood, and the
hunger pains in your abdomen start.

Willing to be that guy, the one who survives and
does the unthinkable when the need arises, Mr. Castle
lifts the baseball bat you hadn’t noticed him carrying and
swings.

Deciding that it is better to be safe than sorry, you
continue checking the cameras around the school to make
sure that no other zombies are going to attack Mr. Castle
or the other students. That’s when you see a horrific
scene play out. Up on the second floor, at the other end
of the hall from where Mr. Castle and his group are about
to go up, a zombie stumbles his way into the small school
chapel where Father Michael sits with his rosary in one
hand and a Bible in the other.

Lifting his head, Father Michael notices the ashen
gray face of the student who has just staggered in, and he
shakes his head in sadness at the poor lost soul before
him. Extending his right hand, allowing the rosary to hang
in front of him, Father Michael begins to pray, “God,
whose nature is ever merciful and forgiving, accept our
prayer that this servant of yours, bound by the fetters of
sin, may be pardoned by your loving kindness.” Making
the sign of the cross, his rosary swings in its own rhythmic
and hypnotic way, he continues, “I hereby command the
demon within to depart this child, then, impious one,
depart, accursed one, depart with all your deceits, for God
has willed that man should be His temple.”

Unfortunately, the one thing Father Michael clearly
doesn’t know is that zombies aren’t the work of the devil,
at least not in any spiritual means. They are reanimated
corpses, controlled by a virus and or parasites of one kind
or another, and no prayer or exorcism known on earth or
in heaven can cure them. Unable to do anything to help,
you watch as the zombie lunges forward and bites the
priest’s outstretched hand.

Turning away from the TV, you begin to head back
towards the microphone but stop as you see a zombie
enter the office door. It’s the reanimated corpse of Mr.
Beard, your English teacher from your freshman year.
Unwilling to give it a chance to attack, you grab for the
biggest, heaviest thing you can find, the paper cutter. The
paper cutter is one of the old solid kinds made some time
back in the fifties with a large flat tabletop attached to a
bladed arm. Typically, teachers just lift the arm, slide
whatever paper they have beneath it, and then push the
arm down to cut it. Towards the end of the school year,
however, after dozens of impatient teachers have tried
cutting twenty and thirty sheets at once, the blade tends
to get a bit dull. That’s why this one has a convenient pin
that the maintenance man can pull to detach the arm and
take it to be sharpened. When you try to lift the heavy
device, table and all, you realize that you’ll never be able
to swing it accurately. That’s when you notice the pin.

With only a second to spare, you rip the pin from
its holding and twist, bringing the bladed handle up over
your head like a lumberjack and split the zombified Mr.
Beard’s skull in two. The black blood and decaying brain
matter splatter everywhere, and you can’t help but get hit
by some as well. The good news is that while some of it
did get on your face and clothes, your mouth was closed
at the time.

You take a moment to wipe away some of the
excess gore and then walk over to the microphone and
say, “Mr. Castle, you should be good to go, but be careful.
I just had an unwelcome visitor myself.”

Looking back to the TV, you see the carnage left
over in the school chapel and the zombie in the corner of
the room on all fours dipping his head into something you
would rather not think about. You quickly step over and
change the channel back to the group you said you’d help.
Mr. Castle pokes his head out of the second floor stairwell
carefully and slowly, slicing the pie as a trained military
person would. When the coast is clear, he zips across the
hall to take up a point within the recess of the wall and
then begins to wave students towards him and directs
them to take up positions nearby.

Flipping back to the first floor, you watch as the
number of students remaining diminishes. Things are
looking up, and you are beginning to believe that you
might just make it out of there alive. That’s when you see
the door to one of the classrooms begin to open. At first
you hold out hope that the teacher in there might have
just left a window open and a breeze caused it to move,
but then you see the gray flesh and poor gross motor
functions of the person/thing coming out. If the screen
were a little blurry, you might be able to fool yourself into
thinking Bartnicki, one of the school’s tennis players, was
just having a bad hair day after waking up late, but on this
screen, there is no denying the fact that he’s infected, and
he intends to take a bite out of the group’s last member.

Reaching for the microphone, you press the button
and call out, “Tanner, behind you!”
On the screen, Nick Tanner commits his last
mistake as he looks up to the speakers in the ceiling
before he turns around to defend himself. When he does
finally spin around, it’s too late for him to run, and you
notice he’s one of the few who didn’t find anything useful
to use as a weapon. Without any other option, Tanner
slugs the zombie with a hard right, and you can just make
out teeth as they go flying before the zombie falls. That’s
when two more come out of the same classroom moving
faster than Bartnicki did. As Tanner prepares himself for
what maybe his last stand, the zombies close in, and a
second later they slam into him. Tanner struggles with
the two of them, and you watch as they gouge their
fingernails into his skin, and their teeth rake into his
exposed forearms.
Squirming on the bottom of the pile, Tanner tries
to find leverage to kick them off, but that’s when the first
one, Bartnicki, bites into his calf with the few teeth he has
remaining, and Tanner yells, “No! Not like this!” The
brain dead zombies, however, don’t care about his words
and show no sign of stopping as they continue feasting on
his arms and legs even despite his thrashing about.
They’re all too busy enjoying their fresh meal.
From the stairwell door, Mr. Castle and two other
students come bounding out, each one with a weapon
raised, and in a matter of two seconds, the three zombies
that were on poor Tanner are all lying on the floor with
their heads caved in. Mr. Castle looks Tanner over, and
you know he sees what you do. The zombies got him, and
he’s going to turn.
Talking to the other two students, Mr. Castle says
something in a low whisper you can’t make out, but it
seems like the other students agree as they both nod
before heading back to the stairs to stand ready. Next,
Mr. Castle lifts up Tanner and takes him into the closest
room, out of view of the cameras. He only stays in there
for just under a minute, but when he comes out, he
comes out alone and closes the door behind him, letting
his hand rest against the frame for an extra few seconds
before he returns to the stairs.
Flipping the channel, you watch as Mr. Castle and
the other two students walk out of the stairwell, and with
the coast clear, they all proceed quickly towards the closet
he mentioned. It doesn’t take long, and once he’s there,
he pulls on the Marvel lanyard hanging from his back
pocket and uses his school keys to unlock the door.
You flip through a couple nearby channels, but you
don’t see any more zombies, and you can’t find an angle
that lets you see into the closet. The only thing you do
notice is that after a minute or so, there is more light
coming out than a light bulb would be able to produce,
and everyone is somehow able to file into the tiny room.
Clearly, they were able to open the roof access and
climbed up, otherwise, they would never have all fit in
there.
Once everyone is in, Mr. Castle pokes his head back
out, makes sure the coast is clear, and then closes the
door before he begins to run back down the hall carrying
what looks like a broomstick. You try to track him as
makes his way back to the stairs and then turns and heads
up towards the office where you are, but the channels on
the TV aren’t all in a row like that, and you find that he is
just slipping out of view on some screens by the time you
get there.
When he arrives, he looks at the floor where the
dead zombie lies and then up to you, and asks, “You ready
to get out of here?”

“Almost,” you begin. “But I want you to tell me
what you did to Tanner back there.”
Shaking his head, Mr. Castle says, “No, you don’t.”
Folding your arms in front of you defiantly, you say,
“If you want me to come with you, you have to tell me
what you did.”
Looking at you now, you see some anger in his
eyes, as he says, “Look, kid. I came back for you because I
promised you I would in exchange for you helping me get
everyone to safety. If you don’t want to come with me,
then that’s up to you. I upheld my end of the bargain.”
Latching on to that one phrase, you respond with
your own anger saying, “That’s right. You were supposed
to get everyone to safety, and you didn’t. So tell me what
you did to Tanner.”
Raising his hands, Mr. Castle says, ‘WHAT DO YOU
WANT TO HEAR? You obviously know that I don’t have
the cure to this infection, so what it really comes down to
is two options. Either I took him in there and left him
locked up to change into one of those things out there, or
I did what I had to do to ensure that he wouldn’t change.
Is either of those answers something you really want to
know the details on?”
Your breath catches in your throat for a second
before you can respond, and you realize that he’s right.
You don’t really want the answer. The man did what
needed to be done at the time, just like he probably did
back when he was in the military. For years, kids had
asked him what his job was, and if he had ever killed
anyone, and no matter what, the only answer he ever
gave was, “I did my job.” Now, in this time, in this war
against death, this struggle against the apocalypse, you
realize you don’t need to know how. What you need is
someone who is willing to do just that, get the job done.
Looking down, you shake your head and say, “No.”
Letting the anger out of his voice, Mr. Castle says,
“I’m sorry if he was a friend of yours.”
“It’s not that. I didn’t even know him that well. It’s
just that he was, I don’t know, a good guy, and he didn’t
deserve that to happen to him. I mean, one minute he’s
there and the next, they were on him.”
Nodding, Mr. Castle says, “Sometimes it’s like that,
but the ones who make it are the ones who are willing to
go on.” Then after a beat, he asks, “Are you ready?”

Answering him, you say “Just one second, Mr.
Castle,” and then turn back to the TV and flip through a
half dozen channels to make sure the coast is clear.
Seeing nothing on the screens, you say, “Okay, I think
we’re clear.”

“Great, follow me, keep up, and if we find a
zombie, don’t be a hero.”
Doing as you’re told, you follow Mr. Castle out of
the office and up the hall. When he reaches the stairs,
you are right on his heels, and the two of you ascend
together. When you get to the top, Mr. Castle scopes out
the hallway just like he did before and then turns back to
you to say something. He pauses for just a second as he
looks at you, and you feel like you must have something
on your face like you did that one time right after lunch.
Whatever it is, he seems to dismiss it and says in a low
whisper, “I think someone or something is in the art room
across the hall. If they’re alive and not injured, we’ll bring
them with us. If not, we’ll try to avoid them.”
Nodding once, you watch as he slips across the hall,
and then when he gives you the all clear, you follow him
to the door which stands ajar. As Mr. Castle eases the
door open, you catch a glimpse of Mr. Mike, the new art
teacher with the ponytail, standing at an easel in the front
of the room. Cautiously, Mr. Castle steps in, still
remaining in a crouch, and tries to assess the situation.
From over his shoulder, you do the same, but aside from
Mr. Mike, you don’t see anyone, and Mr. Mike has his
back towards you so you can’t tell if he is infected or not.
Mr. Castle gives you two hand gestures which you
recognize. You are to go around to the right while he goes
around to the left. If Mr. Mike does turn out to be a
zombie, then with its focus split between two directions, it
should be slower to decide on a target and react.
Understanding, you silently nod, and then begin heading
to the right.
As you come around the side of the room, you
begin to see what Mr. Mike is doing. Using blood red, and
a dark black, it appears as if he is painting something. It
takes you several more steps before you notice that he’s
not using a brush, and that his finger painting project now
just appears to be a series of streaks from where he has
been pawing at the canvas. Even on his worse day, he
would never consider this to be art, and as you come
even, your suspicions are confirmed. Mr. Mike is one of
them.
Across the room from you, Mr. Castle gets into
position, and it’s obvious from the look on his face that
he’s seen the same things you have. Still using hand
gestures, Mr. Castle tries to tell you to back away slowly
and head back for the door. Clearly, he doesn’t want to
get into another fight with an infected person if he came
avoid it, but just as you turn to leave, your hip bumps into
a desk causing a loud scraping noise.
Hearing the sound, Mr. Mike immediately looks up,
and upon spotting you, begins to advance. Staggering like
other zombies or not, Mr. Mike’s long legs give him the
advantage, and he is almost on you by the time Mr. Castle
rushes in. It may be your imagination or perhaps your
brain is playing tricks on you, but in the last half second,
the one when Mr. Mike should have attempted to lean in
so he could bite you, his eyes seemed to go blank, as if he
lost his focus or forgot what he was about to do. That’s,
however, as much as you think you saw, because Mr.
Castle attacked.
Leaning down, Mr. Castle grabs Mr. Mike’s legs out
from under him and lifts. Off balance at first, and unable
to see past the zombie’s flailing form, Mr. Castle continues
to push forward until he runs into the extra-large Skutt
ceramic kiln in the corner. Hitting the machine, Mr. Mike
topples forward into its empty interior, and Mr. Castle
quickly tries to slam down the lid. The lid, however, fails
to close as one of Mr. Mike’s long legs hangs out, and
there is an audible crack which can be heard as the bones
in the leg snap under the force of the closing lid.
Pissed and in a hurry, Mr. Castle raises the lid once
more and shoves the broken leg down into the kiln. As he
does so, Mr. Mike’s moans never seem to change. He
doesn’t react when he’s shoved head first into the kiln.
He doesn’t react when his leg is broken. He just keeps
making the pitiful moans of desperate hunger which are
only muffled when Mr. Castle finally gets the lid closed.
As if to put emphasis on it all, Mr. Castle twists the dial to
its hottest setting and flips the on switch before he says,
“Come on, this place is about to get way too hot. We’ve
got to go.”
Following Mr. Castle, the two of you head back out
into the hall and quickly run down the hall to the closet.
When you get there, you stand as lookout while Mr.
Castle pulls out the keys and gets the door open. At the
far end of the hall, you spot a few zombies stumbling out
of one of the rooms with wet thick blood and tissue
dripping down the front of their shirts. Apparently, they
must have just finished off their latest victim and realized
that their next buffet, you and Mr. Castle, are about to get
away.
As he opens the door to go, Mr. Castle says, “Come
on. Get inside now,” and you snap back to reality.
Inside, you find all sorts of cleaning supplies, a sink
with a large metal basin, and a couple of mops and
brooms, one of which has a missing handle. As Mr. Castle
steps in behind you and closes the door, you notice the
ladder affixed to the wall leading up to a hatch in the
ceiling. Without waiting to be told, you begin to climb.
At the top, you have to bang on the hatch in a
specific and familiar rhythm Mr. Castle called a “Shave
and a Haircut” when he showed you. When you do, there
are two knocks back, just like he said there would be
which was to indicate that things were all clear, and then
the hatch opens. Up top, two of the students from his
group, a guy named Mark and a girl named Sam, help you
through the hatch and onto the roof where you find Mrs.
Gail sitting on a metal folding chair smoking a cigarette.
You have no idea how she made it up here, nor how the
chair got here, but you’re pleased to see that she made it.
As Mr. Castle comes up through the hatch, you
stand up and see a horde of zombies on the ground
beneath you. They are on the lawn of the school and
staggering up the street. It’s almost as if they can smell
the fact that your group is the only one still alive in all of
this. Clearly, anyone who was on foot never stood a
chance out there.
After about thirty minutes, most of the students sit
on the roof, either crying or in shock at what they were
just realizing was now the new world they lived in. Mr.
Castle’s cell phone chirps. When he answers, you only
catch his side of the conversation, but he says, “Yes, Sir.
That’s right, I have twenty-nine, and I make thirty. Yes,
Sir, we are in a secure location, but the area around us is
teeming with the infected. Yes, Sir. We’ll be on the
lookout.”
When the call is over, he looks into our faces and
says, “Help is on the way, but we’re going to need to stay
together and find cover.” A few minutes later, while the
group is ducking down near the school ventilation unit, an
Apache helicopter begins its assault. At first, the
helicopter is so high up, you can’t hear its engines. In fact,
you aren’t even able to hear its guns as it begins to cycle
through the ammunition, but you hear the sound of the
impacts. All around the school, along the street and
parking lot, the area is transformed into a furious storm of
hellfire as eighteen hundred rounds per minute of twentyfive millimeter explosive rounds pummeled the ground
tearing through zombies, vehicles, and pavement. If these
things had been people, they would have taken cover.
They would have demonstrated some sign of selfpreservation and sought shelter. These were zombies mindless, flesh eaters from hell who wanted nothing else
but their next meal. They didn’t know what was
happening. They only knew that you were the closest
food source, and the disease or virus or whatever it was
that reanimated them and turned them into this, drove
them towards you, despite all obstacles.
When it stops, another helicopter swoops in, a
larger troop carrier sized kind you don’t recognize and
sets down to land. You are just as eager as everyone else
to get aboard, but you can’t help but walk over towards
the edge to get a look at the devastation which was just
brought down around the school. Nothing looks the
same. It’s almost like one of those news reports you saw
in history class about the Iraq war when Mrs. Barb talked
about the role of the government. Stepping up next to
you, Mr. Castle stops just off to your right side.
Turning to look at him, you ask, “Will it ever be the
same?”
“No, not for you.” Confused, you begin to ask what
he means and notice him taking a picture of you. That’s
when he says, “Take a look,” and holds out his cell phone.
Looking down, you see what he’s talking about. A
thin pale film seems to have covered your eyes, and all
around them, there are black colored veins beneath the
skin. That’s when you realize, the zombie in the office,
the one that you killed with the paper cutter handle, you
got its infected blood and brains all over your face.
Somehow, it must have gotten into your eyes, and it must
have been slowly changing you ever since.
Taking his phone back, Mr. Castle says, “I’m sorry,”
but you barely register his words as his booted foot plants
itself into your chest, kicking you off the roof Spartan style
to the ground over two stories below where your head
cracks open on impact.