Zombie High (26 page)

You’ve seen too many movies and TV shows over
the years, and a look like this always means someone is
going to get hurt. It’s the same look that the Chance
character is described as having in those Allons-y
adventure books you read or that Michael Talbot gets
before he rushes in with some halfcocked idea in the
Zombie Fallout series. It’s the look of crazy right before
someone gets stupid. In the books, it usually marks a
turning point and pays off, but right now with zombies
everywhere, you’re not willing to wait and watch as things
play themselves out.

Instead, you turn and head for the door,
sidestepping the giant football player who is busy bending
down to pick up one of the oversized pieces of cookware
Trevor knocked down. You’re at least ten feet into the
dining room before you hear the big guy question where
you went.

Heading for the only exit, you make a beeline for
the wall and begin to climb. From somewhere behind
you, you distantly hear one of the guys from the kitchen
yell out, “No, don’t do it,” but it’s too late, you’re already
at the top and poking your head through to the other side.
There to greet you are faces and outstretched hands of
the undead, each one with their mouth agape as if
begging for you to feed them.

Seeing this, you try to scramble backwards, but
your shirt gets caught on an upturned table leg, and it
scratches your skin. There is no telling whether it’s the
scent of blood or just the simple fact that you’re the only
thing visible that’s still alive and moving, but the entire
horde of zombies seems to simultaneously turn and focus
its attention on you with the closest of them already
reaching out to pull you into their embrace.

Frantically, you tear your shirt and try to retreat,
but it’s too late. One of the zombies assumes a vice-like
death grip on your wrist and pulls. Trying not to be taken
down into their hellish mass, you hook your foot into the
furniture and try to pull your wrist free, but all this does is
bring the wall down with you, destroying whatever
defensive capabilities the group in the kitchen might have
had.

Some of the zombies, the closest ones to you, seem
to be momentarily satisfied with using you as a sacrificial
offering to Limos, the god of hunger and starvation. The
rest of the horde, however, knew that you would not be
enough.

As the first zombies’ teeth begin to tear their way
through the muscle and tissues which were once your
arm, you feel the excruciating pain of your nerves set on
fire by the virus which begins to immediately race through
your veins. You hear the screams and prayers of those
behind you which you helped to die by your selfish act,
and their deaths weigh heavily upon your soul in those
final moments of life.

Shrugging your shoulders, you figure whatever his
plan is, it has to be better than yours, because you’ve got
about diddlysquat right now and a horde of flesh eating
zombies ready to charge their way in here to eat you.
Looking to Andrew you say, “Give me a pan.”

Picking one up, the big football player closest to
you hands over a large black cast iron thing you could
probably cook an omelet in that would satisfy Andre the
Giant and asks, “You think you can swing this one?”

Feeling its bulk, you answer, “Not very well, but it
will do.” Then looking to Andrew, you ask, “How much
time do you need?”

“Just a couple of minutes, then I want you to fall
back and lead them up to the serving window here. That’s
where we’ll make our last stand,” says Andrew.

“Couldn’t you have used a different phrase? Last
stand sounds a little too final for me. I mean when did
you ever hear of someone’s last stand ending positively?
The Alamo, General Custer, Dan Turpin.”

“Dan who?” asks Andrew.
“In the best episode of Superman: The Animated
Series ever made, Detective Dan Turpin tells this alien
dictator guy, Darkseid to get off the planet. This is after
Superman has already been enslaved, and Turpin is
hopelessly outnumbered. Anyway, humanity is saved at
the last minute by the New Gods, but Turpin pays the
price for his boisterousness when Darkseid literally
destroys the man. My point is, last stands never turn out
well for those trying to defend themselves.”
“Sure they do,” argues Trevor. “The Gandalf dude
in Lord of the Rings when he wouldn’t let the fire demon
cross the bridge. He stopped the guy by collapsing the
bridge and letting him fall.”
Correcting him, you ask, “And what happened
next?”
“I don’t remember.”
“The demon grabbed Gandalf with his whip and
dragged him down, too. Look, I’m just saying, call it
something else.”
From out in the dining room, a clattering noise can
be heard, and you know that the wall of furniture is
beginning to fall. Hearing this, Andrew says, “Whatever,
just get out there and buy me a couple of minutes and
take down as many of those things as you can.”
Nodding, you turn and head out the door with the
rest of the group, curious about his plan, but knowing that
for whatever it is to work, you need to be focused for the
next bit.
The two big guys who were on guard duty stand on
your right while Trevor and Cable stand on your left, and
no matter what you wish this was called, it feels very
much like a last stand. Waving your hands to each side,
you tell everyone to spread out so that they don’t
accidentally hit one another with their Martha Stewart
makeshift weaponry. Just as Trevor takes two steps to the
side, the rest of the wall collapses, and you find yourself
staring into the soulless hungry eyes of the corpses
beyond.
There is no organized attack, and they don’t try to
evade anything as they approach. They simply overwhelm
whatever is in their way with their mass and numbers.
Each of you continue swinging away, but nothing stops
them. It seems that for every one of them you put down,
two more spring up behind it like a twistedly sick game of
Whack-o-Mole.
In the kitchen, you find out later that Andrew is
pushing the giant stove oven from the wall. While the
thing is on wheels, they are wheels which haven’t been
moved in decades and have who- knows-what caked up
around them on the ground. It takes every bit of his
strength to get the behemoths out of the way so that he
can get to his prize and set his plan in motion.
With the zombies continuing to pour in, you and
the group are forced to take a step back with almost every
swing just so that you won’t be trampled and eaten. At
some point, Trevor and the big guy who was at the other
end get peeled off from your line and go down in the
maelstrom which is the zombie horde. You are sad to see
them go, but with the onslaught continuing, you have no
time to mourn them. Interestingly enough, you actually
find yourself a little thankful at one point when you realize
that the zombies pressing in from each side ease up a bit,
but then you realize it’s only because those immediately
around the fallen have dropped to the ground to fight and
tear at their flesh like rabid coyotes savaging a carcass.
You make a mental note to chastise yourself later for that
inconsiderate thought as well as the one that says you
should push someone else down if the zombies get any
closer.
From behind you, Andrew screams over the sound
of the fighting, “Get down!”
Obeying, you drop to the ground and roll
backwards trying to get out of the way of whatever
insanity he came up with while also attempting to make
your way towards the kitchen door. When you’re out of
the way, you risk poking your head up and regret not
asking him more about his plan earlier.
Standing at the serving line window, Andrew holds
in one hand a long flexible metal tube which runs back
down towards the wall behind the ovens and in his other
hand is a lighter. The area in front of the tube, including
his hand and the lighter, look a bit blurry as the air in front
of it distorts the light waves, and you realize it’s the gas
line. You attempt to scream, “No!,” but it’s already too
late. Andrew’s thumb has already begun to roll the
sparker across the lighter’s flint.
The stream of natural gas fumes ignites in a huge
ball of flames and shoots out in a blinding ball of fire
burning through the closest zombies, destroying their
clothes, skin, and muscle almost instantly. At the same
time, Andrew’s eyes light up with what can only be
described as madness as he yells, “Suck on this you
disgusting zombies!”
Seeing the closest zombies fall, you begin to believe
that Andrew’s plan might actually work. Then the rest of
reality comes crashing in, and the difference between
Hollywood and the real world makes itself startlingly
clear. The fire which ignited the gas and took out the
initial wave of zombies crawls back along the invisible line
to the gas line in Andrew’s hand and quickly down the
tube. There is no time to react, no moment where you
might be able to save him, the fire is too quick for that.
One minute he’s standing there proud as can be that he is
defeating the undead creatures. The next, the entire
kitchen seems to be engulfed in flames as the gas line
bursts.
Andrew’s death is quick, as are the zombies
immediately around him, but yours, yours is not. The
fireball which consumed the kitchen and everything near
the window isn’t enough to kill you. Instead, it simply
melts your clothes and flesh into one mass, and second,
third, and fourth degree burns now cover over eighty
percent of your body. You are just able to put out the last
of the fire which licks across your destroyed flesh, not by
any conscious decision but rather just by the violent
thrashing you’ve been doing for the past thirty seconds as
the pain racks your body. That’s when the first zombie
comes up on your left side.
If you had any sanity left, you might say a prayer or
ask God to watch over your family, but instead the only
thing that passes through your burnt lips is directed at the
crispy zombie who is kneeling down next to you. “Well, at
least you got yourself a warm meal,” you say, and then
you laugh the laugh of those gone completely insane as
the creature begins to dig into what’s left of your leg.

You consider your options and figure besides the
fact that the food in the kitchen probably hasn’t been
cooked yet, and the cafeteria really only has one good
way in or out and you don’t want to be trapped if a
zombie comes in, you decide to head for the vending
machines. On top of all of that, a bag of bar-b-que
flavored Fritos sounds way too good to pass up right
about now. The only thing better would be a package of
Oreos, but those darn things seem to sell out five minutes
after the dude restocks the machine.

The quickest way you know to get to the vending
machines from here is to get back downstairs and head
around to the back. There are, however, two staircases,
and the one further along the hall will put you closer to
your goal. With that in mind, you head back up the hall
you just came down as quickly and quietly as possible.
Along the way, you hear the soft pitiful cries of someone
crying, but when you move to check the door and find it
locked, you hear the hungry moan of death and the crying
replaced by shrieks of pain. With no way in, you move on
as quickly as possible, hoping the thing inside will be
satisfied with its meal or at least trapped long enough that
it won’t be able to delay your progress.

Just as you reach the stairs near your previous
class, you notice a door begin to swing open across from
Miss Millstone’s room. Not knowing who or what could
have pushed the door, you silently slip into the stairwell
and wait. After twenty seconds, you are tempted to poke
your head out to find out more, but that’s when the smell
of the creatures assaults your nose, and you realize there
is no way anything came out of there alive.

Careful not to run so fast as to attract attention by
making noise or slip and fall to injure yourself, you make
your way down the stairs to the first floor. Once there,
you poke your head around the corner and survey the
situation. The hallway leading around to the back of the
school seems too vacant, but just as you are about to go
for it, you hear a yell. From where you are, you can’t see
who it is, nor can you tell by the sound of the voice, other
than the fact that it sounded female. The direction the
yell came from was definitely from the athletic wing of the
school. Whoever is down there, you hope they are taking
as many of these creatures down as they can.
Unfortunately, you also know that the yell itself, whether
intended as a war cry or not, will only serve to attract
more of the walking dead to that location. Your best bet
is to go now before the creatures start heading in that
direction.

With one more quick look around the corner, you
break out into a run and head for the back of the school.
Along the way you notice several lockers hang open, but
there don’t seem to be any zombies waiting to ambush
you from inside them and right now that’s all you’re
worried about. When you get to the end of the hall, you
stop at the corner just long enough to peek around the
corner and then continue towards your objective.

At the end of the hall sit two large vending
machines. One has a display window showing all the
goodies inside, and the other, being a drink machine, has
its familiar soda logo all lit up. Approaching the machines,
you notice that there is a fresh covering of nearly dried
liquid across the front face of both machines, and you
recognize the disgusting spray of dark red for the only
thing that it can be, blood.

Digging into your pockets, you come up with two
balls of lint and the five quarters your mother had left out
on the table this morning for you to get a drink. The five
quarters are only enough to get one soda or a bag of chips
or something. Looking in the display case you can see that
there is much more in there, and all of it would help you
and the people in the teachers’ lounge make it through a
day or two, if need be, till help arrives. The top shelf has
several varieties of chips. This is something you have
never understood because if they’re at the top that means
they have the furthest to fall and consequently you end
up with the most broken chips. If it were up to you, you
would put the packs of gum, which are on the lowest
level, at the top. They, at least, can’t break. In the
middle, there are cookies, Little Debbie cakes, and Sour
Patch Kids. Then, right in the center, is the one thing no
one in the school ever had the courage to try. It was
supposed to be part of some government initiative five or
ten years ago to bring healthier food options into schools,
but no one bought it, and as far as you know, they have
sat there ever since. There were bets, and double dog
dares amongst the students to buy one and eat it, but to
your knowledge no one ever had. Thinking about it,
maybe someone did, and that’s how the whole zombie
apocalypse started. Someone paid money to peel open
the ancient dust covered wrapper and eat the broccoli
Pop Tart with the spinach flavored frosting.