Infected (Book 1): The First Ten Days (2 page)

This was worse. Students and staff alike attacked anyone and everyone who didn’t also attack others. This happened not only in the hallways but the classrooms too. I lost Zack somewhere in the rush down the stairs. Using the skateboard I held onto tightly in case I needed to use it as a weapon, I pushed people out of the way and manage to increase my momentum. People ran everywhere; some tripped and were attacked immediately when they hit the floor. With all the chaos going on, survival still overcame the odds and helped me notice some students run into a classroom some fifty feet away. I followed them and dashed in the room right before they closed the door. Some of the attackers slammed into the door behind me as it shut. They scratched and banged on the door as if amnesia took over and they forgot how to work a doorknob.

Four guys, including myself, and an additional girl made up the population of the room. One of the guys was heavy set and dressed like an average-Joe while the other two were built for war and dressed like rich pretty boys. The girl on the other hand didn’t have such a mainstream look. She was a rocker chick; long, straight jet-black hair, aqua blue eyes with a moderate amount of eyeliner on, a flannel button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up and blue faded jeans with black and white sneakers. Some bracelets also complimented her look. She was the polar opposite of a valley girl. Everyone in the classroom towered over her, I was the second tallest guy and I stood five feet and eleven inches to her five feet and three inches. I remember having seen her around the school before, although I never paid much attention to her. She was so involved with her friends it didn’t seem like she wanted anyone else to talk to.

I love tiny details; her dimples caught my attention.

The TV in the back of the classroom was on when we arrived there and it was set to a channel airing the current news. One of the guys kept watch over the door while the other two guys and the girl were watching the chaos happening outside through the windows. I moved over to the windows to look outside too and leaned my skateboard against the wall while I looked outside. I couldn’t make out what the anchors on TV were saying because of the volume being set so low but one of the guys staring out of the window heard something that caught his attention.
“Quiet down!” He said immediately after he left the window and walked over to the TV. He pressed a button on the TV, little green bars popped up on the screen and the volume went up.
“The number of infected has risen dramatically. It’s only been a few hours since the first attack and most small towns and business areas are already reported to be completely overrun. The police were given authority to use full lethal force to prevent further attacks, but it seems that the infected are unharmed even with full force applied. Wait! Wait! One of them went down! The police officer shot it and it seems to be down for good… Melvin! Behind you! Watch out!!”

The cameraman was attacked and the video feed cut off. The screen went straight to static. No anchors jumped in to save the broadcast and apologize for the technical difficulties or anything. The screen turned off and the lights inside the classroom flickered. It caught the attention of everyone in the classroom. We all stood there like dumbasses and watched the lights flicker on and off until the power cut off entirely. Through the window in the classroom you could see cars come to a full halt outside, every car, all at once. No one reacted for a brief moment until a large explosion in the distance interrupted our frozen state. BOOM! A smoke cloud rose high over some of the school buildings. It was presumably caused by one of the cars in motion when the power went out.

The first day of my new semester and everything was already crap (for different reasons than I initially expected, but crap nevertheless). I personally blame the government for the lack of educational funding of more teachers and school improvements, but I guess a bunch of psychotic, cannibalistic, lunatics could be blamed for the problems taking place. Having kept that in mind, the sudden realization we were trapped in a classroom with a bunch of infected people right outside the door, who waited to eat us alive, as soon as they could catch us, was making it difficult to take things too easy.

“It’s like a damn apocalypse or some crap! We’re going to die in this class room!” More fear, this time in the form of the guy at the TV. I didn’t know his name, and considering the unfolding events, I felt justified to not have cared. I wasn‘t interested in getting to know anyone in the classroom; I was mostly worried about how I would plan to get home without chunks of me being removed by some of the hungry infected people waiting for us outside. The news anchor didn’t know anything other than the attackers being infected with some sort of virus which turned them into brutally hostile madmen, all of which was more than enough information to know we did not want to be outside.
“The windows! We can use the windows to get out of here!” the heavier set guy said, he was still watching the chaos unfold through the window.

While the classrooms in the higher floors had railing behind the windows to protect people from a fall to their death out of their own stupidity or being thrown out by some violent encounter, the windows on ground level didn’t require this safety measure. This would allow us a safe exit from the school; it wouldn’t force us to go through hallways filled with death and more infected people.
I looked out the window and by comparison if we took our chances on the campus. It would be a walk in the park next to an attempt through the cramped halls of the school.

“He’s right. We can make a run for it if we time our exit. We have a better chance to outrun anyone infected and get off of the campus if we’re in a wide enough area to move freely in. We won’t have that opportunity in the hallways.” I agreed with the guy. Why not go with the safest plan and make our escape while there was still a chance?

“Who made either one of you two losers boss? I’m not going to die because of some stupid plan you idiots came up with. I’m staying right where I am and wait for the police to arrive and handle it. You two and deaf girl over there can go wherever you want, but Max and I are staying alive in this room where we can keep those people out and keep ourselves alive. Thank you very much!” The wise words from the guy at the TV enlightened me as he walked over to Max (AKA the other douche bag) and pulled him away from the window.

I wasn’t aware that the rocker girl was deaf but this didn’t list her under stupid. I just needed a method of communication so she could understand what the proposed plan was, she could then choose whether to join us or stay behind with those two jock-asses.
“She can read lips; she does go to a school for the hearing you know.” The heavyset guy said while I was trying to figure out a way to talk to her, deep in thought.
I’ll never be able to stress enough how this oversight was caused by the pressure of the moment, I wanted to stay alive and all. Otherwise, I would have put two and two together and realized a deaf girl at a normal college might read lips. We’ll go with that.

“Yeah… I guess you’re right. Thanks.” I walked over to the girl and tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention. Her eyes were fixed on the school campus ever since we made it to the classroom, but she broke eye contact with the outside and turned to face me. “We are going to leave through the window and then we’ll run through the clearest path we can find so that we could get off campus. Will you come with us?” I made sure to pronounce every word as carefully as I could to avoid any form of confusion while I got the message across.
She stared at me for a few seconds and nodded.

“Lead the way,” she said with a strange accent in her voice. I’ve heard it before from other deaf people. Because they couldn’t hear the sound of the word they tried to say, they would go off of the lip and tongue movement and add their own sound later based on how they thought it should be said, resulting in a deaf accent.

I smiled at the girl and turned to the big guy. “Alright, let’s get this over with.” The girl was still focused on me. “What’s your name?” I asked her.

Shy of her own voice, she answered my question. “My name is Melissa.” She hid her fear well; everyone else was horrified! I kept composed and together but I was scared out of my mind too.

“Okay, Melissa. You need to stay close to us so we can be safer as a group. As soon as the window is open we’ll get out and make a run for.” I took one final glance at Max and his keeper then turned to face the heavy set guy. “What’s your name? And lead the way.”
“My name is Edgar.” He opened the window and lifted himself over and out of the opening. Melissa followed him outside and I went last and closed the window behind me.

The other side of the window was like a different world, more space in between the infected and the people that chaotically ran to avoid an attack. The school’s parking lot was the area of the campus with the most infected. Everyone that became stuck when all the cars shut off were either still hidden inside their cars or trying to get out of the parking lot through the mess. The street that the parking lot was connected to was overrun as well. Since none of the cars worked it wasn’t practical to steal one, so we ran our way out of the campus to stay alive.

Edgar took off and ran straight ahead while Melissa and I followed close behind. He ran towards Cruise Street, the street connecting the school to the rest of the town. He tired quickly but fear brought out the perfect amount of adrenalin so he wouldn’t even notice his fatigue and pushed through. Some of the infected noticed us when we ran by them and chased us with an extremely slow stride. They eventually became distracted by other people who ran by us and focused on them or would join in on the feast of someone already taken down. Because so many buildings made up the college, to see anything but the part of the street directly in front of us was impossible unless we reached the street, which we did.

Edgar stopped ahead of us and stared in shock. We soon realized the reason for his shock was the sight of the whole street overtaken by the infected as far as our sight allowed us. It went straight into town. Cars were crashed into trees and people; they were everywhere. People screamed and ran all over the place getting attacked.

Melissa tried to get Edgar to snap out of his shocked state, she shook him and spoke to him so we could keep moving and avoid the chance we’d get caught by the infected, but he wouldn’t come back to reality. He zoned out from the intense surreal emotions that overwhelmed him. I tried to get his attention too, I snapped my fingers by his ears and shook him like Melissa did but he wouldn’t respond. Some of the infected were closing in on us, and they were coming from every direction. We couldn’t afford to stay there any longer. My nerves went crazy. They were closing in on us fast and we couldn’t get Edgar back. Melissa and I stared at each and held eye contact. We knew he had to be left behind. We made our distance from Edgar and walked away, down the middle of the street. I glanced back seconds later to Edgar buried under a pile of the infected. We left him for dead.

Springfield: Uptown

I
t’s impossible to know for sure what happened or even why it happened, the only thing we knew for sure is it did happen. Melissa and I headed through open areas of the street; we walked the whole time to avoid wasting any energy we might need if a reason to run came along. The street made the college campus look like a safe haven by comparison over the course of a few minutes. The number of crashed cars on the street was so extensive; it was difficult to safely maneuver on the street. Up ahead, there was a fire and a car pileup in front of a gas station. The closer we made it to the gas station the less infected there were on the street, they were gathered up by the gas station. The fire or sound was attracting them and allowed us to safely get closer and get a look at what was taking place there. After we walked a mile, both Melissa and I realized the infected were harmless if they weren’t aware we were near. This information became most crucial when we were no more than two or three buildings distance from the gas station. We hid behind two cars crashed into each other and looked through the windows at the gas station, hundreds of infected were present. Some walked around with no destination; they just circled the same areas, while others stood in one spot and did nothing, the rest ate dead bodies thrown on the ground and inside of cars. By this point the number of uninfected people became so low we would come across ten to twenty minute gaps of infected only before watching someone else run by or get caught by the infected.

Regardless of the reason all of those infected gathered, we weren’t going to be able to continue straight on the street without the chance we would attract them to us the moment we walked by. We had to head back and make a turn onto another street to keep moving. I faced Melissa, she was still staring at the wreckage ahead, but she must have seen me look her way from the corner of her eye because she turned to face me immediately.
“We have to go back. If we go through here we’ll probably get caught by them and not make it.” While I told her this fear filled her eyes and her expression became the same as Edgar’s when he went into shock. “Are you alright?” I asked when I realized her stare wasn’t on me but rather right pass me to something behind. Movement reflected off of her eyes. I turned around to face whatever it was. One of the infected somehow crept up on us.
Melissa panicked and yelled out without much thought “WATCH OUT!” she said and grabbed my arm to pull me away from the infected man that lunged at me. The infected man hit the ground thanks to her reaction. I toppled over her and onto the ground, we both scrambled to get back up while the infected man dragged himself over to us, he struggled to lift himself up off of the ground. We backed away and looked over the cars to find almost all of the infected in the gas station walking together in our direction. The scream stole their attention. I grabbed Melissa’s hand and walked away from the gas station.