Zombie High (14 page)

If you choose the sheep brains, turn to page …………..
168
Want to electrocute the zombies, turn to page ……….. 171
If you choose the chemicals, turn to page ……………….. 192

Grabbing up the plastic bag with the sheep brains,
you say, “Well, a lot of the zombie movies, books, and TV
shows used to always depict them going after brains, so I
think these should be the first thing we try.”

“All right, let’s see if they go for them.” Stepping
over to the door leading back to the hall, he adds, “You
might want to go out this way. I think that last one that
was following you is probably still at the other door.”

“Good idea,” you say as you slip your hands into a
pair of latex gloves you found on a nearby shelf.
Stepping up to the door, you hold the bag in your
left hand and reach in with the right to grab the first of
the brains. Feeling the brain, even through the latex
glove, you can’t help but notice the bumpy texture of its
surface and the slimy coating it has from whatever
substance it used to be stored in. It both disgusts you as
well as fascinates you, kind of like the first time you get to
touch a snake.
When you’re ready, you say, “Okay, here goes
nothing.”
With that, Mr. Ray begins to open the door to let
you out, but as you move to exit, you find your path
blocked by the same zombie who had chased you just a
little bit ago. For whatever reason, it had followed you
from the last room and seems now to have been waiting
for you to come out. Backing up, your mind freezes for a
second before you remember that you’re holding one of
the plans Mr. Ray came up with, quite literally, in the palm
of your hands.
Pulling out the softball sized sheep brain, you lift it
over your head, ignoring the stench of whatever fluid
drips on you in the process, and throw it at the zombie.
From as close as you are, it would have been impossible
for you to have missed, and the brain smacks directly into
the zombie’s face. As the brain bounces off and falls to
the floor, you realize that the zombie could care less
about the offering. Turning, you try to head back towards
the other items Mr. Ray had out, even as the zombie’s
foot comes down on the sheep brains and squishes them
into something far less recognizable.
You make it back to the workspace and reach for
the chemical mixture, but even as you do so, you feel the
thing’s cold dead hands grab your shirt and pull you
backwards. Your outstretched hand just barely tips the
edge of the flask but doesn’t extend far enough to actually
pick it up before the zombie’s teeth bite down into your
neck. Screaming in pain, you fall to the floor, trying to pry
the zombie off when you hear Mr. Ray say, “Hey, you got
him. How about you try to get me now?”
Looking up towards Mr. Ray, the zombie moans as
if it can’t decide whether it wants to drop you or not.
That’s when Mr. Ray pulls back a sheet and lifts up a large
contraption. Your eyes are already beginning to go blurry,
but from what you can see, it looks almost like a gun. Mr.
Ray loads some sort of slimy pellet in the thing, takes aim,
and fires directly into the zombie’s still open and wailing
mouth. When the pellet hits the back of his mouth, a
small explosion of fire erupts from inside the thing’s
mouth and quickly burns through the back of its head,
killing it for good.
Setting the weapon down, Mr. Ray rushes over to
you to assess your injury. After a moment, he convinces
you to let up on the wound you’ve been clutching only to
say, “I’m sorry. I should have had that ready before we
opened the door.”
Still in pain, you can’t help but ask, “Wh…what was
that?”
Looking back to the fourth workspace where he
picked it up from, he says, “It’s a rail gun. It doesn’t work
like a normal gun. It uses electromagnetism to propel the
pellet of sodium out. It doesn’t have a very effective
range, and it has to hit somewhere that’s wet to react, but
with the thing’s mouth open like that, I figured it would
work.”
Moving to your next to last concern, you ask,
“What’s going to happen to me now?”
With a grimace, Mr. Ray confesses, “You’re going to
lose a lot of blood, and then the parasite will take over.
When that happens I’ll have to either send you out in the
hall or take care of you here.”
“Just do it here,” you say, already imagining what it
would taste like to bite into another person.

Letting your hand come down on the handle of the
cart, you say, “Let’s fry these suckas,” a little too
enthusiastically. When Mr. Ray looks at you, you say, “I
heard it in a movie somewhere. I guess it doesn’t sound
as cool in real life.”

Shaking his head, Mr. Ray says, “Most things in
movies don’t. We don’t have special effects or retakes.”
Secretly thinking that the phrase ‘
Let’s light these
suckas up!’
would have been better, you let Mr. Ray’s
comment go unchallenged and instead ask, “So, what
exactly do I need to do to use this?”
Seeing the cart, Mr. Ray says, “Like I said, the six
car batteries from the physics class were run together
through a circuit, and all the juice comes to this metal rod
here in the front. All you need to do is run into a zombie,
and nature will do the rest, allowing the electricity to
course through its body and destroy it.”
Looking at the metal rod and then back to Mr. Ray
you hesitantly ask, “Does that mean I have to impale them
on that thing?”
Shaking his head, Mr. Ray says, “No, it just needs to
make contact for a little while. Impaling them would
actually be a bad thing because when they get
electrocuted, it’s likely that their muscles are going to
spasm.”
“Even though they’re dead?” you ask.
Nodding, he says, “Yup. Remember it was
electricity that animated Frankenstein.” Seeing the look
on your face, he adds, “Good thing that story was only
fiction.”
Smiling weakly as all the horror movie monsters are
now cropping up in your head, you agree, “Yeah, fiction,”
neither of you bothering to mention that up until a few
hours ago, zombies fell under that category, too.
Addressing the cart once again, Mr. Ray says, “I’m
not sure how many zaps you have on this, but as long as
you stay on this side of the cart and keep it between you
and the zombies, you should be able to get around the
first floor.”
“Great, I just need to get some food and stuff, and
I’ll be back. Then we can all head upstairs.”
Walking you over to the door, he says, “Sounds
good, I have a couple more ideas I would like to try out
before we go. Maybe I can rig up another weapon for us
so we won’t be too exposed when we go.” When he gets
there, he looks to you and then to the cart and asks, “You
ready?”
Psyching yourself up mentally, you say, “Yeah, let’s
do this,” and Mr. Ray opens the door.
There to greet you is the zombie that chased you
down the hall to Mr. Ray’s classroom door. The thought
strikes you that this thing is dead set to get you, but you
shove it aside and push the cart forward. As the metal rod
touches the zombie, it seems to freeze up for a second
before violently jerking back to fall on the floor. You
watch in morbid fascination as a little trail of smoke
comes from the zombie’s shirt where the metal rod
touched it, and the air smells like a sickly sweet barbecue.
Looking to Mr. Ray, you say, “I think we found something
that works.”
“Excellent,” says Mr. Ray. “You go get the food and
stuff, and I’ll try to be ready by the time you get back.”
Pushing your cart out into the hall, you look both
ways before turning and heading for the cafeteria. The
cart you are pushing has the six car batteries on it, but
there is still some room for you to hold a bit more stuff.
You figure there is no point in trying to bring back any
pizza since it will probably be frozen anyway. Your best
bets, as you see it, are going to be the non perishables
and perhaps the fruit. Somewhere in the back of your
mind, you remember a history teacher telling you
something about scurvy and how the people sailing over
to the new world had caught it somehow because they
didn’t have any fruit or something.
At the end of the hall, you turn left and make it
almost halfway to the cafeteria when you notice a
growing mob just inside. At first you can’t tell what is
going on, but then you catch sight of a few of the people
walking about and notice how they keep running into the
makeshift barricade made out of furniture, and you realize
that they are all infected. Without getting any closer, you
realize that there must be at least fifty or more of them in
there. You know Mr. Ray’s battery cart has enough juice
in it to take down a zombie, and he said it should last you
long enough to get some food and back, but he probably
didn’t intend on you taking on an entire horde of them.

Figuring that Mr. Ray said one battery could take
down a few zombies, then six should be able to take down
at least six times as many, at least that’s how the math of
it should work out. So, with this thought in mind you
decide to carefully advance up to the cafeteria’s entrance.
The zombies obviously know that there is something or
someone on the other side of the makeshift barricade,
because they keep running into it and moaning their awful
wails of frustration and hunger when the structure
doesn’t fall. That’s when one of the zombies turns and
notices you.

Angling the cart just a little more to the left, you
wait for him to approach so that you can stay safely back
from the group. As he approaches, he shoulders another
zombie, and it turns to notice you as well. The two
zombies advance on you, their mouths open ready for the
bite of your flesh that will hopefully quench their
insatiable hunger, and you find that you are already
adjusting your cart again, this time a little to the right, to
ensure that the rod makes contact with both of them.

In the last second before they lean forward, you
push the cart out as far as your arms will reach. The rod
makes contact with both of the creatures almost
simultaneously, and you are pleased to watch as they
both react much like the one at Mr. Ray’s door.

Whether it’s the sound of their brethren falling or
the smell of cooked flesh, the ten closest zombies all turn
and look at you as if you are the last piece of cake at a
birthday party they all showed up late to. A little freaked,
you try to retreat, only to find one of the zombies who
just fell somehow got his arm under your cart, and it’s
stuck behind your wheel. You yank on it a few times, but
the heavy cart with its tiny wheels doesn’t want to roll
over the obstacle. Looking back up, you see the original
ten are now being joined by several more. Clearly the
little commotion you’ve caused hasn’t gone unnoticed.

In a desperate move, you yank hard on the cart
putting everything you’ve got into it and feel it rise up
over the zombie’s appendage. Then, almost as if it were
in slow motion, you watch as the cart pulls away from
your grip and tips sideways, spilling the batteries out onto
the floor in a jumbled heap with most of the wires
becoming detached in the process.

You have no time to pick things up and even if you
did, you’re not sure how they all go back in and are
supposed to be connected together. Giving up on the
entire cart, you leave it there and turn to run. That’s
when you notice the two zombies who actually were late
to the party, Justin and Lindsay.

In your haste to retreat, you end up running
directly into them, and they welcome you with open arms
and open mouths. By the time you realize your mistake,
your face is already buried in the fabric of her shirt while
he bends down to bite into your neck. The other zombies
don’t seem to mind that they weren’t the first ones to eat,
and they all lean down, following you to the floor, to
begin tearing into you.

Looking at the size of the horde in the cafeteria,
you honestly wouldn’t want to go in there if they were
just people, but that fact that they are all flesh eating
zombies has you already backing up your cart and heading
away. The cafeteria isn’t the only place where you can get
food.

Turning left at the next hall, you begin to make
your way up the front hall, intent on circling around the
cafeteria to where the vending machines are. Usually
there are plenty of snack items in there from chips and
gum to Twizzlers and fruit chew things. Come to think of
it, you realize that’s a better idea all around because at
least those things taste good, and there is fruit juice in the
little squishy things so that should be enough to help you
and whoever keep from getting scurvy. If not there are
always Pop Tarts, and while the cherry flavored ones
ought to be burned and have their factory hit by a nuclear
bomb for tasting so bad, the other usual flavors like
blueberry and whatnot aren’t half bad.

Thinking about nuclear weapons, you wonder how
long it will be until the military tries using those to wipe
out the zombies. Considering the books, movies, and TV
shows, it is their typical move at some point, even though
everyone who’s ever written about them agree that
nuclear weapons do little to nothing against the zombies
outside the immediate blast radius. It just seems like
when the apocalypse comes, the military tries to respond
with brute force, and those things are about as big a bang
as they can make. Hopefully, someone other than the
military generals are in charge still.

Approaching the next corner, clearing your head of
the random thoughts of destruction by other living
people, you refocus on the task at hand. Staying close to
the left wall, you lean out to the right to try to see around
the corner and find that the coast looks pretty clear.
There appears to be something on the floor here, but
whatever it came from looks like it either crawled away or
was dragged off by someone. Turning the corner, you
begin to head up the hall, wheeling your cart around the
mess.