Zombie High (8 page)

Three days go by, and while you have found
yourself a few protein bars and energy drinks to keep
yourself going, you end up dying of dehydration.

Leaping up the stairs two at a time, you say, “Come
on, we have to get out of here!”
Still standing at the bottom of the stairs, Alexis
says, “But I got bit. What are we going to do?”
Stopping at the top, you look back and say, “Just
come with me. We’ll go to the nurse’s office and soak it in
alcohol and peroxide. I’m sure that will clean it up.”
Understanding your plan, Alexis sniffles once more
before she regains her composure. Leaning down, she
picks up her bat and sets her face with a fierce look of
determination before saying, “Okay, let’s do this,” and
follows you up the stairs.
When she gets to the top, you say, “All right, the
goal is the nurse’s office. The fastest way there is across
the gym through those doors and then hang right out in
the hall.”
“What if we run into more of them?” asks Alexis.
“Then we knock their freaking heads off and keep
going!”
Bringing her bat up to her shoulder, Alexis smiles
and says, “I can do that.”
Together, the two of you head out, running across
the gym floor, jumping over the bodies of the fallen
zombies you saw on the way in, and trying not to slip in
the puddle of muck accumulated around each of them.
You reach the door first and burst through it, knowing
that Alexis is right behind you. In the hall however, you
find a dozen zombies, mostly ex-students, milling around,
as if they were waiting for you to come out. Without
hesitating, you bring your bat up in an arc, catching the
first zombie on the chin, shattering its jaw.
You continue to swing away at the mass of zombies
even as Alexis enters the hall behind you and begins to
help. The two of you seem to have things under control
as you knock down one after another of the horrid
creatures, but since you are each too busy swinging and
not communicating, an accident was bound to happen.
When there are only two zombies left, you wind up
for your next swing and step forward as you begin to bring
the bat home like Babe Ruth going for a homerun.
Unfortunately, Alexis was too busy putting down her
nightmare version of the head of the chess club, and
when she winds up for the last zombie, she accidentally
hits you in the head, causing your bat to fly from your
hands and you to drop to the ground.
Apologizing profusely, Alexis leans down to look
into your crossed eyes and asks if you’re all right. Unable
to find the words to respond through the dense soup of
fog which seems to have overtaken your brain, you also
can’t remember what’s wrong with the deformed looking
face of the kid that is stepping up behind her.
You try to concentrate, try to recall something that
seems urgent, but when you blink your eyes, you find it’s
because something thick and wet just sprayed across your
face. Unable to get up, you realize that a burning
sensation of pain is coming from your arm. When you try
to look over, you find Ginger, one of the redheaded guys
from your fifth period math class, leaning his face against
your arm. He seems strange for some reason, almost like
he is taking a nap there, but with his mouth resting
against your flesh.

Deciding there will be far more useful things you
can use in the shop than a few bats and such, you turn
and quickly head for the other end of the school. On the
way, you pass by the Registrar’s Office and see the closed
blinds quickly slap against the glass window of the door.
Stopping, you whisper, “Miss Gail, are you there?” You
know that she’s been around the school for something
like thirty years, and despite being almost retirement age,
you know that she’s a survivor, someone you’d happily
have with you in this mess. After a minute of receiving no
answer, you return to your quest, heading for the shop
class, hoping that if Miss Gail is in her office that she is
okay in there, but you’re unwilling to try to break your
way in.

Turning left at the end of the hall, you find the
double doors leading into the shop class. The doors have
crash bars on both sides and a double hinge allowing you
to easily push your way through from either side in case
you’re carrying supplies or a finished project and don’t
have a free hand. Entering, you find every tool and
machine you can think of for cutting, shaping, and
finishing wood. Band saws, table saws, sanders, wood
lathes, and more are positioned around the room at
different work stations, and a workbench runs along the
far wall with hammers, screwdrivers, and various power
tools all hanging off a pegboard, each with their own
outline drawn in black Sharpie.

On the side of the room, closest to the door you
came in, you see shelves of scrap wood ranging from twoby-fours to plywood. The only question is, what are you
going to do with it all?

If you turn on the machines to build something, turn to
page ……………….
93
If you just want to take two-by-fours and leave, turn to
page ……………….
96

Deciding that you want to build something truly
awesome to destroy zombies with, you grab a couple of
pieces of wood and flip on the band saw. Initially your
idea is to build some sort of crossbow - like device which
shoots wooden bolts out at the zombies. You don’t plan
on making the bolts perfect, the way you figure it, is that
they just have to fly out and stick into the zombie’s brain
like that one guy in the walking zombie TV show.
Estimating the bolts to be about a foot long or so, you
begin cutting the wood. You are already planning how
you are going to use the sander to grind the ends of the
pieces into points when the first zombie shuffles its way
through the door.

At first, you see just the one, and while scary and
gruesome looking, you have no doubt that you will be
able to dispatch him quickly using the hammer off the
pegboard. Approaching it, you try to figure out which end
would be better to use, the flat side used for hammering
nails or the claw end with the rounded hooks on it used
for removing nails. Deciding to use the claw end, you lift
the hammer overhead and bring it smashing down into
the zombie’s skull where it sticks. The zombie crumbles to
the floor as if you’ve thrown a switch turning him off,
taking the hammer with it.

For a brief second, you are ecstatic. You’ve just
defeated a zombie, one of the undead, and you want to
celebrate. That’s when the door opens again, and you see
the fifteen to twenty other zombies making their way in.
Looking back, you realize your critical mistake. The loud
sound of the machine being on must have attracted their
attention, and you never got a chance to finish your
ultimate weapon.

Your eyes travel to the wood on the shelves, but
there is no way you can get there without going through
the incoming monsters. Your only option is to try to fight
them off using the tools on the pegboard, but somewhere
deep inside you already know there’s no way a few
screwdrivers and hammers are going to give you the space
you would need to fight them all as they surround you,
and the power tools, with their cords are wrapped up, will
require an outlet which means you’ll be leashed to one
spot on the wall while fighting them.

Running for the tools, you know you’ll lose, but you
plan to take as many of those dirty creatures with you as
you can.

Realizing that you don’t want to attract attention
to yourself by turning on a bunch of noisy machines and
that while having nails and screws sticking out of a plank
of wood might cause more damage they would also, more
than likely, just get stuck in a zombie’s skull meaning the
weapon would be lost, you opt to just quickly grab a
couple of two-by-fours and head out. Rummaging
through the scraps, you find four of them that are right
about the length of your arm and a piece of rope. You
decide to tie up two of them and strap them to your back
using the rope and carry the other two when you go.

There are some tools in the room as well, but
without a mobile power source, the buzz saw and drills
are pretty pointless. Somewhere along the line, your
school never seemed to get on board with the battery
operated kind. Anyway, with those options lost, your eyes
fall on the hammers and screwdrivers. They’re not going
to give you as much distance as you would like, but in a
pinch, they might save your life. You push the handle of
the hammer into your belt loop and shove a couple
screwdrivers in your back pocket before you prepare to
head out.

Returning to the door, you consider your options
from here. The girl said you could enter the teachers’
lounge if you brought back weapons, food, and a first aid
kit. Clearly, you have the weapons covered, so now you
need to choose if going for a first aid kit or going for food
is next.

Thinking that while you now have a means of
defending yourself, it would be really helpful if you could
help others. You opt to get a first aid kit next. You try to
think back to your health class with Miss Prego whose real
name is Miss Jefferson, but whom the students secretly
nicknamed because she managed to get herself pregnant
every school year for the past three years, to remember
what is in a standard first aid kit and if it’s going to be
enough. You know most standard kits have compress
dressings and bandages, not to mention aspirin and
antibiotic ointment. This stuff will help if someone
scratches themselves or gets a cut, but if it’s a bite from a
zombie, it’s not going to do much good. Rubber gloves,
you figure, are probably in most kits nowadays, and those
might help you from getting someone’s infected blood on
you. Other than that, the only things you can remember
are breathing barriers for CPR and gauze. None of it
sounds like it will do much if a zombie attacks.

Considering that they all probably had to take the
same health class as you, the two questions that come to
mind then are whether or not the people inside the
teachers’ lounge are already hurt and need something
simple like this stuff, or if they are expected there to be
something else in the kit. Reviewing the things you know
about zombies from sources like Jonathan Maberry’s
books and Romero’s
Night of the Living Dead
movie, you
consider the idea that this is some sort of highly
communicable virus that is being transmitted from person
to person by bites. If that’s the case, then perhaps some
hydrogen peroxide or alcohol might kill the virus in a bite
wound if administered quickly enough.

With this thought in mind, you consider the fact
that there are probably two places in the school where
you can find these things. The nurse’s office, like the girl
upstairs recommended, or the back room in the science
labs.

Being the caring person that you are, you figure
that it would be really great if you could help others, so
you opt to get a first aid kit first. Who knows, maybe
someone will be so grateful that you were able to help
them that they will be willing to share their stuff, and
you’ll have less to gather. You try to think back to your
health class with Miss Prego whose real name is Miss
Jefferson, but whom the students secret nicknamed
because she managed to get herself pregnant every
school year for the past three years, and remember what
is in a standard first aid kit and if it’s going to be enough.
You know most standard kits have compress dressings and
bandages, not to mention aspirin and antibiotic ointment.
This stuff will help if someone scratches themselves or
gets a cut, but if it’s a bite from a zombie, it’s not going to
do much good. Rubber gloves, you figure, are probably in
most kits nowadays, and those might help you from
getting someone’s infected blood on you. Other than
that, the only things you can remember are breathing
barriers for CPR and gauze. None of it sounds like it will
do much if a zombie attacks.

Considering that they all probably had to take the
same health class as you, the two questions that come to
mind then are whether or not the people inside the
teachers’ lounge are already hurt and need something
simple like this stuff, or if they expected there to be
something else in the kit. Reviewing the things you know
consider the idea that this is some sort of highly
communicable virus that is being transmitted from person
to person by bites. If that’s the case, then perhaps some
hydrogen peroxide or alcohol might kill the virus in a bite
wound if administered quickly enough.