Zombie High (9 page)

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.

Thinking that while you now have a means of
defending yourself and some food for yourself and the
people upstairs, it would be really great if you could help
others in case they get hurt. You realize that it’s time to
go get a first aid kit. 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, 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 are expecting 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.

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.

As the author of this adventure, I find myself asking
how you made it here. There is no story line or thread
which could possibly lead you to this option, so I can only
assume that you have cheated. Therefore, I am revoking
your privileges to continue from here, and insisting that
you go back to the beginning and start again.

Deciding to head to the nurse’s office first, you turn
and head for the stairs at a light trot, making sure to slow
down a step or two as you approach any classrooms in
case a zombie comes staggering out. Encountering no
opposition, you pray that your luck will hold out a bit
longer as you descend to the first floor.

On the first floor, you poke your head out and
check the area while keeping the majority of your body
well within the relative safety of the stairwell. Looking
left, you spot a zombie ambling up the hall away from
you, but the hall to the right seems clear. Good for you
since the nurse’s office is down that hallway.

Waiting for another thirty seconds to go by, you
check the halls again, and the zombie up the left direction
seems to have stopped and is now just standing halfway
up the hallway with its nose two inches from the wall. He
might be looking at the mural painted on the wall of
Jesus’s Last Supper, perhaps something about the figures
poised over a table full of food has captured his intense
interest, but it could just as easily be the colors of the
paint itself which entrance the nearly brain dead creature
into a stupor.

Willing to take the chance, you quickly and quietly
step out of the stairwell and head for the right towards
the nurse’s office. As you approach, you pass the
windows which look into the main office. You see that
they are smeared with a dark red splattering of fluid.
Rising up on your tiptoes, you are able to see past some of
the blood and the room looks deserted of life.

In hopes of finding a working telephone or perhaps
even a computer with which you can call for help or send
a message, you decide to check out the main office first.
Stepping over to the door, you press your ear up to it for a
few seconds and listen, hoping you don’t hear any of the
desperate moans of the zombies on the other side.
Gratefully, you hear none, and so you decide to go inside.

Turning the handle, you gently ease the door open
and look around the room. Aside from the blood, the
office seems to be normal. Slipping inside, you close the
door behind you and make your way around the counter
to the secretary’s area. One the floor, behind her desk,
the secretary lies on the ground. She was clearly chewed
on by someone, as you can see the bite marks, but
somehow during the attack she must have hit her head
against the desk as you quickly spot the clump of hair and
scalp on the corner of the desk. Figuring that’s the reason
she didn’t reanimate, you try nudging her with your foot,
just to make sure she’s not going to attack you before you
reach for the phone across her desk.

Picking up the handset, you lift it to your ear but
hear nothing: no dial tone, no voice message, nothing.
You try to rattle the phone’s hook to see if anything
happens and press the 9 button in hopes of discovering an
outside line, but nothing works. The phone doesn’t seem
to have the option of multiple lines, so you hang up and
look to the computer for help.

Not sure what to do, you decide to call up Google
and type in 911 hoping that there will be a message
option or something you can use. As the Google
homepage came up, the familiar icon wore a red banner
with the words,
Apocalypse Strikes
, and below that, a list
of cities all around you. Clicking on one of the links, you
see that the State Police along with the U.S. Military have
somehow quarantined the area and are not letting
anyone through. Further down the page it says that the
military is launching a coordinated effort to clear the
zombies from the streets, but you stop reading as you
suddenly realize that your parents both work outside the
quarantine area, and there is no way for them to come
save you. If you want to survive, you’re going to have to
do it here.

Returning to the Google homepage, you type in
911 with shaky fingers, and press enter. You have to scroll
past several pages dedicated to September 11
^th
, but
finally you find an official police help page. Clicking for a
live operator, a new text box comes up, and you begin
typing your name, your situation, and your location here
at St. Mary’s Catholic School along with a plea for help.
You mention that there are at least ten of you, hoping
that despite not knowing how many people are in the
upstairs teachers’ lounge, that a few extra people on this
report might mean that they send someone. When your
message is done, you press the Enter key and hope that it
goes through even though no one seems to have
answered the Live Chat on the other end. With that done,
you take one last look around spotting nothing that looks
like it would help in a fight and then move out of the
office and back into the hallway.

The nurse’s office is just two doors down from
where you are, but as you approach, you find that your
worst fears are confirmed. Through the small window in
the door, you spot several people milling around, and all
of them look like they have the same vacant stare in their
eyes and blood stains on their shirts. Going in there
seems crazy, but you know you need to have a first aid kit
if you expect to get in the teachers’ lounge, and knowing
what you do now about the rest of the city, you figure
you’re going to need the help of someone to get through
this.

If you negotiate with the zombies, turn to page …….
109
If you want to try and sneak in, turn to page
……..
112
If you want to return to the office, turn to page ……..
118

As you approach the door to the nurse’s office, you
try to consider what to do. Somewhere from deep below
the IQ level of good ideas, you come up with the thought
that you should try to negotiate with the creatures. You
figure pacifism is a viable option, and you should be able
to talk things out with them.

Really?! You want to negotiate with the zombies?
What book, movie, or TV show made you think this was
even a possibility? They are essentially walking corpses
intent on consuming your flesh and converting you into
one of their legion. Nothing will convince these soulless
demons to not eat you. There is nothing you have that
you can bargain with, and no matter how much charisma
you think you have, you cannot convince a zombie to go
vegetarian.

As the author of your adventure, I honestly have no
idea what to say from here out. You have officially
stumped me, and I make up stories for a living.
Congratulations, you managed to choose an option so
stupid I have no words for it. This plan of yours, if that is
what you call it, a plan, is so horrible, I can’t even come up
with an appropriately bad ending.

That’s it, I quit. I’m not writing you an ending for
this. You don’t deserve it. You’re dead.
I hope you are not one of those people who held
their place in this book with their finger, because I hereby
sentence you to go back to the beginning and try again,
and this time, start with the title. If you didn’t catch on,
these are zombies. You cannot talk your way out of
anything with them.

The nurse’s office is just two doors down from
where you are, but as you approach, you find that your
worst fears are confirmed. Through the small window in
the door, you spot several people milling around, and all
of them look like they have the same vacant stare in their
eyes and blood stains on their shirts. Going in there
seems crazy, but you know you need to have a first aid kit
if you expect to get in the teachers’ lounge. Knowing
what you do now about the rest of the city, you figure
you’re going to need the help of friends to get through
this.

If you negotiate with the zombies, turn to page ……….. 109
If you want to try and sneak in, turn to page ……………. 112
If you return to the main office, turn to page ……………. 118

As you approach the nurse’s office, you realize that
you have no weapons and nothing to defend yourself
with. Unfortunately, you know that you have to have a
first aid kit before the people upstairs in the teachers’
lounge will let you in. Somewhere in the back of your
memory, you recall a scene in a cheesy zombie movie
where the protagonist pretended to be a zombie for a
short time in order to get through a particularly sticky
situation. Hoping that these zombies will be just as dumb,
you decide to sneak in while acting like one of them.

Trying to act like a stupid zombie from the movies,
you break character just long enough to hook your limp
wrist over the door handle and pull it open. None of them
seem to notice your slight alteration from the standard as
you bump your way into the room and begin to mimic the
groaning sound you heard from them earlier. You hold
still for a few seconds, but when none of them leap to
attack you right away, you lift your arms out back out in
front of you and begin a staggered walk across the room
towards the nurse’s desk in hopes of finding the first aid
kit.

The first few steps in, things seem to going well for
you. Sure, the place is disgusting, and many of the
reanimated corpses that are stumbling up against walls
and filing cabinets are other students who you recognize
from your classes or at the very least from seeing in the
halls around school, but you’re making progress.

All of a sudden, you notice one of the zombies lying
on the ground who seems to have had its entire lower
body somehow detached from its upper torso begin
sniffing the air. As it cranes its neck up to look at you, the
movie that gave you this crazy idea suddenly rewinds in
your mind, and you remember the part you forgot. In the
movies, the protagonists always smeared zombie blood
and guts on themselves before they entered these
situations to cover up their living scent.