opened easily and we all stepped back as the door swung wide with a squeak. Training my rifle at the dark opening, I flicked on my combat light and stepped into the dark. I stayed to the right to give Tommy a clear line of fire and Duncan brought up the rear.
We descended into the gloom and found ourselves in a power room. I guessed this was a custodial room based on the mops and cleaning supplies scattered about. I didn’t see anything that indicated the presence of zombies, so it was So Far, So Good.
Descending another small flight of stairs brought us to what looked like a P.E. teacher’s office and we approached another door. I assumed this one would bring us to the gym. We doused our lights and stood by the door, listening intently for sounds of activity. We had made it so far without detection and didn’t want to be shot for popping up in the middle of a council meeting or something.
Hearing nothing, I opened the door slowly and stepped out of the way as Tommy brought his rifle up. Nothing appeared out of the gloom and we could see fairly well, thanks to the skylights in the gym ceiling. There were piles of clothing, food and water bottles, tools and equipment. I saw bags of seeds and dirt, mixed in with bags of rice and flour. In one corner were weapons of various types, from hand axes to what appeared to be spears, of all things. Baseball bats were in abundance and there were modified hockey sticks as well.
There was still no sign of violence, so we moved to the door and the common area. Opening the door, we looked into a vast dark room, with no lights at all and vaguely familiar smell. This seemed to be where they had their meals, judging by the stacks of full garbage bags in the corner. Still no signs of violence, although there were some unidentifiable dark streaks on the walls. We moved near the office area and someone had written “Armory” on the glass of the office. I nodded to Tommy who went to take a look. He emerged a few seconds later and shook his head.
I started to get that old familiar creepy feeling in the back of my head and figured if this place was occupied by the living, we should have known it by now. We moved around the hallways, checking each classroom. Every single one showed signs of occupancy, with sleeping areas, stacks of clothing and food supplies. Not a single one showed violence, though. It was if the whole place had simply up and walked away.
Duncan shook his head at me and I nodded. He was feeling the same creepiness about the place as I was. We followed the hallway as it went around the whole building and found ourselves back in the commons. We didn’t find a single person or a single reason for the place to be empty. We went up to the second floor and found more of the same. But the last room had something and Tommy was the one who found it.
“Hey, come here,” he whispered. He was holding a sheaf of papers that looked to be some kid’s drawings.
“What do you have here?” I asked as he handed the pictures to me.
“Some kind of answer, I think,” he said.
I looked at the pictures. The first one showed what seemed to be a family of four, but the little boy’s face in the picture was colored green. The second one showed the little boy jumping at his father and there was lots of red crayon used in that picture. The next picture showed the school and just the mother and the daughter. Guess we can figure what happened to the dad and son, I thought. The next couple of pictures showed people living in the school, which seemed normal, but the last picture made me cringe. It was a close up of a zombie face, complete with black lips and bared teeth. The yellow eyes and green skin really set it off and I had a pretty good idea of what might have happened here.
I showed the picture to Duncan and he winced. “Not pretty. Wonder if that was her mother.”
I hadn’t thought of that. Not a good thing for a kid to see, but it was a rare thing to find anyone not scarred by the Upheaval.
“What’s that at the bottom?” Duncan asked.
I looked and there appeared to be some sort of writing at the bottom. It was just a string of the letter ‘E’, whatever that was supposed to mean. I put the pictures down and we moved back into the hall. Duncan was ahead of me and at a dead stop, so I bumped into his back.
“What?” I whispered, looking left and right.
“I saw something move,” he replied, aiming his rifle down the hall. The signs on the walls indicated the media center was that way. There was more light up here because the windows weren’t covered and I could see a window through the double doors that led to the library. I was about to kid Duncan when a shadow moved across the window.
“Roger that. I just saw it too.” I brought my rifle up and watched the door window closely.
Tommy sidled out into the hall and saw us with our guns up. He covered the opposite direction and asked, “What’s up?”
“Movement in the library.” Duncan moved forward and headed to the doors. I covered him and Tommy stayed back to watch the hallway. We moved silently across the carpet, checking the classrooms quickly but finding nothing.
About ten feet from the door, I realized the doors opened outward, so anything in there could easily get out if the way wasn’t blocked. We closed the distance and that’s when our luck ran out. Duncan was so focused on the door that he didn’t watch where he was walking and managed to kick a small truck across the floor and into the door.
BANG! went the truck and all of us hunched down as if we had been struck. We froze in silence and Duncan shook his head in apology. I waved him off as a new sound emerged from behind the doors.
It was an eerie, high pitched noise, like someone was playing with a mangled chew toy. It was a wheezing sound and very unnerving. I looked over at Duncan just as his face fell and backed up a step.
“Oh God. We gotta go,” he said as he continued to back up.
“What? What aren’t you telling me?” I said, gripping my gun tighter.
“Remember the picture? Remember the letters on the bottom?”
Then it hit me. The letters were the sound that particular zombie made, the sound we were hearing right now. The sound coming from behind those doors.
Just as I stepped back, the door burst open. About ten zombies fell out of the opening and more were behind. In front of them was a small girl, about ten years old and as dead as they come. But she glared at us with yellowed, glowing eyes and her blackened lips were split to reveal dark and bloodied teeth. She saw us and quickly moved forward, her fetid breath wheezing through her teeth, causing that high-pitched song of death. Behind her, several zombies got to their feet and moved forward, not making a sound. To a person, they had all had their throats ripped out, compliments of the little demon in front of us.
“Go. Now,” I said as I turned and bolted at Tommy. Duncan didn’t need to be told twice. He pivoted and ran and Tommy led the way as the horde came after us. The little girl zombie was by far the quickest and she moved with a speed that was scary. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out how all these people died. Probably the kid was a rescue that came in infected and when she turned, which was probably at night, she started tearing apart her saviors.
That revelation didn’t help me run any faster, or give me a good position to fight her off. By the time I was done dealing with the little monster, the others, who I saw were fairly fast themselves, would be on me.
We literally jumped down the stairs and tried to secure the doors, but they had no handles at all and swung both ways. The delay in checking the doors was costly, because the little zombie slammed against them as we tried to find a way to secure them. I held the two doors and shouted at the others.
“Get out, don’t waste your time grabbing anything. Just get to a safe position to cover me!” I yelled.
“Ain’t leaving you, man. We don’t work that way,” Duncan said as he held the other door. Tommy nodded as he gripped his rifle.
“Get your asses out, I ain’t planning on dying today. I’m just gonna time this to knock the little bastard on her ass and buy us some room.” I didn’t have much, as I could hear the other zombies falling down the stairs in their pursuit. The little Z scrabbled at the door and I could hear her frenzied wheezing as she tried to get us. “Go! Make a path for me, I’ll be along in second.”
Duncan nodded and pulled Tommy along with him. Part of me was touched that they were reluctant to go, but I was heartened they thought enough of me to figure I’d be okay. But I needed to give them time to get out and they needed to make sure I had a clear path to get away as well.
No sooner had they moved away then the door shook as the little Z ran into it again. I could see the top of her dead head through the small square window and for whatever reason, she chose that moment to stare up at
