Scarlet Memories (Book 1) (8 page)

Spencer jumped forward and smashed the down button as fast as he could. They were all worried about what would come out of the door. The elevator started coming up to the third floor. As it made it, everyone jumped in quickly. They watched the hall intently as the doors shut. They began going down to the first floor. A loud thump could be heard from above them. Like something had collided with the elevator doors. The group jumped. Jaime jumped into his mother’s arms. He was scared beyond measure.

‘What was that?’ He asked Susan.

‘I don’t know But, we are away from it now. So, stick close and don’t wonder off.’ She told him pressing a finger to his nose and kissing him on the forehead. small crowd of undead werestood in a corner near the lobby, scratching at a door. Ian turned around and signaled for them to be very quiet. That hadn’t heard the elevator arrive. They shuffled passed the lobby and out of the doors without being seen.

‘What are we going to do about transportation? We only have room for maybe 5 people if we squeeze in.’  Ian wasn’t sure what they would do.

‘I brought my keys. I drive a Kia Soul. We can fit everyone in that. I have plenty of gas too.’ She said pulling her keys out of her bag.

Sam looked around the parking lot. It had been a few days since she had driven her car so, she wasn’t sure what parking spot she was in. She was about to press the ‘unlock’ button on her car keys, when Ian grabbed them from her.

‘You’re over there.’ He pointed a few rows over. ‘Sorry just don’t want those things hearing us. They don’t know we are here.’

Ian handed her keys back to her. He wore a heavy smile on his face so, that she would know he hadn’t meant harm by taking her keys.

‘No worries. I seriously didn’t even think about it. Thanks.’ She told Ian, starting for her car.

Once they reached it, Sam unlocked the  doors manually and everyone squeezed in. There was just enough room with Ian and Sam in the front seats and Spencer, Eddy, and Jason in the back seats. Susan and Jaime fit perfectly in the back where the trunk hatch was.

‘Should we close the doors together?’ Jason asked Ian. - He was on one of the outside doors.

‘Yeah, that would be smart. On three…’ Ian told the group.

‘One…..Two…..Three…’ Ian whispered.

The team shut the doors in unison. Even Susan in the back hatch.

Sam started the engine. Immediately, the radio blasted loud rock music from her stereo. The noise sounded like a thousand radios in a very large warehouse. There was no other sounds to drown it out. So, the music seemed extra loud today.

‘Oh my god!’ Sam cried. She quickly turned the tuner to the off position. She looked at Ian and then to the rest of the group in the back.

‘I’m so sorry.’ She mouthed.

She had the look of a complete idiot.

‘It’s alright. Let’s just get out of here!’ Susan cried.

‘Look!’ Susan said, pointing to the front of the car.

The sounds of heavy grunting and moaning filled the parking lot. The undead had heard her music blaring. There must have been atleast forty of them in all. Now, they would be coming for them.

Chapter Five: The school

Jeremy and the rest of the larger group headed down the street to the school. It was a very long farm road. Looks like it recently for the first time, had black top poured over the settled gravel. He was concerned about the school and how they would manage to get in. It was after all the middle of July. Summer school was probably already let out. Since Jeremy’s vehicle was first in line, he was able to see the school close up first.

As they got closer, Jeremy was able to see the details of the school much better. He could see that it had very thick walls and extremely high windows. Definitely would be better than the warehouse anyday.

‘Ok, ease up slowly. We don’t know if some of those things are here. We have to keep the element of surprise.’ He said raising his hammer to his lap from his bag below the seat.

The van pulled up to the parking lot. They parked closer to the back so that they could shut the doors and not be heard. Everyone else followed Jeremy and parked towards the back rows. He motioned for the group to stay in their cars.

‘I’m going to want only a handful of people to go with me in there. The rest of us need to stay here. If it goes sour in there, We will take something to signal everyone else to get out of here. Jerry, I am going to leave you in charge of that.’ Jeremy pointed at a young man from props. His long blonde hair hid most of his left eye. He kept to himself mostly. But, always managed to finish his props projects pretty quickly. Usually ahead of schedule. Jeremy knew he could trust Jerry to handle that problem. After all, he did witness Jerry grabbing some pyrotechnics supplies from the staging area.

‘Ok...’ Jerry answered Jeremy.

He nervously moved his hair out of his eyes. Jeremy watched as Jerry walked back to the van and grabbed his bag from the back. It looked to be pretty heavy.

‘I think I have enough to last us for a while!’ Jerry told him.

He had a smile on his face this time.
He was going to be able to do what he loved best. Even in this apocalyptic world, pyrotechnics will always be needed
. Jerry thought to himself.

He had an extra bounce in his step now. The more he got comfortable the more he would interact with the group.

As the smaller group came together, Jeremy had everyone ready their weapons. He didn’t want to lose a single person. They slowly walked down the path from the parking lot to the school. Beautiful yellow flowers lined the walkway.
It was a nice sight to see after everything that had happened so far today.
Jeremy thought. The group neared the front double doors of the school. Jeremy walked out front and pressed his face to the doors windows. He peered around inside the school. He couldn’t see any movement. But, it was rather dark inside. And he would have to be in there to see any better than he did now. He noticed that the doors windows were the only ones accessable from the outside. All of the others were too high to be bothered with.
That would be good to keep them out.
Jeremy thought.

As Jeremy grabbed at the handle of the doors, he heard a loud scream. He turned around to look behind the group and then he spotted it. An undead had made it’s way from the back of the school to the front. It must have heard their convoy pull up to the school.  Jeremy pointed at Sean, a fellow actor in the crew. He then pointed at the undead making it’s way towards them. Sean eventually got the hint and walked over slowly holding up his weapon, a tire iron he had found back at the warehouse. Sean hesitated slighly. After all this was the first time he had to deal with one of them on his own. The undead shambled over to Sean. It extended its arms in Sean’s direction. It got closer and closer. Finally, they were close enough to touch. The undead went for Sean. Driving it’s head down towards Sean’s arm. Awkwardly, he shoved the sharper end towards it’s face, driving it deep into the skull. The undead fell back immediately, thrasing it’s arms back and forth. Sean pushed harder into the skull and it soon fell silent.

The group focused back on the doors in front of them. Jeremy checked through the glass to make sure that no one else had come into view since the undead had arrived. Still, it was empty so, he pulled on the handle hard. The door, of course, was locked. It was mid-summer so, of course it was missing the teachers and students. They would have to break in if the wanted to use it as a shelter. And more than likely they would also have to deal with an alarm.

‘Does anyone know how to pick a lock?’ Jeremy asked the small group that had ventured to the school with him. They all shook their heads ‘no’.

‘I got this.’ Jerry said, walking up to the front of the doors.

He pulled out a small black bag from his sachel. Jeremy noticed that he had a few other bags that Jerry had wrapped around his shoulder. Some of them had parts obviously used for pyrotechnics sticking out of the side pockets.

‘I used to be a Lock Smith. You guys got lucky.’ Jerry said.

He opened the small black bag and pulled out a series of tools. Among them was a lockpick pen. He walked up to the door and placed the lockpick pin inside the key hole. He used the other thin piece of metal in the top of the key hold and used the pin to feel around the key hole. Eventually, he took the thin metal piece and rotated the keyhole lock to turn towards the frame of the door. He held the pin in place at the same time. You could hear a light,’click’ coming from the key hole and Jerry backed away.

‘I’ll let you do the honors.’ He said. Holding his hand up with the pin and metal piece. He walked away as sean and the others quietly rooted for him. Jerry’s stance seemed a bit straighter as if he were proud of himself. He was definitely getting a lot more attention than he used to. His mood was much brighter. And he was wearing it well.

Jeremy grabbed the door handle and took a breath. He hoped that they were the only ones who managed to get inside. He couldn’t afford to lose anyone else. It was bad enough they lost someone on his watch. So, from now on he would be extremely cautious. There was absolutely no room at all for error. As the door came open Jeremy listened for an alarm to sound. He didn’t hear anything so, he pulled the door the rest of the way open. He felt relief wash over him and stepped forward inside the school. As soon as his foot reached the floor of the inside of the door a very loud ringing blarred through the halls. The alarm was set and needed movement to trigger it. Must have been an older system. Normally, there are triggers on the frame of doors, allowing the alarm to be tripped this way.

Jeremy  spun around and looked at Jerry.

‘I need you to find the Electrical room and cut the power!’ He yelled at Jerry.

He ran inside without hesitation. They all watched as his body disappeared down the hall. The group looked behind themselves to watch for any undead that might hear the alarm. It would be a great way to attract a lot of those things. Not that they wanted too. Jeremy hoped that Jerry would hurry up. They were already pushing it by attracting the undead to the school. They would be cutting the power until they could figure out how to disable the alarm. But, that would be once everyone was inside safely.

After a few more moments of the loud alarm sounding off, it suddenly stopped.
Jerry must have found the electrical room.
Jeremy thought. He rushed inside. He was sure that if any of those things were in here it would have come to the front where they were when the alarm went off. He motioned for the rest of his small group to come inside.

‘Alright, I need each of you to check the classrooms. I’ll take the cafeteria and kitchen with Jerry. Sean you take a few guys with you to check the Administrative rooms. We will all meet back up here once we are done.’ Jeremy said.

He cleared his throat and opened his mouth to speak again.

‘I need this done fast.’ He said, the concern in his voice was building.

‘I know I don’t have to tell you that we pretty much just alerted all of the undead nearby, to the fact that we are here. We need to get the rest of the group inside. Then we can defend ourselves from there.’ He threw his arms in opposite directions so that they would know to break up. Each team began to run in different directions immediately. Jeremy motioned for Jerry to come with him.

They looked along the walls with their phones for light. It was rather dark, especially with the schools windows being so high off of the ground. They barely had any light from them. Eventually, the pair ran across a map of the school. It was a blown up picture that the staff put conveinently near the entrance of the school. According to the map, they were halfway to the Cafeteria. All they needed to do was go down the hall and make a right, then a left and the cafeteria should be right there. Jeremy wanted to see what kind  of food situation they were dealing with. The school should at the very least, have canned foods stored in the kitchen. That could last the group a while until help arrived. For everything else they would need… Scouting could take care of that.

Jeremy and Jerry were finally outside the cafeteria doors. They had passed a few classrooms along the way. The others had begun checking them as quickly as they could. Jeremy pushed the doors open and walked inside. He looked around the rather large room. There were long tables lined with blue chairs running down the cafeteria. About ten of them all together. They were able to see a little bit more light in this room. Bright beams  of yellow light shown through onto the long tables. It illuminated  the brown color of the imitation wood. Jeremy also noticed that there was a stage at the end of the cafeteria. Probably used to do orientation and small assemblies. As they passed all of the tables they came to the kitchen. They had to walk through where the children lined up to get trays of food. From the lunch lines they were able to jump over the counter and enter the kitchen. Jeremy swiftly checked the shelves to see what they had in inventory.

From what he could see, they did have a good amount of canned foods. There was also some meats in the freezer. They must have stored the meats for the beginning of the new school year. Which would have been in about a mon or so. This would be enough provisions to sustain the for a while. Long enough for all of this to die down or for the group to be rescued.

‘I think we can work with this!’ Jeremy exclaimed.

He was happy with what he found. This was one thing they needed to go right. They did have some bottled water in the vending machines and in stock. But, more than likely they would have to reserve what was left to rationing. It being hot outside would cause them to drink more than usual. But, first they would need to work on getting that alarm disabled so that they could turn the power back on. Or, this food wouldn’t last long.

‘Jerry do you think you could figure out how to disable the alarm for us?’ Jeremy questioned Jerry.

‘I’m sure. It would probably be pretty simple. Probably just need to flip a breaker off or cut a wire or two. But, I’m sure I can manage getting it done.’ Jerry told him.

They were making their way back to the front of the school. It seemed pretty obvious that the school was empty. So, it shouldn’t take the others long to join them. They left the kitchen and cafeteria and got to the front of the school with no issues. The two waited for the rest of the team to get back. Soon they were all reunited.

Jeremy left the school to grab the others to bring them safely inside. He watched as they vacated the vehicles and unloaded the trunks of all of their bags and supplies. The group was ready to file into the school when they noticed more undead heading towards the school. They were coming from the field to the right of the school. Oddly enough, the same direction that they had just come from. So, this was probably the same horde that they had come across. So, needless to say they were in trouble. That would be an unreasonable amount of undead.

Jeremy hussled the last of the group into the front doors. He double checked to make sure everyone was safely inside and then locked the doors. Jeremy looked up to see that he had done so just in time. The undead were making their way onto the front lawn of the school. Passing over the yellow flowers lining the side walk and onto the front steps of the walkway.

‘Ok people! We need to grab anything we can to cover these doors! It’s the only weak point that we know of right now.’ He cried.

He ran to the front desk and started pushing it forward. A few of the others joined in and helped him push it over to the doors. Everyone else was grabbing chairs and small tables. Anything would do. Soon, the entire doorway was unable to be seen. The last chair was about to be set in place as the first undead made it to the doors. It smashed it’s face into the glass shattering a few teeth. The glass must have been bulletproof to be so strong. The undead continued to scratch and claw at the glass and was soon joined by other monstrosities. Sean covered the hole and the undead outside the doors could not be seen any longer. It seemed for now that things would be ok. Or at the very least gave off the illusion that they would be.

Jeremy looked back at the others. Many of them were hiding behind furniture and even one another.

‘I think this will hold them for a while.’ He told them.

He didn’t like seeing them so scared. If it was going to work here, they couldn’t stay scared like this.

‘We have already cleared this school. There aren’t any of those things in here. And as long as we can hold these doors we should be ok.’ He told them.