Zombie High (7 page)

Deciding to check on Nathan and help him to the
nurse’s office, you give up on making it to class on time
where you know Miss Dikeo will just have you continue
reading A Tale of Two Cities and walk over to him.
Stopping just a few feet away so that you don’t have to
see what his regurgitated breakfast looks like, you wait
patiently for him to stop dry heaving.

When he looks back towards you, it doesn’t seem
like his eyes focus on you at all, and they appear to be
glassy looking. You also notice that his face looks paler
than usual, too. It’s not paper white, but the guy is
definitely sick. He makes a noise, something unintelligible
which you question if it is even in English, before you say,
“Nate, you look pretty bad. How about I take you to the
nurse so they can call your mom?”

The grunt he gives in reply seems like all you’re
going to get in terms of agreement, and so you pick up his
backpack off the ground and tell him to follow you. At
first, Nathan reaches out towards you, like he wants to
grab at his bag or something, but you know from the way
he’s stumbling over his own feet that there’s no way he’ll
make it with the extra weight of his bag on his back, and
so you say, “Don’t worry about the bag, I’ve got it. You
just follow me.”

Reaching the door, you find the Dean of School
Discipline, Miss Ski, locking the doors just as the bell rings
for first hour to begin. Ever since schools came under
attack, the doors of most schools started getting locked to
protect students from unwanted intruders. Now, Miss Ski
gives you her disciplinarian look, clearly questioning why
you are late.

Quickly explaining yourself in hopes that you can
avoid any more trouble, you say, “Miss Ski, I found Nathan
getting sick in the bushes, and I decided to help him in. I
figured I would take him to the nurse’s office and then
head to first hour.”

Looking past you, Miss Ski takes in Nathan’s
appearance including his chalk-white complexion and the
throw up stain on his school uniform, and a momentary
look of disgust comes over her face. Then looking back to
you, she asks, “Is that his stuff?” nodding with her chin
towards the extra backpack you’re carrying.

“Fine, help him to the nurse and have her write you
a pass. I want you in class within the next five minutes.”
“Yes, ma’am,” you agree, just as she steps back and
allows you to take on the job of holding the door open for
Nathan while she continues her rounds ensuring the rest
of the school is locked up.
After she goes, you look back to Nathan and are
startled to find that he is standing only inches away from
you, his face tilted down like he was thinking of resting his
head on your shoulder and his mouth pungent with the
smell of vomit and decay. Stepping back to give yourself
some breathing room, you say, “Nate, when you call
home from the nurse’s office, you might want your mom
to bring you some toothpaste or something when she
comes cause your breath is nasty.” Then turning into the
school, you say, “Come on, Nurse Jackie is this way.”
Nathan staggers more than once as he follows you,
and you count both yourself and him lucky that no one
else is in the halls to see it because you would both surely
be talked about if anyone did. Finally, however, you make
it to the nurse’s office and are surprised to find that
others are already there. The place, for that matter, is
already full. Pushing the door open, you say, “Nurse
Jackie,” and when she looks up from her desk where she is
filling out some paperwork, you add, “Nathan was outside
throwing up in the bushes. I thought he should come see
you.”
“Another one, oh dear. Okay, let’s have him come
back here, and I’ll take a look at him.”
Following her, you set Nathan’s bag down on the
floor next to the chair she indicates. Turning around to
see Nathan, you notice all of the people in the room look
almost as bad as Nathan does, and you get a little
squeamish about the idea of getting whatever it is that
they all have. Conveniently remembering the dean’s
words just then, you say, “Ma’am, Miss Ski said she
wanted me to hurry up and get to class. Now that he’s in
here, can you write me a pass so I can don’t get a tardy?”
Reaching for a pad of sticky notes, she says, “She’s
right, you do need to get to class. All right, here, just let
me…,” and scribbles something down as her sentence
trails off.
When she hands you the note, you thank her and
head out as quickly as you can without letting it look like a
run. In the hall, you let out a breath you hadn’t realized
you were holding and begin to make your way to your
locker.
In years past, the students’ lockers were all
grouped together by their grade level, and it formed
zones where seniors, juniors, sophomores, and freshman
each congregated. This year, however, the school tried
something different. They assigned the student’s lockers
by the students’ first hour class. They claimed that it
would bring the school together and help to avoid cliques
which might ostracize certain students. It also had the
added bonus of reducing first hour truancy as well.
Stepping up to your locker, you spin the dial, 50
right – 22 left – 34 right, and lift the handle only to find
that the door doesn’t open. You try jiggling the latch a
few times, but when it still doesn’t open, you go back to
spinning the dial. Just as you turn to the last number
again, the classroom door next to you opens, and you find
your first hour teacher, Miss Dikeo, staring you down.
“Late again, I see,” says Miss Dikeo.
Fumbling in your pocket, you say, “It’s not my fault,
Ma’am. Nathan got real sick outside, and I helped him to
get to the nurse.”
A bit of the teacher’s glacial stare seems to melt at
your words, but not enough to avoid a titanic amount of
trouble she’s clearly worked herself up into, as she asks, “I
assume you have a pass, or some sort of proof that this is
where you were?”
Pulling out the note from your pocket, you present
it to her and say, “Yes, Nurse Jackie wrote it just a minute
ago, see?”
You can visibly see her letting go of her anger, but
before it completely ebbs away, she says, “I’m sorry that
he is not well, but in the future I’m sure he will be able to
make it to the nurse without your help.”
It’s true that you could have let this be the last
word on the subject and let her think she had said her
peace and taught you something, but because she was
who she was, and you were who you were, you can’t help
but add in one more comment to defend yourself.
“Actually, Miss Ski was the one who told me to make sure
he got to the nurse, Ma’am. I was on my way here when
she saw me. You can check.”
Not having anything to say, Miss Dikeo turns and
walks back into the room, leaving the door open behind
her for you to follow. Instead, however, you lift the latch
on your locker door and take your time retrieving your
book, paper, and pen, before you enter the class and take
your assigned seat on the far side of the room next to the
windows and wall mounted water pipes that make up the
school’s boiler heating system.
Since class had already begun, Miss Dikeo had to go
to her computer to edit the attendance she had already
taken and remove the absent tag she put with your name.
As she did this, you notice that three seats in the room are
empty, and you look over to your friend John and ask in a
low voice, “Hey, where’s Stacey and the others?”
Staring back at you through one blood shot eye,
John grunts and gives you a non-committal shrug.
Thinking to yourself that this has felt like the longest week
of your life already, you understand John’s nonchalance
and turn back to face the teacher, wishing you could be
out of school like the others, too. Clearly something was
going on, and it would have been so much better if you
could have just stayed in bed this morning.
Finished with the attendance, Miss Dikeo begins
walking over to you with a sheet of paper in hand saying,
“The class is on page one hundred and twenty in A Tale of
Two Cities answering the questions on this handout. You
should find all of the answers within the next three
chapters of reading, but like I already told the rest of the
class, they are not all in order.”
Realizing that in all the commotion of the morning,
you never got a chance to use the bathroom and this
assignment is about the last thing you feel like working on
right now, you have a choice to make.

Realizing that the weights would probably end up
being too heavy to swing around for very long, and you
don’t really want to try carrying them all back to the
teachers’ lounge, you give up on that idea and refocus on
the athletic office. As you reach the stairs going down to
the office, you and Alexis both hear a sound from the
other end of the gym where you just came from. Turning
around, your worst suspicions are confirmed as you watch
a small horde of zombies push through the doors. There’s
no way to tell if they followed you by smell, or if they
were drawn to the area by Alexis’s initial yelling out in the
hall, but either way, now is not the time to assign blame.
It’s time to get yourself equipped and start kicking zombie
butt.

Following Alexis into the basement, you enter the
athletic office and spot the old gray trash barrel in the
corner of the room with the sports equipment in it.
Without getting any closer, you can already count a half
dozen bats, some wooden and some aluminum, along
with a few plastic and wooden hockey sticks, a couple of
lacrosse poles, and a badminton racket with several
broken strings. Approaching, you assess the bounty and
figure the lacrosse pole and badminton racket were never
meant for much hitting, and you’ve seen too many hockey
sticks break on slap shots to bet your life that it would
hold up to you cracking it against a couple zombie skulls.
Reaching in, you wrap your hands around the leather
wrapped handle of an almost new looking aluminum bat
and smile.

“That looks even better than mine,” says Alexis
from behind you as she steps forward to see if there are
any more like it in the barrel.

Just then, you hear the first zombie as it literally
falls down the stairs behind the two of you. Looking back,
you see the zombie lying on the ground for a moment,
and then it finally starts to crawl its way in as more
zombies follow it down the stairs.

Rushing forward, you lift your new aluminum bat
high overhead, prepared to bash it into the face of the
zombie and stop when you feel it scrape across the low
basement ceiling. Realizing you will have to watch the
clearance of your swings, you adjust the grip and swing
the bat like a golf club into the bridge of the zombie’s
nose, snapping its head back. Not waiting for you to wind
up for your next swing, Alexis steps in front of you and
takes out the next one. Between the two of you, four
more zombies are dispatched to their eternal sleep.

“Yeah,” you agree while panting for your next
breath. “You all right? No bites or anything?”
“I’m good,” confirms Alexis.
“Okay then, let’s get some more of these,” you say
as you hold up the bat, “and move on to the next thing on
the list.”
“Sounds good,” agrees Alexis.
Turning back into the room, you head for the
plastic trash can with the sports equipment but only make
it a few steps before you hear a scream. Turning around
quickly, you find a new zombie, this one wearing a
cheerleading outfit, with its teeth sinking deeper into
Alexis’s arm.
Acting on instinct, you rush forward and slam the
butt of the aluminum bat into the zombie’s forehead,
trying to dislodge it from Alexis’s arm. As it stumbles
back, you switch your grip and swing the bat into its
temple. The thick sounding wet impact of the bat reminds
you of the noises your dad’s meat tenderizer makes when
he is preparing steaks.
With the zombie dead, you look to Alexis and then
more specifically to her bleeding arm. You know if this
zombie outbreak is anything like those in the books and
movies, she’s been infected and will change soon, too.
Meeting her eyes, you know she has come to the same
conclusion. You have a choice to make.

Trying to reassure her, you say, “Don’t worry,
Alexis. We can get through this. I’m going to grab some
more bats, and then we’ll make our way to the nurse’s
office. I’m betting if we put some alcohol and peroxide on
it, you’ll be fine.”

With tears welling up in her eyes, Alexis pulls in a
sniffling breath and nods, saying, “Yeah, I think you’re
right. It doesn’t look too bad, just a little blood. I bet
once we clean it up, it will be nothing more than a
scratch.”

“Exactly,” you agree, a little too enthusiastically.
“It’s just a flesh wound,” you say in a bad British accent,
quoting Monty Python. “Just let me grab these bats, and
we’ll be out of here.”

Turning, you make it halfway across the room when
you hear the door slam shut behind you. Running to the
door, you scream to be let out, only to hear the faint voice
of Alexis from the other side saying, “I’m sorry. I can’t let
you risk yourself to save me. I’ll go to the nurse’s station
for the first aid kit on my own and come right back. You’ll
be safe in here.”

Yelling back you say, “Come on, Alexis. Let me out.
I can help you.”
With a trembling voice, Alexis says, “No. I don’t
want this infection to win. I don’t want to turn into one of
them and bite you. At least this way, I know you’re safe.”
Before you can respond, you hear the fading
footsteps of Alexis running up the stairs. You try banging
on the heavy metal door, but it doesn’t open, and she
doesn’t come back.
At first, you hold out hope that she’s successful and
is just taking a little longer than expected, being cautious
and all, as she returns to let you out, but by the time you
find yourself in such desperate need of using the
bathroom that you are forced to relieve yourself in a
corner, you’ve pretty much given up all hope.
You’ve inspected the area thoroughly and found a
small metal placard on one wall behind a bookshelf which
confirmed your worst fears. This room was first built as a
fallout shelter back in the sixties when people feared
things like nuclear weapons from Russia. Now, it would
seem, it will be your crypt.