Zombie High Chronicles (Book 1) (14 page)

Ember is still trembling in my arms when Flynn leaves and I sink fully down onto the floor to sit with her. She’s a tough girl, tougher than any I’ve known. Whatever Thompkins did to her it must have been a close call.

“They did this, didn’t they?” She whispers and leans her head against my shoulder.

I don’t have to ask who
they
are. We both know she’s talking about the military, the powers that be and the doctors who do their bidding. I knew something smelled fishy and now we know why.

“I think so. Hell, we know that MONE vaccine screwed with people. Why should anything else they try be any different?”

Ember places a hand on my arm that is slung over her shoulder. “Thanks for coming for me.”

“Sure. You did for me.”

She smiles as she looks up at me. “That almost sounded like a thank you.”

“Hey, I said it when you arrived.”

“I know.” She presses closer to me, pulling my arm tighter around her. “I’m just playing.”

I breathe her in, smelling the sweet scent of vanilla that always hangs around her. I like it. “I can’t quite figure you out. One minute you’re taking a jab at me, the next you're flirting with some bat faced soldier and now you’re snuggling with me?”

Ember laughs softly. “And yet you seem to be missing the one key factor that connects all of those together.”

“What?”

She leans forward so that she can look at me. “You.”

I’d like to state at this point in time that I’ve never had any trouble in the lady department. In truth, I’m usually the one running out the back door the morning after when a girl’s dad gets home or her boyfriend shows up, but Ember is different. She’s not like the girls I usually go for.

Which is exactly why I should not be going for her now, idiot!

Clearing my throat, I ease my arm back from around her and crawl over toward Tompkins.  “Do you think there are more of these? Was he part of the breach or a result of it?”

“Who knows. At this point, I doubt anyone truly does.” To her credit, she allows me the space that I need without complaint or clinginess. I respect that.  “Maybe he’s a bit of both?”

“I just don’t get it. The bite marks are new as is the aggression. Austin mentioned that the teachers were discussing hunger. What if that’s why they snapped at us? Not out of anger but out of an actual physical need?”

“I’m going to pretend that doesn’t creep me out,” she whispers and crawls over to sit beside me. We sit together, staring down at Tompkins and knowing that nothing will ever be the same again.

“The people downstairs can’t know about this yet,” I say.

“Agreed.”

“It would only create a panic,” I continue

“Definitely.”

I look over at her.  “This is messed up, isn't’ it?”

“Beyond belief.”

It’s nice to know that at least I’m not the only one shaken by this turn of events. Dead Heads are one thing but this...this is something entirely new.

11

And the other shoe drops...

As military trucks flood through the gates and enter the half circle outside the front doors of Zombie High, Ember and I work to load sniper rifles.

“Are you entirely sure that this plan is the best use of our ammunition stores? I only ask because it seems like we might be in need of those in other capacities in the near future.”

I turn to look back at Roderick over my right shoulder and wish for the fiftieth time I hadn’t let Vaughn go down to the shelter to recruit more help. Of course, we need it, but did he really have to bring back a guy like this pansy know it all?

“I’ve heard your concerns several times, Roderick and I am choosing to ignore them as the idiotic suggestions that they are. If we don’t fight now to hold the school, what will be left for us to defend later with all of those saved bullets?”

Roderick looks away as heat stained the tips of his ears with embarrassment.  “Now why don’t you go find someone else to bug before I shot you in the leg for being a pain in my ass? I’m sure Sammy would love to have a chat about food supply rations down in the mess hall.”

Roderick puffs up his chest with indignation and mutters something about how the heathens are going to get everyone killed before wandering off. Ember shoots me a knowing glance and finishes loading her magazine.

She looks like a female version of Rambo all decked out in gear and I have to admit, it looks damn good on her. With rifles slung over both shoulders, a holster attached to each leg and a knife hidden under the jeans on her right leg, she is a walking killing machine that gets me all hot and bothered just thinking about it.

“You look pretty comfortable holding those firearms. Care to spill any more details about your shady past?” I ask, checking the sights of my rifle for the second time. If there is one good thing my father taught me it is to always be sure that you can trust the accuracy of your weapons. One misfire and everyone will know where we were. We need that first shot to count.

“What’s to tell? I was daddy’s little soldier from the time I could walk. Mom didn’t really approve but I’m kinda stubborn.”

“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

She laughs and adds a spare magazine to a camo bag and hefts it onto a shelf to stock. “I’ll admit that I may have my moments, but it only annoys you because we’re so alike.”

I grab a .45-caliber and a rifle and follow her into the hall. “We are nothing alike.”

“Yeah, I would have said the same thing.”  She shoots a wicked grin over her shoulder as we pass the blockade at the front entrance and drop off a bag of guns to Austin where he has placed himself in charge with Coleman.

While the military has worked to amass outside our doors, with far more firepower than we could possibly hope to withstand, our crew of forty students and two wrangled soldiers have reluctantly agreed to assist in saving their own asses once they witnessed the truth of my words unfolding before them. It was
really
hard for me not to say “I told you so,” to Ugly Face when his eyes practically bulged out of his face when he saw his commanders body upstairs.

I trusted that his examination of the body was proof enough to keep his trap shut and him in line long enough to wage this war. Jacobson was sufficiently ill at the sight of the bodies but handles it better than Flynn did. Together they perform a quick perimeter check of the gymnasium which shows that the back door lock has been smashed open and the door left ajar but no further freaks with white eyes jump out at the search party. They give me the thumbs up when they return.

The four unwilling teachers are locked away in the gun cage where they won’t be in our way. Maybe they will come around. At this point, I just don’t want to mess with them.

“Can I trust you with that gun, soldier?” I call out to Clockman as I pass.

“Bite me.”  The former venom in his response isn’t there and I don’t blame him. We are all scared, some from the guns outside pointing in and for those select few, from the monsters we found upstairs. Looking death in the eye sucks and there is seems to be a whole lot of it waiting for us to make our first move.

How are forty people supposed to hold this massive building on our own? We are outnumbered, out gunned and without a prayer of a chance to survive. Of course, I don’t dare tell anyone that. A couple of people have been smart enough to think it through, though. I can see it in their eyes as I walk by. Those are the ones I know that I can rely on to fight dirty until the very end. They are the survivors in the group and that’s exactly what I need right now.

Vaughn and Flynn have seen to the barricading the western wing of the first floor to make sure any attack from that direction will be slowed down. A wall of desks, chairs and anything else they could find with substantial weight behind it has been stacked four-feet deep and nearly to the ceiling. It won’t keep the soldiers out but it might slow down the bullets a little bit.

All nonessential students, pretty much the ones who got on my nerves with their whining and whimpering, have been sent to the upper floors and crammed into windowless supply closets. It almost feels like we are prepping for a tornado drill, only this time, we know that it’s going to be a direct hit.

As I begin to mount the stairs, I turn back. All around me are scared kids, most of whom have never held a gun before in their life. To my surprise, I see that Ugly Face now stands off to the side giving an impromptu lesson in gun etiquette to Darby, Paislee, Teegan, and Bex. I am pretty sure that he is only doing it so he doesn’t end up with a bullet in his ass cheeks on accident when the poop hits the fan.

“Go on without me,” I call up to Ember and walk over to Teegan. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Learning how to shoot.”

“That’s not happening,” I yank her away and underestimate the extra weight she is carrying in the front and nearly end up with her on top of me. Pushing her upright, I begin pulling her away again but this time with a bit more care. “This is not your fight.”

“Like hell, it’s not. Those monsters experimented on me, Roan. I deserve to take a couple of them down.”

“And your baby? What does he deserve?” She opens her mouth to protest but slowly closes it again. “I’m not losing you over some blind idiotic need for revenge, Teegan. Learn when to walk away so that you can strike a deadly blow later.”

“Is that some corny line from a movie?”

“Nah. I just made that up, but it works, right?”

Despite her obvious desire to hold on to her righteous anger, she caves and smiles. “Yeah, a little bit. Not exactly award winning but I’ll let it slide.”

I give Flynn a nod where he is stationed at the front door and then climb the stairs with Teegan until we reach the third floor. I want her as far away from the danger as I can get her.  

Opening the supply closet I pass Teegan off to Kinsley. “Don’t let her out of your sight.”

“What do I look like, a babysitter?”  She pops a gum bubble and I’m reminded why she was one of the first I exiled up here.

“No. You look like a prissy little witch with a stick shoved so far up her backside that it's coming out of your turned up nose, but what do I know?” I slam the door in her face.

“Dude, how can you talk like that to her?”  I turn at the sound of a voice behind me to see Lathan materialize from the shadows. “She’s the cutest girl her.”

“Riiiight,” I drawl out, staring at his lovesick expression with a mixture of revulsion and empathy. “Look, that girl is way too much crazy for a guy like you. Let it go. Trust me, you’ll thank me later.”

I could almost feel Kinsley's eye daggers from the other side of the door when I hear her cry of indignation followed by swearing that would make any sailor proud. I just shrug and head down the hall, pausing in the first doorway. “You good?”

“Aw. Are you worried about me?”  Ember glances up from where she sits perched on a window sill, cloaked in near darkness. She will lose that cover soon enough.  The sky is growing bright much too quickly and soon we will all be exposed.

“Not at all.” I step up beside her and look at the forces spread out across the lawn. A single RPG would bust a hole through our defenses but I don’t think they will risk it. Not with us sitting on top of a bomb of their own making. It’s amazing how it's the small things in life that come back to bite you in the ass. “Just making sure you don’t fall asleep and leave me hanging.”

“You say the sweetest things. If I didn’t know better, Roan, I’d say you were flirting.”

I scoff. “Trust me, when I flirt with you, you’ll know about it.”

“Same here.” When I turn to look at her she lunges forward and seizes my face in her hands, planting a kiss on my lips. I splutter at first, taken off guard by her advance but quickly regain my composure when I realize that she tastes of honey and vanilla.

I sink into the kiss and set down my rifle down on the ledge so that I can grab her by the waist and draw her in close. She is petite but toned and fits perfectly into my hands as I lift her up and press her back against the wall. As she wraps her legs around my hips and grinds against me I am pretty sure that I’d be willing to forget the army waiting outside our doors just for a few moments alone with her.

A throat clears behind us and I break off the kiss to see Lathan standing awkwardly in the door. “Um, yeah, so Flynn gave the signal. Thought you ought to know.”

Ember grins over my shoulder and shoos Lathan away then she sucks my lower lip into her mouth only to bite down on it before releasing her grasp on me. “This isn’t over. When we live through this, I expect you to come find me.”

She pushes out of my arms and turns away, dismissing me as if she hasn’t just lit a freakin’ fire in my pants and left me to fend for myself.

Sure, like I’ll be able to focus now!

I grab my gun and what few shreds of my dignity remain and head for my post three classrooms down, knowing that I will never live that kiss, or my reaction to it, down. While I go through the motions of checking my scope for the third time, I try not to think about the dead body in the supply closet at the other end of the room. In time, we will have to dispose of Tompkins but for now stashing him was the easiest form of disposal.

The instant my thoughts return to Ember I know I was right about her. She is sinfully and deliciously dangerous and I loved every minute of it.

“You ready?” She shouts from down the hall.

“I was born ready. Just try to keep up.”

I don’t hear her retort because I open fire. Soldiers below run for cover for not before I take four out in a row, downing them with shots to their backs as they flee. A barrage of bullets ping off of the metal hulls of the armored vehicles as Ember and I work to herd the soldiers into two groups, located in front of the very windows our teen soldiers man down below.

Within seconds, the calm of the morning becomes a wild and chaotic scene as return fire lights up the courtyard. Bits of brick and mortar fill the air as high powered machine guns tear at the school building. From somewhere below I can hear Ugly Face shouting orders and Flynn relaying them to his side of the school.

That’s when I see something in the distance and feel my skin go cold. “Ember?”

“I see it. What do you think it is?”

“Whatever it is, it doesn’t look good!”

Within seconds of my statement, a building directly ahead of me explodes in a dome of brilliant white light. The blast rattles the windows and sends the soldiers below diving for the ground. The heat soon follows and I can feel it pushing through the window in front of me. I turn away as the cloud of smoke rises into the air and flames eat away at the remains.

The radio propped up on the windowsill beside me crackles to life. “Sanitation of alpha lab ineffective. Containment breach in Quadrant 7 is not contained. I repeat. The containment breach in quadrant—” the man speaking breaks off with a shrill scream and only static follows.

I lower my gun and stare at the receiver. In the final moments of darkness, I stand and stare at the flickers of gunfire in the distance around the fire. Hundreds of flashes of light appear and disappear in rapid succession. Brilliant strobe lights burst to life around the compound and sirens begin to blare.

This is a full-scale emergency.

Ember startles me when she appears at my shoulder as the last bullet flies through the air and slams into a lower window, shattering it. I hear a scream of pain from below and then silence.

“I’m scared,” she whispers as we watch the soldiers below us scrambling to return to their vehicles. Whatever it is happening on the other end of the base has been deemed far more important than taking back the school and that means one thing: we are at risk of being overrun.

Through the shattered window before me, I withdraw the barrel of my rifle and listen.

“Can you hear them screaming?” Ember presses in close to my side.

I nod and slide my arm around her waist. “There’s nothing we can do for them.”

“But your mom and our families are out there!”

A lump forms in my throat as I force myself to look away. Did my mom know this was coming? Was she somehow a part of it?  I suspected when she arrived this morning that she had been promoted to working in the main lab. Who else would they trust to grant full access to the fallout shelter under the pretense of keeping things normal?  She knew things, had seen things and tried to warn me. Yes, I do think she knew this breach was coming but I would never believe for a second that she initiated it.