Class of 2013 - 1

[Credit for the images used for the Cover Image: Images found on FreeDigitalPhotos.net Empty Class Room by criminalatt Barb Wire by winnond The Desperate Anxiety by Naypong Shadow of Hand in Jail by sakhorn38 And a special thanks to my friend Sabrina Coles for putting the cover together.]

Chapter One

One more day. One more day, and everything would have been fine. But… no. The fates just didn’t have that in their plan for us. We were supposed to graduate on June fifth, and then there was going to be summer break – at least for most of us. Chien was going to be taking college courses right through the summer, just like he had been for the last two years, and I had been for the last couple semesters. There was no doubting he was smart, but sometimes I worried that he pushed himself too hard when it came to school. Being intelligent was all well and good, but you had to have some form of balance in your life – a balance between work and play, as it were. Me and James were gonna just kick back and chill – and yeah, we’re the slackers of our little group. James more than me, but I gotta admit that I am. Most I would have done was get a job at the new library down the street to make some cash.

But now… now that didn’t matter. It didn’t matter even the slightest bit. We’re still not sure what exactly happened today, but it was supposed to be our last free-dress day of the year. Seniors practiced doing the filing in and taking their walk, and everyone else basically got a free day. Classes were done for the year. Sometime around eleven o’clock this morning, someone wandered onto the campus through the back gate near the park; looked pretty sick. A couple staff members tried talking to him, but he wasn’t saying anything. When the nurses were called down, they tried to lead him back to the infirmary.

However, when they took hold of him, he grabbed one of the nurses and bit her right on the neck – tore out a good chunk of it too. One of the campus security guys saw it and grabbed him, tried to pull him off, but got bit on the arm. A couple of the seniors on the football team rushed over, but about that time the first nurse was on her feet again and had tackled the other to the ground and was biting and ripping chunks out of her too. By the end of it, the original guy, both nurses, the campus security guy, three staff members, and two football players had been killed… and then got back on their feet. A middle-school kid was bit and ran across the campus, but ended up dropping dead a moment later inside the infirmary… and of course, got back up.

It spread like wildfire, especially since the school was an enclosed space. The fence that went around the school was made of just steel fencing. It wasn’t chain link or anything that could be climbed easily. The only other way inside was through the office – and it was also the only other way out unless you had a key. Unfortunately, the office was locked up tight. The ladies that worked inside had taken an early lunch and clocked out only a few minutes before everything started. The gates were all locked up as well. The only gate that hadn’t been locked was the one to the park, and only because nobody had remembered to shut it after morning P.T. As soon as the guy wandered in, it was shut and locked as well by the campus security.

What did this mean for the little over six hundred students that were inside the school? It meant we were a zombie buffet; that’s what it meant. Within moments of the spread beginning, there was no way out of the school. Mostly because the staff was trying to calm everything down and figure out what was going on. Unfortunately, that meant that everyone with keys to the gates was putting themselves in harm’s way – and then getting infected. Word didn’t reach the Commandant (and my group of friends by association) until things had been going on for about fifteen minutes. By then the infection was already spreading like a plague.

Oh, and of course, how had that word reached us? When one of the last staff members, our calculus teacher, had called over a radio and said exactly what was going on outside of the cafeteria. That’s where the five of us were – me, James, Chien, Lea (my cousin), and our Commandant – Nathaniel Sweet; though most of us just called him either “Sir” or in James’ case, “Boss”. James was about the only one of us that could get away with it, too. Now and then if we caught him in a good mood, we could call him Boss and not be reprimanded but… we tended to just not risk it. Lea could usually get away with it considering… well, he was kind of her favorite, next to James.

See, James had kind of been without a dad. I mean, his pops was there, but he wasn’t really all that involved in his son’s life. His mom and grandmother were more involved, but his mom was… well, if you can’t say anything nice, right? His grandmother was better, but it was hard to talk to her about anything without her sounding like a racist by the end of it. She always tried to say that she wasn’t one, but we could all pretty much tell that if she wasn’t… she was borderline. Frankly, I just went with her being a racist and stopped listening to her past basic rules of being at her house. Oddly enough, most of us listened to her rules better than James himself did. I could get more into that, but I’ll put it simply: he was pretty fed up with his family.

Commandant Sweet had for some reason taken James under his proverbial wing though, and in doing so, had begun making him a better person. It was a slow, grueling process, but he never seemed to mind much. Though, he did have something akin to a swear jar going for him. A nickel went in for every time James swore – but he could get it back; if he did a pushup for every cent he wanted back. He told us all a joke once, while James wasn’t around, that one day he did a thousand pushups just to make back the ten dollars that had ended up in the jar over the course of the week. Yes, he cursed that much. However, he had done the thousand pushups, so… if nothing else, at least he wasn’t too lazy – well, when it came to getting money back, anyway.

Since then, he’d cut back on the swearing some, but that jar could still get full over the course of the month if James was in one of his depressive moods for an extended period. Thankfully, his hyperactive nature was also being put toward more creative means than just causing trouble. For instance, Sweet made sure to have James run ragged during morning PT, and then exercised during lunch period, that way he wouldn’t be overly excited throughout the course of the day. It was strange, but when James was tired, he paid a lot better attention in class, and you could tell by the look on his face that he was actually absorbing information. That… or… he was just so tired that he couldn’t be bothered to come up with wisecracks to counter what the teachers said.

Either way, his grades had come up, though I can’t say that it was all Sweet’s doing. Chien had begun tutoring James in math and science, and I was helping him in English and history. He had Spanish down thanks to his dad being from Mexico (okay, so he still struggled with it, but he was better than any of the rest of us, save for perhaps Lea). Somehow though, it had ended up bringing up all our grades at a somewhat even pace. The better that James got, the better the rest of us got. I think it’s due to the fact that our study sessions would be in a group, so we were going over everything together, so if there was something that one of us didn’t understand, we’d probably learn it as James did.

The one thing that none of us were going to get better at by being around Lea was distance shooting. Extreme distance shooting was her field. The four of us were on the rifle team, but I’m not afraid to say that Lea and Chien were the two best shots. That’s why they got to use the Remington 700’s and the rest of us only got to use the Ruger 10/22’s. Aside from us four seniors, there were another six people on the team – all of them juniors. Nobody in the lower grades got to be on the rifle team. They did, however, get to do target shooting with the RWS Hammerli 850 AirMagnum rifles that Lea nearly demanded the school purchase.

Then of course when the school wouldn’t buy it, she went out and used her own money to buy ten of the things, along with lots of CO2 and ammunition. If you’re wondering where she got the thousands of dollars required to do this? Well, her dad was bomb squad in L.A. and ended up dead when she was a kid. Her mom had died in child birth, so all the compensation went to Lea. My parents took her in and put the compensation pay away in the bank every time that a check would come in, and it stacked up over the last 10 years. Not to mention that, but she’d been working since the age of twelve – everything from paper routes to tutoring, and then actual fixed jobs. Calling her industrious is probably an understatement, but she never really seems to mind.

In fact, it was thanks to her industrious nature that we were all assembled in the cafeteria when everything started. All the tables and chairs were put away, so there was plenty of room to work in… well, aside from all the other equipment that was being stored in there. We chose one of the more open spots and pushed the equipment bins away. We were working mostly as three individual little groups really, but it was nice to be in the same area. James and Sweet were sparing, Chien and I were using a paper cutter to make fliers for the rifle team over summer – technically we were still on it until the next school year started – and Lea was just cleaning one of the air rifles. When the radio sprang to life and we started to hear screaming outside, we all looked around at one another… stunned at the fact that it was really happening.

Lea, however, was the first of us to truly dispute what she was hearing. Yes, we’d just heard it over the radio and we could hear screams outside, but her reasoning was simple. One, what was the true likelihood that a zombie plague was starting right there in our school? Two, there hadn’t been any sort of senior prank as of yet, and being that the four of us were kind of chummy with the Commandant, maybe the other seniors had left us out of the loop on this. When the pounding on the door started, and screams for help followed, Lea Abernethy was the first person in the room to head for the door – followed soon by Sweet, and then James behind him. Meanwhile, Chien and I stayed next to the paper cutter.

Neither of us were sure what to expect from the other side of that door, but with Sweet not looking in our direction, I took out a multi-tool and began using the vice-grips to start removing the nut that held the paper cutter’s arm to its base. Chien gave me a look, and I just whispered that it was better safe than sorry. I didn’t take the nut all the way off, just loosened it to the point that a couple twists would take it off. The only reason I didn’t remove it completely was the fact that I didn’t want to look overly suspicious if it was just a prank and I had to start fumbling with the nut to put it back on. In the next few moments I was glad that I’d been open minded enough to loosen that nut.

Lea stormed over to the door of the cafeteria and flung it open wide – though the scene before her made her stop and stare; frozen in shock. Her feet rooted to the ground where she stood, her eyes were wide in horror. The beating on the door stopped just before she got to it, and when it was opened there was a blood curdling scream, and blood spurted over Lea’s cheek. That blood was from the major artery in the neck of our calculus teacher as it was torn open by the maw of a zombified student. All the rest of us saw it, even Chien and I from our spot on the table. We all stared for a moment as the man screamed in pain, but then my fingers slid over the loosened nut.

I turned and twisted the securing nut off of the connecting bolt of the paper cutter’s arm, then pulled the arm off. Meanwhile the zombie dropped the dead teacher, and turned its teeth toward Lea. Sweet pulled her around behind him and gave the ghoulish creature a solid kick to the chest; sending it to the wall with a loud smack. It slid to the floor stunned, but not dead. It was then that I shouted.

“James! Weapon!” With the slicing arm off of the paper cutter, I skipped it over the tiled floor of the cafeteria toward James, and he stopped it with the bottom of his shoe. Ducking down as he turned, he grabbed the handle, and just as the zombie got back on its feet, he brought the slicer across the zombie’s temple and splattered it over the wall. We all looked on for a moment, and James stepped back – though his grip on the slicer only grew tighter. He’d felt it. Seen it. There were bite marks on it, and missing chunks of flesh. This wasn’t movie makeup. He hadn’t just killed a person. He’s slain one of the living dead.

Then of course he said what the dark parts of our mind were thinking. The one thing that every person when faced with a zombie would never really want to admit to thinking. Hell, it was the one thing that few people would just openly admit that they would think. However, he still said it all the same.

“That’s fuckin’ cool…” Even though we all stared at him as if shocked at the phrase spilling out of his mouth, not one of us could protest it.

“James!” Lea snapped, “That was a person!” Okay, maybe someone could protest.

“Not when I killed it, it wasn’t.” James said as he looked at her, blinking a couple times – as if he could somehow suddenly look so very innocent. To say the least, looking innocent was just not his thing.

“I mean before it was a zombie. To become a zombie it had to be bit by one. That means the person died. It’s not cool, James. It’s fucking horrific!” She glared at him, though stopped when the teacher that had been bitten started twitching and then began to rise. Her eyes went wide and she stepped back. Sweet however, stepped forward and held his hand out to James.

“James, if you’d be so kind?”

“Sure, Boss. This one’s all yours.” The handoff of the slicer was made, and just as the zombie began to stagger upright, the wood-fixed steel edge was brought down on top of the former teacher’s skull. Blood and bits of skull splattered the floor as the body slammed down onto it, and Sweet handed the slicer back to James as he pushed the body further outside and shut the door. Outside we could still hear screams, but Sweet calmly stepped back over to the dress uniform he had changed out of earlier. There with it was the scabbard for his Marine Corps officer’s sabre; the righteous steel of the blade held within.

“What do we do, sir?” Chien asked slowly, being the first to find his voice after the incident. Still, Sweet was quiet for a moment as he slid the sabre from its scabbard and looked at the blade. Most swords were made only for decoration, but after he was discharged, he’d ordered one that was to be made to the same dimensions – but with the specification that it was to be a battle ready weapon. He’d told us all this before. What we hadn’t known was that the sabre he carried with him was the battle ready one, and the other was on display at his home. This was only revealed to us when he picked up one of the fliers that had been cut, and then slid it down over the sabre blade – slicing the paper easily. Only then did he turn to us.

“Everyone, grab a weapon. We’re going to save everyone we can.” He pointed the sabre toward Chien and I. “Chien and Roy, you two are a team. You’ll take the left half of the school.” Both of us gave a nod and grabbed a weapon – Chien picking a baseball bat, and I picked a bokken. We happened to have had a Kendo team at school; I was never officially part of it, it would have conflicted with the rifle team meets, but I did practice with them and had books on swordsmanship.

Sweet then pointed the sabre toward James and Lea. “James, Lea, you two will be taking the right half of the school. I’ll grab Mr. Malone’s keys and open his classroom; mine are in the office. You all meet me there as you grab survivors. I’ll have the door locked from the inside and be watching from the upper windows. I’ll open it for you once you’re close.” They each gave a nod and James gave the slicer a flick to get some of the blood off. Meanwhile, Lea loaded the air rifle she’d finished cleaning moments before. It was then that we all headed for the door, with Sweet in the lead. “Don’t stop for anything. If it spreads that fast, then you can’t risk getting bogged down. If you get surrounded, you’re zombie bait.”

Then I asked the other thing on everyone’s mind. “Sir, you had the gate key today… If your keys are in the office, and the office staff left early for lunch – thus locking the office in the process – how are we gonna get out of the school? The teachers don’t have office keys of their own… We can’t get over the fences fast enough by boosting one another over; not with all of them out there… How do we do this?” There was silence as everyone waited for the answer.

“…I’m working on it.” Sweet finally said and glanced at me. “For now, focus on the task at hand, Roy. I know you want to plan this out, but I don’t recall any of you having a zombie plan that involved being locked inside the school at the outset.” There was a smirk on his lips as he finished that statement. If you’re wondering why, it was simple. See, we actually were pretty chummy with Commandant Sweet; we even had ‘Zombie Night’ at his house a couple times in the past – and discussed our ‘zombie plans’ together. Yes, we actually came up with ideas for what we would do in case of a zombie apocalypse. He was also correct in that none of us had planned for this possibility.

Now we were all kicking ourselves for it.