Class of 2013 - 17

Chapter Seventeen

Our movement to the door of the office was rushed, but with good reason. The few zombies that were around were far enough away that, if we got inside quickly, we wouldn’t have to bother with them. It was also decided already that Sweet, Lea, and myself would be the contingent given a radio to remain in contact with the bus – as Chien and James could contact us one way or another; through the PA system at least. As Sweet opened the door to the office, Chien and I brought up the Mini 14’s, and James and Lea brought up their pistols – Sweet himself had my AR-15 again; though at this particular moment he was using one of his revolvers instead. James headed inside first, followed closely by Lea, then Chien and I, and Sweet brought up the rear of our little formation.

The first contact was only a couple yards inside, thought James handled that quickly enough with the slicer and we moved further… or at least into the reception area. Turns out the entire office section of the building was full of zombies – mostly staff members and parents that had come to pick up their kids when everything started. The attempt was obviously admirable, but ultimately a resounding failure. Perris High was a much larger school than P.M.A. had been, as P.M.A. had been military charter, and Perris High was a regular public high school; no uniform, a dress code that wasn’t very strict, and overall an average populous. Considering that there were more survivors, but a smaller ratio of survivors to infected, I had a feeling that said something for areas with higher population concentrations.

More potential for survivors could be found in more populous areas, but the ratio likely decreased – due in part to the fact that a higher concentration meant a quicker spread of the infection, and the more zombies there were, the less likely it was for someone to not end up eaten. In a strange way, it was just like any other pandemic in history. The bubonic plague, smallpox outbreaks, and even influenza in its most potent forms acted in a similar fashion to this. However, instead of passing from one person to another in the air or by coughs and sneezes, this was passed on through a deadly and incredibly painful bite. In fact, it was almost funny… they were almost like the old stories of vampires – in some folklore and mythology, a simple bite was enough to turn someone. The thought sent a chill down my very mortal spine. Zombie vampires… no small wonder Romero had named the night walking legion from hell, ghouls.

I almost wanted to laugh as we moved through the office area – though my thoughts went from self amusing to somewhat morbid, one after the other. The thought of the zombies being akin to vampires in some way, and the overrunning of the city, made me think of Stephen King’s ‘Salem’s Lot. Of course, the fictional Jerusalem’s Lot had an underwhelming population compared to the City of Perris. If I recall correctly, it was supposed to be somewhere in the area of fifteen hundred. Perris… well… had fifty times that. Right now Perris was like Jerusalem’s Lot, but on steroids, crack, and a tablespoon of cheap speed for good measure. Unfortunately, Perris had also suffered the same basic fate as King’s fictional vampire haven, though on a greater scale, and here I was feeling like a real world Benjamin Mears. That was the morbid bit; I knew his story well.

The good news was that King’s novel had an ending that, when compared to our intentions for Perris, made me feel that this would work out well in the end. We just had to keep trying, and no matter what, we couldn’t lose the faith that we had – not in any religion mind you, but our faith in each other, and in our own personages. This rescue mission would help us in that. Once we had the office cleared – which thankfully was accomplished without firing a shot – we found a room with a PA system mike and Chien got ready. Once he was setup, Sweet, Lea, and I walked out into the halls quietly. Right as the door shut behind me, the PA system came to life… blaring Gangnam Style. I sighed and pinched my nose, resisting saying a line that Chien had inspired in James and I. That phrase being a simple and fitting: I fucking knew it.

The sad thing was that the song, though you couldn’t understand most of the lyrics unless you spoke the language (which I think was Korean…), was catchy as all hell. You also couldn’t really tell it was on repeat save for the short moments when the sound faded out and then it started again. Had there been a way to loop it at a precise moment… you might have thought that the song was just completely endless and only stopped on the radio because the station’s DJ didn’t want to hear the song anymore. That being said, it was apparently very good at attracting the living dead – for, as we moved through the halls, we could see the zombies packing in close around the speakers. Leave it to zombified teenagers to still crowd around to listen to their generation’s music.

Somehow, seeing said zombified teens crowded around the school speakers to listen to the music made said music strangely fitting. Then again, a lot of teens were as good as zombies anyway, so what was the real difference between here and when they were human? Oh right, they were more annoying when they were human. At least as zombies you could get rid of the poor bastards as you saw fit, and the most annoying thing that they did was try and eat you. As humans they could make choices and decisions that you couldn’t simply blame on their base nature. Instead, you could put the blame on their parents, their teachers, their friends, and most importantly on their own minds – but you couldn’t simply blame instinct. It didn’t work. Being rational creatures at our most basic, we had to assume responsibility for the stupid shit that we did to each other. Somewhat sadly, it also gave us the ability to do aforementioned stupid shit in the first damn place.

Progressing further, I held back every urge to lash out at the shambling, groaning beasts. Glancing toward Lea, I noted that she was having to resist the same urges, though may have been having a harder time of it than I was. Her finger was off the trigger of her rifle, having switched to it after leaving the office, but every time we passed a group she raised it slightly and her finger twitched. I could only assume that she was thinking about that first day, replaying the events that had happened; reliving them over and over in her now delicate mind. In a manner, it was like stained glass after having been hit by a brick – only one hole was present, but the cracks weakened the rest of the glass. She was a strong girl, but if she ended up with more of those same sorts of cracks… I wasn’t sure what’d become of her.

Upon reaching stairs, we took them to the topmost floor of the building and then perused around until we were able to find a roof access door. Thankfully, it was already unlocked, and we shortly found ourselves moving up onto the roof. Sweet moved in front of us, Lea and I following close behind and then fanning out to the sides. We may have been in our street clothes, but I doubted they thought we were any less than at least National Guard, or Army Reserves. …Well, maybe the coach thought that at least; the rest probably didn’t really care. We were the ones that had the guns and apparently knew how to get them the hell out of where they found themselves trapped at.

“Glad to see you.” The coach said as he walked forward; the nametag he wore on his windbreaker revealing his surname as Novik. My mind whirred at that; from my writing I knew the statistics for a lot of names, and while I couldn’t say definitively where he was from or what his background was, I had the feeling that his family, ancestor wise at least, might have been from the nation of Belarus – it was one of the five most common surnames in Minsk; the capital. Of course it could potentially have come from anywhere in Eastern Europe, or Europe in general, but the two most likely links to the name were the nation of Belarus and Slavic ancestry. Considering the somewhat pasty skin and the dark hair, I had little doubt of his ancestry – had his surname been Dracul, I would have thought him related to Wladislaus Dragwlya.

“Are you really going to get us out of here?” One of the cheerleaders, a brunette, asked with hope in her eyes, though received a harsh look from the coach – though it was brief; apparently she’s spoken out of turn, or so I assumed.

“We are.” Sweet nodded to her, and a small smile came to her lips despite Novik’s harsh look from a moment ago. “We need to move quickly and quietly. Two of my troops are in the office using the PA system to broadcast a distraction. I want us moving single file.” He looked to me then. “Lieutenant, you’re on point.” He looked to Lea, “Marksman, you’re the second column guard.” He looked to Novik again. “I want you three quarters of the way back. Know how to shoot?”

“You’re looking at a former Army Ranger.” Novik smirked a bit, and Sweet grinned.

“Doesn’t tell a Marine much.” After Sweets words, Novik’s smirk fell and he glared.

“Yeah, smartass, I can shoot.” The vampiric looking coach replied, and caught the revolver that Sweet tossed him.

“I want that back when we get to the bus.” He looked between Novik, Lea, and I then. “Nobody shoot or make any hostile moves as we go back. Just like on our way in. We don’t bring attention to ourselves, and we should be alright.” We all nodded in agreement, and with a motion from Sweet, I headed to the access door that head back down from the roof; waiting. Behind me another five were sent, then Lea, another five, Novik, the final five, and bringing up the rear of the column was Sweet. There was one thing that I couldn’t help but notice though – the buxom redhead that was standing just in front of Lea.

Glancing at her, then at my dear cousin, we shared a couple of looks. The first look shared was the mutual agreement that the redhead was, indeed, the best looking of the three cheerleaders. The brunette and the blonde were gorgeous creatures, but the redhead stole the show. From how she moved and stood, I was guessing that she was probably the captain of the cheer team. The next look was a mutual agreement that we’d both like a turn with her if possible – though I knew that Lea was probably the most virile of the people I knew… and she was the female of our group. She was a virgin… but she somehow attracted women like they were flies to honey. I never was able to grasp it, really. That fact, combined with the knowledge that, either way, she was far better looking than I, drew the conclusion that I had nary a chance.

The next look was one of complete sexualization on Lea’s part, and one of disdain, disapproval, and acknowledgement that we were, in fact, blood relatives. Why was this the exchange? Basically she made the motion of grabbing this unsuspecting girl’s ass – though refrained from doing so… thank god. Of course, I should have suspected as much from any of my friends – Chien being the only one that might not have done it… at least so obviously as had been done. Also, considering Lea’s lack of respect, and even disdain, for cheerleaders in general… I should have expected this of her. She was, surprisingly, the most perverted in our group of friends, though it wasn’t often shown to Chien or James. Mostly just me, and mostly just because she enjoyed watching my sometimes flailing reactions to the things that she would do or say. Good person though she was, she probably could have used sensitivity training.

The moment that the lovely ginger caught the looks passing between Lea and me, she gave a pointed look my way, and then snapped her head to the side and turned her upper body to look behind her. A glance down and she saw Lea’s hand near her rear, and while just about anyone else would have taken their hand away, Lea just grinned at her. The glare that had begun to form immediately turned to a blush as Lea flashed that seductive little smile of hers, and our voluptuous bluey vixen abruptly faced forward. I couldn’t help but stare at Lea for a moment; this wasn’t the first time that I had seen her do something like this, but I never could get used to this astounding ability of hers.

It didn’t even seem to matter if the girl was straight or something else. I had never once in my entire time knowing Lea known her to fail at this little game of hers. I couldn’t help but think that it wasn’t fair that she got the Jedi lust powers (or perhaps Sith if she ever decided to use them for evil), but in the end she usually used it on girls that I had no chance with anyway… so what difference did it really make? Not only that, but while she had it, and even though she used it, she mostly just played around with it for fun. She’d never used it to get another person in bed, though there was little doubt that she easily could have. Talk about a paradox – she had all the makings of someone that could be so very promiscuous if she wanted to be, and yet she had this romantic view of things. It was almost funny.

Almost.

It was actually bloody aggravating to witness so often.

Looking back to the rear of the now formed column, I watched and waited for the Boss to give us our move order. When it came, I moved down into the school, just in time for an extra bit of pause, and instead of Gangnam Style starting up again… this time it was Get Out Alive. Not only did Chien troll me by playing the first song, but he played both of them! Somehow I sensed that James had a hand in this. Lord knew I’d trolled him plenty throughout our friendship. Why not get back at me now, and all in the name of ensuring that the zombies didn’t get used to one set of sounds? Surely that would be the excuse concocted if ever I asked why they’d played the other song. Of course, I couldn’t much argue. At the very least it did make the environment more upbeat... or at least the first one had. This one was just so fitting that you had to play it.

It wasn’t long before we were headed back down the stairs toward the ground floor… when something abrupt happened. As Sweet passed through the last door and stepped away, the hydraulic door hinge slowly letting it shut, the loud music cut out. It just so happened that it had to cut out after the words ‘run for your life’ came out. As the music stopped, we all froze in our tracks – save Sweet. I glanced back, just in time to see him turn to try and grab the door before it had the chance to slam shut. Of course, by the time the music had stopped, the slam was only a couple seconds away, and resounded down through the halls. Still, even as the zombies in front of us all turned in our direction, nobody dared move. The halls were full of them, on all floors, and no matter what way we went we’d be running into them left and right.

Admiral Ackbar, your line please?

The one thing that kept running through my head was a quandary: what the hell had caused the music to stop? A simple amount of deduction could likely answer that. It wasn’t likely that Chien and James were zombie bait, and thus it could easily be assumed that the iPod’s battery was now dead. Considering it hadn’t been charged at all in three days… it wasn’t out of the range of plausibility, or even the area of true likelihood. The next thing in my mind was the pondering of why they weren’t doing anything to try and make noise as a distraction. Of course, due to the strange sort of wavelength my friends seemed to share with me, that was the precise moment that Chien and James started talking.

“Hey there everypony… we’re having a slight bit of technical difficulty at the radio station. Someone was running on a nearly dead battery.” In the background there was something that sounded like a muted ‘I didn’t fucking know, okay?!’ I guessed, as likely did Lea and Sweet if they noticed the sound, that it was Chien defending himself. “So yeah… uhm… we’re gonna try and do what we can, though that might mean us singing.”

I couldn’t help myself. “Oh fuck, everyone cover your ears.” Neither of them were quite that bad at singing, but they really should keep that sound to the showers. Of course, I was given looks by… probably everyone in the column for opening my mouth in the middle of this. Admittedly, the looks were well earned, so I just stuck my tongue out at everyone. Yes, yes… I know… I responded like a first grader. I’m proud of it too.

The song that the two decided to go with, mostly I suppose because it was easy to remember and they both knew it by heart, was Help… by the Beatles. Considering that we’d considered performing it in front of the whole school for our History of Music class we’d all known it, though James had an aversion to the song. That aversion sprang mostly from us teasing him with it now and then – or more specifically, Chien trolling him with it when we first considered the song. We probably could have actually done it very well, but decided to do another instead. When their voices came over the PA system and those lyrics poured through the speakers, I couldn’t help but bite my tongue and laugh silently, looking toward Lea. We both knew that, since Chien’s was the first voice to start singing, James probably hadn’t wanted to sing it.

With the motion to move forward given by Sweet, I started moving again and the column followed close behind. A couple glances behind and I noticed that the redhead who had been so confident on the roof looked absolutely terrified now that we were amongst the horde. Lea was taking care to keep her calm though, and it seemed to be working nicely. Instead of walking behind her a few steps (in proper formation), she was walking slightly to the side of her and close behind. Her rifle, nearly always in her hands, was now shouldered and she had a pistol drawn – held in her left hand. Her right hand was on the ginger’s shoulder, giving gentle and reassuring squeezes. For all the hate that she said she had for cheerleaders, that hate was always overpowered when someone around her, even a cheerleader, was scared.

Having moved quickly, we reached the office about the time that the two of our songbirds finished singing. I opened the door and stood next to it as the other survivors began to filter in. When Lea reached it, she stood to the other side, and the rest filtered in until Sweet came up to us. A simple nod was given, and Lea entered first, then me, and finally Sweet. The door was shut behind us, and we met with Chien and James. A brief bout of orders was doled out, putting Chien and I on point, Lea and James after that, then Novik, and Sweet bringing up the rear again. Outside we went, ranged weapons shouldered, and melee weapons ready (of course, Lea’s primary ranged and melee weapons were the exact same weapon), we headed for the bus. We reached it quickly, and as the males crowded around the bus trying to rush to the door, Chien and I pushed them away. Ladies first. The cheerleaders and Lea got on the bus before anyone.

After that we let the male students filter in one at a time, despite their complaining and wanting to rush onto the bus as fast as they could. We needed this to be orderly and for people to keep calm. The calmer that they were, the better off we’d all be. It was when we reached about five of the males left outside that I heard Chien yell, this sort of screech he did when he was surprised, and a shot was fired. A second later he stumbled backward through the line and into me, and I saw why the sudden excitement: the bus guards had been distracted on the bus, and a horde was starting to form. When they saw what was going on, the guards immediately pushed through the jocks on the bus and grabbed the Rugers, and Lea grabbed a Hammerli and some ammunition.

Unfortunately, they couldn’t get clear shots on the ones at the front of the bus where we were, and while Chien had killed one before stumbling back, there were another ten or so after that. Two of the jocks managed to scramble onto the bus, but the three that tried to crowd in after that got in each other’s way. The one at the front was grabbed and bitten on the neck, sending arterial spray into the air. The other two tried to push him into the horde that was coming around the front of the bus, but ended up grabbed themselves – apparently pushing a person and pushing a wall during a practice drill aren’t exactly the same. They pushed the person pretty easy, and the zombie that grabbed him, but in doing so they got off balance, made noise, and became targets. The zombies grabbed them and began to feast in seconds.

The jocks were ripped apart in under a minute, though were dropped when they stopped making noise. The remaining five of us outside the bus began gunning down zombies, only to find that they were starting to move around the bus from the other end as well. Novik was the first of us to head for the bus; tossing Sweet’s now empty revolver back to him. Sweet had James go next, but Chien and I stayed to gun down as many as we could since we had a lot more ammunition. After a moment James’ shotgun could be heard, the booming blasts coming from the opposite side of the bus as it began to rock a bit. The rest of the gunfire shifted to the opposite side as well, and I could only imagine that a full horde had formed on the other side. It was likely getting larger, too.

It was about the time that Sweet ordered Chien and I onto the bus that suddenly Lea came charging down the steps; rifle and ammo can slung over her shoulders, and Berettas in her hands. A quick ‘I have a plan; get on the bus.’ was all we got before she ran for the office door. James was about to run after her, but Sweet was pushing us up the steps and into the bus. The moment that he was in far enough to reach the lever, he shut the bus’s doors and fired it up. Now that we were inside we could see how large the horde had gotten. However, hearing the rifles of the bus guards working brought Chien and I out of it. We were at the windows quickly, along with James and the guards, blasting away at the horde that was threatening to tip the bus.

What Lea was doing we couldn’t be certain of. She’d disappeared inside the office door and was nowhere to be seen or heard. Despite that, Sweet fired up the bus and began shifting into gear, trying to get the bus to move, but it wouldn’t budge. It jerked a bit and then stopped, shuddering and swaying as the horde pushed against the side. A glance to my right and through the windshield told me what was wrong. There were too many zombies in front of the bus, pushing against it, for it to move. Suddenly there was another hard push that knocked some of our shooters off balance, and when the bus was down on all wheels once more, Sweet tried to push through the horde again. Unfortunately, just as before, all it did was jerk and shudder.

We scrambled back to the windows once more and began firing, picking off the ones below the windows and then further out, so at the least our bus wouldn’t be rolled onto its side. A third time Sweet tried to get the bus going, and still it repeated its motions. However, this time, there was another loud noise accompanying it: Lea’s rifle. I blinked though as I heard it; it was firing faster than I had ever heard it firing before. No five second delay between shots, no few seconds for the reloading; it was firing as fast as she could work the bolt. Of course, upon glancing to the front once more it could be told that the shots were a lot sloppier than normal from how the bullets were hitting, but each shot was a headshot. The only pause was to reload, and that was only a couple seconds. Now with space in front of us, the bus moved forward.

As the bus pulled forward, the horde to the side was left behind and the corpses in front of us were crushed as we ran over them. However, none of us were thinking about that. Most everyone on the bus had gathered next to the right side windows to watch as she continued to take out zombies from the roof of the school. There was only one thing that was nagging at us though, and James voiced it.

“Boss, we gotta go back for her! We can’t just leave her up there!” He said as he headed for the front.

“I don’t plan on leaving her behind James; don’t worry…”