Chapter One: Infestation

'And as you can see all of the angles must add up to 360 degrees, now … Mr. Bransfield, would you care to explain to me what this last degree adds up to?' Shit, I'd fallen asleep again. Better take a guess and then hopefully, I'll be in the clear. 'Ummm… 7?' The whole classroom erupted into a tornado of laughs, each sound adding to the rosy color of my cheeks. 'Not even close, but you'll have plenty of time to review the material with me… at lunchtime! Mr. Harrison's disappointed tone rung through my ears; I wasn't a bad kid, really, just a restless sleeper. I slumped in my seat and tried to avoid the gazes of the judgmental brats in my classroom. While I bowed my head in shame, I felt a finger poke me in the shoulder. I look back and see the girl with bright, red hair, kind brown eyes and a cheeky smile that showed she was up to no good, Hannah. You know that friend who your parents insist you don't hang out with because they are a bad influence Hannah's that friend. I look her in the eyes and she notes my embarrassment, it couldn't be that obvious, could it? 'Was it that obvious that I was sleeping?' I asked my mischievous friend. ' You were snoring, Ryan. So, yeah, it was obvious'. Well, fuck me. Could life be any worse? I looked back to the front and saw. Fuck, Mr. Harrison. ' You've already got a lunch detention, Ryan. I could easily make it an afternoon' he threatened, when suddenly my redheaded friend decided to intervene, it wasn't pretty. In the end, she got a lunch detention as well. I wasn't complaining, at least I would have some company. I penciled in a few drawings while I waited, Vampires, mummies, and zombies. I was a bit of a horror movie fan; I kept telling myself that someday, it would be of some use. Yeah, one day. The loud ringing of the bell signaled the end of a lesson as everyone tried to barge out at the same time. ANIMALS, all of them. Dirty, stinking animals.

I hung back in my seat, I wasn't going anywhere and neither was Hannah, because we had detention, what fun. Mr. Harrison issued out instructions. ' So I've got to duck out for 10 minutes, so you start working on these worksheets and I'll be back before you know it. I barely got a word in to Hannah before my phone started to vibrate in my pocket. It scooped it out of my pocket and looked at the blonde, blue-eyed girl posing for a duck face on my screen. 'Fuck, it's Emma, what the hell do I say!? She's gonna be pissed…' The worried look on Hannah's face as I informed her said it all, she understood. Emma was our other friend, we were like the 3 Musketeers, we knew everything about each other, we spent most of our time together and were always there for emotional support. But if there was one thing I learned while hanging out with Emma, it's that you never leave her alone. I anxiously answered the call and set my pone to speaker, as soon as I did so, a loud thundering voice came through from my phone and scared the shit out of me. ' WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU, YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN HERE AGES AGO, DON'T TELL ME! SERIOUSLY, DON'T WANT TO KNOW!' Her voice was like nails on chalkboard, destroying the eardrums of Hannah and me. I quickly got a few words in whilst Emma stopped yelling to take a breathe. ' We are both so sorry but we got a detention'. I tried to sound as gentle and sincere as I could, which didn't help. 'OH, SHUT THE FUCK UP RYAN! I'M DONE TALKING TO YOU, BOTH OF YOU!' The call ended. Neither, Hannah or me were that worried, Emma would get over it. ' Hey, Mr. Harrison's been gone a while, do you reckon everything's OK?' Hannah sounded genuinely concerned, which was strange. ' What's got you so worried?' I questioned her; I wanted to get to the bottom of her strange concerns. ' I don't know, something doesn't feel right.' I nodded, she had a point, and something was up. Hannah jumped when her phone vibrated, signaling that she had received a message. 'What does it say?' Me being my nosy self. Hannah's face went a little pale as she stared at the screen. I looked over and saw the message, it was from Emma. It read: There's something really, really weird going on. There are all these … sick people coming through the gates. They're moaning like fucking crazy and the way they walk is really fucked up. I'm going to go hide, there are hundreds. I walked over to the window and took a peek outside and almost instantly wished I hadn't.

Just as Emma had said, there were hundreds, maybe even thousands of people filing through the front gates. This was fucking creepy. I put the blind back and saw Hannah walk over to another window; she too had a look outside. Her face had gone even paler than before and a steady stream of tears began to fall down her cheeks until they landed on the carpeted floor. I placed a hand on her shoulder and looked into her sad, brown eyes. 'Hannah, what's wrong?' I tried to get information out of her, which proved to be difficult. She struggled to speak through the immense sobs. I sat her down and decided to see for myself. As I peered out, I saw…. HOLY SHIT! Th… Fuck. Those people, the hundreds that were filing through the gate, they were.. They were eating other people, people we knew. They were ripping the flesh off their bones; it was disgusting, sad and overwhelming all at the same time. Screams could be heard all around the school, horrible screams. The mass of blood and guts massed all over the yard forced breakfast back my throat, I ran over to the corner and quickly emptied my stomach, the smell wasn't pleasant but I quickly walked over to the window again. I looked around, trying to avoid looking at the swarms of cannibals littered over teachers and students. Those who weren't being eaten already were desperately trying to escape, to no prevail. They were quickly grabbed and pinned down by one of the … things whilst more of them rushed over to get a piece. As I looked around, I heard banging at the classroom door. At first I suspected it was Hannah, until I realized the banging was coming from outside. SHIT! I quickly pulled Hannah down to the ground and pointed to the door. Through the glass part, I could see one of those things desperately trying to get in. We had to get out... and fast.

It couldn't have seen us, could it. We obviously couldn't get out that way. The windows, I looked over at the locking mechanism on the closest one. Damn! I couldn't tell if it was locked or not. I turned to Hannah' We need to try the windows!' Hannah quickly shut down the idea ' It's a big drop ad we can't risk that thing at the door seeing us. 'Well, you can stay here then'. I snuck away before she could respond because something had to be done. I slowly got up when I got to the first one and tried to slide it open. Fuck, it's locked. The second one wasn't any better. Trying to open the third one would be a massive risk; there was no way I would be able to do so without being spotted by the zombie. I hung back; there was no point in risking getting my insides eaten. I may not have wanted to risk it but Hannah had other ideas. Having pushed past me, she was busy trying to open the window but again, it wouldn't open. Shit! We were trapped. Suddenly, the zombie had become aggressive and desperate, trying to get in. Its hands had obviously found the door handle, as it was being shook with violent force. Sooner or later, it would find it's way in. I started to panic ' Hannah, what the fuck do we do! We have no way of getting out and one of those things are about to get in!' Hannah continued to work on opening the window, mustering up all the strength she could find. 'It's not locked, it's jammed. We can still get out of he…'. Hannah's words were cut off by the sound of the door being opened and the walker slowly making it's way towards Hannah. 'SHIT! Hannah, watch out!'.

However, Hannah persisted to force the window open. ' I've almost got it! Just keep that thing aw.. AGHHHHHHHHHHHHH! The walker had fallen on top of Hannah and was trying to bite her on the arm. AGHHHHH… AHHHHHHHHH! HELP! I rushed over to save Hannah. 'HANNAH! HANG ON!' I pulled the walker off of Hannah and tossed on to a table. I could hear the snapping of its neck or rather her… neck, it was a woman. Oh god, what have I done? I started to cry, feeling the hatred in myself bubble up. 'I'm a monster' I muttered to myself. Hannah heard and pulled me into a hug. 'It's not your fault, that thing was trying to eat you, fricken eat you! You did what you had to. I wiped the tears that were cascading down my face and went over to help Hannah with the window, it was hard work and we got it open, well a tiny portion of it, really. I continued to pull until I felt a firm hand grab my leg and pull me to the ground, my head landed on the floor with a thud, it was carpeted so it wasn't that bad. I look back and see the walker inching towards me, it's neck twisted in an inhuman position. 'SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! I tried desperately to kick it off but every attempt only enraged it. It close enough so that it could try and take a bite out of my ankle and it nearly did, if it weren't for Hannah bringing a chair crashing down on top of it's head. I took advantage of the situation and pushed the walker away. Hannah and I tried harder to get the window open for the creature was getting closer and closer. Then I had an idea. 'Fuck this!' I said. I grabbed a chair and flung it at the window, smashing the glass into hundreds of pieces. 'JUMP!' I yelled at Hannah. She tried to protest 'But…'. 'Just do it!'. Hannah got up on the window and tried to jump. 'Where the hell do we jump to!'. I looked around and spotted a roof on another building across from where we are. 'There!' I pointed out to her. She was visibly worried about how hard the jump would be, she took a deep breathe in, jumped… and landed on top of the other building. She motioned at me to come across next. Oh, shit! It was a massive drop down and there were a heap of walkers below, meaning certain death if I were to slip. I heard the growls of the walker still in the classroom, crawling towards me. Well, I can't stay here, that's for sure. OK… 1… 2… 3… JUMP!

I leaped, pushing off the edge of the window with great force, attempting to propel myself towards where Hannah stood. I landed with a great thud, landing on my backside. 'OW! That hurt!' I whined. Hannah helped me back on my feet. 'So, what's the plan?' she asked with concern. 'There's a fire escape over there, except there may be a few walkers down there'. She looked at me with confusion 'Walkers?' 'Yeah, because they just walk around looking for a meal. That's all they do, walk and eat. She shrugged 'Well there's no other option, if we go through the building then were more likely to be trapped'. We walked over to the fire escape and began to descend. As we hit the bottom, we headed towards the nearby forest, the plan was to walk to Emma's house, it was 5 minutes away. We hadn't really thought about Emma for the last hour or so. But we were in tears, thinking of her being ripped apart by those things. She said she was hiding, we would check her house first. ' CRAP! RUN!' Hannah pointed towards a dozen or so walkers coming towards them from the forest, blocking their path forward. I looked around and found the old maintenance shed. 'Quick, in there'. Me and Hannah burst the doors open and closed them behind us, putting an] stray wooden plank in between the bars to hold them. The walkers were banging on the doors, the force making the wooden plank begin to break. 'OH GOD, WERE TRAPPED!'. Hannah was starting to break down, so sure that this was how things would end. Suddenly, a figure came out from deep inside the shed.

'SHIT!' I yelled. Was one of them in here? 'Ryan, what did I say about using that sort of language?'. 'Emma? Is that you?' I asked. 'You don't sound so happy to see me'. Emma's blue eyes glistened with hope, she was going to get them out of there. She was going to save us.