Life of the Lost

I ran down the hall, fleeing from them as they crawled across the floor, and stumbled their way after me. I reached a staircase at the far end of the hall. There, another group of them waited, ready to strike me down. With tears streaming down my face, I fled into the room directly next to me. Sitting at the desk in the room, was a corpse. I screamed in terror.

OOOOO

Earlier that day…

I was sitting in honor's geometry class, enjoying a normal day. My name is Abby Steinbach. I am of Philippine descent, and am slightly tanned from sun bathing. I was fairly short, maybe in the low 5' range. My 14-year-old body was carved beautifully, with curves. My hair was worn in one of two ways. One, it was all down and shoved over one shoulder or two, most pulled back into a ponytail, leaving some in the front to cover an eye. I was sitting basically in the middle of the class, second of 5 rows, middle column of 9.

Sitting on my left was one girl I had become great friends with. She is known as Alys Alvarez, a tan colored Mexican who wasn't more than a few inches taller than I. She was a larger girl, with abnormally large eyes. Long brown hair complemented both of us, along with light hazel eyes.

On my right was another friend, whose name was Hailey Roberts. She was somewhere around 6' tall, probably over. Long darker brown hair covered her head, along with white skin. She also had brown eyes. Hailey was one of the popular prissy girls, while Alys and I are less popular, kinder spirited girls. Strikingly beautiful, is what most girls said to me.

I sat in class, loving every moment of getting spend time with the most creative and interesting teachers in the school, Mr. Tegethoff. He was probably about mid forties, with some white in his short dark hair. He wore glasses, and normally wore button up shirts with khaki's.

His teaching manner was different. He got involved with his students and showed by example and actually explained what he was talking about, a rarity in this school. The class was filled with mostly other freshmen, with a few scattered sophomores in the room. The class of 2016 was surprisingly intelligent. Intelligence is a vague word, because they lack common sense and other simple things that most people have known.

There was one guy who could really come close to matching brainpower with me. Michael Yurickshon. He had dark brown hair, long enough to reach his shoulders. He was incredibly intelligent, but fairly unpopular. He seemed to have hidden knowledge, like he knew things that others couldn't see. He had made that shown when sharing a poem for English 9. It spoke of how people ignore reality, always looking away from it. How they lived in a world of lies would bludgeon holes in the life of truth. They hid behind their curtains of lies, only to be shamed when reality tore it back.

He sat in the same row, but furthest left column, also closest to the door. He seemed distant, like he was in his own world, or maybe was the only one living in reality. Anyway, that class went normally, ending with bell ring and kids crowding out. Michael was one of the first gone.

In second hour, we were performing an experiment, when someone screamed. I turned to see they had burned themselves with chemicals. They were washed off and sent to the office.

The middle study hour had flowed like normal, with the occasional rapping on the window. Whenever the teacher, Mr. Hundley went to check, nothing was there. Things were starting to get weird. After lunch in English 9, the intercom stated that the boy that had burned himself was somehow gone from the room and roaming the school. If anyone saw him, they were to take him to the office or report him. I didn't personally see him.

At last hour, things decided to get worst of all. The kid from before was stumbling on the run track above the gym. It was a large landing that encircled the entire gym below. We were running and the kid was against traffic flow. One athletic boy crashed into him, causing the other boy to grab on instinct. The two were flung over the edge, into a 20-foot drop. In mid drop, the runner had called out in pain, like he had been bitten. The two of them crashed to the floor, bundled up in pain.

They were wheeled from the room and class continued. As class continued, things didn't get much better. Afterwards, I got my softball gear on. I wore my neon green shoes, with gray sweats. A simple workout shirt was what I wore along with a backpack with all the rest of my gear. Two bats came up from the backpack, one on each side. They looked like duel swords, ready to be unsheathed.

Suddenly, Michael had walked outside of the locker room, with only his laptop and an empty messenger bag. He walked quickly, as if he expected something to follow him. Kids started pouring out of locker room, but they looked limp and mindless, more than usual. They halfway looked like zombies.

Girls poured from the locker room know, just as mindless. Michael wore his army jacket he received from his brother, along with jeans. He now ran towards us, frantically trying to escape the monsters following him. The weights class flowed in from the east entrance, behind Michael.

Gathered together, we were ready to die. But Michael wasn't, we could all see that as he grabbed a bat from my backpack. He appeared to be playing defense, countering their moves. One had tried to charge forward, but he whipped the bat into his skull, sending the zombie down. He stopped to look at the blood for a second before slamming the holding end of the bat into a charging zombies gut. She stumbled back with her head down as Ash brought the bat over his head. As it started to look at him, the bat came down, splattering gunk and blood on the floor.

He then went on the offensive, clearing a path through the zombies off to the east entrance. Inspired, I attempted to mimic the movements, successfully grabbing the bat on the third try. I swung it over my head, hitting some of taller zombies. I swung randomly, without any real thought or technique. When a path opened, we all charged through. Something grabbed Hailey's leg, sending her to the floor. We turned to see the zombies piling onto her, only an extended arm and muffled scream remained.

I ran with Alys to the top floor. Zombies covered the exit forcing us to flee to a hallway. I saw a zombie and stopped in my tracks. Alys ran right into him. It was an extremely tall zombie. It looked like one of the popular seniors, Jessup. His unexplainably extended tongue wrapped around Alys, holding her as zombies gathered around her. I couldn't smash through the zombies fast enough. When I reached Alys, she reached for me, trying to chomp on my extended hand.

I screamed and pulled my hand back. I then saw they were charging in a large group. I turned to run down the hall.

OOOOO

I ran down the first floor hallway, fleeing from Jessup, Alys, and the rest. Some were crawling and others ran after me. I reached the far staircase, where more zombies waited to pin me down. I turned and entered Mr. Hundley's room. There, in the room, was a teacher's desk on the right, and several smaller desks on the left. At Mr. Hundley's desk sat a corpse. I screamed as the corpse stood up.