In Which the Magvel High School Chair Militia Does the Macabraina
With Seth's help – chaperones could do some good after all, who knew? – they had succeeded in blockading the loading dock doors to the gymnasium with bins of gym supplies and flimsy folding tables. The giant dog zombie beyond the door gave a few snuffing sounds as it again banged against them.
"It's a Mauthe Doog," Lute declared, still sitting in her chair in her corner and not particularly helping the rest of them with their noble efforts, "otherwise known as a Barghest, a creature from Celtic lore." The creature banged against the doors a little more. "It appears that the Mauthe Doog is a product of the Toxoplasma zombius virus and a purebred husky. How fascinating!"
Ephraim, who was two hours ago a very happy prom king, was not fascinated so much as secretly terrified. But, as he'd learned on the football field, if you let on to the fact that your team was screwed and you had no idea what you were doing, things tended to end poorly. He would rather the zombie attack on his senior high school prom not end poorly. For starters, he had a nice little scholarship to Renais State waiting on him. He was pretty sure they would rather he arrive with his brains.
That was why he was standing on the top bleachers with his arms crossed, giving orders to a bunch of clueless teenagers. "We need weaponry!" he barked in his best imitation of a first-person-shooter NPC sergeant. "Does anyone have a gun?"
Seth cleared his throat from the back of the room and said, "We have a strict no-guns policy, but just this once, I'll be delighted if anyone disobeyed Principal Latona."
Everyone looked at Cormag. Cormag stopped fumbling with his lighter and cigarette and registered his sudden popularity. He grumbled, "Just because I ride a motorcycle..." and proceeded to violate smoking ordinances.
"All right, listen!" Ephraim said, shouting in his best commanding voice once again, which Eirika said was a pretty good commanding voice, not that she was biased. "Principal Latona put the school security systems into lockdown, but we can't guarantee that they won't break through. They chewed through the phone lines and we can't rely on outside help. We need to arm ourselves with whatever we can find in the classrooms as fast as possible, before they breach the halls. Then we'll hold out in here for as long as we can!" Innes, who was not voted Prom King but envied Ephraim's commanding position, shot him an envious glare. Always full of comrade and leadership skills, Ephraim gestured to Innes and Eirika and commanded, "Innes, you're in charge of operations in the north wings. Eirika, south. Take some men" – L'Arachel cleared her throat – "and women with you. Let's go!"
They formed up better than one should have expected from high school students, which was significantly worse than Ephraim was hoping for. Still, Eirika got her circle of friends and admirers to follow her, and Innes seemed to command the respect of the girls on the equestrian team as well as the entertainers they'd hired for the prom – Ephraim still felt a little strange when he thought of the dance act – and L'Arachel and her two friends were off organizing their own separate efforts, as usual, but well over half of the student body seemed to be actively doing something to help fight the zombie invasion, which was more than could be said of their organized attempts to fight world hunger or local socklessness. Hopefully it was enough.
"Ephraim?" said a mild little voice at the base of the bleachers. Ephraim gazed down from his towering reign upon Lyon, his childhood friend and ever-reliable homework helper, who hid in his shadow and thereby remained bully-free. He had a bee allergy, not asthma, but Ephraim seemed to forget this fact more often than not. "Where should I be going?"
"Uh... go drop by the teachers' lounges and get us food and drink. We'll need all we can get." Lyon nodded and scurried off, ever eager to make himself useful. Ephraim just hoped he wouldn't become a virus vector.
He took stock of the people still loitering about the gym. Lute, who attended because Artur knelt and begged and pleaded, was in the corner with a stack of books on mythology, zombies, and viruses from the school library. Ephraim mentally designated her as the research division. Myrrh, who had proven herself to be a surprisingly talented gymnast, was keeping watch from her perch on a high window some nine feet off the ground. He didn't even try to understand how she got up there. Neimi was still weeping on her date's shoulder. Aforementioned date had apparently stolen Cormag's cigarettes and was now indulging in one while rolling his eyes and half-heartedly consoling her. Ephraim considered marching over and leering at them until they were productive, but he suspected it would go something like that time he personally confronted Colm for stealing his sister's bracelet: he'd resist and try to pick a fight until Neimi came and wept on them both until Colm awkwardly relented. It wasn't worth the awkward, Ephraim decided.
Presently, Cormag burst back into the gym with no less than three chairs hoisted over his back. Ephraim couldn't understand how he had a hold on all three of them at once. "I got the weapons," he said with his cigarette hanging out of his mouth in the badass manner that made sweet pious religious girls secretly swoon. Or not secretly, since Natasha worked up the courage to propose that they go to the prom together... as friends. Maybe it was still secret after all.
"We need to form an ammunition pile," Ephraim said, gesturing to one corner of the gym. Knoll looked up from said corner with his black-marker eyeliner and muttered something about injustices from conformists before getting up and quickly slouching away, as Cormag was rapidly approaching with chairs raised over his head. (Rule number two of Magvel High School: You got out of Cormag's way. Rule number one: Especially if he was armed. Ephraim was secretly relieved that Cormag could agree that fighting zombies was a good cause, because he didn't really want to think about what might happen if Cormag didn't. Of course Natasha would have lectured him on how Cormag sincerely had a heart of gold and even volunteered at the animal shelter in his spare time, but Ephraim had a hard time believing it. Granted, Ephraim hardly ever spoke to Cormag but hell if he was going to admit to stereotyping tanned guys from Grado with dragon tattoos.)
"Hey Knoll," called Ephraim. Knoll looked his way apathetically. "You could help Lyon get food." Knoll shrugged like he didn't care, but he started to shuffle out into the halls anyway. It must've been the mention of Lyon.
"Oh... a legion of skeletons," came Myrrh's hauntingly calm voice from her perch.
"Skeletons?" said Lute from her corner, whipping out her school ID/library card even though there was no librarian keeping tabs on the books. "Are they wearing boots?"
"Yes," said Myrrh. "And pot lids and butcher knives."
"I suspect those are Wights," she declared. "I will look into the matter immediately."
She scurried out the door. From the corner, a redheaded freshman (Ephraim thought his name might be Yuan or Ewan or something but he wasn't sure – he didn't really pay attention to the nerdy underclassmen) screamed "Wights! Awesome! Wait for me!" and ran in pursuit of her. The ash-haired man, probably his chaperoning father, broke his meditation/prayer session to sigh. Ephraim felt his pain and considered drinking with him later, but suspect that drinking with the chaperones was not a good idea.
Innes and his entertainer/equestrian team clattered into the gym, arms full of chairs, music stands, and art supplies. Without needing mention of the ammunition pile, Innes directed his team to set the things down in the corner.
"Art supplies?" Ephraim quipped from his bleacher-throne.
Innes personally popped the lid off of a bottle of blue tempera paint and sneered, "We're going to make signs. Or have you thought of a better exit strategy, Ephraim?"
Ephraim didn't really form exit strategies, so the answer for once was no. Innes indulged in his superiority for a moment before directing his equestrian team to roll out a large piece of paper, upon which he began to paint a giant "S". Ephraim thought it was the most demoralizing thing he'd ever seen.
The zombies thumped, the loading dock doors gave a crack, and Neimi cried a little harder.
"Never fear!" came L'Arachel's unmistakable voice. She came bursting through the open double-doors – Ephraim wasn't sure how that worked but she did – with a pair of cloth bags tossed over her shoulders. "Together, we shall combat these agents of evil!"
Dozla came in, all but buried by the large sack in his hand. He gave a generous belly laugh and boomed, "Right as always, Princess L'Arachel!" (Ephraim had no idea what she was the princess of.) Rennac entered with a sack as well, but simply sighed.
"King Ephraim!" she thundered. "I have the solution to our woes!"
Ephraim blinked. "... Great. Let's hear it."
She and her followers deposited their bags in the middle of the gymnasium and opened them with a flourish. Inside were boxes of flu masks, jars of hydrogen peroxide, and other various first-aid supplies. "We will prevent disease transmission!" she proclaimed.
"I don't think flu masks will help when they're gnawing on our heads," Ephraim pointed out. Rennac nodded in silent agreement. Ephraim felt bad for the guy. L'Arachel probably browbeat him into being her prom date after witnessing his mastery on the dance floor earlier that year.
"Oh, how short-sighted!" she scoffed. "Have you imagined what a catastrophe we would have on our hands, if the zombies sneezed on us?" Ephraim imagined being sneezed at by a zombie. He was unimpressed. "Why, suppose that the virus was communicable through air and water! It may very well be futile to resist their siege should the virus drift in by the very air we breathe! We must prevent communicative disease!"
And that was how all of the people in the gym – except Colm and Cormag, who had cigarettes in their mouths – ended up reluctantly wearing flu masks.
Innes and his entertainer/equestrian/art team had finished painting a giant "SOS" banner, and it seemed that Innes was leading some sort of defection from Ephraim's immaculate authority. Tana came in with a ladder, and he and his team started to head out of the gym. Ephraim frowned. "Hey, Innes, where are you going?"
"Putting the sign on the roof, so we can actually get some help out of here." Ephraim opened his mouth behind his flu mask to say but what about the resistance? and Innes added, "We're not going to be able to win a fight against the zombies with chairs and precision knives. What else are we going to do?"
"The whole town must be under attack by now," Ephraim said. "We can't rely on getting help."
"On the contrary. This will help them identify trapped civilians for rescue efforts. Namely, us. Now, by your imperial leave." Innes and his entertainer/equestrian/art team calmly walked out of the gym. Ephraim gritted his teeth a little at the idea of losing that many capable, obedient fighters, but he'd been through worse. He could make it somehow even if it came down to just him, Kyle, Forde, and Board of Education member Orson. He wasn't sure why he thought of Orson right then, but it seemed appropriate.
"King Ephraim?" said Myrrh from her perch.
"Yes, Myrrh?" He had a bad feeling about this.
"Some of the zombies are walking away from the door."
That could be a good thing, he thought to himself, or a very bad thing. If Principal Latona hadn't boarded himself up in his office and left them out there to their own devices, Ephraim might've had access to the security cameras to check if they'd breached the other entrances. As it was, he had no idea if...
"Eirika!" He bounded down from the bleachers, knocking his knee forcefully against the back of one row of bleachers as he did so. "Seth! Listen! You have to make sure Eirika's all right."
Seth, alarmed, said, "What's happened to Eirika?"
"The zombies might have already breached a southern entrance. And Eirika's out there getting weaponry." Seth nodded, his eyes serious, and he quickly strode on his way out of the gym when he stopped abruptly.
"I'm sorry it took so long, Brother!" said Eirika, rolling in a cart of bottles with Franz's help. "It was a little hard breaking in, but look what we have!"
Ephraim plucked a few bottles at random from the cart. "1-M hydrochloric acid. Hey! Great!"
"Ephraim," said someone's voice.
"You've got a ton. We could melt a lot of them..."
"Ephraim." Ephraim turned to find a girl with long indigo hair, who had been quietly sitting at the base of the bleachers for the last few hours. He couldn't remember her name, but he was pretty sure she was one of the assistants to the chemistry teacher. "One molar hydrochloric acid will barely irritate skin."
"Oh," Ephraim said simply.
Eirika laughed and said, "Oh, Brother, I was more excited about the ethanol."
And Ephraim/the chemistry TA said "Alcohol?/Molotov cocktails?"
Wishing he'd paid more attention in his chemistry class, or his history class, or most any class at all, Ephraim looked to the girl, who explained, "Simple Russian fire bombs."
"Sounds good. I'll leave you in charge of those." Ephraim saved face by returning to his bleacher throne. When Lute and the redheaded freshman returned, Ephraim ordered them over to assist in the chemical warfare department, which they took to with great enthusiasm. (He had given up on the idea that the research department might come up with a cure.)
A smashing sound. They all looked up at alarm at the loading dock doors, which visibly splintered under the force of the collision. They could see the gruesome muzzle of the Mauthe Doog, jerking and growling into the widening crack. "To arms!" Ephraim shouted, heading for the ammunition pile. Many of the others grabbed chairs as well, while the newly-formed chemical warfare department exchanged glances and quickly shuffled through bottles, trying to figure out how to best make themselves useful in the span of two minutes. The Magvel High School chair militia stood around the loading dock door in tense silence as the Mauthe Doog crashed against the door twice more, and then –
"Stop," said a mild little voice. The Mauthe Doog stopped. With dramatic effect, the chair militia slowly turned their heads around to the gymnasium entrance.
Lyon stood there, looking a little unsteady.
"Lyon?" Ephraim said tentatively. He noticed that Lyon had a small streak of blood across his silver hair, and a rather lot of blood around his mouth.
Lyon looked at Ephraim. Ephraim looked at Lyon. Lyon said, "His brains are mine."
Ephraim's only strategy left was Oh shit.