Hey everyone. If you remember, I was originally writing "Survivor of the Dead" a year ago. I didn't think it was going very well, so I've decided to rewrite it, with a whole new plot. I am a published author, and my writing is pretty good. I hope you enjoy this, please comment. Also, if you are wondering, these zombies are kind of a mix between the slow ones and the fast one. They walk slow, but depending on the extent of their injuries, they can stumble around kind of fast. Enjoy!
It was 1:00. Eight minutes until the end of English. I looked down from the perfectly circular, perfectly plain school clock. At that moment, everything was so silent, that I could hear every darn tick of the simple, lifeless clock. Yet as it ticked, it was living. With every tick, its mechanical heart beat one more time.
My name is William Todd. I was an 11th grade student at High School in southwestern Connecticut. Before the events that would soon unfold, I was your normal teenager. I had never come into full consciousness of who I was, until the events of October 4, 2007.
I looked down at my paper. Quote quiz. AP 11th grade English was no breeze. I tried sparknoting Catcher in the Rye last night, but it did no good as this was too damn difficult. I still couldn't believe the audacity of Mrs. Thomas, to give us a quiz on the day she was absent. But everyone was absent… or at least it seemed so.
Over the past two days, it seemed everyone at school was getting sick. I could tell that even the kid next to me had the same thing. His face looked older, gray, and weathered. He was hunched over his desk, and had been coughing all period.
I twisted my head up at the ceiling in frustration, and ran my hands through my short brown hair. There was no way I was passing this. I looked over to my best friend, Evan Smith. We had been friends since elementary school. He was the varsity team's starting running back and middle linebacker. I was the backup quarterback, but that had changed before the season started. Our starter went down with a broken leg in a scrimmage, and since then, I stepped into the starting role quite nicely. If five games, our team was 3-2, and I had thrown seven touchdowns with five interceptions.
I caught Evan's eye. He shook his head, and showed me his blank paper. Great… The substitute, Mr. Warren, announced that there were five minutes left before he collected the quizzes. Quickly, I bluffed and scribbled down some answers that probably would have been partial credit in regular English, but in this class, they were worthless.
Mr. Warren walked around the room and collected the quizzes. He was about 60, had glasses and a big, but lanky frame, and was one of those guys who could never stop talking about WWI, he was obsessed. As he stood at the desk at the front of the class, there was a pounding on the door.
Mr. Warren ran to the door, and as he opened it, Mr. Streets, the school Janitor, can tumbling in. There was blood all over his shirt, and wounds on his chest, arms, and legs. As he came into the room, he fell onto one knee. He muttered a faint "help," and fell to the ground. He was unconscious. Mr. Warren instructed a student to call 911. Within 10 minutes, paramedics came, and he was taken out of the classroom, awake, moaning and groaning.
Although I was bewildered by the janitor's injuries, the school day continued. A lot of kids were getting picked up by their parents, as they were sick, and went to the nurse to go home. I decided to go to the nurse as well, but only to get some preventative medicine.
I trudged down the eerily empty halls, past the gym, and to the nurse's office. I opened the door, and walked into the office. It was completely white. It wasn't a very inviting place. The waiting room consisted of three plain, plastic chairs, and a wooden table. I walked into the nurse's room, and she wasn't there. Usually, she left a sign when she wasn't there. I left her room, and walked to the back room of the office. There, along the window, was a streak of dark, crimson blood, and a hand imprinted in it. I called the main office, and let them know that something had happened.
Everything that happened that day was strange, and I was getting uncomfortable. During my free period, Evan and I took a ride in his car. We didn't do anything in particular, we just rode around to get away. We returned to the school about an hour later.
We had history. As we walked down the hall, we didn't see one person. We walked into AP US History together. We were five minutes late. However, when I opened the door, no one was in the classroom. I gave Evan a furtive look, and we turned back. We turned left, and walked down the halls.
"Maybe they closed school early?" I asked Evan hypothetically. As we turned another corner that would take us to the exit, I saw Mr. Warren with his back turned towards a set of red lockers.
"Mr…Warren?" He grunted, and gagged. "What's going on here?" I asked him, but he still didn't make any indication of responsiveness. I walked up to him, and grabbed his shoulder, in an attempt to turn him around. Finally, he turned, and my eyes were met directly with his yellow once.
Yellow? His eyes were never yellow, they were blue. Something was wrong. Mr. Warren launched out at me with a renewed vigor. He opened his mouth wide, and tried to bite me. I threw him down to the side.
"What the hell was that?" Shouted Evan.
Mr. Warren was writhing on the ground, and eventually stood up. "Mr. Warren, is everything okay?" I asked him calmly. But once again, he launched himself at me. This time, I just stepped to the side, and caught a glimpse of an open wound on his neck. After he missed me, he came back again. This time he stumbled forwards, and landed awkwardly into me, I fell. Mr. Warren had me pinned down, and was once again trying to bite me. "Evan, help me!" I shouted. But right behind Evan was the school nurse.
"Evan, behind you!" Evan turned around as the nurse threw herself at him. She too had yellow eyes, and she too was trying to bite Evan.
One of my hands was on Mr. Warren's forehead, the other below his chin. I thrust his head off of me and jumped up immediately. I rushed over to Evan, and body slammed the nurse. She tripped backwards and fell over.
Evan and I stood back to back, our fists clenched. "There's something wrong with them," I panted to Evan, "Look at their eyes. It's like they aren't human."
"You're right. Let's just get out of here. Just back up slowly and let's run for it." We did just as he said. But as soon as we started to run, we came face to face with another sick person.
"Isn't that Mary?" Evan asked me.
"Yeah," she was hardly recognizable, as her face was mostly covered in blood, part of her right arm was missing.
"My God, didn't you just ask her to homecoming?"
"Yeah, well… I don't think that was working anyways. Look, She's got it in her eyes t-" Mary launched herself between us. I knocked her away, and glanced around. I saw a crowbar next to the always broken water fountain to the right. I grabbed it, and knocked her in the stomach. She stumbled back a step, but kept coming. I kept on knocking in the back, stomach, and the chest. I didn't want to kill her, but wasn't she trying to kill me? Finally, I knocked her over the head with all of my head, and I knocked her to the ground, lifeless. She didn't get up.
Behind me, Evan was fighting off Mr. Warren and the Nurse. I turned to help him, but a hand grabbed my shoulder. I turned around, ready to pounce, but found that it was a police officer. "Move back," stated the officer in a monotonous tone. Evan shrugged off Mr. Warren, and stepped back. The cop shot Mr. Warren in the head, followed by the nurse.
"You shoot them in the head," stated the officer.
"Who's them?" I asked the officer. But I already knew, the people that I had known were no longer people. Their yellow, lifeless eyes showed it all.
"The ones who get sick. They turn into things, and they try to attack you. There's a lot more of them in here, we're clearing them out. Follow me and I'll escort you out of here." We followed the cop, and made it outside.
Life was about to change.
