~A/N: (Insert regular disclaimer here) Well, hello everybody that
reads this! I just want to start out by saying thank you to Matro, Tsunami,
and Zyte for still being out there, and for reviewing, I appreciate it more
than you know. This chapter is dedicated to you guys! Thank you for the
sympathy also, you guys are so kind. I did go to the doctor and it wasn't
so bad, all I have to do is wear an Ace bandage, so YEAH! Oh, and thank you
too, Sorphedius, I appreciate you comment. Okay...here we go...
~***~
Goosebumps erupted all along Cadence's body as she stepped out of the relative safety of her dormitory and into the cold night. She instinctively wrapped her arms around herself as she began walking through the courtyard, her eyes searching the deep shadows around her for any sign of movement.
As she reached the very center of the stone courtyard, she looked up into the sky, taking in the bright twinkling stars and the pale moon that was now slightly obscured by dark gray clouds. She sighed, her breath coming out in a small, misty cloud as she allowed herself to be tricked into a false sense of comfort by the normalcy of the sky.
/Except, what happened to the volume?/
As she reached the very center of the stone courtyard she finally noticed something; the absence of sound. She frowned slightly and immediately stopped walking, shaking her head violently as if to clear her head of something. She still didn't hear anything, no crickets, no frogs, no anything.
Slightly alarmed, she began to walk again, this time much faster than before, with her softball bat tightly clenched in her hand. She reached the main path that forked to both the main school and the lunch building and stopped in her tracks, confused on which way to go. She thought back to her conversation with Allison, decided to veer right towards the lunch building and had just began walking when she heard something behind her. She froze in her tracks, her back turned to the sound and her ears perked. The sound seemed to stop as she did, and as she started to walk again, almost at a jog, it didn't continue.
She was within twenty feet of the dark door to the lunch building when once again she heard it; a clicking sound, almost as if someone was tapping their fingernails on cement. This time as she stopped it didn't, instead choosing to increase the tempo of the clicking noise. She clamped her eyes shut and clenched her teeth, willing with all of her strength for the sound to go away. When she finally realized that it wasn't in fact going away, but getting closer she spun around quickly, bat held out in front of her like a sword.
Her eyes widened in surprise as she saw the dark outline of a dog on the stone path not more than thirty feet away from her. The animal had stopped walking when she had finally turned around, and Cadence had a creeping feeling that it had been stalking her. Now it sat partially hidden in the shadow of the school, its head down and its eyes glowing sinisterly through the darkness at her.
She stood staring at it, and began backing up slowly, willing her foot steps to be as quiet as possible. It advanced out of the shadows towards her slowly, and she couldn't help but gasp out loud. The animal looked as though it had been in an epic fight; missing fur in large clumps all over its lithe body, its skin mottled and slick with the dark red of dried blood, and a gaping hole in its side, revealing the white of its ribs. She watched in awe as it continued towards her despite the fact that a large portion of skin had rotted off of two of its legs, revealing broken and misshapen bones. She swore out loud and began running as fast as she possibly could in the opposite direction, hoping that she would reach the door in time. She was within ten feet of the door when she heard the dog bark from just behind her, snapping its bloodied jaws at the backs of her exposed calves. She only ran faster, groaning against the effort and screamed involuntarily as she felt what could only be the dog's paws slam into her back, sending her flying forward. The ground upturned itself as the sky and the stone path melted together, and she closed her eyes despite herself, opening them sharply after her head connected with the hard ground.
She found herself looking up at the starry sky, her head pounding, and completely disoriented. She heard a growl echo from the left of her, and sprang up, finally remembering the dog.
It was not more than five feet from her, standing between her and the door she needed and growling deep within its partially decayed throat. She held the bat that she had miraculously kept a grip on during the fall out in front of her, waiting stiffly for the dog to make a move. From behind her, she heard the howls of what could only be more dogs echo from closer than she would have wanted. She chanced a glance over her shoulder and saw the dark outlines of at least seven more guard dogs in the courtyard behind her.
It was then, when she was looking away that the dog in front of her decided to strike. She heard its paws skitter on the ground briefly, and looked forward again just in time to see it leaping towards her. She raised the bat and swung it downwards, connecting with the dogs head with a sickly 'squelch'. It yelped as it fell, and landed on the ground with a wet thud. She watched it twitch on the ground for in minute in morbid fascination, taking a closer look at it's decaying body. Her head was just voicing the question of how it could still move with so much bodily damage when she saw it begin to move again; it's clouded eyes opening once again to stare at her, and it's limbs flexing as if to test their strength.
She opened her mouth in disbelief and raised the bat again, preparing to strike. She looked down at the dog in front of her and then at the door not more than two feet away, and chose to escape into the safety of the building in front of her.
She was at the door within seconds throwing it open and allowing herself to fall inside. The door had just barely closed, clicking into place, when she heard a large 'thump' against it, followed by another, and then another, and then another.
She crab walked backwards away from the door and only stopped when she felt her back hit the cold marble of the opposite wall. She watched the door rattle on its sturdy hinges and only stopped when she was satisfied that it wouldn't open.
She sat where she was for a minute allowing her heart rate to slow down. She reached up to wipe the wetness from her head that she presumed was sweat and gasped as her hand came back red. She reached back up and felt a large lump beginning to form on her head near her hairline, and sighed as she accepted the fact that she was pretty beaten up.
She stood up shakily and wiped the blood on her black pleated skirt as she began to take in her surroundings. The once familiar hallway was now dark and ominous, red emergency lights reflecting off of the marble walls to make the entire hallway glow an eerie red. She looked left and right down the 'T' of the hallway she was in and after seeing no immediate threat, took the right hall towards the cafeteria.
She passed by the dark windows of offices and conference rooms and wondered briefly where everyone went. She had passed each doorway without thinking, and after hearing a stealthy 'bump' on the other side of one of them, she stopped and turned back towards it. She stood outside of it for a minute, her body prone when she heard it again, this time more softly.
She shifted the bat from her right hand to her left, and grasped the doorknob firmly in her sweaty hand. She threw the door open after she heard the sound yet again, and stood at the threshold of the room squinting through the dark to try to make out the creator of the noise.
"Stop! Don't come any closer, I have a weapon!" a shaky voice yelled through the dark.
Cadence paused for a moment before finally placing the voice, "Jacob, it's okay it's me, Cadence. Come on out, it's just me out here."
She heard a brief shuffle, and suddenly Jacob was making his way towards her from the back corner of the room, a small paperweight held shakily in his hand.
She smiled before speaking, "That's your weapon? What are you gonna do, hold me firmly down to a desk or something?"
"It was all I could find in the dark. The lights went out a long time ago in here. Where were you when everything happened! Why are you bleeding? Oh, no, your infected aren't you. Stay away from me!" he said frantically as he began backing into the dark room again.
"No, wait Jacob. I hit my head on the ground after one of the guard dogs tried to attack me. Hold up, infected? What do you mean infected?"
"Did the dog bite you or scratch you in any way?" he asked, his face partially hidden in shadow.
"No, why? Can you please just explain what the hell is going on around here? Everyone I've talked to has given me absolutely nothing useful."
"Where have you been this whole time? The whole school has been attacked by what I can only fathom are zombies. Everyone I've seen is either one of them, or being eaten by one of them. This hall is one of the only safe places left that I've seen, and that's why I'm hiding here until help arrives. You should stay here too, we can keep each other company," he said, still out of reach of her and looking fairly cautious and jumpy.
"Zombies? You have to be kidding me. Zombies aren't real, and you and me both know that. Where would they have come from, huh?" she said, chuckling nervously as she remembered the state of the dogs outside and the death of Dan, but still searching her mind for a reasonable explanation for them.
"I don't really know. I was eating lunch, and suddenly people everywhere were screaming. People were running everywhere, it was total chaos. I tried to control the situation until I saw Mr. Kane eating lunch- lady Doris. That was the last straw, I got out of there, and ended up in here. The screams stopped a while ago, I heard most of it from that direction," he motioned vaguely further down the hall.
"Well, that's where I'm going. I've yet to see any 'zombies'," she said sarcastically as she did air quotes, "Just some strange dogs outside, and so I'm going to try to find my friends inside".
"You gotta be kidding me! I'm not going back in there, if you wanna go get killed you can, but do keep in mind that I advised against it," he said as he began to shut the door.
"Please come with me. You said yourself that the screams died down a while ago, maybe the 'zombies' are gone. We have to see if there are any survivors. You're the appointed snitch and hall monitor, so you are obligated to help your fellow students".
He puffed his chest out in apparent pride at her last comment, and began walking towards her out of the room, "Okay then, I'll come with you. But somewhere along the way we're gonna need to get some bandages for you, you look pretty beaten up. Are you sure you weren't bitten?" he asked, gesturing to the cut on her cheek, her fat lip, and the blood dripping slowly from her hair.
"I'm sure, now let's go, I wanna see all of this for myself," she said with an air of disbelief.
The two walked silently down the hall together, Cadence with her bat held at the ready, Jacob with his paperweight held tightly in his shaking hands. Cadence reached the door first, and paused as her she felt the beginnings of a migraine pound at her head. She grasped her head briefly, putting her cold hands on her temples, and felt a dull pain beginning just behind her eyes. She shook her head slowly and looked back to see Jacob standing a few feet away from her with a fearful look on his face. She straightened up, and put a smile on her face to reassure Jacob, pushing aside the pain in her head and refocusing on the task at hand.
"Come on, Jake, it's gonna be okay. I won't let anything happen to you, we'll watch out for each other," she said reassuringly as she put her hand on the large knob of the door.
He shook his head quickly and walked up next her, his paperweight held out in front of him like a strange offering to door. She pushed it open, and a wave of cold air and darkness washed over them. She stepped into the room cautiously and looked around. All she could make out was darkness and greater darkness. She felt Jacob sidle up next to her and she grabbed his hand, squeezing it reassuringly.
She stepped farther into the darkness, and heard their footsteps echo around the large room, and stopped when she felt her foot squelch into something wet. She let go of Jacob's hand and kneeled down onto the ground, letting her eyes adjust enough so she could see what she had stepped in. Her eyes took in a dark pool of what looked like blood that seemed to spread out even farther than she could make out in the dark. She crawled forward, careful not to touch the blood, and found that it lead to a dark shape on the ground. She stood up quickly, and backed up a step as she realized that it was a human body.
"Oh, wow. What the hell happened in here. Jacob, your right, let's get out of he-..."she stopped talking as she heard what sounded like wet footsteps off to her right.
She heard Jacob whimper behind her, and she quickly backed up to him, grabbing his arm and pulling him back towards the square of light that was the door.
"Uggghhhh"
"Oh, God! It's them! We gotta go, now!" Jacob practically screamed as the room started to come alive around them with noises and sounds.
Footsteps, shuffling, grunts, and moans mixed together to make an undistinguishable cacophony of noise around them. They snapped their heads left and right as they backed up towards the door, the acoustics of the room making it hard to tell exactly where the noise was coming from.
She could make out through the dark the hunched and shuffling shapes of what looked like at least a hundred people, all shambling towards them and appearing from what appeared to be nowhere.
The closest one to them was coming towards them from next to the door they entered from, blocking off their exit. They stopped where they were, and stood staring at the face of what looked like their teacher Ms. Cole. The red lights filtering in through the door sent her face into sharp relief, revealing a terrible sight; her face was bloodied due to a large amount of skin missing from her cheek, revealing her cheekbone and lower jaw. Her eyes which were staring unfocusedly at them were clouded over with a milky-white film, and her mouth hug open lazily as she moaned, spittle dripping from her cracked lips.
Cadence was startled out of her shock when she heard Jacob scream next to her, and felt his arm wrenched out of her tight grasp seconds later.
"Jacob, speak to me, where are you?" she screamed frantically.
She saw and heard him at the same time, only a few feet away from her struggling against the dark form of what she now had to admit was a zombie.
She began to walk forward, bat raised when she herself was pulled back by who she could only assume were Ms. Cole's cold dead hands. She screamed out loud, and wrenched out of her grasp. She turned around and swung her bat at the teacher's outstretched arms, achieving a sickening 'snap' as the zombie's arm cracked. Unphased, the zombie lunged forward, using its other arm to grip Cadence by the shoulder. It held her tightly as it brought its bloodied face to Cadence's arm, and Cadence, fueled by fear pushed her as hard as she could away from her. The zombie fell backwards and away from her, falling to the ground clumsily.
She turned back around towards Jacob as she heard him scream in pain, and saw to her horror, that he was pinned down by three zombies. She watched in disbelief as they tore at his pale skin, and dug their teeth into the flesh of his torso. He screamed for Cadence to help, but she couldn't hear him past the pounding in her head.
He struggled against them for minute before Cadence finally acted, moving forward and swinging her bat down on the first zombie. She hit what she now recognized as a student from her 3rd period class, in the back of the head, caving in the softened bone. It dropped without a sound, and Cadence moved onto the next one, hitting it repeatedly in the back with such force that her arms began to grow numb. Even after she heard it's spinal cord snap, it didn't stop, and only after she also hit it in the head, did it finally crumple to the ground.
She paused as she moved onto the next zombie, ignoring the fact that Jacob was no longer moving, and saw that the zombies were almost on top of her, scattered at different intervals within five feet of her. She screamed, and looked down at Jacob, who she could no longer see; his body blocked from her sight by the crowd of zombies surrounding him.
"No! Jacob!" she managed to scream before giving up hope, and backing away from him, her eyes wide in terror.
She turned around and ran, dodging past Ms. Cole who was crawling on the ground towards her. Ms. Cole moaned in disappointment as Cadence slipped past her, and out the door, slamming it shut behind her. She slid to the floor in a heap, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. Before she had a chance to process what had just happened, to even shed a tear for Jacob, she heard footsteps coming down the hall towards her.
"Cadence?" a voice asked from far away.
She looked up to see the blurred outline of the speaker. Squinting, she tried to make out the person in front of her, but even as he got closer, she couldn't see past the darkness edging around her vision.
She mumbled something nonsensical as she heard the voice say her name again, this time from farther away. Her head began to pound, and the dull pain behind her eyes began to sharpen, and all she wanted to do was surrender to the peaceful darkness that was beginning to numb her body and cloud her mind. Without a further sound she slumped sideways, succumbing to unconsciousness.
~***~
~A/N: Yeah! Another chapter in the can. It seems that less people are reviewing...I feel kinda bad. Where did everyone go? Well, as long as at least someone reviews..I shall continue, even if it's just for that one person. So to everyone else....REVIEW! Please...pretty please? I'll knit you scarves for the cold summer weather? Next installment: More running, some raining, more Zombies, and survivors?
~***~
Goosebumps erupted all along Cadence's body as she stepped out of the relative safety of her dormitory and into the cold night. She instinctively wrapped her arms around herself as she began walking through the courtyard, her eyes searching the deep shadows around her for any sign of movement.
As she reached the very center of the stone courtyard, she looked up into the sky, taking in the bright twinkling stars and the pale moon that was now slightly obscured by dark gray clouds. She sighed, her breath coming out in a small, misty cloud as she allowed herself to be tricked into a false sense of comfort by the normalcy of the sky.
/Except, what happened to the volume?/
As she reached the very center of the stone courtyard she finally noticed something; the absence of sound. She frowned slightly and immediately stopped walking, shaking her head violently as if to clear her head of something. She still didn't hear anything, no crickets, no frogs, no anything.
Slightly alarmed, she began to walk again, this time much faster than before, with her softball bat tightly clenched in her hand. She reached the main path that forked to both the main school and the lunch building and stopped in her tracks, confused on which way to go. She thought back to her conversation with Allison, decided to veer right towards the lunch building and had just began walking when she heard something behind her. She froze in her tracks, her back turned to the sound and her ears perked. The sound seemed to stop as she did, and as she started to walk again, almost at a jog, it didn't continue.
She was within twenty feet of the dark door to the lunch building when once again she heard it; a clicking sound, almost as if someone was tapping their fingernails on cement. This time as she stopped it didn't, instead choosing to increase the tempo of the clicking noise. She clamped her eyes shut and clenched her teeth, willing with all of her strength for the sound to go away. When she finally realized that it wasn't in fact going away, but getting closer she spun around quickly, bat held out in front of her like a sword.
Her eyes widened in surprise as she saw the dark outline of a dog on the stone path not more than thirty feet away from her. The animal had stopped walking when she had finally turned around, and Cadence had a creeping feeling that it had been stalking her. Now it sat partially hidden in the shadow of the school, its head down and its eyes glowing sinisterly through the darkness at her.
She stood staring at it, and began backing up slowly, willing her foot steps to be as quiet as possible. It advanced out of the shadows towards her slowly, and she couldn't help but gasp out loud. The animal looked as though it had been in an epic fight; missing fur in large clumps all over its lithe body, its skin mottled and slick with the dark red of dried blood, and a gaping hole in its side, revealing the white of its ribs. She watched in awe as it continued towards her despite the fact that a large portion of skin had rotted off of two of its legs, revealing broken and misshapen bones. She swore out loud and began running as fast as she possibly could in the opposite direction, hoping that she would reach the door in time. She was within ten feet of the door when she heard the dog bark from just behind her, snapping its bloodied jaws at the backs of her exposed calves. She only ran faster, groaning against the effort and screamed involuntarily as she felt what could only be the dog's paws slam into her back, sending her flying forward. The ground upturned itself as the sky and the stone path melted together, and she closed her eyes despite herself, opening them sharply after her head connected with the hard ground.
She found herself looking up at the starry sky, her head pounding, and completely disoriented. She heard a growl echo from the left of her, and sprang up, finally remembering the dog.
It was not more than five feet from her, standing between her and the door she needed and growling deep within its partially decayed throat. She held the bat that she had miraculously kept a grip on during the fall out in front of her, waiting stiffly for the dog to make a move. From behind her, she heard the howls of what could only be more dogs echo from closer than she would have wanted. She chanced a glance over her shoulder and saw the dark outlines of at least seven more guard dogs in the courtyard behind her.
It was then, when she was looking away that the dog in front of her decided to strike. She heard its paws skitter on the ground briefly, and looked forward again just in time to see it leaping towards her. She raised the bat and swung it downwards, connecting with the dogs head with a sickly 'squelch'. It yelped as it fell, and landed on the ground with a wet thud. She watched it twitch on the ground for in minute in morbid fascination, taking a closer look at it's decaying body. Her head was just voicing the question of how it could still move with so much bodily damage when she saw it begin to move again; it's clouded eyes opening once again to stare at her, and it's limbs flexing as if to test their strength.
She opened her mouth in disbelief and raised the bat again, preparing to strike. She looked down at the dog in front of her and then at the door not more than two feet away, and chose to escape into the safety of the building in front of her.
She was at the door within seconds throwing it open and allowing herself to fall inside. The door had just barely closed, clicking into place, when she heard a large 'thump' against it, followed by another, and then another, and then another.
She crab walked backwards away from the door and only stopped when she felt her back hit the cold marble of the opposite wall. She watched the door rattle on its sturdy hinges and only stopped when she was satisfied that it wouldn't open.
She sat where she was for a minute allowing her heart rate to slow down. She reached up to wipe the wetness from her head that she presumed was sweat and gasped as her hand came back red. She reached back up and felt a large lump beginning to form on her head near her hairline, and sighed as she accepted the fact that she was pretty beaten up.
She stood up shakily and wiped the blood on her black pleated skirt as she began to take in her surroundings. The once familiar hallway was now dark and ominous, red emergency lights reflecting off of the marble walls to make the entire hallway glow an eerie red. She looked left and right down the 'T' of the hallway she was in and after seeing no immediate threat, took the right hall towards the cafeteria.
She passed by the dark windows of offices and conference rooms and wondered briefly where everyone went. She had passed each doorway without thinking, and after hearing a stealthy 'bump' on the other side of one of them, she stopped and turned back towards it. She stood outside of it for a minute, her body prone when she heard it again, this time more softly.
She shifted the bat from her right hand to her left, and grasped the doorknob firmly in her sweaty hand. She threw the door open after she heard the sound yet again, and stood at the threshold of the room squinting through the dark to try to make out the creator of the noise.
"Stop! Don't come any closer, I have a weapon!" a shaky voice yelled through the dark.
Cadence paused for a moment before finally placing the voice, "Jacob, it's okay it's me, Cadence. Come on out, it's just me out here."
She heard a brief shuffle, and suddenly Jacob was making his way towards her from the back corner of the room, a small paperweight held shakily in his hand.
She smiled before speaking, "That's your weapon? What are you gonna do, hold me firmly down to a desk or something?"
"It was all I could find in the dark. The lights went out a long time ago in here. Where were you when everything happened! Why are you bleeding? Oh, no, your infected aren't you. Stay away from me!" he said frantically as he began backing into the dark room again.
"No, wait Jacob. I hit my head on the ground after one of the guard dogs tried to attack me. Hold up, infected? What do you mean infected?"
"Did the dog bite you or scratch you in any way?" he asked, his face partially hidden in shadow.
"No, why? Can you please just explain what the hell is going on around here? Everyone I've talked to has given me absolutely nothing useful."
"Where have you been this whole time? The whole school has been attacked by what I can only fathom are zombies. Everyone I've seen is either one of them, or being eaten by one of them. This hall is one of the only safe places left that I've seen, and that's why I'm hiding here until help arrives. You should stay here too, we can keep each other company," he said, still out of reach of her and looking fairly cautious and jumpy.
"Zombies? You have to be kidding me. Zombies aren't real, and you and me both know that. Where would they have come from, huh?" she said, chuckling nervously as she remembered the state of the dogs outside and the death of Dan, but still searching her mind for a reasonable explanation for them.
"I don't really know. I was eating lunch, and suddenly people everywhere were screaming. People were running everywhere, it was total chaos. I tried to control the situation until I saw Mr. Kane eating lunch- lady Doris. That was the last straw, I got out of there, and ended up in here. The screams stopped a while ago, I heard most of it from that direction," he motioned vaguely further down the hall.
"Well, that's where I'm going. I've yet to see any 'zombies'," she said sarcastically as she did air quotes, "Just some strange dogs outside, and so I'm going to try to find my friends inside".
"You gotta be kidding me! I'm not going back in there, if you wanna go get killed you can, but do keep in mind that I advised against it," he said as he began to shut the door.
"Please come with me. You said yourself that the screams died down a while ago, maybe the 'zombies' are gone. We have to see if there are any survivors. You're the appointed snitch and hall monitor, so you are obligated to help your fellow students".
He puffed his chest out in apparent pride at her last comment, and began walking towards her out of the room, "Okay then, I'll come with you. But somewhere along the way we're gonna need to get some bandages for you, you look pretty beaten up. Are you sure you weren't bitten?" he asked, gesturing to the cut on her cheek, her fat lip, and the blood dripping slowly from her hair.
"I'm sure, now let's go, I wanna see all of this for myself," she said with an air of disbelief.
The two walked silently down the hall together, Cadence with her bat held at the ready, Jacob with his paperweight held tightly in his shaking hands. Cadence reached the door first, and paused as her she felt the beginnings of a migraine pound at her head. She grasped her head briefly, putting her cold hands on her temples, and felt a dull pain beginning just behind her eyes. She shook her head slowly and looked back to see Jacob standing a few feet away from her with a fearful look on his face. She straightened up, and put a smile on her face to reassure Jacob, pushing aside the pain in her head and refocusing on the task at hand.
"Come on, Jake, it's gonna be okay. I won't let anything happen to you, we'll watch out for each other," she said reassuringly as she put her hand on the large knob of the door.
He shook his head quickly and walked up next her, his paperweight held out in front of him like a strange offering to door. She pushed it open, and a wave of cold air and darkness washed over them. She stepped into the room cautiously and looked around. All she could make out was darkness and greater darkness. She felt Jacob sidle up next to her and she grabbed his hand, squeezing it reassuringly.
She stepped farther into the darkness, and heard their footsteps echo around the large room, and stopped when she felt her foot squelch into something wet. She let go of Jacob's hand and kneeled down onto the ground, letting her eyes adjust enough so she could see what she had stepped in. Her eyes took in a dark pool of what looked like blood that seemed to spread out even farther than she could make out in the dark. She crawled forward, careful not to touch the blood, and found that it lead to a dark shape on the ground. She stood up quickly, and backed up a step as she realized that it was a human body.
"Oh, wow. What the hell happened in here. Jacob, your right, let's get out of he-..."she stopped talking as she heard what sounded like wet footsteps off to her right.
She heard Jacob whimper behind her, and she quickly backed up to him, grabbing his arm and pulling him back towards the square of light that was the door.
"Uggghhhh"
"Oh, God! It's them! We gotta go, now!" Jacob practically screamed as the room started to come alive around them with noises and sounds.
Footsteps, shuffling, grunts, and moans mixed together to make an undistinguishable cacophony of noise around them. They snapped their heads left and right as they backed up towards the door, the acoustics of the room making it hard to tell exactly where the noise was coming from.
She could make out through the dark the hunched and shuffling shapes of what looked like at least a hundred people, all shambling towards them and appearing from what appeared to be nowhere.
The closest one to them was coming towards them from next to the door they entered from, blocking off their exit. They stopped where they were, and stood staring at the face of what looked like their teacher Ms. Cole. The red lights filtering in through the door sent her face into sharp relief, revealing a terrible sight; her face was bloodied due to a large amount of skin missing from her cheek, revealing her cheekbone and lower jaw. Her eyes which were staring unfocusedly at them were clouded over with a milky-white film, and her mouth hug open lazily as she moaned, spittle dripping from her cracked lips.
Cadence was startled out of her shock when she heard Jacob scream next to her, and felt his arm wrenched out of her tight grasp seconds later.
"Jacob, speak to me, where are you?" she screamed frantically.
She saw and heard him at the same time, only a few feet away from her struggling against the dark form of what she now had to admit was a zombie.
She began to walk forward, bat raised when she herself was pulled back by who she could only assume were Ms. Cole's cold dead hands. She screamed out loud, and wrenched out of her grasp. She turned around and swung her bat at the teacher's outstretched arms, achieving a sickening 'snap' as the zombie's arm cracked. Unphased, the zombie lunged forward, using its other arm to grip Cadence by the shoulder. It held her tightly as it brought its bloodied face to Cadence's arm, and Cadence, fueled by fear pushed her as hard as she could away from her. The zombie fell backwards and away from her, falling to the ground clumsily.
She turned back around towards Jacob as she heard him scream in pain, and saw to her horror, that he was pinned down by three zombies. She watched in disbelief as they tore at his pale skin, and dug their teeth into the flesh of his torso. He screamed for Cadence to help, but she couldn't hear him past the pounding in her head.
He struggled against them for minute before Cadence finally acted, moving forward and swinging her bat down on the first zombie. She hit what she now recognized as a student from her 3rd period class, in the back of the head, caving in the softened bone. It dropped without a sound, and Cadence moved onto the next one, hitting it repeatedly in the back with such force that her arms began to grow numb. Even after she heard it's spinal cord snap, it didn't stop, and only after she also hit it in the head, did it finally crumple to the ground.
She paused as she moved onto the next zombie, ignoring the fact that Jacob was no longer moving, and saw that the zombies were almost on top of her, scattered at different intervals within five feet of her. She screamed, and looked down at Jacob, who she could no longer see; his body blocked from her sight by the crowd of zombies surrounding him.
"No! Jacob!" she managed to scream before giving up hope, and backing away from him, her eyes wide in terror.
She turned around and ran, dodging past Ms. Cole who was crawling on the ground towards her. Ms. Cole moaned in disappointment as Cadence slipped past her, and out the door, slamming it shut behind her. She slid to the floor in a heap, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. Before she had a chance to process what had just happened, to even shed a tear for Jacob, she heard footsteps coming down the hall towards her.
"Cadence?" a voice asked from far away.
She looked up to see the blurred outline of the speaker. Squinting, she tried to make out the person in front of her, but even as he got closer, she couldn't see past the darkness edging around her vision.
She mumbled something nonsensical as she heard the voice say her name again, this time from farther away. Her head began to pound, and the dull pain behind her eyes began to sharpen, and all she wanted to do was surrender to the peaceful darkness that was beginning to numb her body and cloud her mind. Without a further sound she slumped sideways, succumbing to unconsciousness.
~***~
~A/N: Yeah! Another chapter in the can. It seems that less people are reviewing...I feel kinda bad. Where did everyone go? Well, as long as at least someone reviews..I shall continue, even if it's just for that one person. So to everyone else....REVIEW! Please...pretty please? I'll knit you scarves for the cold summer weather? Next installment: More running, some raining, more Zombies, and survivors?