chapter seven
"We need help!"
Cat's voice was lost in the swell of loud, chaotic background noise, but Tori could still hear the panic woven into her words over the radio as clear as day.
"The gym is - Sam! Be careful!"
Tori glanced over at her father, who was already checking the magazine to his pistol. "Cat? What's happening?" She quickly asked, unable to keep her worry at bay.
Her answer came only moments later. "There was a swarm of geeks in the gym! We're trapped on the bleachers, there's too many of them!"
David took the walkie-talkie from his daughter's hands, a muscle twitching in the side of his jaw. "Stay where you are, we're coming to get you," he ordered, sounding authoritative and eerily calm despite how rigid his shoulders were. "No one play hero. Just stay on top of the bleachers as long as you can."
"We're by the girls locker room on the far right," Cat cried; they could hear Sam swearing and the thunderous growls of the undead in the background, overwhelmingly loud. "Come through the left entrance!"
Her father nodded as if her friend could see them, before handing Tori back the radio. Holly and Trina were looking on not far off, their brows furrowed; and while her mother looked concerned, Trina looked entirely doubtful. "The four of us together could cause enough of a distraction for Sam and Cat to get to safety," David said, his voice rushed. "We may be able to take them all out, but if not, make a run for it while you still can and get as far away as possible. We have guns - use them if you need to."
"The gym is this way," Tori guided, hurrying down the hallways with her family in tow.
"Are we seriously doing this?" Trina questioned, and her disbelief was clear. "I could get hurt!"
"We all can get hurt, Trina. And Cat and Sam could die if we don't get to them!" Tori snapped, but she didn't turn around. Instead, she continued down a familiar route in pursuit of the gymnasium, her sneakers falling heavily against the tiled floor of the school's abandoned hallways. "Don't be so selfish! We have to help our friends, we can't just leave them there!"
"I'm just saying!"
"Girls!" Holly's voice was biting, cold as ice. "That's enough. There's no time or point in arguing about this!"
Her mother's austerity was enough to silence the pair of them, although Trina could still be heard grumbling as she trailed after them. Tori could not believe her older sister could be so inconsiderate in such a touch-and-go situation; she had at least thought her narcissistic tendencies would have been left behind when it came to life and death in favor for the safety of people she cared about. Clearly, it seemed Trina still put her own well-being high before anybody else's and was desperately in need of a reality check.
Arriving outside the gym doors, Tori could hear the biters inside as they pummeled against the bleachers, and she was sure she could even hear her own heartbeat as it leapt frantically in her chest. Although her yearning to help her friends was strong, adrenaline pumping in her veins, Tori could not push down the sudden rush of fear. It was not assuaged by the tense look on her father's face as he positioned himself at the doors.
"We can draw them away," David said, meeting his wife's eyes for a split moment before he looked over at both of his daughters. "Take out as many as you can with your knives first. Work together and be smart."
They answered him with silent nods, gripping tight to their weapons. Tori's father had taught them all how to shoot, and while she was nowhere near a perfect aim, she was able to get the job done.
David shouldered the door open and they all pushed inside; sure enough, in the far right by the woman's locker room across the gymnasium, Cat and Sam were standing on the highest stoop of the bleachers, their feet kicking out at the biters reaching hands. At the sound of the doors opening, a few of them sluggishly turned and began meandering toward them, jaws wide with rotting teeth and throaty gnarls.
It was the most Tori had seen in one area before, up close and personal, but she was relieved to know that they weren't up against hundreds like it had sounded like.
Holly and Trina ran to the bleachers to the right of the door, slamming their hands against the sides, causing enough commotion to attract biters for Sam and Cat to get down. They used their knives to take care of the remaining few standing at the bleachers, swift and quick, before hopping down and running to help the Vegas. Tori and her father quickly drove their knives into as many as they could as some of the infected moved to surround them, working as a team.
Somewhere behind the herd, Sam grunted and hit the ground, a biter falling down on top of her. Her baseball bat clattered to the floor, and she struggled to push the infected away from her, it's teeth chomping blindly for her skin. Before Tori could move to try and help her, to try and get passed the biters in her way, she saw Cat wrench it's head away from Sam and thrust her knife into the base of it's skull, dark blood splattering over her face and arms as she yanked it away.
Gradually, they were able to make a dent in the herd, and it was quickly beginning to recede.
"Keep pushing!" She heard David yell out to them, his words echoing throughout the gymnasium. He drew his gun from his holster, aiming the barrel and pulling the trigger. A bullet cut through the air and into the head of an infected that had been getting dangerously close to Holly's back without her knowing. Tori heard more, but didn't risk looking away, fighting off as many infected as she could at Trina's side. Her sister was backing up, brandishing a gun in front of her. "We can finish them off!"
Tori believed him. Her fear, though persistent still, was beginning to ebb away in favor of determination. They could do this.
They were doing this.
The colored plastic chairs in Sikowitz's classroom were overturned and piled on top of one another in a panicked, but effective, attempt at blocking the doorway.
Jade peered through the cracks, scanning the room for any sign of life; any sign of current or previous living. Apart from an open window, it looked relatively untouched. The air was stale and decrepit, and she could see dust particles leaching at any remaining moisture in the room through the light from the closed windows. She assumed the person who had barricaded the door had fled for their life - if the biters in the hallway she and her friends had just disposed of were any indication of danger at all - through the window and never turned back.
Hollywood Arts, at this point, was looking to be fairly unoccupied. Finding survivors with the school in such an unstable condition seemed improbable, and if they were to go through with making it theirs, there was a lot of work to be done to make it even remotely habitable. Removing the danger was one thing, getting rid of the all the bodies and the stench of the dead was another thing entirely.
"Well, someone was here," Jade announced, stepping back from the doorway and turning to the others. It was unsettling to see her school in a state, but seeing Sikowitz's classroom had struck a chord in her she didn't know she had.
"Is there a body in there or something?" Beck asked. Him and André were investigating the vending machine a little ways down the hall, Robbie standing just a view feet behind them and looking on.
"Door's blocked," Jade said. "Pretty sure no one is coming back for this place."
André tapped absently at the cracked glass of the vending machine, a rusted crowbar dangling from his other hand. "Everyone wants to stay away from the city," he said, shaking his head. "We must be out of our damn minds for this."
"Having second thoughts, Harris?"
"No." He gave her an impassive look. "There's some Peppy Cola in this machine and it's taunting me, woman. Taunting me."
"Just break the glass," Jade rolled her eyes impatiently and twirled the axe in her hands idly; a small penchant to keep herself occupied. She'd found it months ago, after having shattered the door to an In Case of Emergency box with her elbow. There were still small, pale scars on her arm where the glass had cut into her skin.
Tori didn't like the idea of her carrying around an axe too much.
"Um, guys?" Robbie spoke up, hesitant. He was clinging to the radio, holding onto it like it was his lifeline. Jade wondered if his impulsion to keep it on him at all times had anything to do with Rex. "Do we really have time for this? Worrying about...sodas, I mean. We should be clearing this place of biters and making sure that it's safe."
"Rob's right," Beck said, patting the skinny teen on the shoulder and smirking over at André. "We can celebrate with some expired, warm soda later, man."
The four of them, after some convincing to get André away from the vending machine and his precious and dearly missed Peppy Cola, traveled further down the hall. The floor and the painted murals on the walls were powdery with soot and dust, and papers were scattered around empty, unstirred classrooms they passed. As familiar as these hallways were, Jade could not help but feel as if it wasn't Hollywood Arts at all. And her school wasn't the only thing that had felt different; Los Angeles had been her home all of her life, but it had been changed, warped into something new and unrecognizable.
Jade West did not like change.
It had been bad enough when Tori Vega had dazzled her way into the heart of their friend group and tried to 'steal' away the two most important people in her life. Everyone had said Jade's hostility toward her was extreme and overreacting, but Beck was hers, and Cat, more than anyone else besides her boyfriend, was hers. And Tori would link arms with the redhead and laugh and Beck started taking Tori's side more than her own and Jade had not taken that change very well at all.
But if there was one thing that she had learned in this new life, it was that you couldn't afford to dwell on things of the past. You had to squash the memory and the feelings with the heel of your boot and keep on moving through the motions. Lingering on how things were before everything turned to hell in a handbasket was what got people killed.
Eventually, they found themselves at the BlackBox theater. It had been where Berf collapsed. Jade had been in the class when it happened, and everyone in the room had to be evaluated and poked and prodded by doctors for hours afterwards until they were given the all clear to go home.
"Doors aren't locked," Beck said, pushing through them with little struggle. He waved a hand out in front of him, clearing the dusty air. "That's always a good sign."
They followed him inside, investigating around the abandoned theater. The seats were still lined up as they had been the last time they had class there, and everything seemed relatively normal, except for the rotten smell. Robbie moved by the curtains toward the back of the room, his brows knitted together. "Do you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
André's voice was drowned out by a loud crack in the distance. Unmistakably a gunshot.
Everybody paused where they were, uncertainty on their faces. Robbie fiddled with the radio (swearing under his breath because he had not been connected to the right channel like he thought he was) and pressed down the talk button as everyone stared at the closed doors to the Blackbox theater.
"Guys? Everything okay?"
No answer.
Jade hesitated before speaking up. "Should we go-"
Another gunshot echoed, followed by another...and then the radio clattered to the floor, and Robbie was screaming.
André lunged forward without hesitation and yanked the biter (Lane, she realized with horror as she turned, heart jumping frantically in her chest and blood rushing in her ears) away from Robbie's arm, driving the crowbar into the side of his head repeatedly with a wet squelch. Robbie fell heavily onto his back and clutched at his forearm desperately, black-ish blood spouting over his shaking fingers. His cries ripped from his throat, raw with pain and dismay.
"Shit!" Beck shouted, and his voice ricocheted off the walls of the classroom. "He's bitten!"
"What the hell do we do?"
Jade clutched the handle of the axe in her hand so tightly that her fingers paled, and she didn't register that she was moving at all until she was at Robbie's side. Her friend and boyfriend were panicking, shouting, and Robbie's wails were like knives drilling into her ears. She sank to her knees beside him, eyes glued to the bite on his arm, and it was then that she saw her own hands were trembling. "Hold him down," she ordered, a slight tremor to her words. "Now!"
Beck and André moved into action and were at his side in an instant, holding Robbie to the floor. He was incoherent, his eyes squeezed shut, completely unaware of anything else around him. She hoped that he passed out - in fact, she wished for it. It would make what she was about to do easier for all of them involved. "Jade, what are you doing?" Beck asked worriedly, his eyes round with panic and apprehension. "Babe?"
She took a deep, steadying breath.
"I'm saving his life."
And then she brought the axe down.
so, the clearing of the school isn't going very smoothly (understatement)...but you know what they say about overcoming obstacles.
like always, tremendous thank you to my readers! feel free to review with your thoughts :) more to come soon.
