Silence accompanies me as I wake. I would have expected to hear the annoying screeching of the alarm. I hit it for maybe the third time, to snooze just a little longer. I don't like getting up in the morning. Silence, however, was what I heard, or rather did not hear. No alarm, no ceiling fan, not even the ever present noise of the other students. That is the one thing about boarding school they don't tell you. It is the one secret those of us unfortunately enough to attend a boarding school know, all too well. Life in a boarding school is hectic, its noisy, and its never private.
My room is warm, uncomfortably warm. A typical sunny California morning, the sun is up, the air is cool off the ocean, but in my room, its hot. I would try to open a window, but as normal, they are locked down. The faculty has not unlocked the sliders yet. They do that to keep them down in the winter, to keep the dorms warm. Next month they are supposed to unlock them, but it would be nice right now.
I slowly crawl out of bed, sitting on the side, pushing my hair out of my face. I know I am going to get in trouble again, if I show up for first period looking like I just got out of bed. Maybe if I get dressed and look like I have been up for a while, I can claim I thought I had free study today. Heck, I might even get out of it. I doubt it, but it's worth a try. The worst that can happen is I get detention, again. So I get up and start to get myself together.
It is at this point I notice, the power is out. When I flip the switch to the bathroom, to start a quick shower, the light and fan fail to come on. I flip it on and off a couple times, like an idiot. Yea, it failed the first time, so surely, just flipping it on and off will work. As I lower my hand, I roll my eyes at my own stupidity. "OK, that was stupid." I say leaning against the door frame.
I shrug it off, running some water in the sink, at least wetting my face. Then the power comes back on. Nice thing about our school, the solar panels installed, at great expense, due to the generous donation by the esteemed Burke Corporation, provide all the power we need, when the electrical grid fails. At least that is the sales pitch they kept promoting two years ago when the headmaster was arranging to receive the "generous donation" from Mr.. F. R. Burke, himself. I am sure it had nothing at all to do with accepting David Burke into the school. Oh, I am sure it was merely coincidence, that the school was being singled out for one of the most expensive projects, at just the time the CEO's son was being ejected from his third boarding school.
According to the staff, the school is supposed to switch over to solar only, next year, once the massive battery storage unit passes inspection. From what I heard, which is probably only half true, the building was said to not have sufficient fire control stuff installed. I have no idea what all is involved with that, but what the heck. At least until then, it still works, yay. So I at least dunk my head and towel off my hair, to get it to lay flat, and pull it into the school authorized ponytail. We are only allowed a few hair styles, according to dress code, and this is the easiest and more practical of them.
After dressing, I grab my book bag and start to head to my home room. I notice though, all the doors are open, and nobody is in any of the classes. I stop to look in a few, just to be sure, and find no sign that anyone has been in them. Maybe there was some kind of assembly. I don't recall there being one scheduled for today. This is odd. I figure, what's the worst that can happen? Maybe I can sneak in and pretend I was there the whole time. Today might just be my lucky day. As I walk along, through the vacant hallways, I kind of get the creeps. It's like those stories they tell, about when everyone is taken up into the sky, and those left behind are tortured or something. I never really paid attention to those stories, though now, I start to wonder if maybe I should have.
It takes me a while to get my locker open, and I put my book bag inside. There should at least be one of the staff walking the halls. They never seem to leave the halls completely empty. It really is a strange day. So I walk on, arriving to the double set of doors, leading to the auditorium. That is the first sign that something serious has happened. I stop, staring at the floor, as a puddle of blood seeps from under the first set of double doors. Someone has put a chair up, so it's legs are holding the handles. The handles can not go down far enough to release the doors, so they are basically un-openable. Is that a word? Whoever did this is going to be in big trouble if they get caught. Though, I suppose, not as much as whatever caused all that blood.
I try to get close enough to the door to peek through the small glass windows. That is when I would have screamed, if a hand was not covering my mouth. Both the sudden grip of the hand over my mouth, as well as the sudden jump scare of a bloody disfigured face slamming into the glass make me nearly wet myself. Then I hear noise. Lots of noise. Screams and wailing from inside the auditorium. The hand over my mouth is joined by one grabbing me by my arm, and I am yanked to the side.
I recognize Kale, as he pushes me against the wall, making the hush sound in my ear. "Shh... don't make a noise. One of them is trapped in there, the rest are still trapped in the auditorium. If you keep agitating him, the rest will break through the doors." he whispers to me. I nod, shaking like a leaf. I have a million questions, but he keeps his hand over my mouth. "Come with me, I will take you to where the rest of us are hiding." he says pulling me along with him.
Behind him I can see Tammy. She is holding a baseball bat, and looking very scared as well. We quietly make our way to the security office. Inside I can see four other students. They are all fixated on the security monitors. We go in the office, and Kale closes the door, slowly but firmly, locking it. Then he turns to me. "Did you see anyone else?" he asks. I shake my head no. "Are you sure?" he asks. I nod. Tammy puts her bat down and sits on a table. The table holds a couple rows of the security radios, sitting in their chargers.
"Do you know what happened?" One of the other students asks, his name is James, he is one of the other kids about my age. We are both lower class man, I am 14, he is 15. We have had a couple classes together, Science, and Geography, I think. As far as I know, he is very smart, much smarter than me. I shake my head no, still in a daze. Just a bit ago, I was in my room, oversleeping, and worrying about being late, now I am wondering what the heck is going on, and if people are hurt. I saw blood...
"Well, about an hour ago, one of the staff came in from town, they were so freaked out, they were screaming to get everyone in the auditorium. The staff was rounding up everyone, but they missed a few of us. Then about fifteen minutes later, we started to hear screaming, a lot of screaming, and then it got quiet." Tammy tells me. I nod, but did not need to, she keeps going. "After that, we saw the blood all over the place, through the windows. That is when one of them turned and saw us, me and Kale, and he came after us, but we trapped him between the inner and outer doors to the auditorium. That was who you saw. I think that was Mr. Speevey, from 9th History." I nod again, having no idea, because I am not in 9th. "Kale jammed the door handles with the chair, just in case they figure out how to open the doors. We jammed the others too. The Auditorium is sealed off, but we are pretty sure everyone else is either dead, or like Mr. Speevey."
I look at the monitor that looks into the auditorium. There looks to be a lot of students just laying down, and only a few of the staff standing oddly, or wandering around rather oddly. They appear to be covered in blood, and the scene looks like something a horror writer would refuse to describe. I lean over and throw up in a trash can, then see, I wasn't the first one to do that. "Oh damn it all, again?" I hear the voice of the last student I wanted to hear with us, the wonderful David Burke. I roll my eyes, looking over at James and the girl sitting by him, a really large girl that I know everyone has issues with. Her name is Diane, and she is the most infuriating girl in the world. If there is anything to be discussed, she will take the opposing side, and argue it, even if she is dead wrong, she will still argue it. Then if you say anything about it later, she will just say "Noooooooo..." and insist she said exactly the opposite of whatever she said. Everyone I know tells me all she does is lie. I bite my tongue, thinking how unfortunate it is, that we are stuck with two of the worst people in the school, when so many other kids, smart kids, nice kids, did not make it.
I join Tammy, sitting on the table, my legs no longer willing to hold me up. It just now registers, everyone else is dead. Really, dead, like horror story murdered. My brains having trouble processing this, it can't be real. These things just do not happen in expensive boarding schools. While I sit down on the table, Kale is pacing back and forth, then looks over at David. "We need weapons. If any of those psychos get out of there, we need something to defend the girls." he says. Tammy clears her throat. "Sorry, I mean, we need something for us all to defend each other and ourselves." he says, looking at her with a raised eyebrow. She nods, accepting his clarification. I look around at everyone, wondering where the heck we will find weapons in a school.
"The only gun is the one the school security officer has, and he is in the auditorium." David mentions. I put my hands up, like, well, that's no good. Kale grins. "Not so fast Runt." he says looking at me. "We have archery, so we have bows and arrows." he says looking pleased. "QED, we have weapons, but we need to get to them." he says looking at a map of the school. The archery department is annexed to the stables, which would be across the atrium area, by the main entrance. The problem being, that would also put us in sight of the people in the auditorium, through the windows. While they are still sealed, and the security bars are still in place, that does not mean they can't find a way to open them, or break through. "We are going to have to wait until it is dark out, so they can't see us." Kale decides. The rest of us kind of agree, since he seems to be the only one that is making plans. Tammy, writes that down on a notepad. I notice she has several things she has made note of, so this little discussion was going on for some time. They probably saw me headed towards the auditorium in the security monitors, and took time out long enough to fetch me.
"OK, so we have, gather tools from maintenance, start to disassemble the legs off desks, and we bolt the table tops over windows. We have, move as much food and medical stuff as we can into the Emerson tower dorm, so we can use the fifth story roof to look out for help. We have gather at least a couple telescopes from science, to see if we can see what is going on down in the L.A. area. We have, gather a few of the horses, and see if we can house them in Landon hall, for safety, in case more come from somewhere else and attack the stables. Now we have gather archery stuff. Did I miss anything?" Tammy reads off their list of ideas.
"Has anyone tried calling the police?" I ask, immediately regretting it.
"Oh, wow, why didn't we think of that?" Dave says smacking me in the back of the head. It hurts and brings tears to my eyes. I'm not a big girl, I'm actually on the petite side, and he is a large boy. His smack hurts far more than he probably even meant it to, and I have no doubt he meant it to hurt. He likes to hurt kids smaller than he is.
"We tried, the phones are over loaded." Kale says, shrugging, then turning to scowl at Dave. "We tried 911 on a cell phone too." he says.
"Is there anything on the internet?" I ask. Kale shakes his head. "Phones aren't working. I just told you."
"Our internet isn't from a phone line, its a fiber line. It should still be working." I point out. Kale looks at Tammy. She nods, and he grins a bit.
"OK, we need to get to the computer lab. Tammy put that on your list." he says.
"On it." she says already writing it down.
"Told you the internet would still work." James says quietly. Dave goes to smack him but stops when Kale smacks him in the back of the head first.
"OK, so Dave and I will go see about the horses, we can both lift and load some bails of hay and oats. Tammy, take Gary and go to the archery department, load up on stuff. James, you and Ellie get to the computer lab, see what you can get from the internet. Diane, you stay here, just watch the monitors, warn us if you see anything that looks dangerous." Kale says turning to her.
"Why do I have to stay here alone?" Diane starts to protest. Naturally, Miss. B wouldn't miss the opportunity to argue. Kale glares at her, not willing to let her start her shit right now.
"OK, fine, you can go with Dave, and help him lift those hay bails, gather up some horses and tack." He says as if he means it. I know he doesn't, nobody would ever trust her to do something that important without making a mess of it.
"No, I'll stay here. That's fine... THIS TIME!" she says as if she really has a choice. "But I don't see how I'm supposed to warn you if anything..." she starts to protest again before Kale shoves a radio in her face. He turns it on, and makes sure it's set on channel 3. He hands James and Tammy a radio on channel 3 as well.
"OK, lets get going. Remember, don't make noise, and don't antagonize those things. They really have torn up the auditorium. I bet they could really hurt us if they get a hold of us." he warns. He didn't need to warn me, I have no intention of even going near them.
We split up into our groups, and as James and I are walking down the hall, James looks at me kinda funny. I give him a strange look back. Since this whole scary day started, I haven't had a chance to really stop and think. "OK, what?" I ask.
"I'm just impressed you volunteered to go to the lab with me." he says grinning. Well, in truth, I was volunteered, but I don't see what he means.
"Why wouldn't I?" I ask shrugging.
"Well, you realize whats between us and the lab right?" he asks. I think about it a minute, then realize what he means.
"Oh, shit, how do we get past them?" I say as I realize that we have to go down the hall that leads right in front of the main doors of the auditorium. If they see us walking past, surely that will antagonize them, which is exactly what Kale told us not to do.
"Well, I'm going to show you a trick." James says, pushing one of the larger recycle bins over to a wall. It scrapes a bit but I doubt the sound carried to the auditorium. He helps me up onto it, then climbs up with me. Then he pushes the ceiling panel back, of the drop ceiling. I see him climb up into the ceiling. A few second later, he reaches down to help me climb up after him. "Some of the guy... well, we sneak into the computer lab after hours, so we can play online games." he says in a whisper. I grin. I always wondered how they got past the locked doors. It never occurred to me to just go over them.
James shows me how to walk on the wall sections, where the wall is wide enough to support our weight. We slowly, but fairly quietly make our way to the other side of the auditorium. We then hop down, which hurts. I've done gymnastics a lot, it's sorta my thing, but landing on a hard surface like the concrete flooring, hurts from that height. It takes me a few minutes before my feet stop hurting enough to walk. After that, we are on our way. I have to hand it to him, not only is he kinda cute, but he's clever. I start to like James, hoping he likes me back. Who would have thought it would take the zombie apocalypse, for me to find someone I like.