~A/N: I'm baaaack! Sorry about this chapter taking so long, I had a
bit of writers block, plus a giant school project that I left till the last
minute. Oops! Anyways...here it is folks...and I'll try from now on to update
at least every week like I used to. This chapter is mainly dedicated to
Cass for doing the same for me. Oh and of course my loyal reviewers
NiennaArcamenel (Thank you for the comment and the commitment), Zyte (yes,
Jacob will become a zombie, sorry dear), Corpasite (I've done one Harry
Potter fic, but besides this no other fanfictions), Matro (Thankyou!), and
Tsunami(Maybe she is...hee hee...but thank you so much for the comments and the
lolli, that was soo cute!). Oh and of course, I can't forget to thank
Sorphedius again, and C15Wildfire for his/her comment too!
~***~
The distant sound of talking cut through the darkness that clouded the girl's mind. She winced in pain as the sound echoed dully inside her skull, and moaned out loud when her she heard the sound of laughter assault her eardrums from what sounded like far away.
The talking immediately ceased, and she was eternally grateful for it up until she heard someone talking directly to her from even closer by.
"Cadence, are you awake?"
"Shut up!" she yelled, and immediately wished she hadn't as she felt her head vibrate from the sound. She gritted her teeth, and made the decision not to talk anymore.
For a moment, she heard nothing but the pounding of blood in her ears before a warm hand touched her forehead, the fingers delicately probing the large bump on her head, and suddenly she had the strength to open her eyes, as if the contact was her only connection to the real world.
For a moment, she didn't think she actually opened her eyes, and only after blinking frantically did she see the curtain of darkness begin to lift and the world begin to focus itself back into blurred shapes and bright colors.
Directly in front of her, a blurred shape began to sharpen into focus, turning into the familiar face of her friend James. She stared at him for a moment, almost entranced by the big, blue eyes, shapely mouth, pale skin, and dark, spiked hair.
She got up as quickly as her tired body would allow and threw her arms around him before she had a chance to stop herself.
"Oh, I thought you were dead!" she murmured sofly into his ear.
"Seriously, you two need to get a room" she heard to her right, and after slowly turning her head she saw her friend Andy standing with his arms crossed over his chest and a frown on his face.
She heard the sound of laughter, and only after letting go of the now blushing boy did she realize that she was surrounded by people.
"Andy!" she said before focusing her attention on the rest of the people in the room, studying their weary faces and saying each name in turn with careful disbelief, "Sara...Chandra...Bri...Leslie...Joey...John...Brian...Jeff, how did you all make it?"
There was a slight pause, and then everyone in the room began to speak at once, their words tumbling over one another's in an undistinguishable array of noise. The group all stopped as one as well, laughing mildly at having been so synchronized with each other.
"Okay, how about one at a time?" Cadence asked the group, still smiling despite herself.
Everyone in the room looked at each other carefully, as if daring someone to go first, and after too long of a pause, Andy rolled his eyes, and spoke first.
"Well, you know after Dunmire's class we had lunch, and I promised that I'd come get you, and bring these fools-" he gestured to the people standing around him, "-with me. But like always, I broke my promise, and decided to not mention that you were sent back to the dorms when I met everyone here in the library. We've been holed up here ever since, and it seems that this is the last safe place left because of the barricades."
Cadence knitted her eyebrows in confusion at his last comment. "Here in the library?" she asked, cutting him off before he could continue.
"Hey, Cade, take a look around you," her friend Sara supplied with sarcasm.
She had assumed that she was still in the lunch building, but after finally looking around her she noticed that she was indeed inside her academy's library. From her position on a large, dusty couch she looked down upon the ground floor from what she assumed was the second story balcony to receive a total shock. The once orderly bookshelves, over twenty feet tall each, now lay on the ground haphazardly, some cracked and broken, others simply spilling hundreds of books onto the already cluttered ground. Those bookshelves that were still relatively upright were leaned against the far doors, serving as a makeshift barricade. Near the doors lay several bodies, one that she could barely recognize as the librarian and others as former students. She looked away quickly, not wanting to have to identify who exactly lay on the ground without a head.
"Wait a second, before you continue with your story, Andy, how did I get here?" she asked, slightly confused.
James, who was sitting on the couch with her answered. "I found you actually, in the lunch building. I was going to go see if I could find some more food for us, when I ran into you. When I found you, you mumbled something and then passed out. You looked a mess, you were covered in blood. I brought you back here."
At his last comment, Cadence took the time to look down at herself, and almost screamed at the condition she was in. Her slim legs were dotted with splatters of dried blood, and her shoes were practically covered in it, as if she had waded into a pool of red paint. Her black skirt was stained with dark patches of blood, and her white shirt was now polka-dotted with red. She didn't want to know how the rest of her looked as she tried frantically to remove the blood. She was just about to place a finger in her mouth to help with the cleaning process when James grabbed her hand, halting it just before it reached her lips.
"That's a bad idea. We don't want you to get infected. Oh, and by the way, you have a mild concussion, or at least that's what we think," he added as an afterthought as he gestured to her head.
She stared at him a moment in mute disbelief, and then reached up to touch her head before being stopped once again by James.
"Cade, I don't really suggest touching an open wound with a blood stained hand. It's never really a good idea, and even more so in our present predicament."
"You really need to clean yourself up Cadence. We rounded up some extra clothes from around, but we didn't want to move you until you woke up. You'll have to dress yourself," her friend Bri said gently, picking up a small pile of clothing from behind her and throwing it at James who plucked it deftly from the air.
"Oh, okay thanks. I'll just go downstairs to the faculty changing room, there's a shower there I think," she said while getting up gingerly.
Everyone in the room exchanged nervous looks, before somebody finally spoke up.
"That doesn't sound like a very good idea, but neither does allowing you to be covered in infected blood. The ground floor isn't too safe yet, we haven't really checked around yet. Just take someone with you all right, preferably someone who can protect you," Andy added, obviously volunteering himself to accompany her.
"All right then, if a girl can't protect her-," she put an angry emphasis on the word girl, "-Andy, we'll send a boy. James, you go with her," Leslie said angrily, obviously trying to ruin Andy's plan.
James nodded and stood up, turning his back on the obviously infuriated Andy and grabbing a bat from the ground near his feet.
"Let's go then James. You can hold the clothes, I don't want to get them dirty too," Cadence stated, already halfway to the stairs.
Upon seeing them she wondered how exactly they were expected to climb down; chair, tables, and other various objects were placed at random intervals all along the large staircases steps.
"We put that junk there just in case something actually does get in. We were thinking that the zombies were too clumsy to climb stairs, so we put crap on them to make it even harder, as a precaution." He answered, reading her face.
He grabbed her hand gently, and led her down the stairs. At the bottom, he didn't let go, and Cadence didn't object, and together they wound their way towards the back of the library towards two wooden doors set into the wall.
Choosing the right door, designated for girls, Cadence made to walk in, but was stopped by James, who had stopped.
"What's wrong?" she asked carefully, searching his face.
"I can't just go in there with you, your going to be taking a shower," he stated plainly.
"Well, it's not like you haven't-..."
"That was when we were going out Cadence, it's different now," he said, cutting off her thought.
"Fine," she said, dropping his hand roughly and walking through the door without another word.
Once inside, she shut the door, and immediately wished she hadn't. The small room she had just stepped in was quiet and foreboding. The locker room to her right completely bathed in darkness, the showers in front of her completely still. She briefly thought about re-opening the door, but brushed off the thought, wanting James to feel her anger through the door.
She took a few tentative steps forward, into the first shower, and after hearing nothing but her own quiet breathing, proceeded to peel off her blood-stained clothing.
She shivered slightly as her bare skin touched the cool air of the room, and turned on the hot water tap quickly, stepping under the water as soon as it begun to steam.
She sighed contentedly as she felt the water warm her skin and began to rub her arms and legs roughly, washing off the blood in pale pink rivers into the drain, where it swirled momentarily before disappearing.
So intent upon cleaning off the infected blood and partially deafened by the rushing water, Cadence didn't hear the small chink of glass from somewhere in the room, and the shuffling footsteps that followed.
Cadence began to hum despite herself, as was customary to her in the shower, and so focused on washing her hair, didn't see the shower curtain behind her ruffle slightly from a non-existent wind.
Finally hearing footsteps, Cadence paused in her singing, and turned around.
"James, is that you?" she asked quietly, growing nervous as she heard no immediate reply.
Gulping hard, she reached out a wet hand to the light blue shower curtain in front of her, and pulled it aside.
Her stomach dropped to her feet as she saw the shambling shape of a former student through the steam not more than three feet away from her, its mouth a bloody maw on it's nearly skinless face, it's arms and torso an indistinguishable mass of blood and eviscerated tissue. All she could do was gasp as it lunged at her.
She took an involuntary step backward, and slipped on the slick tile floor, ripping the flimsy shower curtain from it's rings as she attempted to hold herself up with it. She gasped as her head connected with the ground for the second time that day, and screamed out loud as she saw it drop down onto its knees and crawl towards her. She pushed herself backwards with her hands and feet, trying to wipe the falling water out of her eyes, and thrust out with her bare foot in an attempt to keep the monster at bay.
It slapped the barrier that was her foot out of the way, and crawled towards her with an eerie hunger in it's soulless eyes, moaning wetly as the blood from it's face washed away into it's mouth and onto the tiled floor.
Her head hit the wall that was the end of the showers and she screamed in sheer desperation as she found herself trapped. She watched in horror as the zombie grabbed her foot, and in that brief moment when it's red, gummy teeth began to move toward it, her entire world slowed down. The water cascading onto the zombie like rain didn't make a sound, nor did she hear it's hungry moans, or the shouts from someone else in the room; the blood pounding in her ears was too deafening.
She watched in numb horror as the zombie stopped, just millimeters from her fleshy calf, and began to move away, as if pulled. Confusion clouded her eyes as the zombie lashed out, scrabbling frantically to get back to it's meal. Not until a spray of cold, dark blood splattered onto her face and the curtain still covering her shivering body, did she finally hear James screaming at her if she was okay, and see the bloody bat still held in his hand. Comprehension dawned on her wide, frightened eyes as she saw the zombie, twitching at her savior's feet.
She stared at James from the ground, the eye contact between them intense as he tried to keep his eyes trained on her face, and not her pale body. Cadence couldn't move, she was almost frozen with fear, despite the hot water still raining down onto the shower curtain that only partially covered her nude form. Her breath came out in short, quick gasps as she tried her hardest not to cry, to scream, to run away and hide from the horror that stood convulsing at her feet.
After a long moment, a racking sob made it's way out of her throat, and despite her hardest tries to restrain herself, she felt hot tears beginning to form at the back of her eyes.
James frowned as he watched the girl lying in front of him put a hand over her eyes, as if to shield herself from the sight in front of her. With her other hand, she grasped the shower curtain and pulled it more securely over her body, as if ashamed of being seen.
Feeling pity for her, he reached forward and turned off the hot water tap, and bent down. With one hand he reached for her and began pulling her into a standing position, with the other he kept the shower curtain in place, shielding her familiar body from view.
She immediately pressed herself against him, and he wrapped his arms around her gently, ignoring the water that was slowly soaking into his clothes. She leaned into him, and he held tighter, convinced that he was the only thing keeping her from falling. He listened silently to her breathing as it gradually began to slow down, the hiccups growing farther and farther apart, and was only mildly surprised to hear that she wasn't crying.
After a long while, she began to shiver more violently than before, and he suddenly remembered that she was still naked, and most likely freezing. He began to run his hands along her arms and sides in an attempt to warm her up, his callused hands sliding over the goose bumps on her skin, and she jumped as if surprised, and stepped back.
"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean..." she broke off, apparently unsure of what she was sorry for, "Thank you James."
"Your welcome Cade, I'm just sorry I came so late. I ended up going the wrong way at first, into the locker room area. There's a broken window back there, and what looks like a person. It's not safe in here. We should get back to the others soon." He looked at her face, which was now one again spotted with blood, and continued, "But first, you should re-wash yourself. I'll go find a towel, and I'll be in here with you this time okay."
She nodded mutely and turned around, walked stiffly back into the shower and turned on the hot water tap. She dropped the shower curtain, and James shocked, had to tear his eyes away from her delicate body.
He walked away, and set the large, fluffy towel he had just found on a chair along with her new set of clothes. He leaned against the wall, and slid down it lazily, trying as hard as he could to burn the image he had just seen out of his head before it stayed there forever.
He was startled out of his reverie when he heard shouting echo through the door form the other room. Suddenly alert, he stood up and shouted to Cadence.
"Something's going on out there. Hurry up and change, I'm going to go see what's happening."
Before she had a chance to reply, she heard the door open and close, and she suddenly felt very alone. She turned off the tap, and stepped gingerly towards the door, and after catching sight of the towel, grabbed it and quickly dried herself off.
She examined the cloths in front of her, a blue pleated tennis skirt with her school's logo branded near the hip, and a small white polo shirt with a similar logo on the breast pocket, and suddenly realized that it must have been one of her friends tennis uniforms. As she reached for the outfit, she heard a large 'boom' followed by another, that shook the ground beneath her, and then silence. She grasped them quickly in her shaking hands, and quickly put them on, thankful the skirt was actually a skort due to the fact that she didn't have any clean undergarments available.
She was just considering whether or not she had time to braid her hair, when she heard shouting coming from the other room. Sighing, she merely threw her head forward and placed the wet strands into a pony tail, the end just reaching the middle of her back.
She rushed forward towards the door as she heard the distant sound of screaming once again, and grasped the handle, wrenching it open towards her and taking in the sight in from of her.
To her immediate right, the make-shift barricade that had been created by bookshelves was pushed over, and the now open door was allowing zombie after zombie to spill into the already crowded room. She watched in mute disbelief as they stumbled lazily over the fallen shelves and books, some falling to feast upon the bodies that had been left earlier, and others advancing upon her friends, trapped on the second floor, their only escape blocked off. The zombies seemed to crowd just at the foot of the stairs, unable to climb them, just as James had suspected, and her friends sat above them, throwing random objects down upon them.
Just as a desk was heaved over the railing, crushing the zombies below, Cadence found her voice.
"Hey, you guys! What are you going to do, your trapped!" she screamed frantically, and then mentally slapped herself for doing so as the attention of the zombies turned towards her, their sightless eyes and disfigured bodies turning towards her as one.
"Oh, shit!" she yelled.
Her friends made similar comments from the landing above her, and began throwing objects down with a renewed vigor, as if trying to kill them before they reached their trapped friend.
But her comment wasn't made for herself, it was made for James, who sat with his back against a book shelf some twenty feet away, completely surrounded by the undead, his bat held out in front of him as he prepared to make his last stand.
~***~
~A/N: Well, there you have it, another chapter, YEAH! I really liked this one for some reason, maybe the nudieness was fun to write, who knows. Hopefully you guys are still out there, I did leave you hanging. But, please review...I would love you sooo much. And in the words of the GREAT Tsunami, I'll give you a lolli! You know you want one, they aren't as good as hers, but they are semi-sweet! Next installment: Muahahaha, I'm not gonna tell you, bc I wanna leave you guys hanging. And because I don't normally follow what I say I'm going to write, and I don't want to lie to you guys. So yeah....muahahahaaaaa!
~***~
The distant sound of talking cut through the darkness that clouded the girl's mind. She winced in pain as the sound echoed dully inside her skull, and moaned out loud when her she heard the sound of laughter assault her eardrums from what sounded like far away.
The talking immediately ceased, and she was eternally grateful for it up until she heard someone talking directly to her from even closer by.
"Cadence, are you awake?"
"Shut up!" she yelled, and immediately wished she hadn't as she felt her head vibrate from the sound. She gritted her teeth, and made the decision not to talk anymore.
For a moment, she heard nothing but the pounding of blood in her ears before a warm hand touched her forehead, the fingers delicately probing the large bump on her head, and suddenly she had the strength to open her eyes, as if the contact was her only connection to the real world.
For a moment, she didn't think she actually opened her eyes, and only after blinking frantically did she see the curtain of darkness begin to lift and the world begin to focus itself back into blurred shapes and bright colors.
Directly in front of her, a blurred shape began to sharpen into focus, turning into the familiar face of her friend James. She stared at him for a moment, almost entranced by the big, blue eyes, shapely mouth, pale skin, and dark, spiked hair.
She got up as quickly as her tired body would allow and threw her arms around him before she had a chance to stop herself.
"Oh, I thought you were dead!" she murmured sofly into his ear.
"Seriously, you two need to get a room" she heard to her right, and after slowly turning her head she saw her friend Andy standing with his arms crossed over his chest and a frown on his face.
She heard the sound of laughter, and only after letting go of the now blushing boy did she realize that she was surrounded by people.
"Andy!" she said before focusing her attention on the rest of the people in the room, studying their weary faces and saying each name in turn with careful disbelief, "Sara...Chandra...Bri...Leslie...Joey...John...Brian...Jeff, how did you all make it?"
There was a slight pause, and then everyone in the room began to speak at once, their words tumbling over one another's in an undistinguishable array of noise. The group all stopped as one as well, laughing mildly at having been so synchronized with each other.
"Okay, how about one at a time?" Cadence asked the group, still smiling despite herself.
Everyone in the room looked at each other carefully, as if daring someone to go first, and after too long of a pause, Andy rolled his eyes, and spoke first.
"Well, you know after Dunmire's class we had lunch, and I promised that I'd come get you, and bring these fools-" he gestured to the people standing around him, "-with me. But like always, I broke my promise, and decided to not mention that you were sent back to the dorms when I met everyone here in the library. We've been holed up here ever since, and it seems that this is the last safe place left because of the barricades."
Cadence knitted her eyebrows in confusion at his last comment. "Here in the library?" she asked, cutting him off before he could continue.
"Hey, Cade, take a look around you," her friend Sara supplied with sarcasm.
She had assumed that she was still in the lunch building, but after finally looking around her she noticed that she was indeed inside her academy's library. From her position on a large, dusty couch she looked down upon the ground floor from what she assumed was the second story balcony to receive a total shock. The once orderly bookshelves, over twenty feet tall each, now lay on the ground haphazardly, some cracked and broken, others simply spilling hundreds of books onto the already cluttered ground. Those bookshelves that were still relatively upright were leaned against the far doors, serving as a makeshift barricade. Near the doors lay several bodies, one that she could barely recognize as the librarian and others as former students. She looked away quickly, not wanting to have to identify who exactly lay on the ground without a head.
"Wait a second, before you continue with your story, Andy, how did I get here?" she asked, slightly confused.
James, who was sitting on the couch with her answered. "I found you actually, in the lunch building. I was going to go see if I could find some more food for us, when I ran into you. When I found you, you mumbled something and then passed out. You looked a mess, you were covered in blood. I brought you back here."
At his last comment, Cadence took the time to look down at herself, and almost screamed at the condition she was in. Her slim legs were dotted with splatters of dried blood, and her shoes were practically covered in it, as if she had waded into a pool of red paint. Her black skirt was stained with dark patches of blood, and her white shirt was now polka-dotted with red. She didn't want to know how the rest of her looked as she tried frantically to remove the blood. She was just about to place a finger in her mouth to help with the cleaning process when James grabbed her hand, halting it just before it reached her lips.
"That's a bad idea. We don't want you to get infected. Oh, and by the way, you have a mild concussion, or at least that's what we think," he added as an afterthought as he gestured to her head.
She stared at him a moment in mute disbelief, and then reached up to touch her head before being stopped once again by James.
"Cade, I don't really suggest touching an open wound with a blood stained hand. It's never really a good idea, and even more so in our present predicament."
"You really need to clean yourself up Cadence. We rounded up some extra clothes from around, but we didn't want to move you until you woke up. You'll have to dress yourself," her friend Bri said gently, picking up a small pile of clothing from behind her and throwing it at James who plucked it deftly from the air.
"Oh, okay thanks. I'll just go downstairs to the faculty changing room, there's a shower there I think," she said while getting up gingerly.
Everyone in the room exchanged nervous looks, before somebody finally spoke up.
"That doesn't sound like a very good idea, but neither does allowing you to be covered in infected blood. The ground floor isn't too safe yet, we haven't really checked around yet. Just take someone with you all right, preferably someone who can protect you," Andy added, obviously volunteering himself to accompany her.
"All right then, if a girl can't protect her-," she put an angry emphasis on the word girl, "-Andy, we'll send a boy. James, you go with her," Leslie said angrily, obviously trying to ruin Andy's plan.
James nodded and stood up, turning his back on the obviously infuriated Andy and grabbing a bat from the ground near his feet.
"Let's go then James. You can hold the clothes, I don't want to get them dirty too," Cadence stated, already halfway to the stairs.
Upon seeing them she wondered how exactly they were expected to climb down; chair, tables, and other various objects were placed at random intervals all along the large staircases steps.
"We put that junk there just in case something actually does get in. We were thinking that the zombies were too clumsy to climb stairs, so we put crap on them to make it even harder, as a precaution." He answered, reading her face.
He grabbed her hand gently, and led her down the stairs. At the bottom, he didn't let go, and Cadence didn't object, and together they wound their way towards the back of the library towards two wooden doors set into the wall.
Choosing the right door, designated for girls, Cadence made to walk in, but was stopped by James, who had stopped.
"What's wrong?" she asked carefully, searching his face.
"I can't just go in there with you, your going to be taking a shower," he stated plainly.
"Well, it's not like you haven't-..."
"That was when we were going out Cadence, it's different now," he said, cutting off her thought.
"Fine," she said, dropping his hand roughly and walking through the door without another word.
Once inside, she shut the door, and immediately wished she hadn't. The small room she had just stepped in was quiet and foreboding. The locker room to her right completely bathed in darkness, the showers in front of her completely still. She briefly thought about re-opening the door, but brushed off the thought, wanting James to feel her anger through the door.
She took a few tentative steps forward, into the first shower, and after hearing nothing but her own quiet breathing, proceeded to peel off her blood-stained clothing.
She shivered slightly as her bare skin touched the cool air of the room, and turned on the hot water tap quickly, stepping under the water as soon as it begun to steam.
She sighed contentedly as she felt the water warm her skin and began to rub her arms and legs roughly, washing off the blood in pale pink rivers into the drain, where it swirled momentarily before disappearing.
So intent upon cleaning off the infected blood and partially deafened by the rushing water, Cadence didn't hear the small chink of glass from somewhere in the room, and the shuffling footsteps that followed.
Cadence began to hum despite herself, as was customary to her in the shower, and so focused on washing her hair, didn't see the shower curtain behind her ruffle slightly from a non-existent wind.
Finally hearing footsteps, Cadence paused in her singing, and turned around.
"James, is that you?" she asked quietly, growing nervous as she heard no immediate reply.
Gulping hard, she reached out a wet hand to the light blue shower curtain in front of her, and pulled it aside.
Her stomach dropped to her feet as she saw the shambling shape of a former student through the steam not more than three feet away from her, its mouth a bloody maw on it's nearly skinless face, it's arms and torso an indistinguishable mass of blood and eviscerated tissue. All she could do was gasp as it lunged at her.
She took an involuntary step backward, and slipped on the slick tile floor, ripping the flimsy shower curtain from it's rings as she attempted to hold herself up with it. She gasped as her head connected with the ground for the second time that day, and screamed out loud as she saw it drop down onto its knees and crawl towards her. She pushed herself backwards with her hands and feet, trying to wipe the falling water out of her eyes, and thrust out with her bare foot in an attempt to keep the monster at bay.
It slapped the barrier that was her foot out of the way, and crawled towards her with an eerie hunger in it's soulless eyes, moaning wetly as the blood from it's face washed away into it's mouth and onto the tiled floor.
Her head hit the wall that was the end of the showers and she screamed in sheer desperation as she found herself trapped. She watched in horror as the zombie grabbed her foot, and in that brief moment when it's red, gummy teeth began to move toward it, her entire world slowed down. The water cascading onto the zombie like rain didn't make a sound, nor did she hear it's hungry moans, or the shouts from someone else in the room; the blood pounding in her ears was too deafening.
She watched in numb horror as the zombie stopped, just millimeters from her fleshy calf, and began to move away, as if pulled. Confusion clouded her eyes as the zombie lashed out, scrabbling frantically to get back to it's meal. Not until a spray of cold, dark blood splattered onto her face and the curtain still covering her shivering body, did she finally hear James screaming at her if she was okay, and see the bloody bat still held in his hand. Comprehension dawned on her wide, frightened eyes as she saw the zombie, twitching at her savior's feet.
She stared at James from the ground, the eye contact between them intense as he tried to keep his eyes trained on her face, and not her pale body. Cadence couldn't move, she was almost frozen with fear, despite the hot water still raining down onto the shower curtain that only partially covered her nude form. Her breath came out in short, quick gasps as she tried her hardest not to cry, to scream, to run away and hide from the horror that stood convulsing at her feet.
After a long moment, a racking sob made it's way out of her throat, and despite her hardest tries to restrain herself, she felt hot tears beginning to form at the back of her eyes.
James frowned as he watched the girl lying in front of him put a hand over her eyes, as if to shield herself from the sight in front of her. With her other hand, she grasped the shower curtain and pulled it more securely over her body, as if ashamed of being seen.
Feeling pity for her, he reached forward and turned off the hot water tap, and bent down. With one hand he reached for her and began pulling her into a standing position, with the other he kept the shower curtain in place, shielding her familiar body from view.
She immediately pressed herself against him, and he wrapped his arms around her gently, ignoring the water that was slowly soaking into his clothes. She leaned into him, and he held tighter, convinced that he was the only thing keeping her from falling. He listened silently to her breathing as it gradually began to slow down, the hiccups growing farther and farther apart, and was only mildly surprised to hear that she wasn't crying.
After a long while, she began to shiver more violently than before, and he suddenly remembered that she was still naked, and most likely freezing. He began to run his hands along her arms and sides in an attempt to warm her up, his callused hands sliding over the goose bumps on her skin, and she jumped as if surprised, and stepped back.
"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean..." she broke off, apparently unsure of what she was sorry for, "Thank you James."
"Your welcome Cade, I'm just sorry I came so late. I ended up going the wrong way at first, into the locker room area. There's a broken window back there, and what looks like a person. It's not safe in here. We should get back to the others soon." He looked at her face, which was now one again spotted with blood, and continued, "But first, you should re-wash yourself. I'll go find a towel, and I'll be in here with you this time okay."
She nodded mutely and turned around, walked stiffly back into the shower and turned on the hot water tap. She dropped the shower curtain, and James shocked, had to tear his eyes away from her delicate body.
He walked away, and set the large, fluffy towel he had just found on a chair along with her new set of clothes. He leaned against the wall, and slid down it lazily, trying as hard as he could to burn the image he had just seen out of his head before it stayed there forever.
He was startled out of his reverie when he heard shouting echo through the door form the other room. Suddenly alert, he stood up and shouted to Cadence.
"Something's going on out there. Hurry up and change, I'm going to go see what's happening."
Before she had a chance to reply, she heard the door open and close, and she suddenly felt very alone. She turned off the tap, and stepped gingerly towards the door, and after catching sight of the towel, grabbed it and quickly dried herself off.
She examined the cloths in front of her, a blue pleated tennis skirt with her school's logo branded near the hip, and a small white polo shirt with a similar logo on the breast pocket, and suddenly realized that it must have been one of her friends tennis uniforms. As she reached for the outfit, she heard a large 'boom' followed by another, that shook the ground beneath her, and then silence. She grasped them quickly in her shaking hands, and quickly put them on, thankful the skirt was actually a skort due to the fact that she didn't have any clean undergarments available.
She was just considering whether or not she had time to braid her hair, when she heard shouting coming from the other room. Sighing, she merely threw her head forward and placed the wet strands into a pony tail, the end just reaching the middle of her back.
She rushed forward towards the door as she heard the distant sound of screaming once again, and grasped the handle, wrenching it open towards her and taking in the sight in from of her.
To her immediate right, the make-shift barricade that had been created by bookshelves was pushed over, and the now open door was allowing zombie after zombie to spill into the already crowded room. She watched in mute disbelief as they stumbled lazily over the fallen shelves and books, some falling to feast upon the bodies that had been left earlier, and others advancing upon her friends, trapped on the second floor, their only escape blocked off. The zombies seemed to crowd just at the foot of the stairs, unable to climb them, just as James had suspected, and her friends sat above them, throwing random objects down upon them.
Just as a desk was heaved over the railing, crushing the zombies below, Cadence found her voice.
"Hey, you guys! What are you going to do, your trapped!" she screamed frantically, and then mentally slapped herself for doing so as the attention of the zombies turned towards her, their sightless eyes and disfigured bodies turning towards her as one.
"Oh, shit!" she yelled.
Her friends made similar comments from the landing above her, and began throwing objects down with a renewed vigor, as if trying to kill them before they reached their trapped friend.
But her comment wasn't made for herself, it was made for James, who sat with his back against a book shelf some twenty feet away, completely surrounded by the undead, his bat held out in front of him as he prepared to make his last stand.
~***~
~A/N: Well, there you have it, another chapter, YEAH! I really liked this one for some reason, maybe the nudieness was fun to write, who knows. Hopefully you guys are still out there, I did leave you hanging. But, please review...I would love you sooo much. And in the words of the GREAT Tsunami, I'll give you a lolli! You know you want one, they aren't as good as hers, but they are semi-sweet! Next installment: Muahahaha, I'm not gonna tell you, bc I wanna leave you guys hanging. And because I don't normally follow what I say I'm going to write, and I don't want to lie to you guys. So yeah....muahahahaaaaa!