Revolt
Inside the gym, a basketball game was being played. Ashley Ferguson, sweating and moving on pure adrenaline caught the basketball out of mid-air and tossed it to her teammate, Cory Smith and chucked it through the hoop with skill. Then, the coach blew his whistle and announced a break. Exhausted, Ashley walked off the court and untied her hair knot, which was twisted in a ponytail. Her long brown hair unraveled and dropped below her shoulders. Ashley sat down on one of the folded wrestling mats on the side of the gym. She looked up at the big digital clock near the entrance to the gym. The clock read 4:30. Upset, she let out a long groan and looked to Cory, who was walking up to the mats.
Ashley and Cory were both fifteen years old. They both were athletic, veterans of many different soccer, basketball, baseball and volleyball teams. Though not related in anyway, Ashley and Cory were both close to each other, having pretty much grown up together. Ashley stood at 5'5 with a small, fast runner's frame while Cory was 6' and had a tall surfer's build.
"When are we going to be allowed to go home?" she whined.
"I dunno. If we're not out of here by seven I'm hopping the wall and taking the bus back to my house." Cory answered with a shrug of his shoulders.
"I wonder if the cafeteria's open." Ashley said.
"Let's go out to the quad." Cory suggested.
Ashley stood up and walked with Cory out to the quad. A few paces from them, students sat huddled together with large pieces of plain white cardboard, writing various protest phrases on them.
The student body was getting more and more restless as the day went on. Rumors of a massacre in Downtown LA and a shooting involving Reseda High students near the school were being spread. And that wasn't even the worst news. New York City, Washington D.C, and Miami, Florida had declared states of emergency when "suspicious persons" caused mass riots in the capitals of each city. The President had recorded a message to the American populace to stay indoors and watch for persons acting erratically, and the aforementioned message was being played every ten minutes on every radio station across America.
"Okay, we need some more equipment." announced Brandon Kelly, quarterback for the varsity football team.
"What are we missing?" asked a linebacker.
"We need five sets of shoulder pads, five helmets, and fifteen sets of ten pound weights."
"Alright, I'll send out for it." said Austin Freeman, tearing off a page off his notebook and handing it to a freshman running back, who exited the locker room and went to the equipment room.
The boys in the locker room were preparing for war. Brandon Kelly, the leader of the Student's Revolt, was planning a massive breakout. He had heard of the massacre in Downtown and from there, he gathered his friends and all who were willing to take up arms against the school staff and escape from L.A. They had spent the last two hours gathering up equipment that could be used for warfare. Baseball bats, football armor, weights and even tennis rackets littered the locker room floor. As soon as the last pieces of equipment were delivered, he would begin training his "soldiers" for combat. He sat down and looked over to his locker. His aluminum fifteen pound baseball bat lay against it. Over the last hour, Brandon had modified his bat to hold two ten pound weights along the end of it. Next to the bat, his football armor and helmet lay there.
The school cops will probably pull guns on us. I hope that my armor will stop a bullet. Brandon thought to himself.
The two freshmen returned to the locker room, pushing a cart with all sorts of equipment on it. Baseball bats, weights, armor, and even baseballs.
"Alright, listen up!" Brandon shouted.
Altogether, there were about fifty people in the locker room. All of them had their football armor on. They each held a helmet in their hands and stood at attention, listening intently to their leader.
"You're all here for a reason."
"You don't agree with what's going on today. You think that the administration's decision to leave us in the dark about what's going on today is bullshit."
"You want to go home and see your family. You're not going to let anyone stand in your way of that."
"I've decided to take the preemptive approach and fight my way out. If you don't to come with me and escape from here then I suggest you leave now."
Brandon took his baseball bat and lifted it up in the air.
"This is how your bat should look."
"If you can't swing a bat as heavy as mine is, then put the minimum amount of weight you can hold on it."
Several people slipped weights on their bats.
"When you swing, outstretch your elbows fully and take a step forward as you swing."
Brandon demonstrated the posture.
Everyone in the room followed along with Brandon's demonstration, catching on fairly quickly.
"The stragedy is to move as quickly as you can to the gates and don't give anyone any warning. Swing first and ask questions later. Remember, you're not going to get in trouble for attacking members of the staff because there's no one left to prosecute you for it."
After awhile, Brandon was done with the combat lesson and he finally was ready to wage war on the school's faculty.
"I want everyone to put on their armor and their helmets and follow me outside to the quad."
Like soldiers, the students in the locker room slipped on their armor and helmets and filed out to the door.
Campus Supervisor Howard Shay saw them first. Groups of ten marching towards the gate. They were the kids who dressed in black and put blond streaks in their hair and dressed in combat boots and band shirts every day. "Punks", if you will. He preferred to call them queers. They were holding signs with words on them like "RESEDA HIGH LIES" and "TELL US THE TRUTH" or "Can't we all just get along?" or his favorite, "PRINCIPAL TARIN IS AN ASSHOLE." They crowded the assistant principals who stood rigidly at the gate, yelling obscenities at them and waving their fists in their face.
"What do we want?"
"An answer!"
"When do we want it?"
"Now!"
Howard Shay slowly got up off his seat that table, grunting a bit as he lifted his 48 year old big linebacker frame off the table and started walking towards the supposed leader of the demonstration, a short blonde girl wearing an AC/DC baby T that didn't cover her belly button.
"Alright, missus. enough with the demonstration. The '60s are over." He pulled her by the shoulder back from the face of an assistant principal.
Laurel escaped the hold of the big campus supervisior and kicked him in the shin hard.
"Don't touch me, asshole!", she shrieked. She smiled as he grabbed his leg in pain and saw his red, enraged face.
"Ha, your eyes bulge when you gets pissed!", Laurel giggled.
Then, she ran, still giggling, knowing that within the next ten minutes she'd be free.
The demonstration had now grabbed the attention of all the students in the quad, who crowded around and watched the unrest. The demonstrators pushed at the gates, shouting at the school faculty and holding up their signs. Ashley Ferguson and Cory Smith watched the scene from atop a set of stairs overlooking the quad.
"Look down there! Someone else is coming."
Cory looked down and pointed at one of the people in full football armor and wielding a baseball bat with twenty pounds of added weight.
"That looks like Brandon."
"No shit? What's he doing here?"
Brandon rushed the crowd. Some saw him and jumped to get out of the way, while others only learned he was there when he knocked them over when he rushed to get at the front of the gate. The first to be felled by Brandon's bat was the school cop, Officer Mooney. Brandon's bat connected with his right eye, breaking the delicate bone structure between the face and the brain. Mooney collapsed to the ground, brain and blood seeping out of his ear. Brandon followed up by smashing the giant Masterlock on the gate and then running away from the scene. The demonstrators threw open the gate and rushed the faculty, who were still stunned by the sudden death of Officer Mooney.
"Holy shit, he just killed Mooney!", exclaimed Cory, who then tugged at Ashley's sleeve.
"I think we should go." suggested Cory.
Ashley nodded in response and ran down the stairs with Cory. They were going to run out the front door of Reseda.
From the gate and into the quad, the fight spilled out between the students and faculty. Assistant principals were using what little fighting knowledge they knew to subdue the football players, but were losing wholeheartedly, instead falling to their bats.
Brandon was amazed by the success of his plan. The demonstrators had done the first attack for him and were doing pretty well without the help of his soldiers. He looked to where it first began. Mooney's corpse was still laying there.
Brandon looked at the corpse and ran to it. Mooney's gun was still in the holster. "With the gun, I'm gonna have the real power.", he thought. Brandon unbuttoned the holster and retrieved the gun, a two-tone Beretta 92 and slipped it behind his waist.
As fast as it began, the fight was over. The school faculty was either on the ground dead, unconscious or not present. Students streamed out of the school in droves. Brandon ran to his friend Austin Freeman and his other friends out in the parking lot. "Hey man, guess what I found?" Brandon laughed. "What?"
Brandon grinned and pulled out the gun and waved it.
"Nice find! You should come with us, man.", said Patrick, a friend of Austin's.
"We're gonna go store robbing. Word is that no one's working on Ventura Boulevard today." said Austin.
"What are we standing around here for then?", said Brian.
Together, the three jock criminal/murderers piled into Austin's Ford Suburban and pulled out of Reseda High's parking lot and into the city. These people would be the true villains in the coming world, preying on the weak, robbing and killing innocent people for fun and profit.
"Alright then, I'll see you in a minute."
Matt hung up his cell phone and gazed out the window intently. Then, he saw her. Laurel ran up to the car and banged on the window loudly. Damien reached over and opened the door for her. She climbed into the back and sat next to Matt, breathing deeply.
"Aight, we ready to go now or what?"
"Yeah."
Angel started up the car and drove out of the parking lot. On the way, he noticed two people, a boy and a girl walking together down the street. He stopped and rolled down his window and pulled alongside them.
"Hey, you guys from the school?"
He motioned with his hand to the school.
'Yeah.", they replied.
"You need a lift or what?"
Chris replied to the Mexican's offer of a ride with the question "where to?"
"Ojai."
Chris was familiar with Ojai. Just a ten minute drive from where he learned to surf, Ojai was where his grandparents were from.
He looked at Ashley and she shook her head.
"No. I want to go see my family."
"I can't go anywhere she's not going, thanks for the offer though."
"Alright, bye."
Angel hit the gas and sped away from the duo, heading to the freeway. As he approached the on-ramp, he noticed a bright orange sign saying "No Entrance."
"WELL FUCK THAT!", he yelled, hitting his dashboard with a closed fist. He turned the wheel abruptly left and hit the gas, heading down Ventura Boulevard.
Behind him, the duo from before sat down at a bus stop. They were planning on catching the Ventura Bus all the way down.
All over Los Angeles, the plague was beginning to make itself known. Unprovoked attacks were being seen everywhere, with the aggressor often biting other people and tearing out chunks of their flesh. ER wards were reporting violent crime was up that day 100 percent from any other day.
And now, it was early evening. People were heading back home from a hard day at work, carrying the infection with them and into the Valley.
(Sorry I rushed at the end but I really want to get the infection going so that there will be more action later in the story.)