Before the short, tunnel-like walkway opened out into the courtyard, there was a door on the left and a two doors on the right. The first door on the right was the ladies' toilets, and the second door was the student kitchen. There were only two girls in the kitchen, neither of them were Erica. Lawson had taken a quick look into the courtyard and seen several families talking to teachers, but he couldn't see Erica there either. All of the second-floor classrooms and corridors formed a square around the courtyard. There were outside stairs ahead of him, and indoor stairs in two other corners of the building. There was another tunnel-like walkway to the right, but a sign in front of that said, "This way to the year 12 courtyard and the hall." He figured that Angel would cover that area, so he took the door to his left.
He found himself in a blue-tiled stairwell leading up and back over his head. There was a stairwell in each corner of the building. He could see up on the landing that the wall had a mural of a flying girl on it. He went up and almost had a girl collide with him, but he didn't let her fall over. She wore a light grey, sleeveless dress with her dark brown hair tied back in a loose bun. She was too young to be a teacher, and she wasn't a student, at least not a current one.
She grabbed his arms, a surprised look on her face. "Oh, oh," she said excitedly, "you're Lawson, right?" She looked sure that she was right; staring into his eyes as though his name was written on them.
She wasn't Erica, so Lawson figured that she must be the other girl they were looking for. "Cordelia?"
"Exactly," she said, letting go of him now that she had her balance. "I'm supposed to help you find Erica."
"Yeah, do you know what grade she's in?" Lawson asked.
"Oh, she doesn't go here anymore," Cordelia answered as though it was obvious, "she graduated the year before last, so she's not going to be in uniform. I know what she looks like though, I've been looking for her."
"Where have you looked?" Lawson asked.
Cordelia pointed off to Lawson's right. "All of the year ten rooms, the year eleven rooms, the sewing room and the computer rooms. Everything in that direction, on this floor."
Lawson looked to his left, where there was another row of classrooms and a line of lockers against the wall. "Then we should look this way now," he said, jerking his thumb in that direction.
Cordelia nodded. "Where are the others?"
"Angel's in the hall, and Spike is probably getting kicked out of the office."
"I heard he's got a soul now," Cordelia said, as they started walking off to the left.
"As far as I know; before last night I hadn't seen him for about fifty years." Lawson replied, looking into the first classroom. It was a geography display, and only two families were inside. The mother of one family was talking to the male teacher. "What is that accent?" he quietly asked Cordelia. They were speaking English, but it didn't sound American.
"Australian." Cordelia replied with a grin, walking past another set of toilets toward the next classroom.
'I thought her accent was weird,' Lawson thought of Erica's voice. He hadn't picked up on it before; she was an Aussie. Maybe that's what she'd meant about taking her and Cordelia 'back here'; out of Australia and back to America.
A girl's scream ripped him from his thoughts. He and Cordelia ran forward. The screaming was coming from the very end of the corridor and to the right, around a corner.
"Up the stairs, go!" he could hear from another girl -- he thought it was Erica's voice -- as he reached the bend. He could hear other people coming out of the classrooms to investigate the noise. The stairwell was on the other side of the wall he was running past, but a window in the wall above the stairwell showed him two girls pulling a third up the steps between them, the shorter girl's arms over their shoulders, and a huge bloody gash on her right calf.
He passed the corner and went around the railing to the steps as the girls pulled themselves up to the second floor. Erica was the one on the left, using the railing to pull herself and Kara up the stairs. Lora was on Kara's other side, helping to support her weight. Kara did what she could to make it easier for them by hopping on her uninjured leg. All three were white-faced with fear, though Lora and Kara weren't screaming anymore. Kara whimpered with the pain as she held her hurt leg above her other ankle, and her face was tear-streaked. The other two frantically helped her up the stairs, gasping in panic, and gripping her arms so hard their knuckles were white.
Behind them, groping its way up the stairs, its belly scraping the olive-green tiles, was a dead rotted thing, devoid of a face and with blood on its mangled hands where pointed bone protruded through the fingertips. As it crawled it tried to suck the blood into its face, but without a tongue or eyes to see with it could only smear it into the dirt-smeared cavity where the nose and mouth had once been.
In the blue carpet on the first floor was a great big hole, where another thing was clawing its way out from underground. It was bone-white and rotted like the first, with mould growing on its body. Save for the deterioration that time had wrought on it, its head was still intact. It snarled as the girls went out of reach, and jerkily pulled itself to its feet.
Though the first one couldn't see, it was still attracted to the warmth of living flesh, and it reached out to where the girls had been moments before. Lawson saw all of this in a second as he grabbed for Lora's free hand to help them up the last couple of steps. Cordelia caught up to him and called the girls over to her.
When they were out of the way Lawson went down the steps and kicked at the head of the first zombie, shattering the brittle skull and effectively stopping it. The body flopped back down onto the steps. The second one was better preserved, seemed to be more aware of his surroundings, and was more intelligent than the first. Though its body was old, reanimation had made it unnaturally strong.
It picked up its fallen companion and threw it at Lawson. As he raised his arms to block the body it ran at him, barrelling into him and grabbing him around the midsection to knock him over. It bit at Lawson's side and succeeded in sinking its teeth into his flesh, making him cry out in pain. Lawson used both hands to hammer down on its head. It jerked back and pushed him away, looked up toward the girls, and started going up the stairs, walking over the top of Lawson without giving him any further consideration.
Lawson grabbed at its legs and tripped it up, while Cordelia, Lora and Erica tried to do something about Kara's leg. Spike arrived on the scene, coming from the same way that Lawson and Cordelia had. In a glance he assessed the situation and picked up Kara, carrying her into the room that the girls had only just left. "Stay here," he told them as he shut the door, before going to help Lawson.
"There are more popping up all over the ground," he told Lawson as he swung the corpse over the railing by its legs. It was only a short drop, and it got to its feet again. Yet another one was crawling out of the hole made by the other two.
"We've got to get the girl out of here," Lawson said, as they backed up the stairs. He was holding a hand to his bloody side.
"We can't just leave everyone else here to fend for themselves," Spike protested.
At the end of the corridor ahead of them were another set of stairs. In that direction they could hear someone yelling out, "Spike, Lawson, where are you?"
"Up here!" they replied, and were joined shortly by Angel, whose clothes were slightly grimier and torn than before. He had retrieved his axe from the roof, and now held it at his side.
"Both Erica and Cordelia are in there, plus two others," Lawson told him, keeping an eye on the cautiously approaching zombies from the stairwell.
"One's injured," Spike added.
"These things are all over the school," Angel reported, as he hacked off the heads of the two approaching zombies.
"What caused this?" Lawson asked.
"Let's ask the 'Seer'," Spike said, jerking a thumb at the door.
Angel gave him a curt nod, and handed the axe to him. "Guard the door," he ordered. He opened the door, and a vase, complete with flowers, flew at his head. He put his arm up to block it as he heard Cordelia belatedly say 'Wait!'.
Ignoring the misdirected missile, he stared at Cordelia. She looked just as she had in those first few months when she'd come to LA. Lawson came through the door and shut it behind him.
Erica was the culprit who had thrown the vase, and as it had left her hand she had straightaway turned around to pick up a metre-ruler at the blackboard. She was holding it in her hand and staring at the two men with apprehension and distrust. She was now wearing only the black tank top, as her shirt had been donated to Kara's leg to slow the bleeding.
"Oh my God!" Lora exclaimed, and pointed at Lawson's side. The wound was deep, but not fatal, especially for a vampire, who wouldn't bleed much. Lora was standing behind the teacher's desk, at the point furthest away from the door.
"They're here to help us," Cordelia explained, also looking at Lawson's wound with a grimace on her face.
"I'm Angel," Angel said, taking a step forward, "this is Lawson and the guy outside is Spike. You're Erica, aren't you?" he asked.
"Maybe," she said with a frown, raising the ruler up to chest height. She had caught a glimpse of the man with the axe outside, and with everything she'd already seen she didn't know what to think about these supposed helpers, especially when they already knew who she was.
"We're here to get you out of here," Lawson said, walking forward with a slight limp.
In the corner of the room was a miniature altar, made out of a low table, several coloured silk sheets, prayer books, candles, a picture of Mary and a framed poem about Jesus. Erica dropped the ruler and ripped a gold coloured sheet out from under everything else, scattering all of the items on the floor. She seemed to have immediately forgotten her mistrust upon seeing that someone needed help. "Coat off, arms up," she ordered sternly.
"Uh, Erica," Cordelia said, as the girl strode up to Lawson. "You don't need to do that, he's a vampire."
Erica stopped abruptly, and said, "What? The creeps outside notwithstanding, that's not possible, unless the stories I heard are wrong and vampires can survive sunlight." She gestured with the sheet in her hands toward the open windows.
"Well, these ones can," Cordelia said with a shrug. "But just trust me, ok? They're here to help."
"I changed my mind," Lora spoke up. Kara, who was sitting on the teacher's desk next to her, looked at her questioningly, her expression a bit dazed. "I don't like that spooky crap any more." Lora explained.
Erica put a hand to her forehead as though she had a headache, but she was really just trying to deal with the situation. She let the sheet drop to the ground and said, "Look, I don't care what you are, just get us out of here please."
They heard a bang outside as something hit the door.
Angel turned to Cordelia. "What's causing this?"
"A witch," she answered. "Apparently she was one of the nuns here, or at least pretending to be one, then she got too ambitious with her hell-raising, and got trapped below ground for a century or two."
"So what's with the zombies," Lawson asked, "and why now?"
"Hey, I don't know everything, ok?" Cordelia protested with her hands up in front of her in surrender. "I got enough of a migraine from the vision that told me what I know. I think my head would have exploded if I'd been shown anything else. My best guess is she raised them to go where she couldn't. I do know that if we stop her we can stop the rest of this."
Angel turned to the three girls. "Are there any tunnels, sewer access, or anything else below this school?" The girls looked at him blankly, shaking their heads.
"What about the holes that the zombies came up from?" Lawson suggested.
"'Might not lead to her," Angel said. "But it could be worth a try. You four," he looked at Cordelia, Erica, Kara and Lora, "are staying up here with the door barricaded. Lawson, you're staying here with them to make sure nothing gets in at them, but first I want you to do a quick patrol of the corridors and get anyone else in here that you can find. I'll get Spike to stay outside the door until you get back."
Lawson nodded.
"Are those things attracted to blood?" Erica asked.
Angel nodded. "She should be ok though," he said, looking at Kara, "you've covered it up and you'll have the door closed."
"No," Erica said, "I was thinking about … Lawson, was it?"
Lawson nodded. "My name is Sam Lawson."
"Well Sam, why don't you use that sheet like I suggested in the first place, so that if you do find people you won't be leading the creatures right to them. And if you want a weapon, there are knives in the kitchens downstairs. I'm afraid that's the best we've got if you don't want to beat them off with a wooden broom from the closet there."
"Not a bad idea," Cordelia commented.
Lawson picked the sheet up as Angel went out of the door and spoke to Spike. After he had wound it around himself a few times, he went to the door, saying, "I'll be back as soon as possible."
He shut the door behind him and hurried off to find other survivors.
The four women were left alone in the room with each other.