It's a day late, and I know I promised and I'm sorry! But here you goooo!
It was faint, and Harry knew he would once again be thanking Magic for his animagus form because there was no doubt, he wouldn't have heard the wheezing otherwise. It was coming from inside the school but Harry couldn't see a way in stood up like he was, quickly crouching to see if there was anything on the floor that may give a clue as to where Otis could have gone, he noticed the long line of vents running underneath the edge of the building, one was completely opened whereas two others looked like someone had tried desperately to make then fit back into their slots again, as if they had been in a hurry, desperately trying to conceal themselves from the threat of more Walkers. Harry carefully removed the other two coverings, seeing that the vents made one long line, long enough for a fully-grown man to slip through. Harry got onto his stomach and shimmied over to the gap he'd created, taking a quick glance into the room he noticed it was filled with some sort of machinery, it looked like some form of wood-shop room, he saw tables full of unfinished projects and stacks of wood and a lot of sanding and sawing equipment. Harry took a deep breath and dropped down into the room, throwing up a quick ward to alert him if any of the Walkers got through the gate.
"Lumos" Harry whispered
A low, warm light filled the room, bringing everything he had seen into complete focus Harry knew he'd been right guessing the purpose of the room, students notes were also littered across the room and the board still had half a lesson plan on about safety of the equipment. The next thing Harry noticed, was the rather alarming amount of congealed blood that was littering the ground, droplets in every direction, a smear here and there before it all led to a rather large pool of it near a work bench with a large saw built into it. Walking around the side of the bench he came face to back with a rather well-built man, sitting hunched over towards the back wall of the room, moaning and grumbling. Harry gulped and readied himself, from what he had learnt about Otis, if this was indeed him, he was exactly the same as Hershel, a fine man, devoted to his family and working peacefully with Hershel at the Veterinarians. It was an extremely sad Harry that sighed lowly, realising that no one deserved the fate Shane had left Otis too, no one deserved to be mauled alive by undead beings, no one deserved to be betrayed by a police officer on a supply run to save a young boy.
Harry stepped forward cautiously, if this was Otis, he didn't want to scare him by blundering in all Gryffindor like, there's no telling how he could react to a stranger suddenly in his space, if this wasn't Otis, well it wouldn't do him any good to be caught off guard by a newly turned Walker. But then, the figure spoke:
"Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen."
The words were barely coherent, gaps in places, the person was taking too long to form full sentences, but Harry recognised the prayer from primary school, but whoever it was, and oh how he dearly hoped it was Otis, was alive and Harry had to help them.
"Hello?" He called out, quiet yet firm in his approach.
The figure span round and Harry couldn't help but gasp at the sight.
"Who are you?" The figure yelled hysterically, before trying desperately to get up from the floor and failing. "Stay away, stay away, stay away…" the figure descended into muffled sobs and Harry's heart ached at the sight. Because he had been right, it was Otis, and the fact he had been reduced to this, because of the actions of Shane angered him immensely. he frowned as he walked forward to tend to Otis but the man was truly far gone, whether from pain, blood loss or dehydration Harry didn't know, but when he was close enough Otis darted himself up, a knife wildly swinging from his right hand as more garbled yelling came out of the man's mouth, and Harry finally realised why Otis was acting erratically.
Harry couldn't believe what he was seeing as he stepped quickly out of the way of Otis' swing, half of Otis arm was missing! Literally sawed off from just below the elbow, and then crudely wrapped up, like he was on the verge on passing out and had just managed to do a half decent job, so Harry decided it would be easier to just treat Otis than try and reason with him in this state, so, he sent a quick stunner at the wounded man and cast a levitating charm just after so that Otis wouldn't fully collapse onto the floor. Harry took a quick glance around and set Otis down on a relatively clean surface and casting a quick diagnostic charm, he needed to know why Otis' arm was missing. He read the resulting parchment quickly and gaped at what he saw, Otis had been bitten, recently, and instead of succumbing to the bite, had chopped it off! It was outstanding, there was no trace of the bacteria that made the change in his system now, he had done it in time, he was also bleeding slightly from a gunshot wound near his thigh.
'That must be how Shane downed him' Harry thought angrily wishing he could get just one hit at Shane for the things he had done in the last two days. Harry quickly pulled his backpack off his back and grabbed out three of his muggle friendly potions, a blood-replenisher, a sleeping potion and a basic healing potion that should help new skin grow over the end of the left arm and prevent any infection, using the IV equipment he had taken from the house he got them set up and into Otis' system as quick as possible, he would have spelled them into his stomach, but he had no idea how the present stomach bile would have reacted to the potions, best to get them straight into the bloodstream and working than waiting an hour just to find out if they could work or not. Next he pulled the bandaging off of the severed left arm and had a look at just what Otis had managed to do.
'He definitely has medical training' Harry thought to himself, the wound was a complete clean cut, and Otis had managed cauterise the main artery afterwards so he wouldn't bleed out, but it looked like that might have been the thing to send him towards passing out because whilst the artery was completely closed, most, if not all of the veins in his arm had not been tended too and he was still loosing blood. Harry used his wand to cauterise the rest of the arm and cleaned it up properly before applying a healing salve to boost the skin formation and rebandaged the wound properly. Then, his attention turned to the leg, infection was quickly setting into Otis' body and Harry was initially surprised the infection wasn't starting in his arm, but the bullet wound was the first injury, and he supposed that with the added stress and the fact it also was still bleeding but only sluggishly, which meant the bullet had gotten lodged in the leg, which Harry needed to treat as soon as possible before the leg was permanently damaged, anything that had potential to slow you down was dangerous in this world now, Walkers weren't overly fast, but when they were in a herd they could easily overwhelm a person. Using a spell he'd learnt his first year of Healing, Harry checked for the exact location of the bullet in Otis' leg, luckily it hadn't broken like the one Teddy had been hit with, but it was still deep, Harry had to carefully cut a wider hole into Otis' leg to be able to pull the bullet out, but once he did and had had a look at the inside of the wound he cast another small cauterising charm to seal the small cluster of veins and nerves that had been exposed before stitching the wound closed and adding more healing salve so it would be fully healed by the time Harry was back from rummaging around the school. He added a muscle repair potion and an infection treater, to the mix already going into Otis' system and then cast a monitoring charm on him so he would know if anything changed with Otis' condition. Looking around the room in the dim light he had now Otis was sleeping Harry followed the blood trails and found Otis's arm under another table opposite the table with the saw, there was a huge bite mark on the wrist, like he had been caught when he tried to put the shutters back on the fixings. He resolved to find out exactly how Otis managed to do everything he had done whilst suffering a gunshot wound and a Walker bite, because it was astounding.
Harry turned and walked out of the door to the workshop, recasting his safety charms and casting a multitude of wards on the door to keep Otis safe; he set out into the darkness of the high school to look for supplies for the farm.
Walking through a school at night was always a weird experience Harry decided. Whilst this school was no Hogwarts, it had an eeriness that Hogwarts never possessed, that school was always buzzing with something, you knew you were never truly alone whether it was portraits, ghosts or even just the sentience of Hogwarts herself, but here, in this American high school, Harry felt truly alone wandering the corridors, he had his wand lit but they just seemed endless. He had had to walk up a set of stairs from the workshop to get into the main school and had walked through a section with a lot of lockers, he had found an auditorium and a multitude of classrooms that didn't have anything useful in at all. He couldn't help but think it was incredibly sad, a place like this was supposed to be full of life, now it was just surrounded by the dead.
Mentally deciding on a full plan, he started placing markers on the floor to track his progress and decided to find the cafeteria first, food in a time like this was an extremely scarce resource and it would all be used in time, and with the storage space he had in the backpack he was carrying he could fit all the school had and more. Walking along the corridors he would occasionally make a small bang come out of the end of his wand just to see if there were any Walkers around, however, nothing came out of the shadows.
He came across the library before the cafeteria, wandering through the stacks made him nostalgic for Hogwarts all over again, whilst it was true he didn't spend much time there, and this library was nowhere near the extravagance of Hogwarts, libraries held so many memories of Hermione that he couldn't help but love them. He saw so many subjects covered, and he wondered if because this town was small the school library doubled as a public library, making a quick decision Harry took all the books, Teddy, Sophia and Carl were still young, with a lot to learn, so hopefully they could all pitch in to help the kids, just because it was the end of the world didn't mean the kids had to be uneducated. Backing out of the library he spelled a large red cross into the door. And walked down a connecting corridor to find more classrooms and workshops, he debated before slipping into the rooms and taking any and all tools he could to fashion into weapons for anyone willing to learn, especially the kids for first weapons to practise with and keep on them in emergencies. He also took chemicals from the science labs, making bombs with them could help with large hordes in the future, and even if the noise drew more in, the hopeful inferno left behind would deal with enough of the Walkers to not have to worry about them. Also, there was the added benefit of helping with water treatments and making their own anti-septic for future injuries.
Harry wandered down what felt like every corridor in the school before he finally found the cafeteria, looking through the windows of the glass doors he could see a few Walkers drifting around, he recast all of his safety charms on himself again to pulling open a door and slipping inside, the room was brightly lit with the coming sunset, reds, yellows and oranges filled the room and cast shadows in places that would be deadly for anyone including him if his spells ever failed. The back wall was filled with large ceiling to floor windows and outside you could see expansive fields, one of which Harry was sure was the school's football field and the athletic tracks. Looking around Harry couldn't see any of the Walkers around that he'd seen through the window, come to think of it, he'd barely seen any Walkers in the school which was quite impressive considering the amount outside, then he noticed the broken window in the corner of the room and saw what had to be a few hundred Walkers outside milling around, Harry wondered if because he could see the fields, was the sports hall around here somewhere? It must be, and both Beth and Jimmy had said it would be the most likely place to have people meet because it was huge, and why would you put a medical truck where people aren't? Harry questioned himself. But how hadn't they infested the school? Harry shook himself, he didn't have time to figure this all out, he had a job to do. He looked around again, noticing a Walker near the hotplate area, Harry navigated his way along the rows of benches placed in the room thanking Magic he had a vantage point of the entire room walking this way. Still he tapped the tables occasionally to see if he could draw the other Walkers out from where they had disappeared too but there was no response not even from the Walker he had seen near the hotplate he was walking towards. He followed alongside the back wall of the kitchen heading towards what looked like the entrance to the actual kitchens and where he hoped the storage area was. Rounding the corner and going through the doorway he finally found the Walker he had been following, as well as two others clustered around a door that appeared locked from the inside,. Harry studied the Walkers, noting the lack of bite marks visible, and the complete lack of blood on the clothes he could see, it was possible that they had died naturally, but what were they doing close enough to a storage room like this? Harry crept closer and quickly stabbed his dagger through the three at the base of their skulls putting them out of their misery. He used a quick 'Alohomora' on the door and stepped through into another room it looked like a storage room for additional benches but in the middle of the room, a body was laying face down on top of some towels, again there was a visible lack of bite wounds so Harry wondered just how she had died. But as Harry walked towards the body on the floor, he still couldn't see any obvious cause as to why she was on the floor, but when he bent down to check for a pulse, Harry felt his heart jump a beat, she wasn't flat to the floor he realised, the closer he had gotten the more he could see, she was slightly lying on her side and he realised she had been pregnant, the bloated stomach and the umbilical cord near her was all the confirmation he needed.
'They must have snuck into the school to try and keep her safe' Harry realised feeling sick to his stomach. 'Knowing the medical truck would be here they probably wanted her to give birth somewhere not easily heard and then would go outside for medical help if they needed it'
Then he came to a sickening realisation.
'Where is the baby?!' He thought in horror
The woman he now realised had no pants on, like she had been giving birth when she died, but the long top she was wearing to cover her bum was longer in the back than the front and he could clearly see where her stomach had been cut open to get the baby out. She was starting to move, the noise he must of made dropping the other Walkers must have alerted her, but as Harry leapt out of the way so he wasn't scratched accidentally, he noticed with even more shock that the woman had no forearms, she was literally trying to drag herself around to head for the door where she had heard the noises, standing up fully Harry cast a critical eye along the rest of the body and noticed that the achilleas tendons in her ankles had been sliced as well.
'It was a smart move' Harry admitted reluctantly to himself 'Even Walkers have to weight bear, and if she can't stand, and if you chop her arms off so she can't scratch you, you're severely limiting the damage that a Walker could do'
Harry stared sadly at the woman, it seemed incredibly cruel to leave her 'alive' in a manner of speaking, why wouldn't someone just end it for her? If they didn't know you came back no matter how you died why chop off her arms and incapacitate her? Unless, she died and came back and they didn't want to kill her, but still, how can you cut someone's baby out, then chop their rms off but not kill them? The world didn't make sense to Harry again, the only other time he'd felt like this was facing the Dark Lord.
He cast a quiet 'Diffindo' at the woman's head, looking sadly at the young woman before sighing and walking forward again, intent on finding the baby. He tried another door directly in front of him, narrowing his eyes when it as again locked from the inside, as well as well he heard the muffled sounds from within. He took a deep breath, and unlocked the door.
There we go, hopefully you all enjoy.
And oh! before I go, I got a review asking why Harry didn't just Apparate into the school, and i just wanted to say I'm going off the assumption you either had to be looking at where you wanted to go / had already been before to know exactly where to apparate too.
Thank you all! Crossfire.