It was colder then Karen Douglas thought it would be when she had woken up this morning and put on a pair of cut-off shorts. Her thin white sweater didn't once warm her enough to rid off the goosebumps across her arms and her tank top didn't help much, either. The day was supposed to be warm, or atleast thats what the forecast had told her, but instead the sky was cloudly and the trees were moving their branches softly with an invisible breeze.

For the fifth time since exiting J24, she glanced down at the screen of her cell phone and refreshed the screen.

No new messages.

She let an almost audible sigh escape from between her lips and continued to walk down the halls of her school. Jessica, her best friend, had sent her a text message minutes ago telling her to get to the locker room and quickly. Now, Karen was doing just that. She had already been approached by some girl with a large slash down her arm. But, for some odd reason, the girl just kept walking to Karen, a look of desire on her face. The only thing that the girl had managed to accomplish was bite a clear bit of flesh off Karen's hand. She had pushed the thing away, but it was persistant. It just kept getting up and going to Karen for more, so she had just run. She hadn't seen it since.

As she turned her head to look back, she felt her foot hit up against something in the path and she lost her balance. Her body collided with the cement and she heard the sound of her cell snapping in half.

"What the hell?" Karen asked outloud as she pushed herself off the ground so that she was sitting with her legs bent and her bum resting on her feet. Her knee was skinned but other then that, she was a-okay! Out of curiousity, she turned around to see the source of her clumsiness and her body froze. It was, or had been, a student. His stomach, ripped open, was bloody and Karen thought she saw a half of a nail dug into the ragged flesh.

"Oh my. . ." Karen whispered and continued to look at the corpse. His neck had multiple wounds (that ironically looked like bite marks) and his arm was scratched up. A light clicked on in her head. This was Tuan Tran, the really loud guy in her history class. For some odd reason, she wanted to touch him and make sure that she couldn't save him, but another part told her, more like screamed at her, to run. Run as fast as she could.

She was so entranced at this morbid discovery, she could not see Tuan's eyes fluttering open.

Run.

His mouth moved slightly and his toes twitched -

Run!

- back to life. When Karen finally saw the movement, it was far too late. With a blurry quickness, his body lunged at hers. It wasn't even enough time to scream in terror before his teeth clamped down on her arm and tore a mouthful of her pretty skin. He barely gave time to chew before he was at it again; tearing and chewing at the soft flesh. She was in such a state of shock that her body just sat there.

RUN!

Tuan's eyes rolled back into his head as his inhuman longing was fulfilled. The blood of Karen slowly dripped down from the corners of his lips.

"You were just dead! I saw!" Karen exclaimed as she started to pull away. His grip was amazingly strong! All her struggling resulted in was a searing pain up her arm as Tuan continued to indulge himself in his bloody feast. Had she not hesitated and if she hadn't had been so captivated, Karen's luck might have been different. Another lone 'person' came up from behind her and bit into the middle of her back. Blood gushed down her back and into a forming puddle on the ground where it would soon be licked up by the things. Or, she would soak in it, a morbid marinade for these obviously sick humans.

"GET OFF!" Karen screamed, suddenly feeling more terrified then ever in her life. Pulling away only ended in being overpowered by the infected, trying to stand up was just a joke, and she knew better then to just sit there. She pushed back against the infected behind her, but unfortunately, it had grabbed a mouthful of its favorite meat. When she had pushed it back, it had not let go and she could feel the sickening feeling of her skin ripping slowly up her back. She cried out in pain and tears started to roll down her beautiful face. Her hazel eyes darted around where she saw dozens other infected things slowly progressing to her as quickly as possible. A look of pure excitement raged in their otherwise cold eyes. Each of them was somehow disfigured and mutilated.

As she turned her eyes back to Tuan who was moving his dining down to her leg, she noticed a build-up in his stomach. What she had barely noticed earlier was his stomach had been completely ripped open. Now, her bitten off body pieces were gathering up inside of the torn stomach. He turned his body to reach her thigh, and as he did, the pieces poured out in a mixture of bright blood, clotted blood, saliva, and stomach acid.

Warm vomit ejected from her mouth all over Tuan, but he was unphased. He continued to munch down on her with a delicate yet needy love. Spit dripped from her mouth and when she went to wipe it off, she smeared blood from her hand off onto her lips.

You should have run, Kare. Now its too late.

"No. . . No. I have to get away from this!" Karen shouted to no one and tried to get up, but landed on the ground, spraying her vomit everywhere and sitting on chunks of her breakfast.

Mushy. Wet. Warm.

The things had caught up and when she looked at them, she couldn't count how many there were. A dozen, yes. Two dozen, most likely. A couple more dozens, probably. The faces looked familiar and it didn't take a genius for her to realize that they were the faces of students, teachers, and supervision, all of them grabbing at her greedily.

Scratch. Bite.

Should have run. . .

Bite. Scratch.

Slowly, as more and more catered in delight at the free food, the life drained out of Karen. Although no one was there to listen, she whimpered her last breath before her body became still and her body became an exhibit to all those infected who took part in its destruction.

The idea of having the flesh come out of his stomach as he was eating was brought to me by the book "Zombie Survival Guide" by Max Brooks. In it, the author explained that zombies don't have digestive systems so if a zombie eats a lot, its stomach explodes. So, I thought "How gross would it be if the stomach was already ripped open and you saw your own flesh be eaten and then drop out of a zombie's stomach!?" Disgusting, yeah?