A/N: Late update is late. Sorry. DX I'm less than satisfied with this chapter, as it's shorter and the harder I look at it the more inconsistencies I find and I'm not very good at action scenes... and so I whine. THANK YOU to those who have reviewed. :3 If you haven't reviewed yet, please do. They can only do me good.
P.S.: OHMIGAWD, SNOW.
Chapter Four
choke
"Wait." I was growing tired of hearing that word, even as it passed my own lips. Dylan mimicked me and stopped in his tracks, but not before shooting me a dirty look, obviously annoyed we were stopping again.
I scanned over the top of the classroom doors where the class numbers would be printed on a tiny metal plate, searching for a specific letter-number combination. Maybe I was wrong? Maybe it wasn't on the sixth floor? But it had to be... Sixth floor was practically all-biology classes and—
"What is it now?" Dylan asked just as my eyes landed on the door of class 7F.
Bingo.
"I have an idea," was all I said before taking off, running several feet until I was in front of the door. Dylan scowled and followed, albeit at a slower pace.
"Knowing you, any idea you have will probably end up in the two of us being killed," he said.
"Ha ha. That might have actually stung except for the little fact that you don't know me," I shot back without even looking at him, my eyes on the barrier in front of me. Unlike most of the doors, it still stood up... barely. Deep gouges marred the wood that was broken in several places, and the small glass window that allowed passerby to peek in the classroom was shattered, jagged glass teeth sticking out from the frame of it. There was no light on in the classroom, save for the light of the sun.
The zombies were stupid enough to believe someone was in there long enough to tear this thing apart...
I tried the doorknob.
Click.
Locked. I bit my lip, considering climbing through the broken window, though if I got myself a nice gaping wound on my stomach then that would defeat the purpose of me getting inside. I could just forget it and leave, but then I would look like an idiot and still I would be unarmed...
Rude hands roughly pushed me aside, and before I could even protest Dylan took my spot in front of the door and threw all his weight into it, hitting the door with his shoulder. The already crippled door busted down effortlessly, but not painlessly.
"Hey, thanks!" I beamed and climbed over the wreckage.
Dylan scowled and rubbed his shoulder, then muttered something along the lines of "This better be worth it."
I didn't bother looking for a light switch—it was lit well enough in there thanks to the windows. I could see the neatly lined up desks, the chalkboard with yesterday's lesson still written on it, the big sport bags of fellow students thrown precariously against the wall... all untouched, the way it was left. I took a deep breath, the air seeming considerably cleaner in her than the hallway, and walked to the bags, kneeling down and unzipping the nearest one.
"What are you doing?" Dylan asked, though it didn't sounded like her really cared.
"Coach Hotaru lets his students keep their baseball equipment here until practice time," I mumbled, pulling out a wooden baseball bat. I turned it over in my hands and allowed myself a small smile. "It's something, right?"
Dylan didn't answer. I stood up and brushed off my skirt, facing him. He stood by the window, peering outside with his eyes wide and his skin at least a few shades lighter.
What does he see?
"We do not," he said after he visibly swallowed and tore his eyes away from the outside world. "want to go out there."
I didn't look to see for myself, but I believed him.
"A baseball bat, huh?" He said after getting a glimpse of the new addition in my hands. He looked at it for a few moments before rolling his shoulders into a shrug and saying, "I guess it's better than nothing. Let's go."
"Hey, you know..." I followed him as we left the room, being careful not to trip over the large chunks of wood. "Since I have a weapon now, do I still have to carry the bag?"
He actually grinned. "Yes."
"Huh." I shut up after that, beginning to get more and more on edge as we neared the stairs, the reality of the situation making itself clear to me once again. I bit my lip and listened as Dylan told me the plan: Get the the fifth floor, and then run like hell to the kitchen.
I learned very quickly that the bodies of the infected were much weaker than a human's.
Normally, you wouldn't be able to effortlessly knock off someone's head with a mere swing of a wooden baseball bat unless you had insane muscles. Normally, you'd be lucky if fractured someone's arm if you swung at someone with all of your might, not completely shatter it. But the skeletons of the infected were weak and brittle, and taking one down proved to be was easy.
Taking dozens of them down at once proved to be considerably harder.
"For God's sake, Jacky! Hurry up!" Dylan snapped as he shoved two zombies away with both hands before shooting them down. Another swiped at his back from behind and he let out a low hiss before wheeling around and punching it square in the jaw, successfully breaking it.
I wanted to shout back and call him an asshole, but I had something more important to focus on: beating these guys away from me. I raised the baseball bat up and then swiftly brought it down on someone's head, revulsion twisting up in my stomach as the zombie's head cracked loudly and blood gushed from the wound like a river. I backed up before swinging without much thought at the three others, arching the bat into the first one's jaw before swinging it into the second one's ribs, but it didn't kill him nor did he seem to notice the pain, just swiped at my wrist while it was near him and opened it's mouth, baring dirty, disgusting, bloodied teeth ready to bite.
"No!" I shouted and wasted no time with my bat— I punched it in the face. It staggered into it's comrade, and I took that time to smash both of their heads in, dark liquid and gray matter staining my bat. I couldn't look at it, the disgusting insides of the people... creatures... I killed.
"Jacky!"
I could finally run. I darted around zombies who immediately followed me, moving at a startling fast past but I was faster. Dylan was closer to the open doors to the cafeteria, literally trying to take on an entire horde of zombies by himself. I ran harder, raising my arms with the bat in my hands and bringing it down on a zombie that came up behind Dylan, killing it before it could dig it's claws into Dylan's already bleeding back.
"Why are there so many?" I asked no one in particular, swinging my bat around and helping Dylan finish up the remaining five around us, debating whether or not to simply run from the others. My chest was warm and wet, covered in that dark, ugly liquid that covered me, my bat, the zombies, the people...
The people I couldn't save.
Most of them were on the opposite side of the cafeteria. The few students who came here to hang out but otherwise do nothing were being mauled, and the first thing I did when I entered the cafeteria was lurch towards them, but Dylan grabbed my collar and told me they were too far away, silently reminding me of that "rule." I wanted to ignore him and throw a fit, but we were faced with our own problems, namely the infected that just noticed us and were having a field day trying to kill us.
"Come on!"
Dylan grabbed my arm the moment the last of them fell and jerked me in the direction of the empty archway to the kitchen, more zombies hot on our tail. I stumbled as I tried to keep pace, the claw marks on my wrists burning at Dylan's touch and the fingers of my right hand curled tightly around the baseball bat as to never let it go.
Then the heel of my shoe broke.
"Shit!" I stumbled and fell, and brought Dylan down with me.
I landed on my ankle awkwardly, but both of us wasted no time whipping around to face the oncoming infected. I struggled squeezing my now useless boot off, attempting to back away at the same time. Dylan cursed and crawled around trying to find where he dropped his gun and by the time he found it, I got the boot off, not once thinking to unbuckle it. With my other foot I aimed a kick square in the jaw of an alarmingly close infected, successfully breaking it. There were at least seven more still approaching, fast. Were all of these people on the track team?
"Get up!" Dylan shouted just as he got to his feet. I scrambled up and "limped" with Dylan who was now backpedaling and shooting at the same time. It was pathetic— I was going to die because I decided to wear heels that day. You moron.
It wasn't a huge surprise when I tripped. It was a huge surprise when I didn't fall.
My entire body jerked backwards, and it was as if someone socked me in the stomach with everything they had. The baseball bat flew from my hands and clattered to the ground in front of me. Something was wrapped around my chest and it was tightening, crushing my ribcage and constricting my lungs.
And I was being dragged back the way I came.
"What—?" was the only word I could force out as my heart began beating again and my lungs realized they needed air. My arms flung to the bindings on my chest and my fingers curled around them to try and pull off the rough... grimy... slimy...
I looked down at myself and nearly screamed.
A tongue.
At least, that's what I thought it was. That's all I could think it was, at first glance, and I didn't want to look at it any longer. And thinking was growing harder and harder as breathing became a laborious task.
"Jacky?"
I lunged forward, fought against it, but it only pulled back harder and my legs fell underneath me. It brought me to the infected. I squeeze my eyes shut and blindly batted my arms and legs at them and they hit back until gunfire echoed alarmingly close to me, Dylan's attempt to help, but he was being held up by the horde. The tongue slid from around around my chest to around my neck and I choked, my arms uselessly flying up to pry it away.
I twisted around to face the direction I was being dragged to, which wasn't a good idea because I succeeded in tightening the binding around my neck. I found myself face to face with the single most strangest thing I ever saw up until then.
It was a person. No... no. It was a zombie, but now I knew that zombie was not an appropriate term. Grotesque boils covered its exposed arms, but they worsened on his face, completely covering its left eye, leaving one eye to peer at me through dirty hair. A tongue— it really was a tongue, oh my God—hung from its mouth, drooped to the ground, wrapped around my neck, strangling me... impossible, inhuman. When it saw me, it coughed a deep throaty cough that only someone who smoked too many cigarettes could imitate. It was a familiar cough.
And maybe that was the first stage of recognition, because then I noticed its staggering height, it's skinny legs, and a few fading cuts around its chin from shaving. I noticed the logo of a punk rock band on its T-Shirt and the studs on its black jeans. I noticed the safety pin jabbing through its eyebrow.
Demitri.
Any attempts of breathing stopped. Tears pricked my eyes and a lump rose in my throat.
This is it then.
I should have known better than to believe Dylan wouldn't leave me behind.
This is it. I'm going to be killed by my best friend. It's over.
I'm done.
I was pressed up against Demitri now, and I could remember a time where I dreamed to be in this position with him, in the seventh grade when he was just a silly crush, but now it proved to be where I would die. His mutated fingernails dug into my back and the pain urged my throat to scream, but I had no air left in me for such a task. Black spots were forming at the edge of my vision and my brain was screaming for oxygen, but I had long since given up.
Yeah, I gave up.
I knew it was over.
It's not like there was anything left for me, anyways...
...
...
...
...I'm done.
NOT YET!
Demitri's head snapped back and a blood burst from his lips, some getting on me, and while I missed what hit him the first time the second strike was clear as day. A wooden baseball bat, my baseball bat, collided with the the side of Demitri's head, and while the blow didn't decapitate it like it would have done to any other infected, a sickening crack emitted from his head and I felt the blood before I saw it. He reeled back and the tongue's grip on my neck loosened considerably and I drew in a deep, hoarse breath before struggling out of the prison completely. Air never tasted so good. I looked at nothing as I breathed in and out over and over again, the wonderful sensation only dampened by a few pained shrieks from nearby. When I pulled myself together I saw that Demitri had been knocked to the ground and Dylan stood over him, beating the last bits of his life with my baseball bat.
Only when I started crying harder did I realize that I was crying in the first place.
Demitri's dead.
Dylan saved me.
Dylan killed Demitri.
I'm alive.
I coughed and hiccuped at the same time. I looked down and saw that some of the boils lining his arms had burst, and a dark green gas rose from them. For a fleeting moment of panic I was afraid it was poisonous but it only scratched my throat and caused me to cough again.
I looked at Dylan's back. His shirt was shredded, revealing nasty red slash marks where red blood oozed from and dried, probably causing his shirt to stick to him. It looked like it really hurt, but if it did he didn't show it on his face whenever he turned around, and somehow that made me feel a little better about my own injuries that I was afraid to look at.
Cool blue eyes stared down on me for a moment, and his mouth twisted as if there were a million things he wanted to say, but all that came out was, "Let's go."
I knew there were a million things I wanted to say, but I only agreed and took off my other boot. By the time we reached the kitchen, the feet of my white stockings were soaked in blood.
I asked Dylan how he managed to kill the remainder of the hoard on his own, but he told me he had help. When I asked what happened to them, he told me that they died very quickly without a weapon. The way he said it, he made it seem so simple. And maybe it was, but it still managed to provoke a semi-emotional reaction from me. There were no infected in the kitchen, so he took the time to give me my bat back and take away the ammo bag. He never asked me to hold it again.
I watched as Dylan opened the steel door to the walk-in freezer, and was met with a blast of cold air. I shivered, bringing my arms around myself, and looked at Dylan. "You-can't-be-serious" must have been written all over my face because he made a gesture to the inside with one hand and said, "Ladies first."
"We'll freeze," I said. And we would, if we were in there for too long. "and there's no way to get out from the other side."
"This door is nearly solid steel. I doubt any of the zombies could get us from the other side. I would rather freeze than be torn to shred," he replied without missing a beat. "And if we need to get out, there's an emergency latch right here." After a brief look, I saw he was right. Again.
I remembered a news story about a woman who died after being trapped in one of these things for five hours. "Can't we turn the freezer off?" I asked. He shrugged.
"I don't know how. If it gets too cold we can make brief trips outside. I'm willing to bet this is the safest place we can be in this school and in this situation."
I considered it for a few brief moments, recalled the situation with Demitri, and reluctantly agreed. "Okay," I mumbled, and walked inside. "Okay."
The door closed after Dylan walked inside, and immediately he began stacking up boxes against the door that swung inward. I watched him curiously but said nothing, shivering in the sub zero temperature. I looked around— only one light hung overhead, and it was dim. Frozen patties, fish sticks, strange meat products I didn't recognize lined the shelves, and more assorted frozen goods I didn't recognize lined the shelves.
There was also a lot of ice.
Ice.
Water.
I was thirsty. I only realized it then. Immediately I scraped up a bunch of ice chips in my hands with the intention of popping them into my mouth, until I saw my hands. They were caked with dried blood, infected and my own, with fresh scabs forming over the cuts in my fingers. Frowning, I rubbed the ice chips in between my hands, letting them melt into water before I started to scrape the gunk and filth off. The wounds stung as I touched them, but it faded away with the relief of cool water washing out the injuries. It took a few handfuls, but eventually my hands were clean enough to touch things with. I shoved a whole handful of ice in my mouth, my throat screaming in joy of feeling some sort of hydration.
Dylan stopped moving boxes of frozen meat patties around, and I paused to consider how torn up the back of his shirt was. I half expected him to take it off like the macho men did in the movies, but thankfully he knew better than to take any form of clothing off when locked in a freezer. If the infected didn't kill us, this would.
"This hurts," he hissed, sitting against the wall next to the door. I had to agree. Pain practically crawled underneath my skin, and I was thankful that my tolerance for it was high. Still, it sucked. I bit down on my knuckles and sat against the wall opposite of him. I only hoped that the cold would eventually numb the pain.
"How long are we going to stay here?" I mumbled against my fist. He shrugged. I was getting tired of seeing him shrug.
"I don't know. As long as we need to. Until we can leave the building, I guess."
"I see..."
Dylan muttered something about it being best that we kept moving in an environment like this and began pacing around the small space, but I kept still. Truth be told, I wanted to break. I wanted to cry break down. My best friend was an infected, and now he was dead. It was for the best, but that's what sucked about it. I didn't know what was happening to my mom or dad, or anyone else I knew. My entire world was ending and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I wanted to scream and shout and cry and throw objects and hit Dylan and curl up in a ball and scream.
But I didn't. Not then. Dylan may have saved my life, but it still proved to be a difficult task opening up to him. We didn't really have time for that, anyway.
Finally Dylan sat back down, in the exact spot he was before. He brought his knees up to his chest, ran a hand through his dark brown hair and sighed. "This sucks."
A painful smile twisted onto my lips. "Yeah," I said. "This sucks."