Chapter three
The Infiltration
"Fear is the least of your troubles."
We didn't find any weapons; due to some cruel twist of fate, we had chosen a room without eighteen assault rifles hanging conveniently in a closet. We had to settle with breaking the legs off of desks for use as clubs.
Alex "volunteered" to stay behind and guard our safe room. Actually, we forced him at deskpoint to stay in the room. We knew that if we ended up in a fight, Alex would probably hurt us more than the pandas. We told him to lock the door behind us, only opening it if we knocked twice, then once, then twice again. He grudgingly agreed, and the rest of us walked into the corpse-strewn hallway. He closed the door behind us, and we walked off. I never saw him again.
We walked in no particular direction, since our goal was ultimately to kill as many pandas as possible. Sara suggested that we walk together in a tight circle, with everybody facing outward.
"Why?" asked Carly. "It's not like they'll sneak up behind us and slit our throats or anything." A panda then sneaked up behind her and slit her throat.
We had no real plan in our attack; it was just a bunch of frightened teenagers whacking a panda as hard as they could with pieces of desk. But we did it - we killed one. There was celebration, but it was muted, as Amber had been horribly injured. A claw had slashed down her legs, cutting through tendons and muscle. She could no longer walk, or even stand. That wasn't the worst of it, however - somebody's backswing had crushed several of her ribs, and another had smashed her face, closing one eye. She would live, though, if we made it out. She was bleeding profusely and we had to bind her wounds in order to proceed. Sara and Ellie were assigned to carry her.
We spent a few hours traveling the halls, checking every room for pandas. We didn't find any. When we entered the band room, however, we saw two pandas facing the other way, examining instruments. They hadn't noticed us, so we quietly backed out into the hallway.
"I have an idea," whispered Shane. "Follow me." We followed him into the nearest classroom, which we had just recently checked. He then explained the first part of his plan.
"All right. Here's the deal. Remember that Trojan Horse thing? It's the same idea, but using bamboo instead, because I don't think pandas naturally eat horses."
"Pandas don't usually eat humans, either, yet here we are," spoketh Michael, but again his sarcasm was wasted. We spent about twenty minutes hacking apart desks and taping the pseudo-wooden parts together into a large bamboo-shaped sculpture. We put chair wheels on the bottom and quietly wheeled it into the band room.
"Okay, the Trojan Bamboo is in the room. What happens next?" questioned Loden.
"Now we wait until the pandas begin to eat the shoot," answered Shane. "Then Tylor, Scott and I, who have cleverly been hiding inside, will jump out and - oh." We heard sounds of crunching wood coming from inside. "Maybe we should run for it?"
We ran for it. The pandas crashed after us a moment later. We turned a corner and set a quick trap - we flattened against the wall, ready to swing at the pandas as soon as they came by us. It worked on the first panda, which we took down quickly, but the second, more cautious panda saw what happened to its companion and took a more roundabout route around the corner, outside our reach. It charged quickly, skewering Wyllis through the neck and pinning him to the wall. It withdrew so quickly and strongly that it launched Wyllis' body into the opposite wall. Michael crushed its kneecap while it was distracted, causing it to fall over. Tylor whacked its neck with his club, snapping it.
Amber was bleeding again, far too much to be ignored. We had to spend an hour retying her bandages and lulling her to sleep so she could be carried without too much pain.
The halls were silent - eerily so. We expected to be ambushed around every corner, and it frightened us when we weren't. It was as if the pandas had vacated the building. We were exhausted, but we had swept over every room. We had just made the decision to exit the building when the intercom beeped.
"I see that some of you are still alive," said a voice. It was creepy and arrogant. I hated it. "Though I commend your efforts, I'm afraid you've killed a few of my valued pets. I will not allow you to escape." The lights went out, leaving it dark in the hall. "As you can see, it is now nighttime. The time of the panda. You'll not get in my way." The intercom shut off.
From one end of the hallway, we saw pandas coming after us. Dozens and dozens of them - far too many to fight. We turned the other way and climbed down a conveniently placed service ladder outside a window. Getting Amber down safely was a lot of trouble, but we made it before we were followed down. We started to run, north again.
"What about Alex?" asked Scott, running next to me. "We can't just leave him behind!"
"We have no choice!" I yelled back. "If we go back there, we'll be overrun! We need to move away from this desecrated place as soon as possible!"
So we ran. It was a moonless night, making travel difficult, especially for those carrying Amber. After ten minutes of confused running, we saw a slow-moving passenger train on the tracks. We made our way toward it. While we were running, I noticed that there were no cars on the road. How much of the city was attacked? I wondered.
In the middle of the vacated road, we heard snarling from behind us. Loden yelled, "Get onto the train! Hurry!" We heeded his command uncomplainingly. The train was moving at about five miles per hour, so the only trouble we had getting on involved Amber. We came to an exterior door emblazoned with the words "Ecliptic Express". We had no choice but to open the door and walk inside, ominous name or not. The door jammed behind us and the train started to gather speed. I had a really bad feeling about our decision, but it was too late to change my mind. We were trapped.