CHAPTER 3
As they huddled near the door of room, Mr. Banner glanced to his side and gave the universal sign to be quiet to the kids. Nodding their heads in the affirmative, he slowly unlocked the door. Grasping the handle, he turned to look at his – some for the last time – and counted to three silently with his fingers. Quickly opening the door, they crouched-ran out the room and into relatively silent and slightly blood smeared hall. Keeping close to the walls, they trekked their way towards the front of the building. Getting from their seclusion to the front of the building was easy… to easy some would say, but were willing to look a gift-horse in the mouth. As they approached the last bend before the front doors, Alice's grip on Bella's arm became impossibly tighter than it already was.
"Ease up a little, will you?" she said as she tried to loosen her best friend's grip.
"Don't you hear the footsteps coming closer?!" Alice replied in a higher pitch than her normal tone. Just as Bella was about to reply, Jessica let out a blood curdling scream from behind them. Jumping, everyone spun around to see that one of the creatures had a grip on her arm and was trying to take a bite out her. Jessica, alight with fright, was swinging her arms wildly in the air trying to shake thing loose. In her panic, she accidently cut herself with weapon, which just encouraged the ugly beast even more as the smell of blood was in the air. More creatures starting rounding corners and coming out of the woodworks like a bug infestation and started to congregate onto their awaiting meals.
Springing into action, the rest of the class and Banner wielded their shitty weapons to try and save their companion. As the ghouls shuffled their way slowly towards their meals, the humans started to beat the thing holding onto their friend. Mike – being a zombie-fanatic and all – immediately went for its head with an axe. Dark, almost black, congealed blood poured and spurted from the discolored flesh of its head as its cloudy grey eyes became unfocused and it slumped down to dirty tile floor, still faintly clutching onto the girl's arm.
Hurried struggling with silent tears streaming down her face, Jessica fell into his arms in gratitude. Glancing up from the distressed girl, Bella took in her surroundings, more and more of the zombies were coming from the back hallways and shuffling towards them. Shaking Banner's shoulder, she said, "Maybe we should hurry and get out of here. We need to patch up Jess' arm and try to find a safe place to stay."
Nodding in reply, Banner touched Mike's shoulder and gestured for him to get up along with Jessica. Keeping a closer ear and eye on their surroundings after their ordeal, they made their way quickly to front doors of the building and out into the muted sunlight of the overcast sky.