REWRITTEN 6/2/16

Mission: School's Out

Samik, Zeus, and I marched into the packed floor of the library, the sound of squabbling voices washing over us like a fifty-foot waterfall. Many of them were too wrapped up in their own arguments to mark our passage, but those who did glanced up at us with hollow faces. Most of my friends were moving through the crowd, trying to calm people down, or hiding at the fringes.

"Oi, EZHF!" I bellowed to draw attention to myself, my voice easily rising above the nervous din. "On your feet! We've got ourselves a mission!"

Most of them were already on their feet, but the Elite Zombie Hunting Force used my summons to gratefully break away from the mewling humans, hurrying towards where the three of us stood by the printers.

"Thank god," David groaned, flopping down in a chair. "Get me away from these idiots!"

"Why did you ever think this was a good idea?" William complained, giving me a cross look.

"Because it's saving lives," I answered shortly, though I was also at the limits of my patience with the humans. "Now shut up and listen." I looked over at my shape-shifting friend and gave her a nod. "Zeus?"

She stepped forward promptly, clicking her heels together and puffing out her chest. "Right. There's a group of survivors over at the junior high. They're surrounded by scores of munchers. I saw the beacon fire when I was out scouting and stayed long enough to get a good look at the situation. The building is swamped. The situation is dire. I suggest immediate seek and assist."

I smiled to myself. We sounded like a military division.

"Very good, Lieutenant Zeus," I said, snapping off a salute to keep up with the charade. "Your suggestion has been noted. Soldiers," I turned to look severely at the rest of the group, "suit up. We move out in five."

"Yes, ma'am!" Samik and Teemo barked, saluting me. I nodded gravely at them, trying to look wise and militaristic.

"What are you doing?" Minka asked, sounding slightly amused and also slightly confused.

"We're soldiers!"

"Why?"

I shrugged. "Why not?"

Minka tilted her head to the side in assent, finding my logic sound. "Ai ai, Captain." Her words were slightly sarcastic, and she didn't salute me before spinning around and disappearing into the library to gather her things.

"That's Captain Major General to you!" I called after her, but she chose to ignore me. "Right. The rest of you, snap to it!"

"Yes, ma'am!" This time, everyone saluted and scattered into the maze of bookshelves.

I grinned as I walked off to go try and find my sword. Try being the operative word. I scratched at my head. I really needed to keep better track of that thing. I couldn't even remember when I'd misplaced it. My sword and its possible location were simply one blurry, grey blob inside my mind.

Trouble found me as I wove my way towards the office I'd been sleeping in. As soon as he saw me, the man shoved himself up and away from his group of grungy men and hurried over to me determinedly, his face set hard like his fists. I groaned inwardly and picked up the pace, sliding over a table that was in the way rather than going around it.

"You there!" Trouble called, his voice clenched.

I wondered if I could pretend I hadn't heard him or that I thought he was talking to someone else, but I made the mistake of glancing in his direction, and he caught me looking. Sighing, I stopped in my tracks, staring longingly at the closed door to the dark office. It was only five feet away. I was so damn close. I turned slowly to face the human, a carefully constructed mask of aggravation plastered on my face. "What do you want?" I snapped, hands on my hips. "I'm busy."

"Are you really leaving us?" Trouble sounded indignant, and I wanted to pound his head against the wall. Just the other day, he'd been complaining that he didn't even want our protection.

"Temporarily." I spun sharply and walked the last few feet to the office, Trouble trailing behind me. I rolled my eyes – they almost disappeared inside my head – as I tugged the door open and headed into the dark room.

"B-but you can't!" Trouble spluttered. He entered the office before I could shut the door in his face and flicked on the lights, making me squint.

"Why not?" I asked bluntly. "You survived long enough without us." I began to root around for my sword, sweeping my hands across the desk and scattering papers everywhere. I stooped and stuffed my head between the chair and the underside of the desk, but my sword wasn't there either.

"You're supposed to protect us!"

I stood up and faced him, barely avoiding smacking my head against the hard wood, my hands planted on my hips. I narrowed my glare into a laser beam of annoyed focus, piercing Trouble to the wall. "Have you seen the size of the walls surrounding us? I think you'll be perfectly safe for the few hours we're gone. Now, if you're not going to leave me alone, help me find my sword."

When Trouble didn't move, I cast my eyes dramatically towards the ceiling and resumed my search, determined to ignore whatever else came out of his mouth. Eventually, I found my sword behind a filing cabinet. I was not entirely sure how it gotten there, but I decided not to think about it too hard.

I brushed past Trouble as I slung the weapon across my back. Immediately, Trouble stuck himself to my wake, breathing down my neck as I made my way towards the stairs. Every nerve in my body twitched, and my hands burned to do violence. Finally, I couldn't bare the trembling feeling of his presence behind me, and I stopped to glare at him. "I will bite you if you don't stop following me," I snapped, stabbing a finger in his face and gnashing my teeth.

Trouble's face drained of color instantly, and he quickly turned on his heel, disappearing into the human crowd like a bee into a hive. Behind me, I heard someone snort. "Smooth, Enia," Onyx said sarcastically.

I scratched at my head sheepishly as I faced her. "Bad idea to threaten to bite someone during a zombie apocalypse?"

Onyx held up her fingers less than an inch apart and nodded. "Just a little."

"Are we ready to go?" Minka asked, twirling her long dagger in her hand. Onyx tapped her club against her palm eagerly, bouncing up and down slightly.

I shoved Trouble from my mind and grinned. "You bet we are."

This journey out into the city wasteland was considerably more luxurious than our previous rampage through the streets, seeing as how this time, we had three cars rather than just one. Onyx, David, and I were the designated drivers, with Minka, William, and Zeus as our back-ups in case anything horrible happened.

I called the police car because it made me feel special and official, and Samik and William took seats in the car with me. That probably wasn't going to end well, but we didn't have time to argue. Zeus and Minka slid into the car driven by Onyx, leaving Teemo and Arin to join David in the third and final car.

Samik wasted no time in excitedly calling shotgun, sliding swiftly into the front seat and forcing William to sit, grumbling, in the back. "Vroom vroom!" I yelled and hit the accelerator with all my might, eliciting shouts of surprise from my unwary passengers.

"Careful! Careful!" Samik cried, voice high-pitched, as I cranked on the wheel to swerve around a crashed car. A fallen light pole loomed up before us, and my sudden right turn set our backend to swinging and sent William crashing into the side of the car.

"Why the fuck did we decide to let you drive?" he snapped, his voice cracking with something akin to fear. Or pain. Maybe annoyance. "You're going to get us all killed!"

"And you would do better?" I shot back, dodging a stumbling muncher and a flipped car in quick succession, both hands clasped around the wheel and moving in quick jerks. The buildings flashed by outside in a sort of blur as we bounced jarringly over a set of scattered bricks. "Whoo-hoo!"

"You're going to break the car!" Samik yelled, white knuckles clasped firmly around the 'oh shit' handle.

I laughed blithely. "Good thing it's not ours then!"

The car skidded around a corner, the force of our momentum almost pulling us into the buildings. A muncher appeared out of nowhere, and the car crunched into it head-on before I could even twitch the wheel. The rotting face leered at us for an instant before disappearing over the roof of the vehicle. I turned on the windshield wipers to clean off the smear of dark blood.

Whistling slightly, Samik popped the glove compartment open and rifled through the scattered papers, searching for something. He grinned happily and pulled a CD case out, flipping it over once before popping the disc into the player. Loud classical music filled the car.

"What the hell is this shit?" William demanded, leaning forward to turn the music off.

I slapped his hand away. "It's called Shostakovich."

We roared down my street a few minutes later, and I kept my eyes planted on the road in front of me until the neighborhood disappeared behind us, and still didn't look up until I caught a glimpse of the ransacked Hy-Vee off to my left. Mostly, it just looked like a worn out car junkyard. Moans filled the air, and I stomped on the brakes even though the junior high wasn't even in sight yet. The caravan was right on my heels, and the other drivers were forced to screech to an abrupt halt. "Thanks for the warning, Enia," Onyx called drily out the window.

I held up a hand for silence as I stepped out of the car and gestured for everyone to gather around. The wind swept down to road from the school to caress our faces, carrying on its sharp fingers the now familiar stench of rotting flesh. I could see a crowd of munchers in the distance, steadily shambling our way. When we reached our destination, we would have to be fast.

"The plan is simple," I said, speaking quickly. "Half of us will go in, find the survivors, and then get the hell out. The rest of us will stay outside and deal with the mob so the humans can make it to the cars. Yeah?"

"Easy peasy, lemon squeezy," Samik said, smirking.

"William and I will stay outside and wreck some havoc," David decided, tapping his fingers on the rim of his opened door.

"I'd like to stay outside also," Zeus said.

"Me too," Minka added as she fingered the hilt of her dagger.

"Sounds good." I nodded and cast a look at the remaining members of the gang. "The rest of us will go inside."

"We'll take the police car," Minka said. "Drive around and distract the munchers."

I tapped my temple twice in agreement. "Smart. Alright. Let's move out, troops."

And so it went. We piled into our respective cars, Samik and I trading places with Zeus and Minka. I wanted to sit on the roof, but the others wouldn't let me. They were such smart, logical, fun-starved people.

The police car left first, tires screeching around the corner, and disappeared down a street, trailing sirens and flashing lights. Two minutes later, the rest of the squad departed. My entire body jittered with anticipation as I spun the wheel to careen us through the dead neighborhood. Munchers began to dot the road around us. Tongue poking out between my lips, I hit as many of them as I could. "Woot!" I yelled, my friends howling in accompaniment from the backseat.

I crushed the brake pedal to the floor, and the car slammed to a protesting, squealing halt. The grey mob was thick around the brick building, but ragged lines of them were starting to shamble away after the shrinking, shrieking police car. A moment later, the green Subaru stopped beside me, much more calmly than my own tire burning action. I looked over at Onyx and gave her a nod and a wink through the window. She nodded back, tossing her long, orange braid back over her shoulder.

"Yah!"

In unison, we hit the gas pedals, and the cars shot forward towards the swamped school. Our little city vehicles plowed into the oblivious cadavers, and blood and flesh flew as the munchers gave way before us. The rotten ones, the ones held together by tape and spit, fell to pieces instantly beneath our tires, and soon the windshield was covered in red and black gore. I turned the wipers on.

We began to slow bit by bit as the press of munchers began to overwhelm the power of the cars' engines. Samik slid the sun roof open, stood up on his seat, and poked his head outside, squinting into the sunlight to get a closer look. "We're not going to be able to get much further," he called down. "But we're close!" He pulled himself out onto the roof of the car, balancing precariously in the wind.

I threw the stick into Park without hitting the brakes, and we came to a violent stop with a grinding screech. "Careful!" Samik yelled with a high-pitched squeak in his voice as he clutched at the smooth, white plastic.

"Sorry," I said, not really sorry at all. I turned the car off and pulled the keys out, stuffing them in my pocket. I joined Samik on the roof, sliding through the hole like an eel. He was busy fending off the munchers with his katana and a booted foot. Across the grey sea, Onyx, Teemo, and Arin climbed out of their vehicle, popping out onto the roof one by one like gophers coming up out of their hole.

The munchers were going to overrun us soon. Most of them were taller than the Honda, and their clawing arms left us barely half a square foot of dancing space. Both cars were starting to rock back and forth as if they were giant cradles, and I could feel my balance beginning to slip. Time to go.

"Let's move!" Teemo yelled, and he launched himself into the air, fire winging from his feet. Arin followed on a gust of wind that sloughed the skin from the faces of the nearest corpses, and Onyx transformed into her horse form to go for a little romp.

Samik held out his hand, wiggling his fingers, and I took it. We jumped from the car, and the munchers swamped the whole thing the instant our feet left the roof. I had to kick a reaching, grasping hand away.

"I can fly!" I yelled as we shout towards the roof of the junior high building. We landed a second after Teemo and Arin touched down, letting go of the magic that kept us aloft. Onyx did a flying leap from the ground, a solid twenty feet, and landed with a heavy thump, shaking the concrete slightly. She changed back to human and casually flicked an eyeball off her shoulder.

A loud clang rent the air, and I looked over to see Teemo kicking an air vent in. He poked his head inside, looking like an ostrich with its head in the sand, his ass in the air, and then he laughed brightly. Excited, I scampered over. "What is it?"

Teemo withdrew his head and took a step back, still chortling. "Take a look."

I peered down the airshaft. It was dark and gloomy, but enough light filtered past my head to illuminate the hallway below. Somehow, the munchers had wormed their way inside and were jam-packed into the corridor like sardines. I stood up, grinning brightly and rubbing my hands together. "Charbroil!"

My friends looked over in surprise, questioning words upon their lips, and turned just in time to see me raise my joined hands above my head and bring them down fast, a fireball forming around my fists, leaving a red and orange trail behind that burned the eyes.

The fire whooshed down the narrow shaft and spread throughout the hallway, sparks bouncing off the walls and dancing amongst the corpses. A gust of wind filled with the stark, cloying stench of charred flesh spiraled up out of the air vent. I stepped back quickly, gagging and struggling to keep from retching. Dark smoke billowed out into the clear air, deep and black and oily.

Suddenly, a tiny storm cloud materialized over the open vent, and it began to pour. I leapt back even further to avoid being drenched. "Thanks, Arin," I said without looking.

"Hey, how do you know it wasn't me?" Teemo protested.

I cocked a single eyebrow in response.

One by one, we dropped down into the charred hallway that was barely recognizable as the small music wing. I gagged and pulled my shirt up to cover my mouth and nose, but it was small protection against the stench that permeated everything. I definitely wasn't going to be eating for the rest of the day.

"Dude, that's gross," Samik said, poking a shriveled, burnt corpse with his toe. I couldn't tell where one dead muncher ended and another began. They were all twisted and melted together like a piece of really bizarre modern art.

"I donno. I like my meat extra crispy," Onyx disagreed.

A snort of laughter burst from my nose. I leaned up against the still hot and ashy wall and held my stomach. I still sort of felt like I was about to hurl. "Yeah, but then Arin had to go dump water all over them, so now they're all soggy."

Onyx wrinkled her nose almost delicately. "Oh, then he's right. It's gross."

Samik spun towards Arin, aghast, hands flying to his mouth in mock horror. "Arin! You ruined perfectly good fried chicken!"

"Well, excuuuuuuse me, princess," Arin snapped back good-naturedly.

Onyx started laughing, bent over at the waist and clutching her knees as she turned towards me. "Enia! You remember that conversation we had about me cooking and eating my arm?"

I nodded, grinning back and pushing myself away from the blackened wall. "And I told you not to because it was a really bad idea."

"I still wonder what it would taste like." She snapped off the arm of a corpse with a gross crackling sound. "Let's find out!"

I lunged off the wall and smacked the piece of stinking flesh from her hand. It hit the floor with a thud. "Do not eat the zombie flesh."

"But, Enia…" Onyx whined, poking her bottom lip out in a whimper.

I prodded my finger at her face sternly. "No."

Pouting, Onyx folded her arms over her chest. Teemo, Arin, and Samik all burst into uncontrollable laughter.

"Shit, what were we doing again?" Teemo wondered once everyone had finally managed to their mirth under control.

Blinking slowly, I glanced around the circle of puzzled faces. Huh. What were we doing here? Suddenly, a scream ripped through the air with the claws of a tiger, jolting my memory like a bolt of lightning. "Oh shit!" I yelled and took off down the ashy hallway, heading deeper into the school.

"Wait up!" Arin called after a second. I could hear the pounding of their feet echoing as they hurried after me.

My old junior high was strange. It was two-stories, but it had two first floors. The school was built into a hill, and a recent bout of construction had made the layout awkward and stilted. It sounded like the scream had come from the upper first floor, down the main hall.

Shapes moved in the shadows all around us, bumbling down the smaller corridors and banging against the window panes of the closed doors, but we were moving too fast for the munchers to pose any threat. Light barely managed to filter in through the grimy windows, and tiny dust motes swirled in the shafts of yellow-brown sun, dancing above the mud, blood, and vomit coated floor. I tried very hard to avoid looking down as we pounded up the dirty, trash-strewn staircase, emerging into rank and crowded foyer. I froze with one foot in the air. "Shit."

The open space was backed with rotting, oozing bodies, some of which I recognized from the time before. They were teachers, mostly. One of the munchers nearby was short, squat, and troll-like. Her strangely coiffed hair was still set perfectly into place atop her head, the color of dirty, steel mesh. Her ugly, flower-covered clothes were ripped and covered with grime.

Another muncher ambled by, the rolls of pudge wobbling visibly beneath her pink shirt. Her face had been slashed to ribbons, and her hair was matted with blood. Her face bore the same bland expression in death as it had in life.

"That is so weird," I muttered, staring at my zombified teachers.

"Move, Enia!" Onyx bellowed in my ear, and she shoved me forward. I caught my balance after a few steps and fluidly drew my sword, whooping a war cry.

"For cake!"

"What the fuck, Enia?" Onyx demanded as she stalked forward, brandishing her cudgel and smashing it into the side of a muncher's head. Blood ooze poured down over the corpse's tailored tux, and it slumped to the ground.

"Psh, what the fuck, Onyx?" I replied and cut off the fat head of my former French teacher. Her fat, jiggling body formed a pool across the floor that I had to leap over.

"You guys are so weird," Teemo informed us as he leapt into the fray, broadsword held in both hands.

Onyx and I paused to stare at him. I raised an eyebrow. "You're talking?" we asked together, and Arin laughed, the sound tinkling over the hungry groans of the horde around us.

I re-killed the troll that had been my Literacy 7 teacher, and then we blasted our way into the undead mob. I prowled forward at the head of our wedge-shaped attack force, catching a glimpse of the principal in passing. She was too far away to bother trying to kill.

We smashed through the ranks and broke out into the school's main hallway, and another scream sliced through the still air. "It's that way," Samik called, pointing at a door several yards down the corridor.

"No shit," I replied. There was a semi-circle of munchers pressed up against a dark doorway, baying for blood and shredded flesh.

My friends and I exchanged nods. There was no need to talk about the plan. We were too cool for verbal communication. "Geronimo!" Onyx crowed as I yelled, "Allons-y!" at the top of my lungs. Once again, we were almost overcome with laughter. I nearly collapsed to the ground from the weight of my mirth.

The creepy study hall teacher battered at the backs of his compatriots, clamoring for a position closer to the door, his giant fists threatening to break the spines of the smaller munchers around him.

I crashed into him, and we tumbled to the ground away from the door and the rest of the undead. I flipped off him before he could wrap his fat arms around my neck and jabbed my sword into his blonde forehead. The others tore into the remainder of the munchers, and black blood coated the floor and the walls, stinking and heavy.

"To the rescue!" I yelled as I leapt forward and kicked the door open, smashing the barricade away. I landed in my old, eighth grade English class, surrounded by terrified teachers. A stapler was flung at my head, nearly invisible. "Holy shit fuck!" I yelled as I barely managed to duck to the ground. The office appliance hit the wall with a resounding crash. "Are you people fucking crazy?" I asked hotly. "We're here to save you!"

Onyx laughed loudly when she entered the room and didn't have a solid object flung at her head. Samik – the traitor – and Arin could barely keep the grins off their faces, and Teemo was openly mimicking what must have been my expression. I stood up haughtily and dusted myself off as I attempted to pick up the pieces of my shattered dignity.

"Who the hell are you people?" the former vice principal, Mr. Banks, demanded, a trembling chair held out in front of him.

I ignored the question. "Seriously, if I was an actual zombie, just how much effect do you think a bloody stapler would have?"

"You should've seen your face," Teemo snickered.

I spun towards him, hands raised in a questioning gesture. "How the hell did you even see it? You were behind me."

My father shrugged. "Window."

"Who are you people?" Mr. Banks repeated, louder this time as if that would make us listen to him.

"Your…rescue team!" I replied, striking a heroic pose. Onyx pushed me into a desk, and I bruised my hip.

"Don't I know you?" a dark-haired woman towards the back of the room asked. It was Mrs. Parsley, my eighth grade English teacher.

"Um…no," I said quickly.

The sound of police sirens filled the empty space of the air, and red and blue lights danced across the shuttered windows. "Get your ass out here, Enia!" someone yelled through a blow horn. "It's time to go!"

"And that's our oh-so-subtle cue o leave," I announced, spinning around to face the door, my finger pointing out into the corridor. "Let's move out, troops."

"Why should we go with you?" Mr. Banks demanded.

"Because she said so," Samik answered, pushing one of the teachers – a scared looking man with a bad moustache – out into the hallway.

"And the door is broken, so you'll get eaten if you don't," Onyx added bluntly. "Now move!"

That galvanized the teachers into action, and they quickly fled the room, pushing and shoving to be the first one out of the dark space. Teemo and Arin herded the gaggle down the hallway, and I made my way to the front to lead the little army to the left, away from the main foyer and following the dancing lights.

I kicked open the first door we came to, and the bright sun nearly tore my eyes out. I staggered momentarily, wanting to claw at my eyes like a vampire, and when I recovered, I saw that the police car was driving circles around the other two vehicles, keeping the munchers at bay.

I stepped out into the light and glanced back before moving across the parking lot. The humans were still clustered inside the building, staring at the outside world as if it would bite them harder than the munchers inside the school would. "Move!" I bellowed in my deepest voice, and the teachers jumped as my friends started manhandling them out the door.

I fell upon the loitering munchers like a whirlwind, slicing an open path towards our escape. The humans began to hesitantly fall into line behind me. The police car screeched to a smoky halt, and the rest of EZHF piled out into the street, falling to slaughtering the corpses like a wolf falls on a rabbit. I stepped back, allowing the teachers to barrel past. "They're unlocked. Get in!"

The humans ran shrieking past the last remaining munchers. I rolled my eyes at my magical friends. Wusses. After a moment, we fell in line behind them. The humans crammed themselves into the cars, and the EZHF drivers budged their way behind the wheels. The rest of the team climbed onto the roofs, clinging to the smooth plastic with white fingers.

I hit the gas, and Teemo shrieked with surprise from on top of the car. "Woot!" Flying fish face food! Look a unicorn!" I yelled happily, not entirely sure where the buzzing high had come from. The instant we had stepped out into the sun, a rush had barreled over me, taking over every nerve and every synapse.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" cried one of the teachers, clutching at the person beside him.

"Everything!"

We hit a muncher head-on, and it flew into the air, up and over the car. "Hey! Watch where you're slinging those things!" Teemo yelled.

In response, I accelerated to greater and greater speeds until every bump sent us bouncing into the air, crashing down again with a jarring thud. "Whoooooooosh! Vroom vroom!"

Driving skills at the max, it didn't take us long to get back to the library. I slammed heavily on the brakes, and we skidded to a terrifying halt inches from the rock wall. "You're insane," Mr. Banks told me, whimpering, as he tumbled from the car on wobbling legs.

"Up the ladder, Mr. Banks," I cried, leaping out of the vehicle, wanted to leap into the air with fire shooting from my fingers and toes, light as a breeze. "Up the ladder to paradise!"

"How do you know my name?" Mr. Banks asked suspiciously.

"Because I'm maaaaagical!" I spun in a tight circle, arms outstretched.

We scrambled up the ladder one by one (Mr. Banks had to give me a suspicious look first) then slid down the rope on the other side. I landed with a thump in a rounded snowbank. Someone pulled the doors open, and we poured into the library like a babbling river.

Suddenly, almost violently, all movement stopped. I found myself trapped in the middle, surrounded on all sides by sweating bodies. The weight and the heat made my breath seize and my heart clench in a way that demanded violence. With a little bit of very restrained elbowing and shoving, I managed to make my way to the front of the press. "What's going on?"

William had stopped Mr. Banks with a cold look and a raised hand. "He's got a bite."

"I do not!" Mr. Banks protested indignantly, looking around for support.

"Show me," I commanded, all traces of my strange high and good humor washed away like ice sloughing down a glacier.

"I don't have a bite!" Mr. Banks insisted loudly. Instantly, the crowd behind us began to chitter nervously at the word 'bite'.

William's hand shot out and grabbed the teacher's wrist. The dirty sleeve slipped back with the new elevation to reveal a bloody bandage. William icily unwrapped the scrap of cloth, and a deep, oozing, crescent wound was revealed. Everyone watching inhaled sharply.

I felt myself go cold and numb, frozen in place, stunned. What was I supposed to do? Did I tell him to leave? Did I let him stay under guard until he died? Did I give him a gun with a single bullet, or did I have someone else do it? Did I do the deed? I was like a statue with no spark, made of grey stone. My mind couldn't function. Somebody else would have to deal with it. I didn't want to – couldn't – didn't know how. I never thought I'd have to deal with something like that, and now I found that I wanted to put it in a box and forget about it.

When I didn't twitch, David stepped forward, pulling something out from his belt. He handed a small, black pistol to the shocked former vice principal. "Go outside."

"W-why?" Mr. Banks spluttered, tears beginning to run down his cheeks.

"Because you're bitten," William said, no emotion on his face. "You're dead already."

Mr. Banks looked like a deer caught in the headlights, and he didn't move, mouth roving in search of words. Sighing, David pulled the gun back and pointed it at the teacher's face. "Or I could do it for you."

My paralysis finally broke, and I stepped between them, my forehead practically pressed against the barrel. "No, not here. It should be his choice."

The human slowly reached for the gun, hand trembling violently. The crowd parted like water as he turned and floated towards the door. It swung shut behind him with a quiet click.

Five seconds later, we heard a gunshot.