Fujimi High School
1117 April 16, 20xx
Day 1
They had to close the window after a few minutes, as the stench was enough to make them gag. While they had watched, the critters burned, moaned and shuffled around. They didn't run, and the ones still coming came on until they were engulfed in the mass. They had to pull the line with the cans up as the flames got closer to the wall, as it would have burned through and Wolf figured they might need it again. He and Kat went back to the couch to try and come up with a plan to get them out of the building. Kat had her car in the lot, question was how to get to it.
"OK Kat, we've learned a few things about them. One, they are blind, and have no sense of touch or feel. They bounce off walls, and each other. A bottle to the head doesn't do anything to them. Two, sound draws them. If they hear no louder directional sounds, they mill about like drunks. They came when we jiggle the cans, and stopped coming after the cans had stopped making noise for a couple of minutes. Then they started milling around again. Three, they are slow and clumsy. I didn't see any of them moving faster than a shuffle. They kill by overwhelming their prey. I think they would be easy to outrun as long as you had a clear path."
"Yes, one and two been proven." She replied. "I'm not so sure about three."
"So we hold three in reserve. If for some reason it all goes pear shaped at least we can try. It's better than getting munched on. Now we have to figure out how to kill them individually. Obviously we can't set every one of them on fire. Besides, we're out of fuel." He said.
Kat though about it as she sipped a soft drink. "You saw that bunch that went ass over tea kettle down the steps? It looked to me that the ones who landed on their heads didn't get up again, while those that hit on their sides started moving again, and kept going. Some of them had busted arms or legs, those didn't move very well. I guess it's like that TV show The Walking Dead. Bash their heads in and they die for good. Anything else is a waste of time... Got any ideas on how to prove the theory? Without getting us munched on?"
"Hmmm, gonna need a club of some sort. Something fairly heavy."
Wolf looked around at the furniture. There wasn't much that looked like it would do, even the table legs were short little stubs. He checked the closet, No, the mops and what not were too thin, not enough mass to make a good club. He turned back to the couch.
As he walked behind it he ran his hand against the back rest. He turned back to look at it and then pulled out his knife and started to cut away the material. What he found inside was a solid wood frame, made of some hardwood. The back cross piece was a good inch and a half by three inches in section. He continued to pull the couch apart, and found that the arm rest frame was even better. Not to mention easier to take apart. He checked the fasteners, and found that his handy Swiss Army knife wasn't going to do it this time. But a couple of swift kicks to the side of the arm rest wrenched the screws from the wood and a couple of heaves finished the job. He repeated the process on the other one and so both he and Kat had a club of sorts.
"OK, guess it's time for me to go hang it out. You go over to the other side of the room, and stay absolutely quiet. If this turns to dog shit, stay back no matter what. I'm gonna open the door very quietly and see what's out there. If there's a bunch I'm gonna toss a can down towards the end of the hall. If there are only a few I'm gonna step out and see if I can kill one without drawing another one."
She hugged him, whispered "Good luck" and backed off into the far corner. He picked up a couple of cans and put them into his belt, hefted his club, then walked to the door. He put his ear to the door, and didn't hear anything nearby. Once he checked Kat's position he quietly turned the knob, and ever so slowly pushed the door open. Again he thanked the nameless person who had oiled that door recently. He wondered in passing if that person was still alive somewhere here in the school.
Peeking through the crack between door and jamb he saw a couple of critters 90 feet away. Only one in the immediate vicinity. As the door slowly opened he could see farther around and then down towards the other end of the hall. One was shuffling towards that end and the hall was clear for the rest of the way to the far stairwell, a good 150-200 feet farther away. "Looking good" he thought to himself as he slipped out into the hall.
His target was about 25 feet away, facing down hall away from him. Wolf slowly started advancing toward the thing, being as quiet as possible. Stocking feet on tile make it easy. As he closed to within a few feet he raised his club, and made the final steps. The critter still slowly shuffled along, and showed no sign of being aware of his presence.
"Now!"
The club came down in a fast moving arc, and crashed into the back of the skull. Wolf watched as with an audible crunch, it created a depression at least an inch deep in the things' head and it went to its knees and then flopped face forward to the tile. Very quickly he backed off from the body as it had made a thud as it hit. He kept his eyes on the bunch at that end, then turned to look at the other end.
It looked like he'd done it. None of them turned towards him. He looked back down to the dead body, and realized he'd killed a student. He also took note of the back pack the kid was wearing. That would come in handy, so he very quietly pulled it loose from the body and then made his way back to the lounge. Once inside he gave Kat the thumbs up, and then turned back and carefully closed the door.
"I walked right up behind it. Not a single sign that it was aware of me at all, and it went down like a sack of spuds. It was wearing this backpack, figured we can use it to carry some of the supplies, easier than plastic bags." He told Kat.
"Ok, give it to me, I'll put some of the liquids in there. It will be easier to carry the dry stuff in a bag."
He handed her the backpack and she started unzipping the various compartments, and pulling out books and notebooks. As she looked at the notebooks, she slowly started to cry. She recognized the name. This had been one of her best students, a bright kid with manners, a wicked sense of humor and no small dreams for the future after he graduated. After a moment, she wiped her eyes, shook off the sadness and continued to repack the backpack.
While she was doing that, Wolf started tearing the couch cover into strips, and bundling them together. He took a longer strip and tied the bundles to it, then knotted the long strip into a loop, which he slung across his chest. Kat looked at him as he did so and raised her eyebrows, wondering what he was doing that for. He didn't say, Just cut a few more strips and took the second garbage bag of dry foods and wrapped them in a larger piece of cloth, and knotted another long strip to it, and put the bag on his back, the strip again running across his chest.
As prepared as he could be, he looked around one last time, and said "Kat, when we walk out of here, we have to be dead quiet. We gotta be like ghosts. And we absolutely have to control our fear or we are dead. We can't make a sound. We go out barefoot, and take it one step at a time. Keep your head on a swivel, and look front, back, sides constantly. We don't want to be surprised. Right now, they are all at either end of the hall, more of them towards that end." He pointed to the left end of the hall. "We go in the other direction after I clear them. I'm going first, you stay back a bit. It's only one floor down to the ground, and there is a ground floor exit at the bottom of the stairwell. I'm gonna toss a couple of cans between us and the stairwell, to draw them towards us. When they get closer I'll pitch a couple more towards the other end. If it works, the critters should shuffle past us and head down towards the other end. As they move away I'll pitch a couple more over their heads and farther down the hall. Got it?"
Kat was looking kinda pale, (so was he for that matter) but nodded yes.
"OK, time to go." With that he got up and moved to the door. Again he slowly opened it, and peeked through the crack. Clear. He opened the door a bit more and felt some resistance. Shit. Every so gently he pushed the door farther open. The critter on the other side turned and shuffled out towards the center of the hall. His observations were still proving correct, the thing couldn't feel the door pushing it. As it turned it slowly crossed the hall and bumped into the opposite wall where it kept trying to walk through it.
With the door open enough to look around the other side, Wolf checked the halls. The situation wasn't much changed, one or two had moved from the less crowded end of the hall and were bouncing their way along one wall. He pulled out a soft drink tin, and lobbed it halfway between himself and the critters, on the opposite side of the hall. Sure enough the two headed that way. The one across from him turned as well, heading for the sound. He stood to watch as they slowly shuffled into a group on the other side of the hall, some ways down. Then he tossed one directly opposite his position. The critters again turned towards the sound and kept moving. Wolf kept watching, taking occasional glances at either end of the hall. The third can went farther down towards the crowded end, and he stepped out away from the door when they had passed and moved a good 25 feet farther down the hall.
The hall was clear from the lounge to the stairwell and he advanced until he could see into the stairwell. There were about 10 or so critters milling around, and as he watched two of them managed to walk off the landing and tumbled down the stairs. The noise drew three more to the edge and over they went as well. Bonus. The rest of them were milling around and prevented from getting to the steps by the railing. He'd have to draw them back and then to the side, finally towards the steps.
He glanced back, and saw Kat standing in the hall by the lounge. She was keeping an eye on the other end of the hall. He gave her the thumbs up sign and turned to deal with the ones on the landing. He lobbed a can directly in line with the critters and himself. They turned and move towards him, and he quickly tossed another towards the stair head. Sure enough they turned and moved in that direction. He moved a bit closer so he could see around the doors that separated the landing from the hall, and bounced one off the wall, out past the beginning of the stairs. Again, they obliged him by shuffling forward, one, two, then 3 more until they had all gone over the edge to the sound of muffled thuds as they crumpled up on the landing below. The top landing was now clear.
He waved Kat forward and they stood on the landing looking down. The stairs went down about 10 steps to a smaller landing, then turned to the left and went down another 10 or so. A couple of the things had actually gone past the landing on their way down, or had crawled that far. There were still at least 7 or 8 of them piled up in a heap on the lower landing, some moving about, some obviously dead from the fall. Wolf walked up to the rail and leaned out as far as he could. The bottom of the steps appeared to be clear, so all they had to do was get past the pig pile on the landing.
He and Kat studied the pile for a few minutes, and it appeared that the critters had suffered various degrees of damage from the fall, and weren't moving too much.
"I think if we take our time we can bash them in the head one by one. You up for it, Kat?" he whispered.
"It would be nice to have a longer hunk of wood to bash them with, but yeah I think I can do this." She replied.
"OK, then, one step at a time. Very slow, watch where you put your feet and be ready to step back in an instant if they start to get frisky. They can grab you. So let' s not let that happen, right? I'll take the right side, and you can do the left." With that he turned to check the upper hall one more time, to make sure nothing was sneaking up on them. Still all clear.
He quietly walked over to the wall, and stepped down. One step, pause, a second, pause and so on until he was just above the pig pile. The bodies were mostly with their feet closest to him. Too far to reach with the short couch arm clubs. He thought about it for a moment, then knelt down on the lowest step, stretched as far as he could without over reaching, and poked one of the critters on the leg. Nothing. Again, harder this time. Again nothing.
Wolf stood up again, and contemplated the best way to whack them one at a time without risking another one twisting over at the sound of the club and possibly grabbing him. A couple of them were pinned under the upper ones, so he'd have to hit the upper ones first. This is where it was going to get tense. With that, he stepped down onto the landing. He move up towards the head of the nearest and swung the club down on the things' head, on the opposite side from where he was standing, and instantly stepped back to the wall. That one stopped moving. The one laying next to him turned a bit but stopped again when the sound didn't repeat itself.
He reached over and poked the second one. Again, no reaction, so he stepped up between the two and whacked that one, again on the opposite side. This time his club hit the floor and a couple of them became more agitated. Once again he stepped back and up the steps a bit. They both settled down again when the sound didn't repeat. Sweat dripped down his face as he waved Kat down, and motioned for her to hit the off side one while he whacked the near one. Very slowly they got themselves into position, and Wolf raised 3 fingers, and counted down. A couple of sickening crunches, and both of them were dead. Wolf turned to check the upper landing, it was still clear. He motioned Kat back to the steps, and had a good look at the rest of them. There were only 3 left, one on the bottom of a heap that was still moving, two live ones on top of him. Clearing the last three would take them to the next set of steps where two or 3 lay, pretty busted up.
What the hell he thought, and reached down to grab the leg of one of the live ones. He pulled it back enough to be able to reach its head with the club and that one was history. He stepped forward again, and in quick order bashed in the last two that were moving. The two thuds caused the bunch on the lower steps to come alive a bit, but he ignored them for the moment. Stepping carefully around the bunch he and Kat had bashed, he moved to the corner of the landing and looked down to the ground floor.
The gods must have been smiling on them as the doors to the lower hall were closed here, and while there were critters on the other side of them, there wasn't a single one in the ground floor lobby. All they had to do was off the 3 on the steps and they would be able to exit the building.
In short order the ones on the steps were dispatched, and he and Kat moved down to the lower floor and the doors. They took the time to strip another back pack from one of the corpses and then quietly walked to the doors and looked out. The nearest one was a good 100 feet away, closer to the main entrance.