CHAPTER 4 - HERE THEY COME

I headed over toward Dr. Carver, my zombies in tow. They were docile, but I wasn’t sure what would happen if one of the other students panicked and attacked them. Would they stand there and be beaten apart, or fight back? Either answer wasn’t good, so I kept them close. Carver was doing the same as he went toward one of the large windows to peer outside.

Alfred stood there sobbing and holding one hand clutched against his chest. The fingers were bleeding; I could guess what probably happened.

“Karen get you?”

“Yes,” he managed to say between sobs. “I’m dead. I am so dead.”

I shook my head. “I wouldn’t be so sure. Yeah, the people they killed came back, but these aren’t movie zombies. This is something different. Get yourself together.”

I’m not sure if he even heard what I was saying. The guy was already pretty far gone into his fear. I brought my thoughts back to where I was, what I had to do next. It was the only way to stay sane in a crazy situation like this.

Carver came over to join us. “You should look outside.”

“Why?”

“Just take a quick look,” he replied.

I wasn’t sure what it was he wanted me to see, but he was insistent. And he was my teacher. I went to the window and looked out.

The world had gone insane.

A group of short, green-skinned creatures chased a pack of students across the quad. What looked like one of our escaped cadavers was out the too, gnawing on something. Nearby, a police car was on fire. No sign of the officers who’d been in the car.

In the distance, smoke rose from various parts of the city. I saw one tall apartment building wreathed in flames, but there was no sign of firemen coming to put it out.

“We can’t expect a rescue, can we?” I asked.

“Whatever this is, it’s widespread,” he replied. “I think we’re on our own.”

“Doctor, three of the cadavers got away. They’re outside, somewhere,” I said.

He looked around, surprised, but did quick mental math and nodded. “We should go after them, yes? They’ll have more crystals.”

I was more thinking that if we didn’t go after them, they’d kill more people and turn them into zombies too, but I’d take whatever answer got me some backup. “I think we should, yeah. You with me?”

“Lead the way.”

His zombies made me more nervous than mine. Part of that was probably the magic connecting me with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. I knew, intuitively, that they’d do as I asked and not work against me. It was creepy, watching the other zombies. Doubly so because Carver’s zombies had been classmates. I didn’t know Stevens well, and Karen was a bitch. But watching them walk around like this just felt…wrong.

On the other hand, my zombies had their own issues. Like, they were naked, for one thing. At least Carver’s zombies had clothes on. Mine were walking sexual harassment. I dashed over to a cabinet where a bunch of assorted supplies were stored and liberated two hospital johnnies. It wasn’t perfect, but fitting those on the zombies at least made them seem a little less weird.

“Okay, we should go,” I said. He nodded, clearly amused at my antics, and gestured again for me to lead the way. I ordered my zombies out into the hall. Much to my dismay, Rosie opened the door without any trouble at all. Bad news for Team Human.

The hall outside was dark. No lights and an afternoon sun meant things were only going to get blacker from here. Noise from another room down the hall got my attention, so I headed that way with caution. Could be student survivors; might be one of the escaped zombies.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

I got to the doorway and peeked inside, then hurriedly pulled back. That wasn’t one zombie. There were ten of the things in there, all wandering around aimlessly. I was lucky none of them had spotted me. I padded my way back up the hall to where Carver stood as quietly as I could.

“There’s ten of them in there,” I said, keeping my voice low.

“Ten zombies? That’s an alarming reproductive pace,” he replied. “Were any of them the cadavers?”

I nodded. “One was.”

“So the other two are still elsewhere. It worries me that wherever they are, they could be continuing to grow their numbers. But I don’t think splitting up is wise, in this case. We should attempt to attack them together.”

“Never split the party,” I agreed. I wasn’t sure about attacking, though. “Couldn’t we just close the door and bar it somehow? Let the police deal with this when they get here?”

In spite of what I’d seen outside, I still had hope. I figured for sure, someone would have gotten word out about all this and by now there would be reinforcements on their way. The police. The National Guard. The Army. Someone would be coming. I still had no clue what had happened; but that’s how the world worked. Disasters happened, but then heroes showed up and saved the day.

Carver shook his head. “There are windows in those rooms. Even if we could somehow block the door, eventually something outside the windows will catch one of their eyes, and it’ll smash its way out. Then the others will follow. Besides, so far each zombie we killed has had a crystal, right? The more of those we get, the better armed we’ll be for fighting off the others once we find them.”

It made sense. We hadn’t attacked more than a few of the things at a time yet, but now there were two of us and four zombies on our side. Ten enemy zombies was a lot, but I had hope that we might be able to handle it.

“Okay, I’m in.”

Carver smiled. “Remind me to give you an A, if we survive this and classes resume. I think this constitutes sufficient extra credit.”

I laughed, and he joined in. That was apparently a little louder than we should have been. Something in the room down the hall crashed down, and then the door slammed fully open. One of the fresh zombies stood there, looking down the corridor toward us. It let out a hissing sound and then came stumbling our way.

More zombies boiled out into the hallway behind it. The fight was on!

“Rosie, Guildie, protect me,” I called out. Both of my zombies responded immediately, stepping forward to stand between me and the approaching band. Yeah, all ten of the monsters spilled out into the hall. Clearly pack creatures. When one got interested in something, the rest tended to head that way as well. I filed that away for future reference.

Carver gestured, and his zombies settled into a defensive position in front of him as well. Guess I didn’t need the verbal commands? I’d have to try that.

“I’ll help, too,” Alfred said, coming up behind us. He'd wrapped a jacket tightly around his left arm like a shield, and held another chunk of broken classroom stool in his right. “I don’t know if I’m a dead man walking or what, but while I’m breathing, I’ll fight.”

The other three students, the ones I’d rescued, were hiding inside the lab room, staring out at us through the window in the door. It didn’t look like they were going to be much help.

I rapped Alfred’s stick with mine. “Good to have you.”

“Here they come!” Carver warned.

Then the front rank of zombies hit our zombies, and everything got crazy fast.

Our zombies acted like a blocking line. They basically took one approaching zombie out of the fight, each. Since the front rank was four zombies, that worked out really well for us. They immobilized all of them. But the rank right behind those was another four zombies, and they were coming up fast. If we didn’t take down the frontrunners quickly, we’d get overwhelmed.

I darted in, stabbing the nearest zombie in the chest with the pointed part of my club. The weapon went in, the weapon went out, but I couldn’t tell if it actually did any real damage. Was I hurting them? Did it have to be a head shot? That was going to be a lot harder, since the creature’s head was so close to Rosie’s.

Trusting my gut, I went for the body again. I stabbed three more times, and it finally went down. I ordered Rosie to grab the next one—just in time, because it was closing in fast! Another zombie came rushing at me, this one a young woman who’d had a messy enough death it made me blanch.

She was my age or so, blonde, and covered with blood. It wasn’t a pretty sight. I got the club horizontal just as she reached me, slamming it into her open mouth before she could chomp down on my face. Her teeth closed on the wood, leaving dents behind. These things bit hard! She almost yanked my weapon straight out of my hands, but I held on.

“Little help here!” I called out, but there was none to be had. The others were already heavily engaged as well, the second line hitting us in force.

I lashed out with my legs while I kept it at bay with the weapon in my hands. Snapping out one kick after another, I hammered blows in against its knee. These weren’t sensible shoes, either; I was wearing Docs. Those steel toes had enough hitting power that I figured I could do some serious damage.

Maybe I needed some martial arts training—where’s the crystal that would teach me kung fu?—because my right leg got worn out before her knee gave. I switched legs; this time, it only took three more blows before something gave out inside the zombie’s knee, and she went down. Her mouth opened as she fell, like she was surprised. That gave me full control of my weapon again.

I spun the club around, aiming the pointy end down, and drove it into her open mouth. End of zombie.

But there were still more of them closing on me. This fight was nowhere close to won.