"Couldn't sleep, huh?" Alyssa asked as she threw off the covers of the hastily acquired bedding and stretched.
"I'm just coloring," Zoe, her thirteen-year-old daughter, insisted from the nearby desk.
While the rest of the desks had been pushed against one side of the classroom to make room for the random assortment of cots and air mattresses, Zoe had pulled one of the desks back over to be close to her mom. She'd apparently raided the nearby supply closets to find an assortment of paper and colored pencils. From the sheer volume of discarded drawings, Zoe had been at it for a while.
This particular classroom had been colonized by five families and a few singles. With the exception of herself and Zoe, all the rest of the people in the room were still asleep. Getting the kids to go to bed at all last night had been an act of near heroism, and the adults expected them to sleep in until at least mid morning. Zoe, apparently, had either simply stayed awake all night or had been woken up by a nightmare. Either option seemed equally likely; Zoe was an anxious sleeper even under the best of circumstances, and the girl had seen some serious shit over the past few days.
Alyssa had slept mostly in her normal clothes ever since the apocalypse, but had taken off some of the heavier layers and the items that were too covered in blood. She put back on her most protective items and used a mirror in the corner to make herself as presentable as possible. For the most part, people here wouldn't care so much what you looked like, but she was keenly aware of how much appearance affects the degree to which people trust you. Alyssa, more than anyone, needed people here to trust her if this community was going to stay functional throughout this disaster.
Before leaving the room, she squatted down next to her daughter, both to say good morning and also to surreptitiously check in on what might be troubling her. Zoe immediately covered her drawing when she approached, which was an answer in itself. Looking at the materials, she noticed the girl had gone through a lot more red than the rest of the colors. She and her daughter both had bright red hair, but given what Zoe had seen yesterday, she didn't think it was hair that Zoe had been coloring red in her drawings.
"Hey sweetie, look at my eyes."
Zoe turned and carefully examined her mothers eyes, while Alyssa returned the gesture.
"Normal," Zoe said, and went back to her work.
Alyssa gave her a quick peck on the cheek before standing back up.
"Get some sleep, okay sweetie? Even if you can't actually sleep, just lay down for a bit and close your eyes. You'll feel better if you do."
"Hm."
"I'm headed to the cafeteria to see if they've figured out anything they can make for breakfast. Wanna come?"
"Not hungry."
Alyssa paused, breathed for a second, tried to think. She was pretty sure she knew what was bothering her daughter. It wasn't just the carnage, it was how close it had all been, it was who had died and who they were killed by. Most of the kids had been under general lockdown in the classrooms, but she suspected that Zoe had been out trying to find her mom when the Thompson boy cracked yesterday.
"Alright, I've got to go check on everyone, but I'll come back here when people start to wake up. You'd prefer to stay and keep drawing, right?"
"Mm-hmm."
She walked quietly to the door, careful to avoid waking the others. At the door she paused, absently tapping the handle a few times, then looked back.
"Zoe?"
"Yeah, Mom?"
"We're going to make it through this, you and me. Okay?"
"Yeah, Mom."
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Alyssa walked the dark and silent hallway and exited the building into the pre-dawn light. With the chilly breeze on her face she reflexively began to take a deep, cleansing breath of mountain air, only to cough and sputter on the smells of Armageddon.
"You never really do get used to it, do you," chuckled a night watcher near the corner up ahead. "Morning, boss," he added with a casual wave.
"This far outside of town?" she responded, "I was somehow expecting it to still smell like pine trees and happiness, but instead it's all just burning plastic and tires."
"Ain't that the truth."
They'd all chosen to rally at this particular middle school because of how far outside of town it was. It was safer this way. Partway up the mountain on the north of the city, it was technically still part of Cedartop, but it was so rural out here that you could practically get lost in the woods without leaving the cafeteria.
The world had months to prepare for this apocalypse. While the events of Red Friday were universally devastating, it was all eminently survivable with a bit of planning. Alyssa didn't have any significant authority, but she did have influence. With that influence, she managed to link up some of the more well-organized individuals in the area and put together some reasonable survival plans. None of this was government; the government was doing its own thing, all mired in the directionless impotence and back-room pandering that salvation-via-elected-committee always brings. Instead, Alyssa had organized sensible people to do sensible things, and assembled private caches of reasonable supplies and a self-sufficient community that could survive for months, if not years.
Despite the devastation of that first day, things were looking good as the sun went down and gave way to the fires of Friday night. Not "good" in terms of having a non-horrible weekend, but "good" in terms of humanity actually surviving as a species. That turned out to be a sort of retrospective optimism so blatantly unambitious that you only notice you even had it when it gets crushed.
Then came came the darkest of nights and the bloodied remains of Saturday morning. Then came the horrors so overwhelming that not even the most disturbing science fiction dared imagine it. That's why Alyssa led her people out of the city and into the woods to find shelter here in the mountains. To escape them.
"Am I clear to cross?" she asked the watcher. His name was Carl, she was pretty sure; he'd been a... what... an accountant before all this?
The watcher took a glance around the corner, scanning the fence for any danger.
"All clear on this crossing, ma'am," he said, "Be aware that a zombie was spotted near the south gate a couple of hours ago. It was a Red, so you're probably safe to walk around, but we've been surprised before."
Zombies. She hated the term, but everyone used it. They bore virtually no relation to the standard fictional zombie other than the fact that they used to be human, but that single fact seemed to be the deciding factor.
"Why couldn't this have been a real zombie apocalypse?" she muttered to herself, not for the first time, as she hustled past the open walkway and into the shelter of the next building. Even the fungus zombies would be a thousand times better than this. She'd take a hundred traditional zombies from any horror movie you choose over a single real-world one. Hell, she'd rather invite the movie zombies into her own damn kitchen rather than even glimpse a real one a quarter mile away.
Alyssa started walking a bit quicker through the dark, empty hallways of the next building, not because she had somewhere to be but because she was getting herself worked up. These silent, early hours were the ideal time for feeling sorry for herself, all alone with nobody she had to inspire or comfort.
She opened the door and found a watcher standing near the corner of the building. In the distance she heard a pounding noise. Someone was banging on the bars near the entrance of the school.
The watcher held up his hand, indicating Alyssa to stop rather than exiting the building. "Hold up, ma'am. We've got a zombie on the perimeter right over there." He pointed vaguely toward the parking lot.
"Carl said it was a Red, right? Am I safe to cross?"
"Sorry, ma'am," the watcher shook his head. "The Red ran out of juice and was driven off by some sort of dog about an hour ago. This is a new one. Nobody's gotten a good look at it yet, but based on the recent destruction we think it might be a Blue. And we think it's a bolt-type, not fire, so best hold tight."
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Alyssa cursed her awful timing; she'd be stuck here until they confirmed it had moved away. Every zombie was dangerous, but the Greens and Blues only needed line of sight, which was why she'd stationed watchers beside the open walkways. The perimeter fence could keep attackers out, but it wouldn't keep you from being sniped as you ran between buildings. They'd learned that one the hard way.
"Are we worried about the fence?" she asked, unable to ignore the pounding noises from around the corner.
"Not so far. It's made of hollow steel pillars filled with concrete, which the fire can't melt and the Reds haven't figured out how to shift. Luckily it's anti-personnel fencing rather than just wildlife fencing, so the zombies don't even try to climb it."
"Luckily." Alyssa snorted. What an utter crock of horseshit.
She found it painfully ironic that the objectively stupidest aspect of the US education system would turn out to be the thing that would save them. Due to the US Government's... well, not just willingness, but gleeful enthusiasm to sacrifice the lives of children to protect psychopaths' rights to own weapons of mass murder, the schools of the country had been required to compensate. Over the past couple of decades, the typical grade school had evolved into something of a well-protected fortress, while the kids had all been relentlessly trained on the best ways to shelter and hide when the next person comes a-murdering. Those protections and training had saved the lives of her people hundreds of times over in the past two days.
"Lucky" her freckle-spangled ass.
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An hour later, Alyssa sat at a staff room table, a cup of tepid instant coffee in her hands. It tasted as bad as she felt. The man sitting across from her, Alex, was another member of the closest thing to leadership that this place had. He, on the other hand, looked even worse than she felt, all covered in blood and dirt. He had the telltale signs of second and third degree burns up and down his right arm and was missing a huge chunk of burnt hair on that same side. His glasses had shielded his face from enough attacks that it left a racoon effect around his eyes. The way he moved showed clear signs of sleep deprivation, and his tired eyes were watery and red. Not the zombie kind of red, just the normal, bloodshot kind.
"So the zombies out there are working together, then?" she asked.
She'd been trying to ignore the banging, smashing sounds as someone... some-thing... tried to attack the perimeter fence. It didn't help that she could feel the pounding from outside through her chair, and she found herself flinching with each boom and clang.
"No ma'am, we don't think so. We think one will eventually kill the other."
"What about overnight? Anything to report?"
"Five zombies and a group of eight raiders."
"Raiders? Seriously? I still can't handle how quickly people turned to banditry. They all deserve a painful, screaming death."
"Ah. Well, guess what they got."
"Really? I thought we didn't have any real weapons."
"We do now. The raiders were helpful enough to bring some."
Noting Alyssa's confused expression, Alex continued: "We kept them talking, made a lot of noise, got them to hurl threats at us and so on. I guess they hadn't had to deal with a zombie before, or maybe they were just as stupid as you'd expect a raider to be. They didn't even realize they were attracting one until it was already there."
"Which kind?"
"Blue."
Alyssa took a closer look at the man across the table. "Is that how you got the..." she motioned at his arm and face.
Alex nodded. "I was at the forward shelter and took a small blast through the fence before I could get away. Jeremy Alleto took a nasty fireball to the back as well, but that was it. The raiders were all burned alive before the zombie ran out of steam, and then we sent someone out to collect the loot."
Alyssa took a moment to let the implication sink in -- third degree burns from just a "small" blast from at least 10 yards away. Flame blasts dissipate with distance, but fireballs stay concentrated all the way to impact.
"Is Jeremy okay?"
"He's alive. He was wearing that military armor with the ceramic plates, which I think is why he survived. I stopped by the nurse's office on the way over and he seems to be stable, but he's not going to be working for several weeks at least. Altogether there were three serious injuries last night, but no fatalities."
"So, no breakouts, then?"
"No, ma'am."
"Well, that's a mercy, I guess."
"Yes, ma'am. Though, if I might offer a concern: there's a decent chance that a breakout won't reveal itself until they wake up."
Alyssa rubbed her face with the palms of her hands. She should be paying more attention to her appearance, but this topic made her everything itch.
"Don't think for a moment that I hadn't been worried about that too, Alex. I've talked to a few people in each one of the rooms, and we'll be checking eyes as everyone wakes up. Based on how the other breakouts have gone, we should have at least an hour before they crack. That should give us... enough...." She swallowed. Her mouth felt dry and the coffee just wasn't doing it.
"You're saying we're going through with the protocol then?" Alex asked.
"I don't like--" her voice cracked and she cleared her throat, breathed, wiped her eyes, and breathed again. She wrestled her stupid emotions under control before attempting to speak again.
"I don't like this any more than the rest of us, Alex. Dammit, I have my own daughter here in room three-twelve for christsake. There are no good answers, I'm just..." she took another deep breath, "I'm just trying to take the least-bad option because I don't see any other choice."
Alex looked like he wanted to say something, he opened his mouth, inhaled, and then closed it again. He didn't look up from the table but his eyes looked defiant. She knew exactly what he was thinking, because gods knew she was thinking it too.
"You didn't see Danny Thompson, did you," she said. It wasn't really a question since Alex was night-watch, "He was fourteen, Alex. Fourteen. He started showing around lunchtime and snapped about two hours later. It was... Alex, you have no idea."
"I heard he went Green, was that right?"
"Yeah. But it was much, much worse than what we reported. He killed seven people in less than thirty seconds, and only four of them were adults. One had been sliced completely in half, and not even in a clean way. Fourteen, Alex!"
Alex shook his head. "Yeah, Greens are scary, but--"
"Even if he went Yellow! They may not seem as bad but they'll drown you in your own damn blood. There's literally no good way for this to go."
"Yeah, but... even the kids? With respect ma'am, all of those kids belong to someone. You said, yourself, even Zoe is here. I mean, what if--"
"DON'T!"
"Ma'am?"
"Don't you dare say it, Alex." She glared at him, half angry and half pleading. "If you even begin to say what I know you're thinking, I swear to god I will drive this eraser through your eyeball before you can get the words out."
They stared at each other for a moment. Alyssa swallowed hard, while Alex pursed his lips and shook his head. He finally broke the silence.
"All the more reason, ma'am. Can we honestly say we're doing the right thing?"
"There were four breakouts yesterday, not a single one of them left before they cracked. Eighteen people died yesterday and none of them went peacefully."
"Still, who are we to decide--"
"Breakouts are dead already. We can't change that. But we can decide whether other people have to die alongside them."
"You and I understand, but these are families, not soldiers. Can you imagine what this will do to people?"
I told you only four of the Thompson victims were adults? Allie had half of her head cut off. Not her whole head, half of it, by her own brother... or rather the thing that had been her brother a few moments before. I said they all died immediately, but Allie technically survived for almost five minutes afterward with chunks of her brain missing, just long enough to watch Danny bleed out. They'd been playing Checkers together an hour earlier."
Alex's eyes went wide as he tried to process what he'd just heard, but Alyssa kept going, getting progressively more worked up as she remembered the scene.
"Kendra Thompson watched three of her kids and her husband die, all in less than half a minute. They had been arguing not five minutes earlier about whether Danny's changes would actually become that dangerous. Now Kendra hasn't said a single word in the past 18 hours, and she's got a goddamn four-year-old who doesn't understand why nobody will let him go back to the room to get his blanket. The same blanket that's covered in his sister's brains. What the hell am I supposed to do with that?"
Alex just kept shaking his head slowly, a vacant stare on his face.
"Dammit Alex! If you've got any better ideas for how I'm supposed to handle this, any at all, then you sure as shit better say something."
He looked down at the table, at his hands, at the burns on his arm and the dried blood all over his body. He shook his head once again.
"No, ma'am."
The sun wasn't even up yet and Alyssa already felt wrung out and used up. This coffee was a joke. With a head full of exhausted resignation, she let her face plop onto the table, her red hair splayed out around her like a fiery mop. It didn't help, so she tried banging her forehead lightly against the surface. She faintly remembered something about banging your head against a problem until it was solved.
"Ma'am?"
She paused her percussive meditation and sighed, trying to decide whether to actually share the thing that'd been eating at her mind for the past two hours. It paled in comparison to the problems of the camp, but it was her own personal failing. It was a black hole in her personal universe. She eventually decided to share; Alex was someone she could trust, and things couldn't possibly get any worse, anyway.
"I think Zoe saw something yesterday. She wasn't in the room during lockdown and she was acting traumatized this morning. I'm not sure she even slept a wink last night. Even a tenth of what happened would be enough to scar the poor girl for life. She's the reason I'm even doing this, and yet I somehow let her slip."
She sighed yet again, then blew away the hairs that had managed to infiltrate her mouth, before delivering her conclusion: "I'm literally the worst mother in the entire goddamn universe."
They sat in silence for over a minute but for the accusatory thumping of her own heartbeat in her ear. Eventually, the man across the table finally spoke. "Mrs. Connor, ma'am? Zoe's more like you than I think you realize."
With her face still resting on the table, Alyssa lifted a lock of hair to uncover one eye and peered over at Alex.
"You mean that in a good way?" she asked.
"Yes, ma'am," he said with a chuckle.
The pounding outside had stopped a little while ago. Presumably that was a good sign, but you never know with those zombies. They were literally the worst. Goddamn murder-wizards. She sat up again and tried to wrangle her hair into a ponytail. She needed to wrap this meeting up so that Alex could actually get some sleep.
"You said five of them last night, right?"
"That's right, ma'am."
"Those two out there this morning, are they part of those five?"
"The Red was the one we saw a little after midnight, and the Blue was someone new."
"Have any of the zombies been locals? Anybody from our camp or anyone we'd recognize?"
"No, ma'am. Nobody's recognized any of the outside zombies so far."
"Well, thank God for that, I guess."
"God is no longer with us, ma'am."
"Yeah. No shit."