Spy School Zombie Apocalypse

The Woods

Idk what I'm even doing with this book at this point. 

~~~~~~

November ???

???? hours

You'd think a tank full of thick liquid would help to absorb the force of a single grenade. Wrong. The second the explosive blew up, the liquid started bubbling and a moment later, the tank blew up.

I watched as Mr. H ran for it, followed closely by his men. They closed the steel doors in which they had entered. The flames burst through the piles connecting all the tanks together and it caused a chain reaction, the remaining five tanks exploded up simultaneously. 

Me, Mike and Trixie were staring, transfixed at the carnage unfolding before us. the ceiling split open at the top and some dirt came tumbling in. It never occurred to us that we should probably run.

It was only when Erica took me and her sister's hands (with Trixie holding Mike's) that I was snapped back to reality. Erica was yelling something but I couldn't hear a word of it, the sounds of the explosions too deafeningly loud. Erica let go of my hand, then pointed behind me. I turned around and saw an opening in the wall where a now empty tank seemed to have smashed. This was our chance!

The four of us ran wildly, avoiding falling debris as best as we could, while still keeping a good pace. Erica passed me easily and I looked back to see how the Trixie and Mike were doing. When I reached the hole in the wall, Erica was just standing there, blocking the exit. 

 "WHAT ARE YOU DOING? GO!" I screamed.

Even with me yelling at the top of my lungs, barely any sound was heard, my words were just audible enough for Erica to hear. She shook her head and moved away so I could see the problem. We were on the side of a very steep and tall hill. There was a 50 foot drop, at least, from where we were and solid, even ground. 

I turned my eyes away from the drop and looked uncertainly at the others. There was no other option, they had wasted too much time at the beginning and now the room they were currently in was falling apart, they had 20 seconds tops, before the entire thing collapsed in on them. On the other hand, if they jumped, they might die from the fall, be impaled by a random tree branch, or hit their head on a rock. Either way, both choices had a good chance of dying. 

A metal beam suddenly fell next to us, nearly crushing me and Mike at the angle it dropped at. It seemed staying here would mean certain death, meanwhile, jumping had a chance that we would survive. We looked into each others eyes once more and saw that everyone had come to the same conclusion, and with a reckless determination to live, we jumped off the cliff.

~~~~~~

The fall was bad.

I couldn't see a thing, what with me covering my face with my hands and all so that no dirt could get into my eyes and so they didn't get taken out by a stray branch or pebble. But, unfortunately, my hands weren't long or thick enough to protect the rest of my body.

My legs hit what I guessed was one of those rocks I saw from that hole, a few moments later, my arm was cut by one of the many tree branches. After what felt like an eternality of falling, tumbling and sustaining heavy injuries, I came to a halt at the foot of the hill, the wind knocked out of me from the fall/tumble.

Breathing heavily, I slowly stood up and looked around, clutching my bloody nose that was smashed on the way down. I checked my body, searching for the worst injuries. 

My back had a huge bruise spread across the most center part, at least one of my ribs had broken, my right arm had a gash at least half-an inch deep and my left knee felt fractured from the colliding with the rock. Otherwise not so bad, just dozens of small scrapes and bruises across my entire body. 

Heaving even more heavily from the amount of effort it took to move, I set off to find the others. They couldn't be too far away right? After all, we jumped at the same time and were aiming in the same direction. 

Casting a look behind me, the room from where we were not even two minutes ago was releasing tons of smoke and I watched as the hole we fell from let out a burst of flame. 

There was a sudden movement to my right and I whipped my head around to find the source of the noise. It was Erica. She emerged from a clump of bushes, also breathing heavily and clutching her chest. 

"Are you okay?" I asked, then immediately kicked myself. She just lost her mother you idiot! Of course she wouldn't be "okay". 

The memory of losing Catherine was still raw, but I pushed it to the back of my mind. There was time to grieve later, now they had to focus on meeting up with the others and getting out of this forest alive. 

"I just have a few broken ribs that's all." Erica's casual voice when she said this broke me out of my trance.

"THAT'S IT? WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT'S IT? You need to sit down, how are you still standing!" I said urgently, trying to clear her a place on the floor. 

"I don't need to sit down, Ben. We need to keep moving, do you honestly think Joshua's pops won't send somebody looking for us? Or worse, those, those things." There was a tone of panic in her voice in which I had never heard before as she described the zombie like creatures that were sent to me and Mike's house. "You saw how fast they can travel. We need to find the others and get to a safe place."

"But, where is a safe place? Where in the world could we go at this moment in which we would be safe? The two of us can't even walk and I doubt Mike and Trixie are much better. We'd be better off just laying down and dying!" I argued, throwing my hands in the air in exasperation. 

"I DON"T KNOW!" She screamed at me so suddenly I was shocked, Erica rarely ever showed emotion, even with me.

Backing down, I lowered my hands and slowly wrapped Erica in a hug, she was trembling.

"I don't know what to do anymore," She sniffled into my shoulder. I patted her head reassuringly.

"Shhh, it's okay, it's okay. I'm sorry for what I said. I'm sorry." Erica seemed to get a grip on herself after about a minute of this. She tore her head away from me and started marching in a random direction, acting as though nothing happened.

"And we're back to normal," I sighed, running after her to keep up with the pace she was setting.