Zombie Breakdown

Class Chaos

Later that day, in 4th period (math), I sit laughing with my table, which consisted of Wesley, Leo, Carol, Jimmy, David, and Mark. Leo has this thing where he makes up different torture chambers to throw Carol into after he kidnaps her in 9 years. She pays no mind to this, of course. She's kind of like that one person with actual common sense that no one listens to.

"So we make a big white room, and throw the person in there, and then every hour we release a wasp! And at the 24 hour mark, we release hornets!" Leo said excitedly. Carol continued scribbling down math formulas. Everyone else laughed, but we were given some bewildered glances by our teacher.

Our teacher, Mr. Scott, usually had a great sense of humor, but all of the teachers have been on edge since that modified lockdown announcement happened. I was, admittedly, a little worried. Surely nothing too serious is happening, right? Wrong. The intercom beeped again.

"All staff and students. Please go through with the following procedures: Lock all of your classroom windows. All choir, art, band, health, PE, and other classes in that part of the school please go to the main hallway and take shelter in one of those classrooms. Please do not enter the commons or anything past there. These are improvised procedures, staff, please check your emails. Students and staff may exit into the hallways to see friends, communicate with other staff, etc."

A peculiar thrum of adrenaline raced through me, and vanished as quickly as it had come, being replaced by a low buzz of wariness. The classroom started filling with whispers and then looked at Mr. Scott, expecting an explanation.

He looked up from his email, face pale. "You guys probably won't be seeing your families for a while."

Wesley, the one with all the questions, quivered. "What do you mean by that?"

Mr. Scott motioned towards the door. "I'm sure some other teachers have told their students. But- make SURE to pay attention if more announcements come through."

People started filing through the now open door, hearing the loud voices coming from the hall. I followed Carol for a while, then looked for Ben, Mackenzie, and Valentina. I glimpsed other people I knew as I passed by. I found the trio upstairs, next to Mr. Wagner's room with Mike and a few other people.

Ben looked at me with scared blue eyes. "It's the apocalypse. It's real. Valentina was right."

I felt sick. "How close are they?"

"I don't know. All of the windows are closed and we aren't allowed near them." I couldn't tell who said that, I just stared off into space.

"Do you think they'll break in?" I asked no one in particular.

"There are three options: one, they break in and everyone dies. Two, we escape the building and everyone dies. Three, we starve in here and everyone dies." Mike said casually.

"Not helping!" Mackenzie snapped. Mike wasn't done yet.

"Ooh! I found a fourth option! We run out of food and then start eating each other and everyone eventually dies."

Everyone who heard that stared blankly at him.

My fear was temporarily forgotten. I'm an optimist, so I pushed reality out of the way and thought about how we're definitely going to get out of this.

"At least the school is really safe. Plus, zombies are probably dumb. I don't think they'll get-"

I was cut off by the beep of the announcement. The whole hall quieted down, a thing that rarely happened, to hear what was going on outside.

"All staff and students, please evacuate the hall and enter a classroom. This is a full lockdown situation." The announcement ended and people were up and talking again, rushing into classrooms with their friends. I entered Mr. Wagner's classroom.

There were probably around 40 kids in the room by the time the hall was empty. This was more than the amount of students in each class period, as not many wanted to be across the hall in Ms. Hilton's room. Students didn't like her very much. Mr. Wagner hushed us up and made us sit in the far corner of the class, while he locked the door and turned off the lights. I ended up sitting next to Valentina.

"Hey N/n, do you see Mackenzie?"  (N/n = Nickname)

"She's over there next to Ben." I said briskly.

"Good." She looked over at me. "I wanna be together, you know. Just in case." That sent a shiver down my spine. Mr. Wagner looked just as afraid as the rest of us. He tried to silence our whispering, but eventually, he gave up. No one really listened to teachers like him. With time, people must have been imagining noises since they quieted down and looked around fearfully.

I began to imagine little noises too. Little thumps from various places. The other side of the hall, the floor below us, even right outside the door. The thumps grew louder. Maybe I wasn't imagining that last one.