Welcome to Paradise // Billie Joe Armstrong // #Wattys2017

Dirty rotten bastards

I've been stuck in school for almost two months now.

The screams had made their way through the school like lost spirits looking for a way out. We were all held up in the classroom, while our teacher went to look for answers. After an hour had passed we decided to check on the situation. I slowly twisted the doorknob and opened the door a few millimeters. I carefully peered through the little opening I had made.

There was nothing but destruction.

The smell of rotten meat made its way into the, for now, untouched classroom. A few people gagged as the smells penetrated into their nose. We stared at the scene in front of us in complete disbelief. A few minutes passed. The school we had once known as ours had turned into a complete graveyard, and all of that within one. Fucking. Hour.

Chairs, smeared in fresh, red blood, lay defeated on the cold, stone floor. Tables were either broken in half or placed upside down. Posters were ripped off the walls.

And bodies. They were everywhere.

Their flesh, their skin and their bones had been torn off brutally and lay scattered over the floor. I felt my stomach turn upside down, as if someone had punched me right in my intestines. I clenched my hand into a fist and brought it up to my mouth, hoping to be able to keep this morning's breakfast inside. A kid behind me started crying. And soon followed everyone else.

Exept for me. I was absolutely gob smacked.

I had seen these things before many times in videogames, movies and even on the news every so often. But not had I ever seen such a thing in real life. Soon, my focus was brought to something else.

Someone was coming.

It came closer with every heartbeat. It sounded as if the person trying to approach us was barely able to walk. One leg supporting the body and the other loosely hanging next to it, being dragged along over the hard concrete floor like a dead weight. There was one other sound, however, that caught my interest the most. A gargling-like sound, like when you clean your mouth with mouthwash after you've brushed your teeth. It stopped every so-often, to continue only seconds later. I knew I hadn't been the only one to hear the it, since the people behind me had stopped their weeping, and were now standing behind me. We backed off a little when the sounds grew louder.

Death silence.

It lasted for not more than half a minute or so, but it was enough to scare the shit out of us. After the silence that had seemed to last forever, we were blown away by the most ear-wrecking sound. The high-pitched noise made it's way into my ears and left me with a whining beep afterwards. Like when you exit a bar and the sound of chatting people makes place for the silence of the night. What came next was something I'm sure none of us expected.

A fucking walker appeared in the doorstep. Walker, zombie, meat lover, creeper, whatever takes your interest. It was standing right in front of us.

Of course, being the uncontrollable teenagers we were, the panic began. People started running around the classroom, screaming like new-born babies. A bunch of them kicked over the brain-dead human and ran away.

I never saw them again.

Quickly, I grabbed the most weapon-looking object I could find – a pen – and walked over to the zombie. I stabbed it multiple times in it's head before falling to the floor. Defeated. I smeared the blood off my face and glanced up at the students that hadn't yet left the classroom. They stared at me in disgust, not yet able to process what exactly I had done. Not that I had completely processed it yet myself, but if there was one thing watching The Walking Dead had thought me, was that these -erm- things... had left the state of human being from the moment they got bit. And I secretly felt rather proud of myself for acting so quickly.

I rested my head against the stone-cold wall and closed my eyes for a moment. This can't be happening. This can't be real, I kept repeating in my head over and over again. It took the most out of me not to blend in with the rest and cry, but I managed. For now.

''What the fuck is wrong with you?!'' Cathy McFuckingperfect yelled at me. I opened my eyes and tilted my head to face her."It was already dead" I replied. My ice-cold answer seemed to have done the trick, leaving Cathy staring at me like a sheep.

I got up on my feet again.

Was this really the beginning of a friggin' zombie-apocalypse? And what was I supposed to do now? Call my mom? Meh. She was probably dead by now anyways. I lifted my finger a little as a way of saying good-bye and left the classroom, still holding the blood-covered pen. Leaving everyone behind.

The school was completely abandoned. A few walkers now and then, but nothing that seemed too dangerous.

I made my way up the stairs and walked over to my dorm room. I stepped inside, slightly relieved seeing it in the state as I had left it this morning, and closed the door behind me. I took a seat on the bed and cried. I cried for what seemed like days.

God really was fucking dead.