My Zombie Girlfriend

Chapter 24

They moved out through the girls' locker room. Ross insisted on being the front line. Zane and Rebecka followed, and Hunter took the rear guard position behind Wilson and Mike Snow. Wilson and Mike each carried a bow and quiver full of arrows as well as bats and hockey sticks.

It seemed to make sense that neither Tamiko nor Harmony would have exited the building. The group edged forward until they had a view of the outside exit door.

"It's closed," Ross confirmed. "They're probably both still in the building."

"If I was a runaway zombie, I'd go outside," Rebecka said.

Zane nodded. "Good point. But it wouldn't hurt to check the building. At least while we sort of have military back up."

They moved toward the hallway. Ross pulled the door open, then paused in the doorway, peering down one end of the hall then the other. "Is that... is that Ricky?" Ross asked.

Zane could hear the pounding now. Ricky must still be at that door, unable as a zombie to pull a handle, pushing and pushing and pushing.

"Yeah. He turned," Zane said.

Ross took a deep breath. "To the left, then."

They moved along the tiles, went through the double doors at the end of the hallway. Ross turned quickly from side to side, and Zane and Rebecka moved up with bats at the ready. Another option to go left or right. Going right would lead them down past the auditorium and the main office, while going left led to the art classrooms, the library, and some doors to the front parking lot. At present there was no one to the right, but Zane didn't want to chance it.

"Left," Zane said.

There were two classrooms before another set of fire doors. Ross peered in through one of the dark windows, then tried the handle. "Locked," he reported.

Rebecka checked out the classroom on the opposite side. She didn't see anything, but when she tried the handle, the door swung open. Zane and Ross jumped into ready position.

As Zane and Ross prepared to enter, Hunter said, "There's a soldier coming. Get in!"

He pushed at Wilson and Mike Snow, who bumped Rebecka into Zane and Ross, and they all tumbled into the classroom. Hunter closed the door with a loud slam and locked the door.

"Yeah, they'll never know we're in here now," Wilson said.

"Quick, go through that door!" Mike Snow pointed at one of the doors that led between classrooms. He and Wilson ran through desks. Zane and Ross took a more careful route, ducking low but still scanning the spaces under the large art desks for Harmony or Tamiko.

Mike Snow yanked the door open. Zane heard it open, and stood up just in time to see a zombie lurch out from the dark doorway and grab him.

Wilson was too close behind Mike, and Mike tripped over him in his haste to back away. The zombie was the art teacher, Mr. Carson. He was still wearing his school clothes, a faded concert t-shirt and a black blazer with artfully ripped jeans and Converse sneakers. Mr. Carson's neck had been chewed on, and Zane could see his esophagus moving wetly behind flaps of skin.

Now Mr. Carson stumbled toward Mike, and tripped over Mike's feet. His teeth snapped, and Mike shoved his baseball bat sideways at Mr. Carson's mouth. The bat was too big to gag the art teacher, and Mr. Carson kept on coming. Mike bashed the bat against Mr. Carson's face. Soon the teeth cracked and dropped from Mr. Carson's gums, but still the jaws worked and blood dripped and his face moved closer to Mike's with every clawed grab of his fingers in Mike's shirt.

Wilson wriggled out from underneath and danced out of the way. By that time, Rebecka had also gotten to Mike and she brought her field hockey stick down on Mr. Carson's midback. Wilson got a running swing at Mr. Carson's head.

There was a loud snap, and when Wilson moved out of the way, Zane saw that Mr. Carson's neck had broken, leaving his head dangling over his upper back. "Sick," Hunter said in awe.

Unfortunately, Mr. Carson's jaw still worked, and his hands still grabbed at Mike, and when Mr. Carson moved, his head flopped back to the front.

Rebecka hooked her stick around Mr. Carson's middle and used it to flip him off Mike. Once the art teacher was flat on his back on the tiles, Wilson smashed his bat down one, two, three times. "Shit, Zane, he's still moving!" Wilson cried.

Zane looked around, then darted to the shelves of art supplies. He grabbed a pair of scissors from a jar, and tossed them to Wilson, who dropped his bat and managed to catch them, tossing them between hands.

"Whoa!" Wilson said. "Shit like that is dangerous! Uh, what do you want me to do with these?"

"Stab him!" Mike screamed. "Stab him now!" Mr. Carson was edging his way back toward the fallen boy.

"What?" Wilson said.

Rebecka snatched the scissors from Wilson's hands and plunged them down.

"Right in the eye!" Wilson winced. "You are ruthless."

"How else was I supposed to kill him?" Rebecka asked, standing up and tossing the scissors aside. "Let's go."

"Wait," Zane said. "We need to be careful. There could be more in there."

"We don't have time," Hunter said. "The soldiers are coming. Let's just go. If there were more, they would have come along by now."

They plunged into the nearly dark classroom, lit only by the moonlight from the windows. Single file, they walked along the aisle near the windows to the next door.

"This one leads through the hallway," Ross said, back in front.

"Look," Rebecka said, pointing to a sleeping bag on the floor. "I think Mr. Carson was sleeping here."

"Why wouldn't he have gone with everyone else to the cafeteria?" Zane asked.

"In case you didn't notice, Mr. Carson was kind of a weirdo," Ross said. "I heard he slept with his students. Look – beer bottles and candles. Shit. He was probably sleeping with them here."

"Guess his wife kicked him out of the house then," Wilson said. "Like he was sleeping here before this all went down."

"You don't think..." Rebecka started, then stopped.

"What?" Ross asked. "Come on, you can't start something like that and not finish."

"I don't want to be catty," Rebecka said.

Ross raised his eyebrows. "We are far beyond that. Yeah, that's right. I heard your confession. What, you think Harmony might have been sleeping with Mr. Carson?"

Rebecka's eyes flickered to Zane. "She was taking art history with him."

"Look, that's a huge stretch," Zane said. "His throat was ripped out. If he was sleeping here, she would have had to do that sometime last night. After school, before coming to my house for dinner at eight. Unless she came through here, the same way we are."

"Or maybe she left and knew he'd be here, and figured she'd make a few more zombies along the way." Rebecka pursed her lips.

Zane opened his mouth, then closed it. He had been about to say that Harmony would never do anything like that. He had gotten so used to defending her, it was hard to stop. But Harmony was not entirely human anymore. Especially without her charm bracelet. And even when she was fully human, she had done some terrible things.

"Let's go," Ross said, opening the door to the hallway.

Only 2 chapters left!  I'm already considering what story to post next (most of them aren't as funny as this one...).  Would you rather werewolves, vampires, ghosts, or parallel universes?