The Fountain Girl

Chapter 20

It was Physical Education yet again on that usual bleary Monday morning. We were in the gym, insufficient sunlight finding its way through the dusty window panes. All of us were tired but we knew that the sleepiness would not help for this Physical Education lesson. This would not be an ordinary P.E. lesson, no. 

It was Zombie Chase Day.

Everyone around the school knew about this crazy way that Mr. Crescent uses his Physical Education period once a month. People feared going to his class for sheer terror that they would have to experience Zombie Chase Day. Friendships would be broken, relationships would be torn apart. 

Five people would be the zombies. Using any sort of melee weapon they could find, they would have to hunt the Normal down and take them out, using their melee weapon with force. Yes, you would have to hit the Normal with force.This would result in the Normal person turning into a zombie, and this painful process of virus-based chase would continue until everyone was a zombie. If you didn't get infected and were still a Normal by the end of P.E., your reward would be painless victory. Nobody was sure if this little game for Physical Education was legal.

As usual, everyone volunteered to be the zombies. That way they wouldn't have to experience as much pain by getting attacked by one. Mr. Crescent chose five unsignificant but pretty fast members of our class to be the zombies.

I usually had Katie by my side when we went on Zombie Chases, but since she wasn't with me, I went solo. 

The borders of the game were the first and second floor, which meant that we were allowed to run down the classroom hallways or even the cafeteria. I knew a few good hiding spots along the classroom hallway, but Katie and I had explored them before, and if she became a zombie, she would head there first, along with her boyfriend.

I headed straight to the canteen, glancing a bit sentimentally at the table for two where Katie and I used to have lunch together. Then I swung my gaze over to Bryan, who was squatting behind one of the rounded tables in an attempt to hide. It seemed that his gang of friends had abandoned him.

He and I made brief eye contact, and then I continued tiptoeing silently along the benches. I turned the brass doorknob of the food storage area and walked in silently, strolling along the fridges of frozen food. I saw a metal pole that was lying still on the floor, a little rusty. I picked it up and considered using it to defend myself. It was better than nothing.

I peeped out of the door's little glass window at the rest of the cafeteria outside, watching Bryan squat silently behind a table with nothing to defend himself, two 'zombies' stalking in the canteen. One of them was Colman. He must have been infected by someone. I suppose Katie had escaped the clutches of the infection. The other zombie was Colin, a quiet guy that was a really good runner but was a but lacking in height. The contrast in both of their heights made them seem like David and Goliath.

Colin bent down on his knees and looked below the tables. He must have spotted Bryan's large figure among the table legs, because he immediately made a dash for Bryan, a baseball bat in his hand. Colman had a dodgeball in his hand and he threw it at Bryan. Bryan shrugged off the dodgeball, watching it bounce pathetically away. Suddenly, from under a table, Colin jumped out like a furious rabbit and whacked Bryan in the back with his baseball bat, making Bryan grasp his back with his right hand, face slightly contorted in pain. Bryan was infected. 

The big bully sat on the bench while he closed his eyes for a while. Meanwhile, the dodgeball was slowly rolling closer and closer to my door. Colman came closer and closer to me to retrieve the ball. I hid behind the hinge of the door, hoping that once the two zombies opened the door, they would not notice me. 

The door creaked open and Colman took a step in, bouncing his dodgeball on the floor like how he would dribble a basketball. He swept his long fringe to the side and looked at the rows and rows of fridges lined along the walls of the food storage room. 

And then I struck like lightning.

I whipped the hand holding the metal pole out quickly, slicing it through the air and letting it land perfectly on his stomach. He clutched his stomach and winced in pain, glancing up to see who his attacker was. But I had gone.

Colin didn't even have time to react as I made him trip, letting him fall to the floor with a thud, his baseball bat sliding across the floor. I grabbed that and ran out of the canteen, heading towards the second floor staircase when I encountered Katie.

"Zombie?" I asked her monotonously. She didn't answer.

She lashed out with her foot to hit me in the side of my stomach. I grabbed her foot in midair and made her hop around on one foot, holding the other in my hand. She looked at me in anger and lauched her right fist towards my face.

Now I had her fist, too.

She screamed and demanded for me to let her go. And then she snatched the baseball bat out of my hand when I was unaware, pinning me to the wall as she held the baseball bat horizontally against my neck. I used the long end of my metal pole to poke at her stomach, forcing her to take a few steps back and to stop pinnig me against the wall, "Don't do this, Katie."

"Oh, but I have to," she replied, shouting as she ran towards me, her baseball bat primed to hit my left ear - WHAM. A high-pitched white noise and a muffle of sounds was all I could hear. I saw stars in front of my eyes. My ear could have been broken or disabled and I wouldn't know. Just when I was about to get up - RIING!

Physical Education was over.

We all gathered at the gym once more, the girls crying on one another's shoulders and the guys wincing manly cries of pain. I dropped both the metal pole and baseball bat on the floor and put a hand on my left ear, shaking it up and down in a desperate attempt to get that irritating whining white noise out of my ear.

Katie glanced at me and glanced away. "I see your boyfriend isn't doing to well, eh?" I whispered in her ear as I walked past her, noticing the apparent pain Colman was experiencing in his abdomen. I told you that Zombie Chase Day would break friendships and ruin relationships.