Chapter One
A Rude Awakening
When I wake up, I'm dizzy. I look around. The walls around me are so white, my eyes burn. I'm lying on the floor in the girls' bathroom on the third floor. There's a thick red liquid oozing down the tiles of the walls. Blood. I remember exactly what got me here. The undead clawing at my ankles. Being dragged into their pack, my friends never even giving me a second thought. I can't blame them. At times like these, none of us have time to be a hero. All I can hope for now is to find my way back to them, wherever that might be.
I also remember hitting my head. I reach around to the back of my skull, tenderly feeling around. I feel no more blood. Only...a bandage?
"You're awake!"
I whip my head around, and feel the slightest bit of joy from the sight that meets my eyes. I hadn't been happy since this epidemic began.
"Katie! You're alive!" I could hardly believe it.
"Well, duh. The real amazement is that you are!"
"Boy, are you a sight for sore eyes. What happened to you? What happened to me?"
"Me? There was separation from the group, zombie trouble, lots of confusion and even more fighting my way through hordes of the undead. Then I was on my way out when I saw this herd of brutes trying to get into the bathroom, and I figured I'd stop by and check it out. You've been unconscious for about 6 days now."
"6 days? Holy... wait. What did you say? You came toward the crowd of zombies? Why would you even bother? You risked your life just to see what was up?"
"Well, either every zombie around had to use the crapper, or there was another survivor in here. Oh, I almost forgot! Here, you must be starving. I got this from the cafeteria." She hands me some packaged apple slices, two tacos, and a Gatorade.
I smile and eat the food ravenously. Good old Katie. I imagine her slashing her way through a crowd of zombies like an explorer slashes through vines in the jungle. I remember her having that kind of upbeat, fearlessness about her since the first attack devastated us.
What else do I remember?
I remember being seconds away from freedom. My friends and I fleeing from the school after the zombie attack had begun. I remember having my feet pulled out from under me, and being dragged back into the dark of the school. Then, I pulled out the knife I had grabbed from the health room on our way out. I knew it would come in handy eventually. The crawling corpse who took hold of my ankles? I'd stabbed at it blindly, and luckily my blade went right through the temple of its forehead, through its thin, deteriorating skull, and into its brain- or at least what was left of it. Its grip loosened enough for me to break free. I retracted my knife and stood up. Evaluating the situation, most of the zombies had passed me already, chasing after my friends. Only a few remained here with me. I looked to my left: zombies galore. To my right there were far less of them.
I turned to the few zombies on my right and charged the closest one, planning to cut its head clean off with one swift movement of my knife. Instead, the knife was lodged in its neck while I kept going. Only a few more stood in my way, and I dodged them the best I could.
I kept running- no- sprinting down that hallway. I flew up the stairs, stopping only when I couldn't go any further, finding myself on the third floor. I had no time to stop and catch my breath. I turned the corner and kept running, past Mr. Batzner's room, past Mrs. Rortvedt's room, toward the balcony. No sooner than when I got there did a flood of zombies burst through the door, coming from the staircase I had been trying to reach.
Forget that. I turned around and sprinted the other way. Unfortunately, the undead that were on my heels before caught up with me, so I found myself sandwiched between two crowds of living carcasses. I dove into the nearest shelter- the girls' bathroom. I ran over to the window on the other side of the bathroom. Thinking on my feet, I used my elbow to break the glass. That didn't feel too good. Outside, there was no hope for escape- only a rooftop surrounded by walls at least seven feet high. Oh, well. I picked up a large piece of glass from the floor. Yielding my knife in one hand and my glass in the other, I turned and braced myself for what was about to come.
The undead flooded in, toppling over each other, desperate for my flesh, brains, and racing heart. The first one to reach me took a knife wound to the head, throat, and face in less than three seconds. The next four took stabs to the face. As they fell, I started advancing forward, trying to progress to the doorway. The next few corpses took multiple stabs to the head, throat, and chest. Most did not die; they only fell to the ground and shook violently. Getting comfortable with my weapons, I decided to stab the next miserable pale-skinned barbarian with both of them. I stuck my knife into the right side of his neck and my glass into the left, the blades meeting in the middle. Not to be vulgar, but let's just say he turned into a life-size bobble-head after that encounter.
Doing so well with my weapons made me confident. I was in the zone, stabbing two at a time, using my blades nonstop.
Maybe I got a little too comfortable.
Catching me off guard, with only a few zombies left to slay, a crawler behind me- which had apparently chosen to come back to life a second time- grabbed my leg. I turned around, losing my balance. I fell back, hitting my head. I could feel my hair soaking up wetness. I fell into the window I'd broken, slicing my head on the shards. I was lying in a pool of my own blood. Going in and out of consciousness, I got in one last good stab at the one who'd grabbed my leg. I felt its head drop onto my stomach, its body limp. Repulsed, I pushed it off me, and everything went dark. I heard a sound- almost like another voice- one of a living human. I was probably just hallucinating.
