"Hi." I say, disgusted by the body seeping puss onto the floor out of bloody bruises and arms going off in angles they shouldn't be. Sick comes into my mouth, only just being stopped by my lips. I swallow. "So...what's happened here then?" I ask.
"Not much." says Lauren.
"Why the...hockey sticks?" I ask.
"For killing miss." says Fifi.
"Oh." I say.
"She attacked us," says Bella, "we didn't just kill her. She went crazy and..."
"She was a zombie." interrupts Lauren.
"We don't know that." responds Fifi. Clearly they disagreed.
"We believe you. Sir just did the same. He went berserk." says Sam. We just stand for a second. "So, where do we go from here?" he asks, "Are these isolated events?"
"We don't know." says Bella.
"Oh yes we do." says Lauren.
"What?" asked Bella.
Lauren stands by the exit to the changing room. We close in and look out. To the right, on the path leading away from the sports facilities stand three teachers. There are two women and a man. I recognise the man.
"Isn't that your tutor?" asks Lauren quietly. I nod. He stands with a slouch. He is also very still, standing in the same position as the women. "When do we admit they are zombies?" she asks.
"I'm beginning to lean that way." I say. "So what do we do? Are we gonna leave or get help?"
"Well, all the teachers we've seen so far are zombified so..." starts Caolan.
"Oh my god." says Fifi, "That's...Ethan." I look. There was something I hadn't noticed before. The body laying at their feet. I must have blocked it out as the corpse was almost unrecognisable. His chest was ripped open, organs on display. There was so much blood that the entire path around them was streaked red with blood. One arm lay unattached from the body but that didn't stop the face from being the very same that sometimes managed to get so much on my nerves. This time I can't stop myself. I throw up onto the floor.
"So in a group they are dangerous." says James, "What do we do now..."
"Hello." says a voice from the other side of the room. We all turn to see several girls cowering in the corner of the room.
"Oh, hey, we...didn't see you there." James says. We turn back to each other. "Where was I, which way should we go?"
"Er, hey. Why are you planning? We'll go this way." says the girl again, pointing to the door leading into the main building.
"Because there could be even more people than those three." says James.
"Well I'm going." she says. She stands and so does the rest of the girls sitting there. "See you." she says. They begin to walk off.
"No come back." I say. "We have to stay together."
"Nah, we'll find some teachers..." she replies as she leaves with the girls.
"That's my worry." I murmur. I sit on one of the benches.
"So, do we fight our way out?" asks James. "That's what I was trying to ask." By now my head is in my hands. It's all too much. We are now alone. The seven of us. I breathe in and look up.
"Right," I say, "I think we have two choices. One, we run. Pros, we aren't starting anything. Cons, there may be more. Two, we fight with some kind of weapons. Pros, I think we can take them. Cons. Well. I can't think of any. So, I think we fight."
"With what?" asks Caolan. I step to the door and point left.
"Sports equipment." I say. He nods. "Good?" I ask. No one disagrees. "Let's go then."
We step out of the changing room into the outdoors, facing the three G pitch and turn left, keeping our eyes partially behind us, making sure we weren't seen. We walked past the locked fire door going back into the sports hall. We reach the containers that look like classic grey shipping containers. Inside are every sports bat, club or ball you can imagine. Straight away, Lauren grabs a javelin. She steps out and spins it. "Nice." she says. James grabs a cricket bat and grips it tightly. Caolan picks up a rounders bases stick. I wonder why he chooses it instead of a javelin, but, it was his choice. Fifi stays with her hockey stick, and Sam takes Lauren's, putting on a hockey mask that sits alone at the back of the container. Bella picks up a javelin like Lauren, but also gets a second.
"For throwing." she says, seeing the look on my face. I look into the room. What will I choose? There aren't many other things but when I see what I'm going to pick, I smile. I step out of the container to everyone else, holding two rounders bats.
"I look like Kick-Ass with these." I say. Lauren shakes her head. Ignoring her, I ask, "Ready." All nods. We turn to the zombies (which in my head they are now) and run. The sudden movement of us causes the ex-teachers to look up. They don't move for a second and Bella throws one of her javelins. It hits one of the women in the leg and the woman trips. As we clash, I swing my bats. One hits the other woman's shoulder but the other lands hard on the face of the teacher who had been my tutor for four years. His jaw crunches and blood sprays onto the side of my face. I back up and he steps to me. Then, all of a sudden a sharp point shot out of his stomach like a xenomorph then got pulled back. He fell to his knees and I swing my right bat onto his neck. He crumples. Lauren stands behind him, a bloody javelin in her hand. She swings it in the air, the blood flying off onto the wall to her side. A gory line now sprayed on the wall. The woman with the injured leg is soon smote and lays dead on the floor. James' cricket bat now bloody. The other woman turns, unaffected by my shoulder hit. Caolan moves in and swipes down with his rounders post. Sam and Fifi hook her with their bats and pull her back onto Bella's javelin. They are all dead. How did we go from PE to murder? I'd expect us to be traumatised, but it didn't feel like killing a person. It felt no different from punching a punching bag. You don't feel guilty. "Wow." I say. But then I see the disfigured corpse of my friend on the floor. Ethan. I realise I had my dark blue PE trainers in his blood. If I hadn't emptied my guts earlier, I would have thrown up into his blood. I step back and step into the boys changing room. I walk to my clothes and quickly pull on my trousers and grab my keys. I look to the floor and see the Banksy panda case on the floor. I flip it with my foot and look at my phones screen. A message had popped up.
MUM:
I HAVE MACIE. SHE IS SAFE. YOU ARE NOT. PLEASE BE CAREFUL. I LOVE YOU. THEY ARE BASICALLY ZOMBIES. DEFEND YOURSELF IN ANY WAY. IT'S BEEN ON THE NEWS THAT...
The rest of the message didn't fit in the pop up and I didn't dare touch the screen that was covered partially in sirs, clearly diseased, blood. I walk backwards and get back to my friends. "What now?" I ask.
