Undead School

Chapter Four: Welcome to the Apocalypse

 When morning came and everyone awoke to Will's 5:30 AM alarm, the gym was full of groans and noises of people who did not want to get up.

I moved stiffly to the gym light and turned it on, much to everyone's annoyance. Drake immediately greeted me and handed me the gun, telling me I dropped it and he grabbed it when he got back from his watch.

I finally relaxed a little and helped Rae who was already off of her watch and preparing breakfast for the morning. With the backpacks we had gathered, we figured we had about two days of food left after last night's dinner.

The rationing was done based off of us getting used to eating less to conserve food over time. Today's breakfast was quite a bit smaller than last night's dinner, but it filled everyone up just enough that there were plenty of eager workers when they were finished.

Will handed out water bottles as well as 'refill' slips to keep people from taking more than their share of water. The morning's activities included a meeting about what they were going to do today, as well as having people volunteer for the journey to the art room at the opposite end of the school.

Drake said that he had something else to do with Will so he could not go, so that left the girls and Jason, who was still in his tent. My mind flashed to the previous night again and I turned bright red.

Carmen knew that something emotional was up, while Rae felt my forehead. Carmen then offered herself to the art room mission and looked around for a while hoping someone would offer to go with her.

I knew that I couldn't go, if I did I probably wasn't going to find time to look for Evan, and nothing was going to keep me from that, no matter what.

To everyone's surprise, Jason exited his tent and said that he was going, and no one was going to stop him. I stood waiting for someone to say something, refusing to lose and meet his eye. Not after what already happened.

Drake nodded and looked to me for approval. For a second I was questioning why it mattered what I thought and then remembered that I was the leader, a hard position for me to get used to.

Everyone split up and I watched Will and Drake head over to the water filter, discussing something. On the other side of the gym, Jason and Carmen armed themselves and head out together in hopes of bringing back wood scrap and the kiln.

Rae I stood together without much to do and I tried to think of something that would get her to leave. She could fetch water, that would work, but I knew something that would work even better.

"Why don't you go ask your boyfriend if there is anything that you can do to help with the water." I smiled at Rae as she turned bright red and ran away. I questioned whether I should have sent her to get water instead, but I knew we had enough for the rest of the day at least before we needed to start making trips again.

I looked around and snuck out into the hallway. No one had been paying any attention to me, so I knew it was safe for me to grab a baseball bat and sneak back up into the zombie covered school.

I was not particularly excited about the dangerous return, but there was no other way for me to find my brother. I couldn't just sit around and wait for him to come to me, I had to do something about it.

Once I was at the top of the ramp, I realized just how bad everything had gotten. Zombies were everywhere, and I could see fresh corpses that marked the path to the art room pretty well. I turned and moved up the next ramp to the rest of the school.

There was considerably less zombies up the stairs, but the few I did knock down got back up a few times before they dropped for good. I blamed my long night for my lack of strength, but I pressed onwards anyways and began searching abandoned classrooms for where my brother could be hiding.