Infectious

The Herd

I am stunned.

"How am I supposed to not tell Griffith about this!" I hiss through gritted teeth.

"Because, it's not your place to say anything," she answers, her head shaking with attitude.

"Neither was it my place to know what was going on, but look what happened there," I retort.

"True," she purses her lips.

"You sound like the fifteen-year-old queen bee's at my school," I scoff.

"I'm sorry, I- I know," she excuses herself, "I just don't want Griffith to hate me," she explains.

I think for a minute then finally nod, "fine," I say and she gives me a relieved smile.

"But," I put my hand up, "if he finds out just know it's not my fault," I tell her then speed walk out of the kitchen. I reach the dining room and straighten out my flannel shirt. I casually stride in and take my seat. They're all in the midst of a conversation.

"The Breakfast Club is so much better than Pretty in Pink!" My mother exclaims.

"I'd have to disagree, Pretty in Pink is my preference," Mia declares. She picks up her glass of water and gulps it down as Riley gives her a wounded look.

"Nuh-uh, the breakfast club is way better," Riley disagrees. I stare at him bug-eyed and so does everyone else.

"You've seen 'Pretty in Pink' and 'The Breakfast Club' ?", I ask, surprised.

"Don't forget 'Sixteen Candles' !" he says with a proud smile.

"Oh my gosh, I'm in love with a girl," I sigh and everyone chuckles. Riley is at a loss for words as his cheeks turn an embarrassed shade of crimson red.

"In my defence, I had an adopted sister that forced me to watch it!" he argues.

"You're digging yourself a deeper grave, man," Tom tells Riley.

"I'm still... manly," Riley says, straightening up a bit. I roll my eyes at him and stab the broccoli with my fork.

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Tom bursts through the makeshift living room door, panting and sharply inhaling. We all turn to him as we lounge on the couch, reading our page-turning books.

"You've gotta," inhale, "come to the window," exhale. I jump up from the couch, swinging my legs off of Riley's lap, and we all sprint down the hallway. The window is in plain view and it gets larger as we approach it, adrenaline pumping, foreheads sweating. I skid to a stop in front of the immense window and see what's wrong. A group, no, a herd of corpses are leaning against the rickety doors. Their weight could get the doors to give away. Shit.

"I'm going to investigate, who's coming?" I ask.

"I'll tag along", Jeffry offers.

"Thank you so much Wallace," my mother praises. Right, Wallace slash Jeffry still hasn't gotten around to letting out the fact that he's not actually who he says he is. I called him Jeffry a few days ago and my mother started questioning me. I had to tell her that he reminded me of my Wood shop teacher whose name was Jeffrey. I said he let us call him that, to quote on quote makes us feel more 'adult like'. Psh, ya right. That's when the era of secrets and lies was born. Cue in dramatic music. I run down the metal stairs, boots clinking on each step. The hollow echoes the only sound I can hear as I make my way to the doors.

"Can those things climb?" Jeffry asks me.

"We'll find out, won't we?" I ask uncertainly then open one of the doors. Around thirty corpses spill into the room. Jeffry starts to jump up and down like a mad man, making odd animal noises. They all simultaneously turn his way and start to speed-walk after him. I struggle to close the door again, more corpses fighting back. I hear a squishy noise as I finally get the door shut. Six decapitated fingers lying on the floor. Thats disturbing. Four corpses are astray from the group, all of them snap their heads towards me and start to limp in my direction. Great, one more adventure to add to the list! I whip out my gun and aim at their heads. I kill the first one, then the second, then the thi-. Crap, I'm out of bullets. I sprint towards the stairs and they follow, only mere feet behind me. Finally reaching the stairs, I throw myself towards the highest step. The two corpses trip over their own feet and land at the bottom of the stairs. Slowly but surely, they begin to gradually make their way up the steps, dragging themselves up with their arms. I bounce to my feet and bolt to the kitchen. I fumble in our ammo drawer and finally succeed in placing bullets into my revolver. I sprint back to the stairs and see that the number of corpses has multiplied. Hissing and growling sounds pierce the air. I fire away at their heads and five of the twenty fall limp. More begin to slump over yet I'm not the one shooting, it's Mia. A mass of bodies lies completely still on top of the stairs.

"Thanks," I say out of breath.

"No problem," she says in her usual bubbly way. Gunshots ring from the other side of the building and we both hurry there. There are at least twenty zombies enclosing on everyone else. Mia and I aim our guns and start to shoot them down one at a time from our high advantage point. My friends and family continue to fight off the oncoming numerous corpses as Mia and I do our best to help them.

"There's too many of them!" I exclaim in panic.

"GUYS!" I yell, "MAKE YOUR WAY TO THE STAIRS!". They all do as told and run up the stairs, their feet clattering on the steps. The corpses follow in pursuit and climb on each other to get up the stairs. They hiss and snap and I meet the eyes of one. Oh my gosh, that's Brandon from my second period history class! I stand in stunned silence when I momentarily push away my humanity and shoot him in the skull. He dies, his eyes still glued to mine and I feel a certain guilt.

"RAINE, BEHIND YO-" someone begins to warm me from across the room. I feel a full force impact send me over the railing and I clatter to the concrete first floor. The corpse lands with a thump right beside me and doesn't move. He's dead, I can breathe. I hear a cracking sound and notice that the corpses arm is twisted at a wrong angle but he still gets back up. Crap. I reach for my gun and grab at air. Ugh, shoot me now! The corpse throws itself at me and we tumble along the concrete floor. He pushes me sideways and my skin contacts with the edge of a metal bar. The skin above my eyebrow slices open and a thick, oozing stream of blood gushes out of my forehead like freaking Niagara Falls! I push the corpse off of me and quickly scramble to my feet.

"CATCH!" Griffith shouts, tossing a pistol at me. I catch it mid-air and shoot the corpse. Then, a deathly silence settles over the whole warehouse.

I glance up at Griffith and he meets my eyes for a mere instant, "I owe you one," I tell him. He smiles maliciously. A look of utter disgust spreads itself across my face.

"Ew, get your mind out of the gutter, Griffith," I order. He smirks his devilish smirk and begins to walk away.

"You now me too well!" he calls out. I know I do, which is what scares me.

"Well," I start with a sigh, "do we have anything we can get them outside in?" I ask.

"Ya, there are about a dozen stretchers in the first-aid cabinet," Jeffry offers.

"Okay, let's only use ten," I propose.

"Why?", Tom asks.

"We keep the other two for us, don't want to get them dirty with corpse's blood," I explain, wiping my forehead with the heel of my hand.

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It's been two days since the incident and we've practically burnt all the corpses. There is now a pile of ashes sitting outside, awaiting a gust of wind to scatter them across the scorching hot pavement.

"What are we supposed to do with that!" Mia exclaims.

"Well I've heard that they're a great use of fertilizer!" I joke and she happily laughs.

"You know what we should do?" she asks.

"What?" I ask.

"We should totally have a good, old-fashioned barbecue!" she suggests. I nod in deep thought.

"That'd be fun," I agree.

"How's your head by the way?" she inquires.

"It stings but the skin is slowly sticking back together. My moms stitches helped," I reassure her.

"There's one thing about the barbecue though, we can't really light it inside and outside isn't a very good idea," she points out. We head back inside and I motion for her to follow me. We venture down a series of corridors and finally reach an 'access to rooftop' door. Mia smiles and the echo of feet slapping against the concrete projects itself down the hallway. I spin around and find Griffith full on sprinting in our direction.

"Hello, ladies," he greets after he stops running. Mia giggles and I roll my eyes as he slyly smiles at her. His eyes skim over Mia and linger on me for a minuscule moment that sends shivers up my spine.

"What do you want?" I ask.

"Oh, ya, we were on the walkie-talkies and we landed on frequency four," he begins, "there was a distress call playing over and over again on a loop. They have coordinates and everything. We managed to reach them and get some information. Raine, there are a total of fourteen survivors," he tells me.