ContamiNation

Meeting

Carris

Phil pulled the van over on a side street in front of the school in someone's yard.

"Ok are we all going in or...?" I let my question hover unfinished.

Chris answered instead. "Phil, you stay with the van don't let anyone get to it, dead or alive. Giev, Carris, you're coming with me. We're breaking into the school and then one of us will hold the door while the other goes for Phil. Whoever's left will start breaking into places for stuff, starting with the Dollarama. Get as many empty things as you can to fill with water."

Phil turned in his seat. "Well, get going you guys. I'm going to look for spray paint to keep this car from looking like a police vehicle."

Chris, Giev, and I hopped out of the car.

During the ride Chris took off his yellow ribbon and asked for my pen. He wrote his name and a little cheep drawing of a dick on the end of it before handing both back to me. I thanked him but before I could get the pen back Giev snatched it and took off his own ribbon (it was hidden under his shirt, he had wrapped it around his neck), doing the same, and handing both to me again.

I now had red, purple, yellow, and orange ribbons. Not daring to read what Giev wrote I tied them on my arm and covered them with my sweater sleeve, all without looking at Giev.

We made it to the doors just to find them locked. We walked around the school looking for any open doors. Chris wanted to 'bust out' a window to get in but if we wanted to use it as our safety then we had to keep it undamaged.

We did find a single window open that I could—maybe, just about—fit through.

I argued, "Come on guys, there has to be another way in."

"Unless you rather let me break a window, you're getting in this way." Chris laughed.

"Come on guys." I turned to look a Giev for the first time. His dirty blond hair plastered to his forehead. He stood at least two heads taller than me. "Gee?"

I heard a noise coming from the right and spun so fast that I couldn't see anything for a second.

Not 20 feet away stood my best friend, "Diamma?"

"Hey," She smiled at me, "whatcha doing here you psycho?"

"I could ask you the same thing. I didn't know where you were and the evac and—" I took an unsteady breath.

Diamma ran up to me crushing me. "Carris," she whispered.

I could laugh. "Last name, really?"

She pulled away, "It's the zombie apocalypse. Nobody uses real names anymore."

"Carris is my real name, dumbass."

"Oh, 'Dumbass', sharp."

I coughed out a dry laugh. "So I'm guessing you're the reason we can't get into the school without breaking something?"

Her eye widened. "You didn't break anything did you?"

"No."

Chris interrupted us. "Ok, girls, we need to get in here so..."

Diamma floundered, "Right, right." My friend pulled out a ton of keys and key rings from her pockets, handing them to me. "Here, open the door and hold it open. You, boys, help me carry these in." She gestured to the pile of stuff on a kid's wagon.

We moved the things inside and started filling up buckets, bottles, and anything else. Charging anything electrical, and started cooking up the food from the cafeteria, eating anything that couldn't be saved.

There being five of us now made the next part easier.

Phil drove the van into a shed locking all the doors and taking the most important things, leaving the van as a getaway car.

Giev was on store robbing. He hit every store in the area and any apartments above them.

Chris and Diamma partnered up to board up and close up the school; making it a fortress. They were good together, they made a efficient team.

My job was the same as Giev. I liked that we were the only ones doing it. Knowing the others, they'd trash the houses. I'd do it too, but if someone wants—if a survivor needs a place to hole up in, I wanted it to work. So, I turned over the house looking for anything, filling up the bathtub and bottles, taking all the food, but I put the house back the way it was in the end.

I knew Giev was doing the same. He was nice, sweet, he had too much empathy to trash the place and he was careful too. 

I picked up another jug sliding it up the water just at the last one filled up. Screwing the bottle closed I added it to my bag. Soon it'd be too heavy to carry. I'd gotten complacent in the last few months—stopped working out. I could barely—no, I couldn't—even lift my own body weight over a fence. My arms had turned into little weak noodles. I hated myself for that.

For a few months I worked out with Diamma during and after school. At lunch we'd take our stuff and run the track in the back. Five times around, running; twenty squats with our bags; and alternating between pushups, sit-ups, those squats (this time without bags), lunges, and more stuff I couldn't even begin to name. Diamma had a system and an order but I could never figure out what it was. But as soon as track and field started I stopped going out with her to her daily workouts. Worst mistake of my life, to quit working out and then suddenly be thrust into an apocalypse, nay a Zombie apocalypse without training. I wondered if Diamma still would do her workouts and if I could join her.

I nearly overfilled the jug. I moved it and replaced it with a bucket then ducked under the sink. I pulled out the drain and put a few pool noodles in there spanning to different large buckets. I've done that at almost every house to collect more water.

Shouldering my heavy, full and soaked bag I slowly made my way back to the school.

~~~~~

"Food," A growl sounded from behind me. I swallowed and didn't look back. "Food, food, food," the growl repeated, getting less and less human with every word. I forced myself to turn around.

An infected—a zombie, stood just over a car's length away from me. Saliva and what could be blood dripped from the gaping hole that had once been a human mouth. Lips chewed to the gums, cheeks so thin that every tongue movement, every jaw movement showed through the skin. Arms bitten up, not enough that there was no ability to move but enough that every tendon strain showed its red-pinkness squeezing through the incisions made by teeth. The worst of it all was the face, besides the lack of skin around the mouth. Every inch that still had skin was peeling and burned, hair healing into the open wounds.

I gagged. I couldn't breathe, it must hurt so much. "Are you okay?" I asked. Of all this things I imagined for the disease I never imagined this. "Do you need help?"

The infected person limped over to me, groaning. She was barefoot.

"I didn't know...what do you need?" I took a few steps back.

She lunged at me. I might've screamed but I didn't know. My bag was too heavy and when I went to spin out of the way she latched on ripping the fabric.

She screeched "FOOD!"

I undid the backpack straps and rolled out from under her. "I don't have any food, just water." I shook so hard.

She screamed, I didn't think she could hear me. I scooted backwards, carefully, and tried to put some distance between us so I could run. The infected woman had rope burns around her wrists. Had she tied herself up in the hopes that someone would rescue her and help her? Or was she held captive?

She screamed again and looked at me, hungry. My breath caught as I scooted right into a car. The infected jumped again, sitting on my legs she leaned in, her mouth open.

Realizing I had arms and hands I thrust my thumbs into her eyes and pushed, hooking them in. She screamed again, I wouldn't hear anything else for a long while after that. Pulling away I let her cover her eyes with her hands then shoot out my fist, punching her directly into the throat. As she tried to regain the ability to breathe I shoved her off me.

I didn't look back as I ran in the general direction of the school.