Dismemberment - Book One: The World We Once Knew

Chapter 5: Detention

That very night, Samuel roamed the hallways of his now defunct school, brooding to himself. “Crazy asshole. Won’t be surprised when he inevitably gets himself eaten…” he mumbled to himself. Sam looked down toward the floor as he walked. What were once clean and shiny tiles were now stained with the blood of the students who attended the school. Samuel tried to push that thought out of his head, to no avail.
As he thought about his current situation, he suddenly heard a scream from one of the rooms he had just passed. The scream was loud and had a frightened and desperate tone to it. Samuel quickly turned around. He saw that the scream’s source was behind the door labeled “Detention Room.” He tried to turn the handle, but the door was locked. As the screaming continued, Sam began to panic more. He finally gave up on the handle and began to use force. He kicked at the door three times before he noticed that the wood started to splinter. He gave the door one more hard kick.
The lock on the door broke as the door flew open. Samuel ran inside the room to find a girl trying to fend off a zombie. The girl saw Samuel in the doorway and screamed for his help. Sam rushed over to assist her. He pulled the former teacher off of the girl and drove his screwdriver into the skull of the zombie. The corpse promptly dropped its arms and went limp. “Are you okay? Did he bite you?” Sam asked the girl. “No… I’m fine,” the girl mumbled with an Irish accent. “Thanks for that…”
Samuel turned his attention from the now dead zombie to the girl he had just saved. She wore ripped up jeans and a leather jacket. Her pale skin was at a stark contrast to her auburn hair, running down her back. Samuel noticed that she did not seem to have a weapon on her. “Why don’t you have anything to defend yourself with?” he inclined. The girl raised her eyebrow in confusion. “Uh, because this is a school? Why would I? It’s not like I planned for this sort of thing this morning,” she said sarcastically. Samuel chuckled to himself. “Yeah, no one did…” he said softly. “You got a name?” The girl moved her hair out from in front of her face. “Yeah. The name’s Lana,” she said. Samuel put away his screwdriver into the pocket of his jeans. “I’m Samuel. If you come with me, I’ll take you somewhere safe. Safer than here, at least.” The girl took a step back. “And just why in the hell should I trust you?” she asked. Samuel nodded and turned toward the door. “Would you rather stay here and get eaten by those things? Didn’t think so. Let’s go,” he bluntly stated. Samuel exited the room, with Lana closely following him.
The two walked down the hallway. “So what’s your story?” Samuel asked Lana. “Why do you care? I’m just a student here. The end,” she told him rudely. “Chill the fuck out. I’m just trying to make conversation. Jesus…” Samuel angrily said. Lana sighed before turning her head toward Samuel. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean it like that. I just don’t like talking about my personal life. Let’s just say I’ve been through some shit,” she stated, adjusting her jacket. Samuel turned to her. “Oh yeah? Join the fucking club. You aren’t the only one with problems, bitch. Just sixteen hours ago, I lost my sister. Don’t complain about your problems for a fucking second to me!” Sam yelled. Lana turned away sheepishly. “I-i’m sorry. I had no idea,” she mumbled. Samuel sighed, releasing the rest of his pent-up anger. “It’s alright. Just remember for next time not to be so damn rude to the people trying to help you, ok?” Lana nodded. She genuinely felt bad for Samuel.
As the two walked the halls in silence, they looked through a window to find that the sun was peeking up over the mountains. “It’s almost morning,” Samuel mumbled. “Let’s get to where my people are.” Lana nodded, before being pushed into the janitor’s closet by Samuel. “What the fu-” she exclaimed, before getting her mouth covered by Sam’s hand. “Shut up. They’ll hear us,” he told her. “The freaks are attracted to noise. Your screaming will draw them right to us.” Lana calmed down. “So what are we going to do about them?” she whispered. Samuel removed his book bag and pulled out fireworks and a lighter. “We’ll distract them, then sneak past,” he quietly told her.
Samuel slowly opened the door to observe the halls. He saw a large group of zombies at the end of the hallway, where he was supposed to go. He turned towards the opposite end of the hallway, lit the fireworks, and threw them as hard as he can. He quickly shut the door. As the two heard the fireworks going off, they listened to many footsteps slowly moving past them. When the steps sounded far enough away, Sam quietly opened the door once more. “Let’s go,” he told Lana. She nodded in agreement.
Samuel and Lana, while crouched down low, slowly made their way down the hallway. Lana turned back to see the crowd swarming around the fireworks like bees to flowers. “Ugh… those fucking things creep me out,” she thought to herself. When the two rounded the corner, they promptly stood up and ran. “My people are close by. They took refuge in the teacher’s lounge,” he told Lana. “They’re annoying as shit, but it beats the hell out of being alone with these braindead freaks.” The two slowed down when they saw the door to the teacher’s lounge. Samuel hesitated when he reached for the doorknob. “Here we go…” he said under his breath.
When he opened the door, he saw Ben, Cait, and Monique sitting around a table playing cards. When Cait saw Samuel in the doorway, she leaped up out of her chair and walked towards him, fists clenched. “Where the fuck were you?” Cait exclaimed. “We were all worried sick!” Samuel rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure…” he muttered sarcastically. Lana stepped through the doorway. Samuel looked toward her. “Guys, this is Lana. She’s gonna be rolling with us from here on out,” he said. Lana waved at the group before sitting down on the stained couch. Monique waved at Lana, before returning to the card game. “Hey,” Ben said to her. Cait walked up and shook her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Lana. The more the merrier,” she said.
Cait turned her back to Lana, and pulled the map of the school out of her back pocket. “Alright, people. We have all the minor classrooms covered. The only places we haven’t swept through are the auditorium, the cafeteria, and the main office. After we pick up any remaining survivors, we get out of this hell hole,” she informed the other survivors. Lana raised her hand. “Yeah, I have a question. How do you plan on doing that?” she inquired. “The buses are still stationed in the parking lot, aren’t they? We’ll use one of them,” Cait replied. Monique shifted in her chair, feeling uneasy. “Uh, yeah, about that… The parking lot is swarmed with the zeds,” she said, pointing to the only window in the room. “See for yourself.”
Everyone else in the room rushed over to the window, to find that Monique was, in fact, correct. There were hundreds upon hundreds of zombies in the parking lot. The buses were sitting in the middle of them, and had zombies climbing all over them. Some zeds were students, but many of them were just townspeople. “Jesus Christ…” Ben said to himself. “They’re everywhere.” Cait looked away from the window and back towards the map. “W-We’ll think of something…” she said, trying to remain optimistic. Lana looked back at her. “We’ll think of something? What is there to think about? You have a way to do that? Samuel doesn’t have enough noisemakers to distract all of them!” Lana exclaimed. 
Ben turned back towards the table. “Then we will cross that bridge when we get to it. Let’s worry about this after we get more people on our side,” he told Lana. Ben looked in the drawer under the microwave and found a large kitchen knife. “Looks like we found you a weapon, Lana. Good thing too, because you’re gonna need it,” he told her while handing her the knife. Ben looked back toward the map. “Now let’s see here… Cait and Monique can take the auditorium… Sam and Lana can take the office, if that’s alright with them… so I’ll check the cafeteria.” Ben looked towards the group, who have now split up and joined their partners. They all nodded in agreement to their tasks. “Then I guess it’s settled,” Ben said, taking out his gun. “Good luck to all of you. Here’s hoping we find what we’re all looking for.”