Dismemberment - Book One: The World We Once Knew

Chapter 8: Reagan High

Earl and Floyd awoke in the afternoon to an empty bar. There was no more banging on the door, and the keg was still in its spot. “Get up, Floyd. Time to go get that bus. What time is it?” Earl asked. Floyd looked at his digital watch. “2 pm,” Floyd replied. Earl shot up. "It's 2?! We slept for sixteen hours?" Earl exclaimed. "We need to get moving!" The two men quickly gathered their supplies and moved the keg out from in front of the door. “Let’s just pray to God above that there aren’t too many zeds at the school. Otherwise, this shit will be harder than it needs to be,” Earl said, cocking his shotgun.
    The two slowly stepped out of the Irish pub and observed their surroundings. Other than the bodies of the zombies that Floyd shot the night before, the street was empty. Earl pulled out a map of Northwood and pointed to the shopping district. “Judgin’ by the restaurants and clothing stores in front of us, we are currently here. The school is about two and a half hours away on foot. If we still had the truck, we could have been there in no more than ten minutes. Thanks again for that, you fucking ingrate,” Earl said while punching Floyd’s arm. Earl put away the map and slinged his gun over his shoulder. “Let’s get walking. We’ve wasted enough time already.” Floyd nods in agreement, and the two men head down the street.

     Meanwhile, at the school, the fire alarm is going off. Samuel and Lana look to the speakers that are blaring and waste no time trying to look for the speaker system’s controls. “We gotta disable those speakers. They’re going to attract every zed within school limits to swarm our asses!” Sam exclaimed. The two frantically searched every room for an off switch to the speakers. They eventually got to the principal’s office, which was locked. “It’s gotta be in there,” Lana said. Samuel got a bobby pin out of his bag and attempted to pick the lock. Just when he thought he had it, the pin broke. “Son of a bitch!” Sam exclaimed in frustration. “If we can’t pick the lock, we gotta break the door down,” Samuel said. Samuel looked around the room and tried to look for anything heavy enough to use. He eventually saw a metal stool. “It’ll have to do,” he said. Samuel picked up the stool and turned to the door. Lana looked out a window and saw many pairs of bloody hands banging on the glass. “Uh, Sam? I think they found us! Hurry the fuck up!” Lana screamed. Samuel brought down the stool as hard as he could on the doorknob. When the first blow didn’t work, he brought it down again. After repeating this six more times, the doorknob finally broke off. Sam cast the now bent stool aside and kicked down the door.
    The two entered the principal’s office to find a zombified principal hanging from a noose. Suspended in the air, the principal extended his arms out towards Sam and Lana. “Poor bastard,” Samuel said, pulling out his screwdriver. “Look at the bite on his face. That’ll do the job.” Samuel climbed onto the desk to get on the zombie’s level. “Sorry about this, Principal Meyers,” Samuel said as he plunged his screwdriver into his former principal’s eye. The zombie went limp, and Sam pulled the weapon out of the eye. Blood trickled from the wound onto the floor. “Look on his computer for the controls,” he ordered. Lana sat down onto the chair and looked through the files on the computer. “Found it. Bellsystemparameters.exe,” she said, clicking on the program. “And, alarm disabled.” Lana pressed down on the enter key. A wave of silence swept over the school. All that could be heard was the undead banging on the windows.
Samuel sighed in relief. “We did it,” he said, sitting down on the floor. Lana stood up and leaned on the wall. “No survivors in the main office. What now? Should we go back?” Lana asked. Samuel shook his head. “Not yet. Let me rest a bit,” he said, pulling a water bottle out of his bag and taking a drink. “You know, I had a sister. Her name was Elise.” Lana looked at Sam with a sympathetic glance. “Was?” she asked. A tear rolled down Sam’s cheek. “Yeah. She died yesterday. We were running and running. She tripped, and one of those fucking things grabbed her. Before Monique and I could pull her away, she got bitten on the leg. We took her to a safe place. I said I would be able to put her out of her misery, but when the time came, I couldn’t.” Samuel began to cry harder. “Monique did it for me. She just kept whacking her across the face with that fucking folding chair of hers. The worst part is that I know Elise suffered. There was nothing I could do.” Lana ran over to Samuel and wrapped him in a hug. Samuel hugged back. “I’ve been such an asshole to everyone around me. After that, I think it was my way of coping with the loss.” Lana hugged him tighter. “It’s okay,” she said. “You don’t have to bring this pain back up anymore,” Lana said. The two stood back up. “Th-thank you, Lana. You’re a good friend,” Samuel said. Lana smiled and playfully punched his arm. “Let’s get back to the others,” she said, chuckling.