The End of Days

Part 1

Liam halted before the restrooms of the C hall, crimson covered shoes slowing on the tile. He knew he should have kept running; everyone else had ran. The shouting behind the door grew louder, "Help! Someone f-..get me the hell out of here!"

Liam was 17. He was a guy who lived with his parents and spoke mediocre spanish from the classes he took just for the easy grade. He messed around with friends in the cafeteria and went to school games, even played in some of them.

He was a kid. A kid who played at being a man. A kid with a knife in his hand but still a kid. He wasn't a hero and this wasn't his job so why wasn't he running?

His thoughts scrambled in the seconds it had taken him to stop. The struggle grew louder and it was as though a sense of urgency waved over him. There was no guarantee he would make it out of this building. He could turn one wrong corner and be food for the..what were they? Zombies? Thats what this was?

He steeled himself, jaw aching where it clenched. He checked his surrounds before stepping close, weapon ready. He couldnt leave. That thought was the only assurance he needed. "Im coming!"

It was moments later and the blade in his hands now dripped with blood, his hand shaking.

Liam could see the body on the ground before him but he refused to meet it with his eyes. He couldn't. He knew the jumpsuit anywhere and the stocky tall frame. The school janitor, real nice. Everyone liked him, Liam did too. What was his name? Did it matter now? Nah, he'd just rammed a knife into his skull.

"Dude, that was..I mean, thank you, seriously. That was sick!"

Liam agreed with the energetic ginger, it was sick. Although the guy spoke with such enthusiasm, he found it hard to bite back his disgust.

He knew the kid. Not well but Liam knew enough that the janitor would lend him a few bucks some mornings for breakfast when he couldn't afford to eat. Now the man lay dead at their feet, bleeding onto those white sneakers that never shut up every time the guy came around and he just didn't care.

"I killed him." Liam said. The ginger stared. He pointed to the previously animated and cannibalistic man that no longer lived, repeating himself, "I killed him."

The guy; Cameron he believed his name was, he was always talking. Everywhere he went, even in the wake of all this horror all he did was talk. But he went silent. He stayed that way as Liam vomited and as they snuck their way through the school and as they got into their car and began to drive. He was silent and Liam couldn't have been more glad.

"Where are we going? What do we do?" Cameron asked, tapping his feet in the passengers seat. Liam had no plans or clues. The world that rushed by through the window seemed so calm. The further they got from the school, the more everyday life began to appear. Walking dogs and people mowing lawns and not a monsterous corpse in sight. No one was dead, it was unbelievable.

"My dads a cop, my moms a doctor. I need to call them." They could both be dead. Everyone he knew could be and all he'd have left in the world was the company of some annoying, insensitive squeaky heeled boy. "What about you?"

They pulled up some time later to an elementary school, the parking lot deserted despite being the middle of the school day. Not even staff cars filled the spots and something about the motionlessness looked even more haunting given all that had happened over the last hour.

Jack, his friends, Carlos who was probably dead now. He hadnt even had time to think about it. He was supposed to go back. He was supposed to help Avery and he got distracted and then they left. Liam hoped she'd found him in time and gotten out okay.