But the blood’s real. The terror. The screams.
And the zombies.
I spot the first of them coming. A boy I don’t recognize. His sweater and shirt are ripped. His stomach has been carved open. Guts ooze from holes as he lurches forward. His eyes are unfocused, his lips caked with blood. He moves stiffly but purposefully.
The undead boy grabs the girl who screamed. Pulls her hair back. Sinks his teeth into her throat. Rips out a strip of flesh and gurgles happily as blood sprays his face.
I’ve seen blood fly in fights, movies and computer games. But never like this. Nothing I’ve ever seen before has prepared me for this.
The spell breaks and pandemonium erupts. Everyone’s screaming at once. People run in circles, crash into one another, fall, thrash around on the ground, lash out with their feet and fists.
More zombies stream into the gym, boys, girls, a couple of teachers. They zone in on the living, hunting like wolves. They have a sweet time of it. In all the mayhem, lots of kids try to rush by them. Easy prey. The zombies just reach out and snatch.
I haven’t moved. I’m watching sickly, numbly studying the undead as they feast on their victims. Some of the kids writhe and curse as they’re bitten, moan and weep and beg for mercy. The zombies don’t care. They tear with their fingers and teeth, bite, claw, rip, chew.
“Stop that!” Stuttering Stan roars. He strides forward, blowing his whistle, trying to wave back the zombies. The fool thinks that he can control this, the same way he can control violence on the pitch.
A zombie boy my age butts Stuttering Stan in the chest. As the teacher falls back, winded, the boy sticks his fingers into the adult’s left eye and pokes it out. As Stuttering Stan screams, the boy gobbles the eye. Then he falls on his victim and digs through the hole where the eye should be, burrowing through to Stuttering Stan’s brain.
“Come on!” Trev shouts, grabbing my arm. “We have to get out of here!”
“What?” I blink.
“They’re gonna kill us, B!”
I look at the zombies and shake my head. “Not all of us. There’s a pattern.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” he barks.
I point. The zombies aren’t killing everyone. As each one enters the gym, he or she cuts or bites a few people, leaving them to yell and flee. Only then does the zombie settle on a target, break their skull and dig into their brain. Once they start to feast, they sit there, gorging, ignorant of everything going on around them.
“There’s a pattern,” I mutter again.
Before I can make sense of it, Trev shouts, “We’re going. You can stay and let them eat you if you want.”
I glance at him and the others in our gang. They’re racing towards the rear left corner of the gym. My senses click—there’s an emergency exit there.
I stare at the carnage, the kids going wild, the zombies tucking in. I was in a daze before this, detached and calm. But now that I focus, I realize I’m dead if I don’t move quickly.
“Sod this!” I moan, then tear after the others as fast as I can.
EIGHTEEN
The gym is situated at the back of the school. There are several buildings behind it, shops and a factory. No direct way through, except for a narrow alley included at the insistence of the local authorities.
Trev’s ducking through a small door when I catch up. The others have gone ahead. He looks back as I rush after him, afraid I’m a zombie. He smiles fleetingly when he recognizes me, then stands aside and lets me pass.
“This way!” he yells, waving his arms over his head.
“What are you doing?” I snap.
“We’ve got to help the rest of them,” he pants.
I study the scores of students fighting with those who’ve been turned into zombies. Lots are trying to escape through the main doors. Some are trying to climb the walls, to get to the skylight windows that lead to the roof, but they’ve no hope—too smooth, too high, no ladders or ropes. Others have collapsed mentally and huddle on the floor, weeping, praying, shaking their heads, hoping the zombies will leave them alone or that they’ll wake up and find out this was just a dream.
“Forget about them,” I tell Trev.
“But we can’t just–”
“If you keep on shouting, you’ll alert the zombies. You want them coming after us?” He stares at me, tears in his eyes. “Best thing we can do is get out and call for help, Trev. It’s their only hope.”
Trev looks around the gym, then curses and shoves through after me.
We’re in a small corridor, me, Trev, Ballydefeck, Suze, La Lips, Elephant, Meths, Linzer, Copper, Stagger Lee, Pox, Dunglop. Tyler’s with us too, and a few others, two black guys, an Indian, three Muslims, a white kid called Rick.
“Where’s Kray?” Trev asks.
“One of them got him,” Suze sobs. “It cracked his head open. I saw it… his brains… it…”
“What the hell’s going on?” the tallest of the black kids roars. “How’d they get in? Where’d they come from? I thought they only came out at night.”
We stare at him in silence. Then I shrug. “We’ll ask questions later. Let’s get out of here before the brain-munching bastards find us.”
We hurry down the corridor. The emergency exit’s at the end. It opens out into the alley that runs between the two buildings behind the school. I’ve been through it a few times during fire drills. Never thought I’d have to do this for real, or that I’d be running from zombies, not a fire.
Ballydefeck gets to the door first. He slams down on the access bar and pushes.
Nothing happens.
“Out of the way,” the tall black guy snaps. He bangs the bar down and shoves hard.
Nothing happens.
“Everyone,” I shout. “Push together.”
We crowd around the door. I get some fingers on the bar. It slides down smoothly when we push but the door doesn’t give, not even a crack.
“Forget the bar,” Trev says. “Focus on the door.”
We strain, silent, red-faced, sweating, shoving with everything we have.
The door doesn’t move.
“It’s jammed shut,” Ballydefeck says.
“Can we cut through?” Tyler asks.
“With what?” Pox yells. He got his nickname because of the spattering of facial scars left behind when he had the chicken pox. The scars aren’t normally very prominent, but now that his face is scrunched up with terror, he looks like a rabid monkey. I almost make a joke out of it, but this isn’t the time to be a wiseass.
“We’re all gonna die,” La Lips wails.
“Shut up,” I tell her. “Trev?” I look to him, hoping he’ll have an answer.
“There’s another exit to the alley on this side of the building, on the floor above,” he says. “Or there’s the front door.”
“Which do you think we should–”
A scream stops me. My head whips around. A small girl is dangling from Pox’s right arm, teeth locked on his flesh, chewing her way down to the bone.
Pox screams again and slams the girl into the wall. She doesn’t let go. He jabs at her face with the fingers of his free hand. In a swift movement she releases him and snaps at his fingers. Catches them and grinds down. Pox screams louder and falls to his knees.
I start towards them but the black kid who beat me to the bar beats me to the girl too. There’s a flick knife in his right hand. He slashes the blade across the girl’s chest. She loses interest in Pox and pushes her attacker away. Looks at the gash in her chest. Gurgles, then throws herself at the teenager with the knife.
He keeps his cool. Ducks the girl’s attack, then jabs the knife at her face. She winces when it strikes. He winces too. I can see horror in his eyes. He’s never done anything like this before. But when the zombie snaps at his fingers, he thrusts the horror away, grits his teeth and digs the knife deeper into her head. She swipes at him, squealing and snapping at his fingers.
“Hold her down!” h
e roars.
Trev and I react quickest and wrestle her to the floor. She snaps at the black kid again but he keeps his fingers clear of her mouth. Drives the knife deep into her head, panting like a dog. Again. Blood flows. Bone splinters. He doesn’t stop. Moments later he’s gouging out chunks of brain, making sobbing noises. The girl shudders, moans, spasms. He keeps it up, face grim, silent now, teeth bared. Finally she stops moving and her eyes go steady in their sockets.
“Is she dead?” Trev asks.
“Yeah,” he croaks, getting up, wiping tears from his cheeks. He’s trembling wildly, his left hand shaking like mad. But his right hand–his knife hand–is steady as the blade itself.
“How can we be sure?” Stagger Lee asks.
“I destroyed her brain,” the black kid grunts.
“That works in movies, but we don’t know for sure that it happens that way in real life,” I note, eyeing the dead girl nervously. “What if she comes back to life and attacks again?”
He laughs edgily. “Then we’re screwed.”
I look up, shocked, then laugh with him. It’s that or go mad.
“How’d you sneak in the knife?” I ask.
“I never leave home without it. Been mugged too many times.”
“If the teachers found it…”
“That lot don’t know how to find their own arseholes.”
My smile spreads. “I’m B,” I tell him.
“Cass.”
“Isn’t that a girl’s name?”
“Short for Cassius. After Muhammad Ali’s real name.”
“Sweet.” I show my knuckles and let him knock them.
“We killed her,” Suze cries.
“We had to,” Cass says, then takes a deep, steadying breath. “We’ve gotta get out of here.”
“But–” Suze says.
“Shut it,” Meths snarls. He’s still holding the ball, which he must have picked up when the game stopped.
“Are you all right?” I ask Pox.
He’s bleeding, shaking like an old geezer with Parkinson’s, even worse than Cass was, but he nods. “I’ll live,” he moans, taking off his sweatshirt and using it to wipe blood from his arm and fingers.
“But as what?” Cass says, blade still extended, pointing now at Pox.
“What do you mean?” Pox frowns.
“We’ve all seen zombie films. You’ve been bitten. If you turn into one of them…”
“I won’t!” Pox squeaks. As Cass glares at him, Pox looks for support. “B? You’re not gonna let him do me, are you?”
I glance at the others but nobody meets my eye, happy to leave the decision to me now that it’s been placed in my hands. Bloody cowards.
“B?” Pox wheezes, real terror in his eyes, fresh tears trickling down his cheeks and gathering in the pockmarks in his flesh. “Are you gonna…?”
“No,” I mutter. “But keep behind the rest of us, all right? And if we think you’re starting to change, we’ll have to cut you loose.”
“But–”
“No time to argue, Pox. Accept the rules or it’s the knife.” I turn to Cass. “What do you reckon—make a break for one of the exits, or find a place to hole up and wait for help to arrive?”
“Nobody helped those buggers in Pallaskenry,” Copper says. “The only ones who made it out alive were those who got out early. The soldiers surrounded the place once they hit the scene and shot anyone who moved, normal people along with the zombies.”
“Run?” Cass asks.
“Run,” I agree.
And we’re off.
NINETEEN
We don’t get very far. This corridor stretches along the side of the gym. We hurry to the end of it and start down the next passageway, off of which lie a series of classrooms. But we’re less than a quarter of the way along when we hear a mob racing towards us, screaming and wailing.
“They must be heading for the exit or the gym,” Stagger Lee says.
“They’ll be on us in a sec,” Copper mutters.
“We have to tell them to go back,” Suze pants.
“Don’t be stupid,” I snarl. “They’re being chased. They won’t stop and listen calmly.”
“We won’t get through them,” Cass says.
“Even if we do, zombies must be right behind,” Copper says.
There’s a door to my left. I open it and glance into a small classroom for younger kids. It’s empty.
“In here,” I decide. “We’ll hide, wait for them to pass, then sneak out.”
“What if the zombies smell us?” Cass asks.
I shrug. “It’s a gamble one way or the other.”
The first few kids of the mob surge into the hallway. Zombies are among them, snapping, tearing, maiming, killing. “In!” I bark and everyone pushes into the room after me, no complaints.
When we’re all inside, I slam the door shut. There’s no key, of course. “We need to barricade it,” I shout, but some of the others are ahead of me. Copper and Ballydefeck arrive seconds later with a desk each, which they prop against the door. More furniture is added to the pile and moments later there’s a mountain of desks and chairs between us and the door.
“Won’t do much good if they come through the windows,” Trev says, nodding at the frosted glass on either side of the door.
“They can’t see us through the glass,” I mutter, stepping back. “And if we keep quiet, they can’t hear us either.”
“What about smell?” Cass asks.
I frown. “What is it with you and zombies smelling us?”
“I’ve seen movies where they can sniff out the living,” he says.
“Well, let’s hope they all had really bad colds when they were turned,” I growl and we all squat quietly.
Screams in the corridor. Sounds of fighting. Someone slams into the glass and it rattles. At first I think it’s a zombie trying to break through, but it must have just been someone crashing into it, because there aren’t any more assaults on the window.
“Please don’t eat me!” I hear a kid beg. “Please don’t eat me! Please don’t–”
A high-pitched shriek. I shut my eyes and feel tears build behind my eyelids. This can’t be happening. Zombies aren’t real. Pallaskenry was a joke. We were so sneery, laughing about it in class, coming up with alternative theories. I must be dreaming. Babies will come crawling over the desks any minute now, calling me their mummy, and I’ll know it’s a nightmare.
But that’s wishful thinking. This is reality. I always know when I’m having a dream. No matter how real it seems at the time, it never feels completely real. This does.
I open my eyes and look around. Everyone’s shaking and either crying or close to it. La Lips is clinging to Copper, weeping as he whispers soothing words in her ear. Linzer’s praying. She’s not the only one—Dunglop, Tyler, Ballydefeck and two of the Muslims are also openly praying. I figure some of the others are too, but privately.
Pox is squatting a couple of feet away from the rest of us, weeping over his wounds, shaking his head, muttering something under his breath. Cass is keeping an eye on him, flick knife open and glinting, ready to leap on Pox at the first sign that he’s turning into a zombie.
“You know the worst thing about this?” Elephant whispers. When a few of us stare at him, he says glumly, “It ruined my comeback.”
I stifle a giggle. “Idiot!” I snort.
“You were crap anyway,” Meths says.
“Was not,” Elephant growls.
“We need a plan,” Trev says, and we look at him expectantly. “We can’t just go charging about the place.”
“So what should we do?” Cass asks.
“Stay here,” Trev says. “Keep our heads down. Wait for the police to find us.”
“But in Pallaskenry–” Copper starts to object.
“This isn’t Pallaskenry,” Trev snaps. “It’s a school. They’re not going to stand by and let soldiers kill a load of kids. There’d be riots if they did. They’ll come as soon as the
y can, flush out the place, protect the survivors. If we can stay hidden for an hour or two, that’s all we’ll need. Maybe less.”
We consider Trev’s plan.
“If police and soldiers raid the school,” Linzer says, “we’d be safer here than out there. They shot anyone who moved in Ireland. They won’t know who’s a zombie and who isn’t, and they won’t want to take chances.”
“It’ll be a free-for-all,” Copper agrees.
“But if the zombies find us first…” Stagger Lee mutters. “I say we make a break for it. Head for the stairs, get to the floor above, find the exit, let ourselves out, don’t look back.”
“What if that door’s shut too?” one of the Muslim boys asks.
“It won’t be,” Stagger Lee says.
“The one by the gym was,” the Muslim reminds him.
“That was bad luck,” Stagger Lee says. “There’s no chance that two of the exits will be jammed at the same time.”
“Who says it was luck?” the Muslim asks. “Am I the only one who thinks this is too much of a coincidence? The janitors check those doors regularly—they have to be sure they’re working, in case of a fire. And on the very day we need them, one just happens to be stuck? I don’t buy it.”
“What are you talking about?” Trev snaps.
“Someone sealed it shut,” the Muslim says. “We’ve been locked in.”
A scary silence settles over us. I find myself looking at Cass, and he looks back at me. His eyes are wider with fear than they were a minute ago.
“What’s your name?” I ask the Muslim.
“Seez,” he says.
“Seez, do us all a favor and shut up,” I tell him.
“Why?” he scowls.
“If you’re right, we’re screwed,” I say evenly. “So let’s not think about it, and keep our fingers crossed that you’re wrong.”
“But–”
“If we’re locked in here with a pack of rotten zombies, what good will worrying about it do us?” I challenge him.