“Over here!” I kick open the door of the library, and after a brief glance around to ensure no one was in there, I turn back to face my just as anxious companions. While some were making their way into the library, there were others still catching up. Urging them to run faster, I start to swing my arms in order to communicate what my mouth couldn’t, “Hurry!” was all I could blurt out. Whilst waiting, I desperately prayed to not see any more of the strange creatures we met along the way. Finally, with the last person passing me, I slammed closed the door.
“Ha…we made it. Ha…Ha…This, this is why I run track…” I silently repeated an unfunny joke that I had used many times before but there was a huge difference between those times and now: the previous utterances came from silly reasons like catching a runaway bus, but now, heart pounding, I begged for a sense of normalcy in these familiar words.
With the door closed, I finally allowed myself to collapse. Lying on the floor, I start to notice the details that had escaped me during the chaos: my muscles feel tense, with only the faint throbbing from my calves to remind me of the adrenaline-filled run that had just occurred, my fists start to unclenched, showing the faint red nail marks peppering my hand from my nails digging into my skin. Taking a deep breath, I softly ask “are we the first ones back?”, breaking the silence with a question we knew the answers to. But I can not bring myself to vocalize the unspoken question, are we the only ones who will be back?
My friend Catherine, clutching a dodgeball, nods out a “Yeah,” probably to comfort me as awkward silence ensues. With the silence, I am left to my thoughts.
My mind starts to race as I recall what had just happened. Earlier today, only a couple of hours ago, life had been normal. Perhaps there were hints of what was to come even then, the air had felt slightly different, my ankle hurt for an inexplicable reason, but nothing that could have warned me of what was happening now. I made it to second period and that final myth class, or the few minutes into it, might be my last class lesson, ever.
Ironically, my myth class is in the zombie unit, and we were studying the monsters of the zombie apocalypse: the zombies and the humans. That was all theoretical, and how I wished it would remain so. Somehow, the world has changed in mere minutes and we are being chased by monsters that I can only attribute to being zombies. Zombies: undead, contagious, lower class, mindless, I can drone on and on about the attributes of zombies. But the real deal is a whole different ball game. Anyone who knows of the fictional zombies can envision an image, but it is ten times worse. Not to mention the smell, a gut wrenching, sickening almost sweet smell of rotting flesh. Whatever the contagion is, it is clearly rotting the body from inside-out—a killing disease Mrs. Fusaro would have called it—and it is doing it fast.
Mrs. Fusaro, my myth teacher, perhaps she is the only one who seemed to have it together. That might have been for show, but it was a much needed facade. Mrs. Fusaro quickly let us in on the information, and apparently, Mrs. D’Anna had figured out a cure. The tentative list of ingredients are as follows: centrifuge, rubber, acrylic, chocolate milk, batteries, and foam. None of the materials made sense, in fact, I even harbored the thought Mrs. Fusaro was taking a myth lesson too far. That is until I came face to face with an actual zombie. Despite the blood and open wound flesh peeking out of her skin, I could recognize that face—the face of my bestfriend. But her unnatural movements, dragging of the feet, and snarling quickly disillusioned me; the world I had known was quickly coming to an end.
In shock, I did not move out of my frie-zombie’s way. Fortunately, Anna struck the zombie with her backpack, immediately bashing the zombie to the ground. In silence, I waited for any further movement from the zombie, half wishing it was all just a prank and my normal smiling bestfriend would come up from under, and half wishing the zombie would remain dead. Unfortunately, only one of my wishes came true, and it was the one I dreaded.
Gaining a better understanding of the situation, Evan calmly rallied everyone up. Evan, Catherine, Anna, Kylie, Angelina, Sam and I, the seven of us had been assigned to get rubber. We all decided the best place to find rubber had been the gym, and since the first floor gym had been closed for construction for months now, we collectively decided to venture to the 3rd floor. Was it a good idea to split up the main group? Can we even trust this cure? How many zombies are there? Is it only at school? Is my family okay? So many questions, yet no answers to be found, only a stupid ingredient and a could-be solution.
Evan rationalized that we each pull out a weapon that we can use to defend ourselves with. His demeanor calmed me as he spouted all sorts of logical ways to go about our current situation. As everyone else pulled out their weapons of choice, I decided to copy some of their choice. Some of us had heavy water bottles, others decided to use their backpack—no doubt taking a page from Anna, while I stacked all my pens and pencils in my pants pocket in case I needed something to throw. Though our weapons lack much, it felt reassuring to have something. I know I am not a main character, and there is no way I could bare fist anything.
After confirming among ourselves on placement, we stood in formation as we quietly, with our backs to the wall, made our way through the third floor of the school. Although I had felt silly then, afterall the school looked no different than usual except for the occasional corpses lying around and scratching heard in locked classrooms, our quiet steps proved useful because when we finally confronted another zombie, the zombie had not even noticed us. Sam with his water bottle decisively rushed at the zombie, aiming for the head while the rest of us sneaked to the other side of the zombie, with Catherine swiping her backpack underneath the zombie and successfully tripping it. With us ganging up on the one zombie, it met its timely demise. I could not help to add an additional kick, to vent out my frustration. Perhaps we can survive, I naively thought, afterall we work so well together.
And then, with the end (or at least beginning of the end) in sight, we approached the gym. Of course, we were smarter than just opening the 3rd floor gym directly and instead chose to walk down the staircase to an alternative door with a window to peer into the situation of the gym.
I was in the front and looked into the gym first; what I saw still sends shivers down my spine just recalling the memory. Inside the small gym were rows among rows of zombies. Thinking back, perhaps the people of the third floor had mostly evacuated to the gym only to then turn inside the gym. Those zombies in there had been people, my classmates, my friends, and teachers. They must have thought they were saved only for… for them to die such a death. My class had been lucky and chose the library as our spot, only to then separate in search of the materials for the cure. But the people who made their way into the 3rd floor gym had been much more misfortunate, and now, stuck in the gym, hoards of zombies crawled around in search of any living organism to chow down on. I heard myself and my companions gulp, no wonder the hallways had been mostly empty except for the zombies locked in the classroom and few wandering around which we had taken down. What do we do? What do we do?
There are no words that can describe the emotion we had felt at that moment, from feeling invincible by taking down one zombie to facing a sudden impossible hoard. Seeing the waves of zombies reminded me that this is the apocalypse, one misstep and I too would end up dying a gruesome death and an even worse after death. I could not afford to remain scared forever, and to not drag down my team, I started to think of a solution.
“What if we threw a loud object across the gym?” I started to propose, “the zombies respond to sound, at least the ones we encountered so far.”
“You want to deal with those zombies?!” Angelina exclaimed, before hushing promptly after we all turned to stare at her.
“Don’t be too loud,” whispered Kylie, “but I think distracting the zombies might be a good idea.”
“We watched how they did it in Train to Busan,” Catherine chimed in, “if we have one person open the door, another throws uh let’s say a water bottle, and that person sneaks in to get one of the dodgeballs by the bleachers…”
“Who should get the dodgeball?” Sam interrupts Catherine, “that is definitely the most dangerous job.”
The seven of us quieted down, and I stared at my shoes, dirtied with blood and who knows what other gunk. After what felt like a long time, I finally started to speak.
“I think I should get the ball. Afterall, I did track so I probably have the most experience running than you guys, plus I am a sprinter. You know, explosive energy and all.” I forced out a small smile, with my mouth drying because of what I was proposing. “It was my idea too.”
“But…” Catherine started to protest but quickly quieted after I shot her a look. I wasn’t sure what my expression had told her, but the message was sent.
Evan reasoned against me, “well I am the tallest, I might be able to throw better. We can’t all be crowded here since it's a small space, maybe I should do it.”
“No, I have experience throwing, I do javelin, barely, but at least it's something.” I started to sound more and more confident, “I think I should go.”
“Why don’t we split up the job, I throw while you run for the ball?” Evan countered.
I decided to compromise because it would give me more confidence going into the gym with someone else, albeit it meaning I am placing someone else in danger. Besides, arguing anymore would have been a waste of time that we did not have. Before the others could convince me otherwise, and perhaps, before I could convince myself otherwise, I started to vocalize the plan.
“2 people, Angelina and Anna, look out for any zombies that might go up the stairs from the second or first floor. Catherine and Sam can watch out for zombies from the third floor. Kylie, because you are small, I think you should open the door. You would take less space. Evan can throw the water bottle, while I dash for the dodge balls. I see they are on the bleachers, it should be less than 5 meters away, I can do that.” My voice trailed off, with the final line a mere whisper for myself to hear.
At that moment, I had wanted to give a cool last line but I lacked the eloquence to say it. Instead I started to count down once everyone got to their places, “Kylie, open on three. One…Two…humph…Three!”
Kylie swings the door open, Evan jumps in first and throws the metal water bottle as far from the bleachers as he could. The moment I heard the bottle clang on the ground, as though it was a race gun shot, I sprinted to the dodge ball. Almost too curious for my own good, my eyes involuntarily looked at the zombies. The zombies had indeed fallen into our trap and were crawling over each other to get to the noise source.
Reaching the first dodgeball, I grabbed it and immediately tried to run back to the side door where Kylie was waiting. Evan had already left the gym, it was only me now. The hoarse cries from the zombies seemed to get closer to me, as I realized in utter dread that they had given up on the water bottle and were alerted of my running figure. Some of the zombies that had been closer to the bleacher were heading awfully close to the door. 1 meter away from the door!
I pushed like I never pushed before and almost ran into the wall, while Kylie closed the door behind. The dodgeball in my hand felt almost unreal as I can still remember a gust of wind on my back from a zombie scratching at my shirt.
“AGHHH” Kylie let out a scared groan, a zombie hand had managed to stop the door from closing all the way. I threw the dodgeball at Evan, and pulled out a sharp mechanical pencil from my pocket and started to stab at the hand.
“Everyone run up the stairs, get ready to escape. You have to get the dodgeball back to the library!” my voice increased in volume as I tried my hardest to get the zombie hand out. Kylie continues to push the door close, as I stab the zombie hand. The zombie did not feel pain and continued to fight its way out. I made the mistake of looking in through the window and caught sight of the hoard of zombies marching their way towards our side door.
I have to close this door, I need to get this zombie out of the way. I have to close this door before the zombies get here, otherwise…
BANG!
The main gym door slammed with a loud noise due to the heavy material of the door, and almost instantaneously, the zombies that had been making their way towards turn to face the noise. Even the zombie with his hand through the side door hesitated, and with that moment of hesitation, I kicked the hand out, and Kylie managed to close the door…!
Kylie and I looked at each other in understanding, our teammates did not leave us even when they had an ingredient for the cure in hand! Anxious to rejoin the group, Kylie and I ran up the stairway in record time.
There, back on the third floor, I saw the worried faces of my teammates. Maybe it was because we were still unjaded by our lack of experience, but we had not been pushed to the point of abandoning each other and our humanity as of yet. I sighed in relief and let out a breath I did not know I was holding, as we stood outside the third floor gym contemplating. Now, Catherine was holding the ball, a seemingly ordinary dodge ball.
“Let’s head back,” Catherine said, “back to the library.”
“Yeah, let’s run!”
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