CH12 - Heading south

[Lyon's POV]

The door opened quietly to reveal a still empty hallway, clear of any signs of both living and the undead. Our decision to loot the baseball club's room had given us a yield of protective gear and even a weapon that Ren had more experience in. The phone I was using as a flash right now was one of the models that we had taken from the teacher's lounge.

There was nothing wrong with my phone but I'd rather use up some dead stranger's phone battery over using my own when I had other options. Nothing of interest happened as we kept moving down the hallway, passing a few rooms before we managed to reach the door that led to the tennis club's meeting and storage room.

The entire hallway had splotches and dried footprints of blood but the door in front of us seemed like an entirely different case. Similar to the door of the teacher's lounge, this door's surface area around the upper middle portion was disproportional to the rest, it was as if it was continuously rammed with the head of someone, which was further reinforced by the fact that dried marks of blood on the door were shaped similar to that of the roundness of one's head.

I pointed the phone's flashlight in the direction of the hallway in front of me. There would be no need to proceed any further down the hallway as we had reached our destination, and any more stops would just delay our escape from the school further. I grip the door's handle and slowly turn it, only to then be stopped as the door was locked, I look to my side and see Alyssa already fishing out the keys from her pockets, probably noticing my inability to open the door and deducing that it was locked as well.

A few seconds of waiting later and she finally handed me a white handkerchief with its side embroidered with pink flowers. Messily placed inside of it were the bundle of keys, the handkerchief most likely serving as something similar to that of a muffler to prevent the spread of the sound of keys hitting one another while we were moving. I quietly pick out the keys from the layers of handkerchief and attempt to find the key to this specific room.

Each key had special designations or tags that indicated which key was used for what. Finding the keys to the tennis club's room wasn't hard and it didn't take too long with the assistance of said designators as I push the key inside and turn it, unlocking the door before I removed it and burrowed it back into the layers of Alyssa's handkerchief.

I turn off the phone's flashlight and hide it inside of pockets, replacing it with the knife that I had kept inside. I prepare my bokken by slightly pushing it upwards as the hand gripped my knife slowly and quietly opened the tennis club's door only to then be greeted with a sight not uncommon to me but considered rare for my companions.

Hanging there near the window with a belt tightly tied around his neck was a teacher unfamiliar to me, he was most likely a teacher to one of the higher grades or possibly just a club advisor. I look around the room and see that it had the same generic design that all the other clubs had (excluding the kendo club's room), a table at the center of the room with enough chairs to accommodate 8 people, the windows on the side in front of the door while desks where picture frames of a person that looked similar to the man hanging near the window beside 4 other people, most likely this club's members.

I enter the room and spot a door to my right that most likely led to this club's own storage room. The hanging body remained motionlessly hanged on the wall as my three other companions enter the room as well. Ren closes the door behind him and looks at the body before turning his gaze away, preferring to look at the picture frames placed atop the table, only to then stare down at the ground as he notices that the person in the pictures smiling was the same person that was currently with them inside the room.

"Ren, Chisato, same thing you did inside the baseball club's room, go. Alyssa, you're coming with me again." I whisper to the three who stood further behind me, receiving a nod of affirmation as I maneuvered around the table to stand only a slight bit of distance away from the still motionless body. I raise my bokken and lightly poke it to the side only to receive nothing as it sways to the right a bit before returning to its original position.

It wasn't moving and the body's clothes had no signs of bite wounds if the cloth's cleanliness were to be observed. Just to be safe, I walked quietly beside it and stretched my toes upwards as I stab my knife to the side of its head. I take out my knife from the body's now bleeding head before pulling a chair to my side to use for elevation.

The belt hung itself using a nail that was messily pulled from the wall, indicating that the person himself pulled it out enough for this very purpose. I unhung him by pulling the belt upwards before slowly letting the body down so that no noise would be made. I then removed a curtain that was pushed to the side and placed it over the body. I looked to the side and saw Ren was already finished with his task as he now sat on top of the table itself for added weight while Chisato was looking through the drawers and cabinets of the desks to the side of the room.

I walked toward the door that separated the meeting from the storage room and knocked on it 3 times before pushing my ear beside its wooden frame. 5 seconds passed before I opened the door only to be greeted with a room that only had a Racquet and ball storage cart to the side and an open cabinet that had four uniforms hung on its rack, directly below it was the elbow guards that I had told them about earlier. To the sides of the cabinet were two string bags hung on protrusions coming from the wall on each side.

I walked deeper into the room to see if I had missed anything from my initial observations but aside from the elbow guards and possibly even the string bags, nothing else of value was to be found. I took the four sets of elbow guards found below the uniforms, before turning left to examine the string bags hung on the wall.

'Hm, they're too small to carry a large number of supplies but they're almost entirely weightless when empty and can serve as additional containers we can hang on our bag's sides in case it gets too full so I guess taking them with us wouldn't be bad.' I think to myself as I glanced to my side and see Alyssa eyeing the uniforms that were hung on the open cabinet.

For some reason, she takes one of them off the rack and places it in front of her, seemingly trying to figure out whether or not it was the correct size for her. I didn't know the reason, maybe it's so she has spare clothes she can switch to once her current clothes get too dirty for her to handle? I don't think a white shirt, skirt, and ball shorts are gonna stay white for a long time though...

Alyssa notices me looking at her picking out clothes only to suddenly turn around with a blush on her face while removing the hanger inside the uniform before stuffing it inside of her backpack. She looks at me one last time, her cheeks dusted with a light shade of red or pink before going out of the room, leaving me inside alone.

'What was that about?' I question myself while trying to understand what had just happened only to have the image of Alyssa wearing that tennis uniform come to nestle itself in my mind. The thought of her wearing it in front of me manages to make me pause for a bit, I shake my head to clear my thoughts and get all four of the string bags alongside the elbow guards before I head out of the room.

"Found anything?" I asked Chisato who was leaning on the desk alongside Alyssa. Chisato neither nods nor shakes her head in refusal, she instead raised her hand, a whistle and a piece of rope or yarn securing it, giving the user the choice to just hang it around his neck, similar to that of how one wears an ID. I nod my head to her findings before taking out a cellphone from my pockets, I slid my finger across the screen, prompting it open as it reveals to me that it only had 53% and that it was already 12:03 PM.

"I see, let's have a quick lunch before we go down, our last stop before going south is the nurse's office on the first floor." I tell them while pondering on why this phone's battery was already 53% when it had 74% just a few hours ago... maybe a faulty battery?

We only ate more bread and drank the same water bottle we were drinking earlier during breakfast. We had a surplus of supplies that would be enough for more than 10 days' worth of food and water but we should still stick to rationing as much of it as possible. I had also distributed the pairs of elbow guards to all of them, the club had just enough for all four of us so there was no need to debate on who gets to wear what.

"Hm, looks like we will have to stay here for today then," I inform them, earning questioning looks on where exactly would we be staying the night then. I had asked Ren regarding the question that had been plaguing me for a while now. How far was his house from our location, to which he answered earlier that it wasn't far, but it wasn't close either. His house was close to what I'd say was the tip of the urban area of the city which meant we would be somewhat close to the residential layer, meaning a few streets down and we would have open roads for vehicles.

"We can sleep at the maintenance shed near the southwestern side of the southern building. It's located slightly further south from the building itself which means we'd be a lot farther from the campus center if we stayed there" I explain to them, earning a nod of acceptance to my words, the rest of our "lunch" passed by quickly as there was nothing else to talk about.

"Everybody ready?" I asked my companions behind me as I look through the door's peek hole to see whether or not there was a zombie standing in front of the door. I confirmed that there were none before looking back at my companions who had their bags secured over their new protective gear.

They nod in affirmation to my questions, prompting me to take out the phone with a faulty battery and turn on its flashlight as I open the door. I shine it in front of me before pointing it to my left, there were three shambling around in random directions, they wouldn't be much of a problem though considering we were going down the hallway to our right since that is where the stairway was situated.

We passed the baseball club's room before finally reaching the stairway we had to take to get down. I point the phone downwards and find the stairway remained the same as it was when we first used it at midnight during our escape from the northern building. I went down carefully, each step having been done carefully so as to not accidentally slip over the blood that had dried on a few steps.

I managed to reach the landing halfway through the stairway before pausing as I find 4 more zombies standing on the exit of the stairway. I stop in my footsteps while signaling to the others how many zombies stood in front of us. The three notice what I was looking at and stood still, waiting for what plan I had in mind.

'I could use the laptop trick again but we aren't in a hallway corner this time, maybe I should have taken one of those tennis balls with me. They're slightly spaced apart so we can either just slowly move through them or do another coordinated attack.' I think to myself while imagining the various scenarios and their outcome.

We can slowly move through them but who's to say they won't randomly bump into one of them, looks like a coordinated attack would be the best choice then. I hold the phone with the same hand that carried my bokken before taking out the knife in my left pocket. I do the same gesture I had shown them back when we were in the teacher's lounge hoping that they understood, to which it seems they did if those nods of theirs were anything to go by.

The plan I had in mind was a bit too complicated and with my lack of confidence in everyone's ability to understand charades, I decided to tuck away the phone with a faulty battery to my backpack while taking out my own. I opened the phone and went to my notes app before typing down our plan so that the others could understand.

[Alyssa, there is one zombie currently shuffling towards the wall, you will have to kill it. Chisato and Ren, you three will help me handle the other three that are close together. Once Alyssa kills the lone zombie, the sound of metal and bone will prompt the other three to start running towards her while screaming in agitation. We have to kill them as soon as Alyssa kills her target, I'll handle the one in the middle while Chisato handles the left one while Ren will handle the one on the right. Support their weight and slowly let them crumple down the floor so that no further sounds are made.]

I typed these words on my phone and give it to Ren and Alyssa first, after they had read it, I gave my phone to Chisato who nods back to me after a few seconds of reading. With the plan out of the way, we descended further down the stairway, reaching the landing as Alyssa separates from us to go toward her target while I and my remaining companions went to move slightly close to our own.

I raise three fingers and slowly drop one down every 4 seconds, as my last finger dropped, the sound of metal piercing skin and bone could be heard around us. The three zombies who were looking in random directions zeroed in on where the sound came from as they stretched the skin around their eyes as if they needed glasses to see. They couldn't even take a single step or utter a quiet groan as knives and a screwdriver entered their head, killing them for one last time as their bodies slowly crumple to the ground as their weight are supported by our hands.

I nervously point my flashlight at both sides of the hallway, hoping that nothing else was close enough to hear the deaths of their fellow monsters. To my luck, there were none to be found, making me do an imaginary sigh of relief over the risk we had just taken. Were there any better plans we could've chosen over this one? Maybe, but we can't just stand around the stairway twiddling our fingers while thinking of a plan, the apocalypse will still be waiting outside but the same couldn't be said for our families.

We return to our usual formation and turn left down the hallway, passing the building's eastern exit which directly led to the basketball and volleyball courts meant for unofficial games. The door remained the same as it was if you were to ignore the cracks on the glass, as well as the blood smeared on it. The nurse's office was close to the corner of the hallway so were still quite a distance away from it.

Lady luck had blessed us through our journey since aside from the zombies that were blocking the stairway earlier, there weren't any more random encounters with more zombies along the way. We reach the nurse's office which was situated at the corner of the hallway itself and find the door wide open with smears of blood that led from the door to one of the beds and the single window inside.

I peer into the room and find the window was left open as well while the silhouette of something stood close to the bed that was covered with hospital curtains, hiding whatever it was inside. I signal to the others, notifying them of what was inside. I wasn't sure since the curtains covered my view but it's better to be safe than sorry.

I raise my bokken and point it at the motionless silhouette as I slowly approached the curtains, I move it to the side fully expecting a zombie to be standing there but find a rack with a bomber jacket and a cap hung on it, situated right next to the desk meant to keep a patient's belonging, I breathe a sigh of relief and look under the beds and find it empty of any possible hiders.

With the room itself clear, I move on to the open window and bring it down slowly so as to close it. I pulled it down and locked it before facing behind me to see my companions waiting for my next words.

"Medicine will be scarce so get as much of it as possible. Just throw in whatever you find into your bags, we will organize them later when we're in relative safety." I instruct them as I start opening the cabinets and drawers for anything to take with us.

It took us around 15-20 minutes before we were done cleaning out the cabinets. We just kept pulling out everything and throwing them into our individual bags since we all knew that medicine will be hard to come by or sold expensively in a world where healthcare doesn't exist.

We had taken everything we could without risking ourselves so there was no point in staying in this building any longer. Now we could technically drop by the canteen in this building to scavenge for more food, but there was no telling how many zombies would be in that room, let alone our lack of information regarding whether or not the doors that led to the campus center even remained standing. With everything in our bags, it was time for us to continue heading south.

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A/N: Before you complain, yes, I am bored with this school arc as well but I need to do this just for world building since I wouldn't want my story to have a world and an mc with a lot of plot holes since that'd just be lazy writing. The school arc should be finishing off soon in just 1-3 more chapters so until then just hold on, trust me, I hate this boring arc just as much as you do.