4.| Not Alone

Before The Fall

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"What was that?" Jake asks.

A faint light flickers in the corner of my eye. It's not from a phone, but from the crack beneath the classroom door. 

"Shh." I whisper to everyone. We have to remain calm and work together if we're going to survive this. I'm not trying to play hero, but I'm also not going to die because of someone else's panic. Ivan needs me. This is a matter of life and death.

I creep toward the door, trying not to make any noise. The last thing I need is to attract any unwanted attention to the chaos on the other side.

"Maybe it's the EMT." Jane says in a low voice from across the room. I shake my head.

"Ms. Darcy wasn't able to reach them?" I remember her saying the line was jammed from too many incoming calls. 

I understand their need for hope. After a long time of not caring about anything, I feel it too. But we can't lie to ourselves or each other. That will only make things worse. We have to face the reality of our situation.

Finally I make it to the door and peel off the paper Ms. Darcy stuck on the small window earlier.

I wonder if someone from the office came to tell us everything is fine. But that wouldn't make sense. They would just use the intercom. 

I lean against the glass and feel the coldness on my face. Something moves in the dark, too fast to see clearly, then a face appears; twisted, sharp, and mutilated. 

"Well? Can you see anything?" Rose touches my shoulder and it takes everything within me not to jump.

I see Casey. He's unrecognizable. Half his skull is caved in—I'm guessing from repeatedly slamming his head into the door—teeth missing, and his right eye is practically oozing out of the socket like a pink and white egg yolk dangling above his bloody cheek. 

"Casey's still there," I say, but I keep quiet about how fucked up he looks. He and I were never close, but he wasn't too terrible. There were times he made me laugh when I really needed it.

I think about his mother who always comes up to room 901 to give us cookies. She loves him more than anything in the world and spoils him rotten. I always wished I had a mother like that, but now I only feel sorry for her. I'm torn up wondering how she'd cope with losing her only son. That is, if she's still alive. 

Casey swipes his bloody hand on the other side of window as though he can't see me, then staggers off. 

Through the window, I can see the red back up lights flashing in the hallway. They always come on when the electricity runs out. 

In the dim light, I swear I catch glimpses of other people moving around. Fast, appearing in swirls of colors that range between a vibrant red and a ghostly gray.

My heart drums in my ear and my hand slips away from the door before I turn around. I feel defeated. How can I get to my brother and Jack if the hallways are full of mindless people ready to tear me apart?

"As I said, it isn't the EMT or the office…." I hesitate, wondering if I should tell them the truth. But it isn't fair to keep them in the dark too much. They deserve to know what we're up against. Just like me in the past, they can only be sheltered so much. "There's more of them out there."

Jake throws his hands up in the air, outlined in red from the backup lights flashing beneath the door. "Fucking great." He whispers.

Rose turns on her phones flashlight and everyone's face is either twisted with worry or fear and frustration.

Jane looks at me with suspicion. "Did you see them up close?" She asks. 

I lift a brow at her. "No, but I figure that if Casey isn't attacking them, then they are also like him. Right?"

"You don't know that." Jane says, pushing past me. "I'll check for myself." 

We all shout "No" at the same time.

I reach for her arm, but it's too late. She opened the door a little bit. Through the gap, a partially gnawed off finger is wiggling around, curling, seeking for something. 

Jane let's out a gasp and I glare at her. I can't believe she was so stupid. I want to ask her what the fuck she was thinking, but her attention isn't on me. 

It's on something else. 

I look down at the finger wiggling around. At the blunt cut off tip, fine tendrils of black lashed around like miniature vines.

Bang! Bang! Bang! 

Gunshots?

Jane leaps back, knocking into me while the hall echoes with fleeing footsteps and screams. It has to be the other students from different classrooms, but I don't know who'd bring a gun to school. 

I was about to say something, but I hear a raspy moan coming from the other side of the door; a wheezed voice that says: "Let. Me. In." 

Something pushes it open wider and i hastily slam my shoulder against the wood. But it fights back, much stronger than me.

"Jane!" I panically shout. 

She's standing there horrified, frozen in fear. I need her help. 

"Jane!" I yell her name again and she still doesn't move. Rose does though, she's up against the door with me, shoving with her feet sliding across the carpet from how hard the thing on the other side is working against us. 

More screams fill the halls as another raspy moan comes from the other side of the door, finally pushing it open even wider than before.

Our feet keep sliding as the seconds pass.

"Help! Help god damn it!" I practically scream, feeling my shoulders brushing and my toes burning in the inside of my shoes as me and rose fight against the force. 

Then when I think it's going to win, when my grip starts slipping from how sweaty my palms are, I see more pairs of our classmates hands pushing to help us.

The wood groans from the tug a war that's going on, but whatever it is, is no match for all of us.

After what feels like a minute, it stops. We hear the footfall become distant, then there's nothing but silence and our own heavy breathing as we all exhaustingly drop to the floor on our backs.

***

Everyone is sleep but me. 

It's been hours now and I'm still laying on the floor with my arms spread out, staring at the ceiling and thinking of my brother, wondering if he's alright. I don't dare to call him, too afraid the creature that invaded our house might hear and find him like the thing in the hallway tried to do us.

I stare toward the back of the class.

Earlier we had to make sure Ms. Darcy was dead before we shoved her body in our supply closet at the back of the room. That was an hour ago, but it feels like forever.

I volunteered to stay awake and guard the door, but not much has happened. The silence is deafening. I glance at Rose, who was too terrified to sleep alone. She snuggled up next to me, her face pressed against my back. It reminds me of our nap times when we were in elementary school.

Our teacher would turn the lights off and she'd always lie beside me. I felt invincible then. I guess most kids do. They think they can save everyone, but at this moment I fear I can't protect anyone, not even myself. Not since my father vanished.

I want to touch her curls and brush them from her face, but I don't have the right to. Not after I pushed her away for two years. Not after what my mother did to her. 

My phone vibrates in my pocket and I shoot up from the floor, answering it. "Hello?" I whisper, yearning to hear my brothers voice. To know that he's okay.

There's no reply, only rustling sounds. 

"Ian?" It's Zeke. Not Jack or Ivan. I'm shocked he still has my number. 

"Zeke? Are you alright?" I ask him. I know he's only two classroom down, but I haven't spoken to him for the same amount of time I distanced myself from Rose.

He chuckles. "Shit, man. You sound different…your voice has gotten so much deeper."

I can't help but smile. I was closer to him than I was Rose, but I adored them both all the same. I'd never admit it out loud though. "Is everyone alive in your class?"

"By alive, you mean not trying to eat me?" He jokes. He never takes anything serious. I swear he could be on his death bed and still find the energy to crack a joke.

"Yeah, Ivan is at home with Jack. I heard someone break into the house and I don't know what happened. No text or calls. Our teacher even turned. Casey too." I run a hand through my hair.

"Casey? The one in chess class?" Zeke asks. 

"That's the one."

"Damn," Zeke mutters on the other end of the line. "I'm not inside the building, I'm on the roof. It's bad out here."

"How'd you get up there?" I ask him.

"My classroom is empty. Everyone rushed out when that stuff happened on the news. There's a ladder there you can climb to make it to the roof safely." Zeke tells me, and I have hope. 

It'll be easier to get to his room than to the front or back exit of the school. 

"And you aren't infected?" I ask next. If I'm going to convince everyone in my classroom we can make it up there unscathed and with minimal casualties, I need to make a plan.

He scoffs. "Come on, man. You already know I'm obsessed with zombie shit. They didn't get me. I noticed they can't see well. It's only when you make sound." 

I look around the classroom and grab a piece of paper that's sitting on my desk. "I don't know if I can get the entire class up there at once. There's fifteen of us. We'd have to go in groups."

"Ian," Zeke says, he sounds serious now. 

I'm drawing an outline of different ways to get to his classroom without having to bump into those things. "Yeah?" 

"You can't take everyone. There isn't enough room." 

After we get off the phone, I can't stop thinking about what he told me. Does that mean he wants me to pick and choose who to take, or only let a select few know?

It felt strange, and I wonder if this is how people felt in the past, picking and choosing who dies.

I drag several chairs across the room and stack them as quietly as I can in front of the door. I know I told everyone I'd stay awake, but if I'm going to execute this plan correctly, I'm going to need some sleep. 

Sluggishly, I walk back over to where Rose is still asleep on the carpet and lay down. Exhaustion has me tired, and as I drift off, I think of my brother, I think of who I should take and leave behind. 

Tomorrow we will leave here.