All Along, It Was You

As we all split up, Niko, Skylar, Cody, Connie, and I all went around to each classroom to wake everybody up.

As a kid, I was never in a lot of situations of panic. The sheer pressure in the atmosphere watching adults and older teenagers all move fast and seriously, when their normal attitudes were the complete opposite, was unnerving. Like watching a dog get straight-faced in a matter of a second.

Niko was bouncing off several shelves and doors with a straight face, shaking people awake and leading them out with weapons in hand.

"Zombies are at the back door. Don't freak out, they're not in, we just need to get to safety," Niko would say on repeat. Each time he repeated it, his tone got more and more serious. We got closer and closer to the gym, waking everybody up and pushing them all in.

Korin was nowhere to be found, but Ernesto and Grace were already huddled up right beside Mary and Connie.

"Korin's not here? Are you serious? That sly motherfucker," Niko mentioned. I never heard him swear before, but it started to sound serious with the way things were going with him. I wanted to swear my heart out too, and I wasn't even alerted by his change in voice.

"Hey, your kid is causing all of these problems, I hope you know! Feeding some zombies, leading them all to one spot. The fence gave out and they broke in, where is he?!" Niko yelled out to Ernesto.

"We don't know... we haven't seen him all day today. Does Charlie know?" Ernesto asked Niko. He didn't sound malicious, not like Korin had been, and was genuinely curious. Ever since this family showed up, problems started to pop out of thin air, I swear.

"We don't know where he is either! That's it, I'm going to look for him. Sky, you stay here, Cody and Leon, come with me please," Niko said. He un-holstered his gun, pulling the hammer back, and keeping it pointed at the floor.

"If you see Korin and he's holding a weapon, aim for his legs. Otherwise, if it's aiming at Dad, shoot him in the head," Niko told me. He took out my gun and put it in my hands, and I followed suit, pulling the hammer back.

It took me longer, but it was easier for me to do since the gun was lighter and there were grips on the very top where the hammer was. I readied myself, and Cody joined us, making sure he hid behind Niko in the middle.

We walked out of the gym together, lightly stepping back and forth and moving between counters near the front desk and other places we could crouch behind. Niko took extra care, checking every doorway, every window, and every corner he could to see if he could spot Korin.

Cody tapped him on the back, and Niko went behind cover before turning once more. He was very alert, and observed all surroundings, even when Cody wanted his attention.

"Out there, I see Mister Weiss," Cody said. He pointed to the front door, where lights were flickering in the dark from the power being turned off. Surely enough, Dad was out there with a knife held so the tip was facing out, and the gun was resting on his opposite wrist.

Niko knocked on the door twice to signal it was him and then opened it up to see Dad facing a horde of around twenty zombies. On his side of things, it was probably terrifying to see that many zombies all bundled up in front of him. Some may be Intellects, some may be runners, and others may be sleepers, it's all a dangerous jumble, so it looked like he was preparing to run.

Niko shot four times and Dad shot five into the crowd, taking out about thirteen zombies in total before they turned to each other and decided to run.

I rose my gun, took in a sharp breath, and turned my safety off. All of my memories building up to this one scenario were colliding, putting pressure on my finger as I placed it lightly onto the curved trigger.

I remember, watching the head of the zombie swivel back and forth as I tried to focus, and giving me a hard time. As he got closer and closer, almost moving away from his horde to target me, I sealed the deal, breathing out, and squeezing the trigger.

The shot was loud and close to my head without any ear protection. It rang my ears as the sound went off, but the zombie dropped dead to the floor, hitting it with his punctured head, and caving in a bit of his skull, more so than what the bullet had done to him.

"Nice job Leon! Come on, let's move across the street!" Dad shouted out to me. I nodded, taking one last look at the brain of the zombie pouring out onto the pavement in front of the school. I ran across the street, with the safety turned back on, and the gun back in my holster.

"Nice job out there guys. Anybody hurt at all?" Dad asked. He put his arms around Niko and me, while maintaining eye contact with Cody.

"No, we woke everybody up and got them to the gym. We couldn't find Korin though. Where could he be?!" Niko asked out loud. We all were obviously left to our thoughts while trying to see where he was, but Dad tapped his chin while hiding in a bush across the street.

The darkness had hidden us so the zombies couldn't see. Luckily, they weren't intelligent enough to track us, not the regular ones at least. They all were huddled up around the entrance, aimlessly bouncing onto each other, and one even slipped on the zombie I killed on the way here.

"I lost him as well, right after he told me to keep an eye on you, Leon. Tell me, how did all those zombies get in here? Did anybody see anything?" Dad asked me. I reminisced about Korin's story and decided to remind everybody else about it as well.

"Remember Korin's whole spiel, when he told us that his sister had her face blown off? Well, she was never killed before she turned into a zombie, so she wandered around, and ended up here. Every night, he stole to give her some food to keep her alive until there was a cure, and maybe she told her zombie friends or something and they all grouped up on one part of the fence?" I explained to Dad, offering room for questions, and purposefully leaving out the part where I believed that it was my fault they broke in, to begin with.

"I should've known... I should've asked him about it. That's okay, look, nothing is over, we just need a new plan..." Dad muttered. We were all pointed toward the school, watching the zombies bounce near the front. However, that wasn't the only thing we were watching.

From the roof, meat was being thrown off of it. Raw venison was splattering on the ground by more zombies on the side of the school as if they were being led here to block us from getting back. By now, the crowd multiplied in size, probably to about a hundred or two hundred zombies all by the front doors.

On the very top of the school, with a bucket of raw meat in his hands, Korin was smiling while throwing it all out onto the floor.

"There he is... did he... plan for this?! He's blocking us out entirely!" Niko mentioned. It was all obvious, but his sheer shock at Korin's actions couldn't be contained.

Dad moved between the lush bushes across the street in front of the neighborhood to the sig, peering over it to catch a glance at Korin's actions.

"Do we shoot him? He's just making them bunch up, they could take down the doors if they wanted to!" Niko asked Dad. I could tell he was lost in thought, pondering what to do next.

"Niko, check if this house right here is unlocked, please," Dad said. He flicked him away with a slight movement of his hand, and Niko ran up the porch, running to the front door.

With an audible click and pushing noise while the door creaked, Niko was able to get it open and gave a thumbs-up in affirmation. Then, Dad nodded and put his hand on my shoulder.

"You and Cody get into that house, I'll be right there," He told us.