The Ones Who Were Left Behind

[Meryl]

When Meryl woke up again, it was already dawn, the sky burning orange and red on the horizon.

She had the most horrid of dreams. She dreamt she was chased by Mr. Henry with his hairy hands and fatty face. Then Jin rescued her by chopping the teacher's hands with his kicks.

That was weird. Meryl thought.

There was a faint of saliva smudging her lips. She quickly wiped it away and looked at the others. She found groups of them scattered as far away from the door, their faces fresh with terror.

There was Leon and George's group at the far corner, their faces grim and stressed. Leon's smile was no longer on his face, which was a first. While Ben was at the door, taking a peek outside through the gap of the papers taped on the rectangular glass panel.

There was also that group of friends with Lilly, Emma, and Olivia, parched on the floor. Lily was clutching her hair. Emma was crying while Olivia was in a daze.

There were also Charlotte and Mia near the board. Their skin were ashen, sweat and tears covered their faces.

But the group that made Meryl baffled was Lina, together with Jin. They were sitting on the floor in the far corner from the others. They seemed to be talking with each other.

There was a ringing in Meryl's head when she tried to refocus her thoughts. She was in a state of loss until she saw the gruesome hand, sinew, and blood near the entrance, and everything rushed back to her all at once.

Meryl couldn't hold it when her stomach roiled, and she puked forward, half digestive food and juices came hurling out from her mouth.

"Welcome to the club of pukers," muttered Charlotte without mirth. If anything, she seemed tired, eyes red and face dull. She had brown hair and brown eyes and was a foreign student with a foreign accent. She was a trial from the very start. Temperamental, demanding, disobedient. The first word she spoke was 'NO' when they first met her, and she said it often and loudly.

"W-what happened?" Meryl asked, wiping the remnants of her shame with her handkerchief.

"Keep your voice down," Ben hushed, shooting a quick glare at Meryl before returning his focus to the glass. "They're still outside."

Ben was tall and lanky, with thinning black hair and glasses on his eyes. Meryl was often associated with him because of their glasses, which she didn't like one bit. And she wasn't liking his attitude right now, like he had become the leader or something.

"Outside?" Meryl asked instead, confused.

"Zombies," Leon told her. "Lots of them outside. And to summarize it for you, we're trapped here with no signal, no food, no water, and no way of asking for help."

"Trapped?" Meryl bolted to her feet and went to the windows. She restrained a gasp but failed miserably when she saw undead loitering the campus. "W-what . . . what is this?"

Outside the third-floor glass panels, she saw a group of figures shuffling around on the fields below. They were clearly not human, with gray, mottled skin and eyes that glowed with an eerie light. Meryl's heart raced as she realized they were undead, the stuff of horror movies and nightmares.

She had read about the possibility of a zombie apocalypse in the books and watched it in movies, but she never thought it could actually happen.

Meryl tried to calm herself down and think of a plan, but her mind was blank. All she could do was watch in horror as the undead loitered around, seemingly unaware of their presence.

"You should have seen those things chasing students around," George said and shuddered. "You passed out for more than an hour and now things were calming down. Either all the students and staffs are dead, eaten, or turned."

"Or hiding like us," chimed in Ethan. His was a bead of fierce red hair and an even fiercer personality. But he seemed to be a lion with his tail between his legs right now.

Meryl's brain was blank, still trying to process everything. She was wobbly and went back to her chair, almost slipping past it when her strength failed her.

Without thinking, she snatched her jag from her bag and drank water to quench her dry throat and cool off her heating body.

"I would save that if I were you," Mia said, green eyes at Meryl's water bottle. "You don't know when the police will get here and rescue us. You need to reserve that as best as you can."

For a moment, Meryl thought there was greed flashing in her eyes. Mia was a small girl with short black hair and green eyes. She was usually silent and kept to herself.

Mia had a will of her own. But she never screamed and certainly never cried. Sly was one word used to describe her. Vain was another.

Meryl found it strange that from all the things, she was criticizing how she was drinking HER water. But since she had a lot on her mind to process, she couldn't afford to add Mia's strange behavior to the list of things she needed to digest right now.

Meryl looked at her phone.

No signal.

She went to the voice call her father managed to send before the signal went out. She checked the time, and it was when the moment she was unconscious in her seat.

No wonder she hadn't pick it up.

Meryl immediately played it at low volume, but despite this, everyone heard from the dead silence ringing in the room.

"Meryl, if you find this, get out of school as fast as you can and return home. Stay home until I arrive. If you can't get out on time . . . then listen to me very carefully . . . there is a shelter in the military camp in the north, miles away. Try to go there. You'll be safe there. You'll be taken care of if you present them your ID. Meryl, whatever you do, don't . . ."

Meryl flinched when she heard gunshots on the phone, incoherent voices telling her father to move, and then static before it stopped entirely.

An expectant hush rippled out from the center of the room, growing until it had swallowed the whole area.

"D-dad?" Meryl's voice croaked. Worry gripped her heart tight. Choking her. Her eyes watered, and she was catching her breath.

A sudden and intense surge of fear and anxiety swallowed her whole. She sensed an impending doom. Her heart raced, her breath shortened, she trembled, and she was losing control.

"Calm down."

Leon's grip on her shoulder grounded her, and Meryl regained her breathing.

"Your father is a senator, an important person. There are a lot of guards protecting him. He should be fine."

That's right . . . Meryl thought. Her father was safe. He was safe. She repeated in her mind and brusquely wiped off her tears with the back of her hand. This wasn't the time to succumb to her emotions.

Her father didn't raise her that way. She was raised to rise to challenges and think critically under pressure.

"Never mind that." Lily rose to her feet, golden curls bouncing off from her shoulders. "Her father said that to go north, right? On a military camp." Her face brightened a little with hope.

Lily used to be playful, curious, and impulsive. But now she was simply tired and exhausted.

"And how do you suppose we should do that?" Noah asked, his mouth twisted in a bitter grimace. "Didn't you see those undead out there? We wouldn't last a minute if we got out of this room."

He was an average guy with an average built and overall an average person with a cowardly nature. Meryl noted.

"We will also die here if we stay here," argued Olivia. She had black hair and black eyes. Soft spoken and a little reserved.

"B-but . . . h-how do we go there?" chimed Emma with a meek voice, and her tone thinned to a whisper when all eyes darted to her. "It's like . . . miles and miles north. Past the mountains."

Emma had brown hair and green eyes like spring, with freckles adorning her face. She was delicate and shy. Easily frightened and quick to cry. She blushed and hid her face in the presence of the boys.

Meryl fell silent for a moment, eyes lost in thought. She knew she had to act fast, but she didn't know what to do. She could suggest to go to the military camp, a safe haven for sure, but that would mean risking their lives to get past the undead.

But if they stayed here, only death awaited them – slow and agonizing.

"First things first." Meryl rose to her feet, stealing some of her confidence back with each word she said, "What do we know about this undead? Maybe we can plan our strategy around it."

"Who died and made you leader now?" Ben said with a certain bite in his tone that seemed to go unnoticed.

Meryl knew that he wanted to be president, and when he lost to her, he had been salty.

"Obviously, the staff and teachers died. Someone has to lead this group if we want to survive. I'm the class president, after all. Or do you want to assume leadership? I'll gladly give the responsibility to you."

Ben had the grace to look startled. Just as quickly, the look became annoyance when he gave his answer. "Who would want that kind of baggage?"

"I thought so." Meryl knew that Ben wouldn't contest her. Not when his friends were around to make fun of him and his folly desire to become a president, which according to his friends, was a bootlicker's job.

Meryl masked her fears behind a face kept still and stern, yet they were there all the same, growing with every second. "So what do we know about this Undead?"

"They're fast," Leon answered. His voice was flat and tired, but a hint of a smile was back on his face. "They're not like in any movies where they were slow. In here, they run fast."

"And they have all their senses except that they're acting like wild animals now," George chimed in. His face was strangely empty of expression. "They can see, hear, smell . . . though I don't know if they still could feel."

"Probably," Ethan added. "Mr. Henry yelled when Jin broke his hand."

Meryl tried not to think of that severed hand again, or she'd puke her guts out.

Come to think of it, Jin and Lina were awfully quiet. Meryl's eyes snapped around and found him. Jin's face was long, solemn, guarded, a face that gave nothing away.

Beside him was Lina hunched over a corner, silent and only staring at nothingness like she was thinking of something.

"And everyone turned to zombies if they are bitten," Emma spoke, voice barely audible.

"Is a virus behind it, though?" Lily asked, swallowing hard. "These things must have an origin."

"Who cares about that?" Ben spat and pulled his eyes from the panel glass. "What I want to know is . . . are we going to be rescued?"

"Heh," a noise halfway between a laugh and a grunt rang in Mia's lips. "Rescued? Do they even know that there are survivors in this place?"

"They should know." George's hands washed over his face in a gesture of helpless distress. "We have tracking devices on us, right? I mean, I have one on my watch. My parents put it there."

Olivia rolled her eyes. "Yes, we have. I'm sure everyone here is grateful for your reminder. But the question is, do they know we're alive and not dead or . . . undead?"

There was silence for a moment. Everyone could taste it, a nervous tension that came perilously close to fear.

"Be it as it may," Meryl said, breaking the stillness. "We have to plan our next move. We can't stay here forever and await our death. We have to do something."

"What?" Noah laughed that sounded like he was sobbing. "What can we do against a horde of them?"

"There is a school bus in the parking garage. The keys are in the teacher's office," Meryl started and further explained, "If we divide ourselves into numerous groups, one as decoy, the other secure food and water in the cafeteria and the other get the keys. After which we meet up in the bus, then we can get out from here and go north to the military camp where we will be protected. There are surely food, shelter, and military protection there."

The others looked at each other with concerned faces. Meryl knew that they were hesitant.

"Easier said than done," Ben retorted. "How do we even know if the others are successful or not? We don't have a means of communication. Without it–"

"That's easy," Meryl interrupted and batted her eyelid at Ben. "We will set a timer. An hour. If none of the group returned by an hour then we will leave without them."

"Without the keys, no one can leave," Charlotte laughed in distress.

"That's why we have to get the keys at all cost. We will put the blunt of our group to securing this keys."

"We would surely die if we get out of here," whispered Emma.

"We would die nonetheless if we stayed here," Meryl answered.

"How about this . . ." Leon went to the center. "Let's give each other an hour to think. Those who wanted to go will go. Those who wanted to stay here will stay. How about that."

No one commented, and Meryl nodded in the silence. "An hour it is."

It was long enough to change their minds. Meryl thought. She believes that hunger was a powerful thing that drives people mad more than fear.