"Rochelle." I woke wearily, saying the first name that came into my head, "what happened."
"Who?" Genuine confusion seeped within her voice.
A silence screamed throughout the rook, seeping into all the cracks and filling every possible space.
"Erm well, i'm Rebekah and I just saved your life." Bluntness followed every syllable. My mind was hazed with fog.
"Wha-What happened?"
"To you? God knows, the only reason I didn't shoot you was because you were actually talking." She stood and faced the rest of them, from what I could make out they were all female.
"He's fine." One of the other survivors bolted up right and across the cave. She enveloped her arms around me and held me tightly.
"Jake, thank god you're okay." Her soft mellow tones identified her straight away.
"Lacey! you're okay!" I yelled. Rebekah shot us a daring glance; too much noise.
"Well as good as anybody can be in a Zombie land." She said with a smile. Her smile fell straight away and a look of dread circulated within her eyes.
"Jake . . .erm," she sighed then braced herself "Em is one of them." The thought hit me with tremdous power, knocking the breath out of me. I sat there mouthing words for a while until I managed to create some words, "How do you know that."
"Well last night, she was outside my house screaming at me. She was blaming me for you leaving her, so I opened my window to try and talk to her but she fell over." She realised that she might have been too honest and guilt was her solid expression. I just nodded trying to process that she was one of them.
"Then. Then she got up and she looked different and started charging at my house so my dad . . ." She stopped and it was apparent that she was not planning on continuing.
"Well I'm glad you're okay." I offered. She just hugged me again.
Rebekah coughed loudly demanding everyone's attention.
"Let's get introductions over with so we can go, okay?" everybody looked at her and nodded.
"Good, Jake, this is Charlie and Lavender. You two, this is Jake." She said firmly.
"Don't call me that! Ever!" Lavender screamed. She was around sixteen with long blond hair which went down to the middle of her back and it sat in curls. She looked at all of us individually and then spoke, "call me Hollie."
"Okay then, everyone this is Hollie." Rebekah said smugly, turned and crawled out of the hole.
"Where are we anyways?"
"About a week or so's walk from Project Frankenstein." It was Charlie who answered me, she had short tom-boyish hair and a style that matched.
"Project Frankenstein?" I offered to the cave.
"Project Frankenstein started this stupid thing, they created the first Zombie." Lacey answered me with a firmness I had never heard before.
"And before you ask, we're going there for a reason. Some British professor knew what was going to happen so wrote a guide; we’re going to get it." It was Charlie again. The defiantly knew what they wanted.
"Wait, you're going to go to the place that started all this? Are you mad?" I asked. Fear started to cling to me at the thought of it.
"What do we have to lose?" Hollie answered. She had a point. It was suicidal, crazy, a whim, but you have nothing to lose in Zombie land.
"Grab a gun and let's move out!" Rebekah screamed from the other side of the hole.
"Wait! I don't have a gun and I never said I was coming!" I yelled out of fear. Lacey gave me a confused look, shook her head and just placed a gun on the floor. Charlie and Hollie crawled out of the hole, followed by Lacey. I looked on after her, I didn't really want to be alone now. I grabbed the gun and ran after them. The were all just stood on the other side smiling.
"You knew I’d come didn't you?" Lacey nodded. I looked around my surroundings, I was in a classroom. A periodic table was pinned against the wall with a long blood smear down the Halogens. After a second of thinking it dawned on me that this was my Chemistry classroom.
"The door's Jammed and can only be opened from the other side. These are safety windows so we're Gonna have to fight our way out." Rebekah declared. She was defiantly the one who would lead us into battle.
"And how do you propose we get out?" I asked. She glared at me shooting fear into my very core. She walked to the other side of the room to the fire alarm turned around with her fingers on the switch.
"Good luck guys, see you on the other side!" she yelled. She pulled the switch down causing the room to scream with noise. Everyone pointed their gun towards the door. This was fear in its pure form. Sweat seeped from every pore. Worst case scenarios swimming through my mind. Muffled footprints could be heard from the other side of the door. I gulped heavily. The footprints got louder and louder. Putrid smells followed. The door handle rattled for what felt like an eternity until the door swung inwards allowing a mass of the undead to spill in. Their skin was dried and decaying. The eyes were glazed with a white haze and blood and entrails dripped from the lips. We opened fire they began to fall, I think everyone of my shots missed but the others were truly skilled.
"You Bitch!" Charlie screamed with agony. I turned to see her been bitten by Miss. Devwa, my old chemistry teacher I opened fire against her trying to save her. One of my bullets made contact with Devwa's head causing her weak skull to explode on the other side of the wall. Charlie fell over on the floor into a heap amongst the insides of the freshly dead.
"Let's move now!" Rebekah screamed. Her and Hollie sprinted off, Lacey grabbed my arm and pulled me off, my eye were too transfixed on Charlie who had started to move with a bloodcurdling growl escaping her lips.
"She's an effing Zombie Jake, Run!" Lacey screamed. I turned and ran with her leaving behind the helpless dead. We were running after the sounds of bullets escaping from guns.
"Hurry the hell up you three!" it was Hollie's voice this time, she didn't know Charlie was dead. We turned the corner and ran past the English room's and I ran straight past Em's locker. I would have stopped there days before. I would have given her a kiss and a cuddle, but now we were running for our lives, we didn't have time. We turned another corner and saw them at the exit. We sprinted for our lives. We ran straight through the door as they slammed them shut. Rebekah picked up a bit of fallen drain pipe and rammed it through the handles so they couldn't be open.
"Hand on, where's Charlie?" Hollie asked. We all exchanged glances but said nothing.
"She's dead isn't she. She's a Zombie!" she had begun to cry dampening her white cheeks.
"Hollie, not to be insensitive but you're gonna have to mourn later, we've got to go." Rebekah knelt down and grabbed her by her shoulder and pulled her to her feet.
"I know, just a shock you know." It was said through tears and gasping breath. We were all covered in blood and flesh, we had the same attire as the Zombies. Rebekah looked at us all and then jerked her head.
"This way, let's go." No-one argued. She just helped us all survive, no-one was about to argue. It was gonna be a hard life here, but we'd survive somehow. Em came back into my mind, all I could think about was that she was dead, and how much I’d miss her, and how much she'd hate that I was with Lacey. Then Lacey became the subject of my mind, a much more pleasant subject and the one that lasted for a while. Today was October 23rd and we had our first taste of fighting for our lives.
