Mrs. Kissing dialed 911. Busy. She tried
again. Busy. Mrs. Kissing walked over to Mrs. Westwood with a grave
look on her face. She glanced back at the students huddled over
Josefina.
“
Do you have internet
access on your phone?” Mrs. Kissing asked as she gave Mrs. Westwood
her cell phone. Mrs. Westwood nodded her head. She was in shock.
“Go to the local news station’s website. NBC or CBS. Maybe it can
give us some insight on what’s going on out there.”
Mrs. Westwood nervously went to the local
website as instructed by Mrs. Kissing. She was hit by news that was
unimaginable beyond all of mankind’s existence. Mrs. Westwood
dropped her phone and ran to a corner to vomit.
“
What did it say?” Mrs.
Kissing asked as Mrs. Westwood regurgitated her entire breakfast
up.
Before Mrs. Kissing could retrieve Mrs.
Westwood’s phone off of the floor, Mater screamed pointing at the
classroom window. Drew looked at Mater and then followed her
shaking finger that directed him to the window that displayed the
outside world. To his dismay, his day could not get any better. Out
in the midst of the brewing storm, a child no more than
thirteen-years-old was drooling thick black blood and was missing
both upper limbs. The child shuffled and moaned loudly. The student
was unaware of the harsh weather conditions that surrounded her.
Everybody in the class moved closer to the classroom window as they
noticed the child snapping her teeth at something on the
ground.
“
Oh my God!! It’s
McKenzie Ward
!! Sue
Ellen shrieked as she began to loudly scream.
Drew and the students looked on in horror as
they noticed McKenzie stumble with her feet as if she were trying
to pick up something from below. What they saw next was sheer
terror beyond belief. McKenzie shuffled as she kicked a severed
head… The decapitated head of Dr. Bradford, the principal.
Zombie Zombie go away
For I want to live another day
Screams erupted from inside the classroom
once again as everyone watched in dismay at what took place.
McKenzie’s disfigured, mangled body finally accomplished its task
as she fell over and slithered to the severed head devouring it.
Gasps and shrieks erupted throughout the class as the inhabitants
witnessed the horrific events happen in front of their very own
eyes.
“
Don’t look outside the
window!” Mrs. Westwood shouted. She had walked back from her corner
to see what all the commotion was about. Mrs. Westwood bowed her
head and half shielded her eyes as she tried to removed everyone
from the gruesome scene unfolding in front of them.
Drew tried to put it all together. Now, he
knew why Mrs. Westwood could never get a hold of the front office.
Dr. Bradford was dead. In the midst of the commotion, Mrs. Westwood
had dropped her cell phone. Drew picked it up and saw the page that
had frightened her. The words were there in bold print.
ZOMBIES!
Drew quickly put the phone back down after
skim reading the contents page.
This cannot be happening.
This only happens in movies but movies always have some truth to
it,
Drew thought.
We are all going to die in this classroom like Mrs. Kissing
said if we don’t get out of here.
Drew
knew that after browsing the website’s page that their chance of
survival was slim to none especially if they stayed inside of the
classroom. They were all like pigs waiting to be
slaughtered.
Drew took a glimpse towards the door where
the thrashing, severed hands tried to make its way through the
blockade. Drew then glanced back out the window where his former
classmate, McKenzie, was eating his principal’s remains. Or was it
truly his classmate? It was not according to the World Wide Web.
Drew figured it was time to say something. There was always some
truth to the movies and the time had finally come to speak out. He
was going to warn Mrs. Kissing, Mrs. Westwood, and his classmates
before it was too late of what was really going on out there.
“
There is something that I
have to say,” Mrs. Westwood tried to say over the loud racket. The
tense muscles in Drew’s neck relaxed. He did not have to break the
news.
Mrs. Kissing walked back from the window and
helped shush the students.
“
I found out what is
causing this madness,” Mrs. Westwood pointed towards the door, “Not
too much is known about it right now but those children…
those
things
out
there are called
Eaters.
It’s on my cell—“
Mrs. Westwood was cutoff by the high pitch
shrill that erupted from Josefina. Sue Ellen and Mater both cradled
Josefina’s convulsing body.
“
I think she has stopped
breathing! There is thick gunky stuff coming out of her mouth!” Sue
Ellen yelled shaking Josefina frantically.
“
Don’t shake her!” Mrs.
Kissing instructed. “You girls, get back!”
Josefina’s skin color had become ashen in
appearance. Her lips were blue and skin was blazing hot like an
iron. Her eyes rolled upwards as if she was gazing up into the
ceiling. The onset of seizures began. Josefina bit her tongue
during the spasm causing her mouth to fill with dark red blood and
thick viscous saliva. Black veins arose and replaced the blue ones.
Death ran prominent through her once caramel colored skin.
“
Man, is somebody going to
do something?” Drew barked, his pouty full lips turned into a
frown.
“
No, you can’t. She has to
work through the seizure on her own. We are supposed to place her
in recovery position once she stops seizing,” Mater said. “You
don’t remember what your Mee-maw taught us?”
Mater remembered Drew’s grandmother talking
about her adventures with her patients when she served in the
military. These stories would occur when Mater would go over to
bring firewood. Mater usually chopped wood from the time she got
home from school to nightfall during the fall and winter months.
Her sister Marley would always tag along sucking her thumb even
though she was in the sixth grade.
“
Just great…. She has
stopped breathing!” Mrs. Kissing gasped as she checked for
Josefina’s pulse.
Mrs. Westwood grabbed her belly and eased
herself down to the floor to offer assistance, if needed to Mrs.
Kissing. Josefina’s body went limp after the last seizure. Her eyes
remained open, fixed looking upward.
“
Is she?” Mater stopped
short, she flipped her long French braid behind her shoulders and
grasped Sue Ellen’s hand.
Josefina’s over heated body began to cool.
Mrs. Kissing checked for a pulse. No heartbeat. She immediately
initiated Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, CPR. The plump teacher
pressed into Josefina’s chest with brute force, thirty times, in an
effort to restart her heartbeat. Mrs. Westwood took over the chest
compressions while Mrs. Kissing administered the breaths. Mrs.
Westwood glanced up at the clock on the wall. She was already tired
with her baby nearly due. They had been working on Josefina for ten
minutes.
“
I don’t think there is
nothing else we can do for her,” Mrs. Westwood stopped and leaned
back.
Mrs. Kissing halted her breathing and
checked Josefina’s pulse. Nothing. She shook her head.
“
I mean look at her. She
looks like she has been deceased for a week.” Mrs. Westwood grabbed
Josefina’s damaged arm and studied it. “The blood in her arm
is
black?
” The
fresh, bright red blood that once coursed through Josefina’s arm
was thick and dark like tar.
“
She is turning cold. I
think we should give it another try,” Mrs. Kissing said as she bent
down to give Josefina’s lifeless body another breath.
“
You should move away from
Josefina. I think she is gone.”
Mrs. Kissing ignored Mrs. Westwood as she
administered another wind of air. Mrs. Kissing nodded her head in
disappointment.
“
No…. Josefina….” Mrs.
Kissing stopped and sat with her shoulders slumped. Josefina was
one of two students she managed to save in her classroom when the
outbreak occurred. Sue Ellen and Mater hugged each other. Karley
softly whimpered. The other students looked on sadly. Mrs. Westwood
tried to grab Mrs. Kissing’s attention.
“
Rebecca, there is
something you need to know. It is about the information I found on
the internet. We might need to move away from Josefina. If you are
bit—“
“
Ahhh!”
Josefina had risen up and clamped down onto
Mrs. Kissing’s face. Blood spewed up into the ceiling like a fire
hydrant under pressure. Mrs. Kissing tried desperately to break
free from the deathly embrace. The students in the classroom
resumed the screams and yells as they observed the soulless
creature chew off Mrs. Kissing’s face. Mrs. Westwood sprang into
action pulling Mrs. Kissing free from Josefina’s grasp. Mrs.
Kissing’s arms jerked as she tried to grab what was left of her
face.
Josefina’s eyes were rolled back into her
head, stuck from the apparent seizure, revealing dilated black
pupils. Her eyes, mouth, and ears oozed dark, gelatinous blood. Her
skin was ghastly and gray like a cadaver. Josefina opened her mouth
and grated her teeth over and over with thick gooey blood pouring
out. She was hungry and chewed madly as bits of Mrs. Kissing’s face
felt out of her orifice.
“
My nose! My nose!” Mrs.
Kissing said in between frantic gasps. She began choking on her own
blood as she fell back onto the floor.
Mrs. Westwood had managed to pull Mrs.
Kissing away from Josefina’s death trap, her mouth. She took off
her sweater and placed it on Mrs. Kissing’s face and began to say
something until she felt an excruciating pain in her leg. It felt
like someone had taken an iron placed on the hottest setting and
stuck it to her bare skin. Mrs. Westwood let out an ear-deafening
cry and fell to the floor with a forceful clunk, splitting her
skull open on the concrete floor. The teacher’s body made squiggly
movements like a snake, as Josefina continued to feast on her
flesh.
“
The dead has risen!”
Royal Carter shouted from the back of his shielded corner. He
peeped out from beneath a group of girls huddled together in the
back of the classroom.
Drew ran up behind Josefina and swung his
backpack against her head like he did his baseball bat. A blow as
such would have rendered someone semi unconscious but not Josefina.
She fell back, unaffected, with her neck twisted at an unnatural
angle. She rose up again gnashing her teeth and began to shuffle
towards the nearest victim, Lakely Roland, the best friend of Royal
and the kicker on the football team.
Lakely swung at Josefina with his fist but
not before she caught a portion of his knuckles in her mouth.
Lakely yelped out from the sharp, stabbing pain as he heard his own
bones crush in the folds of Josefina’s mouth. The strength she
possessed was inhuman fueled by the rage of desperate hunger.
“
Help meeee!” Lakely
screeched as he looked back for his best friend, Royal’s
assistance. They had both been apart of the popular jock group at
the school and had run of the mill with all the girls wanting to
date them. Royal looked away as he hid down further in the shadows
of the corner.
“
Help me, man!” Lakely
called out in one last act of desperation.
But it was too late Josefina had enveloped
Lakely into her web and lacerated his neck with her teeth. Blood
sprayed out hitting the wall as the students who shielded the group
in the corner fought to get into the back. Drew pushed a desk up to
Mater and Sue Ellen and gave them instructions. Sue Ellen and Mater
hurled the desk into Josefina pinning her up against the wall. Drew
jumped in the air from the desk and stabbed Josefina in the heart
with his knife. Josefina did not flinch once from the inflicting
injury. Drew quickly withdrew his knife as he watch Josefina
continue to wave her arms and gnash her teeth in an effort to grasp
at the next meal. The hits from Josefina’s wildly swinging arms
stung Drew’s face. Drew shook his head in bewilderment that the
stab wound did not subdue the zombified Josefina. He pushed another
desk behind the first desk that had her pinned to the wall.
Drew backed up slowly eyeing the overpowered
Josefina as she continued to moan and wail with waving grasping
arms. Dark thick blood drooled from her mouth as she stared at him
with unseeing eyes. In the process of backing up, Drew tripped over
the leg of Mrs. Westwood and jumped back from the ghastly sight of
her anatomy. Mummified skeletal remains replaced his teacher’s once
lively body, which rejuvenated life just moments earlier. Mrs.
Westwood’s sclera was as black as the night. Her mouth was frozen
open and stiffened. The dark pool of blood that lay at the base of
her skull looked like grape jelly. Drew knew there was no hope for
Mrs. Westwood or her unborn baby. He instantly felt sick and
dizzy.
Drew noticed that Sue Ellen and Mater were
staring down at Mrs. Kissing’s lifeless body. Both girls were
stupefied. Mrs. Kissing’s corpse resembled that of Mrs.
Westwood’s…. Mummified and blackened.
What is going on
here?
Drew thought.
Why didn’t they turn into a zombie like Josefina?
This was not something that he had seen in the
movies.
Drew surveyed his surroundings. He glanced
outside the classroom window and noticed that the rain was falling
in waves in conjunction with the winds. Former classmates littered
the yard like trash scavenging in hunt for something. Drew figured
human flesh. He took note of the shuffling like the students were
discombobulated or confused. Bringing his attention back to the
room, he scanned the scene. The number of arms and hands that tried
to come through the small opening in the door decreased. Josefina
was currently pinned behind two desks moaning rashly, waving her
arms like she wanted a hug. The thick blood that oozed from
Josefina’s mouth was as dark as chocolate. Lakely lay on the floor
shivering and fluttering as students attended to the deep gash in
his neck. Karley had wrapped Lakely’s hand that was literally
chewed off with tissue and stuffed his neck with a sock to stop the
bleeding. Then there were the teachers, Mrs. Westwood and Mrs.
Kissing, who lay on the floor ossified like bones.