Chaos continued to erupt
from the classroom as Drew tried to figure out a way to get out. He
thought of his sister Maryann at school and Grace sick at
home.
I wonder if Mee-maw
knows what’s going on here?
Drew thought. He was quite sure that if zombies were ravaging
his sibling’s school then surely she would not survive. How would
they? Nobody believed in zombies.
Fight or Flight. Fight or
Flight
. Were thoughts that plagued Drew’s
brain.
If you are going to survive Drew
Jacks, put your thinking cap on. Fight or Flight.
“
Guys! Guys!” Drew yelled,
waving his arms wildly. “We must keep quiet! Listen!” He tried to
calm everyone down with no success.
Sue Ellen dashed over to the light switch
and flicked the lights off and on again. Drew continued to shout
over the loud fuss.
“
We need to be quiet!”
Drew attempted to say in a shushed voice. “Look!” He pointed
towards the door. “There not as many of them now. It’s because of
the
noise
!”
The classroom came to a sedative still as
all eyes fell on Drew.
“
We need to figure out how
to get of here and fast,” he managed to say. “Those things out
there,” Drew pointed towards the outside classroom window with one
hand and then to the classroom door with other hand, “are going to
eventually break through that door and those windows, once they
find out we are in here. They want to
eat
us.” Drew was unaware that his
bloody knife was still in his hand as he went through his
descriptive motions.
“
People don’t eat people.
Those things are our classmates,” Sue Ellen said with a shaky
voice.
“
Not anymore there
aren’t,” Drew replied.
“
Did you just see what
happened, Sue Ellen? Like really?” Mater said in a wobbly voice.
She shook her head in disbelief at Sue Ellen who put her in head
into her hands. “What do you suggest, Drew?” Mater nervously
glanced over at Josefina who still waved her arms and clasped her
jaws.
“
For one… No more
screaming. It attracts
them
to the door,” Drew nodded his head at the door,
“and the windows.” He used his knife to point towards the classroom
window.
Drew had to get to his younger sisters and
grandmother no matter what. He did not plan on becoming the next
zombie meal. He walked over to Josefina and pushed the desk back
into her tightly making sure it was secure. He folded his knife and
put it back into his pocket as he walked over to where Lakely lay
on the floor. The boy was being attended too by Karley and Cookie.
His skin was pallid like lead in a pencil. Lakely’s eyes were
slightly opened. He bit down on his blue lips as he shivered.
Drew knelt down. “How’s it going man? I’m
going to get us out of here and get you some help. Alright
buddy?”
Lakely weakly nodded his head. He pulled at
Drew’s blood spattered shirt and slowly opened his mouth in attempt
to say something.
“
I-am-sorry-about-yo-your-mo-mo-mom….”
Drew instantly remembered what Lakely was
referring too. Two years ago Lakely started a rumor about Drew’s
mother abandoning him and his sisters every night for booze and
drugs. It hurt Drew to his heart because he knew the rumor was
true. The ending result was a fistfight between the two. Drew ended
up in detention and not starting for four games during baseball
season and Lakely a broken nose.
“
It’s okay man. I’m over
it. We are going to get you some help in a minute. Just hang in
there.”
Drew stood back up and began to look
around.
“
Are those computers
working?” Drew pointed towards the other side of the
room.
“
No. The way the
administrators had it set up, computers can’t operate on the
generator. I think the system only supports the main circuit which
supplies the lights, phone system, and coolers in the cafeteria,”
Mater said, “and that won’t last long.”
Drew continued to search the room. “Does
anyone have a cell phone?”
No one said anything.
“
Man, are you guys
serious? No one breaks the rules but me?” Drew stated as he patted
his pocket where his hunting knife sat.
“
Why don’t you have one?”
Royal squeaked from behind the girls.
“
Because your mom couldn’t
afford to get me one,” Drew shot back.
Royal narrowed his eyes as he glared at
Drew.
“
Here. Mrs. Westwood’s
cell phone,” Mater handed over the blood-crusted device to
Drew.
Drew fidgeted with the cell phone until he
found the on button. “What’s the password?” He glanced up. “Anybody
know the password?”
“
One, zero, three, one,”
Sue Ellen muttered as she slowly walked towards Drew and
Mater.
Drew stared at the wallpaper photo on Mrs.
Westwood’s cell phone. It was a photo of her and Mr. Westwood with
his hand over her extended belly. The picture haunted him as he
caught a glimpse of Mrs. Westwood’s calcified body on the floor. He
tried the combination and it immediately unlocked the teacher’s
phone.
“
How’d you know the pass
code?” Drew wondered.
“
It pays to
pay
attention in class,
Drew,” Sue Ellen smirked as she stood next to
him. “Can you guys imagine what buzz this
would generate in the school’s yearbook this year?”
“
Something tells me that
school is cancelled for the rest of the year,” Drew replied to Sue
Ellen. “Gotta call my Mee-maw first,” Drew said dialing his
grandmother’s cell phone.
“
What about the rest of
us? We need to use the phone too,” another kid shouted from the
back.
“
Hold on a second. Let me
speak to my Mee-maw and then we will all take turns calling after I
check the internet,” Drew said. After five rings his Mee-maw picked
up.
“
Hell… Hello?” Drew’s
grandmother sounded worried.
“
Mee-maw! It’s me,
Drew!”
“
Oh thank God! Are you
okay?”
“
Where are
you?”
“
Listen, there is some
pediatric infection going around that is killing children all over
the place. I can’t explain much about it now. I am headed to pick
up Maryann. I have Grace with me,” Mee-maw said. She sounded to
Drew as if she were choked up.
“
I, I am
scared
Mee-maw. We are
stuck in the class and the teachers are dead—“
“
You listen to me, Drew.
Get
out
of there
and get out
now
!
That school is a death trap! Meet me at the front of the school! I
am riding in
Big Thunder
and have
Strawberry
sitting in the dash. Get
to the front and—“
The phone call failed. The
last words that stuck in Drew’s head was
Big Thunder,
his Mee-maws red Ford
F250 with a raised suspension and
Strawberry
his late grandfather’s
357 Magnum. Drew knew that once his Mee-maw arrived then everything
would be okay.
“
Um… The call dropped,”
Drew meekly said holding up the phone. “Everybody can make calls
once we find out what’s going on here.” A few mumbles were apparent
but Drew ignored them as he navigated through the phone in attempt
to find the internet icon.
Mater strolled over to Drew and Sue Ellen as
the three ogled over the last screen that Mrs. Westwood pulled up
on the local news website.
The Apocalypse Is Here. The World Meets It
End. Zombie Children Roam The Earth.
The homepage was crowded
with news alerts about the
Eaters
, the undead children who
walked. Pictures of body parts, blood, and deathly ill looking
children infested the website page like a diseased plague. Major
cities were the first to fall to this mysterious illness. The news
station listed New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and Chicago amongst
the hardest hit.
Drew, with his hands
trembling, thumbed through the pages. From what he gathered from
the website, there was a rapid acting infection affecting children
that was transmitted through biting. The
Eaters
could transmit the infection
through any bodily fluids that was passed on to the living host.
Preferably a child. It would kill them instantly only within
minutes to a couple of hours for them to reanimate with the hunger
for flesh and blood. Once bitten, there was no hope. Death was
imminent. Adults almost died immediately after high fevers fried
their brains sending them into hemorrhagic seizures and then
eventually death. The children, however, were a different story as
they became resurrected in their former soulless bodies.
Rumors plagued the website
about how the infection started… A vaccination gone badly, a
conspiracy to turn America’s children into weapons, a tampered
water supply, and the list went on. Some of the accounts were
outlandish for no one really knew the reason as to why the hysteria
was occurring. Nevertheless, one report stood out to Drew.
Hurricane winds blow in death that affects
children’s brains
…. That could be logical.
The environment had become so toxic that the government had
considered implanting air stations to provide fresh filtered
oxygen. Drew had to write a report on air stations. There were so
many accounts of how the infection started that they all blended
together.
“
My mom works at the
health department—”
“
I know that,” Drew
interrupted Sue Ellen.
“
Well, type that in.
Mississippi Health Department. There might be more information on
what’s going on out there.” Sue Ellen peered over Drew’s shoulder
as he typed in
Mississippi Health
Department
in the search
engine.
“
We better hurry, Mrs.
Westwood’s battery is low,” Mater nervously pointed out. Drew
scrolled through the page rapidly
“
Slow down,” Sue Ellen
directed, “we might miss something. Look, that might be important.”
She pointed to the topic,
SYMPTOMS AFTER
BITTEN
.
The
Mississippi’s Department of Health had tons of
information.
Manifestations
Adults
Ages eighteen upward
Severe symptoms
The exposed victim adult victim will have:
hemorrhagic bleeding, lethargy, fever, delirium, seizures, coma,
and death.
Rapid cell death with immediate hardening and dark
discoloration of skin.
The main symptom after contact with the pediatric
mouth are elevated fevers reaching as high as 110 Fahrenheit in
adults.
Death is imminent for the adult population. Protect
all exposed skin!
Maybe that’s why the
teachers look the way they do,
Drew
figured. He read on.
Manifestations Children
Ages newborn to seventeen-years-old
Exposed pediatric victim will have: lethargy, fever,
and seizures.
Brain cells are replaced with infected viral
cells.
Immediate death. Virus fuels the brain. Reanimates
physical body.
Cannibalism.
Studies are still pending. Protect all exposed skin!
No cure as to date.
The phone shut off. The battery went
dead.
Two phrases stuck out like
a sore thumb to Drew.
Don’t get bit
and
There is no
cure.
“
Zombies?” Mater whispered
to Drew and Sue Ellen. “That is something that happens in
movies.”
“
Eaters
,” Drew corrected quietly. “Haven’t you realized that any
movie that was ever produced, had some truth to it? I mean come on,
look at some of the movies that feature those crazy virus
outbreaks. Or the earth over heating and then freezing. My Mee-maw
warned me about the West Nile Virus and the virus with the
chickens.”
“
Not chickens. The bird
flu,” Sue Ellen corrected.
“
The same thing. Same
species,” Drew hissed. Sue Ellen always had a quick response for
everything. Sue Ellen quickly rolled her eyes.
“
And, And what about these
movies with all of those natural disasters ripping into these
countries. No one in there right rocks would have thought the storm
of the century would have happened here in the United States but it
did hit home.
Right here
in Wiggins. Hurricane Katrina. That happened in
real life, right?”
Sue Ellen and Mater stared
at Drew nodding their heads. The realization was real. The
Eaters
were real. It was
the truth. It was happening right now, in their school. In their
class.
“
What I don’t understand
is how the children…. Well us, are able to come back to life and
the grown ups kill over dead within minutes and look like beef
jerky afterwards,” Sue Ellen whispered.
The trio looked over at Mrs. Kissing’s
lifeless body. Her calcified blackened arm was frozen in motion. It
seemed like she was trying to grasp her throat.