Zombie High (16 page)

Thinking about the time Mr. Ray did that
experiment which ended igniting the fire blanket and
scorching the white tiles of the ceiling, you pick up one of
the flasks and say, “I think we should try this first.”

“As long as you’re careful, I’m willing to let you
try.”
“What is it?”
“Well, I thought about making a few things. The
first was picric acid, but we don’t have the stuff here to
make it. Then I thought about a hydrofluoric acid, but
that stuff isn’t safe to store anywhere. It can actually eat
through the very container that’s holding it, so I ended up
making a sulfuric acid and put it in the flasks with the red
stoppers on them.”
Not really having noticed the difference in the
colored stoppers, you point to the other flasks and ask,
“What about the ones with the black stoppers?”
Smiling a mischievous grin, Mr. Ray says, “Those
are something else. For now we’ll just call them Mr. Ray’s
Secret Sauce. It’s a potassium chlorate mixture which will
basically speed up the reaction and help it turn into
hellfire. I figured with these being flesh eating zombies
and all, we wouldn’t want to have to wait for them to
start dissolving.”
Looking at the tray of 125 ml flasks, you ask,
“Exactly how strong is this stuff going to be?”
Thinking about it, Mr. Ray answers, “You remember
when we talked about hydrochloric acid in class, and
someone wanted to know how strong it was, and I
answered that while a high school can’t order it, the
strongest is seventeen molar and has to be kept under
lock and key by those who do use it with very special
conditions?” When you nod, he says, “Well this is like
that, on steroids.” Then after a moment he gives you a
devilish grin and adds, “Make that level twelve steroids.”
“So basically it’s gamma infused,” making a
reference to the popular Marvel comics hero, the
Incredible Hulk.
Being the scientist that he is, Mr. Ray misses the
reference at first and says, “No, there’s no gamma
radiation in there,” before he catches on, shakes his head,
and says, “Oh, you meant the superhero guy. Yeah, well,
it’s strong like that, I guess.”
“That should work then,” you say with a
combination of excitement and nervousness in your voice
as you pick up the tray of flasks, sixteen in all. Luckily, it’s
not too heavy, and Mr. Ray put a foam divider at the
bottom which had holes cut out for each of them so none
of the flasks roll around or knock into one another.
Walking over to the door where Mr. Ray stands, you
manage to balance the tray on your left hip using just your
left arm, which leaves you with your right arm for
grabbing the flasks.
“You got that?” asks Mr. Ray. “I mean I could strip
the batteries off the cart for you if you want.”
Shaking the tray a little to show that it isn’t slipping
or anything, you say, “No, I’ve got it. Besides, I want to be
able to try the cart out later, and it would be too much to
strip it all down just to have to put it back together.”
Nodding, Mr. Ray says, “All right, here goes it
then,” and opens the door.
There in the hall waiting for you, as if he followed
you from the previous chase when Mr. Ray let you in the
classroom door down the hall, is the zombie. The idea of
that alone is a little unnerving as you think about the
implications that this zombie might have it out for you
personally, but then you reason that the thing is probably
just wandering around in the hall, and you happen to be
one of the few, if not only, people crazy enough to be out
here this much. Seeing the movement, or perhaps
smelling the life within your flesh, the zombie stumbles
forward ready to sink his teeth into you.
Instinctively, you take a step back and reach for a
flask. Selecting a red stoppered one, you fling it into the
creature’s face allowing it to break on impact and soak it
in acid. As the flask hits it, the zombie pauses, as if
confused about what’s just happened, but then continues
on, now entering the room. Not seeing it dissolve right
away, you reach down and grab another flask, this time
making sure it has a black stopper on it, and smash the
flask into its face.
From behind you, Mr. Ray says something like,
“Two Ohs,” but it doesn’t make sense, and you’re a little
too preoccupied with the zombie, now less than an arm’s
distance away, to stop and ask him to clarify. That’s when
you see the white smoke, and then a moment later, the
flames engulfing the zombie’s entire head as well as the
spots where it dripped onto its clothes. The heat being
produced is beyond anything you’ve ever experienced,
and it feels like your face is only inches from a campfire.
You attempt to shield yourself as you back up and raise
your right arm in front of your face just as the fire flares
up one more time making it so bright it leaves spots on
your eyes when you close them and turn your face away.
A moment later, the reaction finishes, and the fire
puts itself out, leaving you with a headless zombie
standing before you. Turning to Mr. Ray, you prepare to
say something about how cool that was, but then the
body falls forward and lands against your side. Even
headless, the thing weighs about a hundred and fifty
pounds, and you are unprepared to take on the extra
weight. Before the body has a chance to slump off you to
the floor, you find that you’ve dropped the tray.
Watching the flasks fall to the ground, it seems like
everything is happening in slow motion. You feel the
zombie’s body as it slides off you and down your side. You
notice as the tray hits the ground, first one corner, and
then then flattening out, and how the flasks seem to cut
themselves in half upon impact. You hear Mr. Ray yell at
you, “Get out of there,” but by the time you brain catches
up to everything, the tray at your feet is already smoking,
and the beautiful flames are growing, as if they are almost
reaching out to you.
To be honest, Mr. Ray tried to warn you that you
were too close, but you didn’t hear him. Now, as the
chemical flames climb upwards, lighting a pillar of fire
from floor to ceiling, you realize that those were the
words he said, but obviously, now, it’s too late.

Weapons in hand, you decide that the first aid kit in
the nurse’s office should be your next goal. Thinking
about the layout of the school, you’ll have to make your
way down three long halls to get there, passing the main
office along the way. It seems like a crazy plan. Actually
the whole thing seems crazy, and you would have much
rather been sitting through another history lecture right
about now, but it’s too little too late for that. Gripping
the two-by-four, though, you feel like you have a little
more confidence that this mission of yours will actually
work.

Mustering up your courage, you head out seeking
the supplies you need and hoping that you won’t run into
too many of these undead things. Your hopes, however,
are shattered as you reach the first intersection and find
that there are in fact two of the walking dead monsters
shambling in the next hall. The first one is facing away
from you, which should give you the advantage, but the
second one appears to be turning in your direction. Not
wanting to give them a chance to notice you, you decide
to attack first.

The first zombie, a smaller one than most, was
clearly a student here. His school uniform is still in
relatively good condition minus the ugly stain of
questionable dried fluid running down the front, and his
short blonde hair is remarkably well combed for him being
a member of the undead. From the side, you think he
may have been that one kid who was always late to class
and just sort of poked along in the halls, not really in a
rush and always forgetting stuff. You never really disliked
the kid, but at the same time, you never really had a
conversation with him either. It’s probably for the best
that you never got to know him though, considering you
now find yourself with no real alternative but to smash
the two-by-four in your hand up against the back of his
skull.

As you do so, you feel a vibration run up through
the wood and sting your hands, and you internally scold
yourself for not grabbing a pair of gloves from the shop
class to protect your hands while you were there. Too
late now, you don’t have time to worry about it, because
the second zombie, now fully turned to face you, is
already advancing. As he does so, you wonder if he’s at all
aware that you just caved in his afterlife partner’s noggin,
but since he seems relatively focused on attacking you,
you figure that it doesn’t much matter from here out.

Swinging the wooden plank a little early this time,
you catch the zombie in the mouth, and watch in disgust
as not only did you dislocate the zombie’s jaw, leaving it
hanging at a strange unnatural angle, but that a chunk of
skin is peeled away and left hanging, revealing the stark
white bone beneath surrounded by necrotic muscle and
reddish black blood. Grossed out as you are by the sight,
you don’t let it stop you from bringing the makeshift
weapon up on the backswing and hitting the creature in
the temple, causing its head to lean so far over that its ear
touches its unraised shoulder. With its neck broken like
that, it crumples to the ground and lets you move on with
your quest.

Praying that the encounter with these two hasn’t
been so loud as to attract more of their kind, you leave
the corpses and continue on towards your goal. You make
it all the way down the rest of this hall and turn onto the
last before you find your next problem. The area around
the nurse’s office has several more zombies milling about,
and you can see more inside the small room beyond
where you have to go. The creatures here look a little
worse than the last ones you encountered and maybe
easier to put down, but still you figure there is the
alternative of turning around and heading for the science
labs instead. Guess you’ll have to make a choice.

Two zombies were manageable, but this, this looks
downright scary. They keep moving around, and you
don’t have a direct line of sight into the nurse’s office, but
from your position, crouched down up against the wall,
your best estimate is that there seems to be about five
outside here, and another four or more in the office. The
way you figure it, fighting your way through there would
just be like asking to get bit, kind of like that time you
threw a stick you were using as a makeshift spear into
that hornets’ nest as a kid. Pretty dumb move, sure, but
as a kid you don’t always think things through and ask
yourself how bad can this get. Now of course you know
better, and there’s no reason to go rushing in there,
risking life and limb, when there are other places you can
get what you need.

Turning around, you try to stay low as you begin to
head back down the hall planning to go check out the
science labs when you hear the scrape of a shoe just
behind you. Looking back, you find you’re looking at the
all too familiar Hawaiian shirt the German language
teacher wears every Friday. Apparently, he was just
around the corner leading to the nurse’s station, and now
he’s standing right behind you with some kind of nasty
looking goop drying into his mustache. For a split second,
your mind flashes back to the Castle Wolfenstein game
you played years ago where the Nazis were doing strange
experiments to win World War II, and they somehow
created zombies. Unfortunately, this is the wrong time
for your mind to be going off on a trip down nostalgia
road, and you pay for it when your teacher leans down
and grabs you.

With no room to swing the big two-by-four and too
flustered to think of doing anything else, you make a
desperate attempt to wiggle away, even going so far as to
punch him in the face a couple of times, but when you pull
your hand back for a third blow, you realize nothing you
do from here on really matters. Not only does he have
you, but in the process of hitting him, you managed to
catch your fist on one of his teeth, and now you’re
infected too.

Given enough time, maybe an hour or so, you
would feel the unnatural desire to start consuming living
flesh, and your body would, in fact, give in to whatever is
infecting you, but that kind of timeline clearly isn’t what
your teacher has in mind. Instead, as your mind reels
from the consequences of your actions and how the
events of the day have lead you to this moment, your
German teacher takes the opportunity to bite into the soft
chewy flesh running between your pinky and wrist with
his half broken teeth scraping against the bones in your
hand.

As he does so, your mind snaps back to the present
and you let out a horrific scream. A scream which only
serves to act as a dinner bell for the rest of the zombies
who have been milling around just a few feet away.

On the bright side, now you’ll never have to know
what it feels like to transform into one of the walking
dead monsters because there won’t be enough of you left
to come back by the time they all help themselves to your
tasty flesh.

Staying low, you try to get a more accurate count,
but at the best you can only see about nine, maybe ten,
zombies. As you count them off, you also try to judge
their speed and the amount of decay their bodies have
gone through. Whatever it is that has reanimated them is
clearly not in full control of them, and it seems like the
best it can do is drive them to move forward in the
direction of prey in a slow shambling pace. Considering
the number of zombies you’ve seen put down in movies
and the fact that these things are as slow as molasses, you
feel confident that you’ll be able to take them out with
your new weapons.