Flip This Zombie - Jesse Petersen [68]
Well, it must not have been pretty (although maybe a tiny bit satisfying for some of the teachers).
I could only hope someone had managed to get out alive. Maybe somebody like The Kid. He was about the right age to be ending his elementary career and moving up to the junior high down the street. Smart kids like him had some kind of advantage, at least.
I reached through the already broken glass and turned the bolt from inside to get access.
The hallways were wide and had probably been well-lit at one point. I had somehow picked a school district that actually had money, because there was very little wear on the floors or walls.
In fact, staring at the happy signs and fresh paint, one could almost picture that school was just about to pick up at any minute after a good, long summer break. Kids could have just walked back in around me and started learning and fighting and breaking up into cliques.
Except for the fact that there was a dried blood pool three feet across at the base of a staircase straight ahead and black sludge smeared across every door down the hall, of course.
Yeah, I had definitely come to the right place. There had been activity here at some point. And judging from the wetness of some of the sludge, recent activity at that.
“Hey zombies,” I murmured softly as I eased through the halls.
They were still decorated with WELCOME BACK! signs. See, the initial outbreak had started right in the middle of August, so these rooms had been prepared for new students with new dreams.
New problems, too. Bigger than budget cuts or the increasingly unprepared student.
I stopped at one of the classroom doors. It said 2B, MRS. PEEPLES on the door. A perky little paper sun smiled down from near the placard, sunglasses perched on his round little sunshine nose. Tempered, fogged glass covered a big portion of the door, I guess to keep the kids from being distracted by stuff in the hall. Unfortunately, it also meant I couldn’t see shit inside. Still, there was no obvious movement from within to warn me off.
Slowly, I gripped the doorknob and turned it. Unlike the front door, it opened easily. No locks for classrooms, I guess. Inside, I looked around. Though there was a mustiness in the air from the room being locked up for so long, the familiar and comforting scent of chalk and glue still lingered in the background, taking me back to my own childhood.
Sun streamed through the big windows. They were filthy with sludge, both outside and more tellingly, in, and caked with sand from three months’ worth of dust storms, but they still provided enough light that I wasn’t totally blind. I glanced around, scanning for the teacher, even for a little kid who would make a good specimen. It may sound awful, but if it meant ending this, I’d probably take in my own mother.
The mother I currently hoped was safe behind what might be a mythical Midwest Wall.
“Mrs. Peeples,” I called out in the dusty air. “Time to come to class.”
Behind me there was a screech of a chair being pushed and I spun to face the sound. The door I’d opened then glided shut and standing behind it was who I assume might have once been Mrs. Peeples.
She was wearing a long, really ugly jumper-type dress that I think once had a Winnie the Pooh sewn appliqué of some kind on the front, though it was mostly ripped off with only half a honey pot and part Winnie’s little yellow leg left behind (fitting in a zombie world). Beneath it, she’d once worn a yellow t-shirt of some kind, but it was turned brown and smudged from the months of devastation.
She’d been sensible and worn little Keds with ankle socks, probably so she could chase her class around outside at recess, but sometime over the intervening months, the little thin soles had worn off, leaving her mostly barefoot.
“Gross,” I whispered as I shuddered at the sight of her dirty, bloody toes.
Some