These are the real monsters.
No blanket over her head would hide her now. There would be no calling for her dad to check her closet. She was alone with only six others. Robbie was here, of course, and he would do his best to protect her. Like now, he had his arm around her and was pulling her close to him.
The room was nearly completely dark with only that one small window to cast moonlight in on them, but her eyes had grown accustomed to the dark, and she could see the other kids now. Their features weren’t sharp, but she could see them.
Lance, who she’d never met until this moment, was a big kid who carried a harmonica with him everywhere he went. Nitsy was terrified he’d forget their circumstances and nervously belt out a tune. He’d taken on kind of a leadership role, demanding they find shelter in one of the empty classrooms. He’d admitted to sneaking into this music room with one of the girl students.
Bradley had followed them out the auditorium and was now seated across from her, his legs tucked under him as he rocked back and forth. His glasses were crooked and Nitsy wanted so badly to reach over and fix them for him. He had a childlike quality and she remembered Phyllis had a bit of a crush on him.
Phyllis was here too. Nitsy had started the morning seated next to her friend in the auditorium, waiting for the day’s big challenge to begin. They’d sat as a group. Everyone was in attendance except Elias. If she hadn’t left to go search with Robbie, she might not have made it out of that auditorium at all. She would have been as confused as everyone else.
Nitsy blinked and remembered the faces of students scrambling for their lives.
One boy had turned toward her in his effort to flee, but something or someone had grabbed hold of his leg. He seemed to lose hope instantly like it was too late already, and then it was. His mouth fell open in a painful cry as his body pitched forward and scattered the seats around him. An infected girl crawled onto his back.
A female student was nearly at the door, had almost escaped with the rest of them when an infected boy jumped onto her back. His hand reached over her forehead and Nitsy watched in horror as the boy’s fingernails dug into her eyeballs. The girl screamed and reached out to her, but it was too late. The boy continued to claw at the girl’s face as Robbie yanked Nitsy out of the auditorium.
Even if she made it through this and returned to her home, she knew she would never close her eyes again without seeing those faces. So many more haunted her. The way the infected, zombie-like kids spread through the group so quickly was unlike anything she could ever fathom. It seemed like whatever was happening was jumping, not moving through bites like in all the horror movies. It was so much faster.
She and Robbie had been their only warning. If only they’d listened to her. They could have had a head start. There might have been more than seven of them cowering in this classroom now.
The other two kids with them she didn’t know. The girl looked too young to attend the conference. The boy looked too old. They definitely knew each other. The two held hands and the boy whispered to the girl often.
“Are you two from the same school?” Nitsy whispered to them.
They froze as if her sudden interruption of the silence might bring the creatures down on them.
The girl nodded.
“What are your names?” Nitsy asked.
“Shh,” Lance warned her.
“Don’t shush her,” Robbie warned him.
“Fuck you, man,” Lance shot back. “We need to be quiet.”
“Well you’re being louder than I ever was,” Nitsy replied.
Lance scoffed and scooted away from the rest of them. He stood and made his way to the door. Nitsy knew he wouldn’t be dumb enough to open it, but she didn’t trust that he wouldn’t accidentally make a loud noise and alert the monsters. He was bossy by nature, and Nitsy didn’t need to ask to know he was the leader of his group. He would have been her competition if they’d ever gotten to the point of explaining their projects to Mrs. Price.
Mrs. Price. She’s dead too. They’re all dead.
“Her name is Yasmin,” the older boy answered, pulling Nitsy from her thoughts. “I’m Beau.”
“Where are you from?” Nitsy asked.
“Portland, Oregon,” Beau replied.
“I wanna go home,” Yasmin whined.
Beau squeezed her tighter. Nitsy hoped the young girl would make it home. She wondered if any of them would. She wanted to be back at her home in Florida, sitting at the dinner table right now, about to help her mom clean the table before sitting down to watch a TV show. She wished she’d never shown interest in this program. She’d been told she was one of the lucky ones. She didn’t feel so lucky now.
“They’re out there still,” Lance whispered as he returned to the rest of them and plopped down at a desk. “I didn’t hear any footsteps, but they’re near. It sounded like someone screamed.”
“Someone screamed?” Phyllis asked.
Lance nodded. Nobody needed to mention what that might mean. If any of the others had escaped the auditorium, the monsters might have caught up with them. Nitsy closed her eyes and tried to focus on her breathing.
What if this place isn’t good enough?
What if they break down the door?
We’ll be trapped.
“I don’t like staying in here like this,” Nitsy said.
“We did what we had to do,” Robbie reminded her. “We didn’t have a lot of time to plan it.”
She shrugged. “I guess. We could have run away from the campus.”
Lance laughed and tapped his fingers on his desk, way too loud for comfort. Robbie glared at him and it was clear he wanted to give him a piece of his mind but held back, probably out of fear of a commotion starting. That was all they needed. Some stupid fight that would get them all killed. If the monsters never found them, they might make it for a while, but if they all came crashing against that door at the same time, they were done for.
“We’d never make it out there in the woods with those things chasing us,” Bradley said, surprising everyone. He hadn’t said a word since they’d fled the auditorium. He tucked his face back into his knees.
“Maybe,” Robbie agreed.
Bradley lifted his face again. “You said you saw Elias break his neck?”
Robbie nodded.
“I was with him this morning,” Bradley said, “for wake-up crew.”
Everyone sat still, silently waiting on the rest of his story.
“The girls wouldn’t come out of their room,” Bradley added. “We knocked and tried to wake them up, but they wouldn’t come out. Elias was convinced there was something… I don’t know… sexual going on in there. I turned my back for a second and then he was gone. He’d entered the room.” Bradley was silent and then he wiped at his eyes, getting rid of his tears. “I thought he was the luckiest guy in the world. I thought he was in there… you know… doing stuff with those girls.”
“Room 214?” Robbie asked.
Bradley lifted his gaze and nodded, wiping at his eyes once more.
“Bianca’s room,” Nitsy said.