Chapter 7: Silence

Hello Forever-fans and friends!

I'm so incredibly sorry/guilty for not updating lately. As you can imagine, all four of us have hectic lives with exams etc. and we really just haven't been able to either a) find the motivation to write our way out of the school and into the ACTUAL story, or b) find the time to sit down and actually write for anymore then five minutes at a time every once in a blue moon.

I SINCERELY APOLOGISE FOR THE CRAPPYNESS OF THIS CHAPTER!

Unfortunately, because of our severly conflicting schedules and lack of time, this chapter is basically just a really dodge filler. It bridges the awesomeness of chapter 6 to the excitement of chapter 8 with very little substance or actual editing.

Regardless, I finally feel some of the guilt lifted from my conscience at finding the time to update, although hopefully we'll revisit this chapter at a later date and revise a lot of it without changing any of the story.

Anyways,

Thankyou for your ever growing support and patience. Hope you enjoy this chapter, despite the shame of it all.

Maddy of the Forever Team

(P.S - I swear on my very life that chapter 8 will be up by at least late sunday night! as sworn on 5:59 pm, on Thursday the 20th of August, 2009. PROMISE!)

“And this is a shoebox
This is a cell
Feels like my skin belongs to somebody else
But I smile and suck it in”

Just 'cause it works for you doesn't mean it works for me
I can't fall in love with every single idiot I see

When I see I've had enough
And the seas are getting rough
I just need time
Til everything is back to normal
And everything is as it should be
If everything is less than you hoped for
Everything's okay by me

Shoebox – Kate Miller-Heidke

From the silence came a small groan, followed by an equally painful sounding yawn. Scott’s eyes flickered open, the darkness confusing him. Where was he again? He looked around, expecting the comforting surroundings of his room to greet his weary, sleep dusted eyes. Instead, he turned to meet the dim room and the barely visible, familiar face of his best friend. Scott smiled half heartedly, and sat up, only to feel the sting of the wounds littered around the flesh of his legs.

With a slight sense of dread, Scott dared to look down. Both legs was covered with blood (some he knew that wasn’t just his own), the pants leg torn away to clear the large openings from possible interference. Where there once was clarity now lay a barren land of bloody skin, with mountains of scars and eruptions of the crescent liquid from volcanoes of pain.

Scott made a mental note never to stay up late watching nature documentaries ever again.

Soon after his awakening, he found that his leg was furiously itchy. Upon weakly tugging on his arm however, he found that it was securely placed within Roy’s hands. In mild bewilderment, Scott glanced to Roy, who looked slightly embarrassed.
“It kept both of us from scratching.” Roy muttered uncomfortably before jerking his hand away.

Scott soon thought over what had happened in the past night. He recalled leaving camp, and the strange storm, and coming back to find the school in shambles. He vaguely remembered waking up earlier to walk into this room, this... media room, he had noticed, now that he was more awake.

“Where... where are all the others? Weren’t they here before I... fell asleep again?” Scott managed to ask, breaking what little silence remained.

Roy grunted as he shifted his own position, stretching his taut muscles; cramped from leaning against the wall for too long. “They’ve all gone to get the keys from the Zoo. I dunno when they’ll be back. Just sit tight.”

Scott looked to his close friend, noticing his weary eyes. “Come on, Roy. It’s going to be fine. We’re going to do this. No sweat.” Scott tried to make some conversation.

Roy looked casually to Scott, smiling at his friends efforts. “Yeah, you’re right. It’s going to be fine.” Roy said.

Scott began searching around the room for items that could help them, trying to take his mind of his leg wound, which actually didn’t appear to be as bad as everyone had thought earlier. He had found an emergency flashlight tucked away in a first aid kit that was hidden in the cupboard to help himself and Roy with.

Sifting through the first aid kid, handing various items to Roy who decided what was important enough to stash in his bag or leave behind; Scott found his mind began to wander in the awkward silence between them in the cramped room.

The school was like a second home to him, he having been there since preschool, and yet, he had never really set foot in this room before today. Carp Camp, he realised to much his disgust, was suddenly a much better place to be right now then here. He would have given anything to still be there, in moderate... well, no, it wasn’t luxury at all, but it was still better than running for your life through a school filled with zombies and who knows what else lurking within the walls of a strange room. The silence here... it was different to the outside world, and he knew it.

This school was a lot like that. It always talked of itself like it was a community, but it was really more of a shoebox; sheltered and closed off from any outside influences. Students came and went; some bad, some good, but still the school remained a prison in itself. It was an elitist college, fuelled by success, although little thought was given to who lay beyond the best athletes or scholars. This was the school’s downfall, the average student who found themselves never feeling good enough to be there.

Although, the constant remained; all students, especially those having been sheltered by their parents in their home life, to remain sheltered from real world issues in school as well. For Scott, who had lived here for so long, and who had really not known anything else; he found he was almost jealous of the others who came in, with other experiences and past lives. Who could be independent, who knew their strengths and weaknesses, who had the people skills and who had an inner fighter, a survivalist attitude. Scott found himself wondering a very disturbing thought: was the entire reason he was alive because of the others with not-so-sheltered home lives, or who used to go to other schools? Was it that simple a formula? And what would happen to him, if he was forced to go alone?

“Scott!” Roy called to him, breaking him out of his thoughts. “Are you alright?” Roy’s face creased slightly in worry.

“Fine.” Scott answered airily, as he managed to shuffle his chair around to meet Roy’s gaze.
“Ugh...” Roy managed to grunt, the better of his two arms now rising to his throbbing head. “God damned zombies.” Scott chuckled, putting a hand to his shoulder, discretely telling him to relax.

Using the dim light of the torch, he checked Roy’s arm bandage, noticing large amounts of blood soaked in it. Scott sighed, moving over to the first aid kit again, pulling out another roll of bandages. “Lucky they teach us this in HPE, ‘ey?” Scott tried to lighten the mood, noticing an anger that he had seen before in his generally happy-go-lucky friend. The light illuminated several useful objects before he hovered on the scissors. He turned back around to Roy, who sat glumly in wait. His face was covered with a large array of fine scars and his blonde hair sat messy and bloodstained.

“We need baths.” Roy said simply, causing both of them to chuckle. Scott’s face was no better.
“Glad to hear the old Roy’s still there.” Scott said, fixing some new bandages to his wounds, lightly and neatly, just how he had been taught just a few months ago.

“Listen,” Roy whispered, as if the walls had ears, “you’ll always have my back, right?”

Scott chuckled. “No matter how much you may annoy me, you’ll always be a good friend to me. I’m sure.” A fleeting look of concern flashed across his face; what was going on in Roy’s mind to make him say that? Was his friend worrying the same way Scott was?

Roy smiled, seemingly unaware of his friends Turmoil. “Hey, you’re better company than Cameron, that’s for sure.”

Scott groaned deeply, putting a hand to his forehead. “Oh, god, I can’t believe he came back. What the hell does he think he’s doing, coming back here? It would’ve been better if the zombies had just killed him instead of...” Scott stopped is half-hearted rant, (not truly believing he was wishing death upon his ex-friend), looking to the scratched watch on his arm, that of Kristan’s. He stopped talking as a lump of guilt formed in his throat, and just sat there staring at the face blankly, its hands weakly glowing in the darkness.

“Yeah, he’s a total asshole.” Roy bluntly stated, avoiding the topic of Trent and Kristan entirely. “It’s eerie how we all managed to stay alive, isn’t it?”

Scott nodded, the dim light catching his shadow’s soft movements. “But really, at least we’re all friends... right?”

“Don’t you have it in for that Taylor chick, though?” he asked, fiddling around with the computers and pursing his lips as the computer sat lifeless below his fingertip. The power was definitely out.

“Don’t remind me. I just wish she could’ve picked a topic more intellectually challenging.” Scott moaned loudly
“Come on, a D+ isn’t that bad.” Roy chuckled, receiving a pointless death-glare-in-the-dark in response.

“You know it is to me.” Scott replied, if somewhat imperialistically. They both laughed though, desperately trying to keep conversation light.

Roy smiled – well, in the darkness it seemed more of a grimace than a smile. “Remember that game we used to play?... Dream Team!” Scott laughing at the suggestion.

“What, now? I barely remember it!” Scott’s mind reeled back to when they were a lot younger. It had originated from one of those lateral thinking puzzles, where you had 10 spaces in a bomb shelter, and 15 different people to choose from. It was all about strengths and weaknesses, and you had to exclude the least valuable people based on their profile. Soon, the two friends had adapted it to three people in an army platoon. Out of your three options, you had to pick who you’d save, who’d be given things to help fend for themselves, and who was left to die at the hands of the enemy.

“Yes now! Come on! Umm... From Nikki, Michael P. and... James Stebbing.”

“Oh god, too easy. Uh, so it was surviving recruit – that’d be Nikki. She’s won the national athletics and cross country races so many times it’s not funny. She’d be great for relaying messages.” Scott thought over the next two people.

“Come on,” Roy coaxed him on, “Ok...next is armed Patrol.”

“God you came up with the worst names. Well, Patrol would be Mick. He has always had a knack for tactics. His gymnastics training could help. He could handle himself well enough I guess... and that leaves...”

“Stebbing to Die!” Roy exclaimed, a bit too enthusiastically. Scott suddenly froze up at this thought. He really was dead, though, and although Stebbing, like most jocks, was a major jerk, he still was a living person. That thought hit Scott hard.

“So, what do you think of this lil’ motley crew, Roy?” he asked, his shaky voice trying unsuccessfully to hide his nervousness.

Roy pondered it for a second. “Well, to put it frankly... Tammy’s an idiot. Cameron’s an ass. Jake’s an idiot AND an ass...” He paused to think. “Then there’s you and me, which is alright, I guess. At least you understand my jokes...” Scott laughed at this, his shaky voice creeping out. He laughed out a short blowout, which made him cover his mouth in embarrassment. Roy seemed to continue like it was nothing, always a good friend like that.

“I’m not too sure about the others. Maddy and Taylor...well they can shoot and they seem to be pretty together. So at least they can handle themselves. And then... Alyssa, she’s fast. Like, really fast. Not like Nikki fast, but a good athlete.” Roy recalled Alyssa’s numerous ribbons from school athletics carnivals, and track events.

“So, then...” Scott began.
“We stand an alright chance of killing each other before the zombies do.” Roy bluntly stated, before breaking into laughter. “Nah, it should be alright.”

•••••

“Oh my god...Oh my god... Ohhhhh my gawwwd....”
“Tammy. Shut. The Hell. Up.”

Tammy ceased her whiny hyperventilating for a second, before small whimpers resounded from her hand shielded face. Taylor’s tone had meant business, though Tammy wasn’t quiet for long.
“We’re gonna’ dieeee.” She continued her high pitched wailing, only to meet with several eye rolls in return.
“Well...I suppose we had a good run...” Alyssa contributed flatly. Maddy stifled her giggle, even in such a bleak situation. This seemed to quieten Tammy who reverted to muffled sobs.
“So, what are we going to do now?” Jake’s voice was a lot deeper then the girls, and seemed to reverberate around the smaller space much easier. “Any bright ideas?” He directed sarcastically towards Alyssa, still nursing his bruised ego from before. Alyssa merely smirked to herself in the dank darkness, feeling victorious either way.

“Well we don’t have much of a choice...” Taylor stated point-blank, “Whatever we do from here on out is pretty much a risk. We could either back track and face to Zoo again...” There were gasps and grunts of hopelessness at that, “...or just jump up here,” Taylor tapped the lid of the trap door to make her point in the darkness, “...and try running through however-many things are up there and hope for the best.”

“But even if we did that, where are we running too?” Alyssa asked carefully, “even if we get out there and manage to dodge a whole heap of them, we still need to figure out how to get to the shooting room.”
Taylor made a thoughtful sound, shifting around the others, feeling for some sort of weapon in the dark.
“Well we need some sort of protection...” Taylor finally brushed her fingers against a rough, heavy object. Padding her palms around it, she managed to lift it, only to realise it was an old beam, probably from an old set or prop, which had no doubt just been left under the stage once the production was over. “Here, I’ve got something.” Taylor pushed it forward a little until it hit someone.
“Ow!” It sounded like Cameron.
“Feel it...” Taylor asked of everyone hopefully. Unguided hands flailed about in the blackness until each found their way to the plank of wood.
“Everyone find something! Just like Alyssa did with her sword at the zoo... If we can at least arm ourselves we’ll have a better chance against them and maybe a better chance to get to...um...” Taylor paused. She had to admit, she hadn’t exactly thought of anywhere to go either.

“The catwalk!” Jake near yelled, followed by a cacophony of ‘shushing’. He sighed, annoyed that his thought was interrupted. “If we can get to the stairs by the bathrooms, you know the ones, next to the side entrance of the auditorium; we might be able to use the catwalk to get out into the foyer.” Jake continued in a whisper, only to be cut off again.
“...or...we could run straight up the main aisle between the seats, up the back stairs and into the foyer that way.” Alyssa challenged Jake, only to be chastised immediately afterwards.
“Uh, sorry but that’s a retarded idea!” Jake told Alyssa in the stupid jock voice he only reserved for peer humiliation, “They’ll break through the glass doors anyway-“
“Yeah but the stairs to the catwalk might not even be open and then we-“
“GUYS STOP!” Taylor yelled, only to clamp her mouth shut when the heavy thumping of enemy feet stamped over them. The sounds of frustrated growls were piercing, as their origins stood merely inches overhead. Much to the groups’ disgust, dust fell upon them in plumes with each weighty step.

Struggling not to cough, Maddy shuffled closer into the huddle, while Cameron held a large hand over Tammy’s mouth to stop her screaming.
“Look, we’re damned if we do, we’re damned if we don’t.” Maddy reasoned in a whisper, the others taking shallow breaths to avoid detection, “...so we have to make a decision now. We cant stay under here much longer, and we have to get back to Roy and Scott. We can’t afford to split up either, so it’s one or the other.”
“I vote Lyss’ idea. We need to get to the foyer anyways, and that’s the fastest way to the shooting room.” Taylor sided with her friend, despite the possibility of the zombies easily following them through the glass doors.
“What! We’re gonna get killed!” Jake spat into the darkness, “We should use the catwalk!”
“The doors might not even be unlocked!” Alyssa defended herself, “...and like hell I’m walking up another six flights of stairs to get up there when we can just use the doors we know are unlocked.”

The two glared silently at each other in the darkness, when Taylor piped up; desperate for a quick solution.
“Maddy! Catwalk or glass doors?” Taylor could hear her friend’s laboured sigh of hesitation in the stale air.
“Glass doors.”
“Cameron?”
“Glass doors.”
“Fine,” Taylor said firmly to everyone, “Glass doors it is!” She spun around towards the trapdoor again, but found a large hand pull her back.
“Hey hey hey wait...” Jake growled, “You didn’t even ask Tammy!”
There was an awkward silence before a few snickers were sounded.
“Wow, you are desperate!” Alyssa half-cackled, trying to keep as quiet as possible, although unsuccessfully.
On the contrary, Cameron finally released Tammy from his grip and she was instantly crawling over to glue herself to Jake again.
“Jake! You do care!” Tammy nearly cried with joy, suctioning herself to him with her lanky arms, hugging his barrel of a chest.
“Tammy no! Get off! Get off!” He struggled with her, Alyssa nearly having fits as she tried desperately to hold back her laughter at Jake’s dismay.

“Guys! Get it together!” Taylor hissed as she pulled herself to a crouch under the trapdoor. If this was going to work, they’d have to work fast. The group was quickly silent.
“Now as soon as I push this trap door up, we have to move. Sprint straight to the glass doors and into the foyer. Everyone knows the hall that leads off to the dance rooms?”
There was no answer, although Taylor didn’t need one. “We’re gonna run. We have to run; run down there until you see the sports office. Through there, past the staffrooms until you get to the storage room. That’s where everything is. When we get there, Maddy...” Taylor looked to her friend in the darkness. Even in the grim, confined space, she could see the outline of her friend’s head nod in support, “and I will take over from there. Clear?”
Again, no one answered directly. Feeling her breath hitch in her throat, Taylor took several long, calming intakes of the musty air. No one answered; although, no one disputed either. With a wavering confidence, Taylor found herself clearing her throat, wishing she could say something a bit more powerful at that moment.
“So...here it goes I guess. On the count of three.”
The group braced themselves, and shifted silently into a huddle around the trap door.

“One.”

Sweat rolled down Jake’s forehead as the space suddenly became constricted; the air becoming thick and moist in a sudden surge of heat. Bodies pressed shoulder to shoulder gave the cramped space the feel of a sauna, though it was anything but relaxing. Jake could feel the shudders of the others pressed against his biceps. They were shivering, not because of the temperature, which seemed to be rising higher nonetheless, but of fear.
Absolute, all-consuming, fear.

“Two.”

Taylor’s fingers gently felt around the square frame of the trap door. She savoured the feel of the well joined wood. As time seemed to slow down, she savoured the feel of anything that could tell her, that in that very moment, she was still alive. With her last deep breath before she would say the final word, she savoured the rush of air, sucking in past her teeth, tongue, tonsils; filling her lungs to their maximum intake. Swallowing the welling of saliva that was gathering on the lining of her throat, she managed to strangle out possibly the last word she would ever speak.

“Three.”

And the trapdoor lid popped into the air, welcomed by the sharp wails of the bloodthirsty, murderous mob.

•••••

Taylor launched herself from the small square in the pine wood floor, hurling the sturdy chunk of wood alongside her, and focused her eyes forward as she sprinted for freedom. She had the grace of a cheetah; managing to launch herself off of the stage edge in one stride before barrelling down the aisle, wielding the wood post like a shield.

Around her, the zombies swarmed like a plague of locusts, although the hundreds of dark crimson auditorium seats created row upon row of crude barriers. The auditorium. The ridiculously expensive, pride and joy of the principal; was no longer in the near pristine condition the students had been forced to keep it in. Debris was strewn everywhere, some entire rows of seats stained with all sorts of substances that sunk the foul stench of decomposition right into the cushions. The zombies howled at the sight of their prey, who leapt from the tiny hole like rabbits from a warren. The teens bounded down the main aisle, up the incline towards the glass doors.

Jake, although one of the later ones to emerge from the trapdoor, seemed to power forward and overtake the earlier teens. The zombies struggled to run through the misaligned rows of seats; perhaps the auditorium’s only fault was now their greatest advantage. He finally overtook Alyssa, second after Taylor and with another burst of energy, bounced over at least three stairs at a time, in step with Taylor.

The shorter of the two got their first, and although her lungs burnt with the hastened rasps of air her body was desperately inhaling, Taylor retracted her shoulders and shot her arms forward, propelling her into, and ultimately slamming open, the fragile doors. The glass of the door she hit shattered into thousands of crystal fragments, like stars strewn across the dark blue carpet of the foyer. Jake just managed to catch her on the forearm, tapping it hastily in his own breathlessness.
“Down here!” Jake yelled to the others, bypassing the first hallway, and the bathrooms, and down the second.
“But the plan!” Taylor screamed shrilly, Alyssa, Maddy, Tammy and finally Cameron galloping into the foyer, the zombies (surprisingly) significantly delayed in their pursuit.
“I tried to tell you! Everything down there’s trashed!” Jake then disappeared into the second hallway, the rest of the group following mindlessly as they were running purely on adrenalin.

Taylor’s legs seemed to ignore the panicked dialogue in her head and she found herself trailing Cameron’s heavy frame. Then it clicked; before, when she was interrogating Jake. He told them of the fate of his friends, how the initial zombies had managed to separate and pick them off one by one. No wonder he was so against Alyssa’s idea. Though, by now it was useless. They were taking the longer, albeit little more in tacked route. Passing several other store rooms, Taylor’s stomach dropped as she heard the inevitable barking frenzy of the zombies reach the foyer; the sound of smashing glass in one loud bang echoing throughout the building.

“Where are we going?” The midnight haired teen screamed, her voice sounding hoarse and sore from projecting it over the booming of their hunters. Her question was soon answered. Finally, the hallway opened out into the function room, and she could finally see past Cameron’s much larger frame, towards where Jake was holding the heavy, red metal fire door. Their saviour for the second time that night.
“But the guns?” Taylor rasped as she skidded into the familiar stairwell, spinning to face Jake as he slammed the door shut, pulling the bolt down and locking it indefinitely.
“We couldn’t. It was too late.” The jock pressed his forehead against the door, only to leap back when a large thump echoed from the other side. Instantly, he was on his feet again, standing tall and motioning to climb the stairs as the others had; ever the athlete.
“Jake.”

The blonde teen turned on his heel to see the diminutive figure of Taylor, supporting herself against the interior railing. Her bluish-black hair matted with dust and sweat, her thin frame heaving with each breath.
“What?” His chestnut eyes hardened, snapping back at her viciously like a rabid dog, not in the mood for conversation. Taylor set her jaw suddenly, lip twitching as she held back a snarl.
“Nothing.”

Jake growled slightly in annoyance, facing his back to the rival of his leadership and trudged up the next few stairs. Raising his gaze momentarily from the dull concrete floor, he saw the outline of Maddy standing on the second landing, obviously waiting for her friend. Jake stepped forward, unwillingly joining her on the level ground, and in the tight stairwell, found his shoulder brushed against Maddy’s awkwardly. He glanced at her face, only to see her staring coldly at him with her green irises; studying him. Her expression was blank, if somewhat stern. Lips pursed as if biting back a scathing remark. Only her eyes followed him as he ascended the next flight, and Jake made sure he didn’t meet her gaze again.

It was then Jake really knew; he was an outsider among a group of his former peers, who he had to trust with his own life.

•••••

“You guys! Where’s all the-“
“Shut up.” Cameron snarled through his sweaty, laboured breaths; pushing past a bewildered Scott (much like he had done to the rest of the group as they climbed the stairs to pseudo-safety) and barrelling towards the regular chair in the corner, all the computer chairs with wheels occupied. Roy glanced briefly at Scott in worry as the others forwarded in, looking tired and frazzled by whatever they had just attempted to do, en route from their return from the Zoo.

Alyssa was next in, doing a half hearted stretch of her legs with every few steps, her gaze distant and weary. Roy and Scott merely gaped at the state of her. Her once long, strawberry blonde ponytail was literally a solid mass of scabby, bloody residue. Its natural colour was completely disguised by the browning, coppery mess of reds entangled from roots to tip. It not only looked unpleasant, but both could tell she felt it as her hands reached to scratch at her scalp, dry flecks of the scaly blood floating to the floor below.

Her hair was not the only thing defaced by her close encounters with the monsters after her stunt at the Zoo. Her neck, collarbone and jaw were covered in steadily raising lines. Her fair skin puckered around the thin, raw cuts that criss-crossed over her exposed décolletage tissue. A rash of irritation had begun to creep its way over her ravaged neckline, no doubt that she had escaped relatively unscathed compared to the horror she had just lived through. It was however, too soon to tell whether or not a hoard of scars would mar her as a constant reminder of the events at the Zoo.

Tammy was, as usual, a blubbering mess. She entered the small room incoherently sobbing random phrases and pleas to whoever would listen, sniffling to rid herself of the long tendrils of snot seeping from her raw, chapped nostrils. Her once colourful outfit was blackened by dust and dirt, (probably collected from her time flailing around hysterically under the stage as the others tried to devise useful strategies and tactics) and which was dulled even more into a mud-like wetness which even at first glance, told everyone she would never be able to wash of the stains of bloodshed and fleshy scum from her tiny ensemble.

Not only that, but her own lanky, chicken legs were chalked with black lines, among hugely disfiguring gashes, which although thin and fine like she’d been just grazed with a dull scalpel, were flaming with irritation as the skin formed Goosebumps around the wounds. Her cuts, although not as severe looking as Alyssa, completely covered her almost entirely bare legs. Her small shorts had offered absolutely no protection whatsoever. Tammy merely continued her hysterics, seating herself in the centre of the room and half blocking the doorway, and sat cross legged crying on the floor.

It was no surprise when no one moved to so much as comfort her.

“God...what happened to you guys?” Roy suddenly spouted incredulously, leaning his own roughly bandaged arms on his knees as he lent forward on the computer chair. Shaking his head in disbelief as Jake stormed in; his muscular jaw clenched intimidatingly, his overworked calves visibly twitching and spasming.
“What do you think?” Jake spat gruffly, the others who had forwarded in not daring to meet his eye. Cameron faced the wall, choosing to be antisocial in his own way. Tammy merely continued to cry, desperately grasping her broken finger nails onto Jake’s legs as he dodged past her collapsed form on the floor, and pulled himself up to sit on the low cabinets/cupboards where the first aid kit and emergency torch were found.
“Well sorry...” Roy’s eyebrows shot sky high at Jake’s over-annoyance with human contact. Tensions were high, and Jake’s open cynicism was, in Roy’s view, adding a further, unnecessary element to the mix.

Jake openly ignored Roy’s partial commentary, before turning his attentions on Alyssa. She was leaning against the small space of wall between where Cameron had holed himself up in the corner, and where Scott observed silently from his position on the computer chair, angled in against the large switchboard bench.
“See, it was your fault you almost got us killed!” Jake barked accusingly at Alyssa, whose head shot up from staring at her shoes, eyes narrowed dramatically.
“My fault? Well who brought up going through the Zoo? Smart idea that was!” Alyssa huffed, countering his argument. Jake clenched his hand over the cabinets, knuckled white as he near yelled at her across the tiny room.
“Well I didn’t know it was filled with frickin’ zombies!”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if you did know they were there,” Alyssa snarled, nearly jumping to a stand as she felt completely ready to assert herself against him, ”You were here long before we were, you could have sussed it out yourself before...and yet you managed to create your own little plan with the whole resistance thing way before we knew anything about them.”
“What are you saying; I’m trying to double cross everyone?” Jake’s face was starting to flush pink in hot anger, “You don’t think I’m trying to save everyone here? Trying to keep everyone safe...”
“I think you’re just trying to save your own ass!”

“GUYS!” A new voice screamed, the entire group of teens finding a hush falling over them. Taylor stood in the doorway, bracing herself on the door frame. The stunned teens watched her closely as she seemed to pull herself together, a hardened steely gaze penetrating each of them from her hazel eyes, “That, is enough.” She muttered forcibly, swallowing noticeably, in what looked to be an effort to bite back what would spark the screaming match of a lifetime.
“It’s early in the morning...” Taylor rasped, clearing her throat with authority, the dull light from the stairwell louvers behind her illuminating an equally unimpressed but silent Maddy, holding some sort of box. “We have spent the past nine or so hours either cramped up in a shitty bus, a shitty room (at this, Taylor gestured lazily from the doorframe at her audience) or running for our lives from these things, that seemed to have just jumped out of nowhere.”

Taylor breathed deeply before walking steadily passed the frozen Tammy on the floor, to the free wall space just beside the door.
“I don’t know about you guys, but I’m tired,” Taylor confessed in a brutally honest voice, her eyes softening and her authoritative facade falling to reveal her fatigued features,
“I’m tired of fighting, and I’m hungry, and my brain is working hard enough trying to figure out just what exactly has happened to us in the last hour, let alone having to worry about how long it will be before we have to run again.”

The teens remained silent, and all of them suddenly began to notice how cold and crisp the air was. It was dry and harsh against their lips, the concrete of the walls and floors of the room cool to touch, which could only indicate the condensation in the air. In the Zoo, and the auditorium, it was easy to loose track of time where there were no windows or natural light to properly judge it. In their haste, the teens had forgotten to so much as glance across the foyer floor towards the exterior doors and check the light, and they were too blinded by their blame-game-ing to bother looking out the small, seemingly insignificant window perched on the stairwell wall, just a metre from the room itself.

Taylor lowered her gaze from the guilty looking teens as she eased herself down to sit propped up by the doorframe and the tiny portion of wall left between it and the enclosing switchboard desks. It appeared that her point seemed to have reinforced what they were all afraid of.

If they didn’t work together, they were going to die.

It was in this following lapse of stiff, thoughtful stillness, Maddy dragged her wrecked shoes across the threshold, angling the cardboard box he was carrying against her hip as she closed the door behind her. Nudging an obeying Tammy with her foot, Maddy found she had enough room to sit against the deadlocked door, the dirty looking box in her lap.
“Here,” Maddy croaked, reaching into the depths of the box and retrieving a snack sized packet of potato chips, “We gotta’ eat something.” She chucked a few packets to everyone before tipping the box out on the minute triangle of space between Tammy, herself and Roy’s chair legs to rifle through them some more.
“Where’d you get these?” Scott piped up softly, opening a packet of chicken flavoured ones, not daring to announce they weren’t his favourite kind.
“In the junk by the Zoo. Tay and I went down there to push some stuff in front of the door to the Zoo, just to make sure it’d hold a bit longer, and this box was just sitting there.” Maddy replied in a flat, sombre tone. Her face was pretty clear, aside from some bruising beginning to show around her jaw and right cheek, her dull, shadowed by her weariness.
“Think it was from the sports carnival, when they were selling all that stuff at the lunch marquee,” Taylor remarked slightly, her voice clear of all the anger from before, chewing the partially stale chips from their wimpy looking packets.

Like cows chewing cud, the teens sat periodically munching on the flat snack foods, all lost in their own thoughts.
“So...” Roy trailed off, noticing everyone was more engrossed in eating their chips quietly then doing anything drastic, “what’re we going to do now?”

More silence.

A few pairs of eyes flickered between the group, though still managing to avoid catching anyone’s gaze. A few people shifted uncomfortably, not offering anything up for fear of their idea being shot down in a blaze of humiliation.
“We have to get out of here...we’re all just about going out of our minds.” Scott managed to dig enough courage to speak aloud. There was a collective murmur between them all in mild agreeance. They were all tired and cranky, that was a given, although they could all see the logic in escaping from the emotional hellhole that was the school.
“Well, we have keys...” Maddy offered, digging around in the pockets of her wrecked jeans and chucking the few rings of keys she had on top of the mountain of chip packets, “That’s a start.”
“Huhh...” Roy lent over to sift through the keys Maddy had just presented them with, “Gym....Staff Toilet....Staff room...Cleaners....” Roy picked through the keys with labels on them, which none of them turned out to be anything spectacular. There were three other sets however, that were unmarked. Judging by their own array of colourful key chains and central locking buttons, they were teacher’s car keys.

Taylor took her collection of keys out of her pockets too, and both she and Roy began to sort through them. In total, they had fifteen sets of keys; two which were to the sport shooting and ammo rooms, and seven other sets for cars out in the staff parking lot.
“Ok...” Jake found himself piping up. He had been otherwise silent, brooding as the others attempted to scratch together a successful escape plan. It didn’t have to be elaborate, just secure enough to get the group away from the school and on the path towards any other normal, living people. Suddenly enlightened by the prospect of a solid plan, the blonde found his fingers arched together in a steeple, leaning himself forward as Roy had been doing, openly including himself in the group.

“So,” The jock flickered his eyes around, surprising the others with what he was offering them; his own faith, in what they were going to attempt, “what’s our next move?”

•••••

“...and that leaves one thing left,” Alyssa addressed the huddle enthusiastically. By now, even Tammy had lent an ear to reason, her head nodding at every suggestion like a bobble head suctioned onto the passenger side of the dashboard. Cameron, although he had been listening quietly from his corner, had yet to say a thing since re-entering the cramped media room.
“...Whose car?” Roy finished Alyssa’s thought in his more serious voice, his game face on. The teens, bar Cameron, all stared at the various rings of civilian car keys in front of them.
“Well, how do we know what we need? Or who it belongs too?” Tammy questioned innocently from her huddle. It was weird, the majority of them thought, how she could suddenly snap back into reality from the usual bitchy basket case she was the rest of the time. Maddy suddenly picked up four of the seven keys that lay in front of them, dangling them up to show the others.
“Easy. See, look at these keys,” Maddy shook them lightly, all of them bunched together, clanking and jingling against one another, “These keys all have remote keyless locking...” The brunette pointing out the small black button boxes hanging off each one, “which would suggest the car is no older then ten years or fifteen years. From then on it’s pretty much analysing the keys superficially. Like, does the person with basically no other keys apart from their car and house, I guess, mean that they have a car with less mess, and therefore their car’s more likely to fit more people in it?”
“But we wouldn’t know how big the car is anyway,” Scott sniffed a bit, not exactly trusting this systematic process of elimination. Maddy merely rolled her eyes in mild annoyance.
“No, but we can still look at other factors. See, this has the Egarim logo on it...” Maddy was suddenly cut off by Scott’s incredulous voice again.
“Well that’s stupid. We can’t judge everything based on what brand it is!”
“Hey, back off. She’s right, Egarim is a working brand. You see tradies with Egarim utes and four wheel drives all the time.” Jake butted in. The usually antagonistic jock had actually leapt to someone’s defence for a change, which completely threw everyone off guard.

Alyssa stared at Jake’s determined, yet relaxed looking face. Was it his way of making up for all the fights he caused before? Her eyes darted over to Taylor and Maddy, both of whom looked back at her with equally unconvinced expressions. What was he trying to pull? Alyssa combed her fingers back through her entirely dry scalp, pulling the powdery, scabby remains of the blood from it as she had been doing before, trying not to show her bewilderment.

“Dude, haven’t you ever hear of Egarim before?” Jake turned back to Scott, who was suddenly thrust into focus. Scott scanned the concerned faces that were peering at him in the dull, tiny space. It was then, for reasons he didn’t quite understand, Scott became incredibly anxious, and found he was carefully editing his words before he’d even replied yet.
“I’ve never really payed much attention to cars.” Scott could see his justification had still stuck the group as a little odd.
“But haven’t you seen all those annoying ads on TV?” Tammy badgered him to the point of rudeness, “I mean, even I know Egarim have big cars, they always play the ads duringBrownmore High...” Tammy stressed to him, like seeing a car advert during a badly acted teen soap opera was some big accomplishment, “...’cept they’re not very cute, they’re all like trailers and big wheels and stuff....Ooh, and all the colours are like grey and black and-”
“Tammy, we get it...” Taylor glared her down, silently praying once they had escaped the school she would somehow disappear, never to return again. Tammy flashed Taylor an ugly cross between a pitbull snarl and a pout, paired with a really bad attempt at an intense glare from the eyes.

“Hey....I know this is off topic but are we going to pick a car anytime soon?” Maddy had sarcastically interrupted the frivolous bickering long enough to get everyone back on track. The teens looked warily amongst themselves. Roy, always the comic, closed his eyes dramatically, and just snatched one of the shiny metal rings out of Maddy’s hand. The short blonde boy opened his eyes, the chosen ring of keys suddenly feeling extremely heavy in his palm.
“This one it is...”
That was the last thing anyone said to eachother before they settled in the room. Silently, the teens all became lost in thought, each slowly drifting off to sleep, praying their lives would be spared from the hell that lay just beyond the door to the shoebox they trusted with their lives.

Please review! I know we don't deserve it, but I'd like to hear the comments on what you'd like to see later in this story/any questions you have regarding the future plot and/or what's coming up after Chapter 8 - Escape.

Thanks again!