Zach Jones, Class of 2016
Horde
Chelsea pressed herself flat against the wall, holding
her breath for fear the freak would hear her. Across the room, Terrence put his
outstretched index finger to his lips, signaling her to remain quiet. Slowly,
the shuffling sound began to fade down the hallway. When it finally passed out of earshot, she
breathed a heavy sigh of relief.
“That was a close one,” Chelsea said. Her hands
gripped tightly onto the hatchet she brandished as a weapon. “Let’s just get
the medicine and get the heck out of this place!” Chelsea had always been
afraid of the hospital and the people that went there to die, but now that it
was filled with moving dead people it
terrified her even more. Why did she
have to be the one to go on the run?
They made their way down the hallway, checking each
room to make sure it was empty. Occasionally they found a patient that had died
in their bed and reanimated. Chelsea always felt sorry for those ones. They
never had a chance; no way of even preventing the turn. Terrence signaled to
her that they had found the room they came for.
He picked up his two way radio and spoke into it,
“Alright Mace, we’re here. What are we looking for again?”
The radio
crackled as a response came from the other end. “Chloroquine
is what the doctors always gave Jake before everything went down. Just fill up
your bags with whatever you can carry. We might need it one day.” Terrence and
Chelsea got to work filling their duffle bags with all the medicine they could find.
Chelsea didn’t even know how to pronounce most of the medicines she stuffed
into her bag, much less what they did. But if Macey told them to grab
everything, they grabbed everything.
When their bags
were nice and full, the pair retraced their route back through the hospital;
neither one of them wanted to be there longer then they had to. The outside light
was blinding compared to the darkness inside the hospital. Most of the power
had gone out a few days after the outbreak, and the backup generators a few
days after that. Chelsea and Terrence made their way down the street, avoiding
crashed cars and bodies that may or may not be truly dead.
Eight blocks
down the street stood St. Jerome’s Catholic Church, a building that had once
held the body and blood of Christ. Now it held the body and blood of others.
The six-foot-tall wall that ran around the church’s perimeter had made it the
perfect place to hold up during the outbreak. Chelsea had only attended
services when she was younger; she had never been real religious, but she often
wondered if she should’ve prayed more. Despite her lack of religious
background, Chelsea felt wrong about living in the church. Still, it provided
great protection from the hordes of undead.
Their steps
echoed throughout the large church. Early into their group’s occupation of the
church they had moved all of the pews to the back, freeing up the center of the
church to house beds and a supply room.
“Macey!”
Terrence called. “We’re back with your medicine!” Small footsteps sounded from
a small hallway behind the altar, the way to the group’s make-shift infirmary.
“Thank god
you’re back! Jake is getting bad, he needs that medicine now!” She snatched the
duffle bag from Terrence’s shoulder and turned back to the hallway. Chelsea and
Terrence had nothing to do but follow. Within the infirmary, Macey’s younger
brother Jake lay in one of the cots they had dragged in. He moved very little
as Macey gave him the medicine they had worked so hard to recover. Chelsea
couldn’t help but feel sorry for the poor kid. Kids his age shouldn’t ever have
put up with a disease like Lupus.
“Mace, I know
he’s your brother, but how long can we keep putting up with this?” Terrence
lowered his voice in an attempt to keep Jake from hearing him. “I mean, what
happens when we can’t find any more medicine for him? If he dies, he turns.
That puts us all at a serious risk!”
“Terrence,”
Macey responded, “I don’t like where you’re going with this. We’re not doing
anything to my brother, no matter what you think!”
“Look, he’s a
good kid, and I feel sorry for him, but it’s gone on too long. We don’t need a
sick kid that can’t do anything for the group! He’s just another mouth to feed
what little food we have left! Everyone else has been thinking it; I just
thought it was time to say something!”
Macey stood
from her brother’s side. She pulled a pistol from her belt and aimed it at
Terrence. “You even think about
touching my brother, I’ll put a bullet right between your eyes! You and whoever
else thinks we should get rid of him can find another place to stay; we’re not
leaving!”
“Everyone calm
down!” Chelsea’s voice exposed her fear. “We do not need to be turning on each
other like this! Let’s just all take a step back and…” Before she could finish
her sentence the door to the infirmary burst open. Spencer, the group’s lookout
rushed in, his breath heavy panicked.
“Hey guys,
we’ve got a problem! You need to get out here NOW!” The four of them ran back
through the church until they reached the stairs to the top of the church’s steeple.
At the top, Jeremy stood holding his rifle. He looked at the group, fear
flooding from his eyes. He managed to say one word:
“Horde.”
Hundreds of
zombies thundered down the street toward the church. The group had never seen
so many zombies in one place. Something had gotten them moving, and nothing
could stand in their way. As the horde continued down the road, they pushed
cars out of the way with their sheer numbers, making an open channel down the
center of the road.
“Wait, maybe
the traps will take care of them…?” Macey didn’t sound convinced. As they
watched, there were a few explosions of fire in the midst of the zombies. The
explosions annihilated the zombies closest to them, and caught some others on
fire. But the explosions had no real effect; the horde didn’t slow down.
“Screw this!”
Jeremy yelled. “We’re gonna have to take them on ourselves!” He began firing
his rifle into the thick of the crowd. The bullets had no effect, but it didn’t
stop him from trying. Terrence motioned for the rest of them to grab guns of
their own and try to stop the horde. Spencer stayed with Jeremy to shoot at the
zombies with rifles while Terrence, Chelsea, and Macey grabbed machine guns and
headed to the gate.
Even with all
five of them shooting at the zombies, they barely made a dent in the horde. It
became clear that nothing they could throw at them would stop their impending
doom.
“I’ve got to go
get Jake!” Macey yelled. She turned and sprinted back through the doors of the
church, leaving Terrence and Chelsea to fight for themselves.
“Chelsea,”
Terrence said in between machine gun bursts, “you’ve been like a little sister
to me. If this gets too hairy, promise me you’ll get out. Just start running
until you can’t see the church anymore and shoot anyone that gets in your way.
Will you promise me that?”
Chelsea nodded,
but tears filled her eyes. She couldn’t bear to think about leaving Terrence or
anyone else in the group. She opened her mouth to say something, but before
anything could come out, a scream echoed out of the church.
“Go!” Terrence
yelled at her. Chelsea ran into the church to find Macey laying on the floor,
crying. She had a large bite mark on her right shoulder. Before Chelsea could
even ask what happened, Jake stumbled out of the infirmary. He trudged slowly
towards his sister laying on the ground. His mouth and chin were covered in
blood, and Chelsea realized that he had turned.
“Jake, please!”
Macey was sobbing. She had taken out her pistol again and aimed it at what used
to be her younger brother. When the shuffling form did not stop, Macey pulled
the trigger. The lifeless body fell into a heap on the floor. Macey’s sobs
echoed throughout the church as she looked back and forth between the body of
her brother and the gun in her hands. Still wailing loudly, Macey pressed her
gun against her temple and pulled the trigger for the last time.
The shock of
what she had just seen froze Chelsea. Behind her, Jeremy and Spencer had come
down the stairs from the steeple and joined Terrence fighting in the front
yard. The horde was pressed up against the gate and wall of the church with so
much force that they were already leaning at an angle. What had once kept them
safe from the undead now kept them like prisoners on death row. The wall began
to fall. Terrence turned to Chelsea and began to shout.
“Chelsea, run
for—” Terrence was cut off as the horde engulfed him from behind. The three men
were thrown to the ground. Some of the zombies stopped where the men had fallen
but still more continued towards the church door.
Chelsea ran.
She ran out the back door of the church and onto the backstreets. She ran away
from the church and the horde and the bad memories. She ran until her lungs
burned and she couldn’t run anymore. At last, Chelsea dropped to her knees in
the middle of the road, unable to move any longer. The world around her was
quiet. She couldn’t hear any noises from the church; it was miles behind her.
Exhausted, Chelsea laid down in the middle of the road and began to cry.
