The High School Slaughter

The bell rings, telling everyone that it's now time for their third period class.

Dylan walks out of his personal finance class, putting in his second earbud as he started down the hallway. The hall's weren't nearly as crowded as normal, especially for this side of the school. The cafeteria was in sight distance, and normally people crowded that area in between classes, resulting in most people being late to their next class. Alot of his friends had been out sick the past week, with some new bug that was going around. He saw one friend of his, Lars, that he hadn't expected to see here today because most of the time he's skipping third block. Lars was one of Dylan's good smoking friends. They'd leave during school, both of them being senior, they knew all of the back exits and hallways that was least likely for them to be seen or caught, and go off and smoke. Sometimes not come back for the rest of the day. Today was sadly not one of those days, Dylan didn't get paid for three more days, and Lars probably didn't have anything to smoke.

He took out one earbud, and held his hand out, which prompted the two to start their signature handshakes, a variety of hand grabs, finger movements, and odd gestures. The two grinned, before parting ways to their next class. As Dylan walked, he saw this girl Maggie, that he had talked to time and time again, because they had the same geometry class, because Dylan had flunked it the year before. He smiled and waved to her as he passed, and then proceeded to slip in the second earbud once again, Bring me the horizon blasting into his head.

The warning bell rang, telling the students that they only had two minutes before they were technically considered late. Luckily for Dylan (Or, not so lucky,) His class was at the complete opposite end of the school. He began to speedwalk down the hallway, and instead of the normal bustling students rushing to class, only one or two stragglers whizzed past him. Leaving him alone in the eery back corridor of the school. He entered class, which was also mostly empty, and sat his bag down. Then shit began to hit the fan. Over the intercom the rushed voice of the principal was heard echoing through the school. "Students, please remain calm. This is a lockdown situation. All teachers, lock your doors, and your windows, and stay silent. This is not a drill. I repeat. This is not a drill." Then the intercom clicked, leaving the echoing silence lingering throughout the school. All was quiet and calm, until the screams began. At first they were distant, but then the sound of doors slamming open, lockers being hit with something, and the rushing footsteps of what sounded like a full on stampede of students.

Dylan put his backpack back on, and darted out of the room. As he stood in the hallway, all he saw was chaos. 'a zombie fucking apocalypse' He thought to himself, as his music blasted through one lone earbud. He ran back into the shoproom, and vaulted over a half wall that lead into the main shop room. He tripped, and stumbled down onto the ground. He stood back up, only to see the secondary shop teacher huddled in the corner. "M- Mr Guidry?..." He said, slowly walking over. When the teacher turned around, Dylan's stomach did four triple flips around his heart, and did a perfect landing firmly inside of his ass. He reached for the nearest item, which was just a simple, cut 2x4. He swung it down onto the snarling, blood curled lips of his teacher, and it bounced right back off, only pissing off the beast even more.

He stumbled backward, fumbling for something he could use on a nearby table, when finally his hand landed on a large wrench. He swung it, the impact imbedding the tool turned weapon, firmly into the teachers skull. The backfire of the force he used on the weapon, vibrated through his arm and up into his shoulder. The teacher fell limp, and Dylan bolted. However, not before grabbing an aluminum baseball that the baseball team had stored away in a locker in the shop room. "Lars." He muttered to himself as he ran full speed down a crowded hallway of students bumrushing their once friends, and trampling them just to get out first. Lars was the only close friend of his he had seen that day, so that was his main target. To find someone he knew, and get the fuck outta dodge.

Lars was having a perfectly normal day. No one was bothering him, his hair didn't look like dog-shit, he even seemed to be dressed like an actual human being. Yes, everything was looking up for Lars. He had been stuck in class for the last 5 hours. It was almost lunchtime. Boredom had begun to overtake him; and he went in his phone to check and see if anyone had messaged him, or posted on one of his many role playing forums. Nothing, of course. Lazy assholes.

He went into iFunny and began looking through the features. After finding nothing funny; he went into his subfeed...and political bullshit... He sighed and slammed his head down on his desk. Ugh. Math class. Thank god it was almost over. He heard the bell ring and almost cried in relief. He hated being social, except with good friends. And since the only two people he really knew or liked in the school were Dylan and Maggie; he went off to find one of them.

He found Dylan in the halls right before third period. He saw that Dylan was in a hurry and decided to just go on skype and see if anyone was on skype. He messaged a couple groups; but no one replied. "...fucking awesome. No smokes, no skype, no iFunny, no role play... I'd check Reddit; but I bet they're down for maintenance or some bullshit." He growled. The day was absolutely falling apart.

He heard the bell for third period and went to the music room. It was a fairly large room filled with instruments. Lars had to "borrow" his cousins flute due to the fact that the music teacher wouldn't let them use guitars or didgeridoos... Why did he even still have that digereridoo? Only one thing to do, he thought and shoved his noise cancelling earbuds in his ears. Listen to some alt. rock.

He had just closed his eyes when students began panicking to get out of the room. Lars however; was so zoned out in his music that he didn't even notice. That was until someone knocked over his desk with him still in it. "Hey! What the fuck?!" He yelled at the student rushing past. Who only pointed back behind him. Lars was just about to get ready to fight when he heard growling behind him. "...I swear to god, if someone was holding out on the bath salts I'm going to-" His teacher stood behind him looking like she had overdosed on rabies inducing pills. "Oh... Mighty... Thor..." He muttered and just about crapped himself.

He never thought that his foam sword might actually be useful. He then realized he had left it in his locker like an idiot. He grabbed his cousins flute and did the one thing he knew to do in a zombie apocalypse situation. Stab it in the face until it stops moving. He shoved the pointed end into his teachers eye and it slid in easily. He stabbed with it over and over again. "That's for failing me last year!" He yelled as he continually stabbed the zombie. Why couldn't it be aliens? At least with aliens he had a chance of making allies with them so he could help them overthrow the human race! He groaned as he realized she finally stopped moving. He panted heavily.

Shit. Dylan and Maggie. He had to get to them. But he also needed to get to his LARP sword. It would be useless against people; but with all the duct tape and the weighted PVC it might make a decent zombie killer. At least until he could get to a store and steal a real sword. First things first. Get the sword so you can defend yourself, then you can worry about Maggie and Dylan.

As Dylan ran, he narrowly missed barreling into a few people at full speed, he pushed himself as hard as he could with one goal in mind. Getting to Lars's locker. He pretty much ran directly into it once he arrived. Panting and heaving as he attempted to catch his breath. Lars wasn't there.

He anxiously waited. Tapping the aluminum bat against his thigh. Students ran past, on phones or screaming inaudible nonsense. Apparently it was happening all over the school. Finally he saw Lars in sight. He did a slight jog up to him. "Zombies." He panted, still not fully recovered from running like usain bolt on speed across the full length of the school. "We gotta. Go." He said. Leaning against a wall to try and recover fully before they had to more than likely run again to the nearest exit.

By time the bell had rung, Maggie was already packed and talking to her teacher. While her History AP Review class, or "Historiography" as her teacher called and pushed it to be, wasn't her favorite by any means, she really liked the teacher. He was pretty cool and while he was all about getting work done, he didn't oppose to having full conversations about the subject. Sometimes those conversations veered way off from the intended topic, which made it all the better.

After another minute or so of talking, she started heading to her math class. Her normal pushing and shoving to get her way through the crowds of people twice her size wasn't needed, the halls being practically empty. "Where the hell is everyone, jeez-louis," she muttered to herself as she took her shortcut, walking though a room outside to get to a set of stairs that led right down to her hall. Heading back into the main hall, she walked a bit slower. She had plenty of time to get to her class. With so few students at school, she doubted they would do much. What was the point of going over complicated equations when over half of the class wouldn't be there to learn it? Oh well, less for her to do and more time to sleep or listen to music.

As she walked, she noticed that one guy from her geometry class last year wave and smile as they passed each other. She barely remembered his name. Even when they had the same class, she couldn't remember it all that well. She always just referred to him as "dude" or something of the sort. Giving a brief smile in return, she went back on her way. She heard rumors about him and some other guys and gals, Lars sometimes being apart of it. Hey, as long as she never got involved in it, she didn't care much.

The bell rang as she walked into her algebra 2 w/ trig class (such a long name geez). She had stopped here and there in the halls, reading posters and stuff about school shirts or clubs or random shit like that. As earlier predicted, almost no one was there. There were a few people here and there, maybe two or three. One kid in the front was obviously sick, sniffling and coughing on his desk. Shuddering and muttering "gross," she sat down. Even that one guy who she teased back and forth with wasn't there. As expected, the teacher didn't even put up a bell ringer. She knew it was pointless to try to teach a lesson with so few people in the room.

It didn't take long for panic to ensue. And no, not the panic of a pop quiz for five or six students. No, the panic of a supposed to be organized lock-down. You'd think that if it were a lock down, they'd have some code or something for it. But nah, they gotta completely give away the fact that there might be bad people in our school and let those bad people that their victims know they're there. Screaming sounded from outside the classroom. Inside Maggie's classroom, each of the students looked to each other, not entirely sure what to do. The teacher had bolted, muttering something about needing to get home. Then, the student in the front of the room began to freak the f out. Everyone else bolted, leaving Maggie alone with the maniac. She muttered multiple shits and fucks to herself, grabbing something out of her bag as the deranged student began to make his way to her.

From her bag, Maggie grabbed her lunchbox, water bottle, a handful of pencils, and keys. Stuffing the keys and water bottle in the pocket of her sweatshirt with her phone and iPod, she gripped the sharpened pencils in her hand. Her lunchbox was strapped over her shoulder, it having a long strap. Backing away from the weirdo, she suddenly bolted from the classroom. "So not into this, so not into this," she muttered to herself as she ran down the hall, pushing her way past other students. She fought the urge to scream as she ran. Looking behind her to see if the creep had followed her, she nearly ran into Dylan. "What the fuck is going on?" she immediately questioned as if he knew all the answers. "I'm not about this life I don't wanna be apart of this what the fuck is going on," she spoke really fast, obviously flustered. She didn't really like panic or any of it really.

"Zombies. Motherfucking zombies." Lars muttered trying to rip open his locker. "This is what I get for not finishing season 2 of the walking dead." He said and the door flung open. He pulled out his foam weapon; a crude silver, gold and bronze duct tape monstrosity that was probably not safe to use on people anymore. After that; he pulled out a shield he had been working on for months before his friend Jacob totally abandoned the project. He almost wished Jacob were there to help with this; but you know. Jacob was probably already infected. "Honestly, why couldn't it have been any other fucking apocalypse? Global warming, mole men, alien reptiles destroying the earth because it's a fucking Tuesday! Anything but the one thing I could actually fight against." He said talking to himself; barely acknowledging the other two. He did this at times. Then, he turned around and saw Dylan and Maggie there. "Oh. Right. You guys. You guys have weapons?" He asked them trying to gauge how utterly fucked they actually were.

"Hold that thought..." Dylan said, stepping around her and raising his bat in a swingers stance. As the monster neared he lifted one leg. Using the torque provided, he swung the bat at full speed into the creeps head, the side where the impact was caved in, and after a few moans and groans, the thing fell to the ground. He panted and turned back around. "Zombies. We need to get the fuck outta here." He said as he attempted to catch his breath by leaning over onto the bat.

He looked up to the two. "I parked around the back of the school. Let's go."

"Shotgun!" Maggie called before turning to Lars. "Also, why the fuck do you have that in your locker?" Who the hell keeps a sword in their locker? What if school officials had randomly searched his locker and found that? Wouldn't they arrest him? It could be considered a weapon. Were these weirdos just prepared for a random apocalypse? Where the hell did Dylan get that bat? He for sure wasn't on the baseball team, he's not preppy enough for that ish. He'd also definitely fail all the drug tests, at least from what she'd heard.

"Well shit..." Lars muttered; sticking his sword in his belt loop. "I like having my sword here. I can protect myself on the way home." He muttered as he checked his phone again. This time, there was no service. "Oh, good. They took out the cell towers. Now how will I check to see how many people died?" He continued. The features would probably just be "Lol, zombie attack." Then a bunch of outdated memes about Harambe that the iFunny chef thought was funny. Why did he even stay on that app? Ugh. Maybe the Wi-Fi still worked wherever the hell they were going. He ripped his sword out of its home on his belt loop and whacked it across the face a couple times until it was bleeding out of its nose. "We really need to stop by a Pawn Shop. I need a real sword." He told Dylan.

"No need." Dylan said as he began to jog down the hall with the two. "I've got machetes at home. We just need to actually get there " he said as they rounded a corner. After a long trek through screaming kids as well as students, they made it to the back of the school. "Should be smooth sailing from here." He said as they came up to the back parking lot where he was parked. A fully black 2002 trailblazer sat in the spot. He walked around to the drive door and climbed In. Fumbling with his keys as he attempted to turn it on. It roared to life after a few seconds. And his music he was playing the morning before all of this began blasting. He anxiously fiddled with the nob to turn it down so it didn't arise any suspicious from any certain. Cannibal on lookers.

Maggie sat in the passenger seat, quickly closing the door. How are you not deaf? she questioned Dylan mentally as he turned down the music. She knew that if she said it aloud she'd be kicked out of the car. Well, maybe not that but she knew the question wouldn't be appreciated. Maybe she shouldn't ask a lot of questions. "I always pictured myself stealing a bus if the apocalypse started at school, not jumping into a half-stranger's car and hoping for the best. One time, back in middle school, my friends and I imagined what we'd do in an apocalypse and we said we'd steal a bus or something and, like, drive around to all the other middle schools and pick up our friends from those places and make a little hippie van out of the bus and drive around the country. We'd have curtains and pillows and take out some of the seats and stuff like that." Maggie randomly began to go on about the memory, looking between Lars and Dylan as she continued. "I also thought, like when I was about to start freshmen year, that the apocalypse would break out at school and it'd be because of some weird chemistry thing gone wrong."

Lars got into the back seat of the pickup truck. The music made him cringe for a moment. Loud noises not being his most favorite thing in the world after all. At 6'4"; Lars felt quite uncomfortable in the backseat. His knees up against Maggie's back. "So, on a scale of 1-fUCKING SHIT WE'RE ALL GOING TO FUCKING DIE JESUS CHRIST AHHHHHH!. How screwed are we right now?" He asked trying to readjust himself to get a little more comfortable.

Maggie had scooted her seat up as much as she could, noticing Lars's discomfort. She turned around as much as she could in her seat with the restriction of her seat belt to look back at Lars. "I'm thinkin' it's more of a Oh fuck we might not have a chance but hey I just gotta run faster than others and I'm A-Okay." She readjusted in her seat, the belt pushing against her neck. "So uh, I have a bow and arrow at my house but I'm not sure how well any of us would be able to shoot it. Also, do you think the rest of the world knows about what's going on? We should, like, stock up on food and stuff."

"We can worry about that once we get back to my apartment. I don't live at home." He said, his jaw kind of twitching as he thought about it. He had lost both of his parents, and his brother just a year before. With no one to stay with, the state allowed him to live on his own in a one bedroom apartment. There, he had alot of unperishable foods and some weapons. He was always a collector, a apocalypse believer.

Everyone makes fun of the person preparing for the craziest causes, but then they run to them when shit hits the fan at full speed. He cleared his throat and put the truck in drive, and pulled out of the parking lot. The streets seemed deserted. No one could be seen on the back road leading out of the school lot.

"Weird. I figured traffic would be crazy right now." He said to himself as he pulled out onto the main road. That's when he saw the mayhem. The diseased stumbled alongside the median as cars whizzed past. Dylan shook his head as he spun forward, pushing the pedal down as he took off down the road going at least sixty five. He rolled his window down as he reached into his center console, and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He put one between his lips, held the pack out so that Lars could get one, and then held his hand in front of Maggie, offering her one without a look or word between the two.

Maggie let out a small squeal at the sudden acceleration, turning back around in her seat. She herself was surprised about the low traffic. What, was half the town infected already? Jeez, people might've been getting sick left and right but still. You'd think there would be a huge back up. When she pictured the apocalypse, she pictured the beginning of The Last of Us.

"Ew, gross," Maggie commented as she noticed Dylan's offer. She made a face when she was offered a cigarette, fighting the urge to grab it and throw it out the window. She always hated the idea of smoking, most of her family having taken part in it. The idea of it didn't necessarily gross her out, it was more of the stuff it could do to you.

"No thanks man. I don't do cigarettes." Lars said wincing a bit. He had no problem with vaping, pot or anything like that. He just... His mom was a smoker and she just kept getting worse and worse. His mom had died about a year back and it was now just his dad and Lars now.

At the sudden acceleration, Lars bumped his head on the backseat. "Fucking cock sucking of shit whore cunt!" Lars yelled from the backseat. Lars didn't handle pain very well. He could move through it and still walk it off, but Lars was a man with a mouth for sailing. He had problems staying quiet when he got hurt.

Dylan shrugged and put the pack back into the middle console of his SUV. He ashed it out the drivers window as he did a steady sixty five in a normally 50 mph zone. The back neighborhood road was oddly quiet. He turned the radio dial until it landed on a basic news radio. Everything was hysteric. The news reporter screaming to remain calm and get out of the city. Ironic. Someone screaming to remain calm. Dylan laughed softly at the irony of the situation. "Gameplans?" He asked, looking in the rearview at Lars, then a small glance beside him at Maggie.

"Water, lots of water. See what we can scavenge from like, pharmacies and shit. Going on the traffic, I'm feelin' half the people are gone already or ahead of the game. Most we'd get is scraps, I bet," Maggie shrugged, glancing at the speedometer every now and then. From the horror stories she'd heard from an old friend of her's, this was nothing. Fifteen over the limit was fine by her. Besides, what was there to hit? "I guess weapons would be swell." Swell. She liked that word. It was fun to say.

"That's a terrible idea. The way I see it, we'll need a constant supply of fresh water, an area surrounded by trees - fruit or otherwise - and it has to be a good ways from the main road. Staying in one area is our best bet. So, I say we setup camp and then we can defend ourselves from the zombos." Lars said in the back seat thinking about it. "But she could be right on the weapons. We can't very well defend ourselves with our fists and it's not like any of us other than me brought a garbage sword."

"Boy, that sword ain't gonna last you long. And we have to live off more than fruit and we definitely need medical supplies of some sort. What're we gonna do when one of your dumb-ass selves sprains an ankle or somethin'? What about gashes? That shit's gonna happen." Maggie was turned around in her seat again, this time more restricted by the seat-belt.

"Oh I've got weapons." Dylan said with a grin as he took a sharp left, he pulled onto a side neighborhood road and picked up speed. Now going seventy in a fourty zone. After making his way the entire length of the road, he slowed down and pulled into a gravel driveway at the end of a dead end. He exited the CSR and bounded up the three steps to the front porch of his family three bedroom home, that he now lived in with two roommates that he rented out to after his parents and little siblings were in a fatal car crash two years earlier. He unlocked the door and turned around to the others. "Come on in shitheads." He grinned. Inside was a nice living room. With a sixty inch flat screen, Xbox one. Couch. And other living room stuff. He walked around a corner to the hallway and then to his room. Where his walls were painted in collected bowie knives, an assortment of varying sized machetes, a four pound meat cleaver, and a exact replica sized katana from the TV show The Walking Dead.

"Okay, first of all." Lars said after Maggie had finished her response. "I agreed with the weapons plan, and I'm not against getting medical supplies. Secondly, who said we'd sustain ourselves purely on fruit? It's called hunting and gathering. 2 of us would go out and hunt while 1 of us could stay back at camp and gather food and or protect it from marauders. But staying in one area is our absolute best bet because we could farm." Lars said. After turning the corner and pulling into the house, Lars followed Dylan upstairs when he spotted his favorite weapon. "Good lord..." He said as he walked over to the meat cleaver.

"I figured this would be more your style. " Dylan said with a grin as he lifted the recently sharpened Katana off of it's wall mount. "There's food in the basement. Enough for maybe three months. Along with twelve cases of water, twenty one bottles in each. " He said as he lifted a duffle bag out of his closet. Along with a separate backpack that was beside his bed. "If we needed to we could stay here. But personally I'd rather take my chances out on the road. This neighborhood is full of crazy mother fuckers. There's no telling who stuck around. "

Maggie walked in, eyes wide. She was torn between freaking out about the epic katana or flipping out about all the weapons. "You guys have problems..." she muttered to herself, choosing the latter. "Is that an actual replica?" she questioned, looking at the katana as she walked slowly around the living room. How the hell did they get all this stuff? Stealing? Hopefully not. Why all the food? Crazy people. She thought it best not the voice these questions slash opinions. Though, one question stuck in her mind: What the hell did I get myself into?

"Four hundred bucks on the walking dead online shop. I collect knives and blades. " he said, removing a solid black steel machete off of the wall , testing the blade with his thumb before nodding in approval and sliding it back into its sheath. "One of my roommates recently quit his job at a Costco. He took a truck load of food with him. " he said laughing to himself as he reached under his bed and pulled out two gallon size baggies, completely filled with weed. "Hey laaars. "

"Oh, fuck me with a stick," Lars said as he ran over with meat cleaver in hand as he examined the bag of pot. "is this the good shit?" He asked ripping open the bag and smelling it. Oh god, this shit was dank."Oh my god, it is." He said groaning a bit. "You aren't going to leave this behind for zombie's to get ahold of are you?"