DEGREES OF DEATH

2. The Rescue Mission & First Blood

 

The metal doorknob held.

The lock Daniel had turned just ten seconds ago did its job. The painful screech of metal being forced downward grated on their ears, followed by a dull, wet thud from behind the wooden door. Something on the other side threw its body against it, grunting, and scraped at the surface with nails that sounded like metal files.

Then, the silence crept back in. The sound of wet, dragging footsteps slowly faded down the corridor.

Daniel finally let out the breath he’d been holding in his throat. His lungs burned. Beside him, Bianca slid all the way down to the cold, tile floor. She covered her mouth with both hands, trying to muffle the sobs that were fighting their way out of her chest.

“Are… are they gone?” Bianca whispered desperately, her eyes red.

“For now,” Daniel answered curtly. His tone was flat, but his heart was still hammering like a diesel engine.

He turned to face Chania, who was still clutching her cracked phone with a trembling hand. The theory from that internet forum was real. The damp weather, the sharp hearing, the unnatural aggression. This wasn't some common flu you could cure with Tylenol and a nap. This was nature’s execution.

Daniel wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. His expression suddenly hardened. An image of Becca’s torn neck flashed in his mind, followed by the face of Xavier, last seen munching on potato chips downstairs.

“We can’t just stay here,” Daniel said, breaking the silence. “We have to go down.”

Bianca’s head snapped up, her eyes wide with disbelief. “Are you insane, Niel?! You saw what happened down there! It’s hell outside! If we leave this room, we’ll die for nothing!”

“And if we stay here, Xavier is the one who’s going to die for nothing,” Daniel cut in sharply. He wasn’t yelling, but his voice was heavy with a finality that allowed no argument. “He’s still in the cafeteria. You know what he’s like. He cried running from the landlord’s dog; what’s he going to do against the living dead?”

“But Niel, we don’t have any weapons, and we have no idea how many of them are down there,” Chania interjected. Her voice trembled, though she was trying her best to remain logical. “You read the rules, right? They’re extremely sensitive to sound. The second they hear us, it’s over.”

Daniel was silent for a moment. He looked at the two girls in front of him. Their fear was completely valid. But the guilt gnawing at his chest was far greater than his own fear.

“Listen to me,” Daniel stepped forward, looking Bianca and Chania in the eyes, one after the other. “Back there, when Becca was attacked, I just froze. My feet were stuck. I let her die right in front of me because I hesitated. I’m not making that same goddamn mistake again.”

Daniel turned back to the pile of wooden chairs they had used as a barricade. With efficient movements, he grabbed a chair with the flimsiest-looking wood. He stomped on the middle of the seat, then yanked one of the legs upward with all his strength.

CRACK!

The sound of splintering wood echoed softly. Daniel was left with a solid teak chair leg, its broken end splintered into a sharp point. It had some decent weight in his hand. Enough to crush something if swung with full force.

“Find a weapon,” Daniel ordered, testing the weight of the club. “A broom, a pipe, a mop handle, anything. We’re going down now.”

Chania swallowed hard. She knew it was useless to argue with Daniel once he’d made up his mind. She walked to the corner of the classroom, grabbed a mop with an aluminum handle, and ripped the cloth head off. Bianca, her hands still shaking and soft sobs escaping her, forced herself to her feet. She grabbed a thick wooden broom handle from near the whiteboard.

“Remember the rules from the forum, Chan,” Daniel whispered as he slowly slid the professor’s desk away from the door, trying his best to keep its legs from scraping against the tile floor. “No noise. If we find one, we go for the head. If there are more than three… run and don’t ever look back.”

Chania and Bianca nodded slowly, their hearts pounding against their ribs.

Click.

Daniel unlocked the door. The metallic stench of fresh blood immediately assaulted their senses.

The second-floor hallway was not empty. Blood smears were dragged across the white tiles, creating a gruesome trail that led towards the stairs. A few backpacks and books lay scattered about, their owners gone. The fluorescent light above them flickered, casting long, eerie shadows.

They began to sneak forward, Daniel’s sneakers landing silently on the floor. Behind him, Chania and Bianca followed, holding their breath. They had only gone about thirty feet past a row of student lockers when a wet sound came from around the corner just ahead of them.

Shhff… click… click…

Daniel raised a clenched fist, signaling for the girls to stop.

From around the bend, a student appeared. Half of his face was destroyed. His jaw hung at an unnatural angle, revealing torn neck muscles. His patterned shirt was soaked in black blood.

Bianca gasped, and unfortunately, the end of her broom handle accidentally tapped against the metal locker beside her.

Ting.

The sound of metal on metal was faint, but to the ears of a creature mutated by the damp air, it was like a cannon blast.

The student’s head snapped violently in their direction. Its cloudy white eyes locked onto Bianca’s position. Without a growl, the creature shot forward. Its speed was completely unnatural for a body that was half-dead.

“Daniel!” Chania shrieked in a choked whisper.

Daniel didn’t hesitate. Survival instinct took over. He twisted at the waist, planted his feet, and swung the wooden chair leg like a baseball bat just as the creature lunged for his neck.

THWACK!

The blunt but heavy end of the club connected squarely with the creature’s temple. The sound of a skull cracking against wood was deafening. The force of the impact shot a painful vibration up Daniel’s arm to his shoulder.

The creature was thrown hard against the wall, but it wasn’t dead. Its pale, bloody hands were still clawing at the tiles, trying to crawl and grab Daniel’s ankle.

“Shit, why isn’t it dead?!” Bianca hissed in panic.

Daniel clenched his jaw. He lifted his boot and stomped on the back of the creature’s head with his full body weight, pinning it to the floor. At the same time, he raised the teak club high with both hands and brought the sharp, splintered end down straight into the base of its skull.

CRUNCH!

Thick fluid splattered onto the cuff of his shirt and his face. The creature’s body convulsed for a second, then went still forever.

Daniel was breathing heavily, the hand holding the club trembling slightly. Killing in a video game and caving in a real person’s skull up close were two very different things. His stomach churned with nausea, but he forced it down. He pulled the club free and turned to Chania and Bianca, who were frozen with horrified expressions.

“I told you,” Daniel whispered hoarsely, his eyes glinting with a cold light. “Hesitate for even a second, and you’re the one who ends up dead. Let’s go.”

They made their way down the stairs to the ground floor. The closer they got to the cafeteria, the more suffocating the smell of death became. The rain outside was getting heavier, its drumming against the faculty’s glass roof masking their footsteps.

The moment they reached the main entrance to the cafeteria, Daniel stopped. The scene before him made his blood run cold.

The cafeteria had become a slaughterhouse. Food stalls were wrecked. A thick, red liquid covered nearly the entire floor. A dozen of the living dead were squatting or crawling among the overturned tables, busy tearing into and chewing on the remains of students who hadn’t made it out. The sound of flesh being ripped and bones being snapped filled the room.

“Oh my God,” Chania whimpered, barely audible, shutting her eyes, unable to watch.

Daniel’s eyes scanned the room sharply, ignoring the surrounding horror. Where are you, you idiot? Where are you hiding? he thought, a wave of panic rising.

Then, his eyes caught something. In the far corner, under a large round table surrounded by scattered chairs, was a pair of bright red sneakers he knew all too well.

It was Xavier.

He was curled up under the table, his face as pale as a ghost, cold sweat plastering his curly hair to his forehead. And what made Daniel nearly curse out loud was that, in the middle of a goddamn apocalypse, Xavier was still clutching his gaming laptop bag to his chest like a shield.

That absolute lunatic, Daniel cursed inwardly.

Daniel tried to signal him. He raised a hand, making a slow, deliberate gesture. Xavier’s eyes finally found Daniel at the entrance.

Instead of relief, pure terror filled Xavier’s face. He shook his head in a series of desperate, jerky motions. From a distance, Daniel could read his trembling, soundless lips: “Niel… don’t come here. There are too many.”

Daniel didn’t care. He turned to Chania and Bianca, pointing to the edge of the cafeteria wall, which was relatively clear of the feeding creatures. “We’ll circle around the side,” he mouthed silently.

They began to creep forward, their backs pressed against the wall. They were only a few dozen feet from Xavier. The stench of the dead nearby made Bianca’s stomach turn, but she held it in.

Seeing his friends recklessly approaching, Xavier tried to shift his body slightly to get out from under the table. But because his hands were awkwardly occupied with his heavy laptop bag, the tip of his shoe slipped on a patch of spilled soup on the floor.

His foot kicked a metal tray lying nearby.

CLANG!

The sharp sound of metal hitting tile exploded in the quiet room.

Time seemed to stop.

Every single chewing sound in the cafeteria ceased at once. A dozen heads, smeared with blood, snapped up in unison. Their milky white eyes swiveled, searching for the source of the noise.

The two creatures closest to Xavier’s table immediately began to crawl toward him at a terrifying speed, growling viciously, ready to dive under the table.

“Dammit!” Daniel roared. The stealth plan was shot to hell.

He broke away from the wall, sprinting across the open floor to intercept the two creatures. He didn’t use his club. Mid-stride, he grabbed a heavy metal cafeteria chair with both hands, hoisting it high.

Just as the first creature was about to leap at Xavier’s face, Daniel swung the metal chair from the side with the full force of a home-run swing.

WHAM!

The impact was brutal. The metal chair connected squarely with the creature’s body. The force of Daniel’s swing sent the thin, blood-soaked thing flying sideways.

But he had swung too hard. His momentum didn’t stop. The creature’s body—and the remains of the chair in Daniel’s hands—crashed into the large glass-door drink cooler lining the wall.

CRASH!!!

The thick glass of the cooler shattered, exploding outwards. Shards rained down onto the floor with a sound so incredibly loud it drowned out the storm outside.

Xavier’s eyes went wide. Daniel froze, still holding what was left of the metal chair leg. His breath caught in his throat.

The sound of shattering glass was the deadliest boomerang. From the dark kitchen area at the back of the cafeteria, a thunderous rush of wet, fast-moving footsteps could be heard. It wasn’t a dozen anymore. It sounded like dozens.

From the darkness of the kitchen hallway, a flood of pale silhouettes with blood-drenched mouths poured out like a tidal wave. The rancid smell instantly choked the air. Every creature that had been scattered around the cafeteria now turned. Every single one of those deadly, milky white eyes was now locked on a single point.

On Daniel.

He stood paralyzed, a single bead of cold sweat dripping down his temple. There were too many. It was impossible to fight them.

At the entrance, Chania let out a hysterical scream, pointing to Daniel’s blind spot.

“Daniel, behind you!”