DEGREES OF DEATH

Chapter 6: The Friend Left Behind

 

Xavier’s backup phone glowed a brilliant blue atop the fruit juice counter, its constant flashing slicing through the dense darkness of the ground-floor cafeteria. The illumination emitted no mechanical ringtone, yet the visual flare was enough to disrupt the movement of the deformed creatures nearby.

Dozens of tilted heads began to turn in jerky, mechanical movements toward the light source.

Daniel narrowed his eyes from the gap in the upstairs classroom curtain. The vertical distance between the balcony and the juice stand was only about a dozen meters. His mind immediately began running incredibly complex mathematical simulations. Route blind spots, monster mass density, and the secondary infection risk factor swirled rapidly through his thoughts.

"Your phone is lighting up down there," Daniel reported quietly, breaking the silence of the room.

Xavier bounded off the floor instantly, his feet tripping over a desk leg in his panic. He pressed his face flat against the windowpane next to Daniel’s shoulder.

"Damn it." Xavier swallowed hard at the hellish sight below. "My nightly vibration alarm activated automatically."

"The screen light is drawing the optic attention of their remaining motor functions. However, they do not respond to light as aggressively as they do to mechanical sound waves." Daniel analyzed the movement patterns of the dozens of monsters beginning to circle the juice counter.

Xavier gripped his hair in frustration. "My mom’s photo is inside that case, Daniel. If the battery dies and it gets trampled or smashed under their feet... I lose my mother twice."

"We forget the phone." Daniel pulled the curtain shut. His tone was cold, absolute, and left no room for compromise. "Descending to a cafeteria with a Tier 1 mass density carries a ninety percent chance of instant death. The calculation does not balance."

Xavier stared at Daniel, his jaw tightening. An unfamiliar emotion burned in his eyes. The friend who was usually unconditionally loyal now refused to back down.

"I can't leave that photo, Daniel." Xavier turned toward the classroom door, his fists clenched tightly to stop them from shaking. "If you want to play a numbers game with logic, go ahead and hide in here until you rot. I'm going down to get what's mine alone."

Xavier stepped toward the barricade of wooden cabinets blocking the door.

"Stop right there, Xavier."

Daniel spun around with blinding speed, his right hand shooting forward to grip the back of his friend's collar. His strength surged, driven by a suppressed protective instinct.

"Let go of me, damn it!" Xavier thrashed violently. He shoved Daniel’s hand away, tearing the fabric of Daniel's jacket slightly. "That’s the only thing I have left of my family! You don't know what it feels like to be an orphan at the start of this apocalypse!"

"I said stop!" Daniel’s hiss sliced sharply through the cold classroom air. His gaze was as rigid as ice, crushing Xavier’s defiance. "Your reckless actions will draw a new wave of attacks to this room. Do you want to kill us all for a piece of photo paper?"

Chania quietly stepped away from the floor, standing between the two men as they held back their fury. Her heart hammered against her ribs at the first major rift in their small group.

"Xavier is right. It’s just a photo," Chania whispered, stepping in with an empathetic tone. "But Daniel is right too. We don't have weapons to fight that many of them in the cafeteria. Going down there is pure suicide."

"To hell with suicide." Xavier gritted his teeth, his eyes bloodshot and welling with tears. "I’m willing to die as long as I die holding my mom’s face. Move, Chania."

Xavier nudged Chania’s shoulder gently, preparing to shift the door barricade.

"I already lost Becca because I stood frozen."

Daniel’s words rolled out incredibly slowly, heavy like molten lead.

Xavier’s foot stopped mid-stride.

Daniel stared down at his right hand in the dim night. Becca’s blood still formed a pattern of death across his palm. The old-world logic of self-preservation and fear had died alongside the final breath of his upperclassman in the corridor earlier that afternoon.

Daniel hardened completely. He cast aside the remnants of selfish fear that had imprisoned him.

"A single second of doubt killed someone I should have been able to save." Daniel raised his head slowly to lock eyes with Xavier, his protective side taking full control from behind the wall of his cold calculations. "I am not going to lose my best friend just because you act like an idiot driven by emotion."

Xavier stood frozen, staring at Daniel’s face. He could see a terrifying transition in his friend’s eyes. Daniel, the calculative student who always sought safety, was gone. The figure before him now had transformed into a pure risk-taker.

"What do you mean, Daniel?" Xavier asked hesitantly.

"Open the window curtains again. Observe the movements of the mass below carefully." Daniel turned his back, walking toward a pile of broken wooden chairs in the corner of the room.

Chania followed him, her face pale with a new wave of panic.

"Daniel, don't tell me you're leaving this room?" Chania tugged at the edge of his jacket. "That’s crazy. It is literal suicide. We are safe in here as long as the door stays closed."

"Safety is a deceptive tactical illusion, Chania." Daniel did not look at her. His hands were busy dismantling a wooden desk leg that was worn with age. "A supply crisis of food and water will kill us in less than seventy-two hours. We have to move out regardless."

"But the cafeteria is their nest!"

"Which is why we retrieve the item now, before tomorrow morning's humidity triggers their mutation into the next phase."

Daniel gripped the jagged, broken end of the wooden desk leg firmly. He applied mechanical pressure with his right foot, then slammed his elbow down against the wood.

The sound of splintering wood was muffled carefully into the air of the room.

A long, sharp-tipped wooden stake was now gripped in Daniel's left hand. The splinters were sharp enough to pierce soft material.

Daniel did not stop there. He rummaged through the instructor's drawer that Chania had checked earlier. He discovered a large utility knife and a roll of thick, clear packing tape in the corner of the grime-streaked drawer.

"Keep your eyes on the wooden door, Chania." Daniel walked back toward the barricaded entrance. "We are no longer hiding. We are shifting our status from passive survivors to the offensive."

Xavier stared at the wooden stake in his friend’s hand, his jaw dropping. "You plan to slaughter them with a piece of brittle wood like that?"

"This isn't a slaughtering tool." Daniel wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his blood-stained hand, his eyes flashing sharply as they reflected the dim night light. "This is our first instrument of execution. I am going to clear an evacuation path for you to that juice stand, Xavier."