10.

Tracy imagined she wouldn't wake up, or at least end up somewhere different than that classroom-turned-morgue-turned-bloodbath.  But when she came to, she was still wedged in the bloodless corner near the door, and the first thing she saw was a pile of bodies--Joey and Desiree, among the others.

 

She gagged and closed her eyes against the sight.  Somehow, this seemed worse than when she was actually lashing out, fighting in the moment, only trying to kill and stay alive.  These bodies, the people she didn't know anymore, looked so...broken.

 

Tracy sat up, her hand finding the cold metal of a desk leg.  In panic she whirled around, striking another desk and something very solid and warm.

 

"You okay?" asked Lucas tensely.

 

Tracy blushed and scrambled into a more composed sitting position.  "Oh...fine," she said, instinctively putting a hand to her face.  She could feel three raised lines across her face, but the bleeding had stopped.

 

"How long was I out?" she asked anxiously, looking around for Dan or Erika.  Already she was embarrassed by her stupid reaction.  She should have been stronger than this.

 

"Not long..." Lucas's voice tailed away.  He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and examined it.  "It's still only two."

 

Tracy ran the numbers in her head.  Lucas's lunch must have started hours ago, and they couldn't possibly have spent too much time running around in terror.  But on the upside, school as the outside world knew it ended in half an hour.  Soon someone would notice something psycho was going on at Freemont High.

 

Assuming the problem was within the school alone.  The alternative made Tracy's skin crawl.

 

Her eyes suddenly fell on his cell phone.  "Have you tried calling anyone?"

 

"Yeah," he murmured regretfully, stowing it back in his pocket, "But something's jamming the signal.  I tried every number I knew.  'Course, we don't know how many of them are..."--he looked sadly at the pile of bloodstained, former friends across the room--"Well...yeah."

 

"And...why are we still here?" Tracy said.  She stole yet another glance at Joey's blank, bloodlusted eyes.

 

Lucas shrugged.  "It could be so much worse out there.  There could be a whole school of those zombie-things right outside our door.  I mean, if we wanted to pick the lock or something, we could, but..."

 

"I know...but it just feels creepy in here.  There's gotta be an empty supply closet down the hall, at least." And I would feel better if I had something to use for a weapon, came the unbidden thought.  She didn't think there'd be any suitable chainsaws or flamethrowers in a Geometry class.  The best she'd get was a pointy pencil or compass.

 

"I know.  But we might as well wait for school to officially end.  Maybe people've already noticed there's something wrong," Lucas said soothingly.

 

"And best case scenario, this place is a quarantine," Tracy snapped.  "I just want to know what's going on with the rest of the school."

 

And then she realized how eerily quiet it was.

 

"Lucas...?"

 

As if reading her mind, he mumbled "They both...started bleeding a while after you passed out."

 

It felt like with each passing death of someone she knew, Tracy was getting number.  Would she soon be able to kill and feel nothing at all?

Reviews

[Lyzzy Redd]

Oh my gosh. Seriously one of the best stories on the internet ever. These characters...they're so relatable! I really love this story, and I especially liked the last line: Would she soon be able to kill and feel nothing at all?