Chapter 44 Weekend start of the dead
He went to the boarding school's shopping area and stocked up on food and drink, the latest magazines and comics. Inwardly, he thanked his grandfather for the pocket money; he had found out that it was more than the others got.
He strolled back to his room, which he had lived in alone since sixth grade. The principal had needed money and had increased his pocket money. So he had moved from the old building to a new one, which was mixed and where the snobs lived.
They avoided him and now and again he had to tutor his classmates, including his secret flame Leonore. She was the daughter of the CEO of a car company and the most popular girl in her class, to which he also belonged.
She was half Cuban, half Jamaican, on the athletics team and in the garden club. She hung out with the cool and rich, showing off their expensive cell phones and tablets and the clothes they wore when they had time off.
He hadn't noticed her until he was asked if he wanted to tutor her. So he had said yes and indicated his room as the teaching location, it was big enough. It was actually a room for three, had a bathroom and a kitchenette.
Aunt April had helped him set it up back then, so there was only one bed in it, a desk, an armchair with a table, a wardrobe for his clothes and shelves where he meticulously kept his books, magazines and comics, but only the current ones, the others he had carefully sent home.
He often tidied up, but it looked nerdy. Posters of games and movies hung on the walls.
Game books from the game nights were lying around in an orderly fashion.
He hadn't thought anything of it when he opened the door and when he knocked, she was standing in front of him in training gear. She said she'd come from training and had forgotten her books. He had just nodded and asked her to take off her shoes, which she did. She had looked around the room while he printed out the teaching materials and then she had asked questions.
"Do you live here alone?"
"Yes, the principal said it's fine because others have a room on their own."
"Yours has its own bathroom..."
He had never thought about it, in his old room, which he had shared with someone else, they had to share a bathroom.
He put the Pepsi on the table and sat down on the carpet next to it, a habit he had picked up from his Aunt Mei. Leonore had looked at him with irritation at first.
"No chairs and no table?"
"No. The carpet is soft. I'm ..."
She sat down.
" I know who you are, everyone knows who you are. You're Luke, whose mother always comes with the state off-road vehicle and is accompanied by a guy."
" The guy's name is Niegel. "
" But why is she driving a state SUV, you don't just get those things. My dad told me he made the deal at a parent-teacher conference."
Luke had been drinking Pepsi.
"And he said to me that parents' nights are relaxed for him because of all the chaperones, although Bill... you know Bill?"
"Um... you mean the girl crush from our grade?"
She rolled her eyes. "Yeah that Bill, his dad is this TV presenter who's always on TV. So his mom's always mad because he gets treated like a normal girl and has to show his ID."
Luke thought about it.
"And the guy who always comes, is that your dad?"
"No. That's my grandpa. Like the rest of my family, he had the generic freshening done. My grandma told me that she wanted to enjoy life, well," he shrugged.
"I also had a generfresh done during the summer vacation. I don't know why people get upset about it."
She stared at him.
"You got a refreshment? I mean, my dad got one when he was in the service and so did my mom and the doctors said I didn't need one because it's automatically in me."
"My dad, who abandoned my mom, supposedly doesn't have one and I was born without one."
"And have you been to one of those clinics? The kind you see in the brochures?"
"Um... No ... My grandpa took me to a military hospital. I got a few injections there and then I was allowed out again. "
He stood up and picked up his tablet. Sitting down, he activated it and a picture of his grandfather appeared, which he had digitally altered and which showed him as a demon ruler. He had often used his grandfather as a character for his game nights, including his aunts. He opened the gallery and scrolled to the vacation photos. He clicked on one where he was lying in a treatment chair and an army doctor was giving him injections. He turned it over and showed it to her.
"No recovery time?"
" Uh, no, we had a barbecue on the beach afterwards. "
He clicked on, picture of Luke with a bright red face could be seen applying lotion to Bibi's back and Mei hugging him from behind and applying lotion.
Then came a picture of him with a hot dog on his plate.
Leonore looked at him.
"You're popular with the women," she smiled.
"No, they're my aunts. So, what else do you need to learn?"
"Everything, actually ..."
He raised an eyebrow and found it difficult to tutor Leonore. Not because of the learning, but because Leonore had often just bummed around. She had told him that she just needed a break. That was 2 ½ years ago now, even though her visits had become less frequent recently and she was out with the snobs more often again.
Luke was under no illusions as he entered his room, changed his clothes, put together his lunch and spread the magazines out in front of him. He didn't mind, even when his cell phone told him that he had passed his math test, he immersed himself in the world of magazines about marine animals and underwater biology until he fell asleep and woke up with his head on the table.
It was dark outside and the weekend was just around the corner, so he didn't have to fret about getting up early. From the window he could see across the campus, he could see people walking around or dragging and he thought about curfew.
He yawned, put his things away and sat down at the table, headphones in his ears, and started drawing on his tablet. He had a flow, forgot the time, only when the knock on the door really annoyed him did he take off his headphones and go to the door. The clock showed him that it was 2 o'clock in the morning.
He wondered if the others had gotten drunk again. He opened the door, no one was standing in front of it, he looked into the hallway. On one side there was no one, just a mess that someone had left behind.
On the other side, next to his door, Leonore was cowering. She was trembling, she looked up. The way she looked, she had been partying. Except her top was torn and her make-up smudged.
She hurried in, Luke shrugged and closed the door behind her. It wasn't the first time she'd come to him after a party.
The only thing that irritated him was that she was looking around nervously.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
She looked at him.
"Didn't you notice?"
" Did you notice? I was painting Leo," he pointed to his headphones.
She broke down and cried. Only now did he hear the screams from outside, went to the window and saw his classmates being attacked by others.
"What the ..."
"They're zombies, Luke... I saw it, they mauled Pio and then he came back! And Bill just left me standing there and ran away..." She continued to cry.
Luke scratched his head.
He turned on the TV, which was reporting that there had been outbreaks around the world and people should stay at home or go to safe zones.
Luke looked at the map on the TV, the nearest evacuation zone was maybe 40 km away. He looked at his cell phone, which had no reception. He looked at Leonore and went to her.
"When it gets light, we'll go to the evacuation zone."
She looked at him in astonishment.
" But the gates are closed Luke, like every weekend."
" Then we'll just climb over the wall."
Eventually she nodded and fell asleep from exhaustion. Luke thought about it and packed his things. He would definitely take his cell phone and tablet with him, the rest was unnecessary. He rummaged in his closet. His cell phone buzzed and he picked up the receiver.
"Where are you right now?" his mother asked.
"In my room, I want to be in the evacuation zone in the morning."
" Luke, listen to me carefully now."
He heard the nervousness in her voice.
" You need to avoid large groups Luke, avoid the settlements, hit the infected on the head and don't be a hero honey."
" Leo said they're zombies ..."
" No, they're mutated infected, darling. Thank God you got the generic refresher."
"What do you mean by that?"
" That was to protect and immunize the population for such a case. "
" Mum, how can it be that I didn't have it from birth? I've heard that it can be inherited."
" Um. I lived a bit wild before you were born darling, the doctor told me back then that it was a side effect."
Luke wondered why he didn't wonder about living wild.
"I see. So what happens if one of these things bites me?"
"It won't infect you, but it will hurt you."
"Okay mom, are you safe?"
"Yes, I'm safe, darling. You don't have to go to the assembly point in the zone, but to the freight yard."
"Why mom?"
" Trust me honey, I keep saying that's where you need to go. I have ..." The connection broke. Luke got warm clothes and changed, then packed his bag.
Just before the sun rose, Leonore woke up, looked confusedly at Luke, who rummaged in his golf bag and pulled out a baseball bat. He had tried a lot of things. He looked at her.
"We'll go to your room so you can change into something else."
She just nodded and they left the room quietly through the hallway. Leonore's room was on the first floor.
The corridors were empty and the room doors were open. It was the first time he had entered a girl's room and it looked hip. Leonore quickly rushed to her bathroom to wash up and then to her wardrobe.
Luke had time to look around a little. Everything looked girly. He saw a photo of her with Bill in better times. Leonore came out with several layers of clothes and a cricket bat in her hand.
"Take your cell phone, your tablet and your ID."
She put everything in a bag. Then they crept out quietly, peering outside, no one was to be seen.
They went out cautiously and ran towards the main gate, which was wide open, a scene of devastation everywhere. Pools of blood on the ground, body parts, but no corpses.
They were already on their way out when a signal was given to them from the shadows. They ran off. There were several of them their age. 2 girls and 2 boys, all looking battered.
"You can't go out, they're swarming outside. A few teachers tried to escape in the cars and crashed and now they're gathering around the cars. "
Luke crept out to look, and sure enough, about forty of the ones he first saw were hitting four cars, two already had their windows broken. He crept back.
" They're distracted, I'm going anyway." they stared at him.
" Are you crazy?"
" No. I just want to get away. Do what you want. "
He didn't care, he took off running close to the wall, on the other side he ran along the bit where the critters weren't.
As a child, he had wondered why they hadn't leveled the uneven terrain and made a smooth meadow out of it. Instead of a hilly landscape. Now he was glad they had. During a pause to catch his breath, he noticed that Leonore and the others had followed him.
She looked at him questioningly.
"I just want to get away," she said quietly.
They walked on, avoiding the open area and anything that looked like people. They passed many small horror scenes. People who had been attacked and were completely torn to pieces, cars that had crashed and were marauding with the infected, people who had been left behind by fugitives and were now victims of the infected.
They often had to take breaks, the terrain was uneven, and Lina and Lisa and Tom and Eddi were his companions. They were in the same class. He had had contact or something to do with all of them for years.
Leonore had caught herself and was able to speak again.
"Luke, aren't you scared?" Lisa asked out of nowhere.
" I'm scared, but I don't want to be torn to pieces. "
"Where are you going?" asked Eddi.
" To the evacuation zone, we'll be safe there."
" Are you sure, what about those things?"
" I trust my mother, she told me where to go before the phone died."
He drifted off in his thoughts, no longer listening to her chatter. Half an hour later, they came across the first infected attacking them.
Luke simply punched him until he stopped moving. They stared at him, not far away they found the body of a security guard lying slashed open. Luke had an idea and searched him, found his pistol and two spare magazines, which he pocketed.
Then they made off. It took them all day to get into the Zone, Luke following instructions to avoid anything that meant crowds, even if it meant it took them longer.
They gathered in a shed and took a breath, Luke giving the others his drinks and food.
They were exhausted and didn't talk anymore, when they were ready they walked on, coming to the first houses that belonged to the neighboring town.
Luke had never been here before because the boarding school had everything, but he could read the signs, his destination was the freight yard.
There were lots of signs pointing to the assembly point. Getting through the city was more difficult than overland. They often had to dodge infected or kill individuals, where Luke had to bite the bullet and did.