Carver Pike - Scalp

He didn’t look so brave anymore.

“Did you see anything?” she asked.

His face was pale. “Blood… all over the wall. And on the bed.” He leaned forward and looked a little closer. “The railing is broken too. Like someone fell down to the first floor.”

Nitsy looked over the railing and saw nobody below, but the bushes that ran along the bottom floor looked disturbed. The flowers at that part of the shrubbery were scattered. Someone had fallen from the balcony.

“Robbie, come on,” she said.

Heavy footsteps thudded against the floor behind her, causing her to whip her head around and nearly leap out of her skin.

“Nitsy,” Robbie said.

Behind her, maybe twenty yards away and blocking the stairwell, was a young man she was familiar with. It was the kid who was supposed to be in charge of her security team. He’d startled her at first, but now she was ready to lay into him and give him a piece of her mind. She’d spent all morning coming up with a plan he should have already put together.

“Elias,” Nitsy said, “I have a bone to pick with—”

She stopped. Elias had shuffled forward a few more steps and now she could clearly see his face. He looked grotesque. His neck was tilted at an odd angle, and his eyes were bloodshot. Drool dripped from the corners of his mouth. He raised his arms out to her in his strange, stuttered Frankenstein walk, and she saw the fingernails on two of his fingers were peeled completely back, sticking straight up toward the sky.

“Nitsy, back up,” Robbie said.

“What’s wrong with him?” Nitsy asked.

Elias glared at her and growled. He was a big boy, and when he suddenly ran straight for her, Nitsy froze in fear. Robbie ran to her, grabbed her arm, and yanked her away from Elias. Robbie was a baseball player. He was fast, and he was in great shape, but Nitsy wasn’t, so she struggled to keep up with him.

The stomping of Elias’s feet behind her kept her going. They’d reached room 214 and Nitsy’s shoes slapped against the broken glass. She couldn’t help but look to her right and see the blood-covered walls of the dormitory room beside her. That was all the time it took for Elias to catch up with her.

He reached out and slammed one of his heavy hands against her shoulder. She squealed, alerting Robbie, who spun around and drove a fist into the face of the bigger boy. It caused him to stumble back only a step or two, and when Nitsy turned to follow Robbie, she felt another heavy hand swat her to the side.

The broken railing gave way, and like a swinging door, it allowed her to pass through.

“Nitsy!” Robbie yelled.

She tumbled forward, arms out, ready to break her fall on the bushes when she felt a heavy body slam into her on her way down.

Her first thought was Elias had followed her down. She screamed and swung her arms wildly as she crashed into the shrubbery. Robbie groaned beside her. He’d followed her over the railing. She rolled away from the bushes and tumbled onto the grassy lawn.

“Robbie,” she muttered.

“That hurt,” he replied as he too found his way out of the bushes.

They’d just stepped away when they heard a loud roar and glanced up to see Elias pitch forward in his attempt to chase after them.

Nitsy caught a glimpse of his face as he fell. He seemed completely oblivious to the fact that he was falling. He simply went over, headfirst.

“What’s wrong with him?” she asked for the second time.

Elias plummeted toward the ground, and he didn’t seem to have the wits about him to break his fall. He came down hard and landed on his chin. The crack of his neck shook Nitsy to her core. She screamed. Robbie yelled and covered his mouth with a hand. Elias lay crumpled on the ground, his head twisted the wrong way, his eyes closed.

Robbie stepped closer to him and was only a few feet away when Nitsy noticed Elias’s hair move. It shook like there was something inside it.

“Robbie, don’t,” she yelled as she grabbed his arm and pulled him away.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Holy shit.”

The crunching of glass above alerted them to another presence. They looked up to see Bianca walking along the second-floor corridor. Her head was tilted to the side. She wore the same dead expression as Elias.

“She’s the same way,” Nitsy whispered.

“Come on,” Robbie replied as he pulled her toward the auditorium.

Robbie tore through the auditorium door with Nitsy by his side. Momentarily blinded, it took him a second to understand what was going on. The brightness of outside clashed with the dark room where his peers were watching a film on a giant screen. Through squinted eyes, Robbie saw John F. Kennedy standing at a podium delivering a speech. It was a leadership film, probably meant to keep the kids busy while he and Nitsy searched the school for their missing classmates. Only they weren’t missing.

They’re zombies.

With the sunlight at his back and the door closing behind him, cutting a slice of daylight through the darkness, Robbie saw quite a few teenagers looking his way. The sudden normalcy of the scene in front of him made him doubt what he’d just experienced. Like Elias’s fall and broken neck might have been all in his imagination.

“Stop the movie!” Nitsy yelled.

She stood at his side. He hadn’t even noticed her there, but her voice thundered through the auditorium with the command of a great leader. She demanded everyone’s attention. He needed to do the same.

“Stop the movie!” he yelled, mirroring her authority.

An adult might have handled the situation differently, but he wasn’t one, and he had no idea how to deal with a zombie apocalypse. With Robbie’s outburst, the rest of the kids watching the movie gasped and turned to look at him.

“Lock the doors,” Nitsy said, going back to the entrance and searching for a way to secure them.

Eggo, who Robbie knew was the leader of Nitsy’s group, joined her at the door.

“Nitsy, what’s going on?” he asked.

Voices went up all around him, and Robbie felt faint. None of this made sense. This was scary movie shit. This wasn’t the kind of thing that happened to teenagers in real life.

“He… uh… he…” Robbie tried to explain when Mrs. Price made her way over to him and grabbed hold of his shoulders.

“Calm down,” she said, “and tell me what happened.”

“He broke his neck,” he finally found his voice. “He broke his own neck.”

Mrs. Price put a hand to her mouth and stared at him. She looked over at Nitsy. “What is he talking about?” She was nervous. “Did someone get hurt?”

“Mrs. Price,” Nitsy took over, and Robbie was so thankful she did because he didn’t think he could explain it in a way that made sense. “Something has happened to the missing kids. They’re… they’re like—”

“Zombies!” Robbie announced. “Elias and Bianca and who knows how many others. They’re zombies.”

One of the wisecracking boys Robbie had never had the pleasure of speaking to was seated nearby. As soon as he heard the word zombie he burst out in laughter and stomped his feet on the carpet in extreme exaggeration. Like he might laugh himself to death.

“Did you hear this kid?” the boy asked. “He said they’re zombies. Zombies, man!”

A few others laughed. Some of the kids in the crowd were afraid. They weren’t saying much. Robbie felt his blood boiling as the boy continued heckling him.

In the background, John F. Kennedy prattled on, speaking proudly to the American people while inside this auditorium, young people were freaking out.

“Will someone please stop the movie?” Nitsy asked.

Somewhere, someone did. The film paused on Kennedy’s face as he raised one finger to explain an important point that wouldn’t make a lick of difference in what was happening today.