Carver Pike - Scalp

The clicking and hissing seemed like it was only feet away from him, threatening to leap on top of his head, and for a moment, he thought this was the end. Those things could leap, and he wouldn’t be far enough away to dodge them. If they wanted him, he was done for.

He’d just made it through the automatic doors when Grant yelled, “Duck!”

Clementine was behind the wheel of the pickup. Sally was in the passenger seat and Grant was in the bed, his rifle pointed right at Hal’s head. Hal did his best to duck and keep running. There was no way he was going to stop his forward momentum. His head came down only about a foot when Grant pulled the trigger. Hal heard the grunt of one of the creatures, probably no more than six feet behind him. Then a second blast and a splatter. There’d been two right behind him.

“Get in!” Sally yelled.

Clementine was already flooring it before Hal made it to the truck. Grant leaned over the side and reached out a hand to him. Hal grabbed his hand and ran alongside the truck. He had only one chance to leap into the bed. If he missed this, he would fall, he would get dragged, and the creatures behind him would swarm all over him.

Hal yelled with all the fury he had inside and leaped at the truck. Grant yanked his arm at the same time, and Hal landed with his belly on the side of the truck. His feet swung on the outside. One of the creatures grabbed his foot and pulled, howling like a banshee, close to jerking Hal right out of the truck.

“Hey, you!” Sally yelled from the passenger side window. “Get the fuck off him!”

She pulled the trigger on one of Clementine’s shotguns and tore the face right off the creature, like taking a giant ice cream scooper across his forehead and down to his chin.

Grant pulled Hal into the truck.

Sally screamed, “Oh my God, that was Danny Roy! I shot Danny!”

Hal didn’t know Danny Roy, and he was having a hard time feeling sorry for the fucker who’d tried to rip him out of the truck. He looked out at the parking lot and watched as a sea of the monsters chased after them. They’d never catch the truck, but there were so many. They came from other areas of the parking lot too, and Hal wondered if the entire town was infected.

“My God,” Grant said next to him.

“Thank you,” Hal whispered.

“Look at them. They’re everywhere.”

“They’ve taken over the whole damn town.”

“I don’t care what you say. That was wrong, Lance.” Bradley lowered his gaze and left his eyes focused on his feet. “It was wrong on so many levels.”

He knew what would come next. As soon as he let his words leave his mouth, he knew what Lance’s rebuttal would be. Of course, the bully in the room didn’t disappoint.

“If you don’t like it, you can leave too,” Lance replied.

“If I don’t like it, I can leave too,” Bradley whispered. “Nice.”

Bradley was a video game junkie. He played every new game the moment it came out and was working on a YouTube channel to show the world his skills. His only problem was his lack of personality. He could play like a champ, but he didn’t have the humor it took to grab the audience’s attention. He also didn’t have the balls to stand up to Lance.

What he found most interesting about this situation was how true the games were. He’d played The Walking Dead and he’d played other post-apocalyptic survival games. In most of them, man was the real enemy. It wasn’t the monsters, the creatures, or the beasts. It wasn’t the hordes of the undead. It was the human beings that ravaged and killed anyone they deemed a threat. It was kill or be killed. It was survival of the fittest. All those other cliché terms to express the need for one man to dominate the other.

Only this wasn’t a game.

And Lance was everyman.

He was the villain in all the TV shows, movies, and video games.

Bradley had no doubt if most of the world’s population died tonight, Lance would be happy to stand strong. He’d go someplace with high walls and lead from atop a tower. His world would be for the strong only, and everyone else would exist only to serve or become monster fodder.

Just like in the real world, the assholes never died. Nearly every kid on campus was gone. Either dead or had become one of those things out there hunting them. Not Lance though. He’d run like the rest of them and now he was alive to torment the others.

Bradley hated knowing Nitsy and Robbie were out there right now probably searching for a new place to hide with danger lurking around every corner. He wanted to go out there and join them, to let them know he had no part in the decision to lock them out of the music room.

He was debating on whether or not to speak up and get himself ousted from the room when he felt fingers intertwine through his. His eyes moved up to his right hand where he saw the dainty hand of Phyllis holding his. His eyes traced her arm until he found her face. She smiled.

“If you go, I go,” she said.

This was the first time she’d shown him any real attention. He’d had a small crush on her since yesterday when he walked her back to her room after their workshop. But he’d been afraid to take it any further. He always shot for the stars and fell flat on his ass. The girls he liked never liked him back and most of the time they never knew he liked them in the first place.

But Phyllis was here holding his hand now, and he saw there was a slight sparkle in her eyes. Moonlight shone in ever so slightly through the rectangular window set high in the wall. Bradley was focused on her pupils and her smile when he saw a shadow pass her face.

Yasmin screamed. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.”

“What the fuck is it?” Lance asked, backing toward the door.

Bradley heard the tiny squeak of the mouse before Yasmin yelled, “Rat! I saw a rat! Right over there!”

“It’s only a mouse,” Beau argued, wrapping Yasmin up in a hug. “It’s only a mouse.”

Lance laughed. “A fuckin’ mouse? You damn near gave me a heart attack.”

“Keep it away from me,” Phyllis added.

“A fuckin’ mouse,” Lance agreed. “How did I get stranded with such a group of pussies?”

“Excuse me?” Beau asked, pulling away from Yasmin.

Bradley cupped a hand over his mouth to hide his smile. Finally, someone was going to stand up to Lance, and it wasn’t going to have to be him . He wanted to, but he knew Lance would pummel him. Beau was tall and he wasn’t as wide as Lance, but he didn’t look like a pushover.

“Nothing,” Lance replied.

“Nah, man,” Beau said. “Repeat what you said.”

Lance was quiet.

“Yeah, keep your mouth shut from now on,” Beau said. “You don’t need to be saying shit about my girl.”

“Oh yeah?” Lance asked, suddenly getting up enough bravery to stand his ground. “Or what, tough guy?”

“Or maybe you’ll find yourself locked out there,” Beau said, pointing toward the door. “With those things.”

“Fuckin’ try it,” Lance said.

“There it is,” Phyllis shouted, pointing at the corner of the room.

“There what is?” Lance asked, turning around to look, arms out at his sides like he was a bodybuilder on his way to do a few more reps at the gym.

The mouse squeaked, and then it made a different sound. Bradley thought it sounded a little bit like crickets. Like a chirping but not as pleasant as the bugs that kept him up some nights. The crickets at home were so loud. This sound coming from the mouse was strange. The only word he could think to describe it was skittering like something was moving on its fur.

“Wish I had a BB gun so I could blast—” Lance started but then stopped. “Hey! Whoa. What the fuck?”