I hate high school.
I've always hated it, but never more than right now.
"RUN! FUCKING RUN!"
The voice belongs to Marcus, I think—or maybe it was Jake. Hard to tell when terror strips away everything that makes a person recognizable. We're all just prey now, sprinting through the familiar hallways that have become a hunting ground.
My sneakers squeak against the polished linoleum as I pump my arms, lungs already burning. Behind me, the sound of our footsteps creates a frantic rhythm—thud-thud-thud-thud—like a drumbeat counting down to our deaths.
I make the mistake of glancing back.
Jesus Christ.
They're gaining on us. The things that used to be people—our teachers, maybe even some students from other classes—move with a terrifying, single-minded purpose. Their clothes hang in tatters, skin gray and mottled, but it's their eyes that freeze my blood. Empty. Hungry. Fixed on us with the kind of focus I've never seen in any living person.
"No, no, no," I mutter through gritted teeth, forcing my legs to move faster. "I can't die like this. Not here. Not in this shithole."
All those times I fantasized about never having to come back to Roosevelt High, and now I might never leave.
We round the corner by the science wing, and I can hear my classmates' ragged breathing mixing with my own. There were twelve of us when we started running from the cafeteria. Now I count eight sets of footsteps behind me, maybe less.
"HELP ME! PLEASE!"
The scream comes from somewhere behind us, high and desperate. Sarah Chen, I realize with a sick twist in my stomach. She sits two seats behind me in AP English, always raises her hand, always has the right answer. Always seemed like she had everything figured out.
The wet, tearing sounds that follow make my skin crawl. I've heard that sound before—when my dad cleaned fish at the lake house last summer. But this is different. This is human.
"Keep running!" I shout, though I'm not sure if I'm talking to the others or myself. "Don't stop, don't look back!"
My throat feels like sandpaper, and there's a sharp stitch developing in my side, but adrenaline keeps pushing me forward. Coach Peterson always said I was decent at cross-country, but I never thought those skills would mean the difference between life and death.
We're down to five now. I can tell without looking—the footsteps behind me have thinned out, replaced by more of those awful feeding sounds that seem to echo off the lockers.
God, we were just eating lunch twenty minutes ago!!
I remember sitting at my usual spot by the windows, picking at a turkey sandwich and watching Emily Johnson laugh with her friends across the cafeteria. She had this way of throwing her head back when something really amused her, her blond hair catching the light. I'd been working up the courage to maybe say something to her after lunch, maybe ask about the history assignment.
Now here we are, running for our lives through halls that smell like death and terror.
"NOOOO! GET OFF ME!"
Two more voices cut short behind me. I don't recognize them anymore—fear has a way of making everyone sound the same. But I know what it means. We're down to three.
My legs feel like they're made of concrete, but I push harder. Just ahead, I can see a door I know better than any other in this building. Room 127—the storage closet tucked away near the east stairwell.
My salvation.
I've spent more lunch periods in that cramped space than I care to admit, eating soggy sandwiches in blessed solitude while everyone else socialized in the cafeteria. It became my refuge when the noise and crowds got too overwhelming, when I needed somewhere to disappear.
The door is usually locked, but three months ago I'd watched Mr. Hendricks fumble with his keys after he'd caught me loitering nearby. I'd memorized which key he used, then spent two weeks working up the nerve to lift his spare set from his desk drawer. I told myself it wasn't really stealing if I wasn't taking anything valuable, just borrowing access to somewhere I could breathe.
I've never been more grateful for my antisocial tendencies.
"Come on!" I gasp, fumbling for the key in my jeans pocket. My hands are shaking so badly I can barely grip it. "Just... just let me get this fucking thing open!"
I chance another look back and immediately wish I hadn't. Only two of us left now—me and Emily Johnson. She's about ten feet behind me, her face pale as paper, blond hair plastered to her forehead with sweat. Our eyes meet for just a second, and I see the same desperate hope in her expression that I feel clawing at my chest.
The third runner—Kevin Martinez, I think—stumbles and goes down hard. I hear his scream cut off abruptly, replaced by the sound of snapping teeth and tearing fabric.
"Don't look," I tell Emily as I jam the key into the lock. My hands are slick with sweat and it takes two tries to get it to turn. "Just don't look back."
The door swings open and I dive inside, Emily right behind me. The space is exactly as I left it—cramped and cluttered with janitor supplies and broken desks, smelling like industrial cleaner and dust. I slam the door shut and twist the lock just as something heavy crashes against it from the outside.
BANG!
The impact sends vibrations through the metal door and into my bones. I stumble backward, pressing my back against a stack of boxes.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
They know we're in here. Of course they do. But the door is solid steel, and the lock is strong. They can pound all they want—
A scream pierces the air outside, high and terrified. Female. Young.
The banging stops abruptly, followed by the sound of multiple sets of feet moving away from our door. They've found someone else. Some other poor soul trying to escape.
I slide down the wall until I'm sitting on the cold concrete floor, my whole body shaking with exhaustion and leftover adrenaline. My lungs feel raw, and there's a metallic taste in my mouth that might be blood.
Emily has collapsed near the opposite wall, sitting with her knees drawn up to her chest. Her face is flushed and streaked with tears, and she's breathing so hard I'm worried she might hyperventilate.
We sit in silence for what feels like an eternity, listening to our own ragged breathing and the muffled sounds of chaos from somewhere else in the building. Screams. Running footsteps. Things breaking.
Finally, when I can trust my voice not to crack, I manage to speak.
"Are you... are you okay?"
It's a stupid question. Neither of us is okay. We might never be okay again.
I expected Emily to nod, to give me some sign that she understood the gravity of our situation. Instead, she just cried harder, her shoulders shaking with each sob. Through her tears, she slowly rolled up the sleeves of her navy blazer, revealing what I had hoped I wouldn't see.
There it was—a small but clear bite mark on her forearm, the skin around it already showing the telltale signs of infection. The puncture wounds were clean, almost surgical in their precision, but that didn't matter. Size meant nothing when it came to these things.
My eyes widened in horror as the memory of our classroom teacher flashed through my mind. Mrs. Henderson had been laughing at a student's joke one moment, and within an hour of being bitten, she was snarling and lunging at us with those same bloodshot eyes we'd seen in the hallways. The transformation was swift and merciless.
I shot to my feet immediately, the sudden movement making Emily flinch.
"S—Sorry..." She whispered through her tears. The sound was so broken, so unlike the confident Emily Johnson I'd watched from across the classroom for months. This wasn't the girl who commanded attention when she walked down the hallways, who had half the football team wrapped around her finger.
But the reason I had stood up wasn't pity or shock at seeing her breakdown. It was something much worse.
Now that the adrenaline from our desperate escape was fading, I could feel it—a sharp, throbbing pain in my arms and right leg that I'd been too panicked to notice before. My hands trembled as I reached down toward my right leg, my fingers fumbling with the fabric of my jeans. I pulled the denim up to my knee, and there it was, clear as day on my calf: another bite mark.
During our mad dash through the school corridors, something had grabbed my leg near the stairwell. I'd kicked frantically, feeling my shoe connect with something soft and wet before breaking free. I thought I'd escaped unscathed. I thought I'd been lucky.
I thought wrong.
Emily's eyes followed my gaze down to the wound, and her face went pale. Even through her tears, I could see the recognition in her eyes—the same look of horror I'd probably worn when I saw her bite.
"Haha..." The sound that escaped my throat was hollow and bitter, more of a wheeze than actual laughter.
All of this—the running, the hiding, the desperate hope that we might somehow make it out alive—it was all for nothing. All this running for absolutely fucking nothing.
The rage hit me like a tidal wave. I spun around and drove my foot into the supply closet door with everything I had.
For fucking nothing!!!
BANG!
The sound echoed through the small space like a gunshot. Emily jumped, her eyes wide with fear, and I immediately felt like an ass for scaring her further.
"Sorry..." I muttered, running my fingers through my black hair, which was still damp with sweat from our escape. My hand came away trembling.
We sat in silence for a moment.
"A—Are they all dead?" Emily asked finally.
I knew she was asking about our classmates, maybe even the entire school. The last time I'd seen our classroom, it had been chaos—desks overturned, windows shattered, and Mrs. Henderson advancing on Marcus Williams with those dead, hungry eyes. Some of our classmates had followed me and Emily when we ran, but in the panic, we'd gotten separated. Others had stayed behind, frozen in terror or trying to help the wounded.
"I...don't know," I replied honestly. What else could I say? That I'd seen blood on the walls? That I'd heard screaming that cut off too abruptly? That the emergency broadcasts on the radio had gone silent twenty minutes ago?
"Why...why is this happening?" She asked, wiping her tears with the back of her hand, smearing her mascara further across her cheeks.
I wished I had an answer for her. Hell, I wished I had an answer for myself. This morning had started like any other Tuesday. I'd eaten breakfast with my mom, complained about my history test, worried about whether I'd have the courage to talk to Emily Johnson. Now here we were, hiding in a supply closet, both infected with whatever was turning people into monsters.
The whole city was probably overrun by now. Maybe the entire country. The news reports had been fragmentary and confusing before the broadcasts cut out entirely. Something about isolated incidents, then widespread outbreaks, then nothing but emergency alerts telling people to stay indoors.
Mom. The thought hit me like a physical blow. Was she even alive? Was she safe at home, or was she wandering the streets with those same dead eyes I'd seen in our teacher?
"Do you have your phone, Emily?" I asked, suddenly desperate to hear my mother's voice one more time.
Emily reached into her skirt pocket and pulled out her phone, but when she looked at the screen, her face fell. The display was completely shattered, spider-webbed with cracks, and when she pressed the power button, nothing happened.
"It must have broken when I fell in the hallway," she said quietly.
I'd lost my phone during our escape, probably when I'd vaulted over the overturned desk in the chemistry lab. So that was it. No way to call my mom, no way to tell her I loved her, no way to hear her voice one last time or even know if she was still alive to hear it.
The hopelessness of it all crashed over me, and I slid down the door until I was sitting on the floor, my back against the wood.
"How much time...do you think we have?" Emily asked.
I thought about Mrs. Henderson, about how quickly she'd changed. The bite, the fever, the confusion, then the violence. It had been textbook—if there was a textbook for zombie apocalypses.
"A little less than an hour, maybe," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "Based on what we saw happen to Mrs. Henderson."
It didn't matter anyway. We were dead. Unless some miracle cure was discovered in the next hour, unless the military swooped in with some secret weapon, unless this was all just some elaborate nightmare I'd wake up from—none of which seemed likely.
According to the scattered news reports we'd heard before everything went dark, this had started in other parts of the world first. Europe, Asia, somewhere in Africa. But here in America, it seemed like it had only begun this morning. An hour ago, everything had been normal.
Emily lowered her head, staring at her hands folded in her lap. When she raised her gaze again, there was something hesitant in her expression.
"Uhm, your name is?" She asked quietly.
The question hit me like a slap. I'd been in her class for five months. Five months of stealing glances at her during chemistry, of listening to her laugh at Tommy Brooks' jokes, of imagining what it would be like to actually talk to her. And she didn't even know my name.
But when I looked at her face, I could see the guilt there, the genuine regret. She knew how that sounded, knew how it must have hurt.
"I guess it's understandable," I said, trying to keep the bitterness out of my voice. "I don't have any friends, and you're the most popular girl in class—hell, one of the most popular in the whole school."
It was true. Emily Johnson was the kind of girl who seemed to exist in a different universe from guys like me. She was homecoming queen material, the kind of person who'd probably never eaten lunch alone or sat by herself at a school assembly. Meanwhile, I was the guy who did his homework in the library during lunch and whose biggest social interaction was usually answering questions in class.
"My name is Ryan Gray," I said.
"Emily Johnson," she replied, even though we both knew I already knew that.
"I know," I confirmed.
We sat in silence for a moment, the weight of our impending doom settling around us like fog. I could hear Emily's breathing, quick and shallow, and the distant sounds of chaos from elsewhere in the building. Somewhere, a fire alarm was still blaring, its shrill cry mixing with sounds I didn't want to identify.
I thought about all the things I'd never get to do, all the words I'd never get to say. In a few hours, I'd be nothing but another monster wandering the halls, and Emily would be too. Whatever was left of us would be gone, replaced by something hungry and mindless.
Fuck it. If I was going to die, I might as well go out with some honesty.
"Since we're going to die anyway," I said, my voice steadier than I felt, "I might as well tell you something, Emily. I like you as a man."
Her eyes widened, but she didn't look shocked—not really. There was surprise there, but also a kind of weary recognition. She was probably used to guys confessing their feelings to her. Hell, she probably had a standard response prepared for situations like this.
But she didn't say anything, and I was grateful for that. I didn't need her to reciprocate or let me down gently. I just needed to say it, to put it out there in the universe before we both became something else entirely.
The silence stretched between us, broken only by our breathing and the distant chaos. I found myself studying her face, memorizing the details—the way her blonde hair fell across her shoulders, her long eyelashes covering her green eyes, the way she bit her lower lip when she was thinking.
After what felt like an eternity, she looked at me directly.
"Ryan."
I raised my gaze to meet hers.
"Do you want to have sex?"
I blinked, certain I'd misheard her. The supply closet was small, but maybe the sound had gotten distorted, or maybe the stress was making me hallucinate.
"What?" I stuttered.
"Do you want to have sex with me? Right now?" She asked again, her voice clearer this time.
"Are you serious?" I asked, a laugh bubbling up in my throat despite everything. It was so absurd, so completely unexpected, that I almost thought she was joking.
"Completely serious," she said, clenching her fists in her lap. Her knuckles were white with tension. "If I'm going to die anyway, I want to know what sex feels like at least once..."
The words hung in the air between us. I stared at her, trying to process what she'd just said. Emily Johnson—beautiful, popular, seemingly experienced Emily Johnson—was a virgin?
"I thought you and Tommy Brooks already..." I started, then trailed off.
Tommy Brooks was our classmate and the star quarterback, the kind of guy who looked like he'd stepped out of a teen movie. He was tall, blonde, athletic, and had the kind of easy confidence that made other guys hate him on principle. He and Emily had been dating for two months, and everyone just assumed they were sleeping together.
Emily shook her head, and for the first time since I'd known her, she looked genuinely vulnerable.
"We never found the right timing," she said, and there was real regret in her voice. "He kept talking about making it special, waiting for the perfect moment. Prom, maybe, or graduation. He wanted to plan this whole romantic thing..."
Her voice trailed off, and I knew what she was thinking. Tommy had probably been in the classroom when everything went to hell. There was a good chance he was dead, or worse—wandering the halls with those same dead eyes we'd seen in the others.
"So tell me," she said, her voice stronger now, more insistent. "Do you want to?"
I stared at her, my heart pounding so hard I was sure she could hear it. This was Emily Johnson, the girl I'd fantasized about for months, asking me to sleep with her. Under any other circumstances, it would have been a dream come true.
But these weren't normal circumstances. We were both infected, both dying, both scared out of our minds. Was this really how I wanted things to happen?
"Wait, you're really serious?" I asked, needing to be absolutely sure.
She nodded, her eyes never leaving mine.
"Let's have sex," she said simply.