BRAINS: with a side-order of Flesh., Siagrrl [best e reader for epub TXT] 📗

Lexxy?” Hope asked into my shirt. I hadn’t realised that she was hugging me. The explosion must’ve scared her. “W-where did the zombies go?”
I wrinkled my nose at her comment; I still wasn’t used to the word ‘zombies’ yet. “I don’t know.” I admitted. “I can’t hear them.”

Hope was about two heads shorter than me so when she hugged me tighter around the waist – I felt like she was squeezing the life out of me. “Eh, you surprisingly strong for someone so . . . petite.” I gasped.

“Hm? Oh, sorry!” She frowned, “I get told that a lot.”

I noticed Delevan giving us the strangest look out of the corner of my eye. I couldn’t tell if he was curious or disappointed. I turned to look at him but he turned away.

“Weird.” I muttered.

Another explosion rattled the room. It sounded as if it was just next door. Dust from the ceiling began floating down and adding the glass, and brick mess on the floor, the window at the far back smashed and glittered the floor with its pieces, and the cracks in the ceiling grew larger.
Hope shrieked and buried her face into my shirt again. “Why? Why won’t it stop?”

“I don’t think we can take much more of this. We have to do something before either the ceiling caves in on us, or the floor gives out!” I pointed out.
Ms Faeshar nodded in agreement. “The explosions seem to be getting closer too. We can’t stay here any longer, it seems.”

Something banged against the cabinet we had used to block the doorway.

“Anyone guessing that was a stray piece of brick?” Delevan supposed.

Another bang.

Someone – something? – was hitting it. And it seemed desperate to get inside. “Err . . . well there goes the idea of going out that way. . .” Mercy said, annoyed.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

“Y’know, I’m starting to think that maybe it wasn’t a good idea to put a metal cabinet in front of the door.” I laughed, nervously. “This room is located down a hallway, and whatever is on the other side of that door – I mean, cabinet – keeps banging on it, so it’s likely to echo. . .”

“Oh.” Was all Delevan had to say. In monotone no less.

“That . . . makes sense . . .” Ms Faeshar admitted.

Mercy stood quiet. No one was brave enough to get close to the door.

“Dell. Do you think it could be another one of those . . . whadya call them – rager’s?”

Delevan stood silent ignorant to my question. I made a face and poked out my tongue at him when I knew he wasn’t looking.

“Hey!!! You in there!!”

We all jumped. The voice came from the other side of the cabinet. “Say, there weren’t any types of zombies that could talk were there?” I asked, turning to Ms Faeshar. She shook her head.

“I can hear you in there!! Now move this damn cabinet, wouldya!?”

I knew that voice.

I shuffled around Hope’s embrace and made my way over to the cabinet, and started to push.

“Alexis? What’re you doing?”

“Moving the cabinet.” I said bluntly.

“Are you nuts!?” Delevan and Hope chorused.

“Nuts? No. *Anaemic? Maybe.” I replied without stopping.

The metal cabinet screeched in protest at my touch and henceforth became difficult to move. After a few minutes of lone pushing, there was a gap just big enough between the doorway and the cabinet for someone to squeeze through.

“Satisfied?” I asked.

“Never.” She smiled, and stepped through the gap. “How long were you going to make me wait anyway?”

“As long as it took to move this damn cabinet.”

The others blinked in surprise.

“Faith!”

“That’s right!” She smiled. “You didn’t honestly think you could kill me off that easily, did you?”
After receiving nothing but guilty looks and confused stares, Faith just laughed it off. “Did you like my performance? The flesh-eaters didn’t know what hit them!”

“Performance?” Hope mused.

“Wait.” Ms Faeshar demanded. “It was you causing all those explosions!”

“Seriously? I just saved all your pathetic little lives and you can’t even fathom it as possible?! How rude.” She poked her tongue out in defiance and turned to me. “Looks like you kept them alive while I was gone. I guess you’re not so bad after all.”

Huh?

“Regardless. We need to leave. Now. But we’ve already got a plan –”

“We?”

“Yeah, we. You can come in now.” Faith called towards the door.

A young boy stepped in. A boy who looked eerily familiar.

“This, everyone, is –”

I knew who it was.

“Mathieu!?” I gasped.


*Note: Anaemic refers to the lack of quality or quantity of red blood cells (aka Alexis meant she was acting strangely due to lack of blood).

Chapter 9 - Huh?

“Whhaaaaattt!!??” I looked from Faith to Mathieu to Faith once more. “But he . . . he is a –”

“Zombie. Yes, I know.”

Ms Faeshar and Mercy exchanged a look of concern. “Faith,” Ms Faeshar spoke up. “Did you hit your head while you were out there?”

“She doesn’t need to hit her head to act that crazy,” Delevan snorted. “Probably forgot some important pills, am I right?”

Faith ignored his comment and circled back to Mathieu’s side. “So what, if he is

a zombie. He is still accompanying us.”

Mathieu didn’t move but he studied us, as if he was trying to decide which one to gnaw on first. I, being the closest to him – other than Faith – received most of his attention. He looked the same as he had before; same blood covered clothes, same disturbingly green eyes, same height, facial features and composure – even for a zombie. Everything was the same, minus the dribble of blood that was dripping off the right side of his face, which probably had something to do with Delevan’s violent tendencies.

“You all look as if you want to dismember me and tie me up in a corner, covered in gasoline and hold a lighter to my head.”

I didn’t think it was possible to faint standing up, but I’m pretty sure that’s what we all did – with the exception of Faith, of course.

“Did . . . did that z – zombie just talk

!?” Hope whimpered from behind Ms Faeshar.

Mathieu just sighed. Faith spoke up for him, “Well, erm . . . yes, I was getting to that.” Faith cleared her throat nervously. “He is a zombie, but for some reason he can, uh, control . . . he has some control over what he does. As you have already witnessed he can, uh, speak, so . . . yeah . . .”

“I was trying to approach you about it earlier.” Mathieu said suddenly, looking directly at me. “But your boyfriend

decided to clobber me before I could say anything.”

“Boyfriend?!” Delevan cried. “Where the hell did you get that from!?”

“He just admitted he was trying to communicate with us, before you knocked him down, and the first thing you’re worried about is the fact that he called you Alexis’ boyfriend?” Mercy queried with a raised eyebrow. “Well if that doesn’t spell out ‘Jerk’

 

then I don’t know what does.”

Delevan started to protest, before Mathieu interrupted us again. “Regardless,” he said loudly clearing his throat, giving me an odd look. “The facts are that I am indeed a zombie, or at least I was bitten by one –”

“Maybe he’s a new kind! That might explain the –” Delevan started.

“And am able to speak normally,” Mathieu continued glaring at Delevan – or at least that’s what it looked like. “And I can also run and move like normal.”

“But when I first saw you, you were shambling. You were really slow!” I pointed out.

Mathieu nodded. “I wasn’t sure if you were human at first, and i didn't know what would occur if i happened across another zombie in my state, so I was being cautious. Then when I realised you were human and I smelt your blood –”

“You could smell her blood? What are you, a vampire/zombie half-breed?” Mercy joked. Delevan snorted at her remark. “We’ve proven that zombies exist, so what’s to say that vampire’s don’t either?”

Mathieu was obviously not pleased by their lack of respect for the situation and sighed in disgust and disappointment.

“I could tell she was hurt,” Mathieu rephrased, voice thick with irritation. “So I tried to bend down to help her, but my joints were still stiff and she. . .” Mathieu gave me an apologetic look before continuing. “. . . obviously was a little freaked out by the situation, and, uh, well we all know what happened from there.”

An eerie silence filled the room and I took the opportunity to stare out the window, something I’m quite prone to doing whenever something serious is on my mind. I heard the other whispering to each other but I didn’t have the heart to listen in to what they were saying. Instead, I focussed on outside. I could just see the side school gates from here, but it was something else that caught my eye. A small group of people heading towards the gates. I headed to window for a better view. Their movement – not fast enough to be rager’s, nor were they slow enough to be shuffler’s and they certainly didn’t appear to have any extra limbs or appendages – encouraged me to think they were human.

“More survivors?” I wondered aloud.

“Really? Where?” Mathieu said, suddenly behind me. I stifled a shriek.

“Why does everyone keep sneaking up behind me?” I pouted.

“Maybe you should stop leaving your back unguarded.” He replied. He shook his head and focussed on the window. “Where did you see the survivors?”

“There,” I pointed. “Heading to the gates.”

“Maybe they have a plan.” Faith mused, stepping up to the window. “We should rendezvous.”

“Hate to burst your bubble but the almost to the gate and we are still in the building.” I said, pointedly. “How do you plan on getting them to wait?”

Faith smiled widely. “Like this.”

With that said, Faith unlatched the cracked window, flung it open without regard for noise and stuck her head out into the cold, crisp night air.

“HEEYYY!!! YOU DOWN THERE!!”

Unlike Ms Faeshar and Mercy, who sprang into action, I was too shocked to do anything.

“What they hell’re you thinking?!”

Mercy demanded, grabbing Faith’s shoulders