Class of 2013 - 24

Chapter Twenty Four

The next hour or so passed without any considerable incident. It was a small favor I suppose; a temporary reprieve after the losses we had suffered. After talking to Chien, I’d made my way into the office in order to talk to Sweet, leaving my friend to work the punching bag over for a while longer – he still needed some time to himself. We were supposed to have gotten the yearbooks on the day everything went wrong, but they weren’t going to be handed out until later on in the afternoon. I figured that if they were still around and undamaged I could look through one and chronicle the names of those that we had lost. Now, that didn’t mean take down the names of everyone at the school – the year book was a good enough record as it was for that.

My intention was to have a list of those that had survived long enough to become ‘survivors’. In that list I was intent on including the cheerleader and the tenth grade boy that had given their lives in the defense of two of our currently surviving members on that first day. It took some time, as there were plenty of names to go through and faces to look at. As I did, slowly but surely it began to dawn on me how many of these people I had actually known. I wasn’t close to many of them; hardly any really, but I did know who they were. I’d interacted with them at one point in time or another. And now… now they were gone, and they were never coming back.

Some twisted part of me felt a slight relief at that. Perhaps dying on that first day would end up being merciful. Surely it couldn’t have been pleasant, but merciful as compared to watching those around you get picked off one by one? It was possible. When you were dead you didn’t have to think about how anyone else died before you. You were afraid, you were in pain, and then it was over. You were dead, end of story. It was possible for them to be reanimated, but being reanimated meant you didn’t have those higher brain functions to bring worry, fear, and other emotional turmoil to the forefront of your perceptions. Your body was back, but your mind was still gone. ‘The lights are on, but nobody’s home’ as the old saying goes.

All in all, the compilation of names took less time than I had expected. Here are the names of those that we had lost until the point of recording, in semi-chronological order.

Alyssa Simms – 11th Grade. Cheerleader.

Abraham Williams – 10th Grade. Shovel wielding badass.

Emilio Juarez – 8th Grade. Tree climber.

Matthew Burk – 9th Grade. Tree climber.

Jack Jensen – 10th Grade. Skateboard Kid.

Yoshikazu Montoya – 9th Grade. Scavenger.

I would have to talk to Christine or Johnny at some later time in order to get the names of the fallen Perris High survivors. We had lost six thus far, and they had lost at least four that I knew of. Out of the thirty-six people total that had survived, ten had been lost in under a week; two shy of a third of our survivors. If this trend continued, we wouldn’t even last a month. It was a dreadful thought, a horrid realization, and while it did scare me… I also knew that after today we would be better prepared to handle ourselves in the future. It was a sad turn of events, but it would make us better off in the long run. After all, better to learn this lesson now rather than months down the road when we might have more survivors, and more possible casualties.

Unfortunately, this also meant that now more than ever there was real reason for a joint command between Sweet and Novik. Nobody liked that man, but there was nothing for us to really hold against him – and being one of three adults that weren’t teenagers still, we would likely have to listen to him anyway. None of us liked it, but it was just a fact of life – like having to listen to teachers and other adults that you really didn’t want to be bothered by.

Once my research was complete, I headed out to find the others, and soon enough found Chien, James, and Johnny in the cafeteria. The three of them were shooting the breeze as if they’d known each other their entire lives, and something about that made me smile. Johnny did seem to be an alright guy, and once I got in on their conversation and James told me about his and Johnny’s earlier meeting, I had to agree that he seemed pretty cool. As the conversation between the four of us progressed, now and then Johnny or James would check on the food that they were fixing, and in that time I would marvel at how easy it had been to become friends with the Tennessean. He was kind, gentlemanly, intelligent, and could talk about almost anything from girls, to guns, cars, movies, mythology, folklore, technology, history, and so many other subjects. It was generally agreed amongst the other three of us that he should have gone to P.M.A. instead of Perris High. He would have fit right in with us, and never would have had that problem of his.

Unfortunately, life’s plan for him hadn’t included that particular happy coincidence. In fact, it hadn’t had much happiness for Johnny, it seemed, in quite some time. He seemed happy, but when we asked him about his family, he went quiet. Slowly he began to explain about what had happened in his youth. His dad had been called up for active duty and was shipped over to Afghanistan back in ’01. A few years later they got word that he had died when his helicopter had been shot down. Apparently his entire team, save one man whose name was withheld for security reasons, died – some when one of the choppers was shot down, the rest in an ambush at the location they were supposed to attack.

After that things at home went south. His mom still took care of him, but the light in her eyes was just… gone. Another couple of years passed and his mom finally started to be her old self again… and that’s when she ended up in a wreck. A drunk driver swerved into her lane and there was a head-on collision. His mom died instantly. The drunk made it out with only a few bumps and bruises. Of course, his mom had been driving some little Japanese car, and the drunk had been driving a heavy duty pickup truck. Worse, the drunk’s lawyer got him off the hook with community service and driving courses. A few months later he was out on the road again, as if nothing had changed.

In the meantime, Johnny had stayed with a friend from school, and had overheard talk of him being put into foster care. Being only thirteen at the time, he had refused to go through that. He’d heard a lot of horror stories from foster care kids – some families were pretty nice, but others were real creep shows. The other option was his only living pair of grandparents, but he didn’t want to live with them either. They had refused to go to his father’s funeral, having never liked him, and he’d held it against them ever since. So… he did the only thing that he could think of. One night he snuck out of his friend’s house, and made his way back home. When he got there, he grabbed a few things – money, I.D., wallet, his father’s dog-tags and guitar, and a baseball bat – and then ran away.

He hadn’t really been sure where he was going at the time, but he hopped a bus and left all the same. A couple days passed, and seeing as how he had already been taking a western route, he simply continued – deciding that he would head for the west coast; Los Angeles to be exact. He was out and away from home, so why not head for Hollywood? It was the most outlandish thing that he could think to do… so he did it. Of course, he never did have enough money to buy a cross country bus or train ticket, but he would stop to make money whenever he could. He even had enough to spend some nights in motels, and to have a decent meal every so often. His dad’s guitar came in handy for that. He’d learned to play as a kid, so he put the skill to use in order to survive. It wasn’t easy, in fact it took him a full two years, but he made it to Los Angeles by the time he turned fifteen.

From there he started working odd jobs and making something of himself – even built a place to live at the beach – and eventually he got himself enrolled in school again. Life was starting to turn around for him. It stayed that way until he was seventeen, and he moved to Perris. That’s when things took a nosedive, though he didn’t go into much detail as he went over that last year. In fact, he went over it pretty quickly. When he was done though, something caught James’ attention – a heart-shaped silver locket that hung around his neck next to the dog-tags and St. Benedict’s medal that he still wore.

“What’s the story behind that?” James asked, pointing toward the locket.

“Oh this?” Johnny glanced down, lifting it up a bit, “It’s nothing… just… someone that I used to be very close to. That’s all.” He shrugged a little.

Studying the locket a little more, James commented offhand. “Lea has a locket like that too…” Johnny seemed a little surprised, but said nothing, simply nodding instead. It seemed to be little more than a coincidence, so he left it at that. Everyone was quiet for a moment, until Johnny turned the attention to Chien.

“So… how’re you holding up?” He asked Chien quietly, “You looked pretty upset earlier… feeling any better now?”

Chien was quiet for a moment, thinking. Finally he shrugged. “Not really, no…” He glanced at me then, “I mean, thanks for trying to take my mind off it man, but… it doesn’t really fix it, know what I mean?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I know. But you can’t focus on it, dude. It wasn’t your fault.”

Chien shook his head. “Of course it was… I should have known something was wrong.”

James tilted his head slightly, “How could you have known that? You didn’t have time to check the back on the freeway, and even if you had… you’d have just died when you checked it. Hell, the Boss is lucky he didn’t get bit. He’s the one that opened the back. He just jumped back fast enough.”

“It should have been easy to figure out, James.” Chien said softly, looking at the table. “The unit’s refrigerator was on, but the trailer was too light to have been hauling a load. It also wasn’t turned down like it should've been, which meant it was on just enough to keep the temperature mild. It’s a tell-tale sign that it’s hauling people. My dad told me about it after he heard about a bust; a bunch of illegal immigrants coming up from Mexico in a semi-tractor’s refrigeration unit. That was only a week ago, and it had the same description as this rig.”

“Okay, but even if you thought the back was full of people, what would have made you think they ended up zombies? Yeah, the driver got it, but the back of the trailer was sealed up. We can only guess at how those people got infected. You couldn’t have known that they were zombies, even if you thought that there were people trapped inside.” Johnny’s ability to use logic was a wonderful thing to behold.

However, Chien didn’t seem to want to bow to that logic, despite the fact that what Johnny said was true. There were all kinds of ways that it could have happened, and yet, there was no reason for any of us to have thought about it happening at all.

“It doesn’t matter. I’m still the one that drove that rig inside the gate, so it’s still my fault that there are people dead now. Even if I didn’t want to think that, and believe me, I really wish I didn’t believe it myself, everyone else is going to think of me that way. They’re going to blame me for their friends being dead. Four people gone, and it’s my fault. Do you know how that feels? Any of you? Do you have any possible clue how that feels?”

It was then that a feminine voice interrupted Chien, “Come off it, Chien. It isn’t your fault. You just feel bad that it happened, so you’re trying to take responsibility when there’s none to be taken. Stop.” Everyone looked over to see Molly standing at the door to the cafeteria. None of us knew how long she had been there, but obviously long enough to hear Chien beat himself up. “My friend Jack is dead, and so are three other people because of those zombies – but not because of you. The only person blaming you is yourself – and that’s fucking retarded, Major.”

Chien was about to say something, but I cut him off as Molly walked over. “She’s right, Chien. It isn’t your fault, and you’re the only one blaming yourself.” He looked at me then with a somewhat irritated, though mostly blank expression. “Beating yourself up doesn’t accomplish anything. If you really feel like you need to make amends, somehow make up for it even though it isn’t your fault, then what you should be doing is thinking of how to prevent this sort of thing from happening again. Get together with Sweet and make suggestions about how to better do security at the gates.” I smirked a little then, “After all, you’re still the commanding officer of the cadets here. If there’s a problem, you should be thinking of ways to fix it, right?”

Chien stared at me for a moment, and then looked at the table. “You’re right. That’s what should be done right now.” He looked like he was still kind of out of it, but at least now he had a focus for his thoughts that wasn’t beating himself up over it. Soon enough he seemed lost in thought, and then a moment later he took out a packet-sized notepad and pen, and started jotting things down quickly. At first glance it looked like he was writing in English, but upon closer inspection I saw that he was writing in Vietnamese. It was something that he did when he didn’t want people reading as he wrote – which I understood; it was always the most distracting thing to have that done around you.

Molly eventually sat down and joined in the conversation, and before too long the food was ready. Johnny dished up our servings and brought them to the table; then we all dug in. To say that the food was good would have been an understatement. It was a southeastern style of spaghetti, something that he had learned to make from his mother’s cook book – it was mostly the same, with just the slightest bit of kick to it. Not enough to make you gasp for air, but certainly enough that it let you know it was there. It wasn’t until about halfway through the meal that James looked around, and then found focus as he looked to Molly.

“Hey Molly… where’s Lea?” He asked, and Molly blushed slightly.

“She’s uh… with Christine…” Molly answered hesitantly.

“Where at?” James asked, going to stand, “I’ll go tell them that there’s food.”

“…They’re… in the showers…”

At hearing that, James and I both froze and then looked to each other, before our gaze drifted right back to Molly. “For how long…?” The two of us chorused, and Chien pinched the bridge of his nose – mumbling something in Vietnamese. Something that I’m guessing might have loosely translated to ‘horny fucking idiots’, or some such. I didn’t know a word of Vietnamese by heart; at least nothing that really mattered conversation-wise. In fact, it was just a few swears that I’d heard Chien repeat over the years, and had occasionally asked him what it meant when he was saying those things… usually after he got off the phone with his parents.

“You guys! You can’t go in there!” Molly glared at us, “For your own safety, I’m not going to tell you how long they’ve been in, or what they’re doing while they’re in there.”

The latter half of her ending statement grabbed the attention of every male at the table, and Molly immediately regretted her choice of words.

“Oh really?” Johnny grinned a little, “And what might that be?”

“Yeah Molly…” Chien added with a touch of sarcasm, “…you just got all of us curious. That isn’t fair.”

“Stop it! I’m not telling any of you a damn thing about what two naked girls are doing alone in a high school girl’s shower! Especially not after how they were acting earlier.” Once again her selection of words had our collective curiosities reinforced.

“Earlier?” James asked.

“When, Molly?” I added.

“Right before I sprayed them with the hose for being touchy-feely with each other.” Her eyes opened wide. “Fuck!” She clenched her eyes shut then, and clapped a hand over her mouth. After a moment, she glared around the table, “No!” She snapped, “You may not go there. Do you hear me? I forbid you pervs from going to the girl’s locker room. Do you hear? Forbidden! FOR-BIDD-EN!”

“Okay, alright, fine…” James said as he stood slowly, putting up his hands defensively, “I’ll just go out and take a nice after-dinner stroll. Just a nice… innocent… totally non-pervy… little stroll…”

“Good.” Molly nodded firmly as James headed for the door.

“…right through the girl’s locker room!” James said as he reached the door, and then let out a defiant, victorious cackle as he charged outside.

“JAMES!” Molly shouted, but was surprised when not but a moment later, before the door had a chance to shut, James ended up tumbling into the cafeteria. The cause was seen soon enough as Sophie stepped into the cafeteria, standing tall over James’ sprawled out form.

“You were headed where, exactly, James?”

“I was only going to tell them there was food…” He pointed toward the tables while he continued to lie on his back, “...I swear…” As he said the last, he crossed two fingers and put them over his heart.

“Uh-huh… sure. Right. I can do that, James.” She grinned a little, “You just stay right in here. In fact, since you were going to be such a little gentleman, how about you have seconds while I go tell them?” And with that, Sophie headed right back out the door.

And James went to get his seconds.

Of course, a moment later, Molly realized what might happen, but by then it was too late to really warn Sophie about what was going on in the showers. A few minutes later of course, Sophie had made her way back, with a bit of a stunned look on her face, and a slight blush. When we asked her what happened, she said simply this:

“You boys don’t have any idea how hard it is to resist a young, flexible redhead.”