When We Were Humans | Book I

Chapter 3: Safety In Numbers

The sounds of our own struggles were being drowned out by the banging and moaning of those outside. The door seemed to have held without our force against it so we all decided to gather in the back of the room as far from the door as possible. Chloe was still sobbing softly into Annie's embrace.

"Shh, it's okay," Annie assured, "I want to introduce you to my friends."

Chloe wiped her eyes and looked up at us. She had striking similarities with Annie. Except Chloe had brown hair and was much shorter.

"This is Zoey," Annie said as she faced Chloe towards Zoey. Zoey flipped a peace sign while smiling.

"This is Eli," she said as she faced towards me. I waved and gave a small smile.

"And this is Nate," Annie said. Chloe looked at Nate as if he had killed an animal. Oh yeah, there was a lot of blood on his shirt. Well, mixed with his vomit of course.

"W-what happened to you?" Chloe asked while stuttering. Nate adjusted his glasses on his nose. I swear this guy doesn't break his personality even in this situation.

"Well Chloe you see I spilled paint on myself outside," Nate said trying not to scare her.

"Bullshit," Chloe started. I think we were all surprised by her vulgarity, "I know what really happened. You killed one of them didn't you?"

Nate gulped and his face turned slightly red. I saved him the trouble.

"It was me," I said awkwardly, "He jumped on Nate and he wasn't getting off."

"Some bumbling idiot in my class said that 'the end-times are now' and stuff like that," Chloe responded.

"By the way Chloe," Annie started, "How'd you end up here? I know for a fact this isn't your current class."

"Well," she looked slightly embarrassed, "I was heading to the bathroom all fine and dandy, but when I got out from the bathroom I heard people screaming and I saw them running to the doors. So I decided to try and follow them. I ended up in the back of the entire mosh pit of people and I heard growling and shit behind me. Then I knew that I wasn't going to make it out the door in one piece. Looks like I was the only one smart enough to dive into a classroom. All of the others probably got themselves bit. Those dumbasses."

"You seem to know a lot about what they are," Nate said, "Mind telling us what you know?" He asked with a puzzled expression.

"Well the same kid who was rambling said he saw this kind of stuff happen in a TV show once. Said that the bites 'turn' you into one of them. What's wrong with them? They're sick. Probably. I mean who ever heard of the dead coming back to life? Just absurd," Chloe said.

"Yeah I guess you're right," Nate said, "but they don't seem to respond to any sort of external stimuli. They just seem to have one directive: to eat. They don't seem to care what happens to the body at all."

"They seem to care when you go for the head," I added.

"They also don't really seem that smart. It's like there's a switch in their brain. They go for anything that moves or makes noise," Zoey said, "and don't even get me started on their speed. Those assholes are fast as hell. Even the fat ones."

"Alright so we determined they eat other people, they're easily distracted, their fast, and their head is their weak spot, now what? We need to get back to Mike and the rest," Annie said.

"Well we do need some kind of distraction as you said," I started, "I highly doubt Zoey wants to run 'suicides' again," I smile slightly at my own joke. She just responded by quietly cursing me out in her mind and flipping me off with a bright smile.