The First 30 Days (PUBLISHED)

Ten - Day 7

The plan was insane. Why had I allowed Jack to convince me to go along with this suicide mission?

I peered through the door's window, into the first floor cafeteria. Inside, round tables surrounded by ugly grey plastic chairs crowded the floor space. The outside walls were glass, letting in more light than I'd seen in days, and giving me a great view of about a dozen zombies wandering the sidewalk with that odd gait they all seemed to have.

Our destination, the kitchen, was behind a wall to the left.

"The electricity is still working. There should be a ton of food still good in the kitchen."

Crowded beside me, Jack looked through the window, too. Behind us, twirling that bat in his hands, Shawn looked more than a little skeptical. Now that we were down here, I had to admit that going into an area that we were sure to be seen in, seemed like an idiotic thing to do. "I don't know, Jack. They are going to see us."

"Maybe not."

I peeled my gaze from the window to look over at him. Yesterday we had all raided the locker area of the gym. Finally having clothes that weren't stiff with old blood had trumped my squeamish thoughts over wearing someone else's things. I'd even found a pair of sneakers that were only a little too big. The guys had both also found something to change into, though Jack ended up less than enthusiastic about the bright red sweats he was currently wearing.

With our mismatched outfits that didn't quite fit, unwashed hair, and the guys scruffy faces, we resembled nothing more than a trio of homeless people.

"Jack. They are going to see us."

"Do you have a better idea?" He flashed brown eyes first to me, then to Shawn, before looking back into the cafeteria. Neither of us had come up with a better plan and he knew it.

Our pilfered pile of junk food was nearly gone. Even with all of us limiting what we ate, there had only been so much food hidden in the desks upstairs. The real goldmine was just through those doors, in the kitchen that had supplied lunch for most of the employees daily.

The first floor was the one level that had been off limits. The walls were mostly glass, the curtains and blinds had been left open. The roving bands of zombies on the street would too easily be able to see anyone moving around the first floor. But now the food was running low and the reality that we were about to get very hungry was setting in.

We were going to have to either find a way to get out of the building without getting bitten, or we were going to have to make it into the kitchen.

I sighed. The kitchen still seemed like a better bet than going outside. "Ok. How do we do this?"

"I think our best chance is to wait until there are as few zombies out there as possible, then just make a run for it. Once we are in the kitchen, we can stay in there as long as it takes for any of them who see us to lose interest."

Shawn chose that moment to step up right behind us. He looked through the window silently for several seconds, "As long as there doesn't get to be too many at the windows, it should work." Troubled grey eyes met mine. Neither of us were confident in the plan, apparently.

"Yeah, ok. That's the plan, then."

The three of us stayed crowded at the door in the dark stairwell for a long time. The zombies on the street seemed like they would never go away. And then they did.

My muscles, already cramped from standing still so long, tensed. There was only one zombie in view, a teenage boy who had dyed his hair green in life. It was now or never.

Glancing over at us to check if we were ready, Jack reached out and opened the door into the cafeteria.

Moving quickly, in a single file line, we made it most of the way to the beckoning door before the green haired zombie spotted us. I knew the moment he saw us because my own eyes had been desperately glued to his bloated form every second. The zombie snapped his head in our direction.

His blood curdling scream carried through the thick glass walls.

"Go, go!" Shawn shoved me from behind.

Stumbling forward into Jack, we bolted as fast as possible through the maze of tables. The kitchen door approached fast, but not fast enough.

A spine tingling thud sounded as the green haired zombie collided with the glass. Two more thuds immediately followed. Wide eyed, I watched over my shoulder as more shrieking zombies began to come into view, their attention fixed solely on the cafeteria.

Jack reached the door and ripped it open, diving headlong into the room beyond. I followed him through, and Shawn barreled in last, yanking the door closed behind him.

Inside the kitchen the lights had been left on. Gleaming stainless steel surfaces covered the long room. One wall was dominated by a row of ovens, the grill, and what I guessed was probably the door to a walk in refrigerator.

Panting a little, I swung around to try to look out the tiny window high in the door, but Shawn's shoulders were in the way. "Are we ok!" I needed to know if we had just made a bad situation worse by drawing their attention.

"There's at least a dozen that I can see. But the glass is holding. I think we are ok. We'll just have to stay quiet in here until they get bored," Shawn double checked that the kitchen door was securely latched before stepping away from the door.

I breathed a sigh of relief when he turned around. There could be worse places to be trapped. At least here we had plenty of food.

The shelves in the room had been full when things went bad. Bread and rolls, apples, and bags of chips beckoned. I grabbed an apple, happier than I would have ever thought to see the fruit after days without food, followed by days of just junk food. The first bite into it tasted like heaven, I didn't even care that the fruit was slightly past its prime.

Also crunching on an apple, the bat resting on his shoulder, Shawn wandered between the countertops. He stopped to read a label on a giant sized box of something, before moving on.

Jack had grabbed a bag of rolls from it's shelf. "I bet I can find something to make sandwiches," he grinned up at us, the first happy expression he had made in the couple of days I'd known him, and started toward the big silver door set in the wall.

The fridge door opened with a click. With a bounce in his step, Jack started to step into the dark space beyond.

Our only warning for what was about to happen was the rumbling snarl just moments before a blur of tangled blonde hair launched from the darkness and crashed into Jack.