Dismemberment - Book One: The World We Once Knew

Chapter 3: Inevitability

    Ben, Nikolai, and Jaqueline were taken aback upon hearing this. “W-what? No, there’s no way I’m gonna be like one of those freaks!” Jaqueline exclaimed, on the verge of tears. Samuel slowly inched closer to her. “I’ve seen this happen earlier today. Trust me, it’s going to happen.” Ben stepped up to interject in the exchange. “What if it doesn’t happen? What if she will be fine?” He asked. Samuel turned to look at Ben with an angry glare. “Don’t be a dumbass. Once they bite you, you catch whatever disease that made them go crazy,” Samuel replied, turning back to face Jaqueline. “This will go a lot smoother if you just stand still. It will all be over soon,” he said, raising his screwdriver. 
Nikolai picked his spear up and aimed it at Samuel’s throat. “You will not touch her, you son of a bitch!” Nikolai yelled. This entire altercation attracted the attention of the zombies, who grew uninterested in the noisemaker that was previously distracting them. The undead horde began to creep back towards the room that the four survivors occupied. Benjamin saw this occurring, and attempted to speak up about it. “Uh, guys? We’ve got zombies closing in,” he said, with no one acknowledging this. The other three were caught up in their current situation. Ben began to panic internally. “If I don’t do something, we’re gonna die. Oh God,” he thought to himself. As the zombies grew even closer, Ben decided to make the hard call. He raised his gun to Jaqueline, and fired a shot between her eyes. Blood began to pour from the new hole in her head as the shot rang out for all in the library to hear. She collapsed to the ground, where she lied motionless. “NOOOO, JACKIE!” Nikolai screamed in agony while rushing to her corpse. Samuel turned to face Ben, and grabbed his shoulders. “Why did you shoot her? We were supposed to be as quiet as possible!” Sam exclaimed, before turning his head to view that the zombies were almost to the door. “Oh, God,” he whispered under his breath.
Nikolai then stood up and aimed his spear at Ben. With tears in his eyes, he screamed to Ben, “I’LL KILL YOU!” Ben and Sam ran out of the back room and into the library. Sam stabbed his screwdriver into one zombie’s head, while Ben fired off shots into the crowd. Nikolai ran towards Ben with his spear pointed outward, screaming in fury. Ben quickly dodged the attack, causing Nikolai to run straight into the group of zombies. Before Nikolai could pull away, the zombies grabbed both of his arms and took large bites out of his flesh. He screamed in pain as the zombies pulled him to the ground, ripping him apart. Nikolai dropped his spear, and it rolled to Ben’s feet. He quickly picked up the weapon, and made his way to the entrance of the library with Sam, where they both closed the doors behind them.
Samuel sighed in relief, as he was glad that the encounter was over. “That's where I knew him from. He was on the fucking javelin team,” Samuel said while catching his breath. Ben holstered his gun and looked at the spear in his hands. “That explains where this came from,” he said. Ben looked up to see Samuel staring at him with eyes full of malice. “What is it now?” Ben asked defensively. “What happened to staying quiet? Putting a bullet into that girl's brain didn't help us out of there!” Samuel exclaimed. “The fuck it didn't! If I didn't kill her, the freaks would've cornered us in that room. Besides, I didn't see you trying to defuse the situation either, asshole,” Ben responded. Samuel clenched his fist upon hearing this. “Fuck you, you fucking psycho! I know exactly why you killed her. It was the same reason you brought that weapon into school. You just have a damn bloodlust. I bet you had a hard-on when you killed her,” Samuel said before turning his back on Ben. “I'm going for a walk. Don't follow me,” Sam said, walking away. 
“I’m the one with the bloodlust now, huh?” Ben muttered to himself. Ben had nothing else to say, however,  because he knew that Samuel had a point. He originally did want to kill his own classmates. Ben wanted the sweet taste of revenge. However, this was before he killed Bradley. This was before he woke up to a world plagued by the undead. Ben now found the slaughter of sentient, lucid human beings distasteful. He didn't want to kill that girl in the library, he had to. Ben shot Jaqueline because he saw no other option. Ben’s new outlook was to only kill people when absolutely necessary. As he thought about all of this, he came to one other conclusion. Just because he had to kill, that doesn't mean that he should like it. Killing Bradley proved that he didn't have the stomach to just brush it off. Ben knew that the first kill would haunt him forever.
Ben snapped back into reality when he heard the zombies banging on the doors to the library. “Oh, shit,” he said to himself. “That's my cue to get back to the teacher's lounge.”
When Ben returned to the teacher's lounge, he opened the door to find Monique lying in the fetal position on the floor, loudly sobbing. Ben rushed over to her side. “Monique! What's wrong?” Ben asked her as Cait walked through the door. Monique sat up and tried her best to collect herself. “Th-the news…” she said, wiping tears away. “What did the news say?” Cait inquired, sounding worried. “This whole mess, with the freaks… it's global. Countries are falling to these fucking things. We're all going to die!” Monique screamed out. Ben and Cait were taken aback by this horrible news. They now knew that there was no hope left. The walking dead have now taken over the world, and in such a short time as well. “W-well... we shouldn't think about such a horrible thing!” Cait exclaimed, trying to stay optimistic. “We have to think about how we are going to escape this school with as many survivors as possible.” Monique looked up at Cait and nodded once in agreement. “Speaking of which, where's Samuel?” Cait said turning to Ben. Ben scratched the back of his head and looked toward the TV, which had a broken screen from Monique throwing her folding chair through it. “Yeah, here's the thing about Sam…”