Dismemberment - Book One: The World We Once Knew

Chapter 9: Gathering

"So since you know my story, why don't you tell me yours?" Samuel asked Lana as they walked. Lana hesitated. "I don't know. Should I?" she asked him. "Go ahead. You can trust me," Sam replied. Lana looked down at the ground and took a deep breath. "If I must... Just so you know, this goes out to no one else. Got it?" she interrogated. Samuel nodded. "Good. So anyway, let's start at the beginning."
"I've lived in Belfast, Ireland me whole life. I never knew me birth parents. Me mom's in jail and me father's been dead since before I was born. Something tells me that those two events are related. Anyway, I hopped from orphanage to orphanage, and every single one of them treated us kids like slaves. Manual labor, one meal a day, and ya got beat if you didn't do your job. No nurturing for a little lass will turn her from sweet to sour. I did it all: burned shit, vandalized shit, keyed cars, stole; ya name it, I probably did it. Eventually, the legal fees were too much for the orphanage to handle, so they shipped me to the states. Not before fucking me up as me final punishment." Lana grew silent upon mentioning this. Samuel inched closer to her. "Lana... what did they do to you?" he inquired. A tear rolled down Lana's face as her voice began to break. "Th-they beat me, cut me up... raped..." She began to sob. Samuel wrapped her in a hug. "I-I'm so sorry-" Lana broke away from him. "Take yer sorries and shove 'em. Sorry won't undo what they did, and I sure as hell don't want to look like a victim," she said coldly. "But why? You are a victim," Sam responded. Lana looked at him. "I'm supposed to be the tough-as-nails Irish lass. How can I be that when people see me as a god damn charity case!? Being tough is all I have going for me now..." Lana continued to sob loudly and Sam wrapped her in a hug once more. This time, she didn't pull away.
"You don't have to worry about those people anymore. You are safe now..." Sam realized the irony of that statement as he said it. He knew that "safe" was the worst word to use, given the current situation. Lana noticed the word choice, and doubted it. "Oh, yeah. I'm so safe," she said sarcastically. "The flesh-eating corpses outside won't hurt me a bit, will they?" Sam unhanded her and looked to the floor. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. I just don't know what to say..." he trailed off. Lana turned her back to Samuel and crossed her arms. "Hmph. Nobody does."
As the two turned the corner in the stairwell, they heard many footsteps behind them. They looked to the lower levels to see that a large horde was hot on their tail. "Shit," Lana said. "Let's get out of here!" Lana turned to run, but noticed that Samuel did not do the same. Instead, he watched the horde intently. "What's the matter? We need to go!" Lana asked him. "In the horde... it's Monique..." he muttered. Out in the crowd, Monique glared at Samuel. Without a word escaping her mouth, she turned toward the stairwell, directing the horde in that direction. Samuel turned to Lana, only to see that there were zombies at the top of the stairs as well, cornering the two. Looks of desperation swept over Samuel's and Lana's faces. Upon noticing this, a large, malicious grin appeared on Monique's face. "Monique!" Sam called out. "What has gotten into you?" No response was given. "Monique! Don't do this. Think about what we had to do yesterday. Think about Elise, god damn it!" he screamed. The grin turns into a frown as Monique looked to the ground. "Please, Monique. You helped me in my lowest point. Help me in this case, just one more time, and I can return the favor..."
As he said this, a zombie got close enough to Lana to grab her wrist. She screamed, before plunging her knife into its head. The zed fell to her feet as more approached her. Monique nodded to Samuel, made her way outside of the horde, and once she was at the bottom of the stairs, she fired into the air with her pistol. The horde turned to face her. Now that she gave herself away, she ran away from the stairwell. Sam and Lana fought through the zombies that were in their way, and climbed the stairs. As they got to the top, they started pushing the zeds away from them. The two sprinted through the hallways as the zombies went after the source of the loud gunshot. They slowed down as they saw no more zombies around them. "Shit," Sam said to himself. "Monique has lost it." Lana looked at him. "How the hell did she do that anyway? She stood right in the middle of them and didn't get bit!" Sam shrugged. "I have no idea. I do know, however, that she has violent tendencies along with bipolar disorder. At one moment she could be fine, the next she's acting crazy, the next she's depressed, and so on. Something had to have triggered that behavior from her," he explained. Sam saw the door to the teacher's lounge. "Oh thank God. We're back," Lana said. Samuel knocked on the door. Upon Sam doing this, the door was unlocked and opened from the inside.
Upon entering, they saw Ben and Cait sitting on the couch and sleeping while Kato and Landon played cards. "New people, I see," Samuel mumbled to himself. Kato turned his head to look at the two, before calling out to Cait in an attempt to wake her. "Hey, Cait. There's some people here." Cait opened her eyes and stretched as she looked at them. "Sam and Lana. You're back," she said while yawning. Sam walked over to the counter and leaned on it. "Well, the entire school was checked for survivors. Now to get out of here." Cait stood up. "We aren't leaving without Monique!" she exclaimed. Lana stepped forward. "Oh, so we're waiting for zombie girl now? Fuck that! I'll have ya know that the bitch almost killed me a little bit ago!"
Another knock was heard at the door. Everyone turned to see Monique covered in zombie blood standing in the doorway. "The zombie girl has a name, you know. And don't worry, I'm cool now," she said. "I have a plan for getting to the buses." Before Lana could raise her voice to protest, Ben stood up. "Let's hear it. It's about time we leave this shithole," he told her. She put her bloodied folding chair aside. "The trick is to hide your scent with theirs. If you cover yourself in their blood, they can't tell you apart from one of them. So, if we cover ourselves and stay silent, we can get through that horde no problem," she explained to the group. Landon made his disgust known. "Eew, gross," he said. Monique looked to the child. "It's either that or fight through them, and we're not about to do that, now are we?" She asked rhetorically. Ben nodded. "Guess it's settled then. Let's get out of here," he said. "Let's just hope the bus is all gassed up."