"Ah come on, don't be a pussy." Jacob said giving Connor a playful nudge on the shoulder. "It's just a lighter, it won't kill you." Jacob said clearly trying to pressure a bit of excitement from Connor. "How the hell did you even get this anyway? I mean, people don't just go about handin' out lighters to kids!" Connor said trying to stall having to play with a lighter. "Stop being a bitch and light the damned thing!" Jacob said losing his patience with Connor. "Get Leo to do it man, I've too much on my mind already today, can't be arsed with you right now." Connor says waving his hand on Jacob's face trying to get him to go away. "Oh yeah? Like what? You seeing the ghost of your dead cat mate?" Jacob said with a laugh. "Oh ha ha, we'll see how funny it is when Fifa dies, and if you must know I found the streets eerily quiet on my way to school."
Jacob chuckled and as the bell rang he said. "You're just being superstitious. I'll hound you with the lighter again at break okay?" Jacob said walking chuckling to himself. Connor shook his head and walked off into school where first and second period went by really uneventfully and soon enough break time rolled around and Connor walked off into the playground having shoved the lack of people in the morning to the back of his head. "Hey mister superstitious! Look! Cars!" Jacob yelled out pointing to a couple of cars passing by the school on the road.
"Oh yeah, very funny Jacob it was just a coincidence I know." Connor said rolling his eyes and walking over to the small group of people. "Are we going to the shops? Because Hannah asked to meet me there." Leo piped up. "Why do you still hang out with her after all the drama she's caused?" Sophie said like she was thinking aloud. "We're still friends just not as close anymore." Leo said quickly trying to justify still hanging with her. "Honestly I don't care what Hannah does." Connor said looking off at the construction of the new school. "She's neutral in my books." Jacob sniggered and piped up. "Didn't ask." He said in a mock monotone voice. "You're hilarious Jacob now hush." Connor replied like he actually had a good response. Jacob walked over to the bench dragging Sophie by the arm with him as he went as Leo wandered off to go meet Hannah. "What do you mean 'neutral' you fat gimp." Jacob joked as Connor sat next to him. "Don't mind her, she's alright to talk to every now and again." He said and Jacob nodded. "Fair enough." He agreed as Sophie got up and started walking towards a group of girls and Jacob chuckled. "And we now return to 'Jacob cheated on me because he dared so much as mention Hannah." Jacob whispered and Connor rolled his eyes. "You truly are hilarious." He commented as a police car rolled into the playground.
The two sat there with Jacob showing him a video on his phone when he randomly spoke. "Did you see Chun Him this morning?" Jacob asked, his eyes scouring the playground for any signs of him. "No, there's a good few people off today, there's probably just the bug that's been going around or something, don't bother shitting yourself over it." Connor said unable to locate Chun Him anywhere in the playground. "He'll be back tomorrow don't panic." Connor concluded turning back to Jacob who was still looking over the playground for him. "I'm not so sure, my cousin has that bug." Jacob told Connor who nodded. "Which one? There's twenty bloody four." He said to which Jacob rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes I know but one of them has it, gives her a mild fever nothing more." Jacob explained and Connor squinted in the sun while trying to look at Jacob. "C'mon there's the bell, let's go we have fourth period together." Connor said slinging his bag over his shoulder
Break came to a close with the intrusive bell going off. "What do we got next?" Connor asked turning to Jacob. "New timetable so we won't have the same class most likely. "Uh, lemme check." Jacob replied pulling up a picture of his timetable on his iPad. "I have physics so you'll have chemistry I'd imagine." Jacob said putting his iPad away. Third period went by smoothly and Connor and Jacob got halfway into fourth period the teacher started coughing violently. "Bug?" Connor whispered and Jacob shook his head. "No probably just dust, keep playing, get the new question." Jacob said motioning to the Blooket game open on Connor's iPad.
At lunchtime everyone met up in the playground and Sophie said she had to go home to grab food which was met with a large groan from Jacob and as they went to leave they had Hannah come up to them to talk to Leo on the way down there. "Hey Connor did you know." Jacob began and Connor groaned. "The other day-." He started but Leo cut him off. "Guys!" He said rather loudly and Connor, Jacob and Sophie all looked back to see Leo looking at a guy lying on the kerb looking like death. "You gonna go and speak to him Leo?" Jacob asked and Leo shook his head. "Okay, then leave him alone, he's probably just drunk man." Jacob said and Leo nodded. "Yeah I guess you're right." He muttered not taking his eyes off the man who turned his head to look at him and Leo looked away a little embarrassed he was staring for so long and as Jacob and Sophie carried on with Leo following behind Connor stayed back and kept staring at the man and Hannah joined him. "It's like he can't see me." Connor said and took a few steps forward and Hannah grabbed his arm. "Well don't go towards the drunk." She hissed and Connor sighed. "That would be smart." He said shaking off any suspicions he may have had and carried on with the others who were coming back at the point. "Connor don't tell me you were just standing here staring at him?" Jacob said sighing and walking forward. "Come on lets get back so I can eat my lunch." He said urging everyone to move forward.
The four of them made it back to school safely and Leo turns to them. "Does anybody have plans after school? I was gonna go hang out with Lily after, anyone else wanna come along?" Leo asked just to see if they could rally some company. "As much as I dislike her yeah sure, we'll come too." Jacob said shrugging. "Makes no odds to me, I haven't met Lily before so it'll be interesting." Connor said as he ate his lunch. "If you invite Payton I will actually fucking kill you." Jacob said staring Connor down who nodded holding his hands up. "Alright." He said defensively and Jacob gave him a thumbs up. The bell rang shortly after and signalled the beginning of fifth period which went by smoothly until sixth period when a girl in Leo's class turned to him. "Some crazy lady started doing this slow little hobble over to me this morning making moaning noises like she was drunk and really high." The girl tells Leo as he listens. "Did you try and talk to her? We saw someone similar at lunch time today." Leo asked curious as a pattern was forming. "No, of course not! I fucking took off running! Why who'd you see?" She asked now trying to pry information from Leo. "This drunk guy shuffling across a road. He looked like death though I could smell him from where I was standing."
Leo and the girl both then went back to working as the day came to an end and soon enough everyone was in the playground. Jacob was arguing with Iona over her presence and everyone else was just ignoring the two of them. "Young love." Leo said loudly trying to make a joke to diffuse the situation. "Leo, shut it, you're not helping just let them fight it out." Connor said sighing and giving Leo a light slap on the arm. "Yeah, alright fine but I do have something to tell you guys when we're settled." Leo says his voice adopting a more serious tone.
As Iona walked off and Jacob turned his attention to Leo, Leo began to speak about what the girl had told him during sixth period. "It's just like the drunken guy we saw at lunch! It's like every adult in Currie had a party and got so drunk they look like they've risen from their graves." Leo said with a shrug and looked up the empty street. "C'mon, we've got a bus to catch, I'm meeting Lily at Asda's." Leo said much to Jacob's dismay as he has bad memories from that place. "Goddamn, Connor we've met your two girlfriends there, what a coincidence!" He said digging his elbow into Connor's ribs. "Hilarious, you are aware I've never met the girl right?" Connor said raising an eyebrow at Jacob and chuckling. "You're bloody hilarious, me and Payton are still together y'know." Connor finished. "Aye, that's rather unfortunate." Jacob said shaking his head. "Just brea-." Connor put his hand over Jacob's mouth. "I've heard this one before, and no, not until the end of the world." Connor snapped back. Jacob turned to Leo. "We won't be there right away, we gotta go to mine to get Connor's bank card that he left on Friday." Jacob said and Connor groaned. "Dude, I won't need to buy anything it doesn't matter." Connor said and Jacob nodded. "Uh huh sure, we'll get on the same bus as them." Jacob told him and started following Leo and Hannah up the hill. "Well then I guess we'll just waste time then." Connor said doing jazz hands to no one and sighed before finally going and following the others.
The five were walking up to the bus stop, the sounds of busy streets and people talking surrounding them although people were all raving over a video on their phones which made Jacob curious so he got out his phone and started scrolling through twitter and the first post he was the video from a re-posting account with no caption. He started watching the video and audibly gasped. "Guys check this out, what the fuck is this." Jacob said in horror as everyone crowded around to watch and the video was of a guy filming from the front of a crowd as a police officer shot a woman in the chest a total of seven times and she kept coming for him until he shot her in the head and then she finally dropped dead. Sophie recoiled in horror and Hannah went wide-eyed but Connor and Leo and a fixation on the video. "This can't be real right surely." Leo said chuckling nervously as the five made it to the bus stop and sat on a wall outside of a Scotmid to catch their breath where they saw a woman buying some compost. "No, it mustn't be real, look around you, everyone is so happy and normal there is no way she wasn't wearing some kind of protection." Leo rambled trying to make sense of the video but Jacob shook his head. "Only kind of protection you can get is a condom." He said. "Guys I think god gave someone else my powers on accident." Jacob said and everyone chuckled nervously with the video still fresh in their minds. "Jesus." Hannah muttered walking into the shops. "Something is up, and I think we're gonna find out real soon." Connor said standing up. "We've got a bus to catch, we can wait for Hannah up there."
The five got onto the bus around ten minutes later and as they got on they started to notice people coming out of shops with heaps of food, like they were panic buying. "It's like Covid times. People panic buying shit like toilet paper." Jacob remarked. "Just blast your ass with a shower head." He added as the bus began to move off and towards Asda. "So you three are going to get Connor's card right?" Leo asked and Jacob nodded. "That we are." He said and Hannah tapped Leo on the shoulder. "This guy who I added a while back who lives on an island a few hours away from here by boat just texted me saying things are going to shit where he lives." Hannah said and Leo tilted his head. "Is this that Corbin guy from a few months back you added for shits and giggles?" Leo asked and Hannah nodded. "Ask him what's going on." Leo said and Hannah nodded. "Alrighty." She said as the bus became backed up by traffic just outside of Asda as the road beside them was totally clogged with cars but in their lane all the cars had been abandoned and the sounds of screaming and shouting was heard from outside the bus and The Wall turned to look outside the window and saw people running and some drunken people chasing them.
The next thing they knew the bus driver had ditched the bus and was taking off down the road which Sophie saw. "Bro what the hell?!" She exclaimed and Leo groaned. "You ain't getting that card." He said getting up and running down the stairs. "Don't go towards the screaming and shouting!" Jacob called after him but Leo was gone. "No that idiot doesn't know what the fuck he's doing!" Jacob exclaimed running after him. "No! Come on guys stick together." Sophie said as her and Hannah ran after them and even though he didn't want to Connor followed and what he saw outside was horrifying. Everywhere he turned there was either someone eating another person or people just screaming and shouting generally. "EVERYONE!" Jacob shouted. "IN ASDA NOW!" He yelled and everyone started sprinting towards the shop that could be full of the things but they went regardless.
As they ran inside they saw one, a security guard was eating a random civilian and it looked up and slowly rose to it's feet as The Wall stood there in complete shock unsure how to react. "Get back!" Jacob warned but it didn't stop. "Seriously, I mean it. I don't know what the fuck is wrong with you." He said but it kept coming and Jacob made a choice for the better of the group and charged at it tackling it over as everyone stood back in horror. "SOMEONE! THROW ME SOMETHING!" Jacob yelled and Sophie chucked him a pen from her pocket which he held in his hand and remembered that in the video these things don't go down unless their head is damaged so he drove the pen through it's eye socket and stood back but he didn't drive it in deep enough and it got back up. "What the fuck." Jacob said as the thing grabbed his shoulders and started scuffling with Jacob but Jacob slammed his fist into the pen and clicked it down and also drove it in deeper which finally put the thing down. "Y-you just killed a person." Sophie stuttered and Jacob looked down. "That. Was not. A person." He said breathing heavily. "Imagine living like that." Connor said as Jacob rolled the guy onto his back to get a look at his face and he fell back when he saw it's eyes. "Holy mother dick on a popsicle stick." He said his voice full of horror. "This guy... is dead." He said and everyone crowded down beside him. "Not possible." Connor said but Jacob looked at him. "You fitting in here should be impossible but here we are you fatty." He said and Connor looked down at the man who's eyes were indeed cloudy and there was a bite mark on his neck. "Holy shit, this is an undead pandemic." Leo concluded. "Nice job Einstein." Sophie scoffed as the doors behind them opened and there stood Lily, looking scared shitless and she had a bloodied knife in her hand and Leo rushed over to her side. "Oh. My. God." Jacob said. "You, look like shit."