Free Stay Dead: A Novel by Steve Wands

Shorty, and
Joseph cleaned up the janitor. Jon-Jon continued to the side
entrance toward the fence. It was locked as well, but this one had
a small rectangular window with chicken wire inside the glass. He
looked through the window with his flashlight. It was dark inside,
but he didn’t see any movement. He started bashing through the
window with Judy’s pipe. The wire made it difficult, but he broke
through it eventually. With Scott and Judy watching his back,
Jon-Jon put his hand through the window. He tried to be careful,
but even so, he cut and scraped his hand and forearm. By the time
he was able to open the door his cuts and scrapes became deep
wounds screaming for an infection. He pulled his arm out, nearly
crying, and blood flowed profusely from his cuts. Judy gasped and
quickly rummaged through her bag, pulling out a spare shirt to wrap
around his arm.
    The rest of them had finished off the fat man
and his friend and caught up just in time to head into the
building. Shorty took the lead, as Judy and Scott tightly wrapped
Jon-Jon’s arm. Boone followed behind Shorty with his flashlight. So
far the coast was clear, no noise, no moans, no scratching, only
the sounds they themselves made and the silence inside. The door
they entered led directly into what the sign next to the door
called the A-wing.
    Eddie and Frankie were making sure everyone
got inside safely and keeping a few eyes out for any of the kids
that may have been lost in the shuffle. They’d both seen it happen
early on and were not interested in witnessing another occurrence.
Once everyone was inside they got together a small group, including
the two of them, to scout ahead.
    The group consisted of Boone, Shorty, Ben,
Eddie, and Frankie. Jon-Jon wanted to go ahead with them but Judy
had insisted he not. It was best he take it easy and focus on fully
stopping his bloodied arm by resting and applying pressure. They
headed down the hall toward the back of the building as the others
stood huddled just beyond the door.
    Ricker and Dawn were smoking before they
could even catch their breath and Jon-Jon took Dawn’s side and
eventually a few drags of her cigarette. The kids were terrified
and lately that was the only expression except exhaustion their
faces could seem to muster. Eddie’s mother, Janice, was holding
together fairly well and took it upon herself to watch over many of
the kids. Everybody helped of course—especially Dawn and Gerty—but
just helping the kids deal with what was happening was enough to
tire anyone out. No one fully understood what was going on. They
could only explain what they were seeing but it was hard to explain
such things to kids when the ones doing the explaining didn’t
believe what they were seeing. The best they could hope for was a
place of relative safety, and now, they hoped the school would be
that place for a little while. Though had any of them been fortune
tellers, they would’ve stayed at home.
    They had checked every door going down the
corridor and had come up bone-dry in their search for living dead
squatters. The corridor wrapped around to the right and on the left
were a set of double doors that headed into the cafeteria. They
slowly opened the doors and were greeted by a large clean room with
a view of the fenced in grounds at the back of the school. Windows
went from waist high to a few feet from the ceiling. Tables and
chairs were neatly stacked into the corners of the room and on both
sides were doors that exited to the grounds. Both doors were
locked. Centered between the back exit doors was the kitchen and
registers. Beyond the stacks of trays and a series of ordering
windows, deep inside the kitchen were three large freezer doors and
a giant refrigerator—the only dead things in those were unlabeled
meat patties and flattened roaches. They left the large room the
same way they entered it and headed to another door that led to the
basement.
    Boone and his flashlight led the way down the
stairs to