Iris had barely registered the turn of events when a hand towed her up and a familiar face came into focus.
“MOVE, NOW!” Ryan bellowed, giving Iris a hard shove, snapping her out of her terror-induced stupor. Another classmate of theirs—Jaye—and their form teacher—Mr Ong—were already several feet in front of them with Kat and Wei Tze in tow. Ryan and Iris sprinted after them and down the long stretch of a corridor leading out of the drama centre, fully aware of the creature’s nearing presence behind them. However, its angered roars were now combined with other shrill, ferocious howls, clashing together in a blood-curdling discordance. A whole fucking horde of infected people was chasing after them, Iris realised with a sinking sensation from her skull to the tip of her toes.
Tears of pain blinded Iris’s vision when globules of cold sweat dribbled down her forehead and into her eyes. They stung with fiery pain as if an army of red ants were marching across it right then. Nonetheless, she ignored the pain as her mind and body went into autopilot mode. She ran as quickly as her legs could carry her, sprinting alongside Ryan, her laboured breath coming out in short ragged bursts as they ran past the washrooms on Level 3. Her legs burned, her lungs hurt and her heart thumped against her ribcage like a wild beast trapped in a cage. But she ran and ran without looking back. The pain didn’t bother her so much now that she thought about it. It proved that she was still alive.
And she was still going on out of sheer desperation to live and the adrenaline pumping through her system, enabling her to push her body’s limits when she would have normally dropped dead from exhaustion.
They then rounded a sharp corner and Iris would have tripped from the momentum of the curve if not for Ryan grabbing ahold of her before she could fall. She recovered quickly from her mishap, not wanting to risk having the horde catching up to them. She couldn’t afford to slip up with her own life hanging on the line.
“WHERE ARE WE GOING!?” Ryan demanded furiously, referring to no one in particular.
“LIBRARY. BASEMENT ONE!” Came the rushed reply from Mr Ong as he led the teenagers down the escalator, taking three steps at a time. Iris and Ryan had no other choice but to follow the only adult they could trust.
“But why the library!? Shouldn’t we be getting the hell out of this building?” Iris asked, fumbling down the moving steps towards the second floor.
“Look out the window.” Was all he said. Iris complied, a chill travelling down her spine upon detecting the grimness in the voice of her usually cordial, humourous History teacher. She turned to the great glass window panes looking out to the Bugis neighbourhood when she passed by it on the way to the escalator that would take them down to the first floor. She instantly wished she didn’t. The view outside looked like it was taken straight out of a high-budget, realistic apocalypse cinematography. Despite the darkness of night settling over the cityscape, Iris could still make out upturned cars littering the asphalt roads and columns of smoke from random housefires coiling up into the night sky like slithering long serpents. Below in the streets, flocks of reanimated people, all bloodied and crazed, either moved with a sloppy gait or charged at any remaining humans with ape-like fury.
Upon having the humans at their mercy, the fiends tore them apart viciously with their newfound inhuman strength and devoured the remains feverishly with the insatiable hunger of a starving man, depicting a macabre sight that reminded Iris of a violent slasher movie. She was struck with the frightening revelation that only a thin slate of glass separated her and her friends from the monsters wreaking havoc in the city. The girl forced down the wash of stomach acid burning her oesophagus on its way up. Just right after dinner too...
She forced herself to move forward, knowing the zombies were nearby, smelling their odour of gangrene and blood before she could even see or hear them.
“THIS WAY, KIDS!” Mr Ong called frantically, beckoning to them from the glass doors—the entrance to the library—at the basement. Iris could see Jaye, Wei Tze and Kat already inside with five other unidentifiable people huddled together.
Iris and Ryan hastily dashed through the glass doors and skidded to a stop in front of the others, both of them releasing uneven, quick puffs of air. At the exact moment Mr Ong slammed the glass doors shut and locked it with a key he had obtained from God-knows-where, an entire mob of the walking dead barrelled down the escalators in a tumble of peeling skin and off-white bones. Several of them plummeted from the storeys above and lay splayed out on the floor after their fall, twitching and moaning but still very much alive. A monster Iris recognised as her once living, breathing classmate—Levina—crawled pathetically towards them, leaving a trail of blood-soaked innards that spilled out from her gutted belly. Her exposed ribs grated like fingernails on a blackboard from the friction against the floor, and her toned legs were mostly stripped to femur and gristle. Just like her lower limbs, her fingers had been worn down to the bone from the endless scrabbling to pull herself forward. She was still donning the pretty black dress she had worn to the theatre, albeit, it was ripped and falling to tatters around the hem and along the sleeves.
Iris blanched and averted her gaze from Levina, unable to handle the queasiness of looking at her former classmate now reduced to a mutated flesh-eating monster. The rest of the creatures were jerking spastically with vacant, listless orbs trained on the humans inside the safety of the library as they hobbled on twisted ankles and shattered heels.
“They’re coming towards us,” someone pointed out nervously. Iris noticed it was an old classmate named Jun Jie who was now backing away from the glass doors.
Kat’s incisive gaze surveyed the room as she stared at the beanbags strewn around; the desks arranged in rows; and the stacks of unused chairs in the corner.
“We need to barricade the doors, close all windows and draw the curtains,” she announced, capturing everyone’s attention, “we can use whatever we can move to block the doors so that they can’t come in and hopefully, won’t be able to see us too. I think the sight of us is making them gather around the entrance.”
Kat had a point. A whole horde was walking in a stumbling shuffle towards them, misshapen hands outstretched and bones creaking in tune to their staggering steps. More humanoid figures were approaching from all directions, lured by the enticing sight of fresh meat waiting to be shredded apart on the opposite side of a flimsy glass door.
"Maybe it's the smell of my blood they're attracted to," Wei Tze muttered, absentmindedly clutching his injured shoulder. Jun Jie then rounded on him, beady eyes squinting at the claw marks and the thin sliver of blood trailing down the expanse of his arm.
“Why the hell are you in here then?" Jun Jie snapped and gestured to Wei Tze's wound. “You're turning into one of those fucking zombies!”
Wei Tze looked up at Jun Jie with round glassy eyes, startled by the accusation. The lost look on the boy's countenance awakened Kat's protective nature buried deep within her and the girl couldn’t help but feel anger simmering in her system upon hearing his baseless accusation. Without any warning, Jun Jie grabbed Wei Tze by his injured arm with a callous and conscienceless brute force and motioned to haul him towards the door, presumably to throw him out. Wei Tze shouted in anguish as a hot flash of pain seared through the ruptured tissues of his shoulder. He writhed about in Jun Jie's vice-like grip and demanded he let go of him.
Ryan jolted into the action once he registered that a violent fight was about to break out. He tried to pry Jun Jie away from Wei Tze while Jaye and the other strangers stood rooted to the spot, bafflement and fear apparent on their features. On the other hand, Mr Ong, a Eurasian boy and another male teacher whom Iris recognised as Mr Rahman—4E4’s form teacher—rushed about lugging all the heavy furniture and arranging them in a way that obstructed the grotesque sight of malformed faces pressing up close to the glass. They slavered all over the surface, sallow skin mottled green and grey with specks of blood coating the ring of their mouths.
Iris’s stomach churned with disgust and horror at the fact that Jun Jie could even think of antagonising Wei Tze by lumping him with those prowling, bloodthirsty mutants.
“GET THE FUCK OUT, YOU FREAK!” Jun Jie barked, still manhandling the weakened boy, resulting in his rough hands leaving reddened prints on Wei Tze's skin.
A coil of rage wrung Kat's insides tight and she snapped. She crossed the room in a few long strides and when she was close enough, she raised her hand to deliver a stinging slap. The sound produced by the contact between skin and skin resonated in the room with a faint but impactful echo. Jun Jie's hand released Wei Tze and he cradled his reddened cheek with it.
The occupants of the room stilled.
“Let. Go. Of. Him," Kat hissed, chest heaving as she paused between each word to catch her breath and reign her anger in before she could tear the boy in front of her a new one.
“Hurt him again and I’ll dislocate your goddamn arm. Try me, you squinty-eyed fuckwit.” Kat’s gunmetal eyes narrowed into enraged slits as she grabbed the stiff collar of Jun Jie’s shirt and fisted it in one hand; the boy choked and his fingers reached up to latch onto her wrist to try and relieve the asphyxiating sensation. Wei Tze simply stared at the scene unfolding before him dazedly, his wide-eyed expression making him look like a deer caught in headlights. Everyone else gaped at her with barely suppressed shock, even Iris, Mr Ong and Jaye were startled to see someone on the receiving end of the usually easygoing girl’s wrath.
Iris exhaled shakily. “KitKat, that’s enough. Now isn’t the time to lose your temper.”
It was as if her best friend’s firm voice had snapped Kat out of her unhinged state. The livid girl blinked a few times and the harsh lines on her forehead softened into a contemplative frown as she released her hold on Jun Jie’s collar. The boy immediately scampered away from her while massaging his throat with dilated eyes.569Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8Q6z0eGIJu
Wei Tze stood by the side, holding his arm and looking both grateful and worried as the tension in the room ratcheted up a notch.
“I think what Kat is trying to say is…” Ryan began, wary eyes flicking back and forth between Jun Jie and Kat with glasses askew on the bridge of his nose, “this dude right here might not be infected. Those people turned into zombies like, in seconds. But he's still human so maybe he's just hurt, but not in danger of turning into a zombie that will end up killing us all. Also–" Ryan turned to Jun Jie with a pinched expression. "–you didn’t need to be such an asshole. You literally left new bruises on an injured person and we don’t even know if he really is going to turn...”
“Yeah, least give him a chance," Jaye piped up, skittish almond-brown eyes gazing at Wei Tze with pity, “wait a few hours and see if he's gonna turn out like one of them.”
Iris nodded her head in agreement, still shaken up from the fast-paced events that occurred within half an hour.
“I know everyone is scared right now but we must think with a clear head,” Mr Rahman said, deciding to intervene before things escalated further than they already had. The Malay’s stance was authoritative and determined yet his hands trembled by his side like a leaf caught in a tempestuous wind with fear or overexertion from moving weights four times heavier than him. Perhaps both.
Kat's pale lips twisted into a scowl as she shot Jun Jie one last venomous look that conveyed her resentment and an underlying threat perfectly.
“That means no more fighting,” Mr Ong continued where Mr Rahman had left off, dabbing his sweaty forehead with a crumpled Kleenex he had fished out from the depths of his pocket. “We need to work together to make it out of this situation alive. I think we already have a vague idea of what's going on.”
“The fucking apocalypse happened,” Iris said faintly, leaning on a nearby wall for support, but not before making sure the wall was nowhere near the pack of zombies lurking outside. The volume of growls and grunts had decreased slightly after the blond stranger, Mr Ong and Mr Rahman had painstakingly shifted the large furniture as blockades to fortify the defences and cover up any transparent area the zombies could see through. But that didn’t mean the coast was clear yet. The entire National Library had been overrun by human-like monsters in a matter of hours.
Mr Ong frowned reproachfully but then recalled that under such dire circumstances, things like minding one’s language didn’t matter anymore. In addition, their titles as a teacher or student no longer held any significance when there probably wasn’t even a school to return to if an outbreak did happen in Singapore.
“So erm, how long are we going to be stuck here for?” An unfamiliar voice spoke up, catching everyone’s attention.
ns 15.158.61.51da2
