Death is the only thing in this world that is definite. Well, that and taxes, as my father used to say. It was something I didn’t have to worry about. In the world we lived in, sometimes it was the only thing I had to look forward to. Dying was a foreign concept; something that I couldn’t fully grasp until I’d come face to face with it for the first time.
I was fifteen and hiking with my cousins. It was all fun and games until I slipped on loose gravel and found myself dangling over the edge of a ninety-foot drop. In the moments I stared helplessly up at the sky wondering if my hands would give out before help could reach me, I realized that death meant no more. There would be no waking up safe in my bed and realizing I’d had a nightmare. Death meant the end of something without hope of a return. I would never see the sun rise again, hear the birds harmonizing in the early morning, or stare in awe at the star-filled sky. I would cease to exist.
It became definite for me then: death meant the complete end. There was nothing after that. Unfortunately, two years later that philosophy, and everything else I believed in, would be challenged. There would be a new meaning of death.
Life with one purpose: Feed.

I don’t play sports, and my junior year of high school, I was more thankful for that than ever. There were an unusually high number of STAPH infections spreading throughout the school. More and more athletes showed up every day with bandages on their arms and legs to cover the open sores. I was lucky enough to get by without being infected, but I couldn’t say the same for most of my peers.
It was on an ordinary morning in my physics class that things took a turn for the worse. My teacher, Mr. Girard, had turned up with a bandage on his neck a few days before and told me it was a nasty STAPH infection. That morning, it looked like it had gotten worse and was bulging out further than normal. I took notice, but didn’t say anything. After all, I didn’t know anything about the illness or the healing process. What could I say?
That’s when he started moving in jerky, spastic movements. It looked like he was losing control of his motor skills. His speech was slurring, his eyes were bloodshot and watery, and he kept twitching with unpredictable, swift movements. To describe it as strange would not do the situation justice. I shot my lab partner, Hali, a puzzled look. She returned my gaze with one of concern. An unspoken question passed between the two of us: Should we say something?
At that precise moment, our English teacher, Mr. Uptmore, walked in. It was strange to see him considering he’d never come into that class before. Unfortunately, he chose a bad time, because at the sound of the door closing, Mr. Girard turned around to face him. There was something new and terrifying in his eyes that I would later find the words to describe: ravenous hunger.
Mr. Uptmore wasn’t expecting it. Girard lunged with incredible speed and force, knocking the English teacher to the ground. Chaos immediately ensued as students began racing toward the exit. I looked down at the pair struggling on the floor, unable to move. Hali tugged at my arm, begging me to go with her, but I felt compelled to do something; anything. As I moved to grab a hole-puncher from a nearby desk, Uptmore let out a blood-curdling wail as Girard sunk his teeth into his upper arm.
I don’t remember bashing the back of my science teacher’s head in, but when I shook myself out of the daze, he wasn’t moving anymore. Hali stood in the corner crying, and my wounded teacher sat up against a wall, his eyes wide with terror. I looked into the hall to see if there was anyone that could help us, but the sight outside the door was twice as terrifying as the one I’d encountered moments before.
“They’re everywhere,” I breathed, staring into a corridor filled with students and teachers alike. All of them appeared to be afflicted like Girard had been, and each chased his own victim. As a close friend tore past the doorway, I reached for his arm and pulled him into the room. The hungry version of my algebra teacher lunged for my throat, but I slammed the door in time to spare myself. Unfortunately, the noise resounded throughout the school, attracting every sick person in the building to my location. I slid to the floor in tears.
“This is impossible. What is happening!” I screamed. I felt like going into hysterics. That was what everyone else was doing. It would be so easy to just lie down, cry a little, and give up. Then there was that annoying little voice in the back of my head that wouldn’t let me.
Get it together. Everyone else is dying. You’re alive, and you’ve saved these people, I looked around at the others, and they need you as much as you need them. If you die, so do they. I didn’t know what to do. The sick – I refused to call them zombies – were everywhere. This wasn’t real. These situations only happened in movies, not real life. I looked up at the boy I’d saved. His name was Chris, and we’d had theater together. He was pale and winded from running. I felt my gut wrench at the thought that he would be dead if I hadn’t saved him. Someone had to be coming to help us. That’s when Mr. Uptmore groaned in agony.
He sat a few feet away from me pressing a sweatshirt against his arm. It was still bleeding profusely, and I knew that something had to be done. The disease had been transferred when the wound had been inflicted, and in order to contain it, the limb would have to be removed immediately. The only problem was that I had no idea how to perform emergency surgery on someone. It could just as well kill him, but then again, it was his only chance for survival.
I motioned for Chris to hold the door shut as I took my jacket off and handed it to Uptmore. I wrapped my belt around his arm just below the shoulder.
“Bite down on this, and please don’t look,” I tried to turn off the feeling in my stomach as I dug through the cabinets for the right equipment. Inside a drawer, I found what I was looking for: a dissection kit.
I can’t describe what it’s like to saw through a man’s arm while he looks at you with pleading eyes, silently begging you to stop. To know that you’re inflicting pain on someone like that is unbearable. I breathed through my mouth so that I couldn’t smell the blood, but it didn’t keep the nausea at bay. His muscles tensed, and I tried to drown out the sound of his muffled screams, but it was something that I couldn’t ignore. Eventually he stopped fighting me, and it would haunt my nightmares for years after.
Once I was finished, I threw the scalpel on the floor and bolted for the sink to vomit. Hali took over to make a tourniquet for what was left of his arm. The sight of his blood on my hands and clothes made the room spin. I couldn’t breathe. Looking up at Hali through a mixture of tears and hair, I barely choked the question out.
“Did I kill him?” I wouldn’t be surprised if my suspicions were confirmed. I was inexperienced. How was I supposed to know the proper way to dismember a living man? The bile rose in my throat again, and I didn’t have the strength to fight it.
“No, he’s just unconscious. The shock probably took him,” She spoke softly in a calm voice. Her movements were strangely methodical. Either she’d completely lost it, or the shock had taken her as well.
“Guys, we need to get out,” Chris gasped. I looked back at the door. More of the sick had piled up against it in an attempt to devour us. It seemed like days since the rapid breakout, though it couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes.
“Chris is right. Hali, please check the window,” I clung to the counter top for support. She nodded and crawled across the floor and peered through the blinds.
“If we run, we might be able to make it to Girard’s truck. I think his keys are in his classroom,” She turned to me, asking for suggestions with her eyes. I knew that there was no way we could make it out the front, so her idea seemed to be the most logical. I nodded and tried to assemble a quick plan.
“Uh… I’ll look through his desk. You check his pockets,” I stepped over the bodies on the floor and slowly made my way to the classroom. I looked around at the carnage that I was responsible for. I’d murdered my physics teacher, and quite possible my English one as well. How was I supposed to live with myself for that? I against the wall, and before I reached the desk drawer, Hali jingled the keys in the other room.
“Here they are,” She announced. I walked back into the lab and took the keys from her. Looking at the company around me, I realized that we didn’t make a strong team, but we did make a determined one. I opened the window and stuck my head out into the clean, spring air. A small crowd of flesh-eaters was gathered around the back entrance. I figured that we had a good shot, but only if we ran.
“Alright, I’ll drive. Hali, help me lift Uptmore. Chris, put a few desks in front of the door. Try to be quiet because we have a lot of ground to cover and not a lot of time. The more we can buy with the silence, the better. On three,” I hoisted Uptmore to his feet and threw his good arm over my shoulder. Hali wrapped her arm around his waist, and we let his feet drag on the ground. I focused my energy into my legs as I prepared to run not for my life, but for my friends’.
“One…” I breathed deeply, “Two…” I looked at the window and beyond; we would make it, “Three.”
We tore through the window into the sunlight and the hands of bloodthirsty monsters.

To Be Continued…