Principals and Principles

The creatures streamed down the hall of the school. Some were former children, others were unlucky teachers. They filed past the rooms on either side, heading for the people scurrying away. Some lockers in the hall were left open, their contents strewn about on the floor. The sprinklers had gone off earlier, and the residual water and garbage made every step sound like the undead were walking in a swamp. They shuffled silently, only making brief moans or grunts as they plodded after the living.

The children and the teacher were exhausted, there was no place safe to go. Three hours ago they called for the evacuation and when they did the halls filled up quickly. That also put the population of the school at risk. Several bites occurred in that minute or two. The creatures that were being contained in the principal’s office burst out, the principal now joined them, when the halls filled with bodies. The running and screaming set off the whole school, and panic set in. Children were trampled, teachers tried in to calm the students, but noting is as unnerving as your former principal tearing the throat out of the lunch lady. The hurt, were descended upon, the hidden were found, and the zombies grew in number.

This small group was in the computer lab until one of them sneezed, the whole group made a run for it out the other door when the undead started pounding the door down. Now Mr. Rasion and his “Web and the Media” class were on the run. Karl was not a brave person, and as the situation grew dimmer, he knew that the only real way out is to abandon the children. “Class, get in this room, I will lock you in and pull the creatures away from the door. I’ll circle back and get you.”

Karl had no intention of ever coming back, and some of the junior high students knew that. The protested and he used the last weapon in the arsenal to convince them – his teacher voice. If these were high school students, it wouldn’t have worked, but they were younger and more susceptible to this. They herded themselves in the room and he locked the door. The creatures at the end of the hall started streaming after him. He called to the children to stay away from the door and pretended to have trouble with the lock. His delay had the exact goal he was looking for, the zombies started to chase him, and then paused as their prey grew farther away and the children became an easier target.

Karl Rasion ran away from the door without looking back. The creatures pounded, the children screamed, and the safety glass was starting to break. It only took the creatures three minutes to break through the security glass and accidentally hit the handle for the door, and as it swung open the children screamed agian.

The creatures were making their way into the room when the last in the line was felled. The shovel connected perfectly with the back of its head, and the former Ms. Makerson, world and US history teacher, fell like a sack of mud. The young janitor Lukash Kazmierz burst into the room tearing into the group of undead. “Ocknąć się mi demony…” he said in his native Polish tongue, and he slaughtered every last one of them.

When the last one fell, he turned to the students, “Come with Lukash children,” he said in his thickly accented English. “We hide in steam boiler room with rest of pupils.” Not one of the students protested. He led them silently to the small room, opened the door quickly with his master key, and ushered them inside to safety.