BRAINS: with a side-order of Flesh. by Siagrrl (parable of the sower read online TXT) 📕

“Ale!”

He sounded horrified. Yeah, I probably would be to if I was watching my closest friend bash in some girl's skull with a shovel.

“Alexis, STOP. She’s dead!”

I couldn’t. My body wouldn’t let me. I felt tears stream down my face and as I continued to bash the living hell out of the now lifeless body. the adrenaline refusing to subside.

Bones snapped.

Fabric tore.

Blood splattered.

An eye flew halfway across the room.

I brought the shovel above my head for the umpteenth time and proceeded to bring it back down.

“ALEXIS! It’s OVER!”

A hand grabbed the shovel and over my head. The other wrapped itself around my shoulders spinning me around, pulling me close. I let go of the shovel and clutched at Dee letting the adrenaline and my tears out.

“It’s okay! It’s okay. It’s over. She’s dead now...”

“I – I didn – didn’t….” I stuttered. The words not wanting to come out. I looked up at Dee. “I – I’m sorry.” Was all I managed to muster.

“It’s alright.” He smiled. “Heh. You saved my life! You . . . still don’t remember do you?”

I blinked a few times. Remember? What is it that I am supposed to be remembering?

He sighed. “She said this might happen.”

She?

“Alexis. It’s Sunday. You’ve been unconscious for three days.”

"Huh? But it’s . . ." I backtracked. "Thursday." It's the day my watch is on.

He pulled back to study me. “You really don’t remember?”

What the hell is he on about?!

“You already woke up on Thursday, you were only unconcious for a few hours after school let out. We went looking around, and found them, remember? You tried to help, but instead you got shot – ”

Shot?!

“ – You lost a lot of blood, so Ms. Faeshar patched you up as best she could before she left.”

Not getting it.

“You had us worried.” He continued.

Still not getting it.

“You don't have to feel bad about, uh, her... She really was dead.” He grabbed me by the shoulders and lowered his face so our eyes met. “She was a zombie.”

“A zombie?” I had pulled up a chair and slumped back in it, we were back in the infirmary. The broken window boarded up with loose planks of wood stored in the room adjacent the cafeteria. I was trying to take in everything Dee said.

“That’s right. As in dead. Or…well…undead, anyway. You, I and Ms. Faeshar were all here when it started. We all decided to secure ourselves in here. Which is why. . .”

"All the rooms were boarded up." I finished, recalling how everything was a lot darker than it should have been, even at night. I took a deep breath. Doing my best to stay calm. To retain my sanity.

“And,” I breathed. “You expect me to believe that?” For all I knew, this was Delevan’s stupid yet somewhat comforting way of making me feel better about my just straight up murdering some crazed, possibly extremly drugged chick.

He pulled up another chair in front of me. “Yup.” He nodded.

“But zombies are fiction! They don’t exist! They’re something that you’d see in games and movies and stuff. They’re not REAL!” I spat. Hoping he hadn’t heard that crack I my voice, I continued.

“And since they’re not real, I just killed a person! And a crazy – possibly mentally deranged – person, but still! Do you know how bad it’s going to look that the estranged 'genius' orphan girl had an accident and decided to kill someone with a mental illness, by bashing her brains in!? They're gong to tell me I'm insane! I'm going to go to a mental hospital!"

“Alexis –”

“And what’s more,” I continued. “I’m under the age of 18, which means, if i don't get classed as insane, I’m going to be sent to juvenile detention! Do you know what they’d do to me there?!”

“Well, no I don –”

“Whichever of the two outcomes, they’ll pump me so full of drugs and psychiatrist meetings that I will crack under the pressure, and I might actually become what they think I was! Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God,  Oh my God!!"

"Ale –”

"You know what that means, then, don't you?! One of us is crazy! Either I'm deranged or hallucinating and believing whatever sick fantasy I've mentally come up with, or you're crazy for telling me that the whole worlds gone zombie!"

"Well I don't know about the whole world, Ale..."

“No, not all. Just most of it.” Delevan’s starting to sound a little feminine. “Turn around Miss Eynes. I’m behind you.” Sure enough when I turned around there was Ms. Faeshar – the school nurse. Why she was a school nurse dumfounded me. She was way too young to be sitting around treating snivel nosed little brats’ everyday – but hey, that’s just my opinion. Her strawberry blonde hair was wound into two long braids and her eyes sparkled an intrusive blue, which seemed to stare straight through me whenever I looked at her. To be honest – it freaked me out.

“Ah, Ms Faeshar! You're back!?”

Back? Where did she go? Ms Faeshar moved past me silently, the only sound being the swishing sound that her mauve  khaki trousers made. It was quite unusual seeing her in her non-school attire. She sported a turquoise tank top, a black double stranded sash/belt and shiny black boots.    

Timid Ms. Faeshar was looking like she'd just stepped out of a fashionable army recruits magazine!

“What are you talking about? I said that I was only going to be gone a few hours.” She replied glancing at me.

“What, when?” I demanded.

“She doesn’t remember what happened.” Dee informed her.      

“Doesn’t remember? I took care of that shot wound, but I don’t remember her hitting her head.” Ms Faeshar mused.

There they go with the shot thing again!

“What are you talking about? Who would be crazy enough to have a gun here?”

Delevan and Ms Faeshar exchanged a look. “Mr Tranchen?” Ms. Faeshar said, as if it should ring some bells.

“Mr Tranchen,” I said slowly. “My science instructor?”

“Yeeess…” Delevan egged on with his hands – beckoning me to continue.

“Mr Tranchen – my science teacher…” I mused again, much slower this time, trying to put things together. “Had a gun . . . and shot me?”

“Yeah pretty much.” Delevan said bluntly.

Ms Faeshar whacked the back of his head. “You shouldn’t be so blunt, Delevan.” She scolded.

Ignoring them, I tried to imagine Mr Tranchen with a gun. A 7’1 balding monster of a man, who was as lean as he was tall, with a slight glint in his eye – I could never actually tell if it was his eye or the edge of his glasses, but his eye sounds so much more intimidating – sporting an AK47 (I personally blame Delevan for my vast knowledge of guns. The sooner he realises that challenging me to a Halo pvp match every 2 hours – when he really should be studying – at home or otherwise, the faster he will realise that he will never win). That mental image was both funny enough and scary enough to send me into a fit of giggles.

“Maybe you have lost it?” Dee asked, eyeing me suspiciously.

“Ha...No – N – Nothing,” I managed to giggle out. “Just a th – thought.” I knew that this definately was not the time for giggle fits, but it made me feel better to laugh. Especially after that.

“Now.” Ms Faeshar interrupted, flipping a loose strand of hair over her shoulder.

“Back to business.” She glanced over her shoulder at Dee's face. "What happened? Anyone care to explain that?” she frowned.

Using the knowledge we had between us of we managed to patch ourselves up. The gash on Dee's face, dangerously close to his carotid artery meant he bled a lot. The patches were already staining red. We'd even changed the bandages on my leg and cleaned up the wound a little bit, and when I say 'we' I really mean 'he.' It seems like Ms. Faeshar left after patching me up, and he changed my bandagesdaily, on his own while I was unconcious.

A lightbulb pinged. “My fault.” I blurted. “I coaxed Delevan into going outside – ”

“You did not! I went by my own choice!”

“ – which doesn't even make any sense if you already knew what was out there." I pointedly looked at Delevan. "We saw this girl – uh, zombie – in the tennis courts and she followed us back here. She smashed her way through the glass and attacked Delevan. So I, kinda, maybe, bashed her – um, it’s – brain in with a shovel . . .” I finished awkwardly. Delevan, just shrugged it off and focused his attention on more pressing matters – the fraying hem of his jacket.

“Oh...” was all Ms Faeshar said, raising her eye at Dee.

"Well, I hadn't actually seen any zombies before tonight. We were seperated. I didn't even know Mr. Tranchen was here until Ms. Faeshar came hurrying in holding you covered in blood. I went, because I was curious." Sensing the tension, Delevan changed the subject. “Anyways,” he said getting up from his chair, “We should probably fill Ale in on all the details as quickly as possible,  and then figure out our next move.”

Ms Faeshar nodded in agreement. “Alright. So long story short,” She started, not taking her eyes off me, “You woke up Thursday at around 5:00pm. Delevan and myself stayed with you to make sure you’d be okay getting home. Mr. Tranchen had stayed back, as asked by the principal, to go over the new test papers for what was supposed to be the new Greek class. I went to go to my car, to pick up some of the medicines I went out earlier to restock, and met up with him while you and Delevan stayed here. Then there was some commotion at the schools' front gate, so naturally, Richard and myself being the only authority on the grounds, checked it out." She cleared her throat, looking a little uncomfortable. “There was some unusual behaviour from a small crowd that had gathered at the gates. When we approached them, a young boy tried to attack us through the bars. He seemed so savage . . .”

“We heard the scream from here.” Delevan added, his infinite wisdom blossoming. "You took off after Ms. Faeshar when I wasn't looking."

“Then we realised that some of them had wounds – some too severe to not be fatal – some were even missing half their head . . .” Ms Faeshar continued solemnly, clearly reminiscing the incident.

“After we figured they were dead, I decided it best we headed back to the school. Mr Tranchen disagreed. He wanted to fight his way to his car, on the other side of the gate and leave. He tried to escape but there were to many of them, so he retreated. When we were safe back in the building, we realised that we left the gate open, then you stumbled across us, and you went back to close it. I honestly don’t know how, when or where Mr Tranchen found a gun, but he did, the grounskeepers' shed is my guess. After you closed the gate you must've let one of them in, and it