We pause at the top of the stairs to get our bearings. The two zombies below are still tucking into the screaming Cass, and there are no others in sight.
"The exit's back that way," Stagger Lee pants.
I'm familiar with it. I used it once in a fire drill. If we can get through the door, it leads, via a set of steps, to the same alley as the other emergency exit.
"Maybe we should make for the front of the building," Trev says. "We could jump from the windows."
"This exit's closer," Stagger Lee says.
"But if it's blocked..." Seez mutters.
"We've got to try," Stagger Lee insists. "It's our best hope."
"Wait," Tyler says. It's the first time he's spoken since we broke out of the gym. "The cafeteria's over there."
"You can't be hungry!" I gasp.
He shoots me a dirty look. "They've got knives in the kitchen. We can tool up."
I frown. That's not a bad idea. "What about it?" I ask the group.
"Won't the cafeteria be full?" Suze asks. "It's lunch, so it will be like the gym. If the zombies have struck there, it'll be bedlam."
"But we'll have a much better chance if we have weapons," Ballydefeck says.
"It's worth a look," Elephant agrees.
"All right." I nod at Tyler. "Lead the way."
"Me?" he squeaks.
I grin sharkishly. "It was your idea. Only fair that if we get attacked, you should be first on their menu."
It's hard to believe that I can make a joke at a time like this. But as awful as this is, as shocking as it's been, I can't shut down. At the moment I'm alive. Those of us in this group have a chance to get out and fight another day. We have to cling to life as tightly as we can, put the atrocities from our thoughts, deal with this as if it were a surprise exam. What I've learned today is that when the shit hits the fan, you can sit around and get splattered, or you can take it in your stride and do what you must to get away clean. I'll have nightmares about this later, maybe a full-on nervous breakdown, but only if I keep my cool and escape alive.
We follow Tyler along the corridors. We're the only ones on the move up here, none of the chaos of downstairs. I have visions of walking into the cafeteria, everyone eating, unaware of what's happening below. Maybe they'll think we're winding them up. They might ignore our warnings and carry on with their lunch, oblivious until the zombies come crashing in on them.
But when we get there, I immediately see that reality has struck just as hard in the cafeteria as it has downstairs. In fact, it's struck even harder.
Students, along with some teachers and kitchen staff, are backed up against one of the walls. They're moaning and sobbing, but hardly any of them are fighting or trying to break free. They seem to have abandoned hope completely.
They're surrounded by scores of zombies, maybe a hundred or more. They're picking off the living one by one, biting some to convert them, tearing into the brains of others. It's a carefully organized operation. And pulling the strings, directing the movements of the undead, is a small group of men and women in hoodies.
My breath catches in my throat. We're watching from outside the cafeteria, through two round windows in the doors, taking turns to observe the horror show. But when my turn comes and I spot the people in the hoodies, I freeze and can't be torn away.
There are several of them. Each has a whistle, which they blow every now and then to command attention. They have rotten skin, pockmarked with pustulant sores, purple in places, patches of flesh peeling away. All have gray, lifeless hair and pale yellow eyes. I can't see inside their mouths, but I'm pretty sure that if I examined them close up, I'd find shriveled, scabby tongues.
They're the same type of creeps as the two guys at the Imperial War Museum, the mutants who tried to kidnap the baby. And they're clearly in control, dominating the zombies, using them to process the survivors neatly and efficiently.
Seez was right. This isn't bad luck or a freak attack. We've been set up. And even though I wouldn't have believed it was possible a minute ago, I feel even more fear now than I did when the zombies first burst into the gym.