Zombie University (The Complete Series): How I Survived the Zombie Apocalypse Read online

  Zombie University - The Complete Series: How I Survived the Zombie Apocalypse

  By

  Trip Ellington

  Copyright © 2014 by Trip Ellington

  *****

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Ellington Marketing, LLC

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author except where permitted by law.

  Zombie University - The Complete Series: How I Survived the Zombie Apocalypse

  Part 1

  They’re outside the door. I hear them. Their dead legs dragging their limp feet down the hallway outside my dorm room. I used to know some of them too. A few even used to live here before it happened. My name is Sam and my university is full of zombies.

  It didn’t help that I had pulled an all-nighter the night before it all went down. I had a midterm the next day and, as usual, had put off studying until the last minute. Luckily I passed out from exhaustion and overslept, missing my test the next day. Still, a zero on the midterm beats out getting eaten by a horde of brain-craving zombies any day of the week. While a small part of me feels bad for missing the test, it’s not like Roman History will help me now. It seems like it was an eternity ago - my entire campus being infected with the undead plague - but it’s only been six days, and now I’m down to my last pack of Ramen noodles.

  I walked over by my desk and took a look out of the window to see the morning sun casting its light through the autumn trees in the grassy common area below. It would have been a beautiful scene if not for the thirty or so undead students rambling about below. There were the walkers, the crawlers, and the runners. Yes. Some of them could run. Not all of them, no. But a few them, about one out of twenty, will go from a slow stumble into a fast sprint when they see food. And by food, I mean students, faculty, and even the squirrels. Poor guys.

  As I mentioned before, I have a bit of a food problem myself. See, I’ve been holed up in my dorm room for the last six days eating nothing but Ramen and Easy Mac. The Easy Mac was my roommate’s, but I don’t think he’ll mind now since I haven’t seen him since the night before it happened. And here I am, staring out of the window toward the one place I know will have plenty of food - the cafeteria.

  Before leaving such a surreal scene, I grabbed the white shirt off of my desk and carefully scribbled the words ‘Still Alive. Gone to Cafeteria’ with a black marker before draping it outside the window. I’ve tried to be optimistic about there being others out there, others who have somehow managed to make it, but I haven’t seen anyone since the first day.

  I grabbed my mostly-empty backpack and my little league baseball bat. When I was younger, I would stay outside for hours trying to hit the ball over the fence in my backyard. It was a fluke that I even had it at all. Somehow it had made the trip with me to campus I tightened my grip and took a practice swing. The unexpected speed knocked me off balance and I fell on my bad leg. Stupid leg. I massaged my calf before standing. See, while I always fancied playing baseball on the team, the other guys my age were always faster. I gritted my teeth and opened up my backpack.

  Inside, I had packed the bare essentials - a few of bottles of water, a lighter, a couple of sets of clothes, and, of course, my last Ramen. While I didn’t plan on coming back, I didn’t want a heavy backpack to slow me down. I rolled the bat over in my hands. It’s not a pretty ideal but it’ll have to do. I just hope I don’t bump into a runner. After a quick breath I walked back over to the hallway door. I felt my face flush as a flood of dread poured over me. This is gonna suck. I slowly turned the doorknob ever-so-carefully so that I wouldn’t catch the attention of the brain-hungry former students on the other side. With a slight creaking, I slid the door open and peered outside. It seemed like all of the zombies were gathered down at the far end of the hallway. Evidently something was attracting my former dorm-mates to my RA’s room. Could they remember the pizza-filled nights of gaming in his room? Maybe, maybe not. But the hallway was clear and I crept out, closing the door behind me.

  Ahead of me lay the stairwell. In all the times I ran through this plan for food it was always the staircase that bothered me the most. Mostly because I suck at stairs. Hopefully they do too. As I made my way to the staircase I could hear one of the zombies shuffling at the RA’s room heading my way. Do I really smell that much? I quickened my pace and started down the first flight of stairs.

  No matter how hard I tried, the sound of my clumsy foot striking the concrete steps echoed up and down the whole staircase. Of course I had to live on the third floor. As I made my way down to the second floor, the girls’ level, the smell of rotting perfume overcame my senses. I guess some things never change. I smiled to myself and took in a nervous breath as I stepped down the next step.

  The virus spread so quickly that a good number of students never even made it off their floors. Since I had been trapped in my room from day one, I heard it all. The first two days were the worst. Screaming at all hours of the day and night. After that it quieted down. A lot. Then it got quiet. Real quiet. By day three, the only thing I could hear was when one of them walked by my door, sometimes stopping right in front of it as if it were waiting for me to come out.

  As I continued my descent, I looked down over the staircase edge to see what I had to look forward to. All I could see was the bloodied cement of the floor and the bottom edge of the door to the courtyard. After a moment of gazing I saw a legless zombie scurry into view and gaze upwards. Oh shoot! I ducked out of the way as fast as I could and sat down on one of the stairs. I was stuck. Come on, don’t let the fear control you. You can do this. I had to keep going. There’s a reason I chose to leave in the morning, and that’s because they seem to be a little less energetic in the sun. At least that’s what I’ve noticed all the times when I watched them from my dorm window. I slowly stood to my feet feeling my heart racing.

  “Uggghhh”

  I shot my gaze back to the second floor archway to see an undead dressed in a pink robe with curlers in her hair staring at me through her dull gray eyes. This is the last thing I need! She began lurching toward the stairs reaching out one arm. Abandoning my attempts at silence, I started running down the stairs. She followed.

  In my panic, I missed a step. Without thinking, I dropped my bat and reached for the side rail to catch myself. The bat made a loud clacking sound as it struck the cement stairs and bounced down the staircase. Crap! Behind me, the stiff zombie took rigid, but quick, steps down the staircase. My baseball bat finally came to a rest at the fourth stair.

  With each step I took, the girl behind me took two. I just had a few more steps to go before I could reach my bat and be at the door to the courtyard. As the outside door came into view, I could see the legless zombie eating something off of the floor in the hallway that joined the first floor dorms to the courtyard. I could hear the rasping of the zombie girl as she narrowed her distance from me down to just a few steps.

  Finally at the bat, I quickly hunched down and grasped out for it as I stumbled down the remaining steps. And just like that, the crawling torso lifted his head and turned to face me, bearing his darkened teeth. He started clawing
his way in my direction, leaving a bloodied streak on the floor as he moved. With the curly-haired undead closing in behind me, I took in a sharp breath and ran toward the door. The crawler reached out for my leg. With an underhanded swing, I connected with the crawler’s jaw and flipped him like a pancake.

  The zombie girl leapt off of the last stair and reached out in my direction. With all of my effort, I forced the steel door open, letting in a stream of morning light. “Agshhhh!” The zombie hissed as the light poured over her eyes. I exploded out into the courtyard as the door slammed shut behind me.

  It took my eyes a few seconds to adjust to the mid-morning sun. Silence. There were no birds chirping, no squirrels playing in the trees. Just silence. I shot my eyes to all corners of the courtyard as I caught my breath. In the shaded area next to the Economics building I could make out the figures I had spotted earlier from my window. The next part of my plan went something like this. Travel across the courtyard, being careful to avoid any closed-in areas, which included the Geography and Economics departments, and head straight to the rear entrance of the cafeteria. It was the most direct route that would afford me the chance to pace myself due to the sunlight, at least that’s what I hoped.

  “Ahhhhh!!!” a scream rang out from the Economics building. I hunched down while my eyes tried to locate the source of the scream. “Help me! Oh god no!” I wasn’t the last one alive, at least for now. Slapping my leg and throwing the bat over my shoulder, I threw my body into a run toward the building. What the heck am I doing?

  ***

  I could feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins as I quickened my pace to the Economics building. The groups of zombies looming under the far-reaching shadows of the other dorms hadn’t noticed me yet. With my bat at the ready, I approached climbed the stairs to the front door.

  The inside was dark. My hand trembled as I cupped my eyes to peer in through the glass section of the door. I could make out a few broken desks, crumbled and blood-stained papers, and a few darkened mounds that I could only assume were bodies. I hope you know what you’re doing. Tightening my hand around the handle, I cracked open the door and slid inside.

  I cleared my throat. This is crazy. I took in a breath of musty death and yelled, “Hello!” No response. “Is anybody there?” I heard some rumbling on the floor above me.

  “Help me!” I heard the high-pitched voice crack out, “I’m trapped on the second floor and I don’t know where to go!” The voice broke into sobs. Cautiously I began moving toward the staircase, listening for any sign of movement.

  “I’ll be there in a minute,” I said. My voice sounded much more confident than I actually was. The smell was almost unbearable. Rotting flesh mixed with stale, dusty musk. I could hear the all too familiar sounds of scraping and dragging at multiple places within the dark hallway, but none were out in the open. I continued up the stairs as the sobs grew louder.

  As I my head peaked over the second floor I saw the back of an undead walker hunched over a classroom door with his bloodied arm reaching through the broken glass. He was wheezing quite quickly. Something had his attention behind the door.

  With a tightened grip, I crept up behind him as quietly as possible, glaring down the hallway to my left to make sure he was the only one. Sobs were coming from inside the classroom. I could feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins. Every heartbeat sent a pulse through my vision as I raised my bat. I really only had one good shot, so I had to make sure it was a home run. Just as I was in range for my swing, he looked over his shoulder with a glazed sneer.

  SCHLUMP! My bat hit the zombie hard to the head, knocking him to the floor. Stunned. I brought the bat down again before he could react. He stopped moving. I moved back toward the classroom door and looked inside. In the far corner was a girl roughly my age with dirty blond hair, wearing a pink hoodie. Her jeans had a hole in the knee, through which I could see striped socks. The high-tops on her feet matched her sweatshirt.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, slightly out of breath. At first, she kind of shrank away from me, and who could blame her? I’m sure I wasn’t exactly a sight for sore eyes, having just clubbed my first zombie.

  “Are you…you’re alive. Oh my God, you’re alive!” She looked like she was about to start crying, and I tried not to panic; the last thing either of us needed was for her to get hysterical.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I am, but we really need to get out of here, okay? I’m Sam.” She sniffled, ran a hand across her face. “You’re not hurt, are you?” I asked.

  “My name’s Lana. I’m alright, I just…I just saw you beat a zombie over the head. I don’t know what’s going on.” She kept glancing nervously at the bloody side of my bat. I turned it away from her. “What are you doing here? How did you get out? I’m so glad I’m not alone anymore.” The words were flowing out of her like water, and it was making me uneasy. There was no telling how many of them were still around—maybe within earshot.

  “Come on,” I said, grabbing her by the arm as gently as I could. I hoped she couldn’t feel my apprehension. “If we find somewhere safe, I’ll tell you everything you want to know.” Then a thought hit me, and I paused. “You need a weapon.”

  She froze. “A what?” Her eyes darted back to my bat. “Oh, God. I can’t fight them. I’ve never fought anything in my life. I can’t even—“

  “Lana,” I interrupted. “Lana, right? All you have to do is hit them.” She winced. “Yeah, trust me, I know. But it’s the only way we’re going to make it out.” I’m no life coach, but she wasn’t the only one whose life was at stake, and I was growing more attached to mine with every passing minute. I shot a look around the room; at first, there was nothing and my stomach sank. Then I saw it leaning up against the wall behind the professor’s lectern: a staff, one of the cool old ones with a metal handle. “Take that,” I said. “It’s all we’ve got, unless you want to run with a chair.”

  Just as she picked it up, a sickeningly familiar sound reached my ears. Feet, scraping. Maybe hands, if they were crawlers. I motioned for her to follow me, whispering, “Don’t make any noise.” She was paper white. I probably didn’t look much better. Stalking my way up to the half-open door, I started to peer around it.

  Oh, shoot. In the five minutes I’d spent inside the classroom, a small group of them had populated the corridor. They must have heard her crying, or us talking, or something. I looked back at Lana. “Not good?” she mouthed. I shook my head. Her face fell. For a few moments I hemmed and hawed, trying to find a way out, even though I knew there was only one. Finally, I signaled her that we were going to move. Lana swallowed, her grip tightening on the cane.

  I was no expert in zombie survival tactics, but I had a pretty good idea that our best bet was to move as quietly as possible and hope that we could travel a reasonable distance without being detected. What I didn’t know was how far they could see, how much they could hear, or what they could smell. We might’ve been in trouble either way. My heart raced as I tiptoed down the hall.

  It seemed like the zombies were pretty docile if they didn’t have anything to focus on. Lana and I tried our best not to make any sudden moves. Behind them, I could see the closed doors of the elevator, but I quickly drove that thought from my mind. If it stopped, or if there were already zombies in it, that was it for us. Even with my leg, I was far more willing to take my chances with the stairs. I made a very measured motion with my hand, indicating that I’d be heading for the stairwell. We were inching toward the undead barricade, hoping against hope that we’d be able to get by, when a scene from my worst nightmare happened. The elevator dinged.

  Instantly, all the zombies rushed to the source of the sound, which was thankfully away from us. They clawed at the door like a bunch of cats, some beating it with rotten fists. Their movement caused the stench to stir up in the air, and Lana gagged softly beside me. Gross as it was, I was more concerned with who—or what—was behind those slowly receding panels.

  Lana was the one who ans
wered my question. “Professor Reynolds?” She covered her mouth with one hand. “Oh my God.” My insides turned ice cold. Would he recognize her? The tattered hem of his ruined blazer matched the ragged blue tie around his neck. The left wing of his collar was soaked with blood. His eyeglasses were missing a lens. But he was looking straight at us. Lana took a step back, raising the cane in defense. That turned out to be a huge mistake.

  As soon as he saw it, the professor’s slack-jawed expression changed. The face twisted into a grim mask of anger, exposed jaw dropping open into a mostly noiseless scream. “What?!” I asked. “What’s wrong?” Lana’s eyes were wide. She was almost paralyzed with fear.

  “The cane,” she said weakly. “It’s—it’s his.” Her knuckles were white on the handle. “I think he wants it back.” Professor Reynolds shoved the other zombies aside, using hands that the virus had morphed into nasty-looking claws. He began to lurch toward us.

  I grabbed Lana’s wrist, making a valiant effort to ignore the terror rising from my stomach. “Don’t give it,” I said. “Please don’t.” Fortunately, the closing distance seemed to snap her out of that fear trance. “What do we do?” she asked, now transitioning into panic. I had to think fast. My eyes locked onto the propped-open door to the stairwell.

  “Knock him down the stairs,” I said. She stared at me incredulously for a second. “Come on!” Pounding my fist into my bad leg, I brandished the bat and ran as hard as I could in an unthinkable direction—toward the lumbering husk of Professor Reynolds. The one good thing about the zombies is that their reflexes aren’t so great, and he was too confused by my sudden rush to react in time to catch me. As I hurtled toward the open doorway, I became strongly aware of two things: one, he was following me now, and two, I had no idea what I was doing. If I kept going at this pace down the steps, I would break my neck instead of his. I had to rely on Lana. I shouted over my shoulder. “Hit him when I say now!” She didn’t reply, so I had to assume she heard me. The blood pounded in my ears. At the very last second, I ducked out of the way, slamming myself against the wall. “Now!”