Dead Man Walking: Living By Day, Dead By Night

Chapter 8: Disaster Strikes

While Zane slept peacefully in the nurse's office, Ryan and his gang were on the rooftop. Though they were exposed to the elements, they were ultimately safe from the hordes of undead who plagued the school. Or so they thought…

Unbeknownst to the group of young adults who were at the cusp of graduating from high school, they were being eyed by a particularly dangerous breed of predator. The Stalker, whose brain had malfunctioned after seeing Zane walking among both the living and the dead, had turned his sights on to far less dangerous prey.

With a vanishing step, the Stalker had jumped from one rooftop to another, silently landing on the High School's roof, and lurking in the shadows, just waiting to make an appearance. Lexi was snacking on a back of chips. The price she had paid for such a meal was enough to make her cry.

But nobody spoke about what they had seen the girl do with their fearless leader. Instead, they recognized that she had indeed earned the meagre snack. It was perhaps because Lexi was in a bad mood that she tried to ignore the taunting gazes that her "friends" gave her.

Thus, she was quick to notice something moving in the shadows, not too far away from the small encampment the group of them had made in the center of the rooftop. Already skittish from all the terrifying events that had occurred earlier in the day, Lexi screamed out at the top of her voice, alerting all the other students that something was watching them.

"What was that! Something's over there!"

Unfortunately for the group, they didn't take Lexi's warning seriously, and were quick to condemn the girl as being paranoid.

"Would you shut the hell up? There's nothing out there! There's no way those monsters could get on our roof! Here I'll show you!"

The boy who confidently boasted this quickly pulled out his phone and turned on the flashlight where he shined it into the direction Lexi had pointed where much to his horror, and that of his group, a hooded undead monster stood lurched over… A sadistic smirk was on its face, while its claws twitched in anticipation of the fresh meat before it.

Before anyone could react the Stalker disappeared, almost as if it vanished into thin air, and by the time it had reappeared again, the boy who flashed his light on it had lost his head, his blood splattering all over the rest of the students as the Stalker emerged on the complete and utter side of Ryan and his group with the boy's head in his hand, a terrified look was displayed on the severed head's deceased face.

This caused Lexi and the other girls to scream bloody murder as they ran away from the Stalker and towards the doors they had previously barricaded to keep out the Walkers. Meanwhile, Ryan and the other boys quickly pulled their shit together and tried to fight the Stalker. And admirable gesture, but a foolish one.

The Stalker used its superior speed and strength to rip one of the boys in half, as if he were merely tearing a paper in half. Before punching its claws through the heart of another boy. All in two seconds.

Realizing that this was not an ordinary undead, Ryan gave the order to retreat back into the school where far less dangerous predators lurked.

'Run! Run for your lives!"

He and the other boys quickly halted their actions and ran for the rooftop entrance back into the school. All the while, the Stalker slaughtered them like cattle. In the end, another two boys were felled by the Tier IV Undead monstrosity before Ryan and the others could escape back into the school, where they barricaded the Stalker back on the rooftop.

Ryan was out of breath, and had visibly soiled himself, but he was not alone in this regard. Everyone else had also pissed their pants in fear of what had just happened, and seemingly out of nowhere. Lexi was crying once more, as was the other girl, while continuing to scream.

"What the fuck was that? Oh my God! Where are Marcus and Sean?"

Ryan shook his head. He had only seen the deaths of the first three boys, but if Marcus and Sean were not with them, then that only meant that the monster had claimed their lives as well. Thus, he could only sigh heavily and admit the truth to the rest of the group.

"They didn't make it…"

This caused all of the survivors to become glum, as they questioned how they would survive now that they were trapped back on the second floor of the school, with a small horde of Walkers between them and safety. Of course, Lexi was the first to ask just what the hell their plan was.

"What are we going to do now?"

With a heavy sigh, Ryan steeled his resolve, though he felt like he was going to throw up from what he had just witnessed. He somehow prevented himself from doing so as he gave the next orders to his group.

"We have no choice… We have to clear out the school! Find whatever weapons you can! Because we're going hunting!"

--

Zane awoke the next day sometime in the middle of the morning. If not for a particularly nosy person, he would have slept longer. But the man awoke while feeling a pair of hands press on his shoulder, pushing him back and forth in the middle of his bed. This was followed by a voice that Zane found to be particularly irritating.

"Zane! Come on, wake up! It's almost ten!"

Knowing that it was Elena who dared to disturb the man's slumber, Zane sighed heavily and slowly opened his eyes. Upon realizing he was still alive, even after a literal apocalypse had begun, the young man said the same three words he spoke every morning.

"God fucking dammit…"

Despite his melancholy attitude, Zane rose from the bed to reveal his toned body to Elena, who immediately blushed and looked away, while chastising the man for sleeping in his underwear.

"Oh, my God! Zane, please put some clothes on!"

Zane was not the least bit embarrassed, not because he was well experienced with women. In fact, the exact opposite was the case. But rather at this stage in his life, he was physically incapable of becoming embarrassed. Because that meant he would have to care enough about his life to be concerned with such petty matters.

Instead, he quickly began to dress himself, and though Elena tried to look away, she couldn't help but gaze at Zane's abs, almost as if she was curious how a man who seemed to not care about himself, or his appearance managed to maintain such a good physique.

Elena's eyes were not the only one catching glimpses of the young man as he began to put on his socks, and then his trousers, then his shirt, shoes, and finally his jacket. In fact, Zane's former homeroom teacher Olivia was staring as much as Elena was, but she was far from embarrassed as she did so.

Once Zane had finished getting dressed, he attached his gun belt to his waist, before making sure the pistol was not only properly loaded, but holstered as well. When Zane had finished all of this, he looked over at the two women who were staring at him, and sighed once more, before asking why they looked so hot and bothered, in a way that implied he knew they were staring at him the entire time.

"Did you enjoy the show?"

Elena stammered, struggling to express any coherent sentiment. While Olivia simply nodded her head and responded in a shameless manner.

"Very much so, thank you!"

Zane did not react to the woman's words, and instead approached one of the bags on the floor, which contained a variety of food, water, and medicine. Once he had done this, he headed towards the door, where Elena was quick to ask just what the hell he was thinking of doing.

"Zane! What… What exactly is our plan? I mean… If things are as bad as you think they are going to be… Then surely we have some kind of plan, right?"

Despite this obvious attempt to get the man to stick by her side, Zane looked at the woman with his uncaring and dark eyes, before saying a simple phrase that expressed his intent, while also shattering the young woman's hopes of survival.

"Goodbye Elena…"

This was the second time Zane had said this in the last twenty-four hours. And the last time he did so, he had abandoned her and his class to their fates. Knowing that the man was going to run away again, Elena fell to her knees, and quivered, no longer having the strength to stand as she watched the young man leave her behind yet again.

Olivia, however, had more backbone… She knew that the odds of her surviving on her own were virtually zero, and so far Zane seemed to have a level head in an incredibly terrifying situation. Perhaps the boy had more survival skills than she ever thought, and was quick to rush to Elena's side, helping the girl to her feet before assuring her they would follow after Zane even if he wanted them to.

"Don't just sit there, girl! Grab a bag and let's go after him! We can't let Zane escape from us… He is our best chance at surviving this whole ordeal!"

Thus, the silver-haired mature beauty forced her former student to her feet, while grabbing hold of the one of the bags Zane had filled the night before during his little venture. Not even asking where these two bags had come from.

Elena did the same as the two of them hurried after Zane, who had already gone well beyond their line of sight.

--

Zane left Elena and his former homeroom teacher behind. Now that he confirmed that he could survive among the dead without incident, the living would only hinder him. As was proven last night when that damned fool nearly got him killed.

Thus, Zane planned to completely reject the half of himself that was still considered a living being, and live among the dead. After all, they were the new rulers of this world, whether the living wanted to admit it or not.

But the moment he entered the school's hallways, he noticed that a lot of the Walkers were lying dead with their brains bashed in. Something had killed them throughout the night… No, that wasn't right, more like the early morning while Zane was still asleep.

And as Zane began to investigate whether these Walkers still had their blood crystals intact, he found that aside from some blunt force trauma inflicted upon their skulls, there had been no attempts to recover the precious resource that had suddenly appeared with this apocalypse.

Thus, Zane began to scavenge the Walkers who had been killed, and managed to quickly loot a small handful of Blood Crystals after digging around their skulls. It was while he was collected another such valuable gem, that Zane finally came across what, or whom, had killed these monsters.

A small group of students who Zane was vaguely familiar with stood in the hallway covered in blood, whether it was their own, or that of the Walkers Zane did not know. But what he saw was this small group of students hovering over the freshly deceased corpses of walkers.

Not wanting to get involved with these idiots, Zane planned to sneak by their frontline when one of them noticed him looting the blood crystals from the undead that they had killed.

"Holy shit… Isn't that fucking Zane?"

Zane naturally stood up after hearing this, having covertly pocketed the blood crystal in his hand, before stepping away from the corpse by his side… There was an emotionless expression on his face as he sheathed his knife.

Meanwhile, the other students had makeshift weapons, fashioned from the legs of chairs and tables, or anything else they could get their hands on from some of the classrooms that were vacant that could potentially be used as weapons.

After all, while some of the classes on the second floor were still barricaded, after being ordered to by the President of the United States during the previous day, others did not have classes at the time of the outbreak, and thus they could be looted for supplies.

The other students did not look happy to see Zane, who they thought had abandoned them and gotten himself killed the previous day. And Ryan was most pissed of all. The young man quickly called out to Zane with a hostile tone in his voice.

"You're still alive? Figures… A cockroach like you is impossible to get rid of! That's an awfully nice gun belt you have there… It would be wise of you to hand it over to us… For the good of the school, of course!"

Zane however did not do as Ryan had said… Instead he unholstered the handgun, and held it at his side, as if he was not taking an overtly hostile measure, but was ready to begin shooting his way out of this situation if he had to.

The sight of Zane's cold-blooded gaze staring them down, and the fact that he had withdrew his pistol caused one of the boys in the front to begin to panic, he was about to look back and ask Ryan to let Zane be, when the former captain of the football team screamed at his friend.

"Idiot! There's one of him, and eight of us! He won't be able to shoot us all!"

Zane was, of course, just about to start shooting, when a much needed distraction occurred. Elena and Olivia had finally caught up with Zane and shouted after him with excitement when they saw they that had just walked into an incredibly tense situation.

"Zane, wait up!"

Everyone in Ryan's group was surprised to see that Elena had survived, and that Miss Bennett was with her. And though Ryan's group looked elated that Elena was still alive, Zane was far from happy… Because her appearance in this showdown had just made things a hundred times more complicated.