Outside the nursing room.
"Miss, step back," Tim said, positioning himself in front of me, protecting me from any danger.
"Be careful, Tim," I told him, noticing he was slowly approaching the nursing room entrance.
He advanced slowly.
He motioned to us and the boys we met to keep quiet.
We all immediately nodded, scared.
Tim pulled a knife from his belt and held it professionally in my opinion.
He approached and looked through the open door.
He stood right at the door, on high alert, while searching inside for any possible danger. From his reaction, I assumed there was no danger, as his shoulders dropped and the firm grip with which he held his knife relaxed.
I advanced slowly, careful not to make excessive noise.
At the same time, the boys advanced to the nursing room entrance, just like me. Now that I was more relaxed, I noticed they were classmates named Marlon and Louis, with whom I had shared some classes.
The fear and constant state of alert I had been in for a few hours made me perceive things in much more detail.
The trail of blood in the hallway, dark and sticky stains extending from the nursing room door, had their origin inside.
I approached the door just enough to peek my head in, trying not to disturb Tim.
I tried to look around, searching for the source of this bloody chaos.
The first thing that caught my eye was the mess.
Overturned chairs, a knocked-over trash can, and dark red, almost black, stains scattered on the floor, some already dry and others with an unsettling sheen.
A pungent and unfamiliar odor floated in the air.
My eyes moved, searching for something, anything that would explain the chaos.
"Tim, do you know what happen…?" I tried to ask, but something hit me.
I saw him, beyond Tim.
He was lying on the floor next to the main cot, near the wall.
He was wearing a soaked police uniform, but not with water.
His head was resting on its side, inert, and at the back, where his neck should be, there was a large, shattered hole, from which a thick substance had oozed and stuck to the floor.
The sight chilled my blood.
His skin also caught my attention.
It wasn't the pale color of someone who had fainted. It was a grayish, sickly tone, with some bruised areas.
There was an unnatural tension on his face, his jaw dropped in a grotesque gesture.
His eyes, one half-closed and the other wide open, were glassy and lifeless.
On the floor, a few centimeters from his head, there was a stain of dry, yellowish, viscous vomit, mixed with something dark.
That sight hit me like lightning, a brutal and raw truth: what lay there was a corpse.
A dead man, in a way I had never witnessed before.
It was then that the smell became inescapable.
The initial metallic, pungent stench of blood mixed with something deeper. A strong, sweetish, disgusting, dense odor that made me tremble.
It was a heavy, nauseating aroma that clung to my throat and churned my stomach to the point where I felt a bile rise.
It was nothing I had ever smelled before, and every fiber of my being identified it as dangerous and unnatural.
I could feel it invading my nostrils, filling my lungs with its putridness.
An icy shiver ran down my spine.
My breath caught, the air in the nursing room became heavy and suffocating.
My knees trembled, and I had to lean on the doorframe to keep from falling.
My mouth went completely dry.
This was real.
A man lay dead in the most horrifying way, and that terrible smell was part of him.
My eyes couldn't leave the body, my mind trying to process what I was seeing.
Murdered police officer?
In school?
A mixture of terror, confusion, and a strange morbid curiosity kept me paralyzed, the horror of the scene eclipsing any other emotion.
Tim was talking to me, but I was so focused on holding back imminent vomit that I couldn't hear what he was saying. I only noticed that he looked worried.
He tried to block the corpse from my line of sight.
He wore a guilty expression.
He gently rubbed my back, but as he approached, he stirred a mass of air with that smell.
I smelled it again, that stench.
Unable to hold back any longer, I pushed Marlon and Louis aside and ran to a secluded spot to vomit.
Ugh! Gulp! Blech! Puke!
The bitter taste filled my mouth, and my throat burned as I vomited in the hallway, away from everyone.
I staggered, clinging to the nearest wall.
The air, heavy and thick, burned with every breath.
My eyes were watery, and cold sweat clung to my forehead.
My mouth felt dry, pasty, and a painful knot persisted in my stomach.
My head buzzed with the echo of horror.
Every muscle tense, exhausted.
The surprise had transformed into a sharp, cold, paralyzing fear that left me breathless, with only the certainty that nothing would ever be the same.
"Emily! What happened to you?!" Minnie asked, alarmed, running towards me.
"It's just…," I tried to say, but the boys' screams reached us, filled with panic and fear.
"What the hell!"
"Someone's been killed in the nursing room!"
They both shouted, completely terrified.
One of them fell onto his backside trying to back away quickly, while the other tripped over his friend on the ground, falling onto his face.
"Ouch!"
"My butt!"
"What are they talking about, Emily?" Minnie asked me, scared, slowly approaching the nursing room, guided by her curiosity.
"Stop!" I exclaimed with a worried tone, grabbing her arm to stop her.
"What's going on? I don't understand why they're acting like this," she said, confused, while the boys remained on the floor, though slowly crawling away from the nursing room door.
"It's just… there's a dead man… in there," I revealed to her, my voice unconsciously faltering due to the fear that gripped me.
"A dead person?!" she asked, taking several steps back, moving as far as possible from the entrance.
"Yes… it's a police officer," I informed her with sorrow.
"Miss, are you alright?" Tim asked with a worried tone, pulling out a handkerchief and kindly offering it to me.
"I'm better, Tim. Although I still feel a knot in my stomach," I replied sincerely, wiping the trace of saliva that remained on my mouth and chin.
"It's good to hear… I'm so sorry you saw that, Miss," he expressed with a hint of guilt in his voice.
"It wasn't your fault… I approached on my own without asking if everything was alright inside the nursing room," I consoled him, seeking to alleviate his remorse.
Now I felt more recovered, though I still perceived that unpleasant smell very close to me.
It seemed to haunt me, though I was also aware that it was probably due to the initial shock.
"What do we do now? Should we notify someone?" Minnie asked, her voice accelerated and her eyes frantically looking at both of us.
"First, you need to calm down, Minerva. Just breathe… We will inform the teachers as soon as possible, and we will also contact the police to give notice," I explained to her with a serious and resolute tone.
"Fuuu… Okay."
"Tim, can you examine the officer's body?" I inquired Tim, remembering that my father had once mentioned his previous experience as a soldier.
"Of course, Miss, but it's preferable that you wait outside," Tim warned, glancing at us and at the boys who remained on the floor, trying to process what they had witnessed.
Two minutes passed, marked by sounds of movement inside the nursing room, and a mixture of anticipation and nervousness outside.
Then, Tim came out with a visibly worried expression.
"What happened to the officer?" I asked him.
"Mmmm… I'm afraid what Miss Yuki mentioned earlier might be a possibility," he replied with a notable resignation.
"Are you kidding? Are you saying it was a zombie?" I asked, trying to maintain a normal tone of voice, but panic and fear made me raise my voice.
"I'm afraid I'm not kidding with you."
"That's crazy," I commented, leaning against the wall, almost collapsing onto it.
"The officer was shot, but from the projectile marks and the abnormal degree of decomposition, he seems to have died an hour ago, but not from the bullet. Additionally, there are traces of two other people."
"Two other people?"
"Yes. I think it should be the officer's partner, and perhaps the nurse in charge."
"So, why are there blood marks in the hallway? Did the officer transform there and then they took him to the nursing room?" I asked, confused, already assuming that zombies were a reality.
If it were a normal situation, I would find it hard to assimilate that something as fantastic as the living dead could exist, but with what I observed, there wasn't much left to doubt.
The only thing I could do is deny it, but doing so could endanger my friends or my family.
"I'm afraid it's quite the opposite… It's very probable that the nurse or this officer's partner left through the open door… and are currently wandering around the school."
"Zombies?" everyone else asked in unison.
Violet looked worried and occasionally glanced at Minnie, who looked at me strangely. Both, from what they had heard, only assumed that an officer had been attacked inside the nursing room. However, Tim's analysis and his conclusion seemed unrealistic to them.
"I don't blame them… If I didn't know what I know now, I'd be thinking the same as them," I reflected as I looked at Louis and Marlon, who were stammering in fear.
"Zombies?"
"Like from WWZ or Black Ops?"
"Impossible!" they both denied unison, without waiting for a response from us.
"Even if I don't believe you, what do we do now?" Minnie asked skeptically. "I don't think we should treat Violet in there," she added, showing a bit of disgust just imagining what was inside.
"I think we should take the medicine to the classroom and treat Violet there… Well, Marlon too," I commented, looking at both.
"I'll go in for the medicine, and then we'll wait for the military to act," Tim said.
"Okay, we'll wait for you."
Tim entered the nursing room again.
After a few minutes, he came out with two bags made from clean nursing room sheets.
With the medicine and other items ready, we headed to the classroom with Marlon and Louis.
Upon arriving, we noticed from outside that Rony's dad was watching the surroundings very cautiously.
He let out a sigh of relief when he saw us and then smiled so broadly that it seemed to illuminate his face.
"Miss, Tim, how did it go? … Why do you look so pale, Miss?" he asked, his tone of voice initially excited, but as he noticed my appearance and Tim's serious face, it gradually faded.
"We found a dead officer in the nursing room," Tim replied, looking at him intently.
"What?" he asked, surprised, unconsciously lowering his voice as he inquired about the seriousness of the situation.
"I think what Alex said was real," he commented without directly answering.
"Are you saying those things are real? And they could be inside the high school?" he asked, this time grabbing Tim's arms in search of answers, looking desperate.
"I'm afraid so… The worst part is, as the chief and Alex said, the military has known about this for a long time," Tim replied with a pessimistic and disheartened tone.
"It didn't seem like they came for that at first, did it?" I interjected, remembering the behavior the soldiers showed when they first arrived.
"It's very probable that they only came to protect the place at first, and that, due to the appearance of these infected, they decided to lock down the school to contain the threat," Tim replied, analyzing everything from his experience.
"How did they get inside?" Rony's dad inquired, with a voice tinged with astonishment.
"I believe there are several possibilities: it could have been the officers who came with the military, that they infiltrated through some other unprotected area, or even that some of the students were already infected beforehand," Tim analyzed with remarkable precision.
"So, what course of action should we take now?" Rony's dad asked, seeking clear direction.
"First, we will attend to the injured, and then we will evaluate the next steps."
Approximately fifteen minutes later.
Everyone in the classroom was fervently discussing the shocking events Marlon and Louis had witnessed in the nursing room.
We wanted to keep the facts in the dark to avoid generating unnecessary panic, but they divulged every detail as soon as they arrived in the classroom.
Tim tried to explain what we knew, but many of them vehemently refused to accept such an illogical argument.
I was about to ask Tim if we should leave the high school, when a new announcement resonated.
"Attention, everyone! This is Sergeant Ellis speaking! I regret to inform you that some infiltrators, presumably from recent marches, have managed to enter the facilities before our arrival! During this time, they have attacked some of your classmates and also staff members!"
"We will now proceed with a thorough check, section by section, to contain these threats! I require your full cooperation!"
After the announcement was broadcast, everyone in the classroom began to harbor suspicions.
Had they not heard the boys' account and Tim's detailed explanation, it is very likely they would have interpreted the message strictly literally.
The scenario, however, was now completely different.
Judging by the expressions on their faces, they now seemed inclined to believe in the unsettling possibility that what we were asserting was real.
After a few brief minutes, distinct footsteps began to be heard in the adjacent hallway.
"I fervently hope they don't harm us," I mused, in a panic, as I watched two soldiers knock brusquely on the door and then open it without awaiting any response.
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[A/N: CHAPTER COMPLETED
Hello everyone.
I hope you enjoyed the episode. It's a bit long, but it allowed me to skip any scenes or split the episode into two, both with filler, hahaha.
Emily experiences something few can witness without reacting exactly the way she did. I hope I described the scenes well, but since I've never seen anything like this before, all I can do is imagine it.
Comment if you like these long episodes, or if you prefer shorter ones.
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Read my other novels
#The Walking Dead: Vision of the Future.
#Vinland Kingdom: Race Against Time.
You can find them on my profile.]