Chapter 42: The back rows
Before he could turn, a thud sounded behind him. The sound of a body crashing into the lockers soon followed.
The flashlight beams illuminating the ghouls up front grew erratic. Some dropped to the ground, while the rest turned inward, plunging the front into darkness.
Chloe was quick to pull out a spare flashlight, illuminating the ghouls for the frontline fighters. Miles did the same in the open hand supporting Grimm, turning at the same time to face the back rows.
The redirected lights illuminated a pale figure crouching where the fourth row used to be.
A pale, muscular human torso fused with another malformed human torso formed its center. Two pairs of arms extended from both. One, muscular and wiry, supported its weight, while the other, curved and almost insectoid in structure, ended in bone blades embedded into the body of a student below.
Its two heads released long growls, the most vicious coming from the head attached to the malformed torso. Pale skin stretched over where eyes should have been. Its lips were missing entirely, revealing viciously sharp teeth stuck in a bloody jaw that was partially fused into the main torso’s shoulder.
Black frostbite streaked deeply along its limbs, snaking visibly along its torso through the tatters of its uniform.
To the side, a boy lay strewn next to a caved-in locker. He was unconscious. Blood seeped out of every orifice.
On the other side, the last student of the fourth row pressed herself against a locker. Miles recognized her as one of Chloe’s friends.
She stared at the creature in abject horror. The moment the first head glanced at her, she broke and ran blindly towards the gym.
The girl never made it far, collapsing to the ground a few moments after she began running, choking and coughing all the way. She stopped moving after a moment.
Having dealt completely with the fourth row, the beast turned its hungry gaze to the fifth. It swung a bladed limb as it turned, forcing the third row to back off before it pounced on the fifth.
Not everyone backed off on time. A boy collapsed with a grave slash across his stomach.
It crashed into the center of the fifth row, toppling the student there below it. It managed to stab him twice, before it was interrupted.
A broken mop stick pierced into its exposed back, only going through an inch before stopping. Mia held the shaft in her increasingly reddened arms.
That much seemed enough to distract it, as the malformed head screamed more in annoyance than pain.
It swung its proper arms, slamming both students on opposite sides of it into lockers before dashing towards Mia, blade arms outstretched.
Miles felt someone speed walk past him: Morgan.
The man still had a hand pointed towards the cafeteria door. Its meaning remained the same.
’Keep moving. We can’t stop here.’
He jumped in front of Mia, completing what Miles assumed to be his thirteenth step. The man swung his bat just in time to intercept the very first strike, derailing the beast.
Morgan pressed towards the beast as it reoriented itself, dodging a blade headed for his neck while slamming his bat into its shoulder.
With the beast locked down, those still able began moving again. Mia shook Sarah, who was standing next to her, out of her daze before pointing towards the collapsed forms in the last row.
She didn’t wait for the girl to respond before walking as fast as possible towards them, giving Morgan and the beast a wide berth as she did so. Sarah followed behind, hesitant and slow.
Miles took his focus off them and brought it back to the front. His eyes widened at how much the situation had devolved there.
Without Morgan as an anchor point, both Brandon and Ryan were on the brink of being overwhelmed. Two ghouls lay immobilized below them, but they still struggled against another four. Two more sprinted towards them just beyond the range of the flashlight.
"Can you walk?"
Miles whispered, glancing at Grimm. The boy hesitated, then nodded firmly. He wasted no time pondering what that meant as he withdrew his support, letting the boy stagger on his own before walking towards the front, flashlight in one hand and bat in the other.
He jumped midway, completing his thirteenth step before he reached them. Just in time too, as the moment he landed, another ghoul shot out of the darkness, tackling the struggling Ryan.
Smashing his bat into the skull of one of the distracted ghouls still hounding the boy, he kicked the new one off him, only to be attacked from his side by a third ghoul, nearly tackling himself as well.
Barely keeping his footing, he ignored the pain in his ribs before slamming the bottom of his flashlight into the gnashing teeth, pushing the ghoul back and giving himself some space to breathe.
The light from his flashlight flickered violently, barely showing him the ghoul he’d kicked earlier charging towards him.
Luckily, it was intercepted by Ryan before it reached him, allowing him to focus on his other ghoul.
The flashlight stabilized then, allowing him to find a ghoul with black blood dripping off its face rushing towards him. He swung, nearly wincing as the pain in his ribs flared, hitting the side of its ugly mug and disorienting it.
It still stood, the force from his strike not nearly enough to send it down. But that much was fine. He took advantage of its confusion to strike again, slamming its skull cleanly and finally sending it to the ground.
One more strike was all he needed to see two new notifications pop up. He didn’t have the luxury of celebrating. The pain from his ribs had grown even worse, making it hard to hold his bat properly.
He barely heard a gasp over the storm, turning to find Chloe tripped on a patch of snow, two ghouls standing over her.
She’d headed over to relieve some pressure off Brandon. Given the fact the boy was nowhere in sight, he assumed she had succeeded.
Miles gritted his teeth, tightening his grip on the bat before stepping towards her.
Then, two gunshots rang out, dropping both ghouls.
Unbeknownst to him, Grimm had made it all the way to the cafeteria doors. Resting against them now, he leveled his rifle at the rest of the room, a flashlight beside him illuminating his targets.