Chapter 1: Let’s Have Sex [1]
I hate high school.
I’ve always hated it, but never more than right now.
"RUN! FUCKING RUN!"
The voice belongs to Marcus, I think—or maybe it was Jake. Hard to tell when terror strips away everything that makes a person recognizable. We’re all just prey now, sprinting through the familiar hallways that have become a hunting ground.
My sneakers squeak against the polished linoleum as I pump my arms, lungs already burning. Behind me, the sound of our footsteps creates a frantic rhythm—thud-thud-thud-thud—like a drumbeat counting down to our deaths.
I make the mistake of glancing back.
Jesus Christ.
They’re gaining on us. The things that used to be people—our teachers, maybe even some students from other classes—move with a terrifying, single-minded purpose. Their clothes hang in tatters, skin gray and mottled, but it’s their eyes that freeze my blood. Empty. Hungry. Fixed on us with the kind of focus I’ve never seen in any living person.
"No, no, no," I mutter through gritted teeth, forcing my legs to move faster. "I can’t die like this. Not here. Not in this shithole."
All those times I fantasized about never having to come back to Roosevelt High, and now I might never leave.
We round the corner by the science wing, and I can hear my classmates’ ragged breathing mixing with my own. There were twelve of us when we started running from the cafeteria. Now I count eight sets of footsteps behind me, maybe less.
"HELP ME! PLEASE!"