take me to the riot

ONE

OUR CITY NEVER SLEEPS.

It's something that happens too quickly for anyone to really understand. In one minute, Shay's in her Chemistry class, searching her bag for a pencil to use for the pop quiz that's just been announced and the next the alarms are going off and everyone's being ushered into the school basement-slash-fall out center.

The students are panicking and the teacher's are trying to get everyone to be quiet while Principal Hughes says words like infection and contagious and quarantined until further notice.

Shay's head snaps up at that part and her eyes widen. "What the fuck is going on?" she asks loudly, but the voices of the other students drown her out.

"Some serious shit is going down outside right now," a curly haired boy says from beside her. Shay watches him with wide eyes as he takes out his phone, her heart beating in her ears as she runs through a number of things that can be going on right now. But none of the situations fit with the words Principal Hughes had used.

"What do you mean?" she asks instead and moves closer to him.

He holds his phone out to her and presses play on the video of the screen. "My friend Joe just sent me this link. It's fucking crazy," the boy says just as a man runs past in the video and attacks a random woman.

The video quality is kind of shitty but Shay can tell exactly what's happening as the man takes a huge chunk out out of her neck, pulling away meat and skin and there's blood spraying everywhere. The woman's scream is deafening. She tries to cover up the wound with her hand but it does nothing. Blood spurts out and the man keeps biting at her neck and shoulders and arms. Finally there's a cop that comes and tackles the man, bashes his skull in until he stops moving and there's more blood but this time it's black. The makeshift camera-man screams as a skinny teenage boy pounces on the cop this time and-

"Stop-stop the video," Shay commands and closes her eyes for a moment, trying to calm herself down with her breathing and not throw up all over the floor. It does not work. The only thing she sees when she closes her eyes is meat, skin and blood between teeth.

Several people move away from her. She wipes her mouth with her sleeve and feels too sick to be that embarrassed.

"Sorry," she says anyway. The boy doesn't look all that disgusted. As if he's used to having strange girls vomiting all over his shoes.

"S'okay," he tells her, nonchalantly, "I wanted to do the same thing when I first saw it."

"Is it real?" she asks, straightening up, "The video I mean." Her stomach still feels a bit queasy.

"Hundred percent," the boy says, "I hear it's all over the news along with a bunch of other videos like it. We aren't the only place where this is happening. Apparently we're in the midst of a zombie apocalypse."

"Holy fuck," Shay says and the boy nods in agreement.

"Holy fuck indeed," he says, "It's like a nerd's wet fuckin' dream out there." Or something out of a Hollywood flick, she thinks. Everything feels very unreal and Shay wonders how this suddenly became her life.

"Shit," she swears, eyes widening as she remembers something very important, "My dad. Fuck it all, my Dad's out there in that shitstorm. I have to get out of here."

The boy snorts. "Good luck with that. The whole school's on lockdown. No one's getting in or out. Just look around."

He gestures with his arm to where teachers have completely blockaded the entrances along with the security guards. Shay grits her teeth in frustration and takes a deep breath. She must look like she's about to cry or something because the boy suddenly looks very alarmed and instantly tries to comfort her.