Chapter one

I've always been called strange. I don't exactly know why people think I'm that way because they don't even have a reasonable excuse. I mean sure it's true and all but they don't know that I can read their minds and despite being able to, every day I go to school I wish that I was never able to know what people were thinking because in high school you just really don't want to know.

It was a chilly morning in November. The scent of winter was in the air with all the trees standing bare and skeletal. I walked down the crowded hall of Shady Brook high, an ironic name for a school so bland. I was listening to the inane chatter of students and the buzzing of hundreds of minds racing at once. I heard the thoughts of Mr. Edderman, the vice-principal about the upcoming staff meeting, Natalie Thompson's thoughts about how she thinks her boyfriend is cheating on her, I mean come on, of course, he is, James Rogers has done that at least sixty other times already and I also had the great displeasure to read his mind beforehand.

I met up with Eric in the hall and the rest of his "happy tree friends" I despise the whole lot of them but Eric's cool. He at least doesn't hug trees and scolds you for not doing the same. Disgusting. Anyway, we were talking about the next math test we were thinking of asking out even though that one was technically one-sided considering that I don't date. It's kind of funny to look back and to remember that I was once so worried about such inane things. Anyway, we split up and headed to the classroom where I just had to pass that stuck up jerk Cody Everard. I mean come on the guy's dumber than dirt, he plays football, and can't even think up good insults. what's worse he looks at me with this blank look on his face. It's creepy.

Then as I walked through the crowded hall I got this chill running down my spine. From the corner of my eye, I saw my ninth grade history teacher just staring at me with those blank dead eyes of his. It's unnerving. It's not like it is with Cody who's mind I can't read because there's nothing to read in the first place. It's creepy because whenever I'm around it feels like he's purposely thinking of something. There's a different flow to his thoughts; it feels forced rather than natural. And there he was standing silently in the corner. Then our eyes met. mine a bright green, his, a muddy greenish-brown. Kinda like a foul puddle. For what seemed like an hour we stared at each other silently and finally I blinked and then the next moment I was standing alone in the hall. no crowd, no teacher, just me, and the receding sounds of hundreds of students quieting down as class started. I continued to stand there thinking about what that could've been about. Normally I'll get thoughts and vibes and sometimes flashes of memory but this time, just some mundane stuff about grading. Maybe someone failed history so badly that they reminded them of me. Maybe Mr. Hallowell is a serial killer. I stopped moving and played with that thought in my head for a minute. No, he's not that creepy.

little did I know that this was the beginning of a series of events that were going to change my life forever. Gone would be the days where all I had to worry about was homework and trying to ignore the constant buzzing of minds. Soon I would find out my own life would be at risk as would others whom I would soon learn to depend upon as they would depend on me. The strangest thing about it? It all started with the zombies