'how fierce you are, blazing flames that burns that which comes close, yet still your flames warms many... oh, the heart of man... how vicious...'
Day One
In the common room, the small group remained silent, nervousness creeping in as they waited.
It had already been almost two dozen minutes since Dion returned from the broadcasting room and they had yet to welcome any survivor. It resulted in a dreadful atmosphere settling amongst them, honestly just thinking about why no one was here was dangerously concerning.
It was like a deep well that drew you into awful thoughts, growing deeper and deeper still as the seconds rolled by.
Dion sighed.
The common room was long, like really long, its length should range somewhere between 50 and 60 meters, with a wooden podium at the end that took only about 5 meters or so of space, so Dion didn't need to worry about it being cramped up or stuffy.
The room was completely bare, or rather almost bare, as every piece of heavy furniture here had been moved beside the door, to be used to barricade it when the time was right.
Dion moved to gaze out the open window, taking habitual sips from the plastic bottle of Coca-Cola in his hand. The common room was a floor high so it gave him a good vantage point, from here he could see the zombies still clamoring at the huge speaker which - like the megaphones in the hallway - was still blasting shrill electronic disturbance-like noise.
It was annoying and particularly disturbing, but it was also what he wanted.
The movements of the various scattered survivors towards the common room was going to be a difficult journey, he could vividly remember his, so this was in one way a way of offering his assistance a little, distracting these zombies by giving them something else to pounce on.
That was in one part the reason, Dion had reasoned that gathering almost a hundred individuals in one room was going to be particularly noisy. He was a Senior Prefect and he had vast experiences with such situations, once students were together and in silence, they would like to discuss something - no matter how irrelevant - with their friends, so multiply that by the various students and their various friends that would be scattered across the common room and you would be having a market place.
Although, it was also true that their mental states was going to be vastly altered after all they had experienced which would encourage most to lick their wounds in silence, but Dion wasn't willing to bet their safety, his safety, on the fact that some troubled kids behaved.
... hence the noise.
It was the perfect way to silence any possible noise that would have otherwise brought the zombies running. It was ironic, using noise to cancel out noise, the many snuffs out the few, granted they may have to be shouting at the top of their voices to hear each other, but it would keep them alive.
After a while James walked to his side, his eyes also gazing at the mass of mindless... former humans, clawing mindlessly at the almost storey high speaker, disturbingly most of them had their throats ripped open, or their entire intestines and organs hanging out but yet they operated with a complete disregard for everything... everything that wasn't human flesh.
"... zero reaction to stimulus...," Dion muttered.
James beside him raised an eyebrow.
Dion sighed, then turned towards him.
"We need guns, lots of them".
James was silent, no reaction showing on his poker face, then after a while he nodded.
"The security team have their firearms stored in a safe room below ground level," Dion continued. "It can only be accessed from a stairway just beside the Chief of staff's office, it's like the school's basement".
" That would be difficult," James mused. "That area is close to the cafeteria, so I think it would be filled with those things".
He pointed below.
" Yes," Dion sighed. " And besides that we are going to need the keys to open the iron bars otherwise going there would be meaningless".
James remained silent, then he looked at the pistol he carried, the one he had snatched from Osaremeh who wanted to kill them.
"But it seems some people already have".
Dion followed his gaze and his eyes rested on the firearm thoughtfully. It could be surmised that Osaremeh and his crew had already been to the basement since they were already in possession of a firearm, but sometimes things weren't always what they seemed.
"Yeah... about that..." Dion scratched the back of his head.
" Huh?"
"You see...." Dion paused, he felt uneasy about putting his thoughts into words. "That gun, that particular one you are holding, it... it belonged to Oga Batho, it is usually only used by the the shift head".
James eyes narrowed, '...belonged...'
Dion sighed, then he used a finger to push up his glasses.
"It is also impossible for him to have left his gun lying around," Dion continued, then all of a sudden his voice turned very chilling. "That means that at some point... Osaremeh must have met Oga Bartholomew".
A moment of silence passed between them as they considered the issue, the fact that Osaremeh and his gang met the old security officer and were now in possession of his firearm wasn't the real issue here, it was the 'how' that was.
How did Osaremeh come to possess it?
What of the old man?
The old man, Oga Batho as he was fondly called, was a kind man, kind to a fault, as he was a sort of a second father to most of the students here, so it wouldn't be too much of a surprise if he had took in a pair of 'helpless' students he had encountered during these troubling times.
It pained Dion to think about what this 'helpless' students might have done to him. He hoped it wasn't anything as bad as what he imagined, they were humans afterall, and killing should never come naturally to a human.
"I really hope he is okay," James sighed.
Very unlikely.
" Me too," Dion said.