Evan stormed over to me and Mika, and just as he was about to reach us, I squeezed my eyes shut in fear. The sound of a body thumping to the ground made me open my eyes again.
I wildly looked around me and frowned down at Evan's lifeless body lying on the ground.
I looked up again and found Ronan King standing in front of us with a bloody axe in his hand.
Did Ronan King just save my life?
"Go! Now!" He yelled at us, and Mika pulled me along with her, and together we stumbled into the gym. Two students shut the doors behind us before stacking a bunch of chairs in front of the doors. I had no time to check who they were, I was too shocked by what just happened.
And what the hell did just happen?
Mika looked at me, fear written all over her face before she pulled me into a tight hug. I stared up at the ceiling in shock as I rubbed her back in a comforting manner.
"We're okay," I whispered into her ear.
"Ronan! There's someone outside. It sounds like they're in trouble." I heard Ellie, the captain of the cheer squad telling Ronan in fear.
"What do you want me to do, Ellie? The doors are already locked." He told her in an annoyed tone and she ran a hand through her hair in frustration.
"I agree with Ronan. It's too risky." His brother Cooper pointedly stated.
"Of course, you'd agree with him, Coop. Since you're not the one out there fighting for your life right now." I angrily told Cooper.
"Hey! My brother just risked his life to save your asses out there-"
"That doesn't change the fact that we're leaving someone out there when we can still help them!"
"In that case, why don't you go out there, Princess?" Ronan uttered before walking over to me, his tall figure hovering over me.
"You want me to go out there?" I asked him in shock.
"Only because you care so much." He smirked at me so I pulled my face in anger.
"Enough, Hailey. Ronan's right. You saw what those- things were capable of doing out there. We literally saw someone being ripped apart right in front of us. We can't go out there again. At least not right now. It's spilled milk." Mika told me, her eyes filling with panic.
I slowly nodded to myself before turning my back to them. They wouldn't understand. None of their parents are on the frontlines of this virus.
My dad's a virologist, I need to talk to him. He'll have the answers to all of my questions. He'd be able to create a cure-- if anything happened to him- then we're all doomed.
"I'm sorry." I softly muttered under my breath. "I just need to contact my dad."
"There's no reception," Ellie informed me so I threw my hands in the air.
"So what's the plan then? Because I'm not going to sit here all day, while the rest of the world goes to shit!" I angrily yelled at them.
"Hailey, you need to calm down," Ellie told me in a warning tone.
"You want me to calm down? How the hell am I supposed to calm down when there's a zombie apocalypse happening right outside those doors?! When my dad is still out there?!" I uttered, and then I was hit by realization.
"My dad he- he said that he was in Upstate New York, working on a project with Luke." I looked over at Ronan and Cooper and they both frowned at me.
"Wait- so your dad went Upstate to go meet Luke?" Cooper curiously wanted to know.
"Yes, he sent me a text this morning," I uttered in confirmation.
"Hello?" We suddenly heard a familiar voice coming from the other side of the doors.
"Yo! Isn't that Professor Daily?" Cooper asked us in disbelief and I nodded at his words.
"Someone, please! If you can hear me, please open the door." She desperately cried out.
"We have to open up for her," I told them, and for once they all agreed with me. We all worked together to take the barricade down in front of the doors.
Once we were done moving everything out of the way, Ronan opened the large doors with ease. My eyes widened when I saw Professor Daily standing in front of us. There was a large bite mark on her arm, dripping with blood and everyone collectively stepped back from her.
"She's infected," Mika stated the obvious.
"What do we do?" Ellie asked and we all looked over at Ronan in unison. He frowned at us for turning to him for advice. His jaw clenched as he watched our professor in suspicion.
"She can't come with us." He uttered while looking at me as if I needed the explanation the most. "She's going to turn and infect us all if we take her with us- look, we don't know if this thing is airborne or not, so we need to stay as far away from the infected as possible," Ronan told the rest of the group in a warning tone and they all nodded in understanding.
We slowly moved past Professor Daily who was helplessly looking over at us. "Please don't leave me here alone!" She cried out but we had to ignore her and make our way outside.
Ronan and Cooper locked her into the gym and she violently started pounding her fists into the door. She started screaming and cursing at us for locking her inside the gym.
I guiltily looked back at the gym as we started making our way down the hallway again.
"I parked my car in the central campus parking lot," Ronan informed us- interrupting my thoughts. We made our way out of the nearest exit and took in our surroundings out of sheer panic and fear.
The campus grounds were unusually empty and there was not a single student in sight. I don't think I've ever seen our campus this empty. I sidestepped a pool of blood as we quietly made our way to the Central campus.
We passed three overturned cars and an unnerving feeling settled into the pit of my stomach.
Desperate screams could be heard from a distance. Along with screeching sounds, it sounds exactly like the sound that Evan made before he tried to attack us.
The air was thick with smoke so we couldn't really see what was happening in front of us. But after a two-minute walk, we finally reached the central campus.
Ronan stopped in his tracks before raising his hand into the air. We collectively stopped in our tracks and found a group of the infected aimlessly wandering around central campus.
Strange noises escaped their mouths and their bodies were violently twitched.
"Are they all infected?" Ellie whispered out in fear but none of us could respond to her question.
"We have to turn back," Mika uttered and I nodded in agreement. But as we turned around we saw another horde of the infected streaming into our direction.
The infected sniffed the air for our scent and my heart started beating rapidly faster in my chest.
"Ronan-" I uttered in fear.
"Follow me," he whispered before taking a left turn.
"Where are we going?" Cooper curiously wanted to know.
"We're taking a detour. Come on, I know a shortcut to the parking lot." Ronan uttered before leading us down a dark and narrow alley.