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La Lips screeches A couple of bloodstained kids have stuht up when they spot us and they stagger forward

"Run!" I bark, and in a second we’re racing past classrooms and corpses

The zombies follow silently I shouldn’t look back but I can’t helpin They’re not s They don’t pant either They run expressionlessly, like robots Only their eyes are alive

One of the zo to keep up with the rest of us She goes doith a yelp and it tears into her

"Don’t!" I shout at Copper as he stops to try to rescue her

"I have to!" he yells and kicks at the zombie’s head The other one leaps on him He bellows and lets fly with a flurry of punches But the zombie pulls up Copper’s shirt and bites into the soft flesh of his stomach As Copper screams with pain and terror, the zombie rises, lips and teeth red, and co Copper to suffer, die and turn into one of the walking dead

I want to help Copper and La Lips but I can’t They’re finished No tirabs hold, I’ not to think about the friends I’ behind The poor, doomed friends that I’ve lost

As we come to where the corridor branches, we turn left, but I steal a glance right and then wish that I hadn’t There’s another group of kids Maybe they had the sa for the exit But they’ve been set upon by a pack of zoainst a wall, dozens of transforh their skulls The captured kids are screa up All helpless All damned

A couple of zo the one as already hot on our tail They chase us down another corridor The black kid whose name I don’t know slips on a sliver of intestines One of thehts back manfully but the zombie bites, scratches and pushes him down We press on and leave him

More corpses The floor is sticky with blood We dash past a room The door’s open I spot a teacher inside, pinned to the whiteboard by four zos, working their way up to her torso She’s alive and sobbing softly, her fingers, lips and eyelids spas

We cole across the steps We clamber over theht squeeze Elbows and curses fly as each of us struggles to be first to the top

I’ives a cry of shock I turn The zo, one the left Both have bitten into his calves

Cass screams and kicks at the zombies, but they hold firm His eyes meet , stop this I shake my head numbly, then reach for his knife He jerks it away froood to you now"

Cass snarls atat the zombies I watch him for a couple of seconds, then back away slowly Neither Cass nor the zombies pay any attention to ht that has only one of two possible outcomes They tuck into his brain and he dies Or they leave his skull alone and he becomes one of thehts as best I can and hobble up the stairs after the others