Beyond the Horizon(An apocalypse novel)

Chapter 8: Chloe

"You... you..."

The first to break the silence was the gym teacher, staring at the blood on his hands in disbelief. His gaze landed on the motionless corpse, at the blood pooling from its shattered skull, then finally on its bloodstained face.

He looked to the boy lowering his gun.

"You killed Mikey."

’Mikey...’

Miles remembered. The man was the security guard, specifically for this block. He had passed him on his way to class.

The gym teacher, Mr. Freeman, took a step in the boy’s direction. The gun sprang back up again in response, forcing him to pause.

"Stop it! Both of you."

Mr. Morgan stood between them, trying to stop them before the matter escalated. One hand still pressed a tissue against his nose, while the other was gently lowered in the shooter’s direction.

"What do you think you’re doing, Morgan? He just shot—"

"Think, dammit. Does that look like Michael to you?"

Mr. Freeman looked back at the corpse, at its blackened hands, its whitened eyes, before shaking his head.

"Are you mad, Morgan!? That’s Michael... are you saying that wha... he’s a zombie now? Please don’t—"

"Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying, so stand the fuck down!"

The room silenced at that. Mr. Morgan snapping like that was a rare sight. He dropped the bloodied tissue in his hand before continuing.

"Those things. They killed the principal. If you’d like to save them, then by all means be my guest, but leave us out of it."

He turned to face the boy, still keeping his arm lowered. When he spoke, his tone was noticeably different.

"Hey, your name is Grimm, right? You did good stopping it, alright? So please hand me that gun, or drop it if you want. Nothing’s going to happen to you, I promise."

He took a light, gentle step in Grimm’s direction. The boy backed into the wall in response, tightening his grip on the weapon.

"It’s mine."

Mrs. Karen tried speaking from the sidelines. "Bu—"

"I said it’s mine!"

Mr. Freeman started moving again. "Drop the damn—"

"Stop."

Mr. Morgan placed an arm before his chest, stopping him from going any further. He looked back at Grimm.

"You don’t want to drop it? That’s fine, but can you lower it at the very least? I’ll make sure no one takes it from you, alright?"

Grimm didn’t lower the weapon; its barrel pointed firmly towards Mr. Freeman. The vice-principal seemed to notice this, as he shot the man a side glare.

Eventually, the man begrudgingly stepped down as well.

Mr. Morgan made a gesture towards the boy once again.

The room remained silent for the next few moments before slowly, cautiously, the boy lowered his barrel.

The vice-principal kept an eye on Mr. Freeman. Only once the weapon had been lowered without incident did he finally let out a shaky sigh of relief.

He dropped his hand before carefully placing himself between Grimm and the rest of the class. He gestured towards the boy again.

"See."

Grimm slid to the ground, his back still pressed against the wall, mumbling in reply.

"I wasn’t going to use it."

He didn’t sound like he believed himself.

"I know."

Mr. Morgan sighed as some semblance of order settled over the room again. Beside him, Mr. Freeman glared holes into the boy and his gun.

Miles was doubtful as well as to what exactly the boy meant. Why else would he bring a gun to school?

It was unnerving in retrospect. Disaster had been bound for them one way or another.

"Do you think—?"

"Probably."

Chloe answered before he completed his sentence. There wasn’t much ground to refute her. In the end, there really was only one possibility.

A group of students had already stood up—a mix of boys and girls incensed enough by the matter that they stood up to talk to Mr. Morgan.

Miles recognized some of them; they were popular kids. But he’d never been one for names.

They exchanged nervous glances with Grimm as they approached the man. The boy stared darkly at them in response, his hand still caressing his weapon.

By the time they’d reached him, he was already having a small meeting where he stood. Mr. Freeman, the nurse, and a few other teachers surrounded him, speaking in quiet yet harsh tones.

That much was enough for Miles to tell what the contents of their conversation was without eavesdropping.

The group was sent back, though a few still decided to stay. They gathered behind Mr. Freeman.

Before they settled on a decision, Miles glanced at Chloe.

She was going through her phone, doing what exactly? He didn’t bother prying. Occasionally she’d glance at Grimm.

The boy still seemed stable.

Miles pulled his phone out as well, glancing at Grimm one more time before dialing Jayce’s number.

"The number you’re trying to call is switched off."

He tried it three more times before giving up. In the end, he could only send a text message and hope the boy would see it later.

As he pressed send, he heard a commotion in the room once again.

Mr. Freeman walked away from the meeting frowning, his eyes still lingering on Grimm’s gun. The boy didn’t back down at his gaze.

The rest of the students went back down as well, all in equal measures of unease and dissatisfaction, with one of them closing the now-crooked doors on the way back.

Blocking out one corpse in the process. The other still remained smack dab in the room’s center.

Mr. Morgan ran a hand through his hair as he glanced around at the students surrounding him, at the corpse on the floor, and at the gun in a student’s hand.

"There’s no point in denying it any longer, this situation is clearly not normal. It is quite possible something extremely disastrous has happened outside, but there are people far smarter than me working on figuring that out."

"Right now, however, we are on our own. At least until help gets to us, and it will get to us. But before that, we must do what we can to help ourselves."

"And that starts with understanding what’s happening."