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  Grasped by a pair of strong hands, he struggled mightily with his attacker. Her strength proved quite fierce.

  “Swiggity, swooty, lemme get… that butt…” moaned the zombie.

  “No!” he snarled in a strained and high-pitched voice. He did not know which he was more disturbed by in that moment, the fact that the zombie wanted a piece of his sweet ass or how badly she had mangled the meme. Deplorable. Was this truly the state of public education nowadays?

  Desperate to save his life, and his pride as a man, Scott attempted to shove forward in an effort to keep the monster’s soft still somewhat pink maw away from his flesh. Unfortunately, he had been taken by surprise twice in a row and this led to a moment of hesitation.

  Scott lost his balance fell back into the reaching arms of the buxom dead woman from before. His head firmly nestled between her quivering female mounds; he felt their still warm pressure around the back of his head just before the other zombie woman’s teeth tore into his chest.

  The moment turned from the wrong kind of sexy into a horrific nightmare as Scott struggled desperately to escape the grasping arms of the dead women. They were stronger than they had any right to be, and he was dragged to the ground. His throat was soon was ripped open, and then cracked fingernails tore into his stomach. The last thing Scott saw as he bled out was the sight of his own intestines being torn from his body. Like some sort of macabre sausage festival, the dead women reveled in their feast.

  For a time, all was darkness. Then, slowly Scott became aware once more. Despite his obvious death, he heard a strangely monotone voice speaking nonsense. It was… soothing nonsense, however. The voice soon became coherent enough that Scott understood some of what was being said. It was a lecture on history and mathematics.

  Scott gasped aloud as he realized that he was awake. He slapped his hands around his body quickly, while his mouth gaped open like a fish struggling for air. Breathing intensely, on the verge of panting actually, he could not understand what had just happened. One moment he was being torn apart by busty color saturated zombie teachers, and in the next he was back in the classroom at the start of it all.

  “Back among the living now are we, Mr. Ambrose?” asked a short haired man. He drew his shirt up slowly toward his nose without making mention of the flatulent offense made within those hallowed halls of academia.

  He had not realized it, but he had once again awakened with a fart. Yet, that was the least of his concerns.

  “Mr. Ambrose! Will you kindly stop doing whatever it is that you are doing?” asked the same teacher form the beginning of his ordeal.

  Scott looked around wild-eyed. He searched the color saturated faces of his supposed fellow classmates. There were looks of confusion, and more than a few held condescension or annoyance in their eyes. One pink haired girl glared at him like he was somehow officially on her shit list now.

  “Drugs?” asked a girl on the other side of the room.

  One of her little friends agreed with her. “Yeah, probably.”

  It was bizarre beyond words. What had happened? Had he dreamed all that business before? Scott had nearly convinced himself that it was in fact a dream, but then he looked over and saw the girl that he vaguely remembered as Jade. She was currently staring at him like his head had turned into some sort of cabbage. Angry. Annoyed. No seeming comprehension of anything special about him, or recent events.

  Not long after their eyes met, Tosh burst into the room once more. He strode over to Jade and grabbed her by the arm.

  Scott watched in mute horror as the scene from earlier began to play out once more. However, before the bitch slap could occur, he hopped out of his seat and cried out, “What the hell is going on!”

  Choosing not to give a damn about the slap heard round the world, he rushed to the window. “Again… It’s happening, again!”

  All eyes were on the crazy man now. He looked around the now silent room then shook his head. “Run.”

  He wasted no more time on them. At this point he did not even know if they were real people. Scott ran out of the room and raced through the hallway. If he waited any longer it would be too late. The numbers of the dead would grow too large to escape the building.

  Just as he rounded a corner, a zombie wearing the cheerleading club uniform tackled him to the ground. He screamed in terrified agony as her teeth found his throat. One again, he died horribly beneath the fangs of a former beauty.

  Sometime later, a droning voice reached his ears. History and mathematics lore reached his ears. Unlike before, however, his eyes snapped open immediately.

  Scott looked around wild-eyed for a moment, on the verge of hyper ventilation. Again! It was happening again!

  He leapt out of his seat, before the teacher could make his joke about him being back among the living. People drew away from him like he was a crazy man. They weren’t wrong. What he had just experienced was well beyond anything that anyone could be expected to endure.

  Like some hellish rendition of Ground Hog Day, he had been torn apart by zombies and returned to this moment in time. As far as he was concerned, this might as well be hell.

  “Mr. Ambrose—” began the teacher only for Scott to flip his desk over. He began to ruthlessly stomp at one of the wooden legs, but he quickly realized that it was bolted too tightly to the desk. It would take too long to break it loose.

  “How dare you destroy school property in my classroom!” snarled the teacher.

  “Fuck you, you boring fuck,” snapped Scott. He cast a baleful glare at the teacher then growled. “If anyone wants to live, run.”

  Scott did not bother to answer the myriad number of questions that arose from the others in that moment. He had wasted too much time already.

  He raced down the corridor for the third time. This time he managed to make it downstairs before the intercom announced that an emergency situation had occurred. He ignored that, as he was almost out of the building. So, he believed. Surprisingly, he could read the signs in the hallway despite the fact that they were not written in English. He rushed toward the only exit that he could be certain of, the main entrance.

  The main doors were situated in such a manner that it was impossible to see them until he rounded around corner. When he did so, dozens of the dead realized that he existed. Scott immediately back-pedaled, but the student body had panicked due to the blood curdling cries that carried through the intercom. He stumbled back into a terrified blond guy and they both fell to the ground. They were not able to extricate themselves as panicking students pushed all around them to escape, only to realize that the people crowding the entrance were homicidal.

  Caught in the press of bodies, Scott was unable to escape. Once again teeth tore into his warm, quivering, flesh. It was not the gnashing teeth of the dead that stole his life away, however. The panicked herd mentality of the survivors merged with the horde’s desire for flesh and the press of bodies caused him to be trampled underfoot.

  He did not know how long he screamed but did know that he found no relief until he awoke in the classroom once more. He growled angrily under his breath when he awoke. Once again, he was receiving a lecture on math and history. Though, now that his mind was honed with anger and sharpened by his growing understanding of the situation; he finally realized that he had been wrong all along. He was partaking in an economics course. The current lesson plan was on the historical significance of money and the mathematics involved in mercantile exchange that rose out of its creation. Not that it mattered now.

  Instead of making a scene, he calmly stood up and walked toward the door. The teacher’s voice called out to him. He responded by giving the teacher a one-fingered salute. “Fuck off. I want to live.”

  Scott did not run through the corridors this time. There was a brief grace period before the insanity started. This time, he wanted to know the layout of the area. If he was going to get killed and resurrected, it would be best to know his way out.

  He passed Tosh in the hall bu
t did not acknowledge him at all. He was unimportant in the grand scheme of things. If he tried to do this like he was living in a weird parody of that show, he would attempt to follow that trio. Inevitably, he would die. The plot armor protected only the two important characters. It was stupid, all things considered, but it seemed to be true.

  By the time that he reached the stairway leading down, the intercom activated. Students began to panic. Scott was already downstairs.

  Instead of heading toward the main gate, he opted to head in the direction that he tried to go the first time. The zombies had not yet infiltrated this section, or so he thought. Screams of pain reached his ears. Scott glanced into an open office door to see the busty zombie teacher from earlier beating on the glass of a window. She broke through and fell inside the room. Several more zombies crowded around for their chance to enter.

  “They’re everywhere,” muttered Scott. “We’re already surrounded.”

  Escape was possible, if this weird shit happening in this place acted in the same way that the story did. However, in every scenario the survivors had done something that he failed to do. They procured weapons.

  Scott mused for so long that the roars of zombies, and the cries of panicking students had become nothing but background noise. Lost in thought, he was soon accosted by the snarling dead. He did not bother to fight back, though he did scream in pain, as there was something he needed to check. Despite his natural desire to live, he had to know the truth. Either this was his last life, or he would revive.

  Not long after, as far as he could tell, Scott awoke to the droning voice of the teacher. He cast his eyes down at his desk then took a deep breath. Just getting outside would not be good enough. It was time to take charge of his situation and act like he had some damned sense.

  Scott rose from his seat and looked around the room. He walked over to the window and nodded. “So, that’s what I was hearing.”

  He pointed out the window. “People seem to be attacking the school. I’m leaving. You do what you want.”

  Scott turned and walked out of the room while completely ignoring the teacher. Several students rose up and checked the windows, however. They immediately began to cry out about it being true.

  He had done all that he could for the people in that classroom. He was interested in survival, but there was no harm in warning them. He set out at a determined trot. There was no guarantee that he would escape this time, but his mentality had already shifted. Maybe he could not die for real. Maybe there was a limit to his respawns. It was impossible to know. What he did know was that he needed to keep moving if he wanted to escape from this nightmare school.

  Down the stairs he went. He reached the location with the busty teacher before the intercom made its announcement. Scott did not stop. This was the only path he could take from his position. Wherever it led, he must follow.

  He rounded a corner and ran into a snarling pack of zombies that had busted in through the windows of an empty classroom. Why had they bothered to break into an empty room? He had no idea. It was possible that someone had been in there before. He did not care to ask them their reason.

  One of the zombies reached out for him. Scott kicked it away, but in the process another one got in close and grabbed his arm.

  Pushing into the attack instead of pulling away caused the creature to lose balance and it fell backwards. It lost its grip on his arm, and he tore free of its grasp. Thankfully, it also knocked over the zombie directly behind it and they temporarily blocked that door with their squirming mass.

  Unarmed, he could not risk trying to finish even one of them off. Escape was the most important thing.

  Just beyond the zombies, he found a corner in the hall and turned it in a blind run. Unlike before, he did not see zombies. Instead, he saw the blessed light of day streaming into the hall from a door that led outside. He rushed to it and soon found himself outside of the classroom building.

  “Progress!” he whispered harshly to himself. He did not wish to shout, as that would draw more attention than necessary.

  He noticed that zombies had gathered at a few spots, but one other building seemed clear. Scott ran in that direction and discovered that it was something akin to a storage shed. The door lock had been busted open, and the door wouldn’t shut.

  Inside he found various gardening implements and work tools. The place had seemingly been ransacked, but he found something hiding in the corner that made his eyes light up. “Fuck yeah!”

  It was a brush axe, basically a thick-bladed machete with a long wooden handle. Why it was left behind, when someone had obviously broken in to get weapons was anyone’s guess. It was at the back of the shed, however, so he assumed that whoever broke in grabbed the first thing they saw that seemed good. It would have all been done in a hurry, and probably by a staff member who was outside when all of this initially started. Nothing else made sense, given the timing.

  He barely made it outside before the first zombie attack came. A few of them had chosen to follow him to the shed, and even at their slow shambling gait they were able to catch up to him.

  While he was no martial artist, he had chopped limbs on more than one occasion. The only difference was that the zombies were not made of wood. A pure waste of a beautiful girl came for him. Her shirt torn and her still pink lips open in the parody of a smile, she staggered in a manner both stiff and drunken. Pale undead flesh barely restrained by the torn remnants of her uniform top, and her skirt a touch too short for a proper high school setting, though this was apparently a college that just looked like a high school. Even without words her appearance alone continued to speak of the true horrors of this place.

  Tongue lolling obscenely from her mouth, she reached toward him with painted nails torn jagged by ill use. In another time and place, and if she had a pulse, she would have no doubt been incredibly popular. Now, she was an obstacle for his survival.

  Scott slipped sideways and lashed out at her outstretched arm. The blade of his new brush axe was sharp, but it was only a working edge. It was no razor. Her arm was knocked down, but she took little damage. He used her momentum against her by whipping the blade back up and shoving her sideways.

  The zombie fell to the side with a dull thud, but another was soon on him. Three in total had come for him, he needed to escape. Armed or not, he could not fight everything in this school.

  While the zombie girl writhed on the ground, Scott trotted forward and swept at the next zombie’s leg. The damage was minimal once more, but it lost balance and fell sideways. The third was just as easy to avoid simply by running around it.

  Objective: Kill one zombie.

  The words of the weird voice in his head came again. Was it a demand? A reminder? Would something terrible happen if he did not kill a zombie?

  Scott glanced back at the zombie that staggered toward him. The other two were slowly attempting to reach their feet.

  “They’re all so slow… Strong, but slow,” he said. Now that he was away from those claustrophobic hallways the deficiencies of these zombies were apparent.

  “Kill a zombie?” his heartbeat reached his ears even as the rest of the world seemed to fade away. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

  Could they even die? They were already dead. They could be killed in the show by doing enough damage to the head. Was that true here as well?

  “Fuck it,” he said with a frown. He had to try.

  Brush axe in hand, he rushed toward the zombie and knocked it sideways by chopping at its arms when it walked forward. Off-balance, it could not recover fast enough and left its head exposed. Scott chopped down against that zombie’s defenseless dome.

  “It… It’s still moving,” he said in growing horror.

  The zombie staggered forward while trying to tackle him. He back-pedaled then hopped sideways and slashed it across the head once more. It kept coming. Two more times, he tried to take down the beast with a blow to the head. It was not enough. He cut and slashed at it several times.
Quickly, he lost count of the number of strikes that he managed to perform. After a frantic bit of heavy flailing with his new weapon, he broke through the skull well enough to significantly damage the brain. The zombie fell to the ground once more, dead at last.

  “This… It’s a lot harder than it looks in the movies,” said Scott through panted breaths. How many times did he have to hit these things?

  His lack of skill caused most of his attacks to deflect, or for his brush axe to become wedged into the skull in a few instances. Who knew that it took a lot of force to cleave into a human skull? It just seemed to be weirdly realistic in a world overrun by color saturated zombie rapists.

  Just to get a bit of practice, he launched an attack on the next closest zombie. He put more force into his strikes and aimed at the sides of the head instead of the forehead. It still took far more than a few strikes, but the situation was more manageable. His blade skidded off bone, but it was easier to pull free and his ability to strike with heavy blows had already increased.

  The wasted beauty zombie was the last to be given release from her suffering, though strangely she took far more heavy blows to the skull to put down in spite of his developing skill. She was also a little more coordinated than the other two and nearly turned the tables on him twice during their brief encounter.

  Scott looked around quickly. There were no zombies in the immediate area, though at a building not far away several were pounding at the door.

  “The noise they’re making must be keeping them there instead of coming for me…” he said quietly.

  It made sense. From what he remembered in the show, the characters made a big deal about the zombies being attracted to sound. Every time one of those things might have tried to come for him, the pounding at the building would have drawn them back.

  He glanced over to the other buildings. All of the zombies in the immediate area seemed to have moved to that one building. The others did not seem to have a zombie standing outside of them, and the zombies inside the school were busy with their feast.