Dead Man Walking: Living By Day, Dead By Night

The three monsters did not put up much of a fight, as Zane caught them completely off guard, killing the first one the moment he opened the door, before kicking the second against the wall and using the time that bought him to dispatch the third to the shadow realm, or wherever the hell the undead went after finally being properly laid to rest.

As for the straggler who tried to get up from the wall, Zane repeatedly stomped its head in until it stopped moving. The skull was completely caved in, and revealed another small bloody crystal embedded within the brain.

This was the second crystal that Zane had recovered after killing these undead monstrosities, and he quickly retrieved it, not knowing whether or not it would be useful later on.

After this, he dug around the skulls of the other two undead in an act of pure curiosity, determined to find out if every single one of the dead had one of these crystals embedded in their brains, or if it was only a handful of them.

From a cursory investigation of these three corpses, only one of them had a bloody crystal embedded in their brains. Zane, of course, had no idea why this was the case, but he could confirm that not every member of the walking dead had such a strange device in their skulls.

After digging through the skulls of these undead, Zane knew exactly where he would make his way to first. It would be extremely dangerous, as he was likely the only one still breathing that had the nerve to wander the school\'s halls, which were now filled with the walking dead.

But ultimately there were three things that a human being needed in order to survive in this world: food, water, and shelter. Shelter was easy enough to come by. After all, it\'s not like the cities would immediately crumble in this apocalyptic scenario, meaning there were plenty of buildings to rest in and hide away from the public eye.

But food and water were paramount. Especially early on, when people did not yet realize they were facing an end of the world type scenario. The more food and water Zane could scavenge and carry with him, the better his chances of survival were. Thus, he looked over at one of the corpses he had just laid to rest, and notice they had a backpack on their back.

Zane quickly unstrapped the backpack and opened it up to find there was indeed a sealed box lunch inside of it, as well as an unopened water bottle, which he quickly put in his own back before marching off to the school\'s cafeteria where the lion\'s share of the resources he required would be located.

--

While Zane silently stalked his way through the undead infested halls of his local high school, Elena and the rest of her class were watching the ongoing broadcasts across the country. By now, actual video evidence of these so-called rioters rising from the dead were displayed across the various social media platforms, which for the time being were still functional.

And Elena immediately bit her lip in frustration when she saw this. Zane was right… This was truly the end of the world… Hell, it may even be an extinction level event for humanity! She quickly looked over at her friends, whose eyes were also glued to their phones, and began to wonder whether or not she could actually trust them.

After all, Zane\'s sense of paranoia had become contagious, especially now that people were starting to wake up to the idea that maybe… Just maybe help was not actually on the way. It was at this moment that a student in the class began complaining about his hunger.

"God dammit! I\'m fucking starving! Can I please get some fucking food?"

This student who had the gall to complain about hunger so early into the apocalypse was an overweight young man in his senior year of high school. If the term land whale was used to describe human beings who were morbidly obese, then this man was indeed one of them.

How he had managed to eat so much to the point where he could not even get a shirt that properly covered his stomach. Nobody knew. But he was the obvious suspect who would immediately complain about the lack of food.

Especially since he did not actually get to eat lunch today, as the so called "riots" had begun before lunch period could begin. And all of his snacks were already confiscated by the teacher, who pooled what little food and water the class had together as emergency supplies.

Perhaps out of a sense of naivety towards the current situation, but the busty teacher quickly reached into the drawers of her desk to grab a small snack for the fat student whose name was Keith. The moment she placed the pack of crackers on her desk with the intention to bring it towards the young man, Elena shouted at her.

"Miss Bennett, what are you thinking? We have no idea how long we will be here for! There is literally no reason that anyone should be eating right now, especially this fatass! He can go a few weeks without food and he will be fine, hell he will probably be better off for it!"

Olivia looked at her hungry student, and at the only student less in the class who was remotely thinking long term, and after weighing the options within her head for a few moments, she bit her lip in frustration before attempting to stash away the food.

This, of course, caused Keith to become enraged. Not only was he hungry, but he had just been called a fatass for the millionth time in his life. He quickly rose from his seat, or shall I say slowly, as it took him a few moments to actually get out of his desk. All the while shouting towards the class.

"God dammit, I\'m not fat! I\'m just big-boned! And I\'m fucking hungry! You can\'t starve me like this!"

Keither immediately rushed towards the teacher\'s desk where the classes limited food and water supplies were. Due to his massive size, he was like a bolder rolling down a hill. And upon seeing the giant land whale try to steal all their food, several of the other boys in the class jumped on Keith and tackled him to the ground, where they tried their best to restrain him.

They had only managed to do this after Keith had barreled into Olivia and knocked the crackers in her hand towards the door. Once on the ground, Keith squealed like a pig in distress. His obnoxious screams were so loud that they erupted beyond the classroom and into the hallways, acting like a radar signature for the undead who still lurked through the school\'s campus.

"Get off of me! I want to eat! I need to eat!"

Ultimately, the barricaded doorway of the class came under the assault of more undead. Far more than before, which caused a great sense of pressure to befall the class room. After all, the loud squealing of the land whale only caused the undead to become even more agitated.

Despite the best efforts of the other students to restrain Keith, he was simply too large for them to do so, and he eventually scrambled to his feet and rushed to the doorway where the bag of crackers had fallen.

With a look of victory on his face, the fatass ripped open the crackers and shoved them in his mouth, completely disregarding the zombies at the door behind him. Just when he was about to gloat to his classmates, a hand reached through the gap in the doorway, and dragged the fat idiot close where a pair of gnashing teeth ripped into his neck.

The class watched in horror as Keith broke away from his attacker before ultimately falling to the floor, where he died of blood loss. Elena was the most alert of all, because she knew that it was only a matter of time before Keith reanimated and attacked them. She quickly shouted at the class to calm down.

"Everybody! Remain calm!"

But it was too late. Because Keith was bitten in a vital organ, the disease rapidly spread through his bloodstream, reanimating him much quicker than the other undead would be. His lumbering body quickly rose to its feet, while a lifeless expression appeared on his face.

Keith now had a hunger for human flesh and immediately rushed forward towards the nearest potential victims, which were none other than the boys who tried to prevent him from getting his hands on the food.

Immediately, the giant zombie bit into another classmate\'s flesh. Ripping a chunk out of his arm while the young man screamed bloody murder. This violent scene caused the class to panic, as several students lost their mind in the panic and rushed towards the door, removing the barricades that were the only thing keeping the other undead outside of the classroom.

In their state of panic, they had completely forgotten that outside the door were more vile creatures which sought to devour them, and because of this, the room was flooded with the undead. Who immediately attacked their nearest victims.

To Elena, it was abundantly clear that their only chance of survival was to push past the zombies who were mauling on their friends and classmates. Thus, she shouted in as calm as a voice as she could muster.

"Through the door! Push through the door! It\'s our only chance!"

This did not create the orderly charge to survive that she had planned, and instead caused complete and utter chaos. As her classmates began shoving one another to the ground, or worse, pushing them in front of zombies to save their own hides.

Elena was near her best friend, Lexi, and the other members of her social clique, all of which tried to barge through the doorway and into the infested halls of their high school. And just when Elena was about to get through the door, an undead charged at her best friend, Lexi, who shockingly betrayed Elena by pushing her in front of the monster.

Though the creature did not manage to bite Elena, she did fall to the ground, and desperately tried to defend herself, all while screaming for help from her best friend, who she believed had acted against her by accident.

"Lexi! Help me!"

There were tears in the girl\'s eyes as she looked back at Elena before running out the door and to relative safety, leaving behind only a brief apology as she abandoned her best friend to her fate.

"Elena.... I\'m so sorry!"

After saying Lexi\'s figure, disappeared along with several of the classes\' jocks, who had used their weaker classmates as human shields to bypass the small group of monsters that tried to tear at their flesh.

Elena immediately remembered Zane\'s last words before abandoning the class and felt like an idiot for staying behind with those she believed to be her friends. It was clear that Zane was right about everything. She thought this regret would be her last thoughts, but in the next moment someone came to her rescue.

A heavy textbook smacked against the face of the undead monstrosity who Elena was struggling to defend herself against, knocking its creature off of her and onto the floor nearby. Before Elena could even figure out who had saved her from a gruesome fate, a hand grabbed hold of hers and pulled her to her feet, before dragging her off out of the doorway.

It was only after they had escaped from the Kill zone that Elena realized it was none other than her homeroom teacher Olivia Bennett, who had saved her life. The mature silver haired beauty was crying profusely as she cursed in front of one of her students for the first time in her life.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck! I am so not cut out for this bullshit!"

--

During the entire incident that took place in his former classroom, Zane had made his way to the school cafeteria without incident. Mostly through minor distractions, he had successfully deterred the undead from attacking him until now. At the moment, he was grabbing as much food and water as he could possibly carry.

Everything was going smoothly until he heard the screams of his fellow classmates on the floor above. Noticing the movement of the undead just outside the kitchen area, Zane ducked down behind cover and watched the monsters as they ran up the stairs and towards the source of the commotion. A single whisper escaped Zane\'s mouth as he lamented on his lot in life.

"God fucking dammit…."