The cold bit deep, but the silence in the chiller was worse.
Rebecca's teeth chattered, not from the cold, but the aftershock—her bones still humming with the echo of the explosion, her ears full of phantom screams. She glanced at River, who sat cross-legged, notepad open, calmly drawing what looked suspiciously like a diagram of their near-death experience.
She thumped him on the shoulder.
"Ready, Doomsday Scribe?"
River tucked his pencil behind his ear. "I was born ready. But if Chef Dobbins is out there waiting for round two, I'm retiring."
Rebecca smirked, tried to stand, slipped on a puddle of half-frozen pudding.
"Come on, little genius. Time to see if the world's still there."
Together, they pressed against the chiller door, muscles straining, cold metal groaning in protest. A hiss of steam as warm air rushed in, mixing with the frost—an unholy marriage of cafeteria reek and burned plastic.
The world outside was changed.
Where once there had been industrial tile and stainless steel, there was now only ruin:
The kitchen was a graveyard.
Smoke curled from charred prep tables.
Grease fires still burned in rainbow-sheened puddles on the floor.
Sprinklers hissed overhead, painting everything with a sad, steady rain that couldn't wash away the stench of cooked flesh.
Dobbins, or what remained, was just a shadow on the far wall, a shape barely recognizable as human, apron melted to the tiles. His monstrous ladle had embedded itself in the side of the fryer like Excalibur for the damned.
Rebecca gagged and pulled her sleeve over her mouth.
River just stared. "Well," he whispered, "at least he won't be on lunch duty ever again."
Rebecca snorted, a ragged laugh that bordered on a sob.
"Don't, just, please. I can't."
They stepped through the destruction. The sounds of the school—screams, sobs, the distant slam of a door, the harsh barking of orders from some teacher who still thought command would save them—floated through the ruined galley.
Rebecca ducked beneath a shattered ceiling tile, shoes slipping on a mixture of water, ketchup, and blood. She grabbed a kitchen knife from the counter, checked the weight, nodded, slipped it up her sleeve.
River snagged a rolling pin—why not?—and shoved it into his backpack.
"Improvised weapon number seventy-three," he muttered.
She eyed him. "And the first one you can't write a poem about."
He grinned, only half-insane. "Bet me."
The sprinklers sputtered, finally cutting out. Smoke drifted. Lights flickered.
They stopped by the exit, pressed close together. Rebecca peered through the porthole window into the corridor—shadows moved, bodies, not all of them human anymore. The fire alarm wailed on, a long, dying scream. Somewhere, someone prayed. Somewhere else, something howled.
Rebecca's jaw set.
"We make for the main office. Phones, keys, maybe a map. We stick to the walls, keep low, and if anything moves that isn't us, we run. No heroics. No side quests. Understand?"
River nodded. "Main office. Copy that. You lead. I'll… improvise."
She paused, let her fingers find his.
"We're gonna get out, Riv. Or die trying. But not in a cafeteria, okay? That's too cliché."
He smiled—small, brave, a glimmer of the kid he'd been that morning.
"Deal."
And together, brother and sister slipped from the kitchen graveyard, into a school that had become a battlefield, a world ending one scream at a time—clinging to each other, and to hope, and to whatever fragments of courage the cold had left behind.
The hallway outside the ruined kitchen was a fever dream—everything familiar, but wrong. Lockers battered and warped, trophy cases spiderwebbed with cracks, the acrid stink of burning insulation riding the misty air. Footprints tracked blood and pudding across tile. Overhead, the old fluorescent lights flickered and buzzed like flies circling something dead.
Rebecca peered around the corner, kitchen knife pressed tight against her thigh. River hovered behind her, backpack slung over one shoulder, fingers white-knuckled on the rolling pin. For a moment, they just listened—listened like animals. You could always tell when something was nearby. The building went still, the air thick with a hush broken only by the distant screams and the hollow, endless fire alarm.
Then, a sound. Shuffling. Dragging feet, wet and sticky. Guttural moans, the kind no human ever makes unless the world's gone wrong. Rebecca's eyes went wide. She knew those shoes. Those plaid slacks. That hunched, loping walk. Mrs. Lucerne, the history teacher, shuffled around the corner first. Hair a matted bird's nest, eyes gone opal-white, mouth smeared with blood. Her hands, once famous for calligraphy and gentle guidance on essays, twitched and flexed as if remembering the shapes of words she could no longer form.
Behind her limped Coach Garvey. Tracksuit half-burned, face twisted in a rictus of hunger, arms dangling at odd angles like a marionette with most of its strings cut. One sneaker was missing, exposing a torn, gray foot. His whistle, bright red, ridiculous now, bounced from his neck as he jerked and staggered.
Farther down, Principal Harris himself, still in his blue blazer, gold tie askew, a name badge reading "Leading By Example." His jaw hung askew, unhinged by something bigger than violence, and every few steps, he'd bump into a locker, smearing blood in a slow, bewildered spiral.
Rebecca sucked in a gasp, throat tight with grief and horror. These were the adults who'd handed out gold stars and detentions, who'd filled their heads with facts and fables. Now they were nothing but vessels for the code, hunger wrapped in the ragged remnants of humanity.
River pressed close, voice low, shaking but stubborn.
"Do you think they… know we're here?"
Rebecca glanced at him. "I think part of them does. And part of them wishes we weren't."
The Remnants clustered in the hall, forming a loose, shuffling blockade between the kids and the main office doors. Through the smeared glass, Rebecca could see the row of hooks where the janitor kept the keys. A single silver ring dangling like the world's last lottery ticket. Beyond that, a cracked window framed the parking lot, and if she squinted, she could just make out the van—white, battered, a fading logo that read, St. Michael's School – Excellence In Everything.
She looked back at the faculty, heartsick. Mrs. Lucerne's lips moved, soundless, as if reciting the first lines of the Magna Carta. Coach Garvey's hand spasmed, as if about to clap encouragement or scold. Harris just wept, or would have, if there were any tears left in him.
Rebecca grabbed River's arm, dragging him into a narrow alcove lined with old yearbook photos and lost-and-found boxes.
They needed the office. That's where the keys would be. The map. The only phone with a line, maybe. But now there was a blockade, a living, shuffling wall of the people who'd once taught them everything from fractions to the fall of Rome.
Rebecca pulled River into a storage alcove, peering out at the main office doors just ten meters away. Between them and safety, the Remnants lurched, twitching and muttering. Every step had to be earned. Every second waited for an opening.
River pressed close, voice a thread: "We'll never make it straight through."
Rebecca nodded. "We need a distraction. Something loud, draw them away from the door."
Rebecca's eyes darted between the Remnants blocking the office and the shadowed doorway of the music room at the far end of the hall, a straight shot through puddles of blood and broken glass. She counted the teachers: Mrs. Lucerne, Garvey, Harris, maybe another shape in the haze behind them. No way through. Not unless they moved.
She pressed River back into the alcove. "Stay put. Don't even breathe unless you have to."
River's eyes widened. "Becca…"
"I'm not dying in a school hallway, okay? Wait here."
And before he could argue, she was gone—low, fast, a ghost slipping along the wall.
The music room was a riot of fallen chairs, tumbled sheet music, the grand piano draped in a fire blanket. In the corner: the old turntable, a relic from the school's analog era, still used for "classic listening days."
Rebecca's hands shook as she sifted through the battered stack of LPs—Bach, Vivaldi… Pink Floyd?
For a second, she almost smiled.
Dad would love this.
He'd played this song on road trips, thumping the steering wheel, teaching her the lyrics before she knew what half of them meant. Old music, old anger—old hope, maybe. Today, it was a weapon.
If there was ever a day for "Another Brick in the Wall," it was this one.
She slipped the record out, trembling only a little, and dropped the needle. The scratch and pop were thunder in the empty room, and then…
We don't need no education…
Waters' voice, half sneer, half elegy, poured into the corridor, echoing off lockers and blood-stained banners. The bassline hit, thick and guttural, and with it came a reaction.
The Remnants jerked, all at once, heads snapping toward the sound. Even through the fog, Rebecca could see their old faces twist with some shadow of recognition—years of assemblies, music lessons, detentions after choir practice. The song was a siren, irresistible, dragging them away from the office door in a shuffling, hungry procession.
She ducked low, slipped back out of the music room before the first teacher reached the door. She caught a last glimpse—Mrs. Lucerne, eyes wild, lips moving to lyrics she must have hated, or loved, or maybe both. Coach Garvey's head twitched in time with the beat, fingers drumming the air as if muscle memory had outlived his mind.
Rebecca raced back to the alcove, breathless. River was already on his feet, eyes wide with awe and terror.
"That was either brilliant or insane," he whispered.
She grinned, the edge of madness in her smile. "Let's hope for brilliant. Come on."
They waited just long enough for the last Remnant to stagger through the music room door, drawn to the echoing anthem of a world that was never theirs. Then the siblings darted low, barely daring to breathe, and made for the office.
The way was clear. For now.
Rebecca slid the door shut behind them, locking out the music and the monsters and the ghosts of every teacher who had ever told them to sit down and be quiet.
For the first time in hours, the world was silent, save for the faint thump of bass and the howling outside.
She gripped River's hand.
"Next time, I'm picking the song," he whispered.
She laughed, or maybe sobbed, or both, sound catching in her throat like hope refusing to die.
And as they crept down the ruined hall toward the office door, the words chased them, half taunt, half prayer, stuck in their heads, impossible to shake:
"Teacher… leave them kids alone…"
Because sometimes, even in hell, a song is all you have to remind you who you are. And tonight, the survivors were the ones who still remembered the chorus.
* * *
The main office was a ruin. Paper snowdrifts blanketed the floor, trophy cabinets gutted, the secretary's desk overturned and splattered with something that wasn't just spilled coffee. Emergency lighting flickered in nervous amber, shadows stretched thin, warping the familiar into nightmare.
Rebecca slid through the door first, River behind her. The office felt colder than the chiller—dead air, heavy with loss. Somewhere nearby, a phone rang endlessly, shrill and useless, like a distress signal from a world that no longer existed.
They moved quickly, hearts in their throats: the keys on the hook, the battered emergency map curled by the radiator, the jumble of confiscated phones in a plastic tub. Rebecca's hands shook as she fumbled through the pile—battered Nokia, Trevor's custom-case iPhone, a cheap burner—until her own neon-green phone surfaced, the one Mum called "radioactive slime." She stabbed the power button, praying for a miracle.
The screen flickered. 12% battery. No signal—one stubborn bar, mocking her. The wallpaper: her, River, Mum, and Dad on the beach, the sun brighter than anything here. For a moment, the world slipped. She pressed Mum's contact, waited, heard nothing but static and that hollow, hopeless click. Again. Again. No answer. She forced the grief back down and slid the phone into her pocket.
"If we get a signal, we try again," she whispered. "No matter what."
A noise—a muffled thump, metal on metal, a stifled sob. River spun, pointing to the supply locker wedged in the corner. It rattled, desperate. Rebecca signaled for silence, crept closer, knife ready. She braced herself, yanked the handle, and flung the door open.
Two faces stared out: Trevor, chalk-pale, tears streaking his perfect hair, and Danielle, mascara smudged, clutching her phone like a rosary. They shrank from the light, cowering behind battered flags and a broken "Star Student" trophy.
No one spoke. The air was filled with distant sirens, static, and the endless shriek of the fire alarm.
"Jesus, Trevor," Rebecca gasped. "You scared the hell out of me."
Trevor lunged, clinging to her so tightly she almost dropped the knife. Danielle huddled close, silent and shaking.
River's voice, dry as dust: "So this is where you two hid. Not exactly heroic."
Trevor glared. "Shut up, River. We saw what happened in the gym. People… changed. Ate Mr. Winslow. We hid."
Danielle's voice was a whisper. "Ms. Hawthorne bit Jade's face off. We barely made it. Please… please don't leave us."
Rebecca forced steel into her voice. "We're not leaving anyone. But we have to move. Now. The teachers are in the hall."
River nodded, eyes on the map. "If we go out the fire door by the loading bay, we might have a shot."
Trevor grabbed a flagpole, snapped it in half, and handed one piece to Danielle, who stared at him like he'd lost his mind.
"Really?" she whispered, eyeing the jagged end. "I'm a cheerleader, not Buffy."
"Welcome to the apocalypse," Rebecca said grimly. "Everyone's varsity now."
Danielle took the pole, white-knuckled but determined. "Fine. But if I break a nail, I'm haunting all of you."
River, already at the door, called back, "Survival first. Manicures later."
Danielle shot him a glare. "Remind me to slap you if we live."
"Deal," River deadpanned, peeking out into the corridor.
Rebecca checked the keys again. "Let's move. Quiet. Quick. And if you see anything that used to grade your homework… run."
They slipped out the door and into the shattered hall—a corridor of dripping water, scattered glass, and dread.
And suddenly, as they rounded the corner toward the fire exit, their hope snapped tight: the path was blocked, yet again. More Remnants had flooded in. Faculty and students alike, the unlucky ones who hadn't become corpses, only vessels for hunger and memory. The way to the exit was a wall of the lost, their faces familiar and ruined.
Rebecca sucked in a shaky breath, flagging the others to stay back.
"Well… shit. Blocked again. We need another way," she mouthed, heart pounding as they shrank deeper into the shadows, clinging to each other like shipwreck survivors.
The school was a maze now, every corridor crawling with Remnants—some teachers, some friends, all lost. Wandering the halls was suicide. The fire door was their only shot, but right now, it might as well have been on the moon.
Back in the battered office, they clustered together, every breath thick with fear and the bitter taste of hopelessness.
Trevor was the first to crack. "We're trapped," he whispered, voice cracking. "We're gonna die in here."
"Shut up, Trevor," Danielle snapped, clinging to her half-flagpole like a lifeline. "Don't even say it."
Rebecca tried to steady herself, mind racing. She'd always been the planner—the one who knew how to get out of locked bathrooms and over backyard fences. But this was different. This was a graveyard in waiting.
Then River, who'd been silent, staring out the wire-mesh window, spoke up.
"Maybe not," he said, voice soft but sure. "Look."
He pointed down, across, out.
"The ledge. First floor, yeah, but it's wide enough. We slide out, go across, stay low. Pass each classroom window, all the way to the end. Climb in, hit the hall, then the fire escape."
Rebecca leaned over, peering out. The ledge was just wide enough for a careful crawl, old brickwork chipped and slick with rain, but it ran the length of the building. Below, bushes like broken teeth, and too far to jump. But across—across, there was a chance.
"That's insane," Trevor muttered, but he moved closer, hope a hungry thing in his eyes. "We could fall. We could—"
"Yeah," River cut in, a ghost of a grin on his lips, "but if we stay, we're already dead."
Danielle groaned, glancing back at the hall where shadows twisted and moaned. "I can't believe I'm about to Spider-Man across a school ledge to outrun my history teacher."
Rebecca squeezed her hand. "We do it together. No one gets left behind."
They pried the office window open, the old frame shrieking in protest. Rain spat in, cold and sharp. One by one, they eased onto the ledge—Rebecca first, River next, then Trevor, then Danielle, teeth gritted so hard they nearly cracked.
* * *
The plan was simple, in that desperate, last-ditch way: keep off the halls, move classroom to classroom, then out the fire door by the janitor's bay. The ground was too far for a drop, so they'd crawl along the outside ledge, just wide enough for trembling sneakers and prayers.
The first window shattered outward with a tap from Rebecca's knife. They eased through—Rebecca first, then River, then Trevor, helping Danielle, who nearly slipped and let out a strangled yelp that died in her throat.
The outside air hit them cold and raw, rain spitting from a sky gone bruised and endless. Below, the grass was littered with backpacks, one sneaker, a single upturned lunchbox leaking juice, and something darker.
Rebecca led, moving sideways, back pressed to the brick, boots scraping on the stone. They edged past the next window, Room 2C, and what they saw froze them, breath and soul.
Inside, bodies lay tangled across desks and tile, kids they'd joked with, rolled eyes with, suffered through pop quizzes with. Not all were whole. Some slumped over their notebooks, crimson blooming like ink blots. Others lay in impossible poses, heads tilted at angles that defied both mercy and memory. Someone's hand still clutched a pencil, the knuckles white and slick.
Danielle choked, stifling a scream.
River's notepad slipped, hanging from his teeth as his hands shook.
Rebecca forced herself to look, because not looking felt like betrayal.
Trevor swallowed hard, wiping his mouth. "Don't stop. Just—don't stop."
They shuffled on. Another window. Another room. Blood smeared across whiteboards. A biology frog pinned to the corkboard, untouched—irony in formaldehyde. One kid, still wearing headphones, eyes wide, music forever stuck on a silent track.
A teacher was there, too—Mrs. Hutchins, the one who wore flowered dresses and always smiled. She sat slumped at her desk, a jagged wound where her throat should be, eyes somehow still full of pleading, as if asking for an answer no one could give.
Rebecca's foot slipped. River grabbed her sleeve, steadied her.
Outside, thunder rolled. Inside, hell had come and gone, and left its mark on everything.
Room after room, window after window, they slid through a world undone by hunger and chaos, forced to witness the end of childhood in the hollow stares of friends who'd never get to grow up.
Rebecca clenched her jaw so hard her teeth hurt. Danielle wept in silence, tears mixing with rain. Trevor stared at the sky, as if searching for some way out, something holy or at least explainable.
River looked down, whispered something to the dead—maybe an apology, maybe a promise.
By the time they reached the last window, hope was raw, bones ached, and innocence had been scraped bloody. The world outside felt too exposed—a strip of slick brick, rain hammering down, nothing but the fall and the dead beneath them.
Each window they passed was a witness: glassy eyes into nightmare, classrooms full of toppled desks, smeared blood, the collapsed bodies of classmates they no longer dared to mourn. Danielle gagged, pressing her hand to her mouth, but she kept moving. Trevor didn't look down—he stared at Rebecca, waited for each signal, and put one trembling foot after the next.
Rebecca set the pace, jaw clenched so hard it ached. Every sense screamed: Don't slip, don't slow down, don't look back. Wind and rain lashed her face. River crawled behind her, stubborn and silent, eyes fixed on the end.
At last, the final window—a cracked pane, half open from some earlier desperate escape. Rebecca glanced inside: a classroom ravaged, student bodies slumped across desks, but mercifully empty of Remnants. No time for horror now.
She eased the window open with her knife, nodded to the others. One by one, they slid through—Rebecca first, then River, then Trevor, half-hauling Danielle by the wrist. They tumbled inside in a heap, gasping, rain-soaked, scraped raw but alive.
No one spoke. They didn't look at the dead. Survival was all that mattered.
River was up first, crossing to the door. "Clear. The fire exit's right there. Now."
Rebecca shoved herself to her feet, dragging the others up. "We go. Last one out buys dinner—if the world still has food."
Danielle gave a wild, broken laugh. Trevor squeezed her hand.
They sprinted for the fire door—no more hesitation, no more childhood left to lose—
and tumbled out into the raw, ruined air, into whatever future waited beyond the walls.
Sometimes the only way out is through.
And behind them, through broken glass, the echo of what they'd lost clung like a shadow, promising never to let go.
* * *
The fire escape groaned beneath their weight, every rung slick with rain and rust. Trevor slammed his foot against the last ladder lock, a brittle old padlock that snapped with a shriek, the ladder crashing to the ground. The four dropped the last few feet, boots splashing into puddles dark with oil and ash.
They hit the pavement running.
Outside, the world was on fire. Smoke curled around them, blotting out the sun. Sirens wailed in the distance, blending with the roar of unseen destruction. Shadows flickered between burning cars and ruined buses. Every direction screamed danger.
Rebecca yanked Danielle behind her, scanning for the battered van. There, by the fence, crooked and forgotten, the school logo peeling from the side. "Go! Move!" she barked.
They ran, shoes slipping on broken glass, ducking beneath a shower of sparks from a downed power line. And then…
A howl, close and wrong.
From behind the cafeteria dumpster, a group of Remnants broke cover. These weren't the shuffling corpses of the teachers; these moved with a predator's speed, eyes white with hunger, limbs jerking with inhuman purpose.
"Shit—RUN!" River shouted.
The chase exploded into chaos. Four kids, one set of keys, hope like a fuse burning fast. Rebecca risked a glance back. A Remnant nearly on Trevor's heels, nails scraping concrete. Danielle shrieked. Trevor shoved her toward the van.
The Remnants howled, hands snatching at backpacks and hair, teeth snapping so close Rebecca could smell rot and static.
Trevor fumbled with the keys, cursing, jamming the wrong one in the lock. Rebecca screamed, "Left! It's the left one!" He found it, threw the door open, and all four tumbled inside, River half-hauling Danielle across the seat, Rebecca slamming the door shut a split second before a Remnant's face smashed against the glass, leaving a slick red smear.
The van rocked as bodies slammed against it, fists drumming on the roof, nails screeching across the windows. For a moment, all they could hear was the thunder of fists, the wail of broken voices, metal twisting under hungry hands.
Trevor stabbed the key into the ignition, turned it—nothing. Swore, turned it again, the engine choked, sputtered, and roared to life.
"GO!" Rebecca screamed, kicking at a hand clawing through the half-open window.
Trevor stomped the gas. The van lurched, tires screaming, slamming into a trash bin, bouncing off a parked sedan. Remnants clung to the doors, smashed at the glass, screeched as they slid off the roof. One landed on the windshield, glaring in, eyes wild. Trevor hit the wipers, panic making every motion frantic.
The van careened out of the lot, swerving through the wreckage, bumping over bodies and debris, windows spiderwebbed with cracks, and the world a blur of rain and smoke. Behind them, the school was swallowed in chaos, fire, and the endless, howling song of the dead.
Inside, no one spoke. They just breathed, hearts pounding, faces ghost-pale, hands locked in white-knuckled terror.
Outside, monsters pounded after them.
Inside, the last fragments of hope held on, teeth bared, knuckles bleeding.
And as the van barreled into the unknown, Rebecca pressed her palm to the fogged window, watching the school vanish in the rearview, a battlefield they would never be able to forget, even if they survived what came next.