The Ankh of Anubis... Trials of Fate Book III

CHAPTER 3: OH, SO THAT'S WHAT'S GOING ON

"You're OK, right?"

"Yeah, mum. I'm fine."

"Are you sure you're safe now?"

"Yeah," I scratched my hair, taking a look around, "We're at some school's gym. The county's using it like some kind of..." Hannah mouthed the words to me "relief centre?"

"Okay. Okay," her voice was steadying, "Is everyone else OK?"

"Yeah," I glanced at my classmates, some too scared to talk, others practically yelling at each other with adrenaline. Mrs Lester stood beside me, gently calming Lexi Bruners, a classmate of mine who looked like her entire life had flashed before her eyes, "We're getting there. We'll be fine."

"Is there a way you can get back?"

"Our school's working on it," I answered, "But I can't really say anything. Are you guys OK?"

"Yeah, we're fine. Some zombies had crowded in front of our house but they're gone now," she paused, then continued, her voice shaky, "They kept asking for something, I-I don't know..."

I shivered. "Is Sal OK?"

"Yeah...Yeah. She's in the living room. You wanna talk to her?"

Before I could answer Mrs Lester snatched the phone from me and put it to her ear, "Hello, ma'am? Sorry, other students need to make phone calls, too..."

I trudged over to Mac, who sat down a few feet away. As I sat, he asked, "You OK, bud?"

"Yeah, I think so..." I looked over at Hannah, who was coming towards us while struggling with her backpack. I turned to Mac, "Have you had any dreams of zombies lately?"

Mac laughed, "Who, me? Nah. I mean, I've had some pretty weird dreams over the past few days, but zombies? The last I saw a zombie, it was a late-night episode of The Walking Dead."

Hannah sat next to us and pulled out her computer from her backpack. She said, "It seems like dead bodies are piling out of graveyards everywhere," she pulled out a couple of tabs from a search engine and continued, "It looks like it all just started this morning, but if this is even real, then we're in big trouble."

Within a minute, she'd set up a call to her laptop back in New York. It rang for a couple of seconds, then Natalia picked up. Up close, her black pupils had a tint of purple in them which matched her choppy black-and-purple hair. She looked a bit flustered at the moment, and her brows were furrowed with worry. And, hey, was that a zit on her cheek?

"You're seeing them, too, aren't you?" She asked.

"If you're talking about zombies, then yes; we just held off a whole army of them," Hannah replied, then sighed, "How are things back home?"

Natalia pursed her lips, "In a word? Bad." She seemed to go down a flight of stairs as she continued, "The zombies came out of nowhere about twenty minutes ago, and now the police are getting involved."

As if on cue, gunshots fired in the background. Natalia got downstairs and said, "Stan just got here; he's trying to help your family hide in the basement. They're doing pretty well, for a family who had to fight off zombies a few minutes ago."

"They've been through worse," Hannah replied, making me wonder what could possibly have been worse than a zombie uprising.

"They've locked down the house and are on alert," Stan reported as he came over to join Natalia on the call. His strawberry blond hair had grown a tad longer than when we'd first met him, and his bare chest showed off a few abs.

"Stan, why are you shirtless?" Hannah raised an eyebrow.

"Held off a few zombies on my way here," he scratched the back of his head, "They seemed to be chanting something..." his expression turned serious, "Something about an Ankh."