Chronicles of the Fall- #1- Empty Night

Chapter 3: Frailty

"You can't be here, we were here first. Get the hell off," the muscular blonde boy orders, pointing his hand at the door. DJ recognizes him immediately as Tripp Callahan, that one boy who is always in the gym and never doing anything unless it involves girls or weights.

    "Make me," DJ challenges, taking a step onto the bus and towards Tripp. Faith cowers behind her, gripping onto Laken's arm as they both step up into the bus. Hampton remains at the door, with his bat swung onto his shoulder, watching the infected shuffle closer and closer.

    "Uh, excuse me, but I don't think this is the time for this," a slightly nasally voice calls, and DJ looks down to see the short blonde boy underneath her, still touching the tips of two wires together.

    "For Christ's sake, get up," DJ groans to the boy, him up by the back of his shirt and pushing him back towards Tripp.

"Here's your nerd," she spits.

"My name is actually William," the boy pipes up with a matter-a-fact tone. Tripp pushes him towards the back of the bus, where the rest of the people are sitting. DJ rolls her eyes, her gaze flickers towards the other students; she is unable to identify any of the people there at the moment, so she reverts her attention back to Tripp, who seems to have taken charge.

"Listen, here's the deal. We've got the keys, we've got control of this bus," she says, dangling the keys between her fingers, holding them up in Tripp's face.

"You can leave, or you can stay. I could care less," she says.

"DJ, we gotta go," Hampton says, his voice harsh and final. The infected are closing in, the sounds of their shuffling and heavy breathing getting closer. Hampton pushes Laken and Faith onto the bus, everyone bumping into each other until they find a seat. Hampton manually shuts the door and leans against it, the fingers of the dead scraping against it behind him.

"Do you even know how to drive an automatic steering school bus?" William asks, looking very uncomfortable as DJ sits down in the driver's seat.

"Do you?" she shoots back at him, and he sinks into his seat.

"Didn't think so," DJ mutters, before putting the bus into gear. It jerks slightly, the engine roars to life, and then the bus rears forward, crushing the infected beneath the tires as they pull out of the school parking lot.

Laken squeezes Faith's hand tightly, "I'll be right back, I'm just gonna go talk to DJ." She gets up from her seat in the middle of the bus and heads to sit in the aisle beside her dark-haired friend.

"We don't even know these people," Laken says; her voice is shaky.

"I know. Tripp Callahan is trouble, we know that," DJ says, looking through her mirror at the blonde boy in the back row. His hair is styled neatly into a quiff, the sides shaved off, almost military style. His short hair gives him an almost predatory appearance, like a shark or an alligator. DJ harbours some distrust towards Tripp, who is talking quietly to an Italian boy with messy dark hair, both of them staring up the aisle at the girls.

"You know him?" DJ asks, looking at Laken.

"No, but he's friends with Tripp, and that means they can't be all that different," Laken replies.  "The nerd is William Stack. He's our Valedictorian. Well, I guess he was going to be." Laken looks down at her lap. Everything went downhill so quickly, it still feels unreal to her, to all of them.

"Either way, he's crazy smart once you get past the fact that he has no social skills or recognition of human emotions," she jokes slightly.

"Go to the back, take Hampton. Introduce yourselves. We play good cop-bad cop. I've obviously already claimed my role, so have fun." DJ throws Laken a smirk before returning her eyes to the road.