The rise of the undead. (A short story)

8:00 AM

It was eight on the morning of October 30. Justin, Natalie, Selena and Chris were running late to school. They ran through the streets of their town and a huge forest to make it to school. They burst through the door of their classroom. A teacher was sitting at a desk in front of the class reading a Stephen King novel while the students were writing a pop- quiz. “Good morning ma’am. We are sorry we are that we are late” said Natalie. The teacher was fair, thin and looked like she could be a mother of two. She replied “as per the rules of this school I have no other option but to give you detention for arriving to school 30 mins late”. She took out a notepad, wrote their names on 4 different pages and handed out these pink slips to them. “I have to be somewhere at 3:30 pm. How can you give us 2 hours of detention”? “I am your teacher and it’s not like you have any meetings with the president. So go and take a seat before I give you more detention” she replied.

 

3:00 PM

“I can’t believe we just got detention. I knew we shouldn’t have stayed up partying at Mellissa’s place. I’m supposed to be at home uploading a new gaming video I shot on YouTube by four” said Chris. “There’s nothing we can do Chris. Let’s just try to survive this stupid punishment of ours” replied Selena.

 

4:57 PM

Natalie woke up after a 20 minutes long nap. Chris looked at his watch repeatedly watching time pass by.

 

5:00 PM

The bell went off. Everyone got up from their seats and head towards the door. The teacher got up and all of a sudden sprinted towards the door and locked the door behind her, trapping the four friends in the detention room. They asked the teacher to open the door. The teacher looked at them through the window in the door and smiled. She then turned her head to the left, disconnected her head from her body and threw it away. It hit a wall and bounced back to her body and connected itself to her body backwards. She twisted her head back to the position it was supposed to be. It was the revealed that the face wasn’t hers. It belonged to Marilyn Monroe. She laughed hysterically and said “some like it hot, but my heart is cold”. She snapped her fingers and vanished into thin air. The four friends were confused and did not know what was happening. The four friends went to the windows and tried to find a way out. Justin touched the glass panes with his bare hands and somehow a loud high pitched sound blew up the windows and pushed Justin and Natalie towards the wall and knocked them out. Selena’s head was pierced open by a large piece of glass and Chris crashed onto the desks and was knocked out too.

2:30 AM (the next day)

Selena woke up first. She got up from the floor and stretched her arms. She then remembered the piece of glass that went through her head. She touched her head to feel it, but her head was missing the glass and wounds. She was still trying to make sense what happened when Natalie woke up and shook the guys awake. “I had this weird dream where I got my head stabbed up with a piece of glass” said Selena. “That’s weird, even I had that exact same dream” replied Chris. “So did I” replied Justin. Natalie walked up to the door which was letting in light form the hallways, which illuminated a portion of the room. “Guys, the door’s open” said Natalie. “Wait what” asked Selena “what is the time”? Chris looked at his watch and said it was 2:33 in the morning. “Shit, that’s not good” Justin said in a worried tone. What’s wrong? Chris asked. Justin replied that it was Friday the 13^th and that they were half an hour away from the “hour of the evil”. This sent the entire gang into a laugh and they mocked him for believing in spirits and ghosts. Eventually Selena broke up the laugh- a- thon by telling them that they have been away from home for too long and that they need to get home fast. The gang got up and dashed out the doors of their classroom and into the dark night. They ran and ran until they approached the forest. It was pitch- black and no one was able to see. It had rained heavily while they were passed out. So the forest bed was still muddy. They took out their phones and turned on their flashlights. They realized it was muddy and walked slowly. Justin heard a weird “hello” and turned round swiftly. He slipped and lost his balance due to the mud and tumbled down a nearby slope. Followed by his friends, he rolled and rolled into an abandoned building. Once the gang caught up with him inside the house the doors locked themselves like they had a brain of their own. “Are you alright?” Selena asked. “I’m fine just a little spooked, that’s all” he replied. Natalie twisted the door knobs but they wouldn’t open. “That’s weird. Guys the doors won’t open.” Natalie said in a concerned tone. Chris looked at his watch and said “guys, its 2:59 am”.

 

3:00 AM

The second he finished his sentence there was a loud ear piercing that came from the walls followed by a minute long blackout in that house. When the blackout ended, the gang realized they were surrounded by lots of translucent, illuminated beings. It took the gang just a second to realize that they were ghosts of celebrities. Michael Jackson appeared out of nowhere and started singing “I’m bad” to them. Chris stretched out his hand and Told Michael that he was his biggest fan. Instead of stretching out his hand, Michael opened his mouth so wide you could see his long and sharp teeth with weird colored ooze flowing from his mouth. Justin knew what was going to happen so he pulled Chris back. Michael took a bite and missed Chris by 3 centimeters and bit off a layer of skin from the top of his finger. Chris let out a loud high pitched scream. The gang got on their feet and ran looking for an exit point. The mansion was shut close. No matter what, it didn’t open. It didn’t have any windows either. Justin picked up a crowbar and tried to open the door. The crowbar bounced back and lodged itself in the wall once it came in contact with the door. They ran and made it to a safe spot at the second floor of the house.  “It’s official, this house is haunted” Said Natalie. The second she finished, the ghost of Elvis Presley ate Chris up in a single bite. The trio who were sitting down on the floor jumped up and ran. Natalie’s world was in a blur. She couldn’t see anything. Everything was a blur. Her body was fainting at the thought of the supernatural event of Chris’ death. She ran in a blurry state of mind. That’s when one of the ghosts set up the carpet in a way they would trip over. Selena and Justin dodged but Natalie tripped on it and a ghost caught her leg. Selena and Justin decide to save her but Natalie told them to go on without her. “I cannot imagine a world without Chris. Let me unite with him in heaven” was her final words before she was gobbled up by a group of ghosts. 10 minutes later, Selena and Justin found themselves in a safe room that had a statue of a skeleton in the middle. Justin sat on the floor and leaned on the platform beneath the statue. Selena plopped down and leaned on the wall opposite him. She started to mourn the loss of 2 of her friends. Justin was tearing up but he was trying his best to act “masculine” but gave in eventually. Selena, who was looking at the floor all this time, looked up at Justin who was crying his grief out and noticed a plaque on the platform. She came near him and he stretched his hands out thinking she came over for a hug but she avoided it by telling him “not now Justin”. She took a look at the plaque that read: “every year on October 31 when the clock strikes 3 in the morning the dead shall rise as spirits to satisfy their hunger. They fade away when the cuckoo opens its doors at 4. Blood they can sense and their weakness we do not know yet. Right next to the statue there was a water dispenser, a couple of cups and hose. Selena got up to drink some water to quench the thirst that rose from the 30 minute long marathon of running and chasing. She picked up a cup of water and put it to her lips when the ghost of Pop Smoke popped out of nowhere and let out a shout. Selena poured the cup of water on him and he reduced literally to Smoke. Selena who realized water can actually eliminate ghosts consoled Justin and for the next 20 minutes they went around pouring water at the ghosts and eliminating ghosts.

 

3:50 AM

There were only a few more ghosts to eliminate but the duo didn’t know where they were. They kept searching till Justin tripped on his shoelace. He got up on his knee and was tying his shoelace when the ghost of Kobe Bryant caught him off guard and swallowed him in the blink of an eye. She instantly poured water on him and eliminated him. She then got on her knees and started to mourn his death. 10 minutes later, the doors opened and she got up but felt faint and fell. She felt something wet and saw that a portion of her left leg was bitten by Kobe. She had already lost lots of blood so she fainted. When she woke up, she found herself in the detention room, where Natalie was hugging Chris violently and Justin was lost in thought. “Guys, I just had a weird dream where we were being attacked by a bunch of zombie ghosts” said Selena. Justin who woke up from his thoughts replied that even he had the same dream. Natalie and Chris gave the same reply. They all looked at the Detention teacher who was busy reading a book. She suddenly looked at them at the same second and flickered revealing a glimpse of Marilyn Monroe. She gave them a creepy smile to the horrors of the gang.