Pushing Up Gravestones - Pushing Up Gravestones – Chapter 4

Denise headed to her new quest before she could’ve even thought about doing so.

 Her caring
parents went to look for her in her high school thinking she’s there, but unfortunately, she skipped but who knows, maybe
she would’ve been dead before they even arrived! However, the viewpoint of this
situation that Denise was taking in wasn’t exactly what she would call ‘the
bright side’.

Then again she shouldn’t really blame herself for
that, the permanent viewpoint of the world is also quite terrifying, and would
obviously trigger such thoughts. Who wouldn’t be shaken with the thoughts of a
zombie, with its jaw hanging along with their distorted bottom lip, some veins
ripped off of its arms and its reddish-green body? That too, its chest area’s
skin was ripped off showing its infected ribcage.

That’s exactly what Denise saw when the zombie came
to a poor old lady and started biting her head off, and then one by one the
slow zombies came and did the same thing, on the other side of where Denise was
walking, separating the zombies and her with a convenient divider.

The really poor old lady! Denise wished she could
save her but she knew her own flesh would be bitten off, and she would turn
into one of them which was not something she was planning to do. The only and yet
biggest help she could give the lady was to feel sorry for her.

This triggered more thoughts and worries about
all this being a permanent mess but she knew that the high school in which her
parents are at right now would solve everything, or so she thought.

It was my
fault anyway; I should’ve stayed there instead of making them face this, thought
Denise. These repetitive thoughts kept annoying her yet a part of her knew it
was true.

Turning her head from the scene of sad squeals
and zombies feasting, she noticed a clearly not infected and sane person
sitting on a bench, whose face her mind could recognize.

It was the guy that sat always in the corner of
the class and had shame in showing of his
face. He was her classmate. She did not remember or possibly know his name, but
she surely remembered and recognized his face.

He saw me and suddenly stood up and ran to me in
a pale and sweaty face and slowed down when he got closer to me as she too
slowed my progress at that moment.

“Finally, someone that is normal!” Denise shouted
out in relief. She did see a couple of ‘em sane, but the sight of zombies
overflowed her mind into thinking no one
is sane.

Instead of replying, the guy mysteriously
crouched down behind the two generously placed shipment boxes and pulled Denise
down to do the same. Denise peeked and saw the zombies were looking at where we
were standing, and in a second went back to eating the old lady who was already
half-eaten. Denise got it; they don’t
like to be disturbed at dinner, or lunch, or breakfast, or brunch, or whatever
it is.

“Shush! Remember to keep quiet!” he whispered to
Denise.

“Well don’t really tell me what to do,” Denise
stated, whispering a shout, “You’re the one who’s always quiet. I don’t have
the habit.”

“Zombies can hear you, and you almost caught
their deadly attention.” His information on the noise creation was taken to
Denise’s heart, but she acted like as if she didn’t care and rolled her eyes.

The guy asked Denise why she was going in the certain route she was walking in and she
replied that she was going to the high school.

“So, since you skipped school today ‘trying to be
all bad’,” He said annoyingly, “Why are you coming back? You do know the
condition of the high school, right? I bet your house is better.”

“My house, is better? Have you seen the darn
place?!” Denise retorted. She was a bit angry because he thought she was trying
to be all bad, which wasn’t that true.

“Well, I think, and the thought is true, that
anywhere in this city is better than the high school,” He started to explain, “Zombies
are everywhere, nature has invaded our school bags and lockers and the school’s
walls, and if possible, the school garden. However,
the worst thing is everyone is infected. Try to find a normal decent human
being. I’m sure you won’t.”

He looked at his simple and fragile-looking watch,
acting like a busy person with his additional hastiness.

“I have to go to look for my family since time is
really short.” As he jogged off saying so, Denise remembered a very short yet
important detail about him.

“What’s your name?!” She yelled out.

“You don’t have to know, it won’t affect you
anyway.” He ran in the opposite direction saying these words which made
Denise’s curiosity for him grow even larger.

Denise took his said words to thought. What if
her parents are zombies? And then all this effort becomes wasted and that she too becomes one? But if was for her
to pay for, she had skipped school and doing so she put her parents in trouble.
So the trouble that Denise could experience or become wasn’t anything to worry
about. Worrying about dying and becoming one of them would be a sin to her.

Instead of asking these repetitive questions,
asking questions about the certain guy would’ve been interesting but he didn’t
affect Denise’s life that much, unless you count the brief information about
the high school which scared her even more.

Denise went on normally after the conversation on
the streets. It really quieted down being far away from the sounds of the zombies
feasting that turned faint, so she had a huge relief. She thought the zombies
finally stopped and gave her a break, but they didn’t. Or at least, one of them
didn’t.

One slow zombie was coming up to her from the
opposite direction surprisingly without more dead people.

Denise took some time, about five seconds, to
realize it was going to gulp her down, and it didn’t avoid her this time.

She didn’t know what to do; she couldn’t escape
that zombie and hide like she did with the other ones! It was face to face!

She had to do something in this empty road with
nowhere to hide, excluding the fragile shipment boxes.

Denise and the zombie were getting closer and
closer. She just had to do something.

At this point Denise’s mind thought of a
curiosity that could save her. What was
in that box? She took a slight risk and went back running to the shipment
boxes. Fortunately, one of the shipment boxes was not taped.

She looked back for a second seeing the zombie
changing its direction to her. Her pulse rate was faster than ever.

She opened the box in no time and put her hand in
through the Styrofoam. She felt wood and in a second grabbed it and took it
out. She gave an unbalanced swing with the wooden thing with one arm in another
shorter second, maybe fifty-nine milliseconds before she knew what it is. The
thing accidently hit the zombie with a headshot and the zombie was down in
another shorter second.

She just figured out it was a baseball bat, with fresh
blood splattered on it which was obviously the zombie’s. She stood there,
looking at it, and looking at the zombie beneath her.  She felt her heartbeat slowing down to a
normal pace. Her face muscles relaxed from all that stern and worried
expressions during the fight.

Until it grabbed her with its vigorous swinging
arm again!

She hit its arm once, twice, though it tried to grab
her many times and she hit the invincible arm the same number of times which
just couldn’t be paralyzed. She finally hit the shoulder joint with two strong
swings and the arm dislocated.

The zombie tried to use its other arm but before
it even did she hit its head four times before it could shut down. She hit it
more after its second death, trying to make sure it’s dead.

She was brutal. She brutally killed that zombie,
and maybe there is a chance that she was cruel in that murder too. She did it
as a reflex and self-defense. But, she killed someone.

She sat down in the place she was standing in,
and she started crying. She killed someone. Sure, maybe he wasn’t important to
the world and could’ve eaten her, but she killed someone. Was she a murder?
Wasn’t everyone a murder in the current state of this world?

She heard footsteps behind her and looked back
and saw another scary zombie. She stood up and hit the zombie’s head in a
reflex and did it many times, not risking her possible death. She didn’t even
think when she killed the zombie. She was like a robot.

She made it a mental note to hide and avoid
zombies. She doesn’t want to kill people, even if they’re a man-eater.

She doesn’t want to feel like that again, ever.

But now she felt guilty as ever, she killed
someone and she skipped high school. She’s also wasting time on the street,
letting her parents have their possible death.

However, she had the strength to walk on. The
guilt did stain her, but the stain washed away, as she reached the high school
after the time feeling like one hour, but was only twenty minutes. It was such
a large building, isolated from the other ones with trees around it.

She was ready to go into that big building where
zombies learn how to eat.

She almost completed her quest, as now it’s only a matter of entering the high school and finding her parents.