Snowbound

Snowbound
by Zeroin

Sam’s fingers hurt, but he kept twisting.

“They still out there?”

He looked up from his work to gaze at the girl before him. For a second he was struck by how pretty she looked, bright face framed with brown-gold locks, chocolate eyes wide and open, dark lashes stretching gracefully from the lids. A faint spray of freckles dotted her nose and cheeks. Her mouth was small, lips a subdued shade of red, pouted just slightly. He felt, in that fleeting moment, that he was standing next to an angel, ethereal and beautiful, glowing with a seraphic vitality.

Then she blinked, and the worry that had been plaguing them all seeped back into her features, chasing away the color, the life, the hope. Her lids drooped, her mouth went slack, her skin turned pale, and her eyes, at first filled with energy, now brimmed with a sour despair. Her hands fumbled around one another, twisting and wrenching with nervous energy. Sam wanted to hold her and hug her and hide her away from all that was going on.

But he couldn’t. He had to prepare.

“Yes,” he finally said, turning back to the thumb-cutting work of turning the nut. “Yes, they’re still out there.”

She tilted her head toward the door, her gently-curved ears aimed at the room's only door, which hung slightly open, letting in the sounds that echoed across the length of the hall. In they wafted: banging and yelling, screeches and curses, taunts and bellows. The sounds of barbarians on the edge of invasion. The sound of instinct overtaking culture. The sound of doom on the rise.

"How many?" she asked, turning back to him. Despair had fled her face, and Sam basked in the new emotion etched into her visage. Her jaw was set, teeth clenched tight behind her soft lips; her eyes were like polished diamonds: glittering but hard, resilient, unbreakable. This was the girl he knew was underneath the cute exterior; here was the strong woman waiting to happen, for necessity and chance to draw her taut and unbending. Here she was, and Sam was ecstatic to finally see her, and to see her now, when she was most needed.

"About a dozen, I think." He drew his hand up and suckled on a sore finger before return to his work. "Sal says they've got baseball bats."

She frowned. "They're from the gym."

"That's what we figure." He bit his lip, gripped hard, and twisted, grunting. "I get the feeling they're a renegade group, not sent by the gym people at all. Just a bunch of crazies who got bored and decided it was time to get rid of us." He shook his hand, flexing the groaning, cracking fingers. "Dammit, that thing's on tight." He sat down next to the girl, in the corner of the empty classroom, cradling his sore hand across his lap. He looked at her, smiling shakily. "I guess I'll hold off for a few seconds."

She nodded, her mind clearly elsewhere. The look of solid determination still dominated her face. Sam could only wonder what was going on behind those diamond eyes and grit teeth.

"You ready?" he asked, gazing at her, admiring her.

"Yup." She held up a pair of scissors with the handles taped together so the blades wouldn't open. About a dozen similar pairs, all with black handles, laid on the floor next to her. "Made six for you, seven for me."

"Thirteen in all," Sam said softly, smiling slightly.

She smiled back. "Our lucky number."

His hand found hers and squeezed. She squeezed back, gently rubbing the thumb across the top of his hand.

Sam mock-scowled. "Hey...how come I'm the one who gets shortchanged?"

"Hm?" She tilted her head again.

"I get six, you get seven. That's not fair."

She rolled her eyes. "That's because you get a bigger blade. You know that."

"Oh, come on, you get that thing I made you! It's not like you're unarmed or anything!"

She produced the "thing" in question, drawing it out of the corner it had been resting in. It was a pair of meter sticks, cocooned in tape. At the top, two pairs of scissors were taped to the sticks, blades forming right angles with the "handle." A third pair stood straight out from the top, forming an odd, almost trident-like weapon. She held it in both hands, eyeing the gleaming tips of the pointed scissor blades, shining just over her head.

"I'll need as much weaponry as I can. You know that."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." He gave her as much of a grin as he could muster. "Just trying to have a bit of fun."

"I know." She gave him a great, glowing smile, all teeth and lips and cheer. "Thanks for trying."

"I do my best." He gave her a final smile, reluctantly let go of her hand, and stood up. He stretched his back, groaning as his spine made castanet noises. "Guess I'd better get back to work on this."

He bent back over the table, hands grasping the--

He jerked as the crystal-clear tinkling of shattered glass cut through the air in cheery, jingling shards of sound. The yells and curses and taunts and growlings--the mutter and snarl of animalism, head reared and teeth bared--grew louder, closer. Sam turned around, stunned, staring at the half-open door.

The girl stood, hands gripping the handle of her makeshift weapon so tightly the skin had turned white. She took a couple steps toward the door, then looked back at Sam, wild fear and stable determination swirling in her face, mixing like water and oil. "They broke the glass."

"I know," he said croakily, fingers still gripping the stubborn nut. "I just need to get this damn thing off--" He suddenly started twisting again, winding the hexagonal chunk of metal across the threads of a screw. "Just give me a few more moments. Get the scissors ready or something." He spoke through clenched teeth as he forced the two pieces of aged metal apart. He could hear the others out there, clamoring in the hallway, peeking from their own classrooms, looking across at the invaders dangling from the broken windows of the locked double-doors at the far end of the hall. He could hear their nervous murmurs and the barks of the Fighters--eighty in all, but only twelve of them had bothered to arm themselves yet; none of them had been expecting an attack so soon--or so fierce.

The nut flew off the screw, spinning wildly. The washer rolled off, hit the table on its edge, rolled across the length of fake wood, and dropped softly to the floor. Sam grinned grimly and jerked on the handle of the paper cutter, pulling free the twenty-four-inch blade. He hefted it up with one hand, gazing at it, admiring the shining blade set into the cold, painted steel. He took it in both hands and sliced at the air, listening to its wild whistle. He repeated it with one hand, muscles tensing under his thin, stretching flesh. He spun it, letting the handle dance across his fingers, blade spinning dangerously in a full arc--then stopped the spin, clutching the handle tight, staring at the blade with sunken eyes.

"Sam?" A hand on his shoulder. He didn't turn. "Sam, we need to go. They're waiting for us."

He looked down at the paper-cutter again, watching the light move across the steel--then lowered it out of sight. He closed his eyes. "Alright.
"Let's go."

He stepped out into the hall, right behind the girl. Six pairs of scissors dangled from a belt haphazardly fashioned of paper clips and tape. He held the paper cutter blade with one hand, dangling down at his side. There was no emotion on his face.

He could hear them, screaming their taunts, their screams, their animal snarls, but he refused to look. Not just yet. He wasn't ready.

So he turned away from them, looking down the other end of the hall. A pair of double doors--the twins of the ones behind him--bookended the hallway. The windows on these were intact, but it didn't matter--you couldn't see anything through them except the bone-white snow that had trapped them here, caging them in flaked ice, piled a dozen feet high. He stood there, standing just outside the doorway, staring at the simple substance that had put them all in this vile situation.

We've all gone mad, he thought. All of us. Why else would we be doing this: trapping ourselves in the hallways of our school, closing ourselves off from one another in strange little sects? Why else would the people at the other end of the hall be doing what they're doing and acting how they're acting, if they weren't totally off-the-wall insane? Shit like this doesn't happen in normal life, only in movies. And books. And video games. This shit is unreal.

"Sam?"

Sam turned to look at the speaker: Sal Robbins, Dean of Students. Once a clean-cut man, he now sported several months' worth of beard--and a fire axe. "You ready?" he asked, nervously turning the weapon in his hairy, sweating hands.

Sam nodded, raising his own blade. "As ready as I can be." He shared a look with the girl, and then with the other ten Fighters. "How about you all?"

There were general murmurs of assent.

"Good. He turned to face the other doors. "Let's get to it."

He could see them, peering in from behind the triangular, teeth-like shards of glass that lined what was left of the windows. Like sharks hiding in the mouth of some monstrous, mutated brethren, they lingered, watching, baseball bats raised to chest level. Every one of these looming, leering Neanderthals had once been a student; Sam could see Sophomores, Juniors, Seniors, and maybe one Freshman. Once, they'd been human. Now they were just monkeys with big sticks, fighting for territory, for food, for water--but most of all for sheer domination. Primal power found in the crushing of the skull and the cutting of the vein. It was all they wanted.

I will not let them have it.

They were banging on the doors. They'd been banging on the doors, and the doors were starting to give in. The shattering of the glass had just been a punctuation of their efforts, a reminder that they were coming, and coming soon.

The doors flapped and jerked with every impact, metal twisted jerkily. Snickers and giggles, freakish and high-pitched, rose from behind the doors like sour smells from age-old filth. Only the barest shreds of metal held the door closed, now. Just a few hits more and they'd be in, ready to hurt and harm and--

Sam turned to his fellow Fighters. They were only fifteen feet from the doors. "No one runs," he said, looking them all in the face. "No one." He turned back to the doors, and raised his weapons--in one hand a pair of scissors, in the other the paper cutter's oversized blade--and stared at the twelve human derelicts, who sneered back, bleeding, diseased teeth bared in wolfish snarls.

BANG BANG BANG

The girl held her oddball weapon tightly, breathing slowly and deeply, readying herself for what was to come. Sal, glistening golden-brown beside her, quickly dried both his hands and the handle of his axe. Sweaty, nervous faces watched with heavy trepidation as the doors jumped again and again and again--

--and came flying open, banging against the wall and bouncing off, trembling like startled puppies. There was a moment of hesitation from the sharkish fiends on the other side--and then a high, warbled shriek of victory. Bats were raised. Teeth were bared. Dirty, mangled clothing flapped and waved like the wings of fluttering crows as they charged, rushing forward in a scattered pillar of filthy bodies, rushing forward full of rabid madness.

The Fighters for the English Hall stood their ground, and when the wave of the enemy hit them they responded with the necessary brutality demanded in the conflict between man and animal.

They fought to kill.

Sam intercepted one of the two attackers headed for the girl. He swung his blade low, hitting so hard that he buried the steel into the flesh--and heard the dry noise of a snapping femur. He simultaneously shoved the scissors into the meaty part of the attacker's upraised arms, bringing a jet of blood and a shriek of shock into the air, halting what would have been a deadly slam of the bat. Sam planted his foot on the bleeding bastard's chest and shoved him away, dislodging his weapons and sending the shrieking boy tumbling to the ground, twitching and jerking, screaming, screeching.


The girl took her remaining attacker on her own. She planted the central blade of her weapon into his stomach, piercing skin and gutflesh before popping into the organ itself, sliding in with sickening ease. Nauseated, she jerked her weapon out and took two steps backwards. Her attacker took one step forward, gurgled, blood rising up from his gut and bubbling from his mouth, mixing among his teeth before slipping down his lips and chin in long, trickling streams. He fell at her feet, shuddering and groaning, too weak to scream, too weak to move. She merely stared at the back of his head, into his mop of brown hair, face taut and eyes lemur-wide.

Sal took down one of them with a chop to the chest, the axe blade splitting the sternum with a single great CRACK, the force of the blow knocking the boy--a Senior, originally on the basketball team, three-point-six grade point average--to the floor, where he laid, screaming his head off, shrieking so loud the huddled kids in the Science Hall heard it. Sal ended his wail with another chop, this one right to the neck. He did it crying, mourning, sobbing so hard he could barely breathe. He stood there, axe buried into the carpet, blood splattered halfway up the handle, weeping for lost lives and lost innocence.

He stood there too long. The hard, heavy stroke of a bat laid blazing pain across the center of his back, and tumbled to the ground. A second stroke snapped his spine, crushing and powdering the bone near the impact zone. A third stroke turned his neck too far around, drawing the shine out of his eyes, the color from his face, and the soul from his body.

She saw Sal go down. She howled, mouth stretched wide to make room for a sound so immense and sad that her body barely had the energy to release it. She whipped her weapon back and brought it forward in a massive arc, the blade slicing open the Senior's belly, releasing a snake's nest-tangle of intestines, slimy and writhing as they leaped from his body in purple-gray masses. He dropped his bat, hands trembling violently as he watched his insides become his outsides.

The girl was not content to leave it at that. She brought her weapon up over her head--and brought it back down again, one of the side blades jamming right into the top of his skull. He dropped down without further sound, limp and unmoving.

Pain flashed in the back of her head. Light blazed in her eyes. She bellowed as she dropped face-first to the ground, landing hard and shockingly fast. Looking up, she saw her assailant, the one and only Freshman, aiming, his bat raised above his head. Dazedly, aware of the feel of blood (and maybe brain matter?) trickling from her skuill, she reached down to get a pair of scissors from her belt--

Suddenly she was moving. Looking back, she saw Sam, gripping her uninjured leg with both hands, dragging her away as fast as he could, his big blade slung into his belt. Looking forward, she saw the Freshman running after them, bat still raised, howling like an enraged mandrill. His feet pounded mere inches from the girl's face.

Thinking quick, she drew a pair of scissors from her belt. She watched carefully, biding her time, waiting for her chance--then struck, one hand reaching out to grab the ankle of the kid, tripping him up, dropping him to the ground, the other hand raising the scissors and bringing them down, piercing the thin rubber of his shoes and shredding the flesh underneath it all. His foot writhed in her grip, but she held on tight, withdrawing her blade and bring it back down, again and again, higher and higher, managing to work her way up to the knee before a red haze soaked into her vision, drowning it in crimson. It swallowed her sight, reducing it to but a pinprick of light before consuming it wholly , washing her in darkness. Her grip loosened, slackened, and disappeared. The scissors remained lodged in her attacker's knee, the blade jutting jauntily to the side.

Sam managed to drag her into the room and shut the door just as a Junior who had more eyes than teeth reached it. He slammed against the door, and screamed when his bat did no damage to the reinforced steel-and-oak door. He shook and kicked and slammed and pounded against to door, to zero effect. He jiggled the knob and burst into shrieks when he found it locked.

Neither Sam nor the girl had any attention left for the Junior.

The boy cradled the girl's head in his hands, turning it slightly, gently, slowly, not wanting to look at what he knew would be there: a cranium caved in like an eggshell, blood seeping through the shards of bone.

But it was not there. Just a long gash, under the hair, stretching three inches across the scalp. Bleeding profusely, yes, but not the mess of broken bits and pieces he'd been expceting. He wrapped his arms around the girl's neck and hugged her as tightly as he could. Hot tears of expelled fear bled from his eyes and drained down his cheeks. Soft sobs racked his body.

"I thought I'd lost you, I thought I'd lost you..."

Her hand came up and tangled its fingers in his hair, gently playing with it. "You didn't, Sam, you didn't." She kissed him, and he cried harder. She closed her eyes, breathing deep, savoring life. "You didn't."

He held her, rocking on his knees. "I didn't, I didn't..." He pressed his forehead to hers, connecting with the reality of the heat of her body, the fact that she was still alive. "We're gonna make it out of here, Cass, we're gonna make it..."

She pushed him back, gently, so she could look at him, and he could look at her, with her bright eyes and her beautiful smile, pearl teeth framed by satin lips.

"Of course we are."