23 Fighting smart
Mathew continued to massacre all the zombies in the classroom for a while.
Thankfully, as no monster made its way to the floor, clearing this one room up took the young man only a short while.
‘I would love to pick up the cores now,’ Mathew thought, only to shake his head as he reprimanded himself. ‘But it doesn’t look like I have the time for that,’ he thought when yet another roar filled the building.
With all the zombies in the classroom gone, Mathew slowly approached the doors before carefully opening them up.
And just like one could expect from a time after a horde, the corridor was full of even more of the zombies.
‘At a time like this, I regret entering such a massive school,’ Mathew thought, keeping his complaints to the inner voice of his soul.
Yet, as much as he didn’t like to move right back into fighting, he hardly had any other choice.
‘I guess climbing through the outer wall is out of the question,’ Mathew thought, taking one last look at the outer wall of the classroom decorated with the windows. pᴀɴᴅᴀ-ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ.ᴄᴏᴍ
He already went through the adrenaline spike of having the only support for his body fail. And rather than resting his fate in the professionalism of the people that installed the drainpipes, Mathew decided to be the lord of his own fate.
‘Wait, what about the floor?’ Mathew suddenly realized one of the vital points to consider when following through with his plan. And a single glance down proved that his hopes from earlier turned out to be correct.
The floor in this wing of the building didn’t suffer as much damage as the other floors. Still, a considerable portion of it was already gone, along with similarly-sized segments of the floor on the levels below.
But there was one more important point about the way in which the floor collapsed on this particular level.
‘Save for a narrow path, it’s nearly impossible to access the back door to the classroom,’ Mathew noticed, only for a wide smile to appear on his lips as a plan hatched in his mind.
He then quickly retreated from the main doors of the classroom. The young man then approached the reinforced doors leading towards the teacher’s shed attached to the classroom.
“Breaking it will surely cause a lot of noise,” Mathew realized. He then took a deep breath and placed his ax down before getting to work. pᴀɴᴅᴀ ɴoᴠᴇʟ
Yet, rather than trying to force the door to the shed open, Mathew started to move the chairs and tables from the classroom towards its main doors, all in an attempt to properly barricade it.
“That should be enough,” Mathew muttered with satisfaction when the pile of school equipment grew high enough to even cover the window within the classroom’s doors.
Obviously, while working on his barricade, Mathew couldn’t avoid making quite a bit of noise. As such, roughly by the time he was only halfway done with the barricade, the zombies outside had already started to test their resiliency.
“Well then, onto the main task,” Mathew muttered, grabbing the ax he left by the wall before as he approached the teacher’s shed doors.
Yet, right as Mathew raised his weapon and was about to bring it down on the reinforced material the doors were made from…
“Stop it!” a voice came out from the other side, only for the doors to suddenly open.
“Huh?” Mathew muttered, instantly taking a position that would allow him to fight or flee, depending on the situation. ρꪖꪕᦔꪖꪕꪫꪣꫀꪶ
Yet, instead of zombies or even monsters awaiting inside, he saw a pair of two girls, both of which belonged to a parallel class.
He never had much opportunity to talk with them, spare for some occasional events or school-wide tournaments. Yet, the look of relief on the girls’ faces when they noticed Mat lowering his weapon was real.
‘At the very least, they do not consider me to be a threat,’ Mathew thought, resting his back against the wall as he looked at the girls.
“I’m sorry, but I need to use this shed,” he announced.
“This is our hiding spot!” they protested, although weakly with the fear still filling their minds. “Find one for yourself!” the girl on the left shouted, only to shrink down when the screeching of the zombies intensified.
But that was enough for Mathew to lose all the sympathy he had for the survivors.
“I’m not here to hide,” he announced before shaking the ax in his head to remind the girls that he was the one with a weapon here. “You can either leave on your own, or I will drag you out,” he then threatened while squinting his eyes.
“It’s better if we move,” the other of the girls whispered, desperately tugging at her friend’s sleeve.
Out of the two of them, one appeared to be confrontational, while the other was meek enough for Mathew not to be bothered with her.
“Are you for real?” the more aggressive of the girls moaned at the attempt of her friend, only to squint her eyes and look at Mathew with clear hostility. “There is no way he will dare to…”
Before the girl could finish her sentence, Mathew took a step forward. He held his ax with his right hand, so he reached out with his left hand and grabbed the girl’s long and silky blond hair before pulling at it without any mercy.
“AAARGH!” the girl screamed out in pain, not prepared for Mathew’s decisiveness. “I will go, I will go!” she then quickly changed her narration, unable to contest Mathew in terms of strength.
But the young man paid her cries no mind. He simply forced her out of the shed before throwing her on the ground of the classroom. Yet, as he looked back into the small shed, the other girl quickly raised her hands in a sign of surrender.
“I will leave on my own, I’m sorry,” she said in a shaky voice, terrified to the point of wetting the floor below her.
“Do I really look that scary?” Mathew asked himself out loud, only to shake his head and allow the girl to pass by him. He then approached the outer doors of the shed.
Due to the floor collapsing, zombies couldn’t really reach this place, saving the girls from certain death. After all, the doors on the outer side of the shed were of the cheapest kind, almost as if the school intended to trap cheeky students if any of them dared to enter that place.
Yet, rather than contemplating the history of the shed or its intended purpose, Mat simply kicked the doors open, grabbed the edge of the door’s frame, and then swung his ax, hitting its but right against the wall of the corridor.
“HEY!” he shouted, instantly attracting the zombies still trying to go through the main classroom doors. “Over here!”
That was all it took to attract the attention of the undead. And just like Mat hoped, as soon as the zombies rushed to attack him… they started to fall off the edge of the collapsed floor, allowing him to clear the corridor without actually risking his skin to do so!