Chapter 2
Natasha started searching the outhouse cubicles as soon as the video call with the others was over, hoping she could find something they could use for something, preferably as an extra weapon, though in the end she found nothing.
A couple of curses in Russian came from the redhead’s lips as she could feel the gaze of the rest on her, though Romanoff only looked at the boy of Latin descent with a guilty expression, trying to give her a silent apology.
The Russian’s gaze went from Luis to the body of the last zombie she had killed, but this was no longer one of those things that were no longer human and of which she never knew of their existence before that day, or did not remember, she now knew the name of who he was before he became a zombie and tried to eat his friend who had seem him die in front of him more than once; so he was no longer a complete stranger loke the half dozen zombies she had killed until she reached that bathroom and that affected her more than she would have expected.
However, Natasha had no time to start being empathetic, later she might feel guilty and regret her actions, but for now she had to concentrate on saving her sister; she approached the body carefully in case it was not quite dead as she thought and then hurried to pull out the arrow with which she had given her the coup de grace.
“Hey!” Luis complained when he saw what the redhead was doing.
“I’m sorry, but we need all the arrows we can get or we’ll be left with nothing to defend ourselves out there.
“Going out there is stupid” commented the blonde in cheerleader uniform.
Romanoff knew who she was even though they had never spoken before that day, they had only met at a few parties without interaction with each other, and she knew she was Sharon Carter, the captain of the cheerleading squad who had probably been training just when everything had gone to shit over her uniform, as well as being the cousin of the school’s vice president, Peggy Carter.
“Very probably it is” confirmed the Russian as she inserted the bloody arrow in the quiver handing from her waist, “but I won’t stay here and abandon my sister; you can stay if you want, no one will force you come with us, although I think you would have a better chance of surviving with a larger group.”
“I’m going” declared the young Latino. “If Scotty trust you, then I do too.”
“How do you think we do this?” asked Carol Danvers sitting on the counter of the hand wash basins. “Because the two of us can run from the zombies” she said pointing to the brunette tea girl named Maria Rambeau standing next to her, who was also her best friend, “but I’m not so sure about the rest of you.”
Natasha shook her head as she picked up the broken wooden stick and handed it to Amy to be her weapon, “Running draws attention, they would came after us from all directions and not just from behind.”
“What then?” Maria questioned. “So we just walk out weird and pretend to be one of them?”
“No, they seem to be able to recognize each other” replied Clint. “And the main entrance is full of them, we could hardly get here.”
“And that was because they were too busy eating other students” added Romanoff; “now there is an eerie silence that tells me that the few how managed to survive are in hiding like us... if there are any other survivors.”
“What about the back service door of the building leading to the alley?” proposed Minoru.
“Yeah, that might be our best option...” the redhead muttered, trying to put together a map in her mind of the corridors and entrances of the building as she remembered them. “We’d have to go through more hallways, but hopefully we’d encounter fewer zombies than there are at the front desk and at the front of the building.”
“What if there are more zombies in the hallways or in the alley?” Carter asked, finally accepting the idea of getting out of the bathroom and taking a chance. “We’d be trapped.”
“We’ll have to try out luck because if we go through the main entrance it’s a safe bet that we won’t all make it out of the building.”
“Great, so our only chances are certain death and nor so certain death?”
“Basically.”
“Do you think we should wait until nightfall so we won’t be seen?” asked Clint.
“I don’t know, so far the only thing we know for sure is that if they bite you they will turn you into one of them” answered Natasha as she approached the back of the bathroom where there were small windows near the ceiling. “Ask the others what else they know, ask them to look through the windows and report any peculiar or characteristic behavior that could be of help to us” she ordered before jumping up and holding on to the edge of one of the windows and then flexing her arms enough to be able to see through it to the outside.
“Presumed...” Sharon muttered when she saw that the redhead was holding in by the strength of her arms for longer than expected.
Romanoff held on as long as the strength of her arms allowed her to look out the window watching and analyzing the few zombies she could see from there, then she let go and let herself fall back to the ground.
“Loki says they’re idiots, but I’m sure that’s how he describes anyone other than himself” Barton reported, looking at his phone, “and Hill says that when they don’t seem sure if what’s in front of them is a zombie or a normal human they go over to smell it and see if it’s food for them.”
“Well, the school president’s information is useful” the Russian commented as she shook her hands and removed the numbness from them. “Loki’s description is also true and relevant, though not very precise.”
“Why do you say that? “What did you see?”
“A dumpster tipped over in the middle of the mess, the zombies stumble over the garbage and the one that makes noise attracts the attention of the others.”
“So the sound gets their attention and they smell their prey before eating them?” Amy questioned.
“At least that’s what it looks like; which could also mean that they have poor or limited eyesight, so they are guided by their other senses.”
“And you came to that conclusion based on...?” the cheerleading captain asked.
“It’s part of the evolution of beings to survive, both animals and humans have done it for millions of years, if you lack one sense, then you must sharpen the others to eat and avoid being eaten.”
“Please tell me you’re not basing your plan on elementary school biology classes.”
“It sounds interesting to me” Luis opined. “Go on.”
“That’s all I have” the red head admitted. “I’m not sure an expert on this, it may not even make sense because it wouldtake any living thing hundreds or even thousands of years to evolve and adapt their body and senses like that, not just a few seconds; besides, they don’t even look like predators, they’re not looking for us, they’re just wasting time out therereacting to any external stimuli around them and making sure you’re not one of them, as if they can smell the virus or a decaying body, which is impossible for the humans until the decaying flesh is more than evident.”
“I don’t care how much sense it makes or how likely it is to be true” Minoru mentioned, “if you’re going to risk it and go looking for you sister, I’m going with you.”
“Good, we have two suicides in our group” commented Carter.
“How are we going to do this?” asked Clint.
“I’m the only one with any sense her...”
Natasha used two of her fingers to press hard on the bridge of her nose, trying to concentrate on putting together the leastsuicidal plan possible.
The women’s restroom they were in was in the middle of two hallways, opposite the men’s restroom, and the quickestway to get to the back door of the building was to go down the one on the left that brought them close to the reception where, as far as they knew, it was the place in the building with the most zombies though far below those in the cafeteria.
“I’ll go ahead” Romanoff announced, finally looking at the others. “I’ll walk to the front desk on the right side of thehallway so you can cover the left side from the door, Amy will watch our hacks and the rest will take the top cover of the toilets and stay inside, but ready to break the porcelain on some zombie’s head in case they have to help or start following me if all goes well.”
“What if things don’t go well for you?” Barton questioned.
“Then I’ll draw your attention to the front outside of the building while I can, so you guys can exit out the back door and head for the bell tower.”
“ ‘Tasha...”
“If anything happens to me, you have to promise me that you will take Yelena to Ivan; he will take care of it after that.”
“I will take them both to him.”
The Russian could not help the small laugh that came form her lips and the smile that was pained on her lips because of how funny she found her best friend’s statement. “How cute that you think you’re the savior in our relationship” she mentioned as she patted the archer’s strong shoulder a couple of times. “I may be impulsive and my plans risky, but I don’t plan on dying or becoming one of those things, so it’s much more likely that I’ll get your ass to safety even if I have to drag it all over New York...” she said before taking an arrow from the quiver on the chestnut’s back. “Wait for my signal to follow me, not before and definitely not after because I don’t want to come back for you, understood?”
Natasha craned her neck from side to side as she approached the only entrance/exit to the bathroom to place her ear against the surface of the door in an attempt to hear what was going on outside.
The extra noise made by her fellow members of her new survival group as they grabbed the toilet lids and got ready didn’t help make it any easier to hear if there were any zombies nearby, but the silence behind the door was still eerie given the circumstances they were in.
Carefully and trying to make absolutely no sound, Romanoff slowly opened the door to the outside of the corridor and peeked her head through the opening to look at the right side of the corridor; felling relieved not to see any zombies.
Then the red head pushed her elbow hard to hit her best friend’s stomach and tell him to back up, which the brown-haired man did with a barely audible groan.
They both stepped back and the Russian had enough space to open the door again, but this time to the inside to see what was on the left side of the hallway; neither was surprised by the number of zombies in the lobby of the building, but they were glad to note that there was a window of opportunity to get to the hallway they wanted because the nearest zombies was about seven to ten meters away.
Natasha looked over her shoulder at Clint, who was already watching her to see if they would go ahead with the plan or not, and just gave him a small nod of her head in the affirmative before opening the door wider, existing the bathroom, standing in the middle of the hallway and standing completely still in case the zombies notices her presence.
When her position in the middle of the hallway seemed to be totally ignored, Romanoff prepared her bow and arrow to then start in slow and silent steps towards the reception of the building, aiming at all time at the zombie closest to her; she didn’t look back, but she knew that Barton was covering her.
The time and the number of short steps it took the redhead to be barely five meters from the hallway seemed eternal, but the tension in the bowstring did not diminish in the slightest.
However, luck, whatever God or the universe, was not on her side because the cell phone inside the pocket of one of the zombies closest to the Russian started ringing at full volume and made all the other zombies turn their attention to her.
“*It’s got to be a fucking joke...*” Natasha muttered before firing the first arrow.
Romanoff began to back away while shooting arrows, with her best friend helping her from behind; though, unfortunately, archery was not her most developed skill nor was it anywhere near the level of the captain of the archery team, so she could only shoot three arrows before the zombies reached her and she had to use the bow as a baseball bat while also throwing kicks at anything that moved and tried to eat her.
“ ‘Tasha, I can’t shoot if you move that much!” Clint exclaimed from his position at the bathroom door.
“Do you want to switch places and try to do better?”
“We’ve got company over here!” announced Amy.
The redhead couldn’t turn around to see how bad the situation was behind her, although she hoped it wasn’t worse that the one she had in front of her at that very moment. “Back off!” she ordered as she pulled an arrow out of the eye of one of the zombies. “Get back inside! I’ll handle this on my own!”
“Well, she made her decision” Sharron said. “Come on, let’s go inside and close the door.”
“We won’t leave her!” Carol declared as she hit the head of a zombie with the porcelain toilet seat.
“If they want to die with her, that’s fine with me...”
“I won’t let you close this door” said Luis. “They wouldn’t leave us to our fate.”
“And so we must all die together? I don’t even know them.”
The young Latino gave no indication of backing down on changing his mind, which caused the captain of the cheerleading squad to let out a grunt of frustration, then there was silence for a few seconds before she said that she would take it upon herself to help the redhead and that he should get the others into the bathroom.
Natasha wanted to give them a warning so that none of them would do anything stupid in an attempt to save her, but at that pony she wasn’t even fighting anymore, she was just holding the bow in front of her and using all the strength she had to push the zombies that were pushing each other so they could reach her and make her their next snack, so she wasn’t able to say anything, from her mouth only a constant grunt of effort was coming out that increased while the strength in her arms and legs decreased.
The next thing the Russian knew, a pair of hands landed on her back and pushed her hard; no, a more accurate definition would be that someone wan full speed at her and intentionally slammed into her back, pushing her forward into the zombies, although said extra force also caused the zombies to recoil and fall backwards out top of each other.
Before Romanoff fell over the zombies bundle, a hand grabbed her arm tightly and pulled her backwards, the continued pulling her backwards until it pulled her through a door that was neither of the two students restrooms and that lay between them and the hallway they had originally planned to reach.
Bringing her brain up to speed as quickly as possible, Natasha fully regained her balance as soon as she walked through the door, slowed down as quickly as she could to avoid falling, and then ran to the door to help close it.
It wasn’t door that opened both ways like the one in the bathrooms, so they just had to push until they heard the click that indicated the slip had gone into the gap it was supposed to and then the redhead’s companion made sure to set the lock in case the zombie IQ had increased enough in the last two minutes to try to turn the door handle to get in.
Carter turned around, still leaning her body hard against the door that was being pounded by the zombies on the other side, and let out a sigh of relief with her eyes closed; though she was startled a little when she heard a fainter knock against the door, this time from her side, and another sigh of relief that didn’t come from her.
“*Shit, that was too close...*” Romanoff muttered in his native language, still with her eyes closed, her forehead leaning against the door and her hands still exerting a little force to make sure it stayed closed.
“You weren’t bitten, were you?” Sharon questioned with concern as she saw the blood splatter on the face and clothes of the girl who was practically on top of her at that moment.
The redhead opened her eyes, stepped back a little and looked mainly at the hands, one on each side of the blonde’s head, making sure there was no open wound beyond the foreign blood on her skin. “No, though not for lack for trying...” she replied as she finally turned away from the door and the captain of the cheerleading squad. “Of all the others, you were my last choice for a heroic saving act attempt like that” she admitted as she looked around to see where they were.
“Yeah, I managed to surprise myself as well...”
“The building’s cleaning closet...” the Russian woman muttered as she took a towel from a paper roll on one of the shelves to wipe the fresh blood from her face and hands. “Did you know it was empty?” she asked looking at her companion.
“No” Carter said, stepping away from the door and joining in the inspection of the small room. “I didn’t even know if the door was open, but I guess people do stupid things when they’re under a lot of pressure.”
“And I guess I should be thanking you for saving me...”
“Meh, I already found a way to charge it later” said the blonde as she walked to the back of the closet and sat down against one of the shelves, next to a yellow cleaning cart. “Besides, none of them were going to let you die, so it was either that or we all ended up dead with you.”
Before Natasha could answer anything, she left her phone vibrate inside the pocket of her sweatpants, so she hurried to unzip the thin zipper and pull out the device.
~’Tasha?~ Clint called as soon as his best friends answered the video call. ~Are you okay?~
“Outside of my pride getting eaten by those zombies; yeah, I’m fine.”
“I’m fine too” exclaimed Sharon sitting on the floor. “Thanks for the concern and asking about both of us, especially who saved each other’s asses.”
~You were the only one who wanted us to let her die.~
“Yeah, but for like a minute or so, and then I saved her from all those zombies.”
“What about you guys?” interrupted the Russian. “Is everyone okay?”
~Just, we also came pretty close to being bitten by those zombies.~
~What shall we do now?”~ asked Minoru appearing on the screen.
“We have no other option but to wait for the zombies to disperse again to have another chance to get out of the building...” the redhead replied, letting out a small sigh of frustration. “We ended up in the cleaning closet, so I’ll take a look at what’s in here and what we can use; in the meantime, you guys contact the others and tell them we’ll be a little longer than expected.”
~Okay, call us as soon as you have a new plan and don’t do anything stupid on you own~ replied Barton.
“Relax, I’m sure the cheerleader won’t hold back in letting me know if she thinks is stupid” said Romanoff before hanging up, sparing herself the goodbyes.
“Captain of the cheerleading squad” Carter corrected with a noticeable annoyance in her voice.
“I don’t care about titles or ranks, you can be a piece of shit and be at the top of the pyramid of status and power.”
The Russian decided that she needed to get some rest, both physically and mentally, before getting to work on a new plan to get them out of that building and take them to the others, so she set the bow next to the quiver on a shelf, walked over to the blonde and sat down on the floor next to her, resting her head on one of the shelves behind her.
Sharon ignored the slight discomfort at Natasha’s proximity and simply began to pull out the slim cigarette case she carried with her in one of the pockets hidden by the slats od her cheerleading uniform skirt so she could smoke the last cigarette she knew she had left and had planned to save for later, but that was a thought that crossed her mind before she was confronted and almost bitten by zombies.
The blonde opened the thin metal container and took out her last cigarette along with the disposable lighter she had been using for the past few weeks then placed the cigarette between her lips and tried to light it, but the lighter had run out of fuel.
“Don’t fuck with me...” Carter muttered in anger and frustration as she made more attempts, each more desperate than the last, to get some spark to create a flame. “Fucking piece of shit.”
The redhead turned her head sightly to see the formidable battle between the American and the empty lighter; she smiled at the unique situation in the midst of everything they were living and then opened the other pocket of her sweatpants to take her electric lighter.
“Let me” said Romanoff as she opened the metal cap of his golden lighter and brought it close to the blonde’s cigarette before pressing the button on one of its sides of activate the electric discharge that finally formed a purple colored energy X.
The cheerleading team captain took a second to move closer to the Russian’s lighter to light her cigarette, mainly because of the slight confusion she had as it was something she didn’t expect her to carry with her coming from a competition.
“Thank you...” whispered Sharon after her fist puff; she took the cigarette between her fingers and brought it closer to the redhead’s face. “Do you want some?” she offered, feeling genuinely grateful that the other girl had given her access to her poison of choice. “We can share it.”
Natasha didn’t consider twice the opportunity, but fighting zombies turned out to be more exhausting than she would haveexpected, so she opted to lean her head towards the cigarette and place it between her lips instead of taking it with her hand; then she just moved away again from the cigarette and the blonde’s hand that held it, completely ignoring the fact that her lips had slightly grazed her companion’s fingers.
“Thank God it’s not one of those weird flavored cigarettes” the Russian mentioned as she savored the taste the smoke left behind as it passed through her mouth, “though I guess I would have still tried to enjoy it since I don’t know how easy it will be to get more decent cigarettes in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.”
Carter smiled and brought the cigarette back to her lips to take a second puff and try to ignored the slightly tense atmosphere that she claimed only she felt after barely touching the redhead’s lips.
“I thought that for someone who appreciated out of nowhere and, from what I’ve heard, swept the rest of the gymnastics team members and crowned herself as the captain, status and power would be important” commented the blonde, going back to the last topic of conversation before the cigarette one since she didn’t know what else to say about that.
Natasha smiled and turned her head to look at Sharon with a little surprise. “So, you know who I am, huh?” she asked curiously letting the smoke out of her lugs in a small sigh after she had spoken.
“Rumors are running fast around the school, especially when the captain of the archery team is said to be cheating on his girlfriend with the incoming foreign redhead.”
This time Romanoff could not help the brief laugh that escaped her lips at the little piece of gossip she had just received. “I don’t meddle in relations” she declared with the same mocking smile, “in every way.”
“What does that last one mean?” Carter asked in confusion.
“It means that I don’t get in the way of a relationship between other people or establish a relationship with another person” the redhead answered seriously, holding the blonde’s wrist to bring the cigarette back to her lips and take a puff, then returning her gaze to the ceiling.
“So, is that rumor true?”
“Which one? Because, apparently, there’s more than one about me.”
“The one that says you end all communication with anyone you’ve had a sexual encounter with... or something pretty close to it, depending on the case.”
“Nice way to call me promiscuous” Natasha pointed out without being the least bit offended, letting go of the smoke she was holding. “I could use it as a description for one of those dating apps, it’s pretty accurate.”
“Why?” the blonde questioned, and this time she turned her head to look at the redhead.
“I already told you, I don’t get involved in relationships...” Romanoff declared, imitating the cheerleading captain’s movements, returned her gaze without any hint of embarrassment or intimidation. “I don’t mix feelings.”
“Don’t you believe in love?” Carter asked before taking another puff on her cigarette in an attempt to divert her attention from the discomfort the new topic of conversation might generate.
“I think love is for children.”
“Interesting...” murmured Sharon with a small smile. “And fun.”
The Russian didn’t miss the tone in the voice of these last three words Carter had said to her; she didn’t feel uncomfortable about it, although it did generate intrigue because she hadn’t seen it coming.
“I could have sworn that my radar was infallible” Natasha commented more to herself as she watched carefully as the blonde exhaled the smoke from her lungs, “but it seems that it’s not so much.”
“It’s called discretion, maybe you could try to have it sometime.”
“I had some, I had to have it in Russian so I wouldn’t get into too much trouble, although I never cared too much about it, that’s why it’s one of the things I left over there.”
“Well, we’re in the middle of a zombie apocalypse and neither you nor I need to worry about discretion anymore...” the blonde pointed out seriously, so the amused smile she received from the Russian puzzled her more than she herself would have expected. “What? Is that a No?” she asked with a bit of false indignation as she threw the butt of her cigarette at the door. “Are you rejecting me?”
“No, of course not, not at all” answered Romanoff with a little seriousness, although she could not get rid of her smile. “It’s just that...”
“What?”
“It’s like you’re coming out of the closet with me just when we’re literally inside a cleaning closet.”
Carter accepted the slight irony there and smiled before using her elbow to smack the Russian’s side. “I’ve been gone for a while now, that you didn’t notice it before is not my problem” she argued in the same mucking tone, “so shut your mouth.”
“Oh, I assure you, you wouldn’t want me to do that” the redhead stated with a slightly different tone of voice and smile. “Not to brag, but they say I can work wonders with it.”
“It sounds to me like you’re showing off...” Sharon mentioned as she brought her face closer to Natasha’s. “You’ll have to prove it id you don’t want to come off as a lying blabbermouth,”
Romanoff paused briefly and wondered to herself if she was really going to have zex with someone she just met in the middle of a zombie apocalypse when she was supposed to be trying to save her little sister, but she also convinced herself that Yelena wasn’t stupid and could stay alive for an extra twenty minutes, at least, without doing anything that would kill her or any of the other guys with her.
Not allowing herself to hesitate any longer, Natasha moved closer to the blonde and finished the space between their lips, almost immediately feeling and identifying the cigarette taste in Carter’s mouth, and since they were out of them, she made sure to savor what she could while she had the chance.
Carter had no intention to giving up the mastery of the situation so easily, not when it was she who dared to take the plunge and initiate this, so he fought with some force and desperation against the Russian’s tongue that seemed to be as agile as Romanoff herself had boasted just before finally deciding to kiss her.
The redhead wasn’t planning on being the non-dominant party either, it usually wasn’t her style and the truth was that she wanted to subdue the blonde a bit after she had insisted on fighting and arguing with her so much before leaving the girl’s bathroom to execute her hailed plan; even if it would be just a bit, she wouldn’t take it that far, unless the American wanted it and had no problem with it, since she had also saved her ass from that group of zombies more recently.
Natasha brought her hands to Sharon’s waist, digging her thumbs into the top hem of her cheerleading skirt to hold her down and then pulling her to her, making her sit on her lap.
The captain of the cheerleading squad didn’t put up any more resistance, at least not too much, and opted to tangle her hands in the slightly loosed red hair at the back of the Russian’s head, despite the braid that held most of her hair in place, so she could pull it a little more towards herself.
Just as Romanoff was running her hands over the part of the blonde’s torso that was exposed thanks to the design of her cheerleading uniform, the second her fingers began to run the fabric of her top, the phone in the pocket of her sweatpants began to vibrate alerting she to a call.
“One second...” Natasha murmured against Carter’s lips, who had also felt the vibration of the phone against her thigh and broke away to catch her breath. “I have to answer it.”
The Russian woman touched the American’s thigh to move it a little and pulled her phone out of her sweatpants pocket; she took it in her hand, checked her suspicions that it was her best friend and cursed a little in her native language getting ready to answer.
“No, wait” Sharon ordered as she noticed that this was again a video call, then quickly looked around until she found something she could use.
Romanoff stood still, shifting her haze from the slightly funny picture she had taken of Clint and used for her contact to trying to see what the blonde sitting above her was taking from the shelf behind her.
Carter brought a black piece of glue tape to her mouth, cut a piece off with the help of her teeth and placed the small uneven piece over the redhead’s phone camera, then just motioned for her to continue.
Natasha accepted Barton’s call, noticing more that the piece of black tape covered a little more than the front camera of her phone.
~’Tasha? Are you there? I can’t see you.~
“Yeah, I’m here, my phone feel out of my sweater pocket when I was checking one of the top shelves” Romanoff replied, managing to surprise even herself at the fluidity with which her voice came out even though Sharon had started unzipping her seater and kissing her neck the instant she answered the video call, “maybe I just need to drop it back down to fix it and get the camera working again, but that doesn’t matter now, what’s going on?” she kept talking, being more than a little distracted by the mouth teasing her through the length of her neck. “Yelena?” she called out as she saw her sister’s face in one of the boxes on her screen. “Is everything all right? Please tell me you haven’t done anything stupid.”
~No, not yet, but we have a plan to get you out of there~ Belova replied. ~Your friend already told us about your failed attempt to get out of the building they’re in.~
“You can spare me the comments about that, I had to try” the redhead replied with a hint od anger, which quickly fadedinto the background as Carter finished unzipping her sweater and slipped her hands under her blouse. “What’s the plan?”she asked doing her best to stay focused on the video call.
~Your sister forced us to stop watching what’s going on in the city via Twitter and reminded us that we have access to all the speakers in the institute, including the ones in the gardens and sports fields~ Pepper reported.
~Which means we can try to distract the zombies so you guys can get out of the building~ added a voice Natasha hadn’t heard before in the first conversation they all had together, though it sounded familiar.
Sharon may have been biting Romanoff’s collarbones a bit as she ran her hands up the Russian’s torso toward her sports bra, but she found it impossible to ignore her cousin’s voice.
“Peggy?” said the blonde as she grabbed the redhead’s phone as well to turn it a bit so she could get a better look at the screen.
~Sharon?~ asked the same voice that had last spoked from the audio-visual room. ~Thank God you’re okay, I thought the whole cheerleading squad were now zombies.~
“Well, luckily I took a little break to sneak a smoke in the restrooms of the cafeteria building just as everything went to shit.”
~And I thought that thing was going to kill you and in the end it saved your life in some strange way...~
“Sorry to interrupt the family meeting, but can we get back to the part where they tell us their plan so we can get out of here?” Natasha questioned. “So they can have this conversation in person.”
~Yes, of course, as I was saying...~ Peggy echoed. ~We don’t have specific control of each speaker individually at the institute, most of the systems in almost every building are old and were only half retrofitted with the new system Stark provided.~
~I want to clarify that it wasn’t my fault, I proposed a reinstallation of modern hardware for the new sound system~ interrupted Tony. ~but Director Pierce was a cheapskate and said the only retrofit what you could.~
~This isn’t the best time, honey~ Potts mentioned.
~We’ve already seen and proven to some extent that zombies react more to sound~ Hill pointed out, surely having had enough of the spin they were putting on the matter and deciding to give the explanation herself. ~We may not be able to lead them away form you and leave the way clear, but we may be able to distract them enough to make it easier from them to get to the back exit.~
“Well, I can work with that...” Romanoff commented more to herself as she looked around. “Give me about five minutes and I’ll set up a few things we could use.”
~Wait, how will we know the zombies are distracted and we can get out?~ questioned Carol. ~Because, not to be the party pooper here, last time things didn’t go as well as we had planned.~
~Our parent personally oversaw the installation of Wizard’s security system at the high school~ Amy replied. ~If someone has access to one of the computers or servers that are on the system, we could see everything the cameras record.~
~Sorry to disappoint you, but you’re not the first one to think of it~ mentioned Stark. ~I’ve already tried to hack into the cameras rom the pre-Hispanic computers in this building, but they’re outside the closed security system and we have no idea which computer in the entire institute might be inside.~
~Oh! The security guards’ office is in the cafeteria building~ Kate reported. ~I haft to outwit them during the night, which was easy enough, to get to the rooftop and shoot the arrow that brought down the bell tower.~
“Yes, I know exactly which door it is” said Natasha remembering the time she had to enter to erase some recordings in which she appeared doing something that could cause her expulsion, “but it’s one the other side of the building, we would have to cross the reception that is full of zombies or take the long way through the corridors throughout the seconds floor that we do not know how infected with zombies are; it does not seem a very viable option with the little we have to defend ourselves.”
~So let’s just get out of here and go pick up the others as was the initial plan~ Clint suggested. ~We can only manage with the speaker system for the moment and then we’ll look at the other options for accessing the security cameras.~
“All right, I’ll prepare everything we can use from this cleaning closet” Romanoff replied. “Clint, you and the others get ready when I send you my signal and you’re ready to go; Stark, send those in the audio-visual room you playlist of rock and metal music that you play at your parties when you’re drunk enough to play it loudly over the speakers in out building.”
~It will be the zombie apocalypse with the best soundtrack~ Tony assured.
The redhead ended her participation in the video call by hanging up to immediately then look at the blonde who was still sitting on her lap, and who had also cruelly toyed with her during the first part of the conversation with the others.
“It was fun while it lasted” the Russian mentioned trying not to sound like an idiot by so abruptly ending what they were doing just before they got the call, “although you’ll get the remnants of the glue off the tape on my phone screen and ultimately I’ll get revenge later for trying to keep me distracted by using foul play.”
“I didn’t hear you complaint or try to do anything to get me to stop.”
“It’s called self-control, maybe you could try to have it sometime?” Natasha pointed out with an obvious smirk that complemented the tone of her voice. “Besides, military and martial arts training had to be good for more than just busting some idiot’s face once in a while for a change.”
“Self-control, sound like something else you’ll have to prove with deeds and not just mere words, and I’m already coming up with a few things to test you on.”
“As Much as the piques my curiosity, I have to remind you that we’re in the middle of a freaking zombie apocalypse and I have to go save my sister, so it’ll have to be something we’ll have to leave for later, preferably not int an uncomfortable cleaning closet.”
“Less than five minutes ago that didn’t seem to be a problem for you.”
“Well, less than five minutes ago I didn’t have a plan to get out of here.”
Sharon smiled and finally got Romanoff off her back, standing up and reaching out to the Russian to help her do the same. “This better work or those idiots will have ruined my last chance to have a good time in a zombie apocalypse.”
It didn’t take the redhead mor than three minutes to break all the cleaning tools she could turn into weapons, mainly those with wooden sticks since the splintered one end could be used to stab zombies.
Since most of what was in the closet were jars with cleaning chemicals, the Russian chose to take with her for her plan the wooden sticks, the cleaning cart to use it as a barrier and a medium-sized can of oil that was most likely used to lubricate metal objects.
After their hasty preparation, Romanoff texted the group with the others to let them know they were ready and it was time to start the plan, Clint reported that they were also preparing and in about thirty seconds later a rock song began to play loudly throughout the second floor of the building.
“What isn’t that song by...?” said Carter, trying to identify the song they were listening to.
“Of course it would be Back in Black by AC/DC” Natasha commented with a small smile as she took the quiver and bow from the rack where she had left them a few minutes before. “I’ll go out first to shop that’s safe; you go out later with the cleaning cart and give the wooden sticks to the others so they can help us and defend themselves.”
The Russian waited until the song was hallway through to send a message to the others to let them know it was time to start, opened the door and peeked half her body out into the hallway cautiously from the cleaning closet with bow and arrow at the ready.
Just as they had hoped would happen, the zombies were huddled under the speakers in the hallway attracted by the sound of blaring rock.
Romanoff looked toward the door of the women’s restroom and exchanged a quick, silent glance with her best friend before stepping fully out into the hallway and finally starting to walk toward the back door of the building.
The redhead reached the beginning of the hallway, she checked that the zombies there were also more focused on the horns than on them, she turned around to check that everyone was keeping up with her and it was just the right moment to realize that the music inside the hallway had caught the attention of the zombies at the front outside of the building who were now running towards them.
Natasha signaled for the companions to hurry up, which the other boys did immediately, forgetting a bit about stealth; as Sharon passed her with the cleaning cart, she took the oil can and opened it to spread the liquid on the ground while Clint covered her by shooting arrows towards the zombies that came closest of them.
Once the Russian finished putting up what would hopefully be a simple delay for the zombies, she and Barton ran to catch up with the others, who were almost leading to the back door.
Carol and Maria took it upon themselves to use the cleaning cart as a makeshift barricade as the two students with the bows and arrows caught up to them and as the others took it upon themselves to open both metal doors that separated them from the outside.
They all made it out of the cafeteria building in one piece and without a scratch; however, they didn’t have time to celebrate their small victory because the alley wasn’t exactly zombie-free, so they had to start running towards the bell tower as fast as they could while making their way as best they could through the waves of zombies that attacked them in small groups one after the other.
They managed to run between the planters to the bell tower, where they were greeted, when they were still about twenty meters away, by the doors opening wide to let out a tall Asgardian with long blond hair, who held a mallet in one hand and an axe in the other, and rushed towards them with a very battle-like cry to help them with the zombies.
To add more strangeness, or to make the situation more epic in some way, another man almost as tall as Thor, with short black hair, came out with a motorcycler for the bell tower to guard the gates; behind him two other boys came out to help with the task, one of them who was a long-haired back-haired, also an Asgardian and Thor’s brother, held a pair of unarmed shears for pruning bushes, using them as if they were some kinds of daggers; the other oy, brown, but with his short hair bleached to a platinum white, held a nail gun.
With the extra help, they all made it to the bell tower and into the old, and half collapsed under repair, building to take shelter from the zombies, accomplishing their first part of the plan with a relatively good success rate; no one had died yet, but neither had it been the best execution of a plan without some sort of mishap or minor stumble along the way.
“That was amazing!” exclaimed the eldest of the Asgardian princes present. “Let’s do it again.”