THE ZOMBIE PLAYGROUND

CHAPTER TEN

“Bastard,” Brin said, jumping up from her chair and racing toward the door, not thinking about the consequences, not considering that her second vision of Droz since her return to Grisly might be a figment of her imagination.

“Brin?” Ash said as she elbowed the door open. She looked back, only briefly, to see Ash whisper, “What are you doing?”

She didn’t even look at Paul. She slammed the door behind her and started running down the hall.

It only took a few seconds for one of the superintendents to catch sight of her.

“Hey!” the burly man shouted. “No running in the halls!”

But Brin didn’t care. She knew she was in trouble already, and one more sprint out of the school wasn’t going to change how the faculty, how the Principal, how all of Grisly, currently felt about her.

Brin turned the corner and smashed her body against one of the four front doors of the school. Her right foot collided with the side of the rail, but she saved herself from tripping and smashing her face against the cement ground. She turned to her right and started racing past a set of small trees, over to Mr. Barker’s window.

Brin darted her eyes in every direction. She didn’t see Droz. She didn’t see anyone.

Come on, you son of a bitch. Show yourself.

She ran up to the window. She looked in to see Ash, who did a double take when he saw Brin outside.

She turned around to see a security officer and two superintendents jogging over to her. The officer spoke fierce and intensely into his walkie talkie, like he was calling in a bomb threat.

“Brin Skar!” one of the superintendents shouted at her. “Stop now!”

She had made it this far. She couldn’t stop now.

Brin turned to her left and started running again, this time to the side field of the school, where she could get one more glance at the front of the campus. She jumped over some hedges and raced past the tiny school theatre, finding the packed parking lot. She stopped at the edge of the curb and looked forward, blocking the sun from her eyes with her hand. She didn’t see anything unusual. She turned to her left. She caught sight of a giant fence, one that separated the school from the soon-to-be-opened Macabre Golf Course. She even thought she could see a glimpse of one of the fairways in the distance. But she didn’t see Droz.

She turned around. The school. She turned to her left. More cars. She turned back around.

A figure dressed in black glided into an alley on the other side of the street.

“Oh my God!” Brin shouted. “That’s him! That’s—”

The security guard tackled her to the ground before she could run toward the street.

“Get down on the ground!” he shouted.

“What are you doing?” Brin said. “I’m not the one you want!”

“Get off her, Sam.” Brin glanced up to see Principal Stine.

“But Sir,” the officer said,” “she was—”

“Step away, Sam,” the Principal reiterated, pulling Brin up by her arms. She was surprised to discover he was much stronger than he appeared to be.

“Mr. Stine,” she said.

“What are you doing, Brin? What the hell are you doing out here?”