The Dead Walk High

Maya's iphone buzzed against her thigh, jolting her back to reality. Third period AP Bio, Mr. Harrison droning about mitochondria again. She caught Tyler's eye across the room—his usual half-smile, the one that made her stomach do that stupid flip thing.

But something was off. Tyler's face was slack. His skin had that weird grayish tint he'd been sporting for weeks, like he'd pulled one too many all-nighters gaming. But this was different. He wasn't just tired. He was something else.

"zombie," she whispered to herself. And not the cute, cuddly Walking Dead kind.

The rumors had started three weeks ago. Kids falling asleep in class, then waking up... different. Less. Like someone had scooped out their souls and left empty shells marching through the halls, phones glued to their hands, scrolling through infinite feeds of nothing.

Maya had become a spy of sorts. Documenting. Her camera roll filled with candid shots—Jenna staring blankly at her locker, Marcus wandering the cafeteria line for twenty minutes without choosing anything. The dead walk high.

Her phone vibrated. New notification: WATCH UR BACK. From Anonymous.

Maya's heart hammered. Someone else knew.

That afternoon, she found the note in her locker. OLD GYM. 5PM. BRING UR CAT. Which was weird, because nobody knew about Barnaby—her mom made her keep him in the garage, claiming Dad was "allergic" (he wasn't).

Barnaby yowled in his carrier as Maya crept through the gym's back door. Dust motes danced in slanted light. A figure emerged from behind the bleachers.

"Tyler?"

But it wasn't Tyler. It was worse. Principal Hutchinson, his eyes dead and hungry, moving with that jerky, wrong motion all the infected shared. Behind him, a bull of a kid—Liam from the football team—shampered forward, arms outstretched.

Maya's cat went berserk, clawing at the carrier door. Something burst from Barnaby's throat—a sound that wasn't a cat's scream at all. Light, pure and blinding, erupted from the carrier.

The zombies recoiled, hissing. Hutchinson's dead eyes flickered with something ancient, something terrified.

The note flashed through Maya's mind. BRING UR CAT. Not because cats were cute. Because cats could see what humans couldn't. Because cats had been hunting these things since before humans had names for them.

Barnaby's light filled the gym. The infection burned away, leaving... what? Kids who'd been lost, now waking up as if from long nightmares. Liam collapsed, sobbing. Hutchinson crumpled, confused and old and so very human.

Maya's iphone screen lit up. One new message: TELL NO ONE. U R PART OF THIS NOW.

She looked at Barnaby, who was now just a regular cat again, grooming his paw like nothing had happened. Like he hadn't just saved her high school from actual monsters.

"You're not getting extra treats for this," she whispered. But she scratched behind his ears anyway, and somewhere deep inside, something in her woke up too.

The dead walk high. But the living? The living were just getting started.