Chapter Text
It was after the final basketball game that the strange happenings started to occur.
Troy was in the locker room pouting through the sweat that dripped down his red face. He was still panting and felt his hands curl into fists as he clenched his jaw and punched someone else's locker in the flickering light. Around the corner, the other players were cheering and singing as they danced around with the trophy and the game ball. Chad ran around from the group to join Troy before he punched a hole in another locker.
"Hey man, what's wrong? We won?"
"So much is wrong!" Troy whined. "First of all, Gabriella isn't here to celebrate my victory, and then you guys are all singing and dancing after you told me I wasn't allowed to sing and dance in the musical!"
“Calm down, bro. We got over that. We don’t have to stick to the status quo anymore.”
“That doesn’t explain where Gabriella is!!”
The lights continued to flicker until there was a loud crash and they popped and turned off. The noise from the cheering boys slowly faded away as they realized that they were all in the dark. From the entrance of the locker room came slow footsteps -- heel clicks.
“Gabriella?” He called.
But it wasn’t Gabriella who turned the corner. It was Ms. Darbus. She didn’t look like herself though. Her gruesome face was scarred to a point where it was cut open. Her mouth was gaping, and it didn’t seem like it was because she had just walked into the locker room of sweaty boys who had just won a basketball game. Her arms fell to her sides at unnatural angles. As he got a closer look, he noticed that her teeth were yellow and worn down and dripping with blood. He also saw that she was missing a part of her shoulder.
He had now been staring at her for about 43 seconds. She didn’t move away though. She just stood in the doorway and stared at him with sunken eyes and drool falling from her green lips.
“Ms. Darbus?” He asked. “What are you doing here?”
She didn’t respond. Instead, she grunted and moved a step closer to him.
“What’s wrong? You look different.”
Again, no response. She moved her foot forward again, but instead of planting it, she fell forward. There was an ax lodged where her neck ended and her skull began.
“Are you ok? Awake? Ms. Darbus?” He asked, lightly kicking her. Gabriella appeared from the entrance, and the boys who were originally cheering screeched because there was a girl in the locker room. Did they not just notice Ms. Darbus?
“Troy! Are you alright?”
“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be? Aside from the fact that you weren’t here to celebrate.”
“Oh oops. How was the game?”
“We won. Not that you’d care. You’re too busy not caring.”
She raised her eyebrows. “You don’t know what I was doing?”
“Probably singing duets with someone else. Ryan maybe.”
“No…” She pointed to the body on the floor. “Ms. Darbus?”
“What about her?”
“Did you notice anything strange about her?”
“Aside from the fact that she’s face down in the boy’s locker room?”
“Dead.”
“Sorry?”
“She’s dead.”
“You killed her?”
“I thought the whole ax thing made it obvious!”
“I thought it was a theatre thing!”
“She’s missing part of her shoulder!”
“Stage makeup!”
“It wouldn’t remove a part of her shoulder.” She planted her foot in the body’s back and dug out the ax. “But I have a feeling that this isn’t going to be the end. If she’s a zombie, there’s a chance she’s not the only one. This... this could be the start of something new. And if you’re not going to understand the severity of the situation...”
“What are you trying to tell me?”
“I gotta go my own way...”
“But what about us? What about everything we’ve been through?”
“I’m not going through this again. Either you’re with me or you’re not.”
He looked at the rotting bones of his former drama teacher. Now that Gabriella mentioned it, she didn’t look normal at all. Zombies, though. He was so used to beating zombies on his Call of Duty game, but now they were real.
“I just have to−”
“No, Troy. Get your head in the game.”
"I'm in."
"No, Troy." She repeated. "We're all in. We're all in this together." She grabbed his hand and pulled him over the corpse. When they reached the door, she pulled it open and left the other boys in the locker room.
"What about them? Are they in this with us?"
"Some of them are. They'll meet us at the designated spot. There are a few of them who were bit by someone though. They'll get them."
"Is Chad...?"
"Chad's fine. Stop dragging your feet! We need to--" She halted and her feet squeaked on the tile floor. In front of her stood Sharpay with a bow in her hands and a quiver full of arrows strung behind her back. She was pointing the bow at them, loaded with an arrow that looked almost as sharp as Gabriella's ax.
"Gabriella. Troy."
"Sharpay. What are you up to?"
"What does it look like I'm up to?"
"Please don't kill me!!" Troy sank to his knees and started to cry. Gabriella pulled him off of the ground.
"I'm trying to help a little bit, but I figured you'd come out of nowhere and try and save Troy and then everyone will think that you did this all." She scrunched up her nose and did her best to do a sarcastic wave while pointing an arrow at someone. "Gabriella saves the day. Again."
"Listen, Sharpay..."
"Oh, fabulous. What?"
"Normally I would try to steal your spotlight so you couldn't bop to the top."
"So what's stopping you now?"
"Well... what do you want?"
"I want it all. I want the world -- nothing less -- but right now I'm going to have to survive."
"We work together better as a team."
"Doubtful."
"We can do this. Team?" Gabriella held out her hand. Sharpay raised her eyebrows and looked as though she was going to let go of the arrow, but instead she leaned over Gabriella's left shoulder and fired one arrow, reloaded, and fired another.
"Team." She shook her hand and walked over to the bodies she just shot. They were still twitching, but the arrows hit them in the neck and went all the way back to sever the brainstem.
"Gross." Gabriella looked at what was left of the faces. "I think that kid's name -- nickname at least -- was Rocket. As for the other kid..."
"Copter." Troy said. "He was on the team. A good kid, but terrible at 3-pointers." He shrugged. "Oh well."
"Oh well??" Sharpay said. "That's it? There are zombies roaming the school, probably outside the school as well, and all you have to say is oh well?"
"Shar..." Gabriella stepped forward and put a hand on her shoulder, but Sharpay shook it off.
"No. This isn't an 'oh well' situation. We're going to fix this."
"We have to meet at the meeting point though. There are others."
"Was I the only one who didn't know about this zombie thing?" Troy asked. The girls both nodded. "So where's this meetup spot you keep talking about."
"The garden balcony." Gabriella said, pointing towards the front doors. "It's above ground level, so they won't follow us. Also it's pretty up there."
"We're just going to have to make sure we aren't followed. I'll lead." Sharpay took out another arrow and readied her bow. Just in case.