NOVEL WEB Chapter 3: 24 Hours Earlier
So the bell rang. That's how it started.
Third period was just ending, and the scent of disinfectant and burnt popcorn clung to the air like a warning nobody read. Hallways buzzed with teenage nonsense, and the vending machine kept swallowing dollars like nothing was wrong. Then came the sound.
EEEEEEEEEE—
The PA system crackled, high-pitched and alive like it had something to say but didn't know how to say it without screaming first.
"Attention students and staff—this is not a drill. This is not a test. Lock all doors. Avoid contact with the infected. Do not open doors for anyone. I repeat—"
STATIC.
SCREAMING.
Thud.
Nobody moved.
Not at first. Not when it still felt like a prank pulled by someone with too much time and not enough supervision.
Then someone ran past the window without all their face.
"What the hell—" said Mateo.
He always cussed like it would stop the apocalypse from noticing him.
"It's another prank," said Jocelyn, adjusting the purple bear mascot head she'd worn all week for Spirit Week.
She couldn't see well through the mesh eyes, but that was the point. Mascots are supposed to be blind to danger.
They're cheerleaders for the end.
Mr. Beckett, the substitute, slammed the classroom door shut. His tie was already half-askew like it had been in a fight with the morning and lost.
"Move. We're barricading."
He pushed a filing cabinet in front of the door with the force of a man who didn't think he was making it home.
"This is just some viral stunt," insisted Jules, who still had TikTok open like it was going to livestream them to safety.
Then the screaming started in the next room.
Then the knocking.
Then the silence.
"Plan," Mr. Beckett said. "We need a plan. We move. Gym to library to west doors. Anyone not fast is dead. Anyone loud is dead faster."
They nodded because that's what kids do when they haven't learned how to disobey the kind of authority that bleeds when cut.
"Ready?" he asked.
No one said yes.
That was smart.
The gym was empty except for blood and the shape of something that had been chewing and didn't finish.
The mascot moved first. Jocelyn in her purple bear suit, flapping and clumsy, a soft target wrapped in school spirit.
She tried to keep up.
The head wobbled.
The floor was slick.
The library was worse.
Books scattered like failed spells. The windows were spiderwebbed with cracks. Something moved between the stacks.
"Keep going!" Beckett shouted. "Don't stop!"
But Jocelyn slipped.
A chair. A puddle. Her ankle. Her head met the floor with the kind of sound that means nothing good.
"She's down!" Mateo yelled.
"We can't—" started Jules.
"We have to," said Beckett.
Nobody voted.
They left her.
The bear stayed down, breathing shallow beneath a costume made for pep rallies, not end-times.
The exit was in sight. West hallway.
The flagpole waved like a joke in a country that had stopped laughing.
The infected were gathering—mouths wet, eyes dry, bone where cheeks used to be.
Mateo stopped.
"What are you doing?" Jules screamed.
Mateo grinned the way kids do when they've decided not to graduate.
"Buy you time."
He pulled off his hoodie, then his belt.
Pulled a knife from his backpack.
"What—what are you doing?"
"Making bait."
And he did it.
He sliced. Screamed once.
Tied the bloodied arm to the pole like a perverse school banner.
The infected noticed.
They always notice blood more than begging.
He dropped to the ground. Pale. Empty. Still breathing, somehow.
Mr. Beckett carried him.
Jules opened the door.
The air outside was wrong, but it was air.
They made it through.
Then Beckett stopped.
"I'll hold the door. You run."
"You can't—"
But he could.
He'd been a substitute. A filler.
Today, he was the ending.
He shoved the door closed, braced it, and smiled through the glass.
"Graduate for me."
Then they swarmed.
Later, Jules would say she didn't hear him scream.
Later, Mateo would wake up without an arm and say it was worth it.
Later, someone would ask what happened to the girl in the bear suit.
And someone would lie and say she died.
But she didn't.
She woke up.
Alone.
Head pounding.
Mascot still on.
She crawled behind the librarian's desk and waited.
Breathing shallow.
Invisible.
Forgotten.
And the PA system whispered again, broken and crackling like memory:
"This is not a drill. This is not a drill. Do not trust Anyone. Do not follow the Voices. Do not open the door."