There's something in the Hills

There’s these mounds at my school, small, long hills in the ground. I’d always wondered what was under them, if anything. I came up with wild theories. For example, they were graves that the school either made or built upon. Corpses that were rotting right underneath me. Another was that there was a colony of mole rats living under there. I wasn’t very creative. I recently found out that they were all wrong. I shouldn’t even have asked that question in the first place. I regret that now. I regret the outcome. I regret everything that happened because of me.

My high school was your regular high school. There were cheerleaders, jocks, band geeks, and drama kids. However they always intersected, a cheerleader was a jock and probably ran for cross country. Same with the band geeks. It really seemed like the kids at my school loved running, cross country was the biggest club. That's why I was shocked when it all happened, and the kids at my school didn’t manage to get away.

Anyways, my school was normal. Everybody knew everybody. Except me, I was one of the outcasts. There aren’t groups of outcasts but you can always tell what they look like. Wallflowers, really. I don’t know why, I guess making friends was a lot harder back then. I don’t have that problem anymore.

But as I was saying, normal school, except there were those mounds or really small hills on the property, right in the front. I always saw them when I came to school, and when I went outside to eat. Remember when I said none of my theories were correct, that was a lie. The first theory was right. There were dead people in those hills. Not… not anymore.

[So the virus’ second wave started from those hills in front of your school? When did it get released?]

Kind of, yes. It all happened one day. I think it was during summer, probably August or something, I—I don’t remember too well. I was outside eating, by myself, as I always do- did. As I always did. When I started looking at those mounds of dirt, just out of nowhere, and started thinking to myself, ‘What on earth, is under that?’.

I walked right up to one of the mounds, with my unfinished sandwich in hand, and started scuffing my shoe against one, trying to dislodge some of the dirt. Trying to see if there was anything close to the surface under there. I hit something hard after barely a minute. I looked around trying to see if anyone saw me because for some reason I felt like I was doing something wrong. I didn’t know why I was feeling that but I think that was my subconscious trying to stop me from starting this mess that we’re in. There wasn’t anyone around so as I bent down, I shoved the rest of my sandwich in my mouth, and started digging. I probably did that for a minute, maybe two, I don’t remember what I did. I just know that I started digging and then I was inside my next classroom. Biology. Ironic, isn’t it?

I didn’t spend too much time thinking about what I did, I didn’t want to remember. So I did my best in the class. It was pretty interesting, to be honest, we were learning about the life cycle of mushrooms and molds and their role in other organisms' cycles. I had wanted to be a scientist when I got out of school, helping people, didn't turn out that way. Soon class was over and we were on to seminar, or homeroom. I thought it was going to be a normal class period, I had forgotten all about what I did during lunch. It was the farthest thing from my mind, until people started packing up their stuff. It wasn’t 2:30 yet and we just got up and started walking towards the door. There were people already outside and they were all going to the gym, basically an auditorium. There was a pep rally that day and I had forgotten.

We all went to the auditorium but I was the last person that got there and it was already so loud. So I decided to see it from the gym's open doors, which was where most of the teachers were. I had a lot of fun during the pep rally, it was nice. Halfway through though, I heard someone whisper my name. I looked back and no one was there so I turned around and heard the whisper again, louder, closer. I looked back and nothing, so I turned to look inside the gym. The whisper didn’t stop. I tried ignoring it, but it just got louder. I don’t know if it was just my mind playing tricks on me or something else. I don’t know what it was. The whisper got so loud that it felt like they were yelling in my ear, just saying my name over and over. I leaned over to one of my teachers standing close by and I asked them “Did you hear that”, even as I could hear the shouts of my name ringing in my ears. They said they didn’t. Maybe it was like a curse, whoever disrupted the hills had to wake them up, or maybe—maybe I had already been infected. I don’t know but I turned around again and I walked to where the voice was leading me, outside to those goddamn hills again. I already knew what I had to do.

I dug and dug and dug, my nails covered in dirt, I had dirt up to my elbows. I dug until I felt something move, the earth itself or something in it. I knew that I was done. I crawled backward, my eyes never leaving the hills but knowing I had to get away. And like a colony of ants flooding above ground, the bodies clawed through the mounds of dirt, countless rotting, stinking bodies crawling over each other. Flesh rotting, hanging off bones, wounds oozing, the ground unfurling. Bones cracking, clicking, like twigs and crisp leaves under boots. Joints twisting and popping together, the sound infernal tormenting, bodies reforming. An infernal dance of the damned. Out of the ground they stood. A noxious smell permeated the grounds. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that smell, that putrid scent, like rotten eggs and milk, mixed with burned flesh. It smelled like hell itself. It felt like just laying there I was already infected. The moon hung high in the sky, a crescent, like a grin from the heavens, humanity’s destruction was here. Now I’ve never been religious but it truly felt like the devil had come to life. The night scared me. I didn't even know it had gotten so late. The pep rally had ended and people had left, I was alone. I don’t even know how I survived, but I did. I ran and I didn’t stop. I don't know why people didn’t try to stop me from digging, as they were leaving the school people must have seen me. I know they saw me, I don’t remember much but I know they did. I know they did.

[Shane puts his head in his hands, and starts sobbing. I’m escorted out by his father. The last thing I see is his mother taking him in her arms.]