The Day the Dead Came to Show and Tell by Mira Grant

and a drain on limited resources. After the Rising, medical care became a priority in schools again. Nurses and trauma kits were installed in elementary schools everywhere. Unfortunately, no one really stopped to consider the standard location of the nurse’s office, tucked away as it was with the rest of the school’s administration. At Evergreen Elementary, to get to the nurse, you first had to pass through the main office, which was connected to both the principal and the vice principal’s office. All the people responsible for making decisions about the school and how it would fare in an outbreak were right there, sharing a single common room…and the interior doors were almost never closed.
    The exterior door was a different story. Elaine sped up when she spotted it. She was almost at her goal. Soon, everything would be different; soon, the hard knot of panic in her chest would let go, and she would be able to return to her class. She reached for the doorknob.
    Something moved behind the frosted glass.
    She froze.
    One of the stranger tests teachers were required to pass involved watching shadows on a wall. Some of them moved fluidly, like healthy, uninjured humans. Others limped or shuffled along, but did it in a specific manner: people walking with canes, people walking with leg braces. Human ways to walk. Others shambled and stumbled, not using any sort of artificial assistance, but not walking normally, either. Those were the ones she had been trained to watch for, and while it took a few seconds for her conscious mind to catch up, her subconscious remembered what it had been taught. Her arm seized up, refusing to move any closer to the door, and to damnation.
    â€œNo,” she half-whispered, and then clapped a hand over her mouth, realizing her error. The office door was solid, but almost its entire upper half was frosted glass…and none of the doors were locked. The button that controlled the doors was inside the office. If the outbreak started there, no one would have been thinking about saving the rest of the school. They would all have been thinking about saving their own skins.
    The shadow that had shambled by the window stopped. It shuffled back a step, and stopped again, head canted very slightly to the side. She couldn’t see anything more than an outline, but she knew that the shadow’s owner was listening, waiting for another sound. In that moment, she would have stopped her own ceaselessly hammering heart, if she could have; anything to make herself less living, less visible, less endangered.
    The shadow didn’t move again. Elaine began to hope that she hadn’t been noticed. Then, as if her hope was an invitation all by itself, the shadow behind the glass stepped closer and began to moan.
    Elaine Oldenburg turned and ran.
    *  *  *
    >> MGOWDA: HOW IS IT COMING?
    >> AKWONG: IF MAGGIE AND I EVER HAVE CHILDREN, WE ARE HOMESCHOOLING THEM. MAYBE HIRING PRIVATE TUTORS. ANYTHING BUT ALLOWING THEM TO ENTER THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM.
    >> MGOWDA: THAT GOOD, HUH?
    >> AKWONG: 40% OF AMERICAN SCHOOLS STILL ALLOW THE NURSE’S OFFICE TO SHARE A CONNECTING DOOR WITH THE ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICES, WHERE THE SECURITY BACKUP CONTROLS ARE LOCATED. 63% OF AMERICAN SCHOOLS ARE USING SECURITY SYSTEMS THAT DON’T HAVE THE POWER TO OVERRIDE THEIR OWN CONTROLS. SO IF THE BUTTON IN THE OFFICE THAT WOULD ALERT THE LOCAL POLICE IS DAMAGED OR MALFUNCTIONING, HITTING THE SAME BUTTON IN THE ACTUAL SECURITY CENTER DOES NOTHING.
    >> MGOWDA: CHARMING. HAVE FUN TRYING TO SLEEP TONIGHT.
    >> AKWONG: I HATE YOU.
    â€”internal communication between Alaric Kwong and Mahir Gowda, After the End Times private server, March 16, 2044
    *  *  *
    Wednesday, March 19, 2036, 12:06 p.m.
    Elaine Oldenburg’s class looked up in terror when the door slammed open. Emily screamed. Several students began to cry. Miss Oldenburg half ran, half stumbled into the room, slamming the door behind