The Witch Hunter's Gauntlet by Bret Schulte

inside and see if she could drown her sorrows in chocolate pudding. The instant Sam entered the cafeteria someone flapped a flyer in her face.
    “Vote for Sherry Hoyle,” the flyer waver said with great enthusiasm.
    “Vote for her for what?” Sam took the flyer just to get it out of her face.
    “Student Council President,” the flyer waver said with a roll of his eyes that clearly meant that he though t Sam must have been living under a rock.
    “Vote for Sherry Hoyle,” he said to the people coming in behind Sam. She was clearly no longer important to him.
    Not more than a second later another flyer was thrust into her hand. This one wanted her to vote for a Milton Hubble.
    Every wall in the cafeteria was covered with posters of smiling faces asking for her vote. She counted at least twenty different people running for Student Council President and another forty running for Treasurer and Secretary and various other offices.
    Since everyone running was a senior, and it was only the third week of class, Sam felt really unprepared to pick a candidate. But according to the wall of posters, she had four whole weeks until the election to think about it. She hoped someone would try to buy her vote with food or cold hard cash.
    She was harassed twice in the food line by kids with flyers and once by Sherry Hoyle herself, shaking hands and promising to make sweeping changes. Sam assured Sherry she had her vote , and Sherry wandered down the line to harass other hungry students. After filling her tray, Sam scanned the cafeteria for her friends.
    Zoey desperately waved Sam to hurry over. She was sitting at their usual table with Lucas, Jerry, and Lucas’ roommate Natch, who all seemed to be engaged in a heated debate that was boring Zoey to tears.
    “The building is fine, assuming they don’t figure how to use the swipe cards.” N atch was waving his fork around as he spoke. A macaroni noodle flew off and landed on Jerry’s shirt, but he didn’t seem to notice. “But we’d be separated from the main food source. We’d be stuck living on vending machines.”
    “We could probably come up with some way to slide down onto the roof without touching the ground,” Lucas said before taking a bite of his cheeseburger.
    Zoey caught Sam’s eyes, silently begging for help.
    “What’s up , guys?” Sam asked as she sat down next to Zoey.
    “They’re figuring out what to do in the event of a zombie attack on the school,” Zoey said with intense disinterest.
    “Right,” Sam said, trying not to be too insulting to the boys. Her dripping pants were making little puddles under the table.
    Lucas put down his cheeseburger. “Natch here likes to make sure any place he li ves is as zombie-proof as possible.”
    “Hey, when the roaming undead come to feast upon our brains I don’t want to be caught unprepared,” Natch said with complete sincerity.
    “Thanks a lot,” Zoey said twisting her spaghetti around her fork. “There goes my appetite.”
    “Hey, in a zombie situation it is every man for himself,” Natch said unapologetically.
    “I would so be zombie food,” Jerry mumbled as he speared a kernel of corn with his fork.
    Sam felt a strong need to change the subject.
    “What is with the army of flyer wavers?”
    “Apparently people are taking this election very seriously,” Zoey said, hopping on the new topic.
    “I see that. But we barely know anyone here yet,” Sam said. She wasn’t prepared to call shaking hands with Sherry Hoyle in a lunch line officially knowing her.
    “It doesn’t matter,” Natch said. “It’s all about establishing yourself. This whole school is one big crazy Darwinian experiment, and the smart people are picking out their places in it.”
    “Oh great, now you got him started,” Lucas said slumping down in his chair.
    “Think about it; most schools usually have two or three top athletes, smartest nerds, most popular girls, whatever, who compete to be the big dog. But this place