School's Out Forever

Author’s Note: For a brief time prior to launch, Abaddon Books circulated their shared-world bibles widely and encouraged submissions from anyone who wanted to pitch. I sent in three one-page outlines; two for Pax Britannia (now the sole domain of the estimable Jon Green) and one for The Afterblight Chronicles. Here’s the outline for School’s Out.

SCHOOL’S OUT

“When the plague had finally burned itself out and the dying stopped, the surviving boys and staff gradually drifted, one by one, back to the school. After all, where else was there for us to go?”

At St Bart’s College, an exclusive boys-only boarding school in an old stately home in the Pennines, only two teachers and the Matron survive to take care of the remaining pupils. Mr Bates, the PE master, was head of the school’s Army Cadet Force, and he takes control, forming the boys into a military unit, mounting a raid on the local TA armoury, running drills and exercises. Bates is a tin pot fascist, and constantly butts heads with Mr Gibbs, the art master, whom he summarily executes one day at breakfast for questioning an order. The sixth form prefects are the ‘officers’ but they are loyal to MacKillick, a sadistic bully who makes the junior boys’ lives a misery. Bates interrupts MacKillick and some of his cohorts engaged in the gang rape of Matron, who had unwisely attempted to discipline him. Bates attempts to intervene, but the boys first disarm and then crucify him, thereby taking control. MacKillick’s regime is brutal and punishing, and the junior boys are constantly humiliated and mistreated. Matron is kept locked away for the use of MacKillick’s loyal lieutenants. When one boy is sentenced to death by firing squad the fifth formers begin plans to oust him and his cronies from power.

MacKillick organises regular scouting parties to hunt and scavenge supplies from surrounding villages and towns. They begin to find evidence that nearby settlements of survivors are being attacked and plundered, but no bodies are ever found. Eventually they encounter another hunting party, smeared from head to toe in blood, hunting for human prey. Two boys are captured, the rest barely escape alive. Sensing the opportunity for a good fight, MacKillick leads a team to track down the culprits. They track the party back to their HQ, an ancient moated manor house. The moat is red with blood — the blood hunters believe that by surrounding themselves with a circle of human blood they will protect themselves from the plague. They have been harvesting the area, draining their captives’ blood into the moat, and then eating the remains. MacKillick is forced to stage his first major military campaign — the infiltration of the enemy camp, the extraction of his comrades and perhaps, if he can pull it off, the destruction of the enemy’s capacity to retaliate. Unfortunately he reckons without the treachery of his subordinates, and during the rescue attempt they contrive to leave him behind, unarmed, in a cell in the enemy camp.

Having rescued their comrades, though not without cost, the battle weary boys return to the school and attempt to set up a model society run along democratic lines. Fifth former Phil Norton is elected leader, crops are planted and their position is fortified. After a month of relative calm they find themselves besieged by the blood hunters now led by a vengeful, and clearly psychotic, MacKillick, who has slaughtered his way to the head of the tribe. One panicked junior attempts to sneak out at night, but is captured and executed in front of the school when the boys refuse to open the doors. Co-ordinating with a scouting party caught outside the school, Norton organizes simultaneous counter-attacks from within and without, but the fight goes badly and order breaks down, leading to vicious, prolonged, room to room fighting throughout the school. Casualties are heavy, but eventually the schoolboys gain the upper hand, and Norton and MacKillick fight it out man to man in the main school hall. MacKillick wins, breaking Norton’s neck, but no sooner has he bellowed his triumph than he is shot dead by the now fully recovered Matron, who assumes control and proves herself to be a far scarier badass than anyone could have expected. Unfortunately, the fighting has started fires, and the school burns to the ground. The remaining boys, led by Matron, set out to find a new home.