Sick Read online

  “Naw, no,” Chad says, wagging his head. “We gotta get the hell out is what we gotta do.”

  “Where’s the key?” I ask Jaime. “To the bike lock.”

  Jaime pats his pockets; keys jingle. “I got it. It’s safe.”

  Chad squints at him. “Now wait just a damn minute,” he says. “Who the hell put you in charge?”

  “Why does it matter?” Jaime retorts. “Thought you were getting out of here.”

  “Listen, you Mexican piece of sh—”

  “All right, stop,” I say, interrupting Chad as Jaime clamps his mouth tight. “You saw what happened to my cell. Jaime was right. We’re the only ones trying to be, like, proactive here. Far as I’m concerned, those idiots in the hall can flip out all they want. Until someone in a flak vest rappels into the auditorium, we’re it.”

  They look at each other. Jaime nods, relaxing ever so slightly while Chad sneers. I remind myself that we’re all under stress, a metric shit-ton of it. Otherwise Chad wouldn’t have said anything like that to Jaime. No way.

  “Now, I won’t speak for anyone else,” I go on, “but I know for a fact that my sister is alive in the library. With other people, by the sound of it. So one way or another, I’m going in there to get her out. Meanwhile, you all can dickslap each other for who gets to be the Big Bad. But I got work that needs getting done.”

  “This is the safest place to be right now,” Jaime says.

  “Okay,” Chad says, shrugging. “Okay. Cool. That’s true. Oh, and by the way, how’s your little brother holding up?”

  Jaime freezes so still and complete it unnerves me. I feel my legs tense, ready to jump in between him and Chad if he goes nuts.

  Instead, Jaime turns around, away from Chad. Slowly, millimeter by millimeter, the tension in his shoulders melts, until his entire body seems to sag.

  “You’re right,” he says quietly.

  “Not tryin’ to be a dick,” Chad says. “I’m just sayin’.”

  Jaime turns to me. “If you did get to your sister, then what? Try to get off campus?”

  I sit down on Golab’s fake leather couch and hold my head in both hands. “I hadn’t gotten that far yet.”

  “Wait a sec,” Travis says. “I thought you wanted to stay holed up in here, Jaime.”

  “For the most part, yeah,” Jaime says. “But I also want to go get my little brother. And go home.”

  Being a teenager sucks. You’re not an adult, but not really a kid anymore. We spend most of our time pushing for all the adult stuff. Cars and money and all that. But when Jaime says home like that, I swear to god I drop to six years old because I understand instantly what he means.

  I just want to go home too.

  Chad either ignores his tone or leaps over it. “Right, gettin’ off campus, yeah,” he says, nodding vigorously. “So we agree? I think that’s our plan. If we could find a—”

  He cuts himself off and snaps his fingers. “My car, it’s not in the lot!” Chad says. “It’s parked outside the fence, across Scarlet. Not even a block from the parking lot. You can see it from there.”

  The others perk up. Damon says, “So if we could get past the fence …”

  “The zombies and the fence,” Travis says.

  “Dude,” I say. “Don’t call them zombies, all right?”

  “What kind of car?” Jaime asks.

  “Station wagon. Big old huge bitch too. I’ve gotten twelve people in there once before. It wasn’t comfy, but we did it. Realistically I’d say … seven to ten.” He looks around at us as if taking count. “Us, anyway. That’s six. Call it four more. Three with Mackenzie.”

  “Two left with Laura,” I say.

  Nobody responds. I get pissed, then scared, then ill. It’s like they won’t even consider her.

  “Dave,” Travis says quickly. “We got to bring Dave.”

  “That leaves one seat left,” Damon says softly.

  “Hey, my car, my call,” Chad says to Travis. “I ain’t holdin’ no frickin’ lottery, pal.”

  Travis takes a breath, ready to argue, but Jaime holds up a hand to silence him. Guess all these years of Jaime being in charge of the plays still applies, because Travis shuts up.

  “Plus what about Cammy?” Chad says, looking at me. “If we can find her too, we gotta get her outta here.”

  He’s right. We can’t leave Cammy here. If she’s alive. If any of them are …

  Jaime paces the short distance between the door and Golab’s desk.

  “Maybe,” he says carefully. “Maybe we can break this down, step by step, and all get out of here alive.”

  “I’m listening,” I say. Because no matter what, my mind’s made up.

  “But we don’t do it half-ass,” Jaime says. “We get on the same page and we stay on the same page. Otherwise someone’ll do something dumb and get us all killed.”

  “Why’re you lookin’ at me?” Chad says.

  “Because you’re reckless,” Jaime says. “Questions?”

  Chad glares at him. “Well! … Huh. No. No, not really.”

  “We handle the food issue first,” Jaime says. “Then we talk rescue operation, recon, and escape.”

  “Wow,” Chad says. “That kinda gives me a boner, I’m not gonna lie.”

  Jaime smirks. “Glad to hear it. All right. On me.”

  He unlocks the door.

  JOHN’S OUT THERE WAITING AS SOON AS JAIME opens the door.

  “Hey, what were you guys—”

  I throw a palm into the sophomore’s chest, sending him backward. The crowd, which has gathered around the door, backs up. John scowls at me, and I stare him in the eye until he looks away.

  “Listen up,” Jaime says. “Here’s the deal. One, remember the phone is dead in here. So don’t anybody go stepping all over anyone to get to it. You want to see for yourself, fine, but believe me, if it was working, we’d be in there talking on it. Get it?”

  Nervous nods. John rubs his chest, making a pissy face at me.

  “Number two, we’re talking about trying to get out of here,” Jaime goes on. “But it’s going to take some time and patience. What I need all of you to do is chill out. Just try your best to relax, and don’t do anything stupid. Those things are still out there, so just sit tight. When we have a plan, we’ll tell you.”

  “Who put you in charge?” John says, but stays back where I had pushed him.

  Chad stalks up to John, who cowers.

  “I did,” Chad grunts in his face. “You got somethin’ you wanna say about it, cold sore?”

  I blink in shock. It’s the last thing I would’ve expected Chad to say. Not the cold sore thing, but about Jaime being in charge.

  “N-n-no,” John says.

  Chad nods, and turns back to Jaime, folding his arms over his chest. “G’head.”

  Jaime’s mouth twitches into a grin, but it’s gone as quick as it came. “Kat made a good point a minute ago,” he says to everyone. “We’re not in the middle of nowhere. We’re in the sixth-largest city in the country. Somebody’s going to come for us eventually. Brian’s mom is telling someone we’re here, and she’s a cop.”

  Not exactly true, but I don’t bother correcting him.

  “The best thing we can do is wait for them, just like if we were lost somewhere.”

  That runs exactly counter to what Jaime said in the office, but I don’t point it out. Right now, it’s probably more important to get these kids to settle down than to let them in on our plan.

  Whatever that plan is. That’s when I realize why Chad backed up Jaime’s authority: the sooner we get everyone settled down, the sooner we can figure out how to get the hell out of here.

  “Meanwhile,” Jaime says, wrapping up, “just be cool. All right? We’ll be in the scene shop.”

  A dozen voices protest.

  “John,” Jaime adds over the noise, “you’re in charge out here. Keep everyone cool. Get me?”

  John’s face gets serious and he nods his head. “I’m on
it,” he says.

  My respect for Jaime Escadero skyrockets. It’s a brilliant move, and John buys into it instantly because he’s too stupid not to. Now not only will someone work at keeping everybody calm, but it’ll keep John out of our way. Plus I see Jaime give Dave a clandestine nod as if to say, Make sure he doesn’t screw it up. Dave tips his head back to indicate, No problem.

  Jaime jerks his head at us. Me, Travis, Chad, Damon, and Kat fall in behind him. Not sure what good Damon will do, but maybe Jaime’s plan involves going for Damon’s gun. Or maybe Damon has a girlfriend or sibling on campus he’s worried about.

  Or maybe, like the rest of us, he just wants out. I swear the hallway walls are inching closer together, sucking up oxygen.

  We march to the shop. The last thing I hear before Damon shuts the shop door is that freshman girl crying into Serena’s shoulder, echoing down the hall.

  We gather around the table where Jaime’s weapons are assembled.

  “All right,” Jaime says, resting his hands on the tabletop. “So how do we get to Chad’s car?”

  “We don’t,” I say. “Not right away. Not without my sister and Laura.”

  Jaime clenches his jaw again, like he’s biting something back. “Right,” he says at last. “But once they’re safe, we start talking about how to get off campus. Cool?”

  “Cool.”

  “You said Mackenzie’s in the library, so I say we go aerial,” Jaime says. “We can climb down from the roof of the auditorium and drop to the roof over the main sidewalk. Follow that to the north. It’s maybe fifty, sixty yards to the library.”

  “We won’t be able to make it to the library roof from the sidewalk roof,” Damon says. “It’s a stand-alone building. We’ll have to drop down and go in from the ground.”

  “And how the hell you plan on climbin’ down from the auditorium?” Chad asks.

  Jaime waves him off. “We can use extension cords,” he says. “We got tons of them in the patch room. They’ll hold.”

  “So how about gettin’ off campus, then?” Chad asks.

  “Much as I want out of this place, I don’t think we focus on that. Not yet,” I say. “The priority is Mackenzie. This is a … dress rehearsal. We get her, we come back here, then we talk about the car. I mean, Jaime’s right, this is probably the safest place on campus.”

  “What about Laura and Cammy?” Chad says.

  I start to respond, but Jaime cuts me off. “Bri, unless you know where she is, we can’t plan for that yet,” Jaime says. “You know we can’t. Not successfully.”

  Shit.

  “Fine, but we’ll still have to make it back here,” I say. “And all the doors are boarded up. You plan on climbing back up to the roof from the sidewalk while those things are coming after us?”

  “Helicopters,” Kat says.

  “Yeah, um, we don’t have one of those,” Travis says.

  “No, I mean, we saw some in the air,” Kat goes. “Downtown. We could paint something on the auditorium roof in case one flies by. We got plenty of paint.”

  We all nod. It’s a good idea. And thinking of what we saw from the roof gives me another idea.

  “What about a distraction?” I say. “We could take a bunch of stuff up to the roof and start chucking it down at the parking lot. I don’t think it’d scare them, exactly. I mean, they’re pretty fearless. But it might keep them busy in the lot while we’re working our way north over the sidewalk.”

  “What kind of stuff?” Jaime asks me.

  “Anything,” I say. “Props, lumber, lighting instruments …”

  “Whoa,” Jaime says. “Those lights are two, three hundred bucks apiece.”

  I let my expression go neutral and simply look into Jaime’s eyes. It only takes about three seconds for him to grimace and say, “Right. Sorry. Okay, we’ll have Dave handle the paint and the diversion.”

  “So how do we get back in?” Damon asks.

  “Headsets,” Jaime says. “We have wireless headsets for the plays. For the stage manager and the tech booth, like when a show is running. We could use those. Put Kat in charge of one, and signal when we’re on the way back. They could unboard the hall doors and let us in.”

  “Hey, wait a sec,” Kat says. “I’m coming with.”

  “No, you’re not,” Jaime says. “You stay behind and get some people ready to take those boards down when we say.” Jaime swallows hard. “And if something happens to us, they’ll listen to you,” he adds quietly.

  I ignore his implication. “That also means leaving these behind,” I say, lifting one of the screwguns off our weapons table. In order to make it quick, they’ll need both DeWalts to take down everything we’ve screwed into the doors.

  “Yeah,” Jaime admits. “Well, we got enough here to improvise.”

  We all nod at each other. Kat scowls, but goes to fetch the headsets anyway. There’s not much she wouldn’t do for Jaime. I wonder if they’re secretly a couple or something. Because thinking about that for five seconds is better than anything else there is to think about right now.

  Ten minutes later, we’re back on the auditorium roof. Jaime, Travis, and I are armed with the Starfire swords. Chad grips a wooden baseball bat. Damon’s got a length of steel pipe. We take a quick look around to get our bearings.

  Our bearings indicate that we’re in a whole heap of steamy shit.

  The parking lot is a bigger dead zone than it was last time we were up here. Dozens of bodies are strewn across the blacktop. I scan the area desperately, looking for Laura’s green hoodie, but the light is fading fast and the parking lot lights haven’t snapped on. Still, I don’t think she’s down there. That’s something.

  We take count and agree there are at least forty infected students loping around, grunting, groaning, screaming, howling—

  “Why ain’t they attackin’?” Chad says as we look down from the edge of the roof.

  “Looks like they did fine,” Damon says, swallowing hard.

  “Naw, I mean each other.”

  We fall silent and process this. Chad’s got a point.

  “They went after healthy people,” I say. “Not other sick kids. So they’re not just crazy.”

  “So … is this a good thing or a bad thing?” Chad asks.

  The other four of us answer in unison: “Both.”

  We allow ourselves a terrified chuckle. Peeking over the edge of the roof, I see Keith still moping around the rolling door. The bone in his arm sticks out at an angle. I lurch back from the edge.

  “The arms,” I say to no one in particular. “They keep biting people in the arms and throat. How come?”

  Jaime risks a glance over the edge. “In other words,” he says, wrinkling his nose at the smell, “what’s their motivation?”

  “This ain’t no drama class,” Chad says.

  “It’s a basic truth,” Jaime says. “Everyone wants something. Those people down there want something.”

  “They’re not people,” Chad says. “They’re monsters. Zombies, like that kid said. What they want is to eat our fuckin’ flesh and bones.”

  I start to correct my best friend, to remind him that he basically just called another of our best friends a monster—then blink as if there’s something in my eyes. “Bones,” I say.

  “Yeah, bones.”

  I glance out at the parking lot. The infected students thump around down there, moaning.

  I wonder if Laura is one of them. If that’s why I don’t see her body, because she’s not dead, because somewhere on campus, dragging clubbed hands along the sidewalk—

  Stop, I tell myself. Just stop. Focus. Think.

  “They’re infected, which means they’re sick,” I say slowly, trying to sound my way through my own thoughts. “There are two ways to fight an infection—either you shoot something into the body, like antibiotics or chemotherapy or something, or the body takes care of it itself, with the immune system.”

  “Sweet,” Chad says. “So we skipped drama and went strai
ght to biology.”

  “Bone marrow is part of the immune system,” I say, ignoring Chad. “In a roundabout way. That’s what was wrong with Kenzie. Her cancer attacked her blood and bone marrow. That’s why they did a transplant after she went into remission. To try to keep the cancer from coming back. And we know these people have been going after bones. The arms, that one chick’s leg. The neck, where the tonsils are. What if … what if they can sense that there are healthy people, uninfected people, in here, and something’s making them seek us out?”

  Travis rolls his eyes. “They can sense we’re not sick because they can see us,” he says. “It’s pretty easy to tell us all apart. They’re crazy, we’re not.”

  “Not yet,” Jaime adds quietly.

  “But they’re not just crazy,” I argue. “If they were, they’d be tearing into each other too. They’re specifically targeting us, not each other. They’re … medicating.”

  “Uh, say that again?” Kat asks, squinting at me.

  “Look, I don’t know, but … the attacks we’ve seen. They don’t attack each other, they only attack healthy people. Sucked on the … bones … maybe to get to the marrow.”

  “My grandma does that shit,” Chad says. “It’s gross.”

  “Your grandma eats people?” Travis says.

  Miraculously, Chad chuckles a bit.

  “No, look,” I go on, trying to remember all the medical jargon I heard while Kenzie was sick. “The spleen, lymph nodes, tonsils. All part of the immune system. What if they can sense healthy immune systems, and they’re going after the immunoglobulin?”

  They stare at me.

  “Who the hell are you, again?” Chad asks.

  I grab my head with both hands, struggling not to deck someone. Maybe Chad.

  “Listen! For some infections, people get injected with immunoglobulin, which is made from healthy blood,” I explain. “It’s like a boost to your immune system. Maybe that’s what they’re doing.”

  “Then send ’em to fuckin’ Walgreens,” Chad says.

  The monsters below us bellow. We freeze for a moment.

  “The disease won’t let them,” I say after a pause. “They’re clearly insane; they’re operating on a base instinct level. Those crystals, that stuff on their arms, that’s got to hurt. Throw in an adrenaline dump, maybe … and they become what we’ve seen so far. Deformed people who can’t feel any pain other than the pain of the sickness itself. No wonder it drives them crazy.”