Sick Page 5

  Keith releases a high-pitched wail. Panicked screams burst from the stagecraft class. People trip over each other racing to the hallway. Dave runs to the hall door, shoving kids out one after the other, eyes wide and glassy.

  Chad takes a step toward Hollis, then rears back as another kid—a stoner, by the looks of him—lurches through the open door. I can see past him down the sidewalk. It’s chaos, kids still running madly in all directions, screaming. Other students don’t appear to be running away—they’re running after people, galloping toward them on all fours, moving fast, like rabid gorillas. Sunlight catches on their skin and reflects like jewels. I see Frank the security guard in his ridiculous red pants trying to get away from a fat girl who’s running on her hands and feet. A second later, a white girl in punk clothes leaps on top of him, taking him to the concrete. Even over the shouts and insanity, I hear his head crack.

  What the hell?

  The stoner kid, wearing a Megadeth T-shirt, his face dripping skin like Hollis’s, zeroes in on Chad and leaps, baring his teeth. I’m close enough that I can smell cigarette and pot smoke on his clothes. His lower lip, puffed out like a roll of fat, hangs down his face like it’s been stretched. Megadeth smashes into Chad, and I get a good look at his arm. The skin’s crystallized, like the inside of a geode, but still the color of his flesh.

  Chad lowers his shoulder and rams back into the stoner, who topples into the chairs. The stoner shakes it off quick and jumps toward one of the drama kids, who’s so scared she hasn’t moved. Roaring, Megadeth drops the girl with one swipe of his hand.

  Chad dances on the balls of his feet, fists up, prepped for a fight. Megadeth roars again and leaps toward Clarisse, Golab’s favorite actress.

  Clarisse doesn’t even have time to scream. Megadeth pounces on her, taking her to the ground. He cocks his head, sinks his teeth into her throat, and chews violently.

  Masticating! I think crazily. He’s masticating, ha-ha, that sounds like mastur—

  Chad runs toward them and plows into Megadeth, sending him rolling away. Arterial blood jets up out of Clarisse. Her blood splatters against Chad’s pant leg, the floor, her own face. A blond freshman girl, standing paralyzed nearby, grips her hair and screams.

  Even over the noise, I hear a snap. A wet, brittle sound to my right. I whip around—I haven’t moved since Hollis burst through the door. Hollis still grips Keith’s arm, one of the bones poking through Keith’s skin, gray and raw. Keith sees this and passes straight out.

  Hollis—

  Oh, sweet god.

  Hollis lowers his head and begins to—

  “Out!” Jaime screams over the noise. “Everybody out! Mrs. Golab …!”

  With Dave urging them on, most of the stagecraft class has made it into the safety of the hallway. Golab, like me, is paralyzed, still standing by her chair, eyes wide and locked on the diminishing spurts of blood pumping out of Clarisse. Clarisse played Lady Macbeth opposite Travis. Clarisse has exited stage right, for keeps.

  I can still hear Hollis—

  Megadeth gets to his hands and feet, glaring at Golab. From a hunkered position, he leaps at her, aiming high. He hits her throat and takes her down. Golab lets out a terrified yelp. Chad’s looking from her to Clarisse’s body, back to her, to me, to Hollis.

  Something shoves me and I scream. It must be Hollis, he’s gonna do to me what he did to Keith, oh shit—

  It’s Jaime. Ohthankyougod.

  “Go!” he shouts in my face and gives me another shove.

  My feet finally unstick. I peel out toward the hallway door, making a grab for Chad’s jacket sleeve as I go. Travis is skipping backward, away from the outside door, as two more disfigured students leap toward the doorway. I think I have chemistry with one of them. A skinny, sickly kid named Ryan or Rob or something.

  Through the open door to the sidewalk, I see Jack barreling full steam toward the Black Box. He’s on both legs. Not galloping, like Hollis. Terror twists his face as he dodges the swollen, crystallized arms of another snarling kid.

  Travis yanks my collar and throws me into the drama department hall. Jaime makes a grab for Chad, who is watching Megadeth tearing into Golab’s neck, yanking flesh off in crimson shards as she slaps uselessly at his face. She gurgles, like she’s gone into shock. Megadeth pauses for one sickening heartbeat, then attacks her forearm. With a crack, bone stabs through a ragged hole in Golab’s skin, and Megadeth bites on it, shaking his head like a mad dog.

  “Come on!” Travis shouts.

  Chad whips around to follow. I see Jack skidding to a halt just shy of the open Black Box door as Chad and Travis scramble backward into the hallway with the rest of us. Jaime slams the door, temporarily locking the attackers inside the theater space. And leaving Jack behind.

  “That was Jack, Jack was out there, we gotta let him in,” I pant.

  No one listens.

  In the drama department hallway, kids are running in both directions, guys swearing and looking panicked, chicks screaming, huddling in corners together. But no one’s attacking anyone.

  John, the idiot sophomore, says, “I’m getting out of here!” and takes off for the T intersection that leads to the double orange doors.

  Some of us follow, unsure, terrified.

  The double doors that open onto the sidewalk are flanked by glass. A few steps before we reach them, Jack sprints into view, headed our way. I try to put on speed to get the doors open for him.

  But one of these messed-up kids gets to Jack first, tackling him and smashing him against a window.

  I make eye contact with Jack for a fraction of a second. His green eyes shine terribly. He knows exactly what is happening to him.

  We watch and scream and cuss as the attacker tears into Jack like a carnivorous lawn mower, shredding muscle and snapping bone, spraying crimson against the window, which is almost a relief because it helps block the view of the feeding frenzy.

  Jack’s arms fly up, fingers wiggling like jazz fingers or spirit hands or whatever Cammy calls them, as more blood splatters against the window and runs down. Chunks of Jack stick and take longer to slide.

  Through the window, I see Principal Winsor, shuffling along a classroom building wall like an escaping convict. He’s looking around wildly at the chaos and seems to be trying to gauge his chances of making it to the parking lot.

  And he has a gun in one hand. A pistol.

  “My god,” I say. Our principal is carrying a goddam gun. And he’s trying to escape. Alone.

  Two disfigured kids spot him and lunge in his direction. Winsor shrieks and waves the pistol at the kids, like a newspaper at bad dogs. Then he runs. He makes it maybe ten steps before the two students—a football player and an emaciated white girl—tackle him to the concrete. Winsor screams, and the gun goes off several times. One bullet ricochets off the pavement, and we all instinctively hunch down.

  “Holy shit!” someone shouts. Maybe Travis.

  Jaime is with our group. He grabs me, his brown eyes enormous. “Platforms and screwguns!” he screams in my face. “Now, now, now!”

  Because in this building Jaime is usually my boss, I move. We lurch back toward the drama department hallway, turn right, and sprint down the hall to the backstage auditorium doors. Jaime throws them open and leads us into the scene shop. We start hoisting those heavy platforms, two people at a time, carrying them across the stage, out to the hall, and back to the doors and windows where Jack is lying still against the glass.

  As Jack’s blood runs down the window, Jaime shoots screws into upended platforms that Chad, me, Dave, and the techie chick, Kat, prop up.

  Chad’s mouth is shut tight as he stares at the floor, pressing his back into the platform to keep it steady against the doors and windows. I see his chest compress, like he’s going to puke, but he doesn’t. He just narrows his eyes and presses his back harder into the platform.

  The creature finishes with Jack and begins pounding on the doors. We all step cautiously back from
the platforms to see if they’ll hold.

  They do. For now.

  “Oh, yeah,” Travis says to no one, breathing hard. “I made a list of things to do today, and this was at the top.”

  Jaime licks his lips. “Back into the hall,” he says. “We’ll lock the hallway doors. Move!”

  We follow him. There’s another set of doors at this end of the T intersection. Closing them will isolate the theater hallway—Golab’s office, the auditorium, the scene shop, the bathrooms, and the Black Box—from the rest of the performing arts department. Jaime shoves them closed.

  “Keys!” he calls, and waits.

  The hall is quieter now. We all look at each other. Jaime spins around. “Keys!” he shouts again.

  Travis shakes his head and tries to swallow. “Golab’s gone,” he says. “She was …”

  I sit straight down in the hallway, dizzy.

  Chad whirls on Travis and says, “She was fucking eaten!”

  His words ricochet down the length of the hallway and shut up every last kid in there. All I can hear is panting, my own and the others’. And that’s when I process what it was Hollis did to Keith’s arm.

  With Keith’s bone protruding, Hollis lowered his head … and began gnawing and sucking on the jagged edge of calcium.

  Something smashes against the door to the Black Box—one of the mutant kids trying to bash his way into the hallway. Maybe Hollis, maybe Megadeth, maybe Ryan-Rob from chemistry. Maybe all three. We scatter uselessly for cover, all of us but Jaime.

  “More platforms,” he orders.

  “That’s a brick wall, asshole!” Chad shouts. “We can’t use woodscrews to—”

  “Just stack them against the door!” Jaime says, running down the hall.

  Our improvised group follows him back into the auditorium and the scene shop. Two by two again, we hoist platforms into the hall, stacking one on top of another until they reach almost to the middle of the door. There’s no way anyone could move two or three of them stacked up, never mind the six we end up using. It’ll keep the things in the Black Box from getting to us.

  It doesn’t stop them from trying to bash the door open, and their howls and thumping continue to reverberate through the hallway. A couple of kids whimper.

  One girl, Tara, says, “What’s going on?” Her voice quivers.

  We all look at each other.

  “I—” Jaime says, and covers his mouth to fight a retch.

  We jump as the PA system blurts to life with a sharp squeal of feedback.

  “Uh … This is … this is Vice Principal Brandis,” the voice says, echoing weirdly through the drama hall. “We have, uh … a slight … situation … Students are re-re-requested to go to their classrooms and remain there until … until we, uh—”

  A crash echoes over his microphone, followed by a snarling, feral growl that vibrates the floor beneath us.

  Then nothing.

  THE POUNDING ON THE BLACK BOX DOOR STOPS suddenly, and all I can hear is the sound of us gasping.

  Jaime leans against the wall and slides down it until his knees buckle. Some of us guys—me, Chad, Travis, the squat four-eyed kid Damon, and the girl from the front doors, Kat—circle around him and hunker down. I see Dave at the other end of the hall, holding a couple of girls, one in each arm, eyes closed. John is farther away, near the boys’ bathroom at the end of the hall, pacing in tight circles. Son of a bitch didn’t lift a finger to help.

  “We shoulda followed the lockdown!” John cries out. “We shoulda locked the doors like we’re supposed to!”

  Chad lowers his head, glaring at the goth kid. “You can eat my cock or shut the fuck up. Your call.”

  John’s cheeks billow in and out, in and out, like he’s not sure whether he should keep bitching. Then he gives up, folds his arms, and goes on pacing in a circle.

  “Has anyone ever seen or heard of anything like this?” Jaime says, staring at the floor.

  We all shake our heads.

  “We need help,” Kat states. She’s this butch-looking chick, five foot nothing and maybe ninety pounds, but she can lug stuff around with the guys, no sweat. She works hard, and I like her.

  Jaime stands up and runs into Golab’s office. Me, Chad, and Travis follow. Jaime picks up the phone and punches 911. Waits.

  Waits.

  Waits …

  “The hell?” Chad spits. “How long does it—”

  Jaime holds up a hand, then frowns and slams the phone down. “A recording,” he says in disbelief. “A goddam recording.”

  “That’s bad,” Travis says. He’s still panting, hands on his hips.

  “Yeah, brilliant,” Chad says to him. Travis scowls and looks ready to respond, but Jaime cuts him off.

  “Cell phones,” he says. “Try your cell phones.”

  We all automatically reach for our pockets, then Chad and Travis both groan. I’m the only one with a cell. Everyone else put theirs away at the top of class. Like good little students. The cells are locked up in the Black Box. Along with all our bags, backpacks—everything.

  I flip open my phone and try 911. I get the recording Jaime did: We are currently experiencing a high volume of emergency calls. Please hang up and try your call again. I tell them this.

  “Not good,” Jaime says. “Not good.”

  Chad doesn’t have a smart-ass comment this time.

  I autodial Kenzie. Get her voice mail. I try Laura, then Mom. They all go to voice mail. Goddam it! My heart, which hasn’t stopped pummeling me since we saw Hollis on the sidewalk, kicks it up another notch. Where the hell is everyone? Are they okay, or has …

  Then I notice I have a voice mail. Must be whoever called at the end of class. I punch in my voicemail number.

  The caller ID says it’s from Laura’s phone.

  I hear Laura briefly: “Here, take …”

  Then Kenzie’s voice. “Oh my god, Brian, this is crazy … This guy went ballistic right when the rally started and totally bit this kid … and the football team, like, totally jumped him and … Oh my god!”

  I hear a couple of crunches over the receiver, and can make out people screaming and running. I hear Laura’s voice crying in the background, “Mackenzie, run! Oh my god, run! Oh god … Kenzie, head for the—”

  A metallic clang bangs on her end of the line. I can hear shouts, screaming, like a concert gone mad. With one sudden crunch, the message stops.

  I wait, hoping for more.

  “End of message. To replay this message, press one. To—”

  I close my phone. Try to think. It sounded like Kenzie dropped Laura’s phone.

  Jaime calls to Kat, who obediently rushes to the doorway. She’s a sophomore, like Kenzie, and has been Jaime’s assistant this past year. Follows him around like a puppy.

  Jaime says to her, “Ask around. See if anyone still has a cell on them, okay?”

  Kat nods, all business, and goes down the hall. “Hey, hey, hey! All eyes on me. Listen up.”

  “We need a plan,” Travis says as Kat starts hunting for a cell among the remaining—surviving—students. “We need a plan, like, yesterday.”

  Jaime nods, then shoves through us back into the hall. “Tara!” he orders.

  Tara, one of Golab’s actresses, looks at him and comes running. She’s got long brown hair and is the type of kid who auditions for every show and ends up a spear carrier or some walk-on.

  “What?” she goes.

  “Need you to get on the phone, call 911.”

  “You didn’t try that already?”

  “It’s a recording. They’re getting a lot of calls or something. You need to sit down there and just keep dialing, okay? Can you do that?”

  Tara swallows once, then nods. She races to Golab’s desk and picks up the phone.

  “Um … is anyone else worried about what I’m worried about?” Travis says.

  “What?” Jaime says.

  “Why they’re experiencing this, uh, high volume of calls?” Travis gestures toward
the Black Box. “I mean, someone had to have called the cops, during the lockdown if nothing else. Why aren’t they here yet? Like, maybe whatever this is isn’t just here. Maybe it’s everywhere.”

  “Yeah, you’re right, you’re totally right,” I say.

  They look at me.

  “The news,” I say, turning to Chad. “That stuff at the hospital. Jesus, the helicopter, the ambulances, cops. The gunshots we heard this morning. Something hit the fan and hit it bad.”

  “What stuff? What hospital?” Jaime says.

  “They didn’t say for sure,” I tell him. “Phoenix Memorial was locked down, surrounded by cops. Maybe the … CDC …”

  Outbreak.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Jaime demands.

  “Tell him,” I say to Chad. “I’ve got to try my mom again.”

  Chad does his best to relate everything we heard on the news and everything we saw this morning and afternoon. I step to one side and try to call Mom—and give a shout when she answers.

  “Mom!”

  “Brian—ank god you’re—zie?”

  Goddam it. The signal is shot.

  “Mom, you’re breaking up! Where are you?”

  “—royo,” I hear her say. Her voice, what I can hear of it, is high and pinched. “Something terrible’s hap—type of infectious epidem—bodies everywh—”

  I fall back against the wall, holding my phone with both hands. “Mom! What about the hospital? Does it have to do with that? Because we are being totally attacked—”

  “—in time. Listen to me. I need you to get Mackenzie and—”

  In the background, I hear someone shout something that sounds like oughta have none.

  “Brian, I need to—but get home immediately and lock—as you can.”

  “Mom, wait!”

  “I love you, swee—”

  The line goes dead. I damn near throw my phone on the floor.

  “Well?” Chad says. He, Travis, and Jaime have surrounded me, and I didn’t even notice.

  “Well, what?” Jaime asks him, looking from him to me.

  “My mom’s a doctor,” I say. “She works for the county. Medical examiner’s office. She’s out of town, someplace called, uh … Arroyo. It sounded like there was some kind of epidemic. People are dead all over the place.”