Sick Page 7

  Operators, of course, are “unavailable at this time.” Thanks.

  Chad, then Travis, and finally Jaime borrow my phone next. Chad’s mom doesn’t answer her cell. Travis tries to have a conversation with someone I assume is his dad, but whoever it is must be one righteous asshole, because Travis hands the phone back red-faced and pissed. I don’t ask questions. Jaime manages to catch his mother at home. They speak Spanish together for more than ten minutes.

  “What did she say?” I ask Jaime.

  Jaime’s face is dark. “She wanted to come get me,” he says, handing me the phone. I check it quickly for any texts or messages. Nothing. “I told her not to try.”

  “Good call, for now,” Kat says, hefting a stack of short two-by-fours to take up to the grid.

  “But she can’t reach 911, either,” Jaime says. “Same message we got. She’s been watching the news … It’s bad.”

  We all tense visibly.

  “All the hospitals are in lockdown,” Jaime says. “There’s attacks happening all over the city. No one knows what it is for sure. Maybe terrorists, maybe something else. She said they’re waiting for the governor to declare a state of emergency.”

  “Well, hally-flipping-luyah,” Travis says with a snort.

  “She said to stay here,” Jaime adds. “But Asa, my little brother …”

  He turns away. Travis puts a hand on his shoulder.

  “He goes to Madison,” Jaime says through tight lips. Madison is one of the junior high schools that feed into PMHS. “She can’t get through to them.”

  No one has anything to say.

  Jaime clears his throat. “Anyway. Come on. Work to do. Let’s head up to the grid.”

  WE SPEND ABOUT AN HOUR MOVING STUFF UP to the grid. No one’s in a hurry, even after a couple of ominous thuds echoing from the box office; I guess we’re feeling fairly secure.

  We finish loading up the grid with scrap lumber and other junk in case we need to escape up the stairs and barricade the steps behind us. When we’re finished, we go down the spiral stairs and head for the hall. Jaime opens the door, and we’re suddenly surrounded by the entire rest of the stagecraft class, everyone talking at once.

  “What’s going on?”

  “What were you doing in there?”

  “What are we gonna do?”

  “Why isn’t the phone working?”

  Jaime shoves through them and holds up his hands. This is his class, his auditorium, his department. He’s the boss now.

  “Quiet, quiet, shut up,” he says. “What did you say about the phone?”

  “In Mrs. Golab’s office,” says a heavy black girl named Serena, one of the coolest chicks in the whole department, with a voice almost as deep as Travis’s. “Tara was talking to her dad, and then it went dead.”

  We turn to Tara, who is lingering by the office door.

  Tara shakes her head. “I—I …”

  “You what?” I say.

  “I told you to only call 911,” Jaime says through a tight jaw.

  “I know, but I had to talk to him … I lost the dial tone,” Tara whispers. “It just shut off.”

  Jaime squeezes his eyes shut.

  “What’d he tell you?” Chad demands.

  Tara hugs herself and shivers. “He loves me,” she says. “That was all he could say …”

  The small crowd erupts with more questions. Jaime shakes his head and holds his hands up again.

  “Shut up!” Jaime orders. “Now listen. We boarded up the box office doors, so no one’s getting in or out, okay? If anything from … if anyone from outside gets past that, then head up the spiral stairs to the grid. We’ll create a barricade from there if we need to. But we should be okay here until help comes.”

  “Why can’t we just leave?” Dave asks. He looks spooked, but at least he’s not losing it.

  No—not spooked. Something else.

  “We don’t want to do that,” Travis says.

  “Why not?”

  “Because we’re trapped,” I say, spitting the words. “The whole school is locked in. The parking lot isn’t safe, and there are cars blocking the gate, which is closed and locked anyway. There’s more of those … people … sick people out there. A few dozen, maybe more. Some kids were trying to fight them off, but it wasn’t working. They’re strong, really strong.”

  “What’s the matter with them?” Damon asks me. He takes off his glasses and polishes them with his shirt. “They don’t like the cafeteria food, either?”

  Nobody laughs, but part of me appreciates his attempt. “Man, I don’t know. It’s just some kind of sickness.”

  “Or terrorists,” Chad mutters.

  “So someone’s coming, then,” that idiot sophomore John says, sounding frantic. “The cops are coming, yeah?”

  “We don’t know, dude, all right?”

  “So the best thing we can do is sit tight and wait for help,” Jaime says. “Just … try to … try to stay calm, try to relax, and we’ll take it one step at a time.”

  This is enough of a speech to break up the crowd. Dave, as he’s stepping away with the others, puts a hand on Travis’s back and mumbles something I can’t quite catch. A couple of girls come up to him, and Dave leads them away, talking softly.

  I take a head count as they disperse around the hallway. Twenty-two, not counting me, Chad, Jaime, Travis, or Kat. Twenty-seven all together. Damon, his glasses back on, glances at the retreating crowd, at us—then folds his arms, standing beside Travis. Joining our team, I guess. Would’ve been nice to have his help on the grid, but then we didn’t ask for help, either.

  “Weapons,” Chad says. “We need weapons.”

  “Right,” Jaime says. “The shop.”

  “Hold up,” I say. “You mean for self-defense, right?”

  “Kenzie’s out there, man,” Chad says. “Laura. Cammy. If you plan on busting outta here to find them, you sure as hell can’t go without somethin’ to swing at those things. Seen what Hollis did to that loser Keith?” Chad jerks a thumb toward the Black Box door.

  I did. Oh, god, I did. The sounds he made, chewing on Keith’s arm …

  Chad looks around and lowers his voice. I feel like the entire stagecraft class is straining to hear every word.

  “Imagine him or a buncha people just like him gettin’ in here,” Chad says.

  “Much as I hate to say it,” Travis says, rubbing the back of his neck, “Mohawk here has a point.”

  “I wanna help our buddy Hollis out,” Chad goes on, ignoring Travis. “I do, ’course I do. If there’s a way to do that, awesome. But I’m not gonna bet my life on it right now. Or yours, or Kenzie’s. So you call it self-defense if that makes you feel better, but we ain’t gettin’ caught naked. Get me?”

  Slowly, I nod. I don’t like it—but then there’s nothing here to like.

  “Right,” I say. “Weapons.”

  “Okay,” Chad says. He nods to Jaime. “Lead the way, vato.”

  Jaime clenches his teeth but turns and heads back to the scene shop door at the end of the hall.

  Our group, now including Damon, walks with him. Dave is sitting against one wall, still comforting the two girls. Quite the ladies’ man, I guess. But he’s my size, maybe a shade bigger, even. I don’t like the idea of him staying behind—he should be a part of the plan.

  While the others march to the shop, I squat down beside Dave. One of the girls, I think her name is Brandi, wears a short-sleeved shirt the same shade of maroon as Kenzie’s. Just the color of it stabs my chest.

  “Hey, man,” I say to Dave, and the girls don’t even look at me. “Not for nothing, but I wouldn’t mind having your help.”

  Dave doesn’t meet my eyes as he shakes his head back and forth. “Love to,” he says. “But I can’t. Clarisse and Mrs. Golab. Keith. I just stood there.”

  “You didn’t just stand there, you got people out,” I say. “Dude, I just stood there.”

  “Yeah, but … you won’t next time.” He finally l
ooks up at me. “I could have helped Clarisse. Or Mrs. Golab. I was close enough. I just didn’t. So … I think I’m more helpful right here at the moment.” He uses his eyes to gesture to the two girls curled up beside him.

  I glance over at Serena, who is doing the same thing. She and Dave—two seniors guarding kids younger and smaller than them. Hell, it looks appealing to be one of the freshmen, let someone else handle this mess.

  “Yeah,” I say, standing up. “Okay. I get it. Thanks.”

  “Brian.”

  “Huh?”

  “Thanks for asking. If it changes …”

  “You got it.”

  I head for the shop. John, that little cock who helped us tear down the platforms during class but hasn’t lifted a finger since then, looks at me as I walk past. Asshole. I’ll give Dave a pass because at least he’s comforting people. John’s by himself.

  “You going to help?” I say without breaking stride.

  He doesn’t reply. I reach the shop door and call back over my shoulder, “Fuckin’ pussy.”

  I don’t wait for a response, and don’t hear one. In the shop, I join the others and work fast. The rolling cargo door is firmly in place but occasionally bangs hollowly as something outside tries to get in. We can hear moans, growls, howling. It sounds like hell is waiting for us outside, and it’s hard to tune out.

  I check my phone, just in case I didn’t hear it or feel it vibrate. Nothing. No calls, no texts. I fight back a high-def image of Jack being torn apart and try not to think about it happening to Laura, or about Hollis maybe being the one to do it. Could I hit one of my best friends, fully intending to hurt him badly? Maybe. If it came down to him or Kenzie—or Laura—then I’d have to. But it’s Hollis. I mean … he’s the one who introduced me to Laura, for god’s sake.

  Hollis, with his easy laugh and laid-back attitude, made friends with her in AP algebra sophomore year. When Hollis hooked up with Cammy, Laura ate lunch with them both in the cafeteria, and me, Chad, and Jack happened to join them. I owe Hollis a chance to find help, and I owe Laura a chance to get out of this god-awful mess.

  I sit down on the shop floor, holding my head in both hands. Chad notices right away and shuffles over to me.

  “What?” he goes.

  “I told her to go to the rally,” I say.

  “You mean Laura?”

  “Yeah. I told her to go, man. Jesus. I could’ve talked her into coming with us to your place, or just going to class. I practically forced her into going to that goddam assembly. If anything’s happened to her—”

  “Whoa, hold up,” Chad says, squatting down in front of me. “Lookit. You were tryin’ to help her, dude. Who would’ve thought somethin’ like this could happen? Whatever the hell it is … C’mon, man, she’s probably fine, and this ain’t your fault. Cut that shit out.”

  “I even told Kenzie to go with her, so if something happ—”

  Chad slaps his palm straight into my forehead. Not enough to knock me over, but it gets my attention.

  “Hey,” he barks. “We don’t got time for this. Laura wanted to go, and Kenzie wanted to go with her. That’s a fact. We don’t know that anythin’ bad happened to them. Didn’t see them in the parkin’ lot, right? So they’re both prolly holed up with a buncha other kids in some classroom.”

  I lift my eyes. “I’ve got to find out, man.”

  “I’m with you, brother. Say the word, and we’re off like a prom dress.”

  Behind Chad, several yards away, I can see Travis and Jaime hefting chunks of wood, testing them for strength and functionality as weapons.

  “I don’t want to hurt anyone,” I say.

  “You might change your mind if one of those kids gets in here. Plus we’ll need something when we go looking for the girls.”

  I nod. Chad rises and sticks out a hand, which I grab. He hoists me up.

  “Let’s soldier up,” he says.

  We join the others in scrounging around the tool closet and prop room for weapons. When we’re done, Jaime lines everything up on a folding table.

  “Here’s what we got,” Jaime says. He picks up a sword from the production of Macbeth, one of the ones John and Keith had been messing around with during stagecraft. “This is a Starfire—”

  “It’s a fake sword,” Chad blurts in disbelief.

  “If you’d shut up for a second,” Jaime says, and takes a breath. “It’s a Starfire. It’s combat-ready. These things are built to be hit again and again and again. So they’re not sharp, but they’re built to last.”

  “They’re fake swords,” Chad insists.

  Jaime’s lips disappear between his teeth. He turns, eyes a plaster statue of an angel a few feet behind him that was part of the Macbeth set, and swings the sword. The angel’s head crashes off and smashes against the floor, momentarily drowning out the sounds of the damned outside. The plaster head makes the same sound Frank’s skull did on the sidewalk.

  Jaime points the sword tip toward Chad. “Now, how about I swing this at you and you tell me how fake it feels, pendejo?”

  Chad grins. “I like how you think, ese. G’head.”

  I take the sword from Jaime. It weighs about five pounds, pretty heavy. The edges are totally dull, and the point isn’t too sharp. It can be held one- or two-handed, with a total length of about two feet. Jaime’s right—you could definitely cause some damage with it. As much as I don’t want to find out, if it came down to it, I wouldn’t mind having one of these in my hand.

  Jaime points out a length of solid steel pipe, a baseball bat, and a couple of DeWalt screwguns. He presses the trigger on one, making it whine. “We put our longest, biggest drill bits on the screwguns,” he says.

  I imagine one of those bits chewing right through one of the sick kids’ skulls. I wouldn’t want to fight a guy who had one of these; it’s a good weapon.

  If you get close enough to use it.

  Which, for Chad, is the main problem.

  “Hold up,” he says. “Don’t you have any, like, guns in this place?”

  “Oh, sure,” Jaime says, nodding vigorously. “Oh, yeah! We got a whole arsenal in here. Sure, grenade launchers, machine guns … Jesus! Are you insane? Why the hell would we have guns in here?”

  “Hey, someone had to bring it up,” Chad says. “You’d feel like a tool if someone had a gun and no one asked.”

  “Anyone have a gun?” Jaime shouts with this big, sarcastic smile. “Anyone here have a … a … a nine-millimeter ceramic Glock they forgot to mention over the past couple hours? Huh? No? Nobody?” He turns back to Chad. “Gee, I guess not.”

  “I do,” someone says.

  We all turn to Damon. He rubs one eye beneath his glasses and clears his throat.

  “You do what?” Jaime asks, like he’s not sure he wants to know.

  “Have a gun. It’s not a, you know, Glock, but … yeah. I got one. Thirty-eight hammerless revolver with integrated grip laser sight.”

  Silence.

  “My mom gave it to me,” Damon adds, like it’ll ease the creepy factor. I can’t tell if he’s joking.

  “Well, where is it?” Kat asks him, crossing her arms over her belly like it nauseates her even to be asking the question.

  “Out there. In my car. Brown two-door Honda. Under the driver’s seat.”

  “In the parking lot,” Travis says. “Which is surrounded by those—things. That doesn’t help.”

  “I’ll make a go,” the fat kid says. “I’ll try. If you want. I mean, check me out. Is this not the body of an Olympic-level sprinter?”

  We all look at each other. I think we’re all thinking the same thing: No way in hell. For one thing, his joke aside, Damon doesn’t look like he can outrun much of anything, let alone one of those sick kids out there. Second, I don’t think any of us have the skill to get out there, and back, in one piece.

  Literally.

  I smack a hand over my mouth to prevent a giggle and wonder if I might be going crazy.

  “Too
risky,” Jaime says.

  Chad whips around on him. “I’m not so sure you get to make that call.”

  “Hold on,” I say. “If we thought we could make it to Damon’s car, then there’d be no reason to come back here with a gun. If making it to a car in the parking lot were a real possibility, we’d be talking about getting over that fence, or trying to bust right through it, not about getting a gun. You know?”

  “That girl in the parking lot,” Travis says. “She tried to bust through the fence with her car. So, like, oops on that one.” He brushes his mouth with the back of one hand.

  “And in any case, we don’t know how many of those freaks are out there,” Jaime says. “We’d never make it. And, well, plus—”

  “What the snap crackle fuck you talkin’ about?” Chad says. “I say we keep our options open, keep an eye out. If we see a break, we take it.”

  “Not. Right. Now,” Jaime says, gritting his teeth.

  “Plus what?” I ask him.

  “Huh?”

  “You said ‘plus,’ like you had something else to say.”

  Jaime closes his eyes for a sec, then sits down on a ladder resting on its side, making him sit at an awkward slope. We hunker down around him on the floor.

  “Yeah, that,” he says, gripping the edge of the ladder as if for balance. “Look, it’s … it’s like this, okay? I didn’t see any of those things out there trying to get over the fence. Did you?”

  Those of us who were in the lobby shake our heads; it’s true. It didn’t look like the sick students could get over the fence. Their backs were too messed up, all hunched over. Based on how Hollis looked this morning, my guess is it might actually hurt them to stand straight.

  “Considering how hard it is for a student to get off campus under the best circumstances, my feeling is those things are trapped here right now. Even if we broke a hole in the fence somehow to escape, they would too. They’d get out. And god only knows what might happen then.”

  “You mean we’d risk … I don’t know, contagion or whatever?” I ask.

  Jaime nods, not looking happy.

  “Even if it is already spreading,” he says, “we can’t be a part of letting the infection out of here.”