Sick Read online

  “The hell we can’t,” Chad says. “Whatever it is started outside the school, jackass. My buddy Hollis was sick as shit this morning, and now he’s like Day of the Living Dead in the Black Box.”

  “Right,” Travis says. “So you might come down with it, huh? Maybe we should lock you in the prop closet or something.”

  “Why don’t you get back in the closet, ya fuckin’ dildo?”

  Travis tilts his head. “Do you fuck your mother with that mouth?”

  Chad’s face goes from white to red in two-point-three. Not a good idea to get anywhere near insulting his mom.

  “Shut! Up!” I shout.

  Travis and Chad look at me. Damon takes a step back. Kat clenches her hands.

  “We can’t do this. We can’t be like this,” I say. “We can’t. Got it? Sad to say, we are among the most sane people here at the moment, and if we lose it, then everyone’s toast. Okay?”

  Travis takes a step back from Chad, ceding ground. Thank god.

  “All right,” Jaime goes, blowing out a breath as Chad glares at me. “Now, I don’t want to be all Mr. Worst-Case Scenario here, but I think we better plan ahead a little. 911 and the phone not working—that’s bad. If this thing, whatever this is, is already across or beyond the city, we need to prepare for the worst here.”

  “You think it is?” Travis asks him. “Beyond the city?”

  “I think he’s right,” I say. “I mean, where are all the parents? If there’s anyone else alive on campus, they’d have phones, they’d be calling home. This place should be crawling with adults coming to pick up their kids, and we haven’t seen that. Whatever this is, it’s big, and it’s bad.”

  “Won’t the Army or someone come?” Kat asks. “I mean, sooner or later? Maybe people are just quarantined away from here right now.”

  “Not the Army,” Chad says. “National Guard, maybe. If the governor gets off her ass in time.”

  “Why not the Army?” Damon asks.

  “Because the Army is federal,” I say. “You know that hurricane, the one in New Orleans?”

  “Katrina,” Kat says, smirking bitterly. “We just read about it in class.”

  “Right, right, Katrina. One of the reasons that got so jacked up was the governor didn’t let the feds in right away. We just talked about it in history. The states can’t be, like, invaded by the feds. The governor can activate guard troops, but not the Army and whatever, not unless she asks for it.”

  “And we don’t know if she’s done that yet,” Jaime says. “Like my mom said. They were still waiting for the order.”

  “Well, what’s it take?” Damon says.

  “Red tape,” Chad says. “Trust me. Could take a long-ass time.”

  “Yeah, think about it,” I say. “They have to figure out something’s wrong first. Who knows how long this has been building? We know the infection isn’t instant. Maybe this has been going on under their noses for days. Months, even. By the time anyone figures it out, it’s too late.”

  Great. As if I wasn’t scared pissless already, now I’ve succeeded in scaring myself even more. Based on the expressions of the rest of the group, they’re thinking the same thing.

  “How long can we stay here?” I ask, trying to change the subject to something practical.

  “You mean before we start looking around for a conch shell?” Travis goes.

  “I was hoping to avoid that, but yeah.”

  “The hell’s a conch shell?” Chad demands. “Like, shells for a gun?”

  “It’s literature, sweetheart,” Travis replies. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  While Chad balls his hands into fists, Damon says, “Maybe people have food, you know, candy bars or something. Plus whatever is in the fridge and freezer in Mrs. Golab’s office? I mean, I can eat my weight in Taco Bell each day, so we might want to look into that.”

  He has a point. A lot of Golab’s favorite students get to keep their lunches in her office, which has a full-size side-by-side refrigerator-freezer. No way they’d step foot in the zoo that is the cafeteria at lunchtime—where the riot started two years ago—if they didn’t have to.

  “The water is still on,” Kat says thoughtfully. “So there’s running water in the bathrooms and drinking fountains.”

  “Right,” Travis goes. “So, call it a week if we divvy up the food and ration it out. We can go a long time without eating. If the water stays on, theoretically, being the young, strapping lads we are, we could go a month. If we had to.”

  Damon’s stomach growls, and we can’t help but laugh. A very, very little.

  “Look,” Chad says, and I can see he’s trying hard to keep his cool. “That’s all great, okay? But I still think we need to keep an eye on gettin’ outta here all together. Find help, whatever. I don’t care how much food you all say we got, it ain’t gonna last forever. No matter how bad it might be outside, at least we have room to maneuver.”

  Sounds like a Marine already.

  Travis and Jaime look at each other, then Jaime nods. “Okay, that’s fair. You’re right.” He looks at the rolling door, which has fallen silent. “All right. We need more information. Let’s head up to the roof. We’re in the tallest building on campus—we can get a better idea of what’s happening outside from up there. Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll just start dropping. Or fighting each other.”

  “You mean like a normal school day?” I ask. That earns me a few grudging smirks.

  We follow Jaime into the auditorium. On the way out of the shop, I hear Chad’s voice low behind me saying to Travis, “You talk like that to me again, and I’ll cut your nuts off, you get me?”

  Travis laughs. “Honey, I heard you, but I can’t make myself care.”

  “Fuck you, man.”

  “I’d be bored; you’d fall in love.” Travis pushes past me to catch up with Jaime and Kat. Chad moves to walk beside me, with Damon lagging behind.

  “Hate that prick,” Chad growls. “I’m gonna whip it out and dick-smack him so hard he’ll have a mushroom-shaped bruise on his forehead. Know what I mean?”

  “Hey, man,” I say in a voice I’ve honed over the years specifically to get and keep Chad’s attention without pissing him off. “I hear you, but you got to back off a bit. Cool?”

  Chad snarls.

  “At least Travis is helping out,” I add. “Not like that shithead John.”

  Chad grunts an agreement. Hopefully it means he’ll ease up. I sock him in the shoulder to make him feel better, then check my phone.

  Still no messages. I text Kenzie again.

  Please tell me you’re ok.

  Chad sees me do it. “Anything?”

  “No.”

  “Laura?”

  “I think her phone got dropped. In the gym.”

  “Sorry, man.”

  “She’s all right,” I make myself say. “I’m sure she is. Probably in a classroom or something, like you said.”

  God. I don’t believe it. I just don’t. I can hear it in my own voice. But it raises another interesting question.

  “Jaime,” I call, and break into a trot to catch up with him. Chad and Damon follow. “Listen, man. You know how we were just talking about other people out there?”

  Jaime stops at center stage and raises an eyebrow.

  “Trapped people, I mean,” I tell him. “In classrooms. The offices, library. Where there’s no running water, or food—”

  “Maybe they’re in the cafeteria, in which case they’re doing a lot better than we are on that issue,” Kat says.

  “I don’t know about that. You ever see the cafeteria food?” Damon cracks.

  Jaime’s not having it. “Yeah, have you? It’s poor-kid food. Free lunch might keep you alive, but not by much. It’s cheap and easy and total crap.”

  I imagine Damon saying, So’s your mom! and laughing his head off. Like Jack would’ve. But Damon only looks away.

  “Shouldn’t we find out?” I ask.

  “Find out what?” Tr
avis says.

  “Who else is out there,” I say. “They might need help. Almost everyone was at the pep rally. Maybe there are people trapped in the gym.”

  “You’ve seen what happens when those things go lawn mower on you,” Travis says. “We can’t risk going to look for other people. We got enough problems right here as it is.”

  “Pansy ass,” Chad mutters.

  “Our pansy asses kept you alive today,” Jaime says. He continues walking to the foot of the spiral staircase that leads to the grid. “Brian, I know you want to make sure your sister’s okay. I get it, man. I’m worried about my parents and my little brother right now. And if there are other people trapped around campus, we’ll keep an eye out for them, but the best thing we can do is sit tight, okay? Give the cops or whoever time to come get us.”

  “We don’t know anyone’s comin’ to get us at all,” Chad points out.

  “They will,” Jaime says.

  He starts climbing up the stairs.

  “They will,” he says again.

  If he’d just said it once, I’d buy it. But that second time … I don’t think he believes it himself.

  WE CLIMB THE STAIRS AFTER JAIME. WE REACH the catwalk and step carefully across the grid. There’s a ladder bolted to the wall about halfway across. Jaime goes first, throwing open the ceiling hatch, letting in graying sunlight. He jumps up and shouts, “All clear!”

  Like we couldn’t have guessed that. One by one we climb up after him.

  The first thing we notice makes us all stop and stand still. I feel a little ball of vomit start making its way up my throat.

  The smell.

  And then the sounds.

  They come together and assault us. Even without looking over the edge, I know below us is hell. Damp, gurgling moans creep up the walls and spill over onto the roof, like thorny vines reaching for our feet. We instinctively group closer together for a sec, then split up and head for different corners of the roof.

  “Fire,” Kat says from the north edge. “Downtown. Look.”

  I start to turn toward her, but Chad’s voice stops me.

  “Same here,” he says.

  We scan the horizon. There are three distinct smoke plumes rising over the city. Big ones. I hear fire engine sirens, but they’re real far away. Way off in the distance, way too far to signal, three helicopters race toward downtown. I don’t think they’re news choppers. Somewhere to the west, I hear popping sounds like we heard this morning at Chad’s. Gun shots.

  “Did we get bombed?” Damon asks.

  Jaime licks his lips. “I don’t think so.”

  I walk to the west edge of the roof, on the side where below us the rolling door leads to the shop, and peer down to the sidewalk. My guts twist tight at what I see.

  “Um, guys?” I say. “It gets worse.”

  They jog over to join me and look down.

  “Ah, shit,” Chad whispers.

  It’s Hollis.

  And Keith.

  And the girl we saw from the lobby. I recognize her bright pink skirt dotted with drops of blood.

  They’re shuffling along the sidewalk, backs hunched and cramped, moving like apes on their knuckles. Keith and the girl don’t even seem to notice they have broken bones sticking out of their skin. Their arms reflect sunlight back at us from the crystalline formations on their inflamed skin. They wail incessantly, somewhere between weeping and pain. The crystals on their hands scrape against the concrete.

  We move away from the edge, each of us a shade paler than the minute before.

  “Okay,” Jaime says, trying, it seems, to sound calm. “Now we know. It is infectious.”

  “Unless you’re already dead,” I say as a picture of Jack lying against the windows outside the department flashes in my head. No way he was getting up and walking away; his whole throat had been torn open. Keith and the girl in the skirt … they must not have bled to death.

  Jaime peers over the edge again, his nose wrinkling. “No sign of …”

  We know who he means. Clarisse or Mrs. Golab. Like Jack, they were almost torn to pieces from the throat down.

  “If you’re still alive when they’re done with you, you turn into one of them,” I say, choking on something dry.

  “But if you’re dead, you stay dead,” Damon says. He takes a shuddering breath. “Is that good news or bad?”

  “If it’s infectious, then are you guys feeling okay?” Travis says, squinting at me and Chad.

  “Been over this,” Chad warns.

  “No, no, it’s fair,” I say. “I feel all right. Chad?”

  Chad, still frowning, says, “Yeah, sure, I’m tip-top. Oorah.”

  “For real?”

  “You siding with them now?”

  “I’m just asking, man. We’ve got to stick together. Are you feeling all right?”

  Chad huffs a little, then says, “Yeah, I’m fine. Pissed and ready to beat the crap outta somethin’, but otherwise fine.”

  “I don’t think it’s airborne,” I say to Travis. “I think we’re okay.”

  Travis nods, still looking suspicious. I suppose I can’t blame him. “Transmitted through blood, then, I’d guess,” he says. “Saliva maybe.”

  “When did …,” Kat says, then bites her lip. “How long’s it been since …”

  I guess what she’s trying to say. I pull out my phone, check the time. “It’s been two hours since Keith was bitten,” I say. “Not quite that long for that girl.”

  “Fast,” Damon whispers.

  Chad frowns. I mean, more than usual. “But Hollis,” he says. “We saw him before lunch, and he was fine. Well, not fine, but not goin’ apeshit crazy, and not all deformed like that. When do you figure he, you know. Changed?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe there’s something that speeds it up. Or slows it down.”

  We consider this new twist for a few moments, watching smoke rise from around the city. I wonder vaguely how the fires were caused.

  “My car’s just over there,” Damon says finally, pointing at the parking lot.

  We all look. The Honda blends in with the rest of the used cars most people have at our age, except for one notable feature.

  “The one with the big-ass white peace symbol on the window?” I ask him.

  Damon nods.

  “Is that even a little bit ironic considering you have a gun under the seat?”

  “I’m a pretty complicated gentleman,” Damon says with a sick grin.

  “That’s a long way to run,” Jaime says. “It’s almost dead center in the lot. I don’t like it.”

  “Maybe not right now,” Chad says. “But let’s keep our options open.”

  Chad’s right. Of course he’s right. The question is: What the hell are our options?

  That’s when my phone vibrates in my hand.

  I DAMN NEAR DROP MY PHONE. IT’S MOM.

  “Yeah?” I say quickly. No time for formality.

  The reception is clearer now. I sort of wish it wasn’t.

  Mom’s crying.

  “Brian,” she says. “Thank god. Are you all right?”

  I sit down hard on the pebbly surface of the roof. Chad and Jaime hunker beside me, while Travis, Kat, and Damon take a cautious peek over the edge again.

  “I’m fine,” I tell her.

  “Where are you, honey?”

  Glancing at Chad and Jaime, I hold my phone out and hit the speaker button. “I’m still at school,” I say. “You’re on speaker, okay, Mom? I’m with Chad and some people from the drama department. There’s some really crazy stuff going on.”

  “I know, I know, sweetie,” Mom says. Normally, I’d wince or laugh or groan at her calling me that when other people can hear it. But no one seems to notice.

  “Tell me exactly what happened,” Mom says.

  So I tell her everything, starting with Hollis looking sick. It’s not like I’m going to get in trouble for ditching. I describe the sick kids, what they’ve done so far. And that
we’re basically trapped.

  “Dear god,” Mom says when I’m done.

  “Mom, what is this? What’s happening?”

  “Is it terrorists?” Chad says.

  “Hi, Chad,” Mom says, her voice weary as it sometimes gets when Chad’s around the house too long. “No, we don’t think so. But something strange happened here in Arroyo. Several days ago, by the looks of it. Some kind of infection. Our preliminary findings indicate an unknown pathogen. A bacteria similar to the one found in patients with septic arthritis. Patient Zero may have been an older diabetic man suffering from gout.”

  “Patient Zero?” I ask.

  “The first victim,” Mom says. “His whole body is … He looks the way you described the kids at school. The sick kids. But this old man, he was … Someone shot him with a shotgun. The whole town, it’s gone. Everyone’s dead. They’ve been torn apart. Or else shot.”

  Jaime swallows hard. We all stare at my phone like we didn’t hear her correctly. But of course we did. We’ve seen it.

  “There was one survivor that we know of, a young man, but he’s virtually catatonic. We haven’t been able to get any information out of him.”

  “Why is it happening here?” I ask her. “I thought this Arroyo place was pretty far away.”

  We hear Mom sigh. “Based on the reports we’ve gotten, the current theory is that an infected person must have made it as far as Mesa or Gilbert, seeking treatment after being attacked,” she says. “Then they were transferred to Phoenix Memorial, where they had more resources. But this patient may have begun behaving like the others and might have bitten several people before she ever made it to the hospital. And by then … Oh, god, Brian, it’s an absolute disaster. Thank god you’re all right.”

  Mom pauses.

  “Where is Mackenzie?”

  I try to speak. Can’t.

  “We’ll find her,” Chad says for me.

  “She’s not with you?” Mom cries. “I’ve been calling her cell phone, but she hasn’t answered!”

  “We’ll find her,” Chad repeats. “Me and Brian, we ain’t gonna let anythin’ hurt her, okay, Mrs. Murphy? We’ll find her and we’ll get her outta here.”

  Jaime gives me a glance that says Chad’s being a little too optimistic. Well, fuck him.