David reached Will, then turned to face the gang. Most had followed him. Fifteen kids hung back. They stood frozen, ashamed of their choice. They stared at the floor, shifting their weight back toward the Stairs. He was flattered by all the familiar faces still standing in front of him: Mort, Belinda, Nelson, the twins, Sasha, Ritchie, Leonard and his new boyfriend, Josh. They’d been through a lot of shit, and they were about to do it again.
David cleared his throat and spoke with an even-keeled cadence.
“If we get separated, stick to the plan. We’ll meet up in the ruins at room 1206. Keep your weapons close and your eyes sharp.”
“This way,” Will said, and they all hurried forward.
It was still slow going. They had to be cautious. Will scouted ahead. The twins and Ritchie checked that they weren’t being followed after they rounded each corner. And in between, there were dropped rations, arguments, untied shoes, and piss breaks. At seventy or so heads, they were no stealth operation.
David would occasionally look to Lucy to check on her.
“I’m all right,” she kept saying. He didn’t believe her.
Will stayed on David’s right side, covering his blind spot.
Having his brother so close again was the only relief David felt.
They arrived at the wide entrance to the commons. It was a large two-story student lounge area. Faint mustard-yellow light poured down in intermittent pools from hanging ceiling lamps, and the block columns that held up the second-floor balcony cast long shadows. The outfacing wall had been one big window that looked out on the school’s front lawn. Now it was all metal plating, and the glass lay shattered on the ground, forming a jagged creek that ran the wall’s length.
“Let me take a look,” Will said, eyeing the columns suspiciously.
Will ran into the room, looking behind every column. He got to the other end of the expansive room, gave David a thumbs-up, and waved him through.
“Stay close to each other,” David said.
He led them out at a brisk pace. When he reached the column that marked the halfway point, all the lights shut off.
They were in darkness. David wondered if the school generator had finally given out.
“Will! Are you all right?”
“I’m okay!”
David heard a coarse rumbling in the distance, first from the hall in front of him, then from the hall behind. He stuck his arm out to locate Lucy and grabbed at something squishy.
Belinda gasped. There was no time to apologize. The growling rumble was coming faster now.
“Lucy?”
“I’m here,” she said.
He saw a ball of fire in the distance. The fireball moved fast, circling the room. More flying fireballs popped up around the room. One was coming right at him. It was a Skater on his board, holding a torch.
“Skaters!” David shouted. The Skater swung his torch at him, and David narrowly avoided the blow. The flame revealed a flash of Lucy’s terrified face beside him.
More torches descended from the balcony. Skaters were charging down the stairs, joining the flaming parade that poured in from the hallways. They circled the edges of the giant room, their flames too far away to illuminate the area around David. He still couldn’t see two feet in front of him.
“If you got phones, use ’em!” David shouted.
David pulled out his phone and clicked on the screen. He held it out in front of him trying to penetrate the darkness.
Other Loners did the same, and they bunched together back to back and side to side. The room was a dangerous swirl of fire with a center of dancing white rectangles of light.
David could make out a shadow charging him. He tightened his grip on his baseball bat and swung at the murky shape.
He hit something. He heard a body hit the floor. He raised his phone to get a look at his victim and caught sight of a pair of Vans scampering back into the darkness.
Someone jabbed the end of a skateboard into his kidney.
The blow knocked the bat out of his hand. David crumpled down to his knees. Other Loners groaned around him as invisible brutes rained down pain on them. The Skater swung their skateboards wherever they saw a phone.
David fumbled to find his bat, but he heard the squeak of a sneaker to his left. He punched at the darkness. The punch whiffed through the air. He lost his balance and tumbled away from the Loner phalanx. Another skateboard cracked him soundly on the back of the head. He fell flat on the ground. All around him was chaos. He struggled to right himself, peering through the darkness with his one eye. A pair of arms bear-hugged David from behind and lifted him off the ground. He was still delirious, but he kicked at the shadows and tried to pry the hands off of him. Other unseen hands joined in, grabbing David’s right ankle, then his left shin.
They carried him away.
“Help! They’ve got me!”
His shout added to the chorus of grunts and screams from the others. No one would hear it. He felt himself be thrown into the air. For a second, he was weightless, then he slammed down on a cloth surface. It wasn’t the floor. He flung his arms out to the sides. He felt poles, duct tape, and string making walls on either side of him. He stood and knocked his head against the same woven barrier above him. He was in the cage that the Skaters used at the food drops.
He tried to find the door. He couldn’t. The sounds of battle thrashed all around him. He could feel the cage move.
“It’s David! They’ve got me in the cage!” But the battle noises and the glow of the torches faded as the cage was pulled out of the commons. The cage jostled him around. He dug his fingers through the irregular gaps in the cage walls and yanked, but nothing gave.
There was the sound of doors being kicked open behind David. He spun around just as the cage was dragged into a lit room. He charged the other end of the cage to face his cap-tors and instead saw Nelson.
Nelson dropped the steering handle of the cage and looked up at David with a goofy smile. He strained to catch his breath. David stared at him, totally confused.
“Did you see that? I took the cage right out of their hands! I gotta go back and help,” he said.
Nelson ran back toward the commons. David shook the cage.
“Nelson! No! Don’t leave me here! Nelson!” Nelson didn’t hear him. He disappeared back through the double doors to the commons.
“Are you kidding me?” David yelled to no one.
He was in another foyer, another open space that used to be a second entrance to the school. The Skaters must have pulled a fuse in the commons because the lights were still on in this foyer, and David was in plain sight. Anyone could happen across him. There was a price on his head, and he was alone, locked in a cage on wheels. This wasn’t good.
David slumped to the cloth floor of the cage.
He pulled his hair in frustration. He stared out into the foyer. Three quarters of the far wall was plastered over with sheets of painted butcher paper that together formed an enormous mural.
“What the hell?” he said.
It was a heroic portrait of David with a sea of white-haired Loners behind him, and a wide-open cobalt-blue sky overhead. The mural wasn’t finished. Butcher paper sheets that had yet to be glued to the wall were scattered on the floor below. Dorothy lay dead upon them.
Lucy hid under the staircase as the battle with the Skaters neared its end. She clutched a length of pipe in her hand, but there was no point. She was too afraid to use it. She’d never seen a battle like this. It wasn’t like the drops. It was more cutthroat.
She dared to peer out at the madness. There was a large fire in the center of room where the Loners once were. Someone had set a broken-down couch ablaze. Silhouettes tangled in the fire’s light. The first face she recognized was Will’s.
He slashed at a Skater with a knife, and the Skater dropped the board he was wielding. With a clean kick, Will shot the skateboard across to Ritchie, who stomped it in two. Ritchie snatched up the two pieces and chucked them in the fire.