“Where are they taking him?” Lucy asked to Grant, not bothering to turn around, just leaning her head back.
“They’ve been taking everyone to the dressing rooms, I think,” he replied. “Confining the bodies for the uprising.”
Lucy swiftly turned. “What?”
“Zombies? When everyone comes back as zombies?”
“This can’t possibly be a joke to you. Is this a joke to you?” Lucy asked. “That boy died. I just watched that boy die!”
Grant ran his right hand through his hair, mussing it up near the crown. “First time you’ve watched someone...” he made a face as he trailed off. “Yeah, well, you’ll get used to it. Watching it all morning will make you…what did we say? Numb. Right.”
Lucy bit her lip. “This morning I was at home.” She wanted to explain, but the thought of her mom—her frantic, unexplained text—and of Harper with her lopsided pigtails, her brothers and their own unique smells and smiles, was too much and she couldn’t go on. There was no place she would rather be than with her family. She couldn’t bear the thought of them suffering. In her mind, everyone was still packing for the trip and her mother was still pacing with her clipboard, irate at Lucy’s thoughtless tardiness. Ethan was furtively kissing Anna goodbye while Galen argued that his lucky-never-been-washed Beatles sweatshirt had a place among the lavender infused suitcases. The twins were off to run reconnaissance for each other while sneaking the plane snacks.
This is how they were right now.
At her house.
Safely supported in a bubble protecting them from the chaos she heard—the gunshots, the loud crashes, and foundation rocking, earth shattering booms. Whatever was happening outside of this school was not happening at her house because it could not be any other way. It just simply could not.
“I wasn’t trying to joke,” he replied with a sigh. “I’m well-versed in zombies. It starts with some unknown sickness that wipes out the population and ends with the walking dead.” He paused, waiting for Lucy to chime in. She just looked at him, softened, but incredulous. “I’ve been watching everyone at school fall all morning,” he told her, leaning closer, eager to share. “Spanish class, first period. Mary...Mary?” he paused, waiting to see if Lucy knew the name.
“Bishop? I know her.”
“We were watching the news. Just glued to the news, right? Senora Cochran was just sobbing and we were all just...sitting there...and Mary gets up and says she doesn’t feel so good and can she go to the bathroom.” Grant pauses and closes his eyes. “I’d never seen anyone die before. Before that moment, you know? It was so fast. We didn’t even get up out of our seats. We thought she had fainted. Or that she was just being stupid and dramatic. Some people actually laughed. At first. They laughed at first.”
Lucy didn’t know what to say. She looked down to the back of the seat. “I’m really scared,” she admitted.
While it could have seemed like a non-sequitur comment, Grant didn’t miss a beat. “Yeah, I’m terrified too.”
The body-collection team reappeared empty-handed, and Spencer demanded the attention back as he tried to calm the escalating conversations through the microphone.
“You will be escorted by a teacher into their classroom,” Principal Spencer said. “You will not be allowed to leave the classroom until we have a better understanding of what we’re facing or until we have support from local law enforcement.” Groups began to talk with rushed anxiety. “Remain seated until a teacher comes to collect you.”
Voices of dissent carried through the auditorium.
“Remain seated!” Spencer instructed again straight into the microphone.
But the panic was escalating. A teacher made his way up on the stage and whispered into Spencer’s ear and as he did, a boy, a tenth grader, slipped up onto the stage and crawled over to him. It was clear to everyone that the boy was ill. He vomited near the edge of the stage, but despite the fact that the virus was taking hold, he kept trying to work his way to Spencer. By the time the student had reached the principal’s pant leg, he was already starting to shake.
Lucy could hear Spencer scream to get the boy away from him.
“Remove him. He’s infected! Remove him now!” came the screams, increasing in intensity as the child moved closer to death. But the boy didn’t relent. He kept a grip on Spencer’s pants, keeping the principal rooted to the ground even as he tried to tug and pull himself away.
Then they all saw it.
And the auditorium gasped in unison when Principal Spencer, in one swift motion, kicked the boy with his free leg. It was a solid, well-placed swipe at the dying boy’s jaw, and the boy’s head lopped to the side after impact. Whether or not the child was already close to death did not matter, Spencer’s kick had demolished him, and his head flung backward and then hit the floor with a sickening thud.
Everyone stopped and watched as the man looked out over the crowd, his face contorted in a mixture of alarm and growing defensiveness.
“Get it out of here!” he cried, but no one moved. “Students…listen…your lives are in danger. And you will follow my directions or suffer the consequences.”
Lucy stiffened and shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
He called the names of some of his cronies—other administrators with whom he could form an alliance of power and hatred. But none of them stood forward immediately, and for one long moment, Spencer was left standing alone, the dead boy at his feet. He dropped the microphone to the stage, and it caused a loud crash that reverberated through the speakers. Several people threw their hands up over their ears. All around the auditorium people grumbled their resignation or agitation.
Without amplification, Spencer yelled, “Follow the orders! Just follow my orders.” And then, as he noticed other children coughing and slumping, reaching out to him for assistance and reassurance, he shot down the stairs of the stage and flung the auditorium doors open wide, running quickly away from the kids with whom he was instructed to protect.
For a second everyone looked at each other with confusion. But then the teachers moved into position—determined to follow the protocol even in the absence of their leader. Some walked swiftly, stern faced, and eager to take charge. It was not surprising that even amidst the turmoil outside, some of the adults found comfort in supervision. They could push aside their own fear and assuage their growing worry with a false sense of control. Lucy closed her eyes and sent up a prayer, a hope, that she would not get stuck with some adult with a superiority complex.
When her eyes fluttered open, it was Mrs. Johnston standing next to her. Blonde hair loose in wavy curls that fell to her shoulders; she was playing with a silver chain around her neck, twisting it around the fingers of her right hand, dropping it, twisting it again. Her normally bright skin was dull and pale, and a dried glob of mascara had latched itself near her cheekbone. With a shaky hand, she ran her hand over a section of five rows.
“You all. From here to here. Follow me,” she called to them, but her voice was small, absent of authority.
Ten of them, Grant included, rose from the chairs—the seats swung backward with repetitive whack-whack-whacks until they slowed to a stop. Lucy grabbed Ethan’s backpack, still weighted down with the textbook and binder, swung it high on her shoulder and stood beside her English teacher. Mrs. Johnston reached out as if to pat Lucy on the arm, then dropped her hand, a shuddering sigh escaping before she turned and began to walk down the aisle, each of the kids in her charge falling into single-file line, the old elementary habit returning.
“Mrs. Johnston?” Lucy asked when they had left the auditorium and were making their way back up the long hallway toward the English hall. The other kids from the auditorium disappeared into other hallways, other classrooms, out of sight. “Mrs. Johnston?”