Sugar & Squall (18 page)

#

The door to the side room was open and unguarded, or at least as far as I could tell. Entering the school, I closed it gently behind me, where it continued to tap against the doorframe in a woody Morse code.

I was thankful to be inside again, even if it was an extended march to the gallows. The jacket had kept my upper half proportionately dry to the bottom, yet every step I took was followed by an extended patch of water. Each looked like a Rorschachian ink-blot, liquid patterns expanding outward in accordance with the rise and fall of the floor. There was no sign of anyone else. For all intents and purposes I was alone.

I stepped into the smaller, adjoining room Logan had been taken into. It was dark, but I could see well enough. My fears were confirmed. Logan’s body was there, face down on the floor. He looked longer and unnaturally pale bar the blood pooled around it. His jacket had been hastily thrown over his head, the source of it all. His shoes and socks were missing.

I turned to the corner as nausea rose up. It came so quickly I was forced to abandon all stealth. I focused on the join from the floor to the wall until it subsided, breathing long and deep. I wouldn’t turn around again. There was nothing more to see.

Is this what you have become?
I told myself.
You’re standing in a corner with your hands on your hips awaiting Death. Why not roll out the red carpet?

I thought of the man I’d just pushed into the hole. I
was
violent. I was not normal. The judge had said so herself. I needed help, but no one here would ever be able to mold me back to normality. But what if I was drawn here for this very moment, to take the fight to them?

These people were responsible for the disappearance. They were behind it, surely. They’d taken everyone away and for some reason, me, they’d come back. They’d worked out who I was.

Fuck them. If they wanted me, they were going to have to work for it. One in the hole, one with a hole in his head. That left the goon who killed Logan and the ringleader – two on one. I’d had worse odds than that before and come out kicking. This would be a walk in the park.

Standing there, willing myself into action, I felt like a pseudo-surrogate lover. Logan had been ripped from my arms. I would never see him again. I should have been thankful then for the time we had shared together. I could still feel him on my lips, they burned with it, but all I could consider was what had been taken away. I pictured him angling his body above me. “Am I hurting you?”
No.
“Are you okay?”
Yes.

That’s not reality,
I told myself.
That’s a twelve-dollar ticket down at the Paragon and a lap full of popcorn. That’s a one-hundred-and-seventy-page slab of chick-lit left on the kitchen table. That’s not what really happens or, at least, that’s not what happens to me. That’s not what we will experience together.

This angered me. I was angered.

Amazingly, the knife was still in place. I reached around and fished it out. The handle caught on the fleshy pre-bum of my lower back. I liked the feeling.

I turned the knife in my hand. Logan’s body reflected in the blade, and I retched again.

My head spun. I knelt, concentrating only on a small fissure in the floor. I was conscious of a new feeling. It was my old friend Anger and his BFF Clarity.

I’d go to them. I’d walk these halls until I was close enough to bury this knife into their bodies. Calculated – That’s what they called it. That’s what I would do. That’s what I would be.

#

I moved into the dining hall and was all but a shadow. I stayed low and rolled my feet from front to back, which had the desired effect of muting my movement.

I saw the body of the fallen soldier, the one who had shot at us in the sick bay. His gun was gone.

My breathing had slowed, but it felt like my whole body was beating. I tucked my sodden hair down the back of my dress more so to make full use of my peripheral vision than anything else. I felt it gather between my shoulder blades as I moved, wet and reptilian.

There was a green haze, a borealis. It was making it increasingly harder to see as I walked through the auditorium. Some presence passed in front of me and I bent back to jab at it with the knife. Something grabbed me from behind, loosely around my waist, so I drew the knife around and back, slashing, but there was nothing there.

I kept walking and they kept appearing. Each corner or crevice hid new horrors. They’d contorted their bodies into the walls. The only giveaway was the beady green eyes glued to their head.

I panicked and ran through the auditorium. Seats slid past me left and right until I was through the door next to the stage, standing in the limbo between haunt and habitation.

I checked every room in the hall as I passed. Each time I’d expect someone to be standing there, but there were just beds and boxes in black, form only to be found from the half-light that had filtered through the breaches in curtains or windows.

One of them was in the next room. I rushed at their body and forced the knife through. It connected with something solid instead of the dough and flesh I’d imagined before the lamp and the shirt that was slung around it slid from the blade and fell to the floor, the bulb breaking.

Thunder covered up the aberration. I felt impossibly stupid. I’d failed this simple test. Turning to face the door, I expected another one of them to be there at my back, but the space was empty.

For a split second the coward in me surfaced. There were beds, cupboards. They wouldn’t find me until light, whereupon they’d promptly vanish with the darkness or start to dissolve in the sun. They didn’t have time to check everywhere.

I saw Logan in my mind. The blood that once filled his lips, those lips that locked with mine hours ago, was now flowing out onto the floor and with it the life we might have had together. I couldn’t contain the rage. It surged through me so fast I was little more than a puppet to the intoxicating rush of chemicals telling me to make violent amends.

I moved back out and into the bathrooms. I didn’t stop to look in the mirrors in fear what I would see would be a deeply fragmented version of my former self. Instead, I looked to the walls and their dirty white, but they held little clue where to find the others. A toilet remained on a constant loop, hissing at me as I carefully closed the door and exited.

Outside, in the hall, things were still green, but blacker than before, and it became harder to keep myself free of walls that were continually closing in.

One of them appeared. They were standing right in front of me. I slashed at them wildly, but again, the knife went right through into air. I kept at it until something connected. I saw sparks, which struck me as odd.
They don’t have flesh,
I thought.
They’re robots. Dandy
.

Then they were gone, the ghost robots.

There was a strong sense of
déjà vu
as I walked through the dorm halls. It wasn’t that the surroundings looked familiar, because they did, but more so the feeling of viewing them alone – again. I questioned whether the last few days even existed at all or if I had just returned from the beach to find a building without bodies, a school without students. Any second I expected Logan to walk around the corner and duck away from the hockey stick.

What was different was the rain. It was comforting. Each droplet snipped away at the silence. It was like turning a TV on in the background, even if the only thing on was a rice fight.

I’d lost where I was, largely because everything seemed so damned similar in the dark. I knew I was in one of the dorms, but as I looked into the rooms they were full of shapes, not objects, and everything became unisex under the blanket of night.

I reached the end of the hall, turned the corner. As I went to start up the stairs, I thought better of it and slumped down next to the wall. My head hurt from spinning around, and my legs had become leaden weights attached to my body. It was nice to just sit and be still.

I noted I was in a prime position. There was a wall directly behind and in front of me, so that was covered, and everything to the left and the right I could see in my peripheral vision. Besides, if someone was coming down the stairs I was bound to hear them first. There was the door at the end of the hall in front of me and just to my right, probably locked.

I twirled the knife around in my hand, but grew tired of it quickly. Instead, I stared at the door at the end of the hall. Compared to the rest of Carver it was almost an afterthought. It was cheap and tacky. Some of the paint had peeled off the sides and bottom. They should have left it plain wood. Wood and stone go together. Paint and stone do not.

My inspection turned to the doorknob. I flinched because I thought it was turning, but there was something else. There was a reflection in it, one of them. A solitary figure was trapped inside it. They couldn’t see me, though. I was around the corner. I was night.

They were coming. They were real. My eyes didn’t move from the doorknob. Shifting them might have given me away. I needed to be a rock until they were right there. Then I could strike. I wouldn’t bring up the knife until the last second.

I counted and pictured sheep jumping over fences.

Forty sheep and they were right there upon me.

Teenagers don’t use the rational part of their brain, you know. I read that somewhere. It’s just all emotion bubbling away up there.

I tapped into it. Rationality was far gone. It had been replaced by revenge. I wasn’t even shaking any more.

I stood quickly when they were about to stumble on my position. I spun, faced them and plunged in the knife. I pushed it in, as far as it would go, into their gut. It was tough, like trying to push a pin through leather. I instantly felt something warm flow out around the blade and over their poncho.

This one had no green discs for eyes, but in the tri-axis of holes the eyes and mouth twisted, at first defeated and then something else. Balaclava or not, I could tell their face was scrunching up in bewilderment, a toddler that had just had its favorite toy removed.

Then there was the pain.

The pupils seemed bigger, even in the dark, impossibly large, and they stared at me like an ever-widening abyss. There was a gasp, but it turned to a gurgle.

The action and the thrust had put something into motion. I started to panic. With great effort I pulled the blade out and let it drop fall to the floor. Upturned, it bore a red-tinged reflection of myself. What I see there glinting in the metal wasn’t human.

I looked to my hands only to discover mud had blended with blood, impossible to tell one from the other. It was all dark, black, as if I’d reached into pure evil.

The figure stood there, hands holding the wound. It spoke one word, and my heart froze.

Logan.

13. RECONSTRUCTION

All I could say was ‘no’ for the longest time. I said it over and over, quickly and quietly, as a mother would a naughty child, but the only person I was attempting to scald was myself.

Shaking, Logan pulled off the balaclava, revealing a sweat-logged face scrunched up in a muddle of pain. His eyes were wide with surprise.

He said my name, my true name, his lips barely parting.

You were supposed to leave impaled objects inside the body. I remembered that. I looked down and the knife was still there on the ground, bloody and black. Next to it was a large gun, a rifle. I hadn’t even noticed him drop it.

I started to evaluate the situation. I pulled Logan down into a seated position against the wall. It didn’t take much effort; he had already started slumping downwards of his own accord. I leaned in close, trying to avoid the wound that was already discharging some sort of dark, mucilaginous liquid I could only assume was blood.

“Press here,” he huffed, grabbing my hand and forcing it onto the wound. “Add as much pressure – as you can. We’ve got to stop – the bleeding.”

‘We’ – It sounded odd. I assumed he was trying to share some of the blame and alleviate the guilt that might very well cripple me to unconsciousness if I gave it the time – something of which was now of the essence. I still, however, felt solely responsible for this whole fucked-up mess.

His hands cupped mine, my palms pushing downwards on his abdomen unsteadily. I felt hot blood run out over my fingers.

Every time Logan spoke almost every word was followed by a breathy intake. “I – think – you missed – major organs. We’ve got to – get – out of sight.”

“I’m so sor–” I started, but he put a finger to my lips, closed his eyes and shook his head.

“It’s not – your fault. That room.”

He was gesturing with his eyes at one of the dorm rooms directly across from us.

“Can you stand?” I asked, trying to maintain composure, but my voice shaky. Fresh tears fell.

Logan looked up, saw the concern pooling in my eyes and nodded once.

Awkwardly, I crouched beside him, attempting to keep pressure on the wound with one hand while lifting his arm with the other and wrapping it over my shoulder. My legs blazed beneath me as I did so.

Logan’s arm was heavy, like an iron bar, completely absent of animation or life – a dead weight.

Never move a patient. That was another little pearl of wisdom. But there was no choice here. Logan was right. If we were both out here in the hall it wouldn’t be long before one of the others came to finish the job. The room, if nothing else, provided some measure of seclusion.

It took great effort on Logan’s behalf to even get up. He made no noise, but it was plainly obvious from the way his entire body strained it pained him gravely. I couldn’t look at his face. It would only take me one more step towards vacuity.

Hunchbacked together, we hobbled into the room. It smelled musky. It was also lighter and louder in here than the hall, the rain beating against the window and black, pearly clouds beyond raging with one another.

I maneuvered Logan sideways up next to the wall shared by the hallway just inside the room, his back against a dresser. It wasn’t long before he’d slumped sideways against the wall itself, a large black-and-white of a melancholy James Dean looking on.

“Get – some clothes. Put them here,” Logan said, waving above the wound.

There were various articles of clothing on the floor. I went for what looked like a dark cotton shirt in the macabre hope it’d better conceal the blood.

I balled it up as best I could and brought it towards him. He held my hand again, pressing it firmly against himself. I was glad to have a collection point in place. Even so, my hands were almost completely wet with blood. It’d been warm and slippery at first, but now it started to stiffen, pulling at my skin.

The voice was there. It always was.
You did this. How could you not know? How could you not know
his
eyes?

“What happened?” I questioned softly, to distract, rather than reprieve, myself. “I thought you were dead. I saw your body.”

Logan’s eyes were closed. He was concentrating on breathing. It was a horrible wheezing sound, like an accordion that’d been punctured in the side.

“Not – my – body. I – killed – him, the one – that took me. Got his – gun. Shot – him.” He paused, letting his breath catch up. “I – swapped – clothes. I – put on – his uniform, took – his gun.” Again, he paused, eyes still shut. “I – heard you – run – but, when I – went out – no one – was there.”

“You swapped clothes with the goon, left his body there and went looking for me and the others?” I repeated.

He nodded.

The jacket over the body’s head. I should have looked harder. I should have known it wasn’t Logan.

“It was – a stupid – idea.”

“Shhhh. It’s my fault.” I spoke softly, scared volume would somehow further the damage already in place. “How did you get his gun?” I knew I shouldn’t barrage him with questions, but it seemed loosely better than sitting in silence watching him bleed in agony.

“I – have – skills,” he said, eyes opening and looking to me. Something between a smile and a scowl crossed his face. He tried to laugh.

It came out like a coughing fit.

“How do you know my real name?” I asked.

He should be resting, but I had to know the truth. Although I felt such a strong bond between us, I couldn’t stifle the feeling deep down he was still a stranger in some part. That closed door he was hiding behind stopped us from fully connecting.

He looked away from me, to the roof. When he turned back there was such a depth of seriousness in his expression I feared whatever would come from his mouth. I let him speak.

“I know – you’re – the President’s daughter.”

I swallowed. “How?”

He paused again. “I was sent here – by your father – to protect you.”

“My
father
sent you?” I squeezed his hand, attempting to play it off. “What are you saying?”

“I was – sent here – as your bodyguard.”

“You’re Secret Service?”

“Yes – and no.”

I was confused, and in some way I was mad, but at who, I couldn’t be certain.

“Is what’s happening here because of me?”

He shook his head. “No. I think – it’s coincidence.”

I pictured th
e body in the room. “God, I thought you were dead.”

He nodded again, closing his eyes. Even with what scarce light there was, I could tell he was far whiter than normal.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, a lone tear finding its way free of my eyelid and onto his lap.

“I’ve been – through worse,” he joked.

“Who are they?” I said, attempting to hush him down.

“I think – they kidnapped – the school.”

“You actually think they took everyone?”

He nodded. “By boat – after – lights out.”

“But why?”

And then it almost made sense. Why not? Carver was isolated. Better yet, the kids here were from the most privileged, powerful families in the country. Take them away and you could demand almost anything. As much as I hated to admit it, it was a perfect storm, ripe for a scenario like this.

“Carver is an easy target,” I concluded.

Logan nodded.

I kept going. “The ferry would be a week away. Everyone could have been herded onto a boat, if it was big enough, and after a week they could be anywhere, right? Another country, even.”

I thought back to geography, of what countries were near, which could pose the most danger.

“International – waters,” Logan said.

I moved in closer. “What?”

Then it came to me. A week would be more than enough time to sail beyond international waters. The government couldn’t just dive in after them then. It’d be a political nightmare. They wouldn’t have any jurisdiction. 

“The blood, a
t the pier,” I continued. “The security guard must have put up a fight.”

Again, a nod. “And the picture on that girl’s cell
, the lotus sign. That could be the name of the boat.”

Another nod.

The rain intensified outside. There was a low tremor as clouds came together in the distance.

“But why didn’t they know we were missing?”

Logan rolled slightly to his right, pained.

I went on. “I was down at the beach that night, with the others. You were in the cave under the chapel. That explains where we were, but surely they would have checked the roll?”

“We’re not – on the roll,” Logan said, glancing in my direction.

I suddenly
recalled that day in math. It was true. My name hadn’t been on the roll, nor Logan’s.”

The rain fell harder.

I was trying to box it out, put it into some logical, manageable order.

Only the principal knew I was here, my real identity, or at least that’s what I thought. Maybe they truly hadn’t known I was here. Maybe it
was
a coincidence. Maybe she told them, but why?

“How many are left?”
I said.
The grenade,
I thought.
That was one. The rat’s nest another. The one Logan swapped clothes with.
“One of them, the one that chased after me, fell into the rat’s nest. That leaves just the one, the ringleader. Did you see where he went?”

Logan breathed in. “When I came out, all I saw – was his
back – taking off after you. They call him – ‘The Eagle’.”

“You can understand them?”

He nodded.

The Eagle.
It resonated in my head.

“This Eagle then, the leader. He’s the only one left. Has to be.”

My mind was racing away from me. “Can you fly the helicopter?”

“We don’t – have the keys. The – tall one – had them. I saw them.”

The tall one. I racked my brain.

Shit,
I thought. There was one significantly taller than the others. I’d pushed him into the rat’s nest – keys inclusive.

“He’s at the bottom of the rat’s nest,” I confessed, “dead, with the keys.”

There was no way out of the rat’s nest. I knew that. The keys were as good as gone.

“What do we do?”

“Get – the gun.”

I stood up, ran into the hallway and was about to pick up the gun before I stopped dead.

Gunfire forced me back into the room. The bullets penetrated the floor of the hall, sending splinters of wood flying. The noise was deafening.

They aren’t shooting to kill,
I reminded myself.
They’re shooting to box you into the room.

It worked.

And then he was there, the Eagle, standing in the doorway.