Virulent: The Release (14 page)

She grabbed her shirt and lowered it over her shoulder, exposing her collarbone, where a deep purple bruise in an abstract shape materialized. When she was sure Lucy had seen it, she pulled her shirt back up, hiding the pain. Knife wounds, colorful bruises: Salem’s adventures seemed so violent compared to her own. Here was her friend and every comfort in her life had been violated.

“Whatever happened to you yesterday…you didn’t see your own parent scared, Lucy. I could just see it all over his face, this fear...this total fear. And I said, ‘Papa, que pasa? Que pasa?’ And he just sat down. In the middle of the floor. Sat down. He sobbed and sobbed because she was already gone…Lucy…there was nothing we could do. She was gone and he thought I was next. But dear God, I wasn’t next. And there’s no way you can understand that.”

From somewhere outside, they heard a crash and a boom. The boom shook the school and the leftover plastic on the skylight rattled.

The girls jumped. Lucy picked the sweatshirt up off the ground and wrapped it around Salem.

“I was afraid.”

“I know,” Lucy answered.

“Don’t let me watch you die.”

“That’s out of my control.” Lucy didn’t say it meanly, but she realized as the words left her mouth that it was the truth. Nothing was safe.

“I
can’t
watch you
die
,” Salem said and she grabbed Lucy’s hands.

“I’m not going to die,” she said and she smiled to help cover the unease she felt in saying it out loud. She wondered if it was like birthday wishes: Saying it out loud ruined the chance of it happening.

“It’s just us now,” Salem continued. “It’s always been us and now it’s
just
us.” Then she looked over to the wall and smiled. “Well, us and Grant Trotter.”

Lucy leaned her head back. “Strange,” she muttered. “Grant Trotter.”

“Strange,” Salem echoed.

In a swift motion, Salem tucked her feet up under Lucy, connecting their bodies in a tangle of limbs.

It was an apology.

Lucy accepted and she reciprocated by lifting her right leg and laying it over Salem’s body. She reached over and tried to untangle a mass of her hair with her fingers, but she didn’t get very far; her fingers latched themselves into Salem’s waves and got stuck, so she released her grip and then tried to smooth her own hair instead.

“And where is Grant?” Lucy asked. “And how long did I sleep? Did I miss anything?”

Salem gave a half-chuckle and closed her eyes. “Did you miss anything?” She repeated the phrase, amused. “Let’s see…Kelsey asked Domo to the prom and that made Kevin Yourn, you know, from ninth grade bio, really mad because he’d been planning to ask Kelsey. Made a video to put online. But she jumped the gun…poor Kevin.”

“You don’t say.”

“Mercedes works at Safeway and told me that she ran into Mr. Russo there and he had Magnum extra large condoms in his cart.”

“That’s really gross.”

“And…I know this is going to come as a huge shock,” Salem said in a calm voice, “but I spent the night with someone last night.”

“I’m riveted.” Lucy didn’t even blink.

“It’s not what you think,” Salem continued with a sly smile.

“It never is.”

“Lucy,” Salem said, her voice changing—softening, switching, allowing the genuine to poke through. “I think I could like him someday. When everything calms down. When I can get my head straight, you know?”

“Sal—”

“No. I’m just saying it out loud. I know it doesn’t mean anything.” She closed her eyes and put her head against the back of the couch. “I think he’s a good guy.”

“Yeah, I know,” Lucy answered and grabbed Salem’s hand. “So, if you two didn’t come back here last night…where’d you go?”

Salem’s eyes opened. “You know that little teacher lounge across the hallway from here? The not-so-secret secret one?”

Lucy nodded.

“Unlocked. And there are couches and a mini-fridge. Bottled water in there too. Not much. We worked for a bit last night trying to get it situated as a more permanent hideout. Even started the morning with coffee and some stale crackers.”

The news that Grant and Salem had let her sleep in a cold drafty room while they waited for her imminent demise by equipping a more suitable living space across the hall created a heavy cold ball in the bottom of her stomach. She tried to look excited, but she could tell her mouth was drawing into an inadvertent frown. Salem noticed.

“We thought we’d let you sleep. I didn’t think it would be all night,” she replied in a quiet voice.

“It’s okay,” Lucy said. She gave up the moodiness as quickly as it had arrived. There was no way it would do them any good.

“We should’ve come to get you.” She untangled her feet and swung them to the floor. “I was a jerk,” Salem leaned her head against Lucy’s shoulder. “Lo siento, por favor perdóname mi amiga.”

“No, really. It’s fine.”

“It doesn’t have to be…and it’s my fault too. Grant asked if we should go get you like a million times—”

“Stop,” Lucy said and put her hand up. “It’s over.”

Salem let out a long sigh. “Then I propose breakfast as a peace-offering.”

The crackers were stale and mushy, but Lucy ate them ravenously, shoving one after another into her mouth and swallowing them without tasting. She had not had a bite to eat yesterday and Lucy couldn’t remember what they had eaten for dinner the night before; something frozen and overly processed—not because her mother didn’t care about her health or about their rapidly-disappearing family dinners, but because trip preparations and concern over dead dogs consumed their evening instead.

She longed for her mother’s sweet and sour meatloaf and goat cheese mashed potatoes, honey-drizzled asparagus spears. It was the dish, along with a smooth as silk lemon-lime cheesecake, Lucy requested for her birthday dinner every year. With six children, birthdays were not large-scale affairs. Instead, every child received a dinner menu of their choice, without snarky side comments from siblings and the fear of complaining.

A lump formed in Lucy’s throat and she bit back tears. She would not cry over eating mushy crackers and drinking cold instant coffee made from bottled water because she did not want to appear ungrateful.

The room was a find. Windowless with a thick wooden door that blocked out most of the speaker sound, which was currently broadcasting Principal Spencer’s throaty snoring, emanating through the speakers in evenly paced intervals, interrupted by jolts of snorts, then settling back down, consistent as clockwork.

The walls were decorated with tacky inspirational posters. A scared looking teacher holding a math book, the message below:
Teachers are people too.
A young girl with tears in her eyes holding out the remains of a broken vase:
Take RESPONSIBILITY for your actions
. Another one reading:
Effort, not excuses, is the key to success
.

Lucy rose from the one of the couches, it smelled vaguely of citrus scented air freshener, and walked over to the first poster. She examined it and then yanked it down off the wall, and the loud rip filled the small space with a big sound. Then she tore each one down, ripping the paper at the corners, leaving little remnants stuck under the imbedded staples.

“There,” she said. “Better.”

No one replied. Spencer’s snores still persisted.

“How can he sleep like that?” Grant asked and he rubbed his eyes, which still looked heavy from sleep, with bags forming in the sockets, the skin tinted black and blue like bruises. “I didn’t sleep at all last night.” He looked over at Lucy with a questioning gaze.

“I can sleep anywhere,” she replied. “It’s a defense mechanism. When my grandma died, they found me asleep in the back seat of our van. I had just crawled there and fallen asleep…”

“I couldn’t shut off my brain,” he said and closed his eyes. “Wondering if I made the right decision.”

“About?” Salem questioned, taking a sip of their cold coffee and grimacing as she swallowed it down.

“About what’s going on out there,” he said. “Maybe I should go home.”

“No!” Salem looked stricken. “We decided to stay. Together.”

“Salem—” Grant started, but he stopped himself. He walked to the door of the room and opened it a bit, peering out into the hallway. “Have you thought that maybe we’re just taking longer…to die.”

“That’s an awful thing to say,” Salem said softly.

“It’s what I’ve been thinking about all night.”

Lucy ate another cracker. She had thought the same thing, but she abstained from entering the argument. Grant’s decision to stay or go was his own, and she could not begrudge him his desire to leave. They were relegated to eating leftover teacher food in a glorified closet while a principal with a gun lurked nearby. It was far from ideal.

“We’re not helping anyone in here,” Grant said. “I feel like a coward. There might be people who need us.”

“No one out there needs us,” Salem pleaded her case. “How many times do I have to tell you? There’s nothing out there but corpses, car crashes, chaos and crazies.”

“Maybe my family is out there,” Lucy said after a long moment.

Grant looked down at his shoes and kicked his toe against some invisible object.

“Is that why you want to go? Grant?” Salem asked. “To look for your dad?”

“I already told you I don’t care about that!” Grant snapped and it was the first time Lucy had ever seen him get upset. Then he hung his head, remorseful. “I’m sorry. But no. I just feel like I could be doing something.”

“You
are
doing something!” Salem replied. “You’re surviving.”

“It’s not the same. You don’t understand,” Grant said and he moved back an inch, half his body in the hall, half of it in the room and he leaned against the doorframe.

“You’re absolutely right it’s not the same!” Salem was getting fired up. And in typical Salem fashion she had shifted the argument right out from under him. Like a brilliant chess player, she had maneuvered her pieces without anyone noticing and then went in for the kill. “You still have the
possibility
of a family out there somewhere. You’re scared and worried, but you don’t know. Maybe a friend died yesterday or someone on the track team, but you didn’t see your parents take their last breath. So…what then? You want to go be someone’s freakin’ hero? Go be a hero. But we are not the same. You’re not completely demolished yet.” She took a breath and pointed a finger to Lucy and Grant. “When
you’re
a shell of yourself…then you’ll see. There’s nothing to conquer out there but more loss.”

Lucy’s heart beat in her ears as she contemplated replying. Grant looked close to tears, or close to throwing a punch, Lucy couldn’t tell which. His whole leg twitched and he bounced it up and down. She knew Salem. Knew that a little pushback would calm her down.

“I won’t speak for Grant,” Lucy interjected, glancing in his direction, and he nodded his thanks. “But for me? Don’t you dare make me feel guilty for having hope that my family is alive. That doesn’t take away from
your
grief…”

“I’m not a monster,” Salem interrupted, lowering her finger, her voice still on edge. “I’d never take that away from you. I
want
you to be right. I
want
them to be alive. Who do you think I am?”

Lucy stood up. “I don’t think any of us know who we are anymore. And maybe we should be allowed some time to figure it out.”

It was truth, spoken in kindness. This sudden detour from the ordinary unmoored them from reality and thrust them into a disquiet about the future too difficult to digest. Underneath it all was a permeating worry that their time too was short and that they were treading water until the next wave of loss and horror crashed down on them. Lucy could see it on all their faces, playing out in the blank-glances, the dark circles: The sagging weight of loss.

Grant opened his mouth to respond, but then he turned his head and he opened the door wider. The snoring had stopped. There was rustling on the speaker and they knew what that meant. The man was waking up.

“Food is our first priority,” Salem said. “We can stay put and away from the cameras if we have food.”

They had listened to the office sounds for fifteen minutes. Spencer left and came back twice. He hummed and mumbled to himself, but the specifics of his one-way conversations were indecipherable. None of his current actions struck them as alarming or worrisome; he had not fired the gun again or sent menacing messages out over the intercom. In many ways, they hoped he stayed away from the intercom, lest he should ever notice it was helping them track his every move in and out of the office.

“So, we need to get to the cafeteria,” Lucy stated. “And we can’t just waltz through the hallway.” It had been a bit since Lucy had checked her phone; she had set it on one of the couches and she grabbed it, but the low battery light blinked and blinked, warning her and threatening her. But there was still nothing but silence. Lucy shoved the phone in her pocket and willed it to keep itself alive for a little bit longer. She didn’t even know if cell phones were working, if her wish was wasted.

“Go up the ladder,” Grant instructed. “Boiler room is on the inside of the gates. It’ll be easy, as long as Spencer doesn’t leave the office. If he goes on the move, we should abort the trip and head back.”

“Agreed,” Salem said.

Back they trudged to the journalism room where the door was kept ajar with the doorstop. It was easily ten degrees cooler in there with the open roof funneling in wind and elements. The trio worked to move the tables back under the skylight and then drag the ladder upward.

Grant went first, pulling himself up to the roof with sheer upper body strength, his legs following after. Lucy went next, bracing herself each time the ladder wobbled under her weight the higher she climbed. When she reached the top, Grant lowered his arms and pulled her up and she scrambled to the hard surface the second her legs could catch the side of roof. For a prolonged moment, she rested on the cool roof, flat on her belly against the tar. Then she stood and blinked.

Scanning the landscape, Lucy’s shock caused her to nearly stumble backward through the hole in the skylight. She regained her composure and took a step forward. The sky was altered, filled with the bright yellows, purples and pinks of an early-morning sunrise even though the sun had been up for hours. Above the colorful hues, the rest of the sky was dark and dense with smoke, and as Lucy opened her mouth to call down to Salem she could feel a sharp taste on her tongue and in the back of her throat. Everything around her took on a subtle orange tint—as if she were wearing thin filtered glasses. The effect of the colors and the smoke and the orange created a dreamlike atmosphere—otherworldly.