by Poss, Bryant
Matching them step for step, Lo backed toward the door, taking time to glance around and make sure there weren’t others, but more importantly, that there were no spazzos nearby. Painfully slowly, they made their way to the cafeteria entrance, and Lo shot a look through the crack of the door that Cillian held open, safe on the other side of the metal, and she placed a hand on the handle of the .38 until the third one made it through, paying her sidekick no mind behind the door. Once inside, Cillian watched through the crack, between the hinges until he felt they were far enough away to creep inside and close the door behind him. Easing the door closed with door handle turned, he secured it then watched Lo cross the empty room with the three pokies in tow. She nodded to him to stay as she went through another door, down the hallway toward the lobby. Once in the hallway, the darkness and the silence closed in upon her, and the slow breathing of the pokies filled her ears with a weight she could barely stand. She watched them closely, dragging one foot then the other, the soles of their shoes all but gone from the constant friction. The female stood far shorter than the other two, and every so often her left arm would twitch. It didn’t look to be a controlled action, but that’s not what bothered Lo. It was the speed. Seeing the arm twitch and move so quickly filled her with a kind of dread, just witnessing the possibility that these things could move faster than they did. After all, she didn’t know what separated spazzo from poky. Why was one fast and the other slow albeit strong? What made the difference? She just didn’t know enough and being between the cinderblock walls of the hallway made her wish she’d paid more attention, tried to figure out the differences that could help keep her alive.
One of the three breathed with a nauseating rattle in the chest she’d not heard until the echo of the concrete presented it. In and out in slow, painful gurgles as she backed away wondering what sort of infection lived in the lungs of the infected. They breathed, so they needed oxygen. Bacteria still infected the lungs, if that’s what was causing the chest rattling. Could they be drowned? Suffocated?—Cured? No, she refused to believe it. Even if they could, where were the antivirals? Who would administer them? How? Was it even a virus? That was Hollywood directing her thought process again. It had to be. The onset was too fast, the spread. Nothing but a virus could be so effective. She stumbled a little when her shoulder nudged the wall, and it quickly drew her back into the moment. You’re luring zombies into a high school lobby, girl. You can think about that other shit later.
The light coming around the tarp that hung in front of the lobby windows and doors was most welcome, and Lo picked up the pace a little, making her way to the other side of the room in front of the mirrors. It was at this stage in the plan that neither she nor Cillian could decide what would be the best course of action. She needed to get the pokies in front of the mirror and occupied, but she also needed to get the hell out of the room without them following her. At the end of a lengthy discussion, they had finally decided that the best thing to do was walk around them, but that didn’t leave many options if it didn’t work. To remedy the danger, a ladder was set up to the side of the mirrors, propped against the wall down the adjacent hallway. Lo looked at how slowly the poky moved and opted for the ladder anyway, wanting to get a better look at what the world had come to. She quickly climbed the ladder and crawled into the crawl space above the tile, kicking the ladder over as she did so. If she brought another load of pokies in, she would merely lead them into the lobby, circle around them and leave, assuming the new ones would simply gather with the originals in front of the mirrors. Try as they might, they could not come up with a better plan, and as she kicked the ladder over with her heal, looking down at the three pokies looking up at her, she was pleased that this much of it had worked. Whether or not they would take up with pawing at the mirrors remained to be seen.
As she looked down into the hollow faces, it hit her that this was the first time she’d been still enough and close enough for the smell to really hit her. Not the smell of rot so much, it was the smell of filth. Bowels had been evacuated as was evident on the tattered clothes that covered them. Tics, lice, and other critters could be seen crawling on or stuck to the exposed skin. Gums bled, pus oozed from wounds, they had the look of hobos, near leprous animated figures without purpose except to exist and to eat. It was the eyes that kept them from being hobos, lepers, vagabonds, or human beings. The starburst cataract covered the whole eye, even the sclera and erased whatever soul there was to be found in those windows now closed off to reason and logic. If a pupil remained, she couldn’t tell nor could she observe the orbs moving in any direction. They just sat in the skull absently and faced the direction they were moving. Lo started to wonder how well they could see at all, but no sooner had she contemplated it that the question was partially answered for her. One of the three, what used to be a broad-shouldered man in what was left of a flannel shirt and jeans, dragged his feet toward the figure in the mirror and began pawing at it at first confusedly then angrily, and when the others noticed their comrade was occupied with something else in the wall, they joined in and all three began pawing, gurgling, and moaning at the three inhuman figures trying to come out of the wall. With that she dropped down and walked out without attracting them.
“How many do you think we need?” Cillian asked from the door Lo had come through in the cafeteria.
“Well, we want to make sure they’re seen before anybody starts shooting out glass doors or windows. I was thinking around ten, maybe a dozen.”
“That’s a lot to have in one place,” he said somewhat nervously. “What do you think they could do with combined strength?”
“I think they could pick up a house together,” she walked toward him smiling, and his hand went to the door handle. “Luckily they don’t have the intelligence to coordinate.”
“As far as we know—” the hand clamped down on his shoulder like the mouth of a crocodile and Cillian let out a strained scream. He’d opened the door like he had hundreds of times before, just being polite, courteous, opening the door for an approaching person. So many times he’d done it—in the old world. That’s where his mind had been during the conversation, just two people trying to work out a problem, passing through the door. Where do you want to go first? Entering the mall. Where do you want to eat? Leaving it. What time does the movie start? That world was gone, and the eight-fingered boy seemed to need another reminder of the situation they were in. He’d opened the door to let her through, not even looking, not even considering that there may be a poky on the other side wondering where the three like it went earlier when they’d come this way.
“Bah!” the only sound that had time to escape Lo’s mouth as she grabbed the poky’s neck and shoved him back with everything she had, moving him just enough to at least shut the door, the three of them now on the other side of the door to the cafeteria.
Clop
Rotting teeth snapped down nearly as loudly as two-by-fours popped together, inches from Cillian’s face. Once Lo had it against the wall, it turned its attention to her, maintaining its grip on the boy’s shoulder. Cillian writhed in pain, and Lo put both hands on the poky, pressing it against the wall, trying to keep it off balance while she thought of what to do. She was so close, her thighs pressed against this—what used to be a man—and Luck was painfully being pressed against her.
The world from a vast cave completely absent of light save one speck, one pinprick as if a single star inhabited the infinite night sky, no way to focus on that light since there were limitless directions in which to look, spinning, no control over anything but driven by the most basic need, the need to sustain, the necessity, always the light was there, perhaps glimpsed in the peripheral once every other day but no focus, no focus and no control only hunger, hunger and pain and they were unpleasant, before anything else the satisfaction of sustenance must be acquired. Nothing for the pain.
Lo was forced a step back. One step. Two. She felt like a child struggling with a grown man. He was so strong.
It was so strong. The poky faced her grabbing her forearm, the first thing it saw, so that it held them both. She let out a low scream much as Cillian had, and both she and the boy buckled at the knees from the sheer strength of the grip. Without a moment’s hesitation it leaned forward.
Clop
Lo pulled away as hard as she could, but she might as well have been welded to it. Managing to lean far enough back to avoid the first snap of the teeth, she had nowhere else to go now.
Clop
She felt its breath on that one. Straining, she could practically hear her muscles tear as she tried to get away, but it was nothing short of fighting a machine.
Clop
Clop
Squish
The sound of teeth in flesh was a far different noise by far. Lo let out an ear-piercing scream as the poky latched onto her shoulder, her deltoid hot as if she’d been shot with a bullet straight from a forge. Her eyes went wild, at the ceiling, at the back of the poky’s head, and finally to Cillian, who looked back at her with terror in his own eyes. Their thoughts matched, and that thought was a question. How did this happen? In less than a second, they had gone from total control, luring pokies into their castle, to trick the evil outside, to victims.
The light, the single atom in a sea of infinity. No reason, no logic, only feel, only hunger. There’s the light, a window on a train, just a blur. Treetops, signs, a floor, a woman, a boy? No, just a blur. A blur and hunger. Got to make the hunger go away.
“Ack,” the sound coming from Lo’s mouth was sickening. She was losing consciousness then it would stop. She’d let go and it would stop. Not a bad idea after all. Everything in this world tried to eat you or enslave you. What’s the point?
Cillian had dropped to his knees, the pain beyond description. It hadn’t hurt like this when he lost his fingers. The grip was just as inhuman as the creature that held it. Cillian watched Lo’s eyes roll back, the tension in her body leaving, going limp. His right hand seemed to work on its own, crossing over his own body, stretching unnaturally far, but it didn’t matter; there was too much pain for it to hurt. The fingers of his good hand slid over the smooth wooden handle of the .38 at Lo’s side. It didn’t want to move, stuck down in the holster. He pulled it, grunting as he did, and he forced the trigger without pulling the hammer back, only taking enough aim to shoot in the opposite direction of himself. The shot in the enclosed cafeteria was deafening.
12
If she had bothered to eat anything earlier, it would be all over the hallway floor, but she didn’t and there wasn’t. Lotus would’ve been angry at how wasteful that was. God, her shoulder was on fire, and it radiated all the way down her leg. The view of the floor swung from the left to the right, the bottom of the cinder block wall on either side coming into her line of sight with each step. So low to the ground, she didn’t fully understand how it was she was moving at all. There were four feet on the floor, nearly the same size, but the ones that didn’t belong to her were struggling as much as her own, and she heard the grunts with every stride.
“Open the door!” Cillian’s voice as they approached the thick door then the sound of latches on the other side. “Hurry!”
The face of the pale blonde girl looked so much like an angel at that moment. If this were a movie, that’s what she’d be Lo thought, but it’s hard to think through the pain. They all grabbed her and dragged her to the middle of the room, laying her on the soft mats they’d gotten from the weight room in front of the couch. The mats were covered with jumpsuits from the shop class closets.
“Lo, what do I do first?” he leaned over her, placing a work rag over the shoulder and applying pressure, knowing enough to at least do that. Her shirt was a deep crimson as was the upper part of her pants. The blood had poured out of her during the long walk from the cafeteria. Her face was pale, and she seemed on the verge of passing out. “Lo, I’ve got pressure on it. Now what?”
There was no answer, and that’s when it started to set in. The panic climbed his spine into his brain and pushed his thoughts in every possible direction. His eyes darted around spastically until he saw Devon and Alice looking at him with their own pleading eyes, asking him with those orbs what he was going to do. He stopped, took a deep breath, and looked down at Lotus, his hand on her cheek. Waiting as long as he dared, he closed his eyes, inhaled deeply through his nose and released through his mouth then looked down.
Carefully, he reached down and grabbed the bottom of her tee-shirt where it lay right at the top of her pants. It came up slowly, the sucking sound of the blood-filled shirt pulling away from her skin filled the room. Past her belly button now, he threw one knee over and straddled her so he could inch the back of the shirt up against her body weight, then her ribs, over the sports bra to her neck. Gently he tried to pull her arms out, but she moaned loudly.
“Bring me some scissors!” he hissed at no one in particular, and within a matter of seconds the customary black-handled, school teacher scissors were slapped against his palm, handle first. Giving a brief glance up, he saw Devon smiling with accomplishment. Cillian went about cutting the shirt on one side then the other, pulling the top away from her and exposing the dried blood on her neck, chest, and stomach. Dropping the scissors, he unbuttoned her pants, first the waist then the crotch, trying to make her comfortable, and he pulled Luck from her pocket when he saw it, placing it on the floor amongst them all while he worked.
“Devon, all the medicine Ben got us is in the first aid kit in the desk drawer over there,” he nodded toward the teacher office. “Bring it to me, please. Alice, take those scissors and start cutting a jumpsuit. Wet half the pieces and gently start cleaning her off, please.”
Swinging his knee around, he got off Lo and began running peroxide over the wound. There was a bit of moaning, so he brought her head up with his hand and managed to get two Percocet down her throat with some water before continuing what he was doing. After the peroxide finished bubbling white and pink, the familiar copper smell flooding his nostrils, he focused on pressure again, finally getting the bleeding to stop. Waiting until he thought the pain medication had kicked in, he poured seventy percent isopropyl alcohol over the wound then iodine, the liquid restaining her newly-cleaned skin, and pasted antibacterial ointment before wrapping with dry gauze and taping it. He started to pull the blood-stained sports bra off but decided against it when he saw how much trouble it would be. Alice took up the duty of giving her water once he’d finished, and Cillian went over to the far wall, grabbing his knees and rocking while he cried a little and caught his breath, the blood from her who cluttered all his thoughts drying on his arms.
Alice brought the jumpsuit to Lo’s ribs and managed to ease the sports bra off with far more grace and ease. The dried blood came off with some force then she covered her to the throat before putting a cool rag on her forehead. The woman’s usual copper skin was quite pale now, and Alice placed the backs of her fingers to her cheeks to check the temperature, showing no surprise at how unnaturally cool it was.
“Is she going to—” Devon’s voice from the corner of the room broke the silence. He looked around at them like they were locked in the room with a rabid dog. “You know, is she gonna turn?”
“That’s in the movies,” Cillian snapped, holding up his three-fingered hand to back up his statement. “I don’t think normal people now can get it. I think we’re immune.”
Devon crept closer to the others, much like the silence in the room, and they sat watching Lo’s chest rise and fall. It was several minutes before Cillian spoke.
“Okay, we’ve got three pokies in the lobby area. They’re isolated from us. We’ve got it where they can’t get down this hallway. All we can do is hope they’re enough to keep anybody from coming into the building if they’re seen.” He looked over at Alice, his eyes puffy and red. “What do you think? Will the soldiers stop because of the pokies or will they come in anyway? You spent the most time with them.”
“They go wherever the
y think there’s something they need,” her eyes met his somewhat tentatively. “I just know that from hearing Marshal talk.”
He sat thinking for some time. Lo’s breathing slowed and became deeper, giving them all the impression that she was fully asleep now. This sound served as their metronome, keeping time for their fear, their uncertainty, and to an extent their ideas. The idea that pokies were in the building with them crossed their minds more than once, but it weighed heavily on Cillian now after seeing what the things were capable, even one.
“We need a plan for what to do if they come into the building despite the pokies,” he said, and they looked at him. “We can’t run. We can’t leave Lo. We can’t fight.”
“We can hide,” Devon broke in and Cillian nodded.
“Yes, that’s really our only option,” Cillian pointed up. “The ceiling is the best place, Lo always says. We’ll be hidden there and safe from any pokies or spazzos that might come in. That’s our best bet.”
