Project Pallid

by Christopher Hoskins

  PROJECT PALLID

  This is a work of fiction. Names characters, places, and events are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright 2012 by Christopher Hoskins

  All rights reserved.

  PART I:

  FIGHT THE WHITE

  May 8th: Day 7

  This is a root cellar, that turned into a bunker, that became my prison. It’s hard saying when I’ll be able to climb back up again. Maybe never. I keep waiting for the time to pass when I no longer hear them searching the floor, but it’s been seven days already and they just keep coming. The rapid inhales and exhales of disease-ravaged noses still sniff between cracks of planks overhead.

  Can they smell me?

  Do they know I'm down here?

  There's never more than one at a time anymore, but there used to be. The blood from above reminds me of that. It collects in pools that swell and stretch, and it speaks words that my silence can’t.

  The sounds they make now are as identical to each other, as they are different from the people they used to be. By the fourth day of infection, words turned indistinguishable, whirling together into metallic, grinding pitches—like circular saws fighting through sheet metal. I hear them all around me; they echo through the trees, rattle the windows, and pulsate through the walls of my sealed-up house. And even though they’re less and less with each passing day, they’re still there. And as alone as I might feel, I know I’m not. Not entirely. Not yet.

  In my first days of hiding, ten, twenty, even more, would show up at the same time—all day, every day. There was always a fight to the death, and only one would scramble back out. By the third day, there were fewer than a handful at any given time, but even those numbers only lasted another day or so.

  And now that it’s been almost a week, and even though they’re still out there, I can’t imagine there’s too many left; it’s been two full days since one last scurried through our door.

  But she was different than the ones before.

  She was more desperate.

  Hungrier.

  The soft light that filtered through the wide, overhead planks—blocked out in parts by the distortion of bodies that continue to accumulate above—told me it was early morning.

  She came in on all fours, sprung to two feet, and moved back to four before she was upright again. She covered the entire kitchen in seconds. Her breathing, deep and deliberate, was clearly targeting me. She was tracking, and I worried she’d find me down here.

  Her fingernails clawed at the floor.

  They sunk into the boards above, and there was an audible tear of tissue as nails ripped from her fingertips. A hardened, white one fell through and landed by my feet, but she … it … whatever they are now … was totally unfazed. There’s no pain. There’s no feeling left inside them.

  She came closer to finding the door than any of them had before, and that has me worried the most, now. How long before the need to feed eventually leads one to finding me? They used to give up easily and move on, but the few that remain are more committed now. They stay longer. They search harder.

  It’s like I’m becoming one of their final options.

  If it does happen, and if they are able to find the entrance that’s built seamlessly into our kitchen floor, will they figure out how to get it open? Will the jam I’ve rigged actually hold? I look to the stairs and to the hunk of wood, shoved through the iron door handle and across what would be the opening, and I doubt it.

  And if they do manage to get it open, is a pocketknife really going to help me? I’ve heard what they can do to each other, and I know exactly what they’ll do to me.

  I’ve had days to myself to assemble the pieces in my head. Tomorrow will be a full week. And while I was there for almost everything, and even though I might know more than anyone else—if there still is anyone else—I don’t know it all. At least, not yet.

  What I do know is that whatever it is, and however far it’s traveled, it’s all because of him. And as soon as I’m free from this underground tomb, I’ll find my family first and Catee second.

  And then I’ll kill him myself.

  September 3rd:

  I was nervous about moving to middle school, even in the third grade, and I’d had reservations about high school, ever since the sixth. And when I stepped off the bus, in a totally different town, for my first day of ninth grade, I couldn’t have felt more nauseous. As I looked to all the kids who clustered outside the buses, excited to see each other and with a summer of stories to tell, I thought I might be the only one who’d empty their breakfast on the sidewalk. I didn’t fit in then, and I didn’t care to, but I’d fight, kill, and die for that first day uneasiness right about now.

  Being from a small town on the outskirts of a slightly larger one with a high school of its own, Platsville kids like me were bussed into Madison when we hit high school. If I scanned the crowds long enough, I probably could’ve found a familiar face or two from my eighth grade class, maybe even some sophomores who were Platsville natives, too. But if we weren’t friends by then, after years spent trapped together in a one-convenience store town, why would things be any different in a bigger place with better options?

  My seclusion was my own doing, though; I’d never really gone out of my way to hang with anyone else. I guess I could’ve gone to birthday parties, dances, or any of the other tedious things that’d happened over the years, but it wouldn’t have made much difference. I never had much in common with most of the other kids. The things that mattered to them, never mattered much to me.

  “Hey, Damian!” A familiar hand gripped my shoulder from behind.

  “Hey, Bryce. Long time.”

  “Welcome to the big city, man. Bet you’re pumped to finally be outta Platsville!”

  “Something like that,” I shrugged and answered.

  “Well, let me know if you need anything. I know this place like the back of my hand,” he added, and continued on his way to impose himself on a couple that walked by, hand in hand. His arms landed across each of their shoulders and his head jutted between theirs from behind. “Matt! Matilda! M&M!. Still going at it I see!”

  Bryce is, or was, one of the few kids I’d ever been friends with. He sort of imposed himself on me the same way I saw him doing to other kids that day (he’d left M&M by then and made his way through a couple more rounds of nameless faces within minutes). He was always a decent enough guy, but the way he threw himself on anyone and everyone he ran across was like he was running for mayor or something, He’s been that way for as long as I’ve known him … or knew him. Who’s to say what’s left of him now?

  He and I didn’t really talk much after he moved to Madison, but there was a time, back in the fifth grade and before his family moved away, when he and I would hang out pretty regularly. It wasn’t anything big. We were just neighbors who were in the same grade, and the closest house to either of ours was a mile away.

  It was a relationship of convenience that we both gave up after he moved. I’d only seen him a couple times in the three years that led to that first day of freshman year, and even those run-ins were entirely by chance—when I was running Madison errands with my mom.

  The idling masses began moving toward the entrance of the school, and I followed in suit, not really sure where I was going or what I was supposed to do when I got inside. Still, I imagined it best to blend in with the crowd and to do what everyone else did at the time.

  Through the steel, double doors, teachers and staff lined themselves shoulder-to-shoulder, creating a barricade that pushed us forward and into the auditorium. They greeted kids they knew by name and with friendly pats
on the back.

  “Welcome to Madison High!” A young, enthusiast teacher extended her hand to greet me.

  “Thank you.” I clasped hers in my own, and we exchanged a weak, double-pump, as I casually took note of her crisp, back-to-school outfit: three-pieces, including a jacket. The whole package suggested it was her first day on the job. Ever. Teachers only get more frumpy with age.

  Inside the auditorium, signs, painted onto white paper and taped to the walls above the bleachers, made it clear where we each belonged.

  Closest to my left, red lettering screamed out “SENIORS!” Next to that was a royal blue “JUNIORS!” To my right, and across the gym, a green “SOPHOMORES suspended proudly from the concrete walls. And to the far right, a hastily taped “FRESHMEN!” sign flapped in the breeze—its yellow letters rippled in the air conditioning.

  I got to our area in the middle of the freshmen pack, took a seat in the center of the middle row, and tried to blend in as best I could at the time. A few of the kids around me talked to one or two others they knew—most likely friends from whatever town they’d been bussed-in from—and I was selfishly glad to see a handful there who looked as alone as I felt.

  Most of the kids around me that day were from Madison; they made up almost our entire class. The same was true of the sophomore, junior, and senior classes, too. As an out-of-towner, you were pretty much done from the start at Madison High. You started out by climbing your way from its trenches.

  The energy of the “SENIORS!” that first day was a palpable one; they were comfortable from the start. It was their home turf and they’d already spent three-full years in the school’s confines. They talked loudly, clustered casually, and exuded a dominance that the rest of us, especially us newcomers, couldn’t.

  It was clear where the “FRESHMEN!” fell in the hierarchy of the school. Any casual observer would know who we were, simply by the volume that came from the other quadrants compared to our own. The “SENIORS!” area was obviously the loudest. They were at the top of the food chain then, and they made that point abundantly clear to the rest of us by the way they took their time in taking the stands. Most of them congregated on the floor of the auditorium instead of taking their seats. Some even grouped at center court, like dogs marking their territory.

  The “JUNIORS!” area was nearly as bad, but at least they were in the bleachers where they belonged.

  Our “FRESHMEN!” section was the quietest of the four, though its sounds were still deafening to me. Had I had the opportunity, I would’ve slid out a side door and trekked the almost twenty miles home, just to escape it.

  Eventually, the teachers from the lobby moved into the gym. Some took position along its empty walls, at far ends of the court. Others gravitated to the center of the gym and began herding the “SENIORS!” up and into their empty stands.

  And when everyone finally settled into place, half a dozen bodies remained at center court, and a microphone clicked on.

  “Good morning, Madison High!” a small man in black-framed glasses yelled out.

  Voices sounded their replies from around the gym. “Good morning, Mr. Smmishkwskin!” There was no harmony to the response, and I couldn’t make out his name through the thick blanket of crisscrossing conversations that continued from all sides.

  “I said, GOOD MORNING MADISON HIGH!” Mr. Smmishkwskin repeated.

  “GOOD MORNING MR. SMITHSON!” Most of the attention shifted to him, and his name rang out, loud and clear.

  “It’s great to see so many familiar faces!” The three quadrants of returning students began to cheer and whoop loudly. Several of the “SENIORS!” even stood to pump their fists in the air.

  “Ah, yes,” Mr. Smithson continued. “Let’s not forget the Class of 2014!!!” He held his mic in their direction and fed into their ridiculousness.

  At this, the entire section moved to its feet to stomp and fill the gym with self-glorifying cheers.

  “And let’s stand together to welcome our Class of 2017!!!” Mr. Smithson spun his outstretched arm to our corner of the arena, and we followed with a response to rival the “SENIORS!” but booming, “BOOS” and jeers assaulted us from all angles and overshadowed our cries.

  “Now, now,” Mr. Smithson scolded into his mic. “You were all freshmen once, and you all know how it feels,” he said, softening their attack and quieting the crowd. “And as Madison High Patriots, I expect each and every one of you to reach out to our next generation and to make them feel welcome!” he proclaimed. The response he got was begrudgingly mumbled as three-quarters of the school’s population staged silent attacks on their newest recruits.

  From there, Mr. Smithson segued into the Core Values of Madison High, and he attached each one back to the relationships within our classes and between our grade levels. He overviewed highlights of the coming school year, and he informed us of staff members who “moved on” during the summer. He welcomed new ones (Ms. Lagasse was the one who threw herself at me in the entrance), and finally, he provided us with our homeroom assignments, alphabetized by grade and last name.

  “We’ll be dismissing you by grade level, and you’ll be asked to head directly to homeroom. From there, you’ll each receive your schedules, lockers, and everything else you’ll need to get the year started right!”

  His enthusiasm was unmatched, and I brushed past him on purpose when I left the gym that day. He paid me no notice, but the stiff cotton of my new t-shirt brushed by the shoulders of his wool suit. If enthusiasm truly was contagious, I’d planned to catch as much as I could, and while it still existed in the world I once knew.

  September 3rd:

  I managed to find my homeroom pretty easily on day one: Room 113. It was a straight shot down the hall from the gym, so getting there wasn’t much a problem. But finding it was a small relief that quickly soured. Made entirely of freshman, and much like our section of the gym, the majority of kids there were already chumming it up with each other while a select few, myself included, tried our hardest to not look awkwardly fresh and out of place.

  Mrs. Dorr, my homeroom and English teacher, greeted us from the front of the room and provided us with her back-to-school packets: individualized, manila envelopes she’d put together and packed full with all sorts of “useful information”, including schedules, a map of the building, and locker assignments. We shared our first bonding experience over a collective groan as she relayed that they were shared locker assignments, and that we’d already been assigned to a locker partner from one of the four freshman homerooms.

  The revelation didn’t faze me because it wasn’t a big deal. What bothered me was the fact that I didn’t get a packet at all. She walked the room as she spoke, and she called out names while distributing her back-to-school, party favors. But by the time she finished and dropped the bomb about our locker assignments, she’d also reached the end of her stack. Back at the front and with one envelope left in her hand, my name never got called. I sat empty-handed as everyone else tore through envelopes and either celebrated, cursed at, or searched out their new locker partner, based solely on a name and locker number—neatly printed on, you guessed it: a cardstock, locker cut-out.

  “Is there anyone who didn’t receive a packet?” Mrs. Dorr asked, having reached the end of her welcoming words.

  I raised my hand reluctantly. Even though I was there, in the center of the room, I wondered if she’d even see me. As much as I needed her to, I wasn’t looking forward to the extra attention it’d bring me.

  “Good morning!” Her eyes trained on me . “And what is your name, Sir?”

  “Damian Lawson.”

  “Da - mi - an - Law - son.” She repeated my name with stretched syllables while she skimmed her clipboard.

  “Nope. I’ve got no Damian Lawson here. Hmmm … ”

  I looked to the faces around me, and I worried what everyone else might be thinking: that I was the one who’d made the mistake, or that I’d stumbled into the wrong room, or worse, the wrong schoo
l all together.

  “Are you ssuurree you’re Damian Lawson?” she teased. “You couldn’t be Matthew Rodrick could you?” She waved her final envelope in the air.

  “No, Ma’am. I’m Damian Lawson. Least, last I checked.”

  Some of the kids around me snickered, and I couldn’t tell if they were laughing with me, or at my unfortunate expense.

  “Well then, Mr. Lawson,” she addressed the class and me, more specifically. “We’re dismissing homerooms to lockers now. Everyone: take the next ten minutes or so to settle in, meet your new locker buddies, and be ready for first period bell at 8:30. We’ll be starting classes a half hour behind schedule today. I’ll see some of you in English, later on. For everyone else: have a wonderful, first day here at Madison High!”

  “Mr. Lawson,” she turned her attention and spoke solely my way. “I’m going to personally escort you to the guidance office, and we’ll see if we can’t get this fixed-up, right away.” Her assuring words calmed some of my first day jitters, but they were quickly replaced with a new and very real concern: What would I possibly say to her in the impending awkwardness of our lone walk down the hall together?

  “Thanks, Mrs. Dorr,” I replied, uncomfortable with the amount of attention I’d already received since stepping off the bus. I asked no more questions, and I needed no additional persuasion. I rose to my feet, grabbed my bag, and stepped into the shoes I’d dreaded most: Damian Lawson, forgotten freshman of Madison High.

  I remember sitting in the guidance office for a good fifteen or twenty minutes before my counselor was free. The muffled sobbing from behind his closed door kept me occupied for most of that time, but hard as I tried, I couldn’t make out anything being said inside.

  Eventually, he emerged.

  His hand guided the shoulder of some redheaded girl who I looked at, but couldn’t make more than a second of eye contact with—I was embarrassed by what I’d overhead, because I shouldn’t have been listening.