Project Pallid

by Christopher Hoskins

  And even though I caught Catee looking back at me, it always seemed to be in geometry class, where her glances went unreciprocated. Of course, I worried about the dismissive signals I was sending, but I didn’t have much choice in it. I had to allow Justin his domain; after all, he’d already marked her as his territory.

  And because she hadn’t approach me again about the locker-share during that first week, I naturally wondered whether the offer was still on the table when I finally caved and convinced myself that it didn’t matter what Justin thought: I was making my move anyway—for the sake of my broken back, if nothing else.

  “Hey Catee.” I tried my best to sound confident in the face of what could have been a near-death experience. I’d been waiting for her to exit geometry, and I pounced almost immediately as she walked out the door. Justin looked totally shocked by my brazen forwardness in the face of his threats.

  She excused herself from his side and left him to wait and linger, just out of earshot and shooting looks that left me stumbling for words with her.

  “Hey, Damian. What’s up?”

  “How’ve you been, Catee?” I asked.

  “Eh. Predictably unsurprised. It’s not a whole lot different here than it was at my old school: same cliques, same bunch of meatheads.”

  “But aren’t you going with one of the biggest ones?” I asked, using my eyes to point Justin’s way.

  “Him!? Gross! No!” I looked for his reaction and hoped he hadn’t heard her. There was none. Only the same, blank stare ripping through my head.

  “Well, I just figured and all. I mean, you guys have been sitting next to each other all week, and I’ve seen you after school together, on my ride home to Crapsville.”

  “Platsville?”

  “That’s what I said, Crapsville.”

  At this, we both laughed, and I worried Justin might think it was at his expense. I worried about the even bigger beating I might take because of it.

  “No, I’m not going with him at all. Usually, I’m trying to go wherever he isn’t, but he’s been a tough one to shake.”

  “Seems it,” I replied.

  “So, what’s up?”

  “Well, remember what you said about your locker being available?”

  “Your locker-share across town not work out?” she asked.

  “Not really, no,” I said, and began to unravel another twisted tale for her. “They wanted first, last, and a security deposit; I just couldn’t see spending that much on such a small place, especially since it’s only got a shared bathroom.”

  “Understandable,” she agreed. “So, when are you looking to move in?”

  “As soon as possible, I guess.” My own forwardness intimidated me, and I looked to the floor and hoped her answer was still a yes.

  “Give me your hand,” she said.

  I put it out, and she took it in hers. Turning it over, she unclenched my fingers to expose my upturned palm. She pulled a pen from the curls of her pulled-back hair and wrote:

  # 227 4 - 26 – 12

  “There. Now we’re locker-mates.”

  Her words made me smile.

  “So, I’ll see you at home, after work?” she told, more than asked.

  “I’ll see you there.” The ease of my response was surprising.

  “Great. Can’t wait. Have a beautiful afternoon, Damian.”

  “You too, Catee. Thanks.”

  “No, thank you.” And with that, she turned for last period and forgot about Justin, who still skulked on the periphery.

  It only took a second for him to reanimate.

  “I warned you, Farm Boy. You’re dead now,” he snarled and pushed by me to chase her down the hall like some lovesick puppy.

  Funny though, I’m still here.

  I’m still alive.

  Captive to this rock walled fortress, I’m safe.

  Can he say the same?

  The staggered dismissal of Madison High was designed to decrease hallway congestion, to expedite our exit from the building, and to cut-down on fights by thinning the herd and limiting our contacts.

  My only contact that afternoon was between my head and Catee’s locker.

  I remember looking down to my opened palm and trying to make out the numbers that’d begun to smudge and smear together.

  I’d already deciphered a blurry 4, a 26, and was squinting my eyes, straining to make out the 12, and I didn’t notice him there until his hand wrapped around my head and clanged it off the metal door of my new locker. My vision went hazy, and my eyes welled with tears. Without even looking, I knew who it was. But I refused to shed a single droplet that would empower him more.

  “What the hell, Justin!?” I asked, holding tight to the side of my banged-up skull. “What was that for?”

  “What are you doing touching Catee’s locker, Farm Boy? And what were you two talking about in the hall today? If you even mentioned my name, I’m going to rip your face off!”

  His word choice, though not really funny, was ironic. Before it all happened, rip your face off was just an expression. None of us had actually seen it done before. Now, faces, fingers … you name it, we’ve become victims to it all.

  “We share a locker, Justin. This is my locker now, too,” I announced, trying to sound assertive, but coming off more meek and nervous than anything.

  “Like hell it is, you little shit. Get out of here!” He gave me a two-handed shove that stumbled me backwards, over my bag, and onto on my backside for the second time that day. I glared at it through squinted eyes. I had almost as much contempt for it as I did for him. It was like they’d teamed-up to take me down.

  Splayed across the ground, I held my palm out for him to see what Catee had written on it, and he sneered down at me with a look that sillied the one I’d given my backpack only seconds before—like I were subhuman. Disposable. If I could, I would’ve climbed into my bag and zipped it up tight. I was about to become a dead man.

  “What’s going on here, guys?” Catee stopped her run between us, having witnessed the exchange from the other end of the mostly vacant hall,.

  Justin spoke first. “Oh. Um, Catee … Hey. I was just waiting for you so we could walk home together. Damian and I were just talking and he tripped over his backpack, here. Clumsy kid.” He forced a laugh and extended his hand for mine, looking to come across as some good guy who was helping me up.

  “No thanks, man. I got it.” I rejected his offering, and his eyes turned and bore a hole through my head. He would’ve killed me then and there if he could’ve gotten away with it without showing Catee what a super-douche he really was. Even he knew he wouldn’t earn any extra points with her by pummeling the small guy. Dumb as he was, he understood that much.

  “I think you should be going now, Justin.” Catee spoke in a calm, non-negotiable manner.

  “What are you talking about?” His look was genuine confusion; blissful ignorance is one of the few perks of stupidity.

  “I’m saying you should head home. Without me. I’m going to help Damian get moved in.”

  “I can wait,” he insisted.

  Mystified by his persistence, I sat in awed silence on the tiled ground and watched their conversation unfold.

  “That won’t be necessary,” she replied.

  “Okay,” he consented. “I guess I’ll just grab you on the way by your house in the morning then … ”

  “That won’t be necessary either, Justin,” she answered and shut him down completely.

  The way she stood up for me then was unprecedented. No one had ever put their neck on the line for me before—at least, not like that—and I didn’t know any other reaction to give besides speechless stupor as I looked up at the two of them.

  “I think it’s best if we walk separately from now on,” she continued. “And if you could do me a favor? Don’t speak to me if we ever do cross paths. I’d appreciate it.” Catee’s words slapped him hard across the face, and it could’ve been his first sting of rejection, but I doubted it.
As sadistic as it was, I reveled in every second of their exchange.

  Eventually, he collected enough bearings to formulate a reply. “Hey, if you want to go and settle down with Farm Boy here,” he flicked his chin toward me, “go for it. You’re a little bit of a hillbilly, too. You guys will be perfect together. Maybe you can both move to Platsville and raise some chickens of your own someday.” Predictably, his words came with little thought; they were the ramblings of desperation.

  Catee’s response began with a snicker. “As you know, Justin, I’ve already been to and seen more than you ever will in your sad, pathetic, life.” She stepped so close to him that they were nearly chest-to-chest. “And if that makes me a hillbilly, that makes you a totally ignorant asshole,” she declared. “I don’t want you near me. And I don’t want you anywhere near my locker again either.” She punctuated her words with a firm poke to his chest.

  If she’d been a boy, it would’ve been grounds for a fight. She’d made first contact and, according to the rules of high school, he had the right to strike next. Still, this was an entirely different situation. No way would he hit a girl. Especially not one who’d so quickly mesmerized the masses of Madison High.

  His brow furrowed and he looked curiously her way. I don’t know if he was trying to figure out what had just happened, or if he was deciding what move he had left that would allow him to walk away with some semblance of manhood intact.

  He turned to me, then back to her.

  “You guys deserve each other,” he stammered, turned, and disappeared down the hall. “Good luck!”

  Catee dismissed it fast, turned to me, and extended her hand to help me to my feet. “C’mon,” she prodded with a snap for my attention. “Give me your hand.”

  I did as she ordered, took hers in mine, and instant electricity surged through our palms. It raced up my arm, jolted my heart, and I could feel my eyes dilate to enamored quarters. Everything I liked about her before then became immeasurably magnified.

  I didn’t know if Justin was entirely gone from the picture or not. I hoped he’d be, but given his persistence until then, I didn’t figure he’d be so easy to shake.

  Still, the looming threat of his reentry didn’t stop me from pushing forward with the opportunity that Catee presented to me. I don’t know what she first saw in me, but there was an interest there that I couldn’t ignore, and I vowed to do everything in my power to explore it, and her, to the fullest extent she’d allow.

  May 9th: Day 8

  Filtered sunlight fights through the overhead planks, and it signals the end of my seventh night. It’s been a full week now, and I’m not sure how many more restless ones I can take.

  The one, small mirror down here is jagged and broken. It’s been a wall fixture for as long as I can remember, and I used to have to stand on my toes to look into it.

  Now I face it head-on, and a stranger looks back at me.

  My eyes have grown sunken and dark, and the reflection I see is becoming less and less my own with each passing day. It catches me off-guard—how sad and pathetic I look—and I do all I can to appear strong, instead. I clench my teeth and harden my jaw. I take the fire I’m feeling inside and translate it to my face, because even if I don’t feel strong, I can’t be weak.

  Today could be the day when I fight for my life, and if I’m nothing but my best, I might as well end it, here and now.

  My pocketknife sits on my bedside crate. The morning sun gleams off its blade, and it beckons my head to a worst-case scenario. I imagine what it would feel like to drag its razor edge across my wrist and to bring quick closure to the tormenting uncertainties of my world.

  There’s comfort in knowing it’s there if I need it.

  But it’s a selfish option.

  When the time comes and that door opens, I know what I’ll have to do. I’ve seen how quickly they move. I’ve seen how bloodthirsty they are. They need it, and they must be running out. That explains why there are fewer and fewer lately; it’s survival of the fittest, and their numbers are waning. How much longer until one of them finds me? Will they? And will I be able to defend myself when it comes to it? Am I strong enough to kill one? For me? For the family I’ve got left? For Catee?

  I don’t know if I can.

  And it’s that doubt and that weakness that leaves me cowering down here, like an abused animal who waits them out in whimpering solitude. Because what good would I be to anyone dead? Or worse, as one of them?

  I shake off the thoughts, move from the mirror, and walk cautiously by my makeshift bed and the three others that line up, empty alongside it. Seeing them there, unused, is hard to take. Blinded by tears, I almost step into one of the cloudy puddles that snake across the ground, fed from bloodletting bodies above.

  The gravel crunches loudly under my sneaker as I sidestep it, and I freeze with my head crooked sideways and my ear toward the boards above.

  I heard something.

  Or am I just being paranoid?

  Every sound I make is like a firework shot into the air.

  It was nothing.

  “All in your head.” My words are barely a whisper, and I continue forward, more cautious of my foot placement this time around. At the opposite wall and its rows and rows of Doomsday ration, I grab a jar of something red—cabbage, beets, radishes, it doesn’t matter what they are—and the vacuum lid pops open to release a pickled pungency that makes me reel in disgust.

  I add its unidentifiable contents to a smile pile that I’ve been building in the corner, but I eat nothing. I know I should be, but I’m not hungry, and I’ve barely eaten a thing in almost a week. I’m growing thinner and thinner with each passing day, and as much as I should be fueling for the inevitable battle ahead, I’m not. But I will. Soon.

  I’ve only emptied jars to take a leak in, because if I’m going to be trapped down here with the smell of anything, I’d rather it be decaying vegetables than my week-old stink. And if those things are hunting by scent, like I think they are, recklessly marking my territory could prove a costly mistake.

  And if that’s the case, the mounded preserves might be working in my favor by covering my smell with their acrid, vinegar wafts. The last one to enter was clearly sniffing me out. Albeit unsuccessful, I can still hear its breathing; I can still feel the moving air of its heavy inhales and exhales. The remembrance brings a wave of fear that stands my arm hair to end.

  With its metal lid screwed tightly back on, I add my waste to the half-dozen others that collect along one wall, then grab a couple more of the red, pickled jars from the shelf. I try hard to muffle the audible Pop! as the first opens, and I strategically spread its contents across the floor. I do the same with the second, and the air becomes filled with the noxious aroma of vinegar. This scent-masking epiphany might be grasping at straws, but it’s worth a shot when I’ve got few other cards left to play.

  With the emptied jars stacked in my designated bathroom, I retake cross-legged safety, and I stare up at the splintery door from my bed.

  The quiet is unnerving.

  I haven’t heard the sound of a live person in days. No voices. No cars. Nothing.

  I’m alone.

  Another droplet adds itself to one of the cloudy puddles nearby, and it’s a constant reminder that safety’s only an illusion now.

  Long before Mrs. Arnold lost it at the bank, Catee and I suspected the disease’s source. Their neighbor’s transformation was what Catee’s dad had been maniacally warning everyone about, and it’s likely the thing that kept him so distracted in the months before. Mrs. Arnold’s sickness was the time of judgment he’d prophesized; it was the start of The Whitening, and it had his hands all over it.

  For an old woman, she was surprisingly strong. Even with four officers cramming her into the back of the squad car, they weren’t strong enough. Her legs kicked viciously and whirled in all directions, and even the toes of her then shoeless feet reached out for anything and anyone they could. Her teeth snapped audibly together, an
d her head whipped wildly around, as if independent of her brain.

  The cops did their best to keep out of reach, but she managed to lock her teeth into one of them, and they sunk so deep into his forearm that they must’ve latched onto bone. Another officer went straight for his Taser and, briefly subdued, they scooped up her limp body and laid it across the backseat of the cruiser.

  Cameramen, at safe distance seconds before, swarmed to press their lenses against the windows from all angles. And even though Mrs. Arnold’s eyes were rolled back in her head, you’d hardly know it: their backs were as white as their fronts. And while not the most gruesome, that, above all else, was the most chilling part at the time—she had no irises, no pupils, nothing. Her eyes had become pristine, white orbs that reflected glints of light from their wet surfaces.

  There was no humanity left in her empty view of the world.

  The car idled and cameras rolled while the officers debated who’d transport Mrs. Arnold to lockup—its driver needed to stay behind for treatment. But the debate ended seconds later when she snapped back to. The nearest cop jumped in, the lights and sirens flicked on, and the car whizzed from sight without a second’s pause.

  But, in spite of the hurried departure, there were enough cameras and enough angles of shots to catch a full picture of what had gone down.

  In one clip, she just lay there. Her whiteness glowed, in perfect contrast to the black, leather seat. Her white hair fanned around her head, and only the crimson stains of feeding disrupted her monochromatic starkness.

  And in the next instant, she was bolt upright. Her head whipped wildly back and forth. Her nostrils flared. Her head tipped back. And her mouth stretched open to release a screeching howl that tore through televisions and ripped viewers from the inside out; my skin lifted from my body to escape it.

  And then, like she’d pick up a scent, she threw herself into the car’s windows and banged off the divider that held her prisoner in its back. Her wailing intensified, and street-side onlookers covered their ears in pain as they gawked in horrified awe at the unfolding events. And as an officer leapt in and the car pulled away, its shrinking windows became clouded with streaks of spit and smears of white: blood of the infected.