by Lex Thomas
Maybe it was one of the teachers, Will told himself. Or one of the seniors who had died before graduation was established. Maybe some bodies had to be moved for some reason. Bobby could have just found it. Just ’cause he had a skull didn’t mean Bobby was the one who killed the person. Probably not.
Bobby sank into a wooden chair and stared at Will. He whistled and a wide-thighed Freak girl, holding a plastic grocery bag and dragging a folding chair, came plodding in. When she reached Bobby, she sat and pulled a bottle of ink, a rag, and a mechanical pencil from the bag. A needle extended out of the pencil’s tip instead of lead. She laid the rag over her forearm and dipped the needle into the black ink. Will watched her fold Bobby’s ear forward and saw that the back of his ear was unpainted. It was only then, Will realized, Bobby hadn’t painted his head and face black. He’d tattooed them. His eyelids, his lips. Up into his nostrils. Dull black.
“That’s a tattoo?”
Bobby smiled with a mouth full of glistening red teeth.
“Almost done,” Bobby said.
“Why would you do that?”
“You’d never understand. This is who I am now.”
Bobby was right, Will didn’t understand. He’d always thought Bobby was all show, and that deep down he was a scared little wimp. But this … blacking out your entire head … Bobby was permanently deleting his old self. That scared Will. Maybe Will had always been wrong about him, or maybe Bobby had been pushed too far and he’d finally snapped.
The girl tapped away at Bobby’s folded ear with the inky needle. Bobby pulled sugar cubes from out of his pocket and started eating them like popcorn. Bobby smiled so wide at Will that he saw an inch of pink gums above his red teeth.
“Scared?” he asked.
Will shook his head on instinct.
Bobby burst out of his chair and rushed Will. Will writhed against the knees that riveted him to the floor. Bobby stopped short of him and raised his boot in the air to stomp down on the face shield of Will’s mask. But his foot hung there without smashing down. Bobby placed it back on the floor, and snickered down at Will.
“You should be.”
20
PROM WAS IN TWO HOURS. AND THEN HILARY would only stay for two more. That included dancing, posing for pictures, and being crowned prom queen. Immediately after her coronation, she’d run to the quad to be lifted out. That was a total of four hours. She could last four hours.
The wads of toilet paper she had wedged up her nostrils to stop the bleeding were getting soaked. She’d have to replace them soon. The hallucinations had begun, but they were minor. She’d seen her fingers as dove wings, and the way her white feathers had wrapped around the gun was beautiful. Sometimes, when she’d close her eyes, she’d be in a motel room where her mother was sucking face with Sam on stained bedding, and they were tearing off each other’s clothes. She’d open her eyes immediately to rid herself of the sight, but sometimes it would take a few seconds for her vision to kick in. Even after she was firmly back in reality, she could hear the slippery wet noises of their mouths smacking together.
Hilary lay on a bed. She’d made Varsity construct a platform for the bed that rested on the top three bleachers. From there, she could keep an eye on everyone in the gym at all times. She yawned and stretched her arms in the air. The gun was in her hand, and everyone in the gym was either looking at it, or making a point not to. She knew they all craved it. And someone would come for it eventually. But by the time one of those idiots worked up the courage, she’d be gone.
Even with the power of the gun, she may not have gotten away with all her demands if the girls of the school hadn’t rallied behind the idea of a prom. Every boy who griped about the work it took to make the prom happen had at least three girls surround him and threaten him if he were to do anything to derail this for them.
The Geeks were finishing decorating the commons in her chosen theme: spring. She had a Geek boy, two Pretty Ones, and a Nerd girl going without sleep to make four dress options for her that she’d try on shortly. She’d tested out five different makeup artists from across the gangs, but had yet to find one who could do her face justice. There were still more showing up to the gym for the chance to get on her good side.
If there was no one worthy, she’d do it herself. She was already going to do her own hair, but that was because she didn’t want anyone standing behind her. Makeup artists stood in front of her where she could shoot them. But a hairstylist, behind her back, could slip a wire around her neck and strangle her to death, and all Hilary would be able to do was blow holes in the ceiling.
There would be no other weapons allowed other than her gun, and Varsity would be working security at the doors. The Nerds had the largest music library in the school, and they were doing their best to perfect the playlist that she’d already gone through with a red pen. Everything was happening according to schedule. There was no way in hell she was leaving high school without being prom queen.
The gym floor became a giant pool of rice pudding in front of her eyes. The feet of the Varsity boys and Pretty Ones were buried in pudding halfway up their shins, and each step pushed the pudding around, ruining the perfect, lake-like surface. Blood began to bubble up through the displaced pudding like crude oil.
Hilary shook her head. When she looked back at the gym floor it was wooden again, the mulch of bloody pudding was gone, and all shins were dry.
She rubbed her eyes. She could do this.
The bleachers began to vibrate with footsteps. Her eyes bent left to see Terry limping up the bleachers.
“Stop,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” he said and hunched like a whipped puppy. “It’s just, Bobby is here to see you.”
“Didn’t I already tell him to get lost?”
“Yes, you did,” Bobby said from the gym doors. He and a troupe of Freaks entered the gym, all of them shrouded in black. One even wore a black sheet over his head like a medieval executioner. Bobby’s head was black as well, like the burned head of a match. He opened his mouth and his teeth were crimson.
“If you’ve come to ask me to prom again, the answer is still no, I am not picking my prom king until the dance,” Hilary said.
“I’ve come bearing a gift in the hope that you reconsider,” Bobby said with a flowery bow.
“Don’t be a pain in my ass, loser. Get to the point.”
Bobby moved toward the kid with the executioner’s shroud. On closer inspection, Hilary realized the sheet didn’t have eyeholes. Bobby pulled the black sheet off the kid’s head. It was David’s little brother in a gas mask.
“Will. He’s all yours. Your own uninfected. No one else in the school has one,” Bobby said.
“What would I want with an uninfected?”
“Nothing, you should let me go,” Will said. Bobby kicked Will’s knee, and he fell to the floor.
“Well, word is that he didn’t come back alone. David’s back as well. He’s not dead, and he’s in McKinley.”
And just like that, the last puzzle piece finally plunked into place, and Hilary’s vision of her prom was complete. Her old sweetheart from her innocent days, David, would be her beau. It was just so … perfect.
“I’m certain he’d want to come to wherever his little brother is,” Bobby said. “I’ve adored you forever, Hilary. I hope this gift finally proves to you how deep my feelings run.”
Hilary looked Bobby up and down with a judgmental glare that made most boys shrivel. Bobby may have been a sniveling weirdo, but he held her gaze.
“You can walk me in,” Hilary said.
21
WHEN HE SAW THE SCARECROWS, DAVID HAD known. Somewhere ahead was Gonzalo’s old Scrap hideout. Early in the quarantine, Gonzalo had taken up residence in the third-floor senior lounge after most of the seniors had died. He’d cobbled together scarecrows and placed them throughout the hall leading to the lounge, to creep out anybody who was thinking about wandering down this dead end. They’d done the trick. It appeared
that no one had set foot in this dusty hall in a long time.
David held Lucy’s hand tight as they wove between the haggard figures. A plumbing pipe armature kept each one upright. The bodies were made out of clothes stuffed with trash, and the stinking sentinels were arranged in a staggered zigzag down the narrow hall. Each had clumps of real, white hair obscuring its featureless face. Once-wet toilet paper, that had dried and wrinkled, covered the floor. The crusty, weaving mini mountain ranges were stained with nauseous colors. Dry yellow puddles. Reddish brown splatters that might have been blood. The paper had been torn up in places by dark grimy footprints. Tufts, clippings, strands, and tangles of white hair were dried into the paper, and they crunched underfoot like winter grass. The place stank, the walls were upholstered in a thick fabric of dust as if there were flypaper underneath. All of it made you wonder what kind of monster would choose to live at the end of this path. And then you’d see gigantic Gonzalo with a fire ax clutched in his paws. And you wouldn’t think past that. You’d turn and run for dear life.
It showed a side of his old friend that David had never had a chance to see. When Gonzalo made a gesture it was always big, but day to day, he’d never been generous with his emotions. This place, however, was entirely his creation. It was a glimpse inside his mind—when he’d been just a kid trapped in school who’d wanted to go home. Even the big guy had been scared at some point and these sculptures had been his protectors and his company. Gonzalo had joined up with David because he’d needed a family, and in the Loners he’d found it, and he’d found love with Sasha. That had been why all the Scraps converged on him that day on the quad, why they’d fled the safety of their own hiding places. They’d wanted a family too. He felt proud to have given them that, and grateful that they’d gotten him out of McKinley alive.
David glanced over at Lucy as they walked down the scarecrow hall. She looked like she’d been spit out of hell in her chopped-up, pale pink hair and her black tattered clothes. Her face had lost its delicate fullness, and her fingertips were as black as talons down to the first knuckles. Her body was lean and firm, like she’d been through boot camp. She walked hunched, eyes searching, every muscle tense, like she was expecting an attack at any time. It broke his heart to think of what she had faced in here alone. The girl he remembered, her feet had barely touched the ground. She used to cling to his arm and let him lead the way in situations like this. She’d been innocent then, and he’d remembered wanting to preserve that. He’d liked protecting her from the dark side of McKinley. How long had she waited for David to come back and make everything right before her innocence had eroded away and she’d become like everyone else in here? It made his eyes water. How much had she suffered, thinking that any minute David would step in and stop it, like he’d always managed to do for her in the past? He felt responsible for all of it.
“I’m sorry it took me so long to come back,” David said to Lucy. “I should have come sooner.”
They reached the end of the scarecrow army, and Lucy looked at him. Her mouth was open, as if she was struggling for the right answer.
“You’re here now,” she said.
He’d abandoned her, and she was still being polite to him, still treating him like a hero.
“I should’ve never gone fifty feet from the door outside,” David said. “But I ran. I figured if I could get help but … if I’d just stayed, I could’ve found a way to—”
“Don’t say that. It doesn’t matter now.”
“It does,” David said, emotion balling up in his throat. “I can’t make up for the shit you’ve had to go through alone. But I want you to know that I’m sorry I let you down.”
Lucy stared at him.
“I …,” David said, but he was afraid of what he might say. Somehow, simply being near Lucy had conjured up feelings he didn’t know he had. Since he’d found out that Lucy was pregnant, and that Will was the father, David had been trying to convince himself, more than ever, that Lucy didn’t mean anything to him. He was failing.
“What?” she asked. “What were you going to say?”
There couldn’t have been a worse time to complicate things with his emotions. Lucy’d had a miscarriage. Will still didn’t know. And David didn’t know what Will and Lucy had together. Maybe theirs was the truest love of all. He’d already intercepted Lucy once and stolen her from Will. Was he really about to do that to his own brother? Again? Why save Will’s life only to crush his spirit afterward?
“David, talk to me.”
David looked away, to the third-floor elevator doors. They’d have to get the doors open somehow and climb down the shaft, but it was the safest way to circumvent the mob that was looking for them.
“If Will’s in the elevator,” David said, “we’ll head straight to the quad, and be out of here before you—”
The school’s PA system crackled to life. It was a sound that he had come to hate. It made him tense up like he’d seen cop lights in his rearview. He looked up at the cracked speaker by the ceiling, and heard his ex-girlfriend. Anger coursed through him at the sound of her lilting voice. His mind flashed to the memory of her crouching over him, chopping her hand down, and plunging her dagger into his eye.
“The greatest event in school history starts in an hour,” Hilary’s amplified voice said. “I wanted to let all my guests know that there’s been an addendum to the dress code. Gas masks are now permitted. I already know one boy who’ll be wearing one. An old friend of mine named Will. I hear his brother is here too, and I’m saving a spot on my dance card for him.”
David’s breath rocketed in his ears. He looked at Lucy.
“Daaaaaaaaavid …,” Hilary called. Her voice was breathy like she was drunk-dialing. “I miiiiiiiiiiiss you. Do you miss me? Do you remember when I held you after you found out your mom died? Remember how good it felt to be in my arms? Don’t you want that again? Don’t you want to be my king? Or would you rather see what your brother looks like without a gas mask?”
A chill rolled down his spine.
Hilary cleared her throat. “Sorry, that just slipped out. Anyway, what do you say, baby?” Her voice was innocent and girly. “Will you go to prom with me?”
Hilary giggled and the speaker went dead. David leaned against the elevator doors. His brain felt dim. His body was exhausted and starved for food.
“You can’t trust her. You know this is a trap,” Lucy said.
He took a deep breath and blew it out slow.
“I’m going.”
“David, you can’t. She’ll kill you.”
“She has Will.”
“Then I’m going with you.”
“Actually, I already asked someone.”
She swatted him in the arm, with a half-cocked smile. “Shut up.”
“Okay, you can go with me.”
“But we can’t walk right in.”
“No,” David said. “We’re gonna need some help getting in there.”
“From who?”
“Let’s hope I still have some friends in this place.”
22
LUCY FELT BAD FOR LEONARD. AS HE LED them through the auditorium, up onto the stage, into the wings, and to the dressing rooms, he never looked at David once. Leonard held one guilty hand over his swirled green sherbet hair. As Lucy remembered it, Leonard had been the first to bail on the Loners for another gang. When David was dead, that had seemed like a smart move. Now it apparently filled him with shame.
Leonard knocked on a door marked with a golden star.
“Come in,” a voice said from the other side.
Leonard turned the handle and pushed the door open.
“Thanks, Leonard,” David said, and placed a hand on his shoulder. Leonard whimpered as if he’d been scalded and ran away.
David stepped into the dressing room. A long counter, with chairs tucked underneath, ran the length of one wall. It was swallowed up into a labyrinth of rolling racks, overstuffed with hanging costumes. Running above the counter w
as a row of individual mirrors, each framed by dead, gray bulbs. Each, but one.
Blazing lightbulbs outlined the square, central mirror where Zachary sat with his back to them, lit up like an explosion. He wore a suit jacket and pants that had been painted blaze orange and had orange feathers spraying out from the shoulders. The jacket didn’t have a tail. It had a train like a bridal gown, covered in feathers transitioning from orange to red. He leaned toward the mirror with his eyes wide, putting the finishing touches on his makeup. Lucy watched his reflection as he stretched his face to apply his eyeliner.
“Back from the dead. Hell of a way to make an entrance. I always said you had a flair for the dramatic, didn’t I, Davey?”
“It was all for your benefit.”
Lucy’s opinion of Zachary hadn’t changed. She didn’t like him and she definitely didn’t trust him. It went all the way back to when he’d held a knife to David’s throat and had tried to trade him to Sam. Somehow, David had forgotten about that. Or he’d forgiven it. Lucy wasn’t good that way.
“If you’re back in here,” Zachary said, still focused on his own face, “it must be shit outside.”
“You’re not so far off,” David said.
Zachary gave a little, self-satisfied grunt.
“Zachary, I need your help.”
Zachary glanced through the mirror at them for the first time and sighed. He put down his eye pencil and began to powder a puff. “It’s been a long day, David,” he said, then raised an eyebrow. “Honestly, it’s been a long couple of years.”
“Tell me about it,” David said.
