The Burnouts

by Lex Thomas

  It was, without a doubt, the greatest moment of Hilary’s life.

  24

  IT WAS CRAMPED IN THE BOTTOM OF THE rolling drink cart, but that was the least of their problems. David was scrunched up into a ball, and so was Lucy, right in front of him. They sat kneecap to kneecap, hugging themselves. A white tablecloth was draped over all four sides of the cart, keeping them hidden. The cart’s wheels rumbled along the dirty floor. Light that came through the white cloth surged and waned as they were rolled past functional ceiling lights.

  “Should we look?” Lucy said.

  “Better wait for Zachary to give us the cue,” David said.

  He wanted to look though. It was killing him not to. The closer he got to the commons, and the closer he was to facing Hilary. He was getting scared.

  The cart came to a stop. Zachary lifted the tablecloth and crouched at their level. His gold-dusted hair arced off his head in tendrils and dangled like the branches of a willow tree.

  “This is where we say good-bye,” Zachary said. “I will not be making my entrance with a drink cart, thank you very much. I’ll enter first, so that all eyes will be on me when you get pushed in. The cart will be left somewhere safe. When it stops moving, it’s time to get out.”

  “All right. Thanks for doing this Zachary. I can’t tell you how much it means,” David said.

  “It means about seven blow jobs by my estimation.”

  “You never change.”

  “I prefer the morning. A week of wake and blows.”

  David shook his head. His smile faded. He took a deep breath. “If I don’t see you again, I hope things work out for you.”

  Zachary ogled him, dumbfounded, then looked around and made sure no one was listening.

  “You’re a good person, David. I’m sorry I tried to kidnap you that time.”

  Zachary extended his hand, and David shook it.

  “Uh, it’s okay. I like you too.”

  Zachary let go and gave his eyes a quick wipe.

  “Shit, you’re making me mess up my makeup.”

  Zachary whipped the tablecloth back down.

  “Good luck, honey thighs. Cannot wait to see what you do to Hilary,” Zachary declared through the cloth.

  “Me neither,” David said with an empty chuckle.

  They listened to the footsteps of Zachary and his entourage as they walked away from the cart. David could barely hear Zachary proclaim, “I’m here!” in the distance.

  “What are you going to do?” Lucy said.

  He looked at her. Her face was nearly pressed against his face shield. Her eyes were wide open and jittery.

  “Smooth-talk her?” David said.

  “Please tell me you’re joking,” Lucy said.

  The cart started to move. They were on their way.

  “I just need to get close to her. When I have her off guard, that’s when I’ll grab the gun. Don’t worry,” David said.

  But he was worried. He was getting more worried the more he thought about it. The cart paused, and he could hear the low voice of what he assumed was one of the Varsity guards. David wondered if he knew the guy, and what he would do if he discovered them. He heard the Varsity guard say, “Have fun,” then the cart started rolling again.

  It was too quiet. He’d expected to hear people partying in the commons. The shouts of a big crowd. Instead, what he heard was a low murmur, drowned out by a blaring pop ballad. David almost knew it by heart from the countless times Hilary used to play it in her car. It was an insufferable song called “Ask Myself Out” where the singer sang about how they look so hot, they’re about to ask themselves out. The refrain, Ask myself out, ask myself out, lookin’ so good gonna ask myself out, repeated for six minutes.

  The refreshment cart came to a stop. He stared into Lucy’s eyes and wished that he could do anything but get out from under that tablecloth.

  “Is it time?” Lucy said.

  “Yep, let’s go,” he said, assuming a brave tone. He slipped his head out and saw that the cart was in the shadow of one of the thick cement columns of the commons, and that no one was around. He got out and Lucy followed. She had her hands on his back, and he could feel her looking over his shoulder as he edged into the light and peered around the side of the column.

  The two-story room had been transformed. Bark textures and knotholes had been drawn on the wide concrete columns that held up the second-floor balcony, to make them look like massive birch tree trunks. Geeks were at strategic spots throughout the room, agitating glass jars full of apple juice and chicken bouillon cubes in front of robust stage lights taken from the auditor-ium. The light that shined through the sloshing liquid lapped at the ceiling and walls, its golden brown light undulating, the colors of lemons and honey and molasses. The entire underside of the balcony was covered in paper leaves, cut from college-ruled three-ring binder paper. More light was projected up through lime-flavored Gatorade in jars, drenching the leaves in green. The place was stunning. Zachary had outdone himself.

  David studied the crowd. Most of the school was here, whether they wanted to be or not. This was where the action was. A chance to get ahold of the most powerful object in school. A chance to see some blood spilled. He hoped that there were some kids here who only wanted to dance. A lot of boys wore a basic “tux” of dyed-black pants and white T-shirts with buttons glued down in a line. Each T-shirt had a cardboard collar with a black paper shape of a bow tie glued to the front. Girls wore toilet paper corsages. The toilet paper squares had been folded into petal shapes and curled, then stitched together into blooming paper blossoms. Some girls had new dresses, but most wore old ones with a little bit of extra effort put in, like a satin bow in their hair, or homemade high heels. One girl wore a ruffled poodle skirt that had been stuffed with pink insulation fluff. It shouldn’t have been a surprise to David, after having Zachary as their personal dresser, but he and Lucy looked overdressed.

  And then there was always the matter of the gas mask on his head. There was no blending in. Whatever plan of action he was going to take would have to be swift. His recycled breath blew heavy in his ear. It was getting harder to breathe.

  He gave Lucy’s hand a squeeze. “Have a look around and see if you can find where she has Will. I’ll handle Hilary.”

  “I don’t have a good feeling about this, David.”

  “When I get the gun,” he said, as if he hadn’t heard her, “we’ll leave out that exit over there and go straight to the quad. I don’t think we’ll be able to run and keep everyone at bay. But I’ll watch the crowd if you and Will look out for ambushes.”

  Lucy nodded, her bottom lip wobbling.

  “I’ll see you in a minute,” he said.

  “Okay,” Lucy said, her voice cracking apart. She squeezed his hand back so hard it hurt. “Last time I said good-bye to you … you died.”

  “That isn’t going to happen,” he said. He hoped he was right.

  “You make sure. You hear me?”

  “I will.”

  They embraced, and when they let go, she walked away. She only looked back once and her face was pinched with tension like she was trying not to cry. Lucy headed toward the west wall, keeping to the shadowed areas. Whenever she stepped into the light, it would make her dress glow a shimmering pink, and catch the fine pink lines of her body. She disappeared around the curved staircase to the second floor. He hoped that wouldn’t be the last time he saw her.

  The music shifted nicely from Hilary’s ballad into a dance track, but the crowd in front of him didn’t respond. A few swung their bodies to the bass beat, but most people were staring at the dance floor. David got closer. People were packed in close together, except for a twenty-foot circle of clear floor in the center, where Hilary danced by herself. A spotlight followed her. She held the silver revolver over her head and it shined so brightly in the spotlight’s beam that David had to squint. Hilary started to spin in a circle, laughing, with her arms outstretched like she was spinning gleefully
through a field. The gun was leveled at the crowd’s heads now. Gasps rippled through the crowd as they ducked.

  David pushed forward. As he cut through the crowd, he could feel eyes turning and sticking to him. His presence in the school had been announced over the PA. He was expected by the crowd. He was the next big twist in the psycho soap opera that was playing out in front of them. He could hear their whispers. It was all so familiar. Like the last seven months hadn’t passed at all. They stepped out of his way, made a path. Some cheered him on and laughed at the sheer craziness of it all.

  David stepped into the circle. Ten feet ahead was Hilary. She danced completely off beat from the music, like there was a different song in her head. She smiled at the crowd like they were smiling back. They weren’t. Even the Varsity and Pretty One couples stared at her as if she was bonkers. David kept his eye on the gleaming gun. So did everyone else.

  He walked toward her. She was beautiful, even more beautiful than normal. She had a special radiance to her, because she was happy. He could barely remember her brimming with this much life, this lost in the moment. It was a lie, he told himself. She split your eyeball like a soft-boiled egg. She’d mutilated him. Every time he looked in a mirror, he had to think of her. He’d never be rid of her.

  Hilary saw him approach. Her face lit up and she squealed.

  David felt a familiar feeling inside, one he wished he could have suppressed. A yearning for Hilary. This wasn’t the first time he’d felt it, against his better judgment. When he had seen her in the halls as the leader of the Pretty Ones and he had been a Scrap, he’d been filled with anger that she had slept with Sam and dumped him. But later, he would fantasize about her. In the fantasies, it was always in his bedroom in his family’s house, like they used to do before the quarantine. She was a touchstone to the life he’d had before. Eventually she’d cheated on him, dumped him, stabbed his eye out and all the rest, but before all that, life had been good. They’d been a popular couple. He’d been killing it on the football field; and his mother had been alive. The future had been promising. That was a time he would never get back. Except sometimes, the sight of Hilary’s face would bring him flashes of that old feeling, the safety of his old life, of his mother, and the trust he had in the world then. He wished it wouldn’t.

  “Take forever!” Hilary said. She waved him forward in a cartoonish manner. “Oh my God, how are you?” she asked.

  David didn’t know what game this was.

  “Uh, I’m good, Hil. Considering …,” he said as he walked toward her.

  “You look really cute,” she said and then giggled and looked away. She usually wasn’t the eyelash-fluttering type. At least, she hadn’t been, not for a long time. Usually she looked at you straight with eyes like slits of ice. She had to be messing with him somehow, but he wasn’t getting the joke.

  “Got your message,” David said as he reached her.

  “How do I look?” she said, and pointed the gun at his head.

  “Gorgeous,” he managed to say, watching the barrel of the gun.

  A giggle escaped her lips. Tears clustered in the corners of her eyes. They didn’t seem like fake tears.

  “I know,” she squeaked.

  She pulled him in close to slow dance. She put one hand around the back of his neck and pressed the gun against his temple with the other. David’s insides were quaking. He felt the potential of the gun’s blast on his temple. She was staring up at him with affection, a knowing smile on her face. He put his hands on her waist and she cooed. They rocked back and forth slowly, out of tempo with the fast song. The colored light seemed to swirl around them as they turned. She twisted her body and craned her neck around like she was savoring a delicious sensation in her body.

  The longer they danced, the more uncomfortable he felt. He couldn’t tell what she was really after here, but he had to find Will.

  “About Will. I—”

  “Do you remember the time you brought me to the creek?” Hilary said. She traced her finger down David’s arm.

  David nodded. It had been their first date.

  “You always flirted with me in physics. And you were so cute. But you made me wait for two months before you asked me out. You jerk.”

  She playfully tapped the gun against his mask for emphasis.

  “I guess you came off as intimidating,” David said.

  Hilary giggled again.

  “That creek was so pretty. But it was so dorky that you brought a picnic. That was so … you.”

  She was flirting with him.

  “But you made out with me anyway,” David said. He added a cocky grin, and she grinned back.

  “I almost didn’t,” she said. “You’re lucky the date I had that night was a bomb, otherwise you never would have gotten a second chance.”

  “You went on a date with somebody after you went to the creek with me?”

  “Caleb Miser, a senior. Turned out he was a loser too. Let’s just say, once he got excited, he didn’t know how to calm down.”

  David tensed. He didn’t like this at all. To his horror, he was feeling jealous of Caleb Miser. It was just a little, but he was definitely feeling it. Like Hilary was still his girlfriend. He wanted to stomp out these feelings.

  “Why are you telling me this?” he said.

  She covered her mouth. “Oh my God, isn’t it beautiful here? Wouldn’t this be the perfect place to get married?”

  David’s stomach did a back flip. “What?” he said.

  “Married,” she said. “Let’s just do it. The two of us. Wouldn’t it be wild? I used to think about it a lot back when we were together.”

  “Hilary, I …”

  “Maybe you should get down on one knee.”

  David looked around at the crowd, watching them. Shuffling their feet. Their gaunt faces lit by tan and green light. Part of him was tempted to get down and propose, just to play along, and keep her talking until he could make a grab for the gun, but his pride wouldn’t let him. Her brow furrowed when he stayed upright.

  “I’ll say yes, silly, you don’t have to worry about that,” she said. “I’ll marry you, David Thorpe!” she shouted to the room. Her smile was ecstatic. “Right here on the beach, under the sun.”

  He studied her face. Her eyes darted around like everything was catching her attention at once. He looked closer at the dark crust inside her right nostril. Dried blood. She was in the final stages of transitioning. David remembered the chaos of being in that state, where memories, fantasies, and nightmares ebbed and flowed over the shores of reality.

  “Hilary, you have to get out of here. Fast. I can help you. But I need the gun,” David said. His tone was sharp, but he needed to cut through her hallucinations.

  Hilary jolted from his words. For a moment, she looked scared. Her gaze danced across the surrounding crowd. She began to withdraw the gun from David’s head, and he reached one hand up to take it. Hilary swatted his hand back down and cracked the gun against his face plate again.

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Sam?”

  David stayed still. He tried to keep his voice gentle. “I’m not Sam,” David said. “You’re seeing things, Hil.”

  She shook her head. Her trigger finger twitched.

  “No, you’re jealous, ’cause you lost Varsity and now they’re mine. This whole school belongs to me. And if you want a piece of it, you better get on your knees and start kissing my feet!”

  Hilary had David down on his knees. Whatever he had just said had really pissed her off, and Lucy was beginning to realize that getting David and Will out of school alive might come down to her. It was an awful thought.

  She was going to fuck it all up, just like she’d fucked up everything in her life since the moment she’d decided to stab Gates.

  She looked across the commons from her hideout. She had tucked herself into the fold of one of the stage curtains that the Geeks had hung to create a storage space hidden under the staircase. Lucy locked her sight on Will
, who sat on the floor with his hands secured behind his back. His masked head was bowed in shame. A white leash led from his neck up to the blackened hand of Bobby, who stood beside him, amid a mixture of Freaks and Varsity, watching the action on the dance floor. Lucy felt a surge of emotion, seeing Will again. She hated seeing him humiliated. She couldn’t deny that her feelings for him were strong. They’d been through so much together. They’d lost their virginity to each other. Everything came back to her in a rush. The snuggled-up morning after in the plant room. She saw him telling her he loved her under the deep red lights of the Slut lounge. She saw him lifting away from her as the raindrops splashed on her face. She felt the ache of their last kiss being stolen from them by the tug of the crane.

  A hand reached out from behind Lucy, grasped her over her mouth, and pulled her back through the curtains, into darkness. The music became muffled. A thin wheezing breath replaced it. Lucy tried to scream, but her captor’s grip was tight.

  “I saved you,” said a crackly, Southern voice.

  Lucy turned, and the hand let her go. Bile stared back at her. He wore a glow-stick necklace that made his spectral face look as if it were floating in the blackness.

  “Why’d you run away?” he said.

  “I … I had to go.”

  “Go where?”

  “With my friends.”

  “But I’m your friend.”

  “I know that, but we only just met. These friends are … everything I have.”

  “But … I love you.”

  “You don’t,” Lucy said. “You just think you do.”

  “I LOVE YOU,” Bile said and thrust his face into hers. His mouth was pocked with sores. His breath was salty and bitter like his insides were rotting.

  “Well, I don’t love you,” Lucy snapped back.

  Bile shrunk away from Lucy. He looked frightened of her, and for some reason, that only made her more upset.