Shooter

by Caroline Pignat

  She’s kinda freaking me out right now. But I wonder if she’s onto something.

  Izzy’s mouth drops open. She whispers, “The atrium.”

  It makes sense. All except the lockdown part. “The lockdown won’t end until they catch Maxwell,” I say.

  And just then, the fire alarm goes off.

  NOAH

  CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

  Stop!

  Roll down the dark

  But it keeps CLANG-CLANG-CLANGING-ING-ING-ING

  ING my ears, ING my eyes, ING my head.

  Exploding sounds and colors.

  No matter how I hit.

  “…just a fire alarm!”

  Alice’s voice sounds so far away.

  Why won’t she get me?

  Why won’t she make it stop?

  Fire alarm?

  No.No.No.No.

  This isn’t right.

  Exit A. Exit A.

  The field.

  The field.

  Kim is waiting for me at the back field.

  ALICE

  Everyone cowers and covers their ears at the piercing ring of the fire alarm. My heart thuds in my chest. The bell continues its clanging as I crawl over to Noah, who shrieks and punches at his head trying to make it all stop.

  “What do we do?” Isabelle yells.

  “We just ignore it, right?” Hogan suggests. “Isn’t that the rule?”

  “Unless you smell something burning,” Isabelle adds.

  “Yes…but…maybe it’s a trick,” I say. “If we’re right about the blueprint, he wants us to gather in the atrium.”

  “Or maybe he really has set the school on fire.” Isabelle eyes the bag of cherry bombs.

  A tendril of smoke snakes its way under the wooden door, then disappears out the window. It’s just your imagination. Your overactive imagination. It’s not real. Terrified, I look at Hogan. I can tell by his expression he saw the smoke too.

  “That’s it!” he says, heading for the door. “If it’s a trap, we have to warn everyone. And if it’s not, we can’t stay here. We’re getting the hell out! Now!”

  He slams his fists against the metal door he wedged in to keep Maxwell out. Stuck like a tabletop between the wooden door and the side of the pedestal sink, it doesn’t budge. He lifts his foot and slams it hard. Two, three times.

  A tremor of realization ripples through me—what kept us safe might keep us trapped. Might cost our lives.

  Undeterred, Hogan pummels with his fists like a boxer with a bag. He pounds at the door for what feels like forever as we stand and watch him grow redder, angrier, sweatier, his knuckles red raw, bruised, and bloodied from the metal. Then, breathless, he stops and unzips the mascot costume, shedding his second skin and dumping it in a heap on the floor. Flexed and sweaty, in nothing but his purple boxers, he looks like the Incredible Hulk himself, his thick fists smashing left and right and left and right. The metal dents but doesn’t move. Hogan tries kicking it. Kneeing it. Wrenching it. Tries everything he can to get it out. To get us out.

  “There’s always the cherry bombs.” Xander kneels by the bag. “We could blast it—”

  “NO!” Isabelle and I shout in unison.

  “Soak them in the sink,” Hogan orders. And Xander does. He saturates every one of them. The last thing we need in a fire is to be gathered around a powder keg.

  More smoke seeps through the cracks. There is no rationalizing it away. Something is burning outside this room.

  The smoke, the yelling, the clang-clang-clang of that damn alarm—all of it is too much for Noah who, hat over his face, furiously slams his head over and over and over in a vain attempt to make it all stop. For a moment, I feel as though all of our efforts are just as futile. We are all freaking out in our own ways: me trying to swaddle my brother in Hogan’s abandoned fur; Isabelle back to turning her phone on and off and on and off in the hopes that it might miraculously reboot; Hogan hammering at a jammed metal door that won’t budge; Xander in a panic as he rummages through the wet bag. It just seems so hopeless.

  “What are you looking for, Xander?” I yell over the piercing alarm and the thunder of Hogan’s pummeling.

  “The trigger,” he says. “A detonation would need some kind of detonator.” He digs around a bit and then slumps back on his heels. “Nothing.”

  “Maybe it’s the same trigger as the ping pong one,” Isabelle says, looking up from her phone.

  “No.” Xander checks the side pockets. “That was liquid nitrogen. Enough to blast light balls out of an open garbage can, but not enough to shoot metal. Well, not with enough velocity to pierce skin.”

  Isabelle blanches, no doubt recalling the comic version of herself in Max’s book.

  The pounding stops. Breathless, Hogan bends over and drops to one knee. Sweat runs down his face and he wipes it on his slick biceps. He looks defeated. No, worse than that. Crushed.

  “I can’t…” he heaves, his reddened eyes watery from the sting of smoke. “I should never have…”

  I leave Noah for a moment and go to him. “Let me help.”

  It seems a ridiculous offer. As if someone as strong as Hogan would ever want my help. “All of us.” I wave everyone over. “Maybe…maybe if we all push together, this stupid thing will give.”

  Setting down their camera and phone, Xander and Isabelle join me next to Hogan, our hands gripping the edge of the dented metal.

  “On three,” Hogan says, and on his cue we grit our teeth and shove upwards. The door shifts forward a fraction and sticks again.

  “What about Noah?” Hogan asks.

  I am not sure. Noah is really agitated, but before I can say no, Hogan slips Noah’s arms in the sleeves of the fisher costume and eventually coaxes him over. “Push hard, Noah,” he says. “We’re going to open the door and we need your help, okay?”

  Mimicking us, Noah takes his hands away from his ears long enough to grip the edge while Hogan squats below, wedging himself underneath the metal door. He counts, and on three we all push again, shoving upwards with all we have left. This has to work. It has to. Shouldering the metal, Hogan drives his legs, roaring and red-faced with the force of his thrust. The door moves an inch. Then gives a little more.

  “It’s working!” I yell, just as everyone is about to quit. “Keep going!” And with another great heave, the metal screeches free.

  We fling the wooden door open and tumble out into the hall. There isn’t a lot of smoke, but what there is snakes down the hallway, sucked towards the open bathroom window. Xander runs back inside and returns wearing his camera.

  “This way!” Isabelle says, grabbing my arm and pulling me towards the nearest exit. It’s the route we always take during drills in Ms. Carter’s class. Back stairs. Down three floors. Exit to the back field. Simple enough. But when we reach the door and she shoves on the handle, it jams.

  “Let me try,” Hogan says, ramming it with his shoulder. He lifts his foot and slams it against the handles twice. “It must be locked or something.”

  “Forget it. Let’s try the other one,” Isabelle yells. There are stairs at the end of every hall, and she takes off running for the next ones with Xander close on her heels. Hogan starts forward and, after a few steps, looks back for us.

  “Come on.” I grab Noah’s free hand. In the other, he grips his broken broom handle. There is less than a foot of it left, but I hope it gives him some comfort. Just like his furry sleeves and the cape of costume that flaps behind him as we start to run towards the source of the smoke.

  ISABELLE

  I hit the west stairwell doors first and press on the bar. It gives a bit, but just like the others, these doors don’t open. Looking through the window, I notice something just as Xander runs past me, around the corner, and disappears into the smoky hall.

  “It’s chained,” I say to Hogan and Alice as they arrive.

  “What?!” Alice gasps.

  “That must have been what we heard,” Hogan says. “And there was more chain in
the bag. Maxwell must have been sneaking around and chaining the doors.”

  The smoke is thicker here but not as bad as down the hall by the main stairs. “I don’t think we should go any farther,” I say. Xander ran that way, so he must be stupider than I thought. “That’s heading into the fire.”

  “It won’t matter,” Alice says. “I’ll bet the other stairwells are locked too.”

  I whimper. “Ohmigod, is that it? Is he trying to burn us alive?” My eyes sting, and I don’t know if it’s from smoke or fear.

  Noah coughs.

  “The smoke is getting worse,” Hogan says. I think he’s right. It’s not just a haze, it’s a cloud gathering overhead. “So what’s the plan, guys? We can’t just stay here.”

  “Get everyone the hell out.” I try a few classrooms but, of course, they are locked. “Guys!” I bang on the doors. “Forget the lockdown! There’s a fire!” But they won’t come out. Not even if it’s me. Not until they see the smoke for themselves, and it might be too late by then.

  Xander comes barreling around the corner, lost in a black cloud like he’s on fire himself. I scream, and Hogan slams him to the ground and starts swatting at his clothes, trying to put him out.

  “Stop! Stop!” Xander yells.

  The two of them sit up, breathless, and we see he’s not on fire. In fact, he’s not even singed.

  Alice bends over the smoking tinfoil something or other that Xander dropped as he fell. “Smoke bombs?” she says.

  Hogan helps Xander to his feet.

  “Yes,” Xander pants. “They’re in several corners. And all the corner stairwell doors are locked, just like the others.”

  I feel my shoulders relax a bit. “So there’s no fire? That’s a relief.”

  “It shouldn’t be,” Alice says. “It’s all part of his plan.”

  We all look at her, hoping she’s figured it out.

  “Don’t you get it?” she says. “It’s just like the Friday fire drills. He clears the halls, only this time, he used a lockdown. Then, when he has everything ready, he sets off the alarms.”

  “But why the smoke?” Hogan asks, as the black spewing from the foil forms a dark cloud above us. “Why bother with that? He could’ve just pulled the alarm himself.”

  I see where Alice is going with this. “Because,” I say, “we wouldn’t leave the rooms unless we saw smoke. This was the only way to end the lockdown other than having the principal come release us room by room.”

  And, as if on cue, or probably because of Xander’s smoke bomb still billowing on the floor, Ms. Carter’s door opens and the class heads for the far stairs. Another class joins them, the panic increasing as they realize their closest exit is blocked.

  They run for the door behind us. A few girls freak out. “It’s locked too!” Panic sparks and spreads like fire, as the growing crowd rushes down the main hall.

  Alice nods. “He chained doors to corral everyone down the main stairwell—”

  I hop on her train of thought. “Straight into the—”

  “Atrium.” Hogan finishes.

  The panicked crowds spill from the third floor into the only open stairwell. Hands over their ears, smoke in their eyes.

  “Stop! There’s no fire! It’s a trap!” we yell, grabbing at random students. But they are so freaked out, they just shake us off as they run past.

  There’s no way to stop them.

  Black smoke hangs overhead like some dark brainstorm. We can’t stay here.

  All we can do is follow. Running scared, running full tilt towards some kind of Resolution.

  Just the way Maxwell Steinberg planned.

  HOGAN

  “We have to let Mr. Wilson know!” Izzy yells as we reach the main landing. She looks through the windows at the atrium and the main office below, where already a crowd clogs around the front doors. We join the hundreds of kids filling the stairwell. The stairs split and loop back, meeting at each landing.

  “Yo, Hogan!” Trev yells at me as he comes down the far side. His expression says, What the hell? He’s trying to make a joke of me in my underwear. Of this whole situation. But I can tell he’s freaked out. The smoke. The lockdown. The chains. Some kids are in a full-out panic. Even more so when they see me barreling through.

  “Move!” I yell, shoving them aside. “Get out of my way!”

  And they try to, man, they desperately try to steer clear when they see the Hulk coming at them, sweaty, yelling, and rampaging in his boxers. But every flight is packed tight, railing to railing, as the mass moves slowly downward. They’ve got nowhere else to go.

  “MOVE IT!” I wade downstream through the current of gawkers. My recurring nightmares—I am at school practically naked and no matter how I run, how hard I try, I get nowhere.

  Izzy’s following close in the wake behind me. She yells something, but I can’t hear her in the screaming and ringing. I look for Alice and Noah as we round the second floor but they’re lost in the crowd.

  But then, I see Xander coming down on the other side behind Trev. Xander stops when we reach the landing. He yells across at me, something about an opportunity. Then he turns and cuts sideways, fighting his way through to disappear through the second-floor doors.

  Where the hell is he going? For a second, I wonder if maybe he’s remembered something. A clue.

  Or maybe he’s turned back to the dark side. Once a bad guy…always a bad guy. Don’t kid yourself, Hulkster.

  No, I’m no hero. Not even close. But I have a job to do. Find Wilson. Tell him what we know: it’s not a fire; it’s a bomb.

  So, I shove harder through the crowd, pushing against that little voice inside that wonders if maybe we got the whole thing wrong.

  Terrified that we might be right.

  ALICE

  The crowds tear us apart and sweep me away. From Hogan and Isabelle. From Xander. From Noah.

  “Noah! NOAH!” I scream as his hand is pulled from my grasp. I see his fur arms flail a few times, and then the crowd swallows him. I push back towards the surging mob, desperate to get to where I last saw him, but the wave of bodies sweeps me along and I can’t escape. My only hope is that he can’t either. That he, like me, is just a bit of flotsam carried in the current.

  You’ll find him at the bottom. In the atrium. He’s fine. He’ll be fine.

  I say it like a mantra. I stumble as we hit the landing but the tightly packed bodies keep me from falling. God help anyone that does—they’ll be trampled for sure.

  He won’t fall. He’s fine. He’ll be fine.

  I will find Noah.

  Hogan and Isabelle will find Mr. Wilson and tell the police.

  Someone will stop Resolution.

  We have to.

  Because anything else is unthinkable.

  NOAH

  Look, sire, the herd is on the move.

  Odd.

  Mufasa! Quick! Stampede in the gorge—SIMBA’S down there!

  The wildebeests keep running, running, running.

  Spilling into the canyon.

  Zazu, help me!

  Alice!

  Where is Alice?

  Why won’t she stop the movie?

  Stop! Stop!

  Make it stop.

  I don’t like this part.

  Hold on, Simba!

  Skip ahead.

  Skip. Skip ahead.

  Make it Hakuna Matata.

  But no matter how hard I hit

  It plays on.

  And I am caught up with the wildebeests.

  XANDER

  May 12, 2016

  Social Autopsy #84

  Event: Max’s Secret

  I should be writing a Mission Log, but Max told me this one was Top Secret. And since I don’t really understand what just happened, I thought I’d do a Social Autopsy instead.

  I gave Max all the supplies I’d got, just like he asked. He never even said thanks (and it took a long time to count 550 ball bearings at Home Depot). He wouldn’t let me help him. He didn’t
even let me come in his garage.

  “I thought we were a team,” I said.

  And he laughed.

  “Go home, Xander,” he said, like I was a little kid, when actually I am a whole grade older. “Go back to your comics.”

  So I did.

  I don’t know why Max didn’t want me around. I wasn’t going to tell anyone. I wouldn’t spoil the Top Secret surprise. Didn’t he know that?

  Maybe I needed to prove it to him. Maybe I had to earn his trust, like Mrs. O’Neill says. After all, #2 on the Friendship Checklist says: friends do kind things for each other.

  What would Max really like? What one thing would he most want?

  Actually, I could think of two. I saw them on the poster in his garage that listed Stan Lee’s top 100 comics. Max said he had read them all…all except for two:

  • X-Men #1

  • The Coming of the Avengers #1

  Max said he’d never get his hands on those. They were first issues. Even John Banks didn’t have copies, and Comic Corner had almost everything.

  But I knew exactly where they were.

  I ran all the way back to Max’s house and burst into the garage through the side door. Max was soldering the Magneto helmet. All the other stuff I’d brought was spread all over his bench, along with the remote for my X-Jet. The one he’d destroyed.

  I asked him why he kept the remote. He looked up at me. I didn’t even need a photo to recognize his face was angry. So I handed him the paper bag.

  Max gave me a dirty look, but then he looked inside it and said, “Holy crap!”