by RJ Crayton
Bryan’s father moved toward him, but Marina’s mocha hand found his shoulder, and he turned back to her. “It’s OK, Jack,” she said soothingly. “Don’t worry about it.”
“What do you mean,” he spat. “That’s not how he should talk to you.”
She looked into her husband’s eyes and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she said, softly. “Sometimes kids are like that. And this coat’s been in that downstairs closet, so maybe it’s a little musty.”
“He can still...” Jack started, but she held up a hand and he stopped.
“Goodnight Bryan,” Marina said, peeking around her husband.
Bryan didn’t know why, but he didn’t say anything. Marina said goodnight to her husband, turned and went out the door.
That was the last time Bryan saw her. On the way to the library, an 18-wheeler hit ice and overturned on top of Marina Harper’s Camry. The car was flattened beyond recognition, and the coroner said she'd died instantly.
While neither parent had smelled it, Bryan’s mother did stink that night. She was drenched in the perfume of impending death.
Chapter 1 - Father
(LAURALINE)
It was raining. A gentle pitter patter that would give lawns a tiny taste of the water they’d lacked for weeks. Lauraline was sure Mr. Coss, their next door neighbor, would be ecstatic. She'd seen him scurrying about in the dark after midnight violating the drought ban by watering his rose bushes.
But Lauraline was not like her neighbor. She dreaded the rain. Her father, Milton, wasn't that fond of it either, but they never spoke of this fact.
“Alright, Lauraline, this is going to be a great school,” her father said, trying to sound upbeat as he glanced out the windshield and upward, toward the sky, rather than in front of him on the sparsely-populated road.
“I know,” she said, anxiety coursing through her. She wouldn't fully feel calm until the rain stopped.
“You know, this was my high school,” he said, yet again.
Yes Dad, the first 52 times you told me, it didn’t sink in, but now I got it. She was about to verbalize her thought when the rain picked up its pace so it sounded like a steady drum beat smacking into the car window. She swallowed and said only, “I know.”
“I’ll pick you up this afternoon, too, but tomorrow, you can ride the bus,” he said, easing his foot onto the brake as they took a curve in the road at his break-neck rain speed of 14 mph.
“The bus would have been fine today.” Lauraline tried not to sound irritated. She hadn’t needed to be driven like a child. She could’ve driven herself, or at least taken the bus and met some of the other kids. Unfortunately, once Milton had seen the drizzle, it suddenly became an excellent idea for him to chauffeur. He was more resilient in the rain than she was, seeming not to abhor every single thing about it. But, he still exercised more caution, caution to the point of extreme, during the rain.
“Some kids would love door-to-door service,” Milton said, his tone still upbeat, but clearly irritated that the rain had picked up its pace and was now falling heavily on the windshield. He slowed down as he drove, sped up his windshield wipers.
Part of Lauraline wanted to tell him that this wasn’t helpful, that there had to be a better way to deal. But the other part of her understood his concern. Understood his desire to keep her safe. Understood his desire to make sure what happened before didn’t happen again. She feared it, too. She tried to ignore it, but the fear and anxiety were soaked into her, part of her being now. There seemed no way to shake their effects, and so she let him drive her. It was better than the alternative.
She decided to just give in and tell him she appreciated him driving her. “Thanks for the ride,” she said, trying to sound grateful.
The completed the drive to Knightsdale High School in silence. When they finally pulled into the parking lot, the rain was again a gentle simmer. Lauraline hopped out as quickly as possible, then opened the back door and grabbed her backpack from where she’d tossed it earlier.
“Have a good day,” he said.
“You, too.” Lauraline shut the door, ran through the drizzle as fast as she could manage safely and ducked into the school building. Once inside, she took a deep breath. Safe. The rain hadn’t killed her today. It hadn’t succeeded when Lauraline had been three, either. But, she knew deep within her that the rain remembered its lost victim and would try again.
Chapter 2 - Something Old
(BRYAN)
This test was stupid.
Bryan knew this was, as his mother would say, a bad attitude to have. She’d told him once, “Good Lord, I don’t know what you’re going to be like when you’re a teenager, if you’re surly at eight.” She’d said it jokingly, but he’d known she wanted him to improve. So, he’d always tried to be better.
His memory was funny when it came to his mother. Some things, like his mother teasing him for his surliness, came back to him clear as day. Yet, other things he couldn’t remember, no matter how much he tried to grasp at the memory. It was like trying to grasp a rainbow. No matter how much he tried, the exact sound of her laugh eluded him. It was happy, he knew. All laughs were that, but even as he tried to summon the sound to his mind, it remained out of reach.
Bryan breathed out, deciding he would not be surly now. Recently, he’d been trying not to be surly. He wasn’t always successful, especially with his father, but he’d tried. Like, today, he’d never tell Mr. Damascus that this test was stupid. But, the test was stupid. It was one of too many crappy state tests you needed to take to graduate. Only, this wasn’t the high-stakes test. This was some remnant from the past designed to ensure that each graduate knew the bare minimum to receive a diploma in the state of Illinois.
They first gave you the test in the 10th grade, to make sure you were going to pass it. Then, you got a shot at it each year. Bryan had taken it the previous year, but vomited midway through. If he’d had time to answer three more questions before expelling his breakfast, he wouldn’t be in this classroom taking this ridiculous test again.
He read through a question and marked A. Two more questions. Answered C and A respectively. He was about halfway through, irritated that he even had to do this again, and about to fill in the D bubble when he the first whiff hit his nostrils. It was like being smacked with an anvil made of funk. The putrid odor singed his nostrils — rotting flesh, feces, and body fluids.
Instinctively, he looked up, and saw the classroom door was open. Mr. Damascus’s foot was visible keeping the door open and he was clearly mostly in the hallway, talking to someone. Someone who was going to die.
Bryan cast his eyes down, silently berating himself for daring to look up. He tried to concentrate on the test. He wouldn’t look up again. He didn’t want to chance glimpsing who it was. He simply held his breath, trying to block the smell. He knew it wouldn’t matter. Blocking the smell never worked. That pungent an odor couldn’t be blocked. But he could pretend.
He closed his eyes, ensuring he didn’t see who was in the hallway, who Mr. Damascus was chatting up. Bryan hated seeing their faces, knowing their time was up.
Making sure his head was tilted directly down, so his vision would be focused right in the middle of the desk, he opened his eyes and read the next question. He forced his brain to concentrate, to focus on the words. Only it wasn’t working.
The smell permeated the entire room now. He pressed the toes of his tennis shoes hard into the tile floor. Sometimes, that helped reduce the gag feeling he’d get when the smell was so bad. He could hear Mr. Damascus whispering, then someone else whisper, though he couldn’t make out the voice. This whisperer was the unlucky soul.
He closed his eyes again, waited, tried not to notice the smell, tried to think about something else. The test. He needed to focus on this test. But he couldn’t. All he could wonder was, what on earth could they be talking about that he can’t just close the goddamn door?
Open your eyes, he told himself. Focus on the test. He
blackened in the C oval and watched a couple of errant crumbs of graphite fall to the side. He was pressing the pencil too hard on the paper. He eased his grip slightly. Finally, he heard the door creak as it shut. Bryan relaxed his feet and took in a half-nostril of air. It still stank, but not to the degree it had just a moment ago. Whoever had brought the smell was gone.
He didn’t glance at the door. If by chance the person was still standing outside, he didn’t want to catch their silhouette through the frosted glass pane in the top half of the door. He continued taking his test, slowly testing the air, his nose opening up to take in a few whiffs of fresh air as the smell dissipated.
No one else had noticed of course. He was the only one who smelled it. He pretended like nothing happened. He just went through the questions, easy as they were, then he went back and reread the questions once more to make sure he didn’t spot any obvious errors. He didn’t particularly care about doing super well on this test. School wasn’t his life; he didn’t seek perfection on every test. But, today, he needed a reason to stay longer. He wanted something to focus on that would take his mind off that smell and which student was drenched in it, which student was going to die in the next couple of days.
Students were allowed to leave when they finished this exam. To head back to their regular classroom. But Bryan was afraid he’d run into the person who emitted that awful death scent if he left, so he lingered, re-checking his answers. Short of vomiting and leaving in the middle, he wondered how anyone failed this thing.
The bell rang. Bryan looked up and there was only one other student still in the classroom. When he handed the exam to Mr. Damascus, the teacher looked at him as if he'd expected better. Bryan ignored the look, telling himself it was worth it, so long as he could avoid running into whomever the doomed soul was.
Once in the hallway, he walked to the boys bathroom, went inside, found an empty stall and shut the door. He needed to be alone. Just for a minute. He needed to do it. He stood facing the toilet, closed his eyes, and said in his mind, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
Bryan opened his eyes. The urine soaked toilet was still there, its stained porcelain staring coldly at him. He turned, pushed the stall open, walked past a couple of freshmen horsing around, and bolted out the door. The hallway was teeming with students. No one waved hello or called his name or even acknowledged his presence, with the exception of moving out of his way. He wasn’t popular and he didn’t have a ton of friends. With the exception of Ferraz, he wasn’t that interested in other people. The more people you hung out with, the more likely one of them would eventually start to smell. And more than anything, he hated that smell.
As Bryan started toward his next class, he told himself it would be OK now. He’d done all he could do. The person who’d emitted the smell was in the hands of a higher power, now. Bryan couldn’t help him or her. He wished he could. Oh, how he wished he could.
The first time, of course, the very first time, that was the one he most wished he could have changed, but he hadn’t known what it meant, then. The second and third times, he hadn’t been sure of, couldn’t have been sure without waiting. But, by the time he'd smelled it the fourth and fifth times, he knew. He’d deduced the pattern. Within three days, whoever wore that smell would be dead. At that point, he’d tried to help them, tried to save them, but nothing had worked. Telling them made them think he was crazy and mean-spirited. And as a practical matter, at that age, he was loathe to follow them around to help. By the time he’d smelled the seventh person, he realized nothing he did would change things. So, he did nothing. But, he felt so sick, so disgusted doing nothing that by the time of the ninth and the tenth, he started saying the prayer.
And that had worked. Well, by worked, he meant it had helped him feel better. It hadn’t actually changed the outcome. But, it made Bryan feel like he was doing something, like he wasn’t just sitting around like some sick, selfish bastard, doing nothing.
The students in the hallways were winnowing now. The bell would ring soon. Without realizing, Bryan started toward the parking lot, not second period French class. He stopped just short of the double doors that led out of the school. Through the rectangular window in the top half of the door, he could see the day, still a little overcast, but sunshine streaming through the breaking clouds. The emerging day was calling to him the way candy does a child.
Instead of turning back to the hallway, back to class, back to the possibility that he would cross that smell once more, Bryan took a step forward, intent on leaving. He couldn't stay in this building today.
Chapter 3 - Something New
(BRYAN)
Bryan was standing there, the door clutched in his hand, when he realized he had to do this right. Otherwise he'd get shit from his dad tonight. So, he let go of the door, and headed back in. He would stop at the front office, tell Mrs. Ali he was sick, and she’d let him go home.
It wasn’t quite a lie. He was sick. Sick of smelling death.
Bryan rounded the corner and walked the few paces to the door with the frosted window that read, OFFICE. Opening it, he walked in. Mrs. Ali, an olive-skinned woman with shoulder length black hair and a gentle disposition, was the school administrative liaison and his best friend's mother.
She was perched behind her desk, talking to a girl Bryan had never seen before. Her hair was autumn red and hung down to the middle of her back. The way it hung, it reminded him of one of those decorative grass brooms in a country store window. If hair could have a personality of its own, wild would describe this mane.
Bryan had let go of the door, and it shut with a thud. The girl turned to see what had made the noise, and when their eyes met, he felt an instant connection. She’s like me, he thought. While brown-skinned people come in all hues, he knew with certainty that she was just like him, a child who got to check two races on the school forms, a person with one black parent and one white. Her skin, what his maternal grandmother called a high-yellow, was about the same color as his. She had a smattering of freckles across her cheeks and nose, and eyes that were hazel. She smiled at him, the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen in his life, revealing perfectly straight white teeth. She’d had to have had braces, too. Or really great teeth genes. She was delightful, he somehow knew. And she was probably interesting. There were very few people Bryan thought looked like they’d be interesting, like they’d be worth finding out more about, worth risking reaching out to.
Bryan smiled back and walked towards them. As he got closer, Mrs. Ali looked up from her paperwork, and smiled.
“Hi Bryan,” she said, her Iranian accent barely noticeable. “This is Lauraline. She’s new, here.”
He nodded, stepped almost to the desk, just a few feet away from Lauraline. Pretty name, he thought.
“Lauraline,” Mrs. Ali said, “This is Bryan.”
Bryan lifted his hand to wave hello. Then, it hit him. That scent. His eyes widened a little as he stared at Lauraline, realizing this scent harkened from her. Although he wanted to cover his shock, he knew he was doing a poor job, that his jaw had gone slack, half popping open and the intensity of his stare was more than what was acceptable among polite society. While seeming normal -- even though he knew he wasn't -- had always been one of Bryan's top priorities, the shock with which he was blunted by that scent had left him unable to do even that.
He tried to remember what he had wanted to say. Whatever it was -- something he'd thought would sound impressive to her; maybe he was going to offer to walk her to class -- had escaped his brain. He stood there mute, feeling as lost as a floundering seal. She moved slightly closer to him, as if she meant to ask what was the matter. But, it was hard to concentrate on her when the scent seemed intent on penetrating him. He knew he had to act quickly. Brya
n took a step back and turned to Mrs. Ali. “I’m sick, and I’m going home.”
Mrs. Ali crinkled her brow, frowned in worry. “What’s wrong, honey?” she asked, taking on the motherly tone she often did with him.
He couldn’t stand to be there. He had to go. Right now. “I’m going to vomit,” he said, then turned, opened the door and quickly exited into the hallway. For a second, Bryan basked in the mingled scent of acne creams, hair spray and sweat, then walked as fast as he could to the exit, pretending he hadn't heard Mrs. Ali call after him to wait. Consequences be damned. He wasn’t staying one second longer.
Also By RJ Crayton
CONCEALED
(Virus Series, Part 1)
They said it was extremely hard to get.
They said it wasn’t airborne.
They said there was nothing to fear.
They were wrong.
When pandemics destroy the world above, the safety promised underground proves elusive. Start this page-turning series today.
Seventeen-year-old Elaan Woodson was supposed to be one of the lucky ones. She got one of the few spots in the subterranean protection unit designed to keep select families safe from the deadly virus ravaging the world above.
She's found happiness in the routine underground, and even a budding a romance with a boy who's also down below.
But, as Elaan hears snippets of conversations from those closest to her and those in charge, she's beginning to think things aren't as safe as she thought. While Elaan has heard that what you don't know can't hurt you, she's beginning to think otherwise.
The truth may be the only thing that can keep Elaan safe. But, can she discover it in time?
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LIFE FIRST
