Tropical Weird

by Allison J. Wade

  The freshmen gather around the newcomers, curious to know what’s happening.

  In the hallway, come the teachers who have finished their lesson. They look at each other with terrified eyes, trying to give a semblance of calm.

  “Time to go,” says one. The others follow, ignoring the students, and head to the cafeteria, following the instruction they were given: at five past ten evacuate the building through the back door. Make sure that no student leaves the school.

  Sudo grabs by the sleeves a couple of boys who are trying to get out in the courtyard; he forces them back in the nearest classroom. He tells them everything is all right; he tells them they will be safe. He ignores any complaint.

  “There’s an injured student!” tries to say someone.

  “Now we ask for help,” the professor reassures them.

  Time flows.

  Sudo is back out to pick up other students wandering in shock; he’s leading them toward their classroom when it all begins.

  From the back yard come the screams, and something that sounds like rain.

  “Is it a storm?” asks an Indian girl, confused, while the professor pushes her.

  “It’s nothing, don’t worry.”

  Sudo’s calm convinces the students to get back to the hallway, when Bansi comes out of class 3A, angry and bloodied.

  The girl shrieks; the other two students following Sudo awaken from the spell and start to run.

  The professor freezes in mid-way.

  Bansi growls.

  “It’s okay, stay calm, now I call the nurse...”

  Bansi doesn’t listen, he doesn’t hear him, he doesn’t understand. Something has taken over him, primal and fierce, wiping out his rationality, turning him into a wild animal.

  He rushes forward, running strides.

  Professor Sudo can’t do anything, he doesn’t even bother to turn around and try to escape.

  Bansi lands on him, aiming to his vulnerable parts. His throat gets tainted in red.

  At the same moment, the front doors open wide. The men in black enter the building.

  The slaughter begins.

  Section B

  Chain Reaction

  6. Biology Class

  Class 2B is unaware of what’s going on in Section A because at that moment they’re upstairs, in the biology lab.

  Pavan is sitting in the back row and getting bored. Although the day is cloudy, since he woke up he has been feeling hot. He’s sweating in the spring uniform and tries to fan himself with a notebook, while the teacher explains.

  “The skin has three layers called epidermis, dermis and hypodermis...”

  Pavan looks at his hands, the back is brown, the palm lighter, pinkish, he follows the lines like a fortune teller.

  “The epidermis is composed by five layers of cells called keratinocytes. The basal layer, or germinal, is deeper, consisting of stem cells...”

  Pavan is now fanning with both hands. He’s very hot. He rolls up his sleeves. He’s feeling weird.

  “The basal layer is the one responsible for the epidermal renewal...”

  Not only hot and sweaty, he also feels a tingling under his skin. Not really an unpleasant feeling, but definitely strange.

  He looks back at his hands. He rests his palms on the desk, feeling the contact with the cold and smooth surface. The tingling becomes more intense.

  His hands are changing color.

  Pavan stares at them stunned.

  The skin is becoming light gray, like the surface of the desk, he feels almost like sinking, as though the surface had become sticky.

  He lifts his fingers and sees they leave behind some kind of filaments, like melted cheese.

  He jumps up, with a strangled cry, attracting the attention of the teacher.

  The woman adjusts her thick glasses and stares at him questioningly. “What are you doing, Pavan?” her voice is a bit cracked. She gives a quick glance at the clock.

  “What kind of trick is that? How the hell did you do?” says one of his classmates.

  Pavan looks around terrified, with wide eyes, breathing hard, unable to speak.

  The teacher moves between the desks. “Will you please go back to yo-” she sees his hands and stops, or rather, she sees what’s left of them: filaments which blend with the desk and then disappear.

  She swallows hard.

  Again a glance to the clock.

  And then, showing an incredible cold blood, she goes on. “It’s a really fun trick. But now quit it.”

  The teacher moves back.

  Pavan gasps. “I don’t...”

  “Well, it’s late...” she continues. “Finish this chapter by yourselves. I... I have to go...” and without waiting for a reply, she takes the door and leaves the classroom.

  “But... the bell hasn’t rung yet,” says a girl.

  The other students huddle around Pavan.

  “It’s disgusting!”

  “Cool! It’s like in the Matrix!”

  He’s almost in shock. “Help me...” he whispers.

  Sweat drips plenty from his forehead. “What’s happening to me?” he looks around, desperate.

  “Hey, buddy, are you serious?” A boy rests a hand on his shoulder and gets stuck, it’s like touching something soft and gooey. He immediately steps back in disgust.

  Pavan tries to move, walks a couple of steps and even his shoes have become sticky; they begin to assume the muddy color of the floor. “What’s happening to me?” he cries.

  His classmates move away, staring at him while he changes shape before their eyes, becoming one with the solid surfaces.

  7. Work in Progress

  Sasha is cold. Maybe because of his detached nature or because he’s born in Russia and he’s used to the winter harshness, or maybe because in that Asian school he feels like a fish out of water. Most of them have dark hair; some of them are short, some are darker than the others, while he’s a six feet tall stalactite, whiter than white, with icy blue eyes and light brown hair.

  His real name is Aleksandr, Sasha for his friends, if he had any, but in the three years he’s been attending the Toho Special School, he hasn’t really socialized with anyone.

  There are other Russian students in the School, but they are in different classes and come from different regions so they don’t have much to talk about.

  Yet Sasha doesn’t feel particularly sad; he’s mostly apathetic. He wasn’t really outgoing back to his country either, and he doesn’t miss his old classmates. He’s one of those people who are happy with a roof over their head and a hot meal, and a little run once in a while just to stretch their legs. Always better than chopping wood for the winter like he did back at his old home.

  The day the strange guys from Future & Hope came to his forsaken school to make admission tests for the Toho, he didn’t think that his life would change so much, for the better – at least that was what he had believed until then.

  Like a lottery win, his parents could get rid of one more mouth to feed, and they didn’t even have to support his studies since everything was paid by the Future & Hope Corporation.

  The fact that Sasha, after three years, on the verge of graduation, still doesn’t understand what’s so special about him and that school, that’s another question.

  But after all, he doesn’t care this much, until he has something to keep him busy that doesn’t break his back or causes blisters on his hands.

  And that morning, like every other morning, he got up from his bed in the dormitory area and walked up to the school building in that climate so hot to which he got accustomed over time, and climbed the stairs to his class, 3E.

  Only that the classroom was unavailable because of some restoration works on structural cracks caused by the recent earthquake, and so with his classmates he was moved temporarily in the library on the ground floor.

  Finally they decided to send someone, he thinks.

  Having class in the library is not so bad, it’s unusually cool in the
re. Well, if there’s one thing that is not exactly the best in the whole situation, it’s the earthquakes. Building a school on an island in a seismic zone was not so brilliant an idea. But they might have had their reasons. And Sasha, as always, shrugs and goes back to scribble on his book, while his classmates are whispering among each other.

  The third period already started, but the teacher has not arrived yet.

  Sasha gets up and starts to wander through the shelves full of books; he has never been a great lover of reading and focuses mostly on watching the color effects on the covers. In the background, the buzz of his classmates disturbs the tranquility of the school building.

  When suddenly the screams break out.

  Everyone’s first instinct is to rush out and see what happened.

  The sounds of muffled explosions intensify. To Sasha’s ears, they seem the sounds of an action movie.

  Not that he’s not curious, but something inside tells him not to follow the others, and to remain hidden.

  The whole school seems to panic, yet no alarm has set off, it couldn’t be a fire. Confused memories come to his mind of things heard on the news, the first hypothesis to form in his head is that someone is out of his mind and has started firing on the students. Or worse, it’s some kind of terrorist attack.

  Nothing that suggests him to go out and check.

  8. Missing Nagasaki

  Class 1B. The first year students are always a little fearful, like chicks searching for the mother hen. The words of Professor Sudo have been enough to convince them that it’s better to remain in their classroom, even if the hustle they hear outside is not the most encouraging.

  In the room, there are also a couple of class 3A female students, one of them is in tears, the other hugs her to comfort her; they are both shaking.

  Someone has approached them to ask what happened, and all he got in response were incoherent sentences about a violent student.

  A particularly shameless Burmese boy approaches the door. “I’m going to check,” he announces.

  “We have to wait for Miss Nagasaki!” A tiny Korean girl with big glasses – the class president – stands in all her modest stature.

  “What do I care? Something’s happening out there!” says the student, with his hand on the door handle. He doesn’t seem very convinced to open it, though.

  In the hallway spreads the sound of silenced gunfire, the screams are multiplying.

  One of the girls looks out the window to the front yard. In the flowerbed with trees visible from their classroom, are stationed two men in black, with submachine guns in hand. She muffles a scream, attracting the attention of her classmates. In a moment, they are all glued to the windows.

  “What’s going on?” someone mutters.

  Another one of the men in black is standing at the portion of the gate seen from the class.

  “Terrorists?” someone else wonders.

  The boy in the back of the room raises his voice suddenly. “Stay away from the windows, you idiots!”

  The one who was about to leave has still his grip on the door handle; he seems dazed. When the handle moves in his palm, he jumps back. The door opens and he finds himself face to face with a dark and faceless shadow.

  An arm throws something inside the classroom, then the shadow disappears for a moment.

  The thing rolls among the desks. The students look confused, trying to figure out what’s that kind of dark stone that has stopped at the feet of the class president.

  A few seconds pass, someone starts to say something, perhaps a question, perhaps a curse dictated by the sudden awareness.

  The grenade explodes.

  The desks fly in a deafening roar, which resonates in the closed space. Splinters of wood and twisted metal scatter all around. The windows are shattered. The class president is blown away. Shreds of flesh stain the floor and the walls. Crumbled glasses. What’s left of her is just a gutted and bloody carcass.

  The students who were next to her are invested by the explosion, they lie on the ground, the shrapnel stuck everywhere, in their legs, arms, chests, throats.

  The Burmese boy near the door has been hit to an eye; he’s pushed against the wall and slides down to sit with his mouth wide open in perpetual astonishment.

  The man in black enters the class and starts shooting on everything that still moves.

  A girl showered by a rain of glass fragments is reduced to a mask of blood, she staggers forward and then jerks, hit in the chest by a spray of gunfire.

  The mercenary shoots to the bodies on the ground, making them jump under his bursts.

  The boy in the back of the class is stunned and crushed against the wall, bent on one knee after a cabinet collapsed on his leg. He looks up, afraid, pleading to the blind glasses of the dark man. The mercenary takes aim, pulls the trigger and the boy’s forehead explodes in a symphony of red.

  “Class 1B, all clear,” he communicates on the radio.

  From the window, one of the men in the flowerbed waves at him.

  9. First Aid

  Aruna and Sophie come out of the bathroom and go back to the infirmary. The nurse on call isn’t there, but the door is open. The Indian girl makes her friend lie on the bed.

  Sophie puts a hand to her head, closes her eyes.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Like I’ve been hit by a truck. And then... I saw things.”

  “Which things?” Aruna frowns.

  “I had some kind of premonition, of something that’s going to happen. Besides, isn’t that strange?”

  “Strange what?”

  Sophie sighs, staring at the white ceiling. “I don’t know how to explain it. But the professor who runs away and the nurse that’s not here are strange things...” she sits up on the bed, looking her friend in the eyes. “Aruna, I think that...”

  That sense of confusion is back; a tingling sensation spreads to her whole body, as if she were on the verge of fainting. Everything goes dark and then the images come back to fill her mind.

  A confused crowd, students fleeing, men in black shooting, blood, corpses, destruction, and then a circle of light makes its way through the dark. Is it the sun? But it has darker spots, it’s like a pulsating sphere of intermittent energy, then everything becomes black. An eclipse? Words flowing on a screen. Sunspots. Geomagnetic storm. Today at 10 o’clock. Evacuate the building. Total eclipse. Gene H mutations. Prepared elimination.

  From an unfathomable distance comes Aruna’s voice. “Sophie! Are you feeling all right? Answer me, Sophie!”

  She opens her eyes, breathless, as if she had been dipped in a tub of water. Cold sweat freezes her skin making it crawl.

  Sophie takes profound breaths, clinging to the sheets as if searching for a solid handhold.

  The last images have become blurrier; she sees a computer, an Asian boy with glasses, a field of mirrors...

  “The computer lab!” she exclaims suddenly, startling her friend.

  “We don’t have computer class today,” replies the naive Aruna.

  “We must get to the computer lab, there is information there, we will know what’s about to happen.”

  Sophie gets up, staggers, Aruna grabs her before she collapses to the ground. “You have to lie down, you’re not okay. Get some rest.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll tell the teacher of next class that you’re here.”

  Sophie grabs her by the shirt, crumpling the tie that adorns her uniform. “Tell me what time it is!”

  “Almost ten...” stutters Aruna.

  “We must hurry, or we won’t make it!” Stubbornly, she heads to the exit, putting one foot after the other as someone who has just learned to walk, but it’s only a matter of seconds, then her movements become more confident and she seems to have regained control of herself. She grabs Aruna by her arm and drags her into the hallway.

  They speed up, almost running as they climb the stairs, still no one has come out of their c
lasses, and the two of them are now upstairs; they can no longer hear the screams coming from class 3A.

  At the sound of the bell, they burst in the computer lab.

  Among the students murmuring, and picking up their things before going to the next class, there are still two boys sitting in front of the screen.

  One is Japanese, his name is Hideo Sasaki; he has crew-cut black hair, a pair of glasses with bone frame, and he’s extremely pale.

  His gaze intersects with that of Sophie; they’re both terrified, both enlightened by a grim awareness.

  She goes to meet him.

  10. Diving in Red

  Five past ten. The commander gives the order to advance.

  The Delta team accesses the main gate of the Toho Special School; the six mercenaries cross the front yard and tread on the driveway leading to the entrance of the building.

  Some students are huddling against the glass doors, knocking, hoping that someone could get them out; they seem frightened.

  The Gamma team is already positioned in the courtyard. One and Two are stationed on either side of the entrance, as planned. Gamma Two has the keys. He unlocks the door, then moves to the side to let in Delta One and Two, who are pointing their submachine guns.

  The students – three boys and a girl – haven’t yet figured out what’s going on; they shout something to the men in black, and make their first steps outside the building.

  Delta One shoots, without a hint of hesitation. The gunfire hits the first boy in the chest; he gazes at the mercenary with big black eyes, he seems about to ask him why he did it. He makes a few steps, staggering, then kneels to the ground. A shot in his forehead ends his misery.

  The others scream and suddenly understand they must flee, except for the girl, who is staring at the corpse and is hit by a new burst; she falls backward and her pleated skirt gets up showing her skinny and tanned legs.

  A student has sprinted to the right.

  Delta Two holds him at gunpoint but hesitates, the boy has just passed in front of Gamma Two and the mercenary must hold his fire for not to hit his comrade. This is what his head says, and yet, now that he would have the opportunity to shoot, an unpleasant feeling crawls on his back and shakes his arm.