“What the hell is wrong with your dad’s friend?” Nolan said.
“Who said they were friends?” Chloe asked defensively.
“You seemed to know him earlier.”
“Yeah—kind of. He’s not really a friend. I’ve seen him at our house once or twice on poker nights, but…”
“What makes them think they have the power? Look around. Look at who showed up today.” Nolan counted around the room in his head. “There’s, like, ten teachers here. And a cop.”
“What are you trying to say, Nolan?” Chloe said.
By now, Rachel had perked forward in her chair. She had mostly been trying to ignore Chloe and Nolan, but her curiosity had the best of her. She chimed in between the two and asked, “What are you guys talking about?”
Nolan looked stressed. “We should all be home. We shouldn’t be here. This place is a ticking time-bomb. What happened to Alicia this morning…who’s to say it won’t happen again? We can get out of here. We have the numbers.”
“Nolan, stop,” Chloe said. “You’re sounding crazy.”
“Coach Hysom is gone, Chloe. We watched them drag him away. Alicia, David, Britney…they’re all gone. Look at what’s happening on the news. Even if we survive until help arrives, are these the people you want to be evacuated with? Our principal, and a few teachers? I’ve been trying to call my parents all morning. I’m not leaving East Violet without them. Do you want to leave without your dad?”
Chloe leaned back in her chair. “I guess I never thought of it that way.”
“I know your dad said you should stay here, but he’s not here. He doesn’t see how bad this is.”
“I’m scared, Nole.”
“Me too.”
Nolan scanned the cafeteria. On the far side of the room was Andy Kinney, sitting with his friends.
“I have a plan, but I don’t think you’re going to like it—”
“Who’s that?” Rachel asked, pointing at the window.
Nolan turned in his seat to look behind him. The east wall of the cafeteria had floor to ceiling windows that looked over the rolling hills of East Violet. In the center of the wall were double doors that led out to the track and field behind the school. Standing at the doors was a man in worn overalls.
“That’s Max Baker’s dad,” Nolan said. “He looks…hurt.”
Officer Blankenship stood up from the table where he sat with Jared. “Everyone stay where you are,” the officer hollered.
Nolan had met Max’s dad, Henry, on several occasions. In elementary school, Henry stopped by the school each year to bring in chocolate milk made with dairy from his farm.
Now, Henry didn’t look at all how Nolan remembered. His bottom lip was split in two and his eyes were yellow, wide, and bloodshot. His limbs moved as if they were joined to his body by rubber bands.
“Dad!” Max Baker yelled. Right away, Principal Chaplik scurried over to Max and grabbed him. The principal held the freshman close and kept him from approaching the window.
Henry pressed his forehead against the door and gazed in, his jaw clicking open and shut. His eyes moved slowly from one end of the cafeteria to the other.
The cafeteria sat silently, watching the man outside. Blankenship rushed towards the door and stood before it.
“Sir, go away,” Blankenship ordered. “I’ll only ask you once.”
Henry jiggled the bar on the door in front of him, trying to get it to open. When it wouldn’t give he screamed—a guttural, ear blistering scream that sent shivers down Nolan and Chloe’s spine—and then took a step back. He punched himself in the face and then began ripping hairs from the top of his head. He paced in circles a few times, then screamed again.
Blankenship kept his hands pressed firm against the cafeteria doors, his chest heaving. Nolan could see the terror in Blankenship’s face.
“Sir, leave now!” Blankenship bellowed. Globs of spit flew from the corners of his mouth as he yelled.
Henry took a step back and then charged at the door.
This was it, Nolan thought. What he saw in Henry’s face was the same thing he saw on the bus, when Alicia went crazy. It was the same thing he watched on the news, on his phone. Nolan wondered if the world was ending, and if so, why? Why is this happening? Whatever was making people act this way—so dumb and full of rage—was it in the water? In the air? Had Nolan already been exposed to it, and he just didn’t know? Had his parents? Had Chloe?
Henry hit the doors with a rattling thunk.
“You have to let me see my dad!” Max yelled. Principal Chaplik was holding the boy at an angle that kept him from facing the doors.
“You can’t! You can’t right now!” Chaplik said desperately.
Blankenship was sweating profusely. He grabbed his gun from his holster and took a few steps back before aiming it ahead.
“Go away now or I will shoot!” Blankenship commanded. It was like Henry couldn’t hear a word the officer was saying.
The next few moments played out blurry and slowly for Nolan. He’d later remember the feeling of his heart jumping up into his throat, and seeing Chloe’s face turn ghost white.
Pop. Pop.
The first shot hit the glass pane in the door, shattering it, but missing Henry. The second shot hit the wall and made a high pitched pi-chew before reversing course. Principal Chaplik and Max tumbled to the floor together instantly.
Blankenship spun around, horrified at the realization of which direction his bullet had taken.
No longer facing the door, Blankenship dropped his weapon and rushed towards the fallen principal and student. Before he could get far at all, Henry reached through the broken glass of the door and grabbed Blankenship by his belt. Henry snarled and pulled the officer backwards.
Blankenship struggled to break free but Henry’s grip was too mighty. Embracing him from behind, the steel door between himself and the officer, the farmer lurched his head forward and sank his teeth deep into the nape of Blankenship’s neck.
“Fucker!” Blankenship cried, before passing out in Henry’s grasp. Henry continued to chew and gnaw on the officer’s neck and shoulder, swallowing each bite of flesh that he chomped off. When Henry had his fill, he dropped the limp officer to the floor.
Though everyone in the cafeteria had leapt from their seats and bedlam was setting in, Nolan couldn’t hear anything besides his own heartbeat. He wondered if he had spontaneously gone deaf.
Chloe grabbed him by the shoulders and hollered something. Nolan couldn’t help but stare at her, glazed over and unable to read her lips.
“Let’s go,” Chloe begged, shaking her friend forcefully.
Nolan sat, unable to move.
“Nolan what’s wrong with you? Let’s go!” Chloe continued to rattle her friend.
Out of the corner of his eye, Nolan watched Henry pull himself through the cafeteria doors. Shards of glass stuck out of his skin. Blankenship lay on the tiled floor beside the doorway. A pool of blood grew from beneath him.
“Nolan, Jesus!” Chloe bit her lip then pulled her hand back. After a short hesitation she slapped Nolan square across his face.
Nolan felt his face turn warm and suddenly heard a growing roar, like a hive of bees had been let loose in his head. The buzzing grew and grew until it was replaced by screams, hollering, and Chloe’s desperate voice.
“Nolan, can you hear me?” Chloe asked, tears forming in the corners of her eyes.
“Yuh—yeah,” Nolan said, feeling like he might throw up. “Yeah. What’s going on?”
“Fuck, Nolan, you checked out. We have to go!”
Students were running around chaotically in all different directions.
Nolan said, “Okay. We’re going. Let’s go. Where are we going?”
Chloe stood up and yanked Nolan by his sleeve. “Just follow me for now.”
Nolan stumbled along behind Chloe as they made their way through the crowd of students. Some dared to pass Henry and ran out of the cafeteria doors. Others h
ad started to roam the halls of Henderson High, anxious to find sanctuary.
“Here,” Chloe said, pushing Nolan into the chemistry lab. Jared and Rachel, who Chloe hadn’t realized were also following her, ducked into the lab behind them.
Chloe slammed the door shut behind her, and locked it.
Rachel and Jared collapsed to the floor, breathless. Jared’s hands were still cuffed in front of him. Chloe slid down the locked door until she was sitting in front of it. The sound of stomping, racing footsteps flooded the hall behind her.
Nolan took a seat at a desk on the far side of the room. He looked out over the hills of East Violet; every few minutes a helicopter would pass by on the horizon. Once, a military jet flew over. Little fires grew in the distance. Nolan watched them flicker and swell, so hypnotized by them that he could barely hear the pounding knocks on the classroom door behind him.
NINE
“Residents in New York City and southeast New York State are urged to remain indoors,” the talking head on Dana’s television set said, “and to only leave their homes if absolutely necessary. Be aware that travel bans have been put into effect in the following counties: Suffolk, Nassau, Queens, Kings, Richmond, New York, Bronx, Rockland, Westchester, Putnam, Orange, Dutchess, Sullivan, Ulster, and Columbia. Please understand that emergency services may be severely delayed in these affected areas as we head into the afternoon.”
According to the news reports, all of the violence and all of the mayhem throughout New York was not random. Those who were going crazy, frothing at the mouth, ill with madness…they had all succumbed to the will of some nightmarish virus. Rumors concerning the source of the virus ran rampant across cable news networks. Over the course of an hour spent watching various news programs, Dana became convinced that anything from her tap water to her particular brand of deodorant might cause her to have a sudden craving for human flesh.
Dana sat on her couch, her legs crisscrossed, and continued to watch the news with Elliott. The pup had curled up between her legs and fallen asleep while Dana played with her phone. Reception was spotty and she had no luck making phone calls all morning. She was nervous, afraid, and unsure of what to do.
With her Internet being her most reliable source of communication, Dana decided to peck out some emails to her family from her phone.
“Mom—just want to make sure you’re inside and safe. Things are getting crazy here. I wasn’t allowed into my school this morning. East Violet is under lock down; news says that the National Guard will be coming into town to assist evacuations. They mentioned relocating us to Albany. Phone is not reliable, but hopefully we can meet up once they pull us out. I love you. Stay safe. I’m fine.”
“Mia. I’ve tried texting you all morning with no luck. I can’t get in touch with mom or dad, either. If you talk to them, let them know I’m fine and I’m thinking of them. Are you on campus? Are you with mom? Stay inside and safe. Keep trying me.”
“Dad—I wish you were here. I don’t know what’s going on with all of these people getting sick. I’m scared. You would know what to do in times like this. I’ve tried calling. I can’t get through to you or Mia or Mom. They’re not letting anyone in or out of East Violet. They’re telling us to stay inside until the National Guard pulls us out. They’re talking about putting us in Albany after. I’ll have my phone. I’ll keep trying to get ahold of you and let you know where I am. I love you.”
After all three emails had successfully sent, Dana leaned back into her couch cushion and sighed. Sending her father an email made her recall a particularly bad snowstorm when she was a child. Her and Mia missed three days of school, the first two of which were spent without power. Her dad had tirelessly prepared for the storm in the days leading up to it—water, firewood, batteries, kerosene, and canned goods were all bought in abundance. Her family had plenty of supplies stashed away and the lot rode out the storm like royalty. In a blizzard that left three dead, Dana and Mia spent seventy-two hours blissfully free from school, bundled up in front of the fireplace playing Monopoly with their parents.
The images of that childhood storm still fresh in her mind, Dana uncrossed her legs and stood up from the couch. Elliott woke up and followed her to the kitchen, where she inspected the inside of her pantry for the first time all morning.
The pantry had a sparse amount of food. A few soup cans here and there, a small bag of rice. A taco kit that expired about six months earlier.
The fridge didn’t offer anything too promising, either. There was a paper bag with left over Thai food—a dish of Volcano Chicken if Dana remembered right—that had surely spoiled. It was the last reminder of an awful blind date she went on a week back. The date sucked, but the lightly fried chicken dish was fantastic, and though Dana never intended to call Mitch (or whatever his name was) back again, she did intend to finish the Thai food. She suddenly felt terrible for forgetting about it.
Other than her leftovers, there were a few bottles of vitamin water, a quart of milk, and some cranberry juice scattered throughout the fridge. In the far back were a few cans of coconut water. A friend from Dana’s yoga class had given them to her.
“Doesn’t exactly scream ‘prepared for a natural disaster,’ does it?” Dana asked Elliott. Elliott, glad for the attention, stuck out his tongue and started to pant.
Dana looked at her watch, then peeked out her heavy dining room drapes. The sidewalks were mostly empty. She figured if she was going to be stuck in the house, she wasn’t prepared at all. There wasn’t much food or water, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to drink from her faucet, whether she boiled the water or not. Judging by the day she had so far, the Thai Palace wouldn’t be delivering anytime soon, either.
Just then, her television set cut from the channel five news to black and silence. A moment later, a dreadful dial tone screeched through the flat screen’s speakers. After several blips and beeps, a boxy gray text appeared in the center of the blank screen.
“The Emergency Action Notification System Has Been Initiated. Please Standby for Further Instruction.”
Dana slowly shut her pantry door and returned to her sofa. Elliott trailed his master back to the living room and curled up on the floor in front of her feet.
A siren went screaming down the street outside of her apartment. A short moment of silence, and then a second siren. And a third.
A strange, male voice popped from the television speakers and interrupted the wailing vehicles passing by outside.
“This is an Emergency Action Notification requested by the White House. All broadcast stations and cable systems shall transmit this Emergency Action Notification Message following activation procedures for a national level emergency. The President of the United States, or his representative, will shortly deliver a message over the Emergency Alert System.”
Dana reached down for Elliott, picked him up, and stuffed him between her crossed legs. She nervously rubbed his belly as the faceless voice continued on.
“During this emergency, most stations will remain on the air providing news and information to the public in assigned areas. This is WKXV New York. We will continue to serve the Upstate New York Region. If you are not in this local area, you should tune to stations providing news and information for your local area.
“Do not use your telephone. The telephone lines should be kept open for emergency use. The Emergency Alert System has been activated.”
Dana gulped as the message began to loop on repeat. “The White House?” she asked Elliott.
Mid-loop the automated message ended, and her screen switched from black to that of a podium with a blue backdrop behind it. On either side of the podium was an American flag. Behind the podium was a placard, emblazoned with a photo of the nation’s capitol.
Dana watched with feverish curiosity as a thin, unfamiliar man approached the lectern.
“Good morning ladies and gentleman,” the man said, “my name is Press Secretary Stephen Hurst and I will be speaking to those of you here, an
d those at home as well, on behalf of the President. We kindly ask that the press save all questions until the end of this statement, as there is some important information we need to convey to all of those who are able to hear this broadcast.
“This morning, local law enforcement agencies across several counties in New York State responded to an unusually high number of violent incidents. These incidents appear to have started simultaneously and have been reported as far north as Ulster county and as far south as Suffolk.
“The cause of these violent outbreaks has yet to be positively determined. As of 9:00 a.m. this morning, National Guard units have been mobilized to assist local law enforcement’s response to these outbreaks in all areas that have been reporting them.
“For our national audience, please be aware that all domestic and international flights have been grounded. Travel across the northern border into and out of Canada has been restricted, as well as travel to and from Mexico through our southern border.
“To those of you watching and listening who reside specifically in Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and the District of Colombia, please be aware of the following precautions. A boil water advisory has been put into effect statewide in your location. Do not bathe, brush your teeth, or cook with untreated water. Make sure that any tap water needed is boiled for one-minute prior to use.
“Additionally, we urge you to stay indoors until this matter is resolved. Do not answer your door for anyone you are unfamiliar with, and if any law enforcement officer attempts to enter your home, ensure that they have proper identification.
“If you encounter anyone who is exhibiting the following symptoms: unresponsiveness, violent behavior, a pallid complexion, bleeding from orifices such as the eyes, nose, and ears, and an inability to communicate, please report them to your local law enforcement agency immediately and avoid contact with said person at all costs.
“Please ration food and water in a way that ensures it lasts five to seven days.
Hour 23 Page 9
