Lenny Cyrus, School Virus (9780547893167)

by Schreiber, Joe; Smith, Matt (ILT)

  He opened the door just enough to talk through it, but when I reached for the handle, he held on to it tightly.

  “What’s wrong—you leave your deodorant in your locker?”

  “Seriously, Shovel—” I stopped myself just in time. “Mr. Shoenwald. Please, just let me in. I’m in the play. I need to get into costume. I’m on in twenty minutes.”

  He shook his head. “First things first, Williams. Like, for example, I think you need to go talk to Mr. Cheney. You can explain why you were acting like a complete lunatic in gym today, and then why both of you left school without permission.”

  “Please,” I said. I peered back through the gap in the door, into the hallway, catching a glimpse of the long line of students waiting to get inside the auditorium. “I can explain it all later. Right now, I really need to get in.”

  “Sorry, Shakespeare. Rules are rules. You go to the office, then come back and we’ll talk.” He started to pull the door shut again, and I grabbed it with both hands and yanked as hard as I could.

  Shovelhead let out a startled grunt as the door slipped from his grasp and flew the rest of the way open. Before he could stop me, I ducked under his big hairy arm and ran down the hall, sprinting past the drinking fountain and around the corner.

  “Hey!” he shouted. “What do you think you’re doing! Get back here!”

  I ran faster. The kids waiting in line all looked around as I ran past them and cut across the lobby area, into the gym. I could already hear the audience inside, settling into their seats, and through the crowd, I caught a glimpse of a girl dressed in red with her back to me, taking tickets, shaking hands and smiling.

  “Zooey!” I shouted.

  But it wasn’t Zooey.

  It was Aria.

  FORTY-ONE: LENNY

  On first glance, the thing that came slithering out of Zooey’s CSF looked like a combination of a giant centipede and something out of the Alien movies.

  I’d never seen anything like it under the microscope. It scurried up the wall of the ventricle in front of me with what was left of Astro still clamped in its mouth, turned around, and clung there, gazing back at me with a greedy, eager appetite. Its facial features were coming into focus now: narrow beady eyes and a twisted grin.

  “Hasn’t anyone ever told you that it’s impolite to stare?” it asked with a sneer.

  “What are you?” I asked.

  The thing stopped and frowned at me. “What’s that?”

  “How did you get in here?”

  The thing’s grin widened, showing long rows of tiny, layered teeth that came together like a zipper. “That’s not an easy question to answer,” it said. “I’ve been on the road a long time. You wouldn’t happen to know where we could get something to eat, do you?”

  “‘We’?”

  “Well, yes. I never travel alone.”

  Off to my right there was a rippling sound, and I looked down and saw that the cerebrospinal fluid was filled with whole colonies of organisms identical to the one in front of me, infesting the entire ventricle and spreading out through the meninges in all directions. Now the sluggish yellow fluid and the dead white blood cells and neurons all made sense. Whatever this thing was in Zooey’s body, she didn’t have any kind of natural defense against it, zero immunity, because nothing like this had ever been inside of her before.

  “How did you get in?”

  “I might ask you the same question.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not the one making her sick.”

  “Oh, I’m not just making her sick, Einstein. I’m killing her. Thanks to you.”

  “What?”

  “You and your buddies left the door wide open in the blood-brain barrier,” it said, with sickening smoothness. “We just slipped right through. It was easy.”

  “How did you get in her system to begin with?”

  “Always asking questions, aren’t you?” it said, and all the humor fell out of its voice, leaving it sounding low and nasty. “Well, if I had to generalize, I guess you might say our most common vector of infection is bad clams.”

  “You’re...” Then I recognized it. “Vibrio vulnificus.”

  “Nicely done,” it said drily. “I’m impressed. Too bad it won’t do you any good. Or her.”

  “I still don’t understand how you got in. She’s allergic to shellfish. She’d never eat you.”

  “Not on purpose, maybe.”

  “But then how—”

  “Look around you. The world’s a dirty place. And it sure isn’t getting any cleaner up here.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  I stopped and looked up. One by one, the monitor screens that lined the walls of the third ventricle were shorting out, cutting over to static for a second and then going completely blank, burying this entire part of the brain in darkness. It was getting hotter in here by the second. Flickering skeins of electrical current sparked and leapt erratically through the synapses around me, and way off in the distance I could feel the faint, juddering thump-thump of Zooey’s pulse as it became more irregular.

  “Looks like we’re really heating up the joint now,” the vibrio chortled, and now its grin looked almost demonic. “The immediate forecast doesn’t look good.”

  “Leave her alone.”

  “Too late for that. We’re everywhere.”

  I checked the digital readout in my dive mask and saw that it was down to eighteen minutes and counting before I started reverting back to normal size.

  Then the lights went out.

  FORTY-TWO: HARLAN

  “Aria?” I ran up to her. “Where’s Zooey?”

  Aria stared at me, the smile disappearing from her face. “Harlan, where have you been? You were supposed to be in costume and makeup twenty minutes ago.”

  “I need to find Zooey.”

  “She’s sick. She’s not coming.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “She’s here somewhere. Her parents’ Jeep is parked out front.”

  “What? Where...?” She looked genuinely shocked. “That’s not possible.”

  “Why?” I looked at her. “Aria, what’s going on?”

  “Never mind, just go.” She shoved me sideways through the door, into the auditorium. I stumbled inside and looked around. Most of the front rows were already occupied, and the remaining empty seats were filling up fast with students, faculty, parents, and friends, all rustling around, waiting for things to get started.

  I made my way behind the light and sound board, where Jimmy Colton was making last-minute adjustments to a hundred different knobs and dials, heading into the door that led back to the dressing rooms behind the stage, and that was where I found her.

  “Zooey?”

  She was leaning against the wall next to a rack of costumes with her parents standing on either side of her, looking worried. Right away I could see why. Zooey’s face was pale with blotches of red in her cheeks, and beads of sweat gleaming along her forehead and upper lip. When she saw me, she raised one hand and tried to smile.

  “Hey, Harlan.” Her voice was a foggy croak. “Ready to be a star?”

  “Zooey—”

  “Better get your costume on. We’re about to start.”

  “Zooey, no. You need to sit down.”

  “Rule number ten. Pain is for the weak.” She reached out toward me, took my shoulders, and turned me around. “Now listen. Are you listening?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “This...is what I want you to do. When you first come out...you’re going to come busting out through the back of the set.”

  “What?”

  “Just break through the canvas behind the sleigh. Tear it down.”

  “What about the other performances?”

  She shook her head. “We can fix it afterward. Now go get changed.”

  I flashed a glance at her parents, but neither of them seemed remotely concerned about me destroying the set that it had taken Zooey and her volunteers several weeks to build.

  “Zooe
y, look, I just want to say—”

  “Later, okay?”

  Out in the auditorium, I could hear the audience starting to go quiet as the houselights dimmed. That snapped me out of it. I took two steps backwards, spun around, and ran to the dressing room. I yanked the curtain shut behind me and grabbed my costume, then rammed my legs into the lower part of the suit and swung the upper part up over my shoulders. I zipped it up, jerking the headpiece on and cinching it tight. I grabbed the boots and finally the mittens with the long crooked fingers sewn into them. It had to be a record for the fastest anybody had ever put this thing on. In the mirror, the zombie Santa leered grotesquely back at me. Eat your heart out, Ryan Forrester.

  That was when I heard voices from the other side of the room, behind the curtain.

  “She’s not supposed to be here,” Aria was saying. “You told me you took care of it.”

  “I did,” a boy’s voice said. “I mean...I put that stuff in her soda this morning like you said.”

  “How much did you use?”

  “I dunno, a lot, I guess. All of it?”

  “Then how come she’s still here?” Aria hissed.

  “She’s sick, isn’t she?” the guy asked. “I mean, did you see her out there? She looks like—”

  I stepped forward, reached out with one of the clawed mittens, and ripped the curtain back. Aria and Mick turned around and stared at me, and for a second, Mick looked like he was going to scream. Any remaining threat that he might’ve posed instantly disappeared. I guess that was what happened when you saw the toughest kid in school wet his pants a little.

  “What happened to Zooey?” I stared at them, feeling a combination of anger and disbelief surging through me. “What did you do to her?”

  Mick glared at me, scrambling to recover. “Nothing, jack-bag. None of your business.”

  “I heard what you said.” All of a sudden I felt the details click—how sick Zooey was, how closely Aria had been watching her throughout the day. “You put something in her soda,” I said to Aria. “You were really that jealous of her?”

  “Jealous of who?” a voice asked from the doorway.

  We all looked around and saw Zooey teetering inside, clutching the door frame to keep herself upright. Her dad was hanging on to her shoulder, holding her back, but Zooey somehow slipped free of him and took another crooked step into the room. Somewhere in the distance, out in the auditorium, I could hear the applause trailing away to silence. A microphone let out a squawk of feedback, and then I heard Mr. Cheney talking to the audience, welcoming them to Cosgrove’s annual holiday musical.

  “Zooey,” Aria said. “You look awful. Are you sure—”

  “Stop it, Aria,” Zooey croaked, and turned back to me. “Harlan?”

  “These guys made you sick,” I told her. “Mick stuck something in your Diet Coke this morning.”

  Zooey’s mom let out a gasp, and her dad stared at Mick and Aria, his face turning red. Of the three of them, Zooey herself was the only one who didn’t look especially surprised.

  “Wait,” Zooey said to Aria. “So this morning, when you were talking to Mick...”

  She didn’t finish the thought, just let it trail away. Meanwhile, from out on stage, I heard the first opening notes of the piano score tinkling out, the lights coming up on the North Pole set, as the chorus of elves and reindeer came on stage, singing the opening number.

  The story you’re about to see

  Won’t light up your Christmas tree

  It’s a fable dark and fearful

  So prepare to get an earful

  This year Santa’s not so cheerful...

  “Forget this. I’m out of here,” Mick Mason said, backing up. “You can’t prove that I had anything to do with this. I’m gone.”

  “I need to be out there too.” Aria’s eyes flashed toward the stage. “Zooey, my cue—”

  “Get back here,” I said. “Both of you.”

  “Can it, Williams,” Mick snarled. “You think I’m scared of you or your wussy friend?”

  I reached out to grab his arm, yanking him back, but my claw-mittens didn’t give me the grip I needed. Mick squirmed free, whirled around, and swung, and I ducked, dodging his right fist—but not the left. It went off like a firecracker against my face. My vision on that side went red and then blacked out completely as the lid began to swell shut. My zombie Santa mask hadn’t provided any kind of protection whatsoever.

  “Harlan,” Zooey was saying, from somewhere behind a red layer of pain. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” Through my good eye, I saw Mick turning to go, and something fell out of his pocket. It was a plastic disk, round and flat like miniature frisbee, and it rolled past Mick’s feet in a lazy semicircle, where it finally came to rest at the feet of Zooey’s parents.

  “It’s a petrie dish,” Zooey’s dad said, picking it up and shoving it in Mick’s face. “Is this what you poisoned my daughter with?”

  “That’s...not mine,” Mick said uneasily. “I don’t know how that got there.”

  Zooey blinked and looked at it with a slight puzzled frown. She turned to Mick and then finally looked up at Aria, who was regarding her with a stare so cold that it was hard to imagine how they’d ever been able to stand in the same room together.

  “Aria...?” Zooey said.

  Aria crossed her arms. “You’ve got a choice, Zooey. Either let me go out on stage and start, or keep me here and ruin your big premiere. What’s it going to be?”

  Zooey’s mouth opened in an attempt to respond.

  Her knees buckled, and she collapsed.

  FORTY-THREE: LENNY

  I reached up and fumbled for the headlamp for a few seconds before realizing I must have lost it somewhere on the way through the blood-brain barrier. In the sauna-hot darkness all around me, I could hear slithering noises, things moving on all sides, coiling and sliding off the sticky surfaces. The only light came from the brief, seizure-inducing flickers of malfunctioning neurons as they arced across the ventricle, showing split-second flashes here and there, like heat lightning.

  The whole limbic system was covered in bacteria.

  Something grabbed my hand, and I almost screamed. “Dude,” a voice hissed, “it’s me.”

  “Astro?” I turned in the direction of the voice. “I thought you were dead.”

  “Are you kidding me? I’m a virus, bro. I can survive a nuclear bomb. But you...” He looked worried. “You gotta get out of here, now.”

  “I can’t—”

  “Just listen. The whole system’s going down fast. If you can find a way out, you take it, understand?”

  “What about Zooey?”

  “Forget it, man. There’s nothing you can do.”

  “What about her heart?”

  “Her heart?” Astro made a spluttering noise like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Believe me, dude, her heart’s the last place you want to be right now.”

  “If I can get down there—”

  “Listen,” he said, “you hear that?” He stopped just long enough that I could hear the irregular, speeded-up thumping noise that echoed up from somewhere far below. It sounded like a bunch of sneakers in a washing machine. “She’s going into v-fib.”

  “What?”

  “Ventricular fibrillation. Cardiac muscle’s having seizures. In five minutes the whole thing’s going to go blooey. You’ll never make it out in time.”

  “How do I get down there?” I asked.

  “Did you hear a word I just said?”

  I swung around and reached out with both hands in the direction of Astro’s voice, grabbing handfuls of soggy membrane. “Get me down there, now.”

  FORTY-FOUR: HARLAN

  “Zooey?”

  Somewhere far away her parents were yelling to call an ambulance, but I barely heard them. I got down on my knees next to her and felt the side of her neck for her pulse. I could feel it, but it was all over the place, too fast and too slow at the same time.
Her eyes were half open, and the corner of her mouth was bleeding from where she’d hit the floor when she’d fallen. I couldn’t tell if she was breathing or not. The heat was pouring off of her in waves like an oven that somebody had left open.

  “Hey, Zooey,” I said. “It’s Harlan. Listen to me, all right? You’re gonna be okay. Everything’s cool, you’re gonna be fine.”

  Zooey didn’t move.

  Hey, Lenny, I thought, if you’re in there, pal, I could use a little help here.

  FORTY-FIVE: LENNY

  By the time Astro and I shot back down to the heart, it was already shaking so hard that I could hardly tell where we were, even if we had been able to see where we were going. The world was a red blur, an earthquake, its epicenter directly in front of us. Astro got as far as the aorta and turned back.

  “Good luck in there!” he shouted.

  “Wait—I thought you were coming with me!”

  “I’m crazy, but I’m not stupid!”

  “I thought you said you could live anywhere!”

  “I was exaggerating! I could never live here!”

  “But—”

  “Go!”

  I turned and started swimming as hard as I could against the current of blood flowing out of the aorta, kicking with all my strength, pushing with my arms until I was inside what looked like a slick cave of pulsating tissue, all equilibrium gone. BOOM! Before I could get my bearings or even look around, I was careening forward again, then lapsing backwards against the muscle wall, my ears still ringing from the massive, irregular cannon-fire of random contractions as they echoed through the chambers around me. The whole heart jerked, twitched, and seemed to jump underneath my feet, throwing me off-balance again so that I was sprawled out face-first on the salty-slick floor of the atrium. My dive mask cracked and everything went blurry. As my vision cleared I saw blood cells spilling in around me in a frantic mob, looking more like they were in search of a way out than anything else.