I dropped my gaze to the hole in Carina’s shirt. My mind was still a little blown by that. It’s weird enough I have these crazy abilities, but what are the odds that three friends would end up with powers?
“We’re here now,” Nathen went on. “Maybe we should figure out what we are going to do about them.”
“Maybe we should find some place to hide,” I suggested.
“A little too late for that,” Carina said.
“Besides, they’d probably just rip the school apart looking for us,” Nathen added.
“We can’t fight that many,” I said.
“At least we know Carina should be safe. How long can you keep that skin?” Nathen asked.
“It’s not something I have to keep up,” Carina answered. “It’s not like a magic spell or anything. Once I change it, it’s stone until I change it back.”
“Maybe you can make a run for—” Nathen started.
“No.”
“You can get away—”
“No.”
“Maybe he’s right—” I said.
“No.”
“Carina—”
“No, Conor!” she nearly shouted. “I am not running and leaving you two here alone to face that.”
“That” was getting closer while we stood there arguing about the stuff that should have been argued and decided a long time ago. We should probably get a free pass for never being in the type of situation before. It’s not like anybody ever planned on getting trapped in their school while it’s surrounded by a horde of mutating teens like some cheap, low-budget horror flick.
Lucky, they took their time leisurely crossing the parking lot like they had all night to get in and tear us apart like a stressed out dog going to town on a cheap chew toy. We needed the few extra seconds to convince Carina to make a run for it.
“No, Conor,” she said when I opened my mouth.
I guess those extra seconds weren’t needed for arguing, after all.
“You’re nuts,” Nathen muttered.
“I hang out with you too, of course, I am,” Carina said.
“So, now what?”
“What about you?” I turned to Nathen. “What is the extent of your powers? What kind of shockwave can you do?”
He shrugged. “If I can get something to make a decent noise out there, I think I can amplify it enough to blow down a fair number. A bunch more won’t be happy with the ringing ears, either.”
“What could make the kind of noise you need—Whoa!” Movement out the window caught my eye. I turned to see flagpole flying right at me like a javelin. I jerked out of the way just as it crashed through the window, flew across the hall and embedded itself in the library door.
“Conor!” Carina screamed.
I spun around to see the kids outside were no longer taking their time. They were running for the school.
“We’re out of time,” I muttered.
“What now?” Nathen’s voice squeaked with panic.
“I don’t know,” I said.
Crashes echoed around the school.
“They’re coming in everywhere,” Carina yelled.
I felt suddenly exposed with a door, two halls, and a library surrounding us. They could come at us from all sides.
“We need to get somewhere else,” I said.
“Where?” Nathen asked.
“Somewhere else.” I really couldn’t come up with a different answer other than that.
“We’re going to be surrounded.” Carina put words to my thoughts. “We need to get somewhere they can’t come at us from all sides.”
“Where?” I asked as we backed into the hallway.
Something slammed into the barricaded doors. Carina screamed. Or, it was Nathen. Could have even been me. I’m not sure.
“The kitchen?” It popped into my head like a light bulb to the face. “There are only two entrances—the cafeteria and the loading bay.”
Carina looked at Nathen with wide eyes. He shrugged. “Good of place as any.”
“Let’s go,” I said.
Before we could move, a crash sounded in the library. We peeked through the rectangular window to see a stream of long-faced kids bull-rushing their way through.
“Watch out.” I grabbed the pole and yanked it from the door. I slid it through the handles on the double doors. “That should slow them for a few minutes,” I said.
The mob hit the doors with force. They quivered and a couple of the loose lockers fell over.
“Maybe,” Carina muttered.
“Let’s go,” Nathen said.
We ran down the hall towards the cafeteria but made it as far as one turn before we slid to a stop. Dozens of the kids were rushing towards us, some of them loping on all four.
Nathen cursed. It echoed down the hall with amplified vulgarity. Some of the kids stumbled as they slapped palms over their ears. I grabbed Nathen’s arm and pulled him back around the corner.
“The offices!” Carina yelled.
I nodded and we ran again.
That’s how I felt when we came to another skidding stop. With a clattering of lockers, the group coming through the front doors stepped in our path. It was like a horrible game of monkey in the middle. I wasn’t too keen on being the monkey.
In baseball, one of the worst feelings is getting caught as a runner in between bases. In little league, they teach the players to avoid getting tagged by the ball if they can. In the major leagues, they sometimes take a very different approach. When caught, there’s always the option of barreling into whoever has the ball and hope they drop it. I opted to promote myself to the majors.
“Stay close behind me and don’t slow down,” I said.
“What are you—” Nathen started.
“No time.” I snatched another set of lockers off the wall and yanked one free of the others. I held it sideways in front of me. “Let’s go.”
“You’re not going to,” Carina started the thought. “Are you?”
I was.
I ran down the hall toward the front door. I didn’t have time to do a head count, but a rough guess told me that hallway held the lesser amount of whacked out punks. For the moment, anyway. More were streaming in through the doors. I had to get us past before we were completely boxed in with nowhere to go.
I don’t know why I started yelling, but I did. That’s what the heroes did in movies when facing down an impossible to survive the situation.
Maybe it was the fact that a crazy kid bared down on them with a large chunk of metal. Maybe it was the fact that the crazy kid was yelling like a, well, crazy kid. Whichever it was, running at them broke through their bloodlust haze and made them pause with uncertainty long enough for me to barrel into them locker first.
The impacts bent the locker out of shape, but it held out long enough to do its job. Kids were either flung out of the way or knocked to the slick linoleum floor with a thump.
Once past the clump of kids, I turned, letting Nathen and Carina go past, and threw the locker at those climbing over their downed partners in mayhem to get at us. It slammed into the front few as I followed my friends.
Carina turned to take the stairs up to the second level where the offices were located. Nathen halted at the bottom of the stairs.
“Is it a good idea to trap ourselves on the second floor?” he called out to us.
“No time to think,” I said as I ran up to him. Without hesitating, I snatched him off the floor by the waist and took the stairs three at a time, carrying him on my hip. I set him on his feet when we got to the second floor.
“Well, that wasn’t embarrassing at all,” he muttered.
“Come on.”
Carina was at the door, yanking on it like that would magically make it unlock.
The administrative offices were a collection of desks in the main area encased in a long glass window with one of those sliding sections people could communicate through. There was a series of offices down the hallway where I had previously sat awaiting m
y fate for the tussle in class. Mr. Walker’s words came back to me. I found myself wishing I had given them a little more thought. It was like he knew I’d find myself in a situation like this.
“Move.” I stepped up, ignoring the sounds of dozens of kids pushing each other to get up the stairs.
Carina moved as I grabbed the doorknob and snatched it right out of the door. The door, free of its moorings, lazily swung inwards. We rushed through and Nathen held the door in its closed position as I pushed a desk in front of it, then stacked another on top of the first for extra weight.
“Conor,” Carina said. “They’re not stopping.”
I turned to the large window. They were indeed not stopping. Or slowing. Or… I focused my eyes to a smudge on the glass where a student at some point rested his forehead.
“They’re going to—” Carina started before screaming.
One kid wearing ripped jeans, a dirty t-shirt, and no shoes, separated from the pack and launched himself at the window. The glass shattered as he flew through it. Carina, already stone-skinned, stepped in front of Nathen. I wasn’t afforded such protection. Several chunks of glasses sliced into my skin as I flung my arms up to protect my face.
I didn’t take the time to say “ouch” or even cry out in pain. I bent and grabbed the bloody kid off the floor and flung him back out the windowless opening. He crashed into those trying to get through.
“The back office!” I yelled. “Mr. Walker’s office!”
We stampeded down the hall, knocking over pictures and trophies. Luckily, the office wasn’t locked. We crashed into it and Nathen closed the door behind us. He turned the little switch to lock the door.
“Move!” I yelled. He stepped back as I tipped over those heavy bookcases I had admired when we had our little chat a couple of days ago. They crashed against the door just as banging began on the other side.
“How long will that hold them?” Nathen asked.
“I don’t know.” I pushed on the bookcases, making sure they were as securely against the door as possible. “They’re pretty sturdy—”
Carina screamed.
I spun, expecting the room to be covered in the creepy kids, but only found her backed against the far wall by the window, her hands clamped over her mouth. Her wide eyes stared at the floor on the other side of the desk.
“What?” I asked as I slowly crossed the room, fearing what I’d find.
My fear was well-founded. As I rounded the desk, I saw a pair of dress shoes on the floor. There were feet in those shoes. Slowly, the body of Mr. Walker came into view.
“Is he…?” I started, but couldn’t finish the question.
Nathen stepped around the other side of the desk. “Oh, man. Oh. Man.”
Mr. Walker was covered in blood and his face was a mass of bruises.
Carina screamed again. “He moved! His hand!”
I looked at the man’s hand and nearly lost it. It was very obviously brutally broken, but Carina was right. His little finger twitched.
“He’s breathing.” Nathen pointed at his chest. It rose and fell a fraction of an inch, but nothing in what could be considered normal breathing. “We need to call 911.”
“They’re not coming in here.” Tears streamed down Carina’s face.
I didn’t want to look at him, but I couldn’t look away. Any beatings I had taken over the past few nights were nothing compared to what he had endured. I could add all the beatings together and it wouldn’t equal to that.
“What are we going to do?” Carina asked. “Oh, he’s moving.” She stepped further into her corner, trying to get as far from the broken man as she could.
She was right. His arm was lifting from the floor. It trembled with the effort.
“I can’t… I don’t… Man, oh, man,” Nathen said.
Mr. Walker’s arm lifted straight up until his elbow was an inch off the ground, then very slowly, with great effort, it moved to the side until it was under the desk.
“What’s he doing?” I asked.
The arm stayed under his desk, trembling. I moved around until I was behind the desk and looked at it.
“Is he pointing?” Nathen said.
“I don’t know. Crap. I don’t know.” I wanted to jump out the window behind me. Anything to escape the horror that used to be my principal.
I reluctantly looked at his face and realized he had turned his head and stared at me. Well, as much as he could. One eye was swollen completely shut and the other was well on its way to the same fate. Through the little slit, I could see his eye looking right at me. Then it shut and his arm fell to the floor. His chest stopped moving.
Chapter 19
8:17 p.m.
Carina took in a shuddering breath and stifled a groan. Nathen let out a long breath that sounded like he was desperately trying to not throw up. Funny how those two sounds seemed louder than the pounding on the door on the other side of the bookcases.
I’d never seen a dead body close up, much less one in such a mess. The longer I crouched there, the more I saw his blood. It seemed like it was everywhere—including one smear down the drawers to the right where he had tried to hold himself up before he slumped to the floor. I clenched my jaw.
What was he doing at school when he had sent everybody home? The idiot.
I thought I should probably feel sick looking at his body, but I just wanted to punch him. The idiot! So worried about the students, but he stuck around to get himself killed. Idiot!
“What are we going to do?” Carina asked quietly.
The angry swell of red fled at the sound of her voice and I unclenched my fists. Was I really going to punch a dead man’s already mangled body? What the hell?
I made an attempt at taking a calming breath. All it accomplished was me inhaling the coppery scent of Mr. Walker’s blood. It clung to my nostrils like persistent snot. I pinched and rubbed my nose to try to loosen its grip. I watched as my body pushed the little bits of glass that embedded in my arm out and the slices began to heal. I’d never seen it do that. Weird.
“Was he pointing?” I asked, trying to tear my eyes from the dead man. I swallowed hard and leaned over to look at the underside of the desk. “I don’t see anything.”
“Forget it, man,” Nathen said. “He was just dying. That’s all. We need to get out of here. Call the police or something.”
He was probably right, but I leaned over further to look anyway. I ran my hand along the backside of the desk’s lip. My fingers brushed against a piece of paper taped there. I pulled it off and fell back away from the body.
Nathen leaned over to look it as I held it up. “K@tfo0d? What in the world?”
I flipped it over, but there was nothing on the other side.
“It’s a password.” Carina pointed at the computer on Mr. Walker’s desk.
I wiggled the mouse and the monitor came to life with a login screen to greet us. The username line was already filled in (pwalker), so I typed K@tfo0d into the password line and hit enter. The screen changed to reveal the school’s logo as the background, covered by tons of desktop icons.
“Now what?” I asked.
“Well, I have a D in Mrs. Darcy’s class,” Nathen said.
“A D in Home Ec?” I asked. “Really? How does anybody get a D in Home Ec?”
“I got my ways,” he said. “We could always change that D, though.”
“Not funny,” Carina whispered.
She was right, of course, but having access to school computers was pointless in our current predicament. What were we supposed to do with it? “He wanted us to see something here,” I said.
“But, what?” Nathen asked.
“Try looking at his recent documents,” Carina said.
“You really think that will lead us to anything important?” I asked. “It’s never that easy.” I clicked to recent documents and opened the first item, a pdf labeled ‘schoollunchbudget”. Lindström’s logo stared at us from the top of the pdf.
“Isn�
��t that where your dad works,” Nathen asked Carina.
“Yeah,” she said. I could tell she wanted to come closer, but Mr. Walker’s body fended her off like garlic for a vampire. “Why would he have Lindström documents?”
“Are there any others?” Nathen asked.
“How do I know?” I said.
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