“Read the note,” I said coolly and took my seat next to Eve, probably my one and only friend.
“What happened?” she asked simply, her voice as quiet as she could make it and still be audible to me—quiet enough so that tyrant Edison wouldn't hear, even with his seemingly super-sonic hearing.
“Brutus and his groupies threw me into the Douglas lot.” I took a pen out of my backpack.
Eve put her hand to her mouth to muffle a gasp.
I nodded. The Douglas lot is an abandoned property with a gigantic overgrown lawn, which is now home to many stray dogs that do not like trespassers. “For some reason the dogs didn't even stir when Brutus threw me over the fence.”
The rest of that hour went by without a hitch, and I even managed to turn in my book without tripping over the thousands of computer chargers that obstructed the aisle like land mines. Second and third hour classes went by about the same: turn in books, mess around for the remainder of the hour. The lunch bell finally rang, and the classroom turned into what seemed like a busy day in a store; everyone went every-which direction to retrieve their stuff and head out the door to the lunch line.
Eve and I fought our way through the crowd to our lockers. I threw my backpack onto the floor of my locker, slammed the locker door shut, and walked down to Eve's. I leaned against the one next to hers and watched her organize her belongings. She had been acting oddly all day—cautious, looking over her shoulder every few seconds. “Something the matter, Eve?”
She jumped. It took what few reflexes I had to catch the calculator she had inadvertently thrown into the air. I smiled, handed it back to her, and she said, “I don't know what you're talking about.” She buried the calculator under some papers in the top of her locker.
“You don't, huh?” I reached around and tapped her on the opposite shoulder, and again she jumped. I held back a laugh as she glared at me. “So what's up?”
She continued to rummage through her locker. “I told you, William, I don't know what you're talking about.”
“You've got to be the only person in the world who calls me by my whole first name.”
“Is there something wrong with that?” Awkward pause; silence pointed at someone who needed to apologize. I was about to do just that when I was interrupted by an announcement: “Attention students and staff—Project Alpha.”
Eve and I looked at each other with about the same amount of confusion.
“What's Project Alpha?” I asked.
Three classrooms down the hallway turned off their lights and shut their doors. Eve gasped as we watched the lights in the hallway begin to flicker. “What's going on? What's wrong with the lights?”
“Maybe Project Alpha is code for 'fixing the lights' or something,” I said and headed toward the lobby.
“Wait, where are you going?” Eve whispered as she followed behind me.
“I dunno, ask some questions maybe.”
“But...but the announcement...the lights...”
I peered into the main office through the window in the door. The lights were on, but not a soul was in sight. A scratching sound came from the school's main entrance doors to our right, the same doors through which I normally enter five days of each week. Through the narrow windows on each side of the doors I could see a mass of pale, disheveled beings with unblinking, unemotional eyes. They appeared to be disoriented, yet they moved without faltering, as if someone were guiding them remotely.
I sprinted to one of the doors and braced myself against it. Whatever these things are, I'm pretty sure they aren't here to further their education, I thought, unless, of course, they can absorb the knowledge they seek by eating students' brains.
“What are you doing?” Eve screamed as she rushed toward me and braced the door next to me.
My door jarred open a few inches, and a hand reached through, grabbing aimlessly at the air between us. Eve let out a scream, and I slammed the door shut on its wrist. An airy screech came from the other side, and the hand withdrew.
“Now what?” Eve yelled over the repetitive thudding against the doors.
“I don't know, didn't really plan this,” I said as I dug my shoes into the grate just inside the doors.
The forces from outside stopped.
This was my chance to take a quick peek through the window beside me. I wished I hadn't. The “zombies,” as I chose to call them, had moved away from the school, and two metal-clad figures were advancing with what looked like assault rifles. It took me a split second to think of a plan. I leaned away from the door and grabbed a conveniently placed folding chair, jamming it under the door handles.
Eve looked up at me. “What are you doing?”
In a low, monotone voice I said, “On the count of three, run as fast as you can to the gym.” A third figure was heading toward the door carrying a book-sized block wrapped in paper. A series of cords was connected to it.
Eve was about to protest, but I ignored her and began to count. “One...two...”
By this time the figure had placed the package and was retreating.
“Three!” I screamed, and we jumped away from the doors. Eve screamed and retreated down the hallway toward the gym. This nightmare had become all too real; they were actually going to blow the doors down.
We barely managed to get 20 feet away before the doors exploded. I put my hands over my ears and turned my back to the scene. Seconds after the blast a large piece of one of the doors decided to ruin our escape...by tripping us. It slid into my ankles, and I fell back onto it. Eve stumbled but managed to remain upright.
I scrambled to my feet but made the mistake of turning around to face the mob. Acting mostly on impulse, I grabbed a pipe from the wreck and screamed at Eve to continue to the gym without me. There was only a second of hesitation, then I heard her rapid departing footsteps squeaking down the hall.
The “zombies” appeared to want to follow her, but I threw the pipe down the hallway that runs perpendicular to the one leading to the gym. They all stared down that hallway; some even stumbled toward the pipe. YES! I had created a distraction that lasted long enough to allow me to sprint after Eve.
I caught up with her at one of the janitor closets. She was cowering in the doorway, her arms covering her head. “Are they still following you?” she asked.
“I think I lost them in the multipurpose room,” I said, looking past her. “Is this door locked?”
Eve turned and shrugged. “Don't know.”
“There's light shining from under it, so I'm guessing no.”
She moved out of the way and looked around cautiously. I turned the knob and pushed lightly on the door; it swung open. I took in the messiest closet I had ever seen. Eve nudged me forward, and I peeked around behind the door. There stood someone who was armed...with a folding chair. I jerked back instinctively, bumping into Eve and stepping on her foot. She screamed, and I knew that was my first defense. I leaped into the room, turning to face my opponent, expecting to be thwacked over the head with the chair.
No thwacking. “Brutus? Is that you?” Evidently chairs do not make a satisfactory weapon for someone who regularly beats you up.
“Wow, wouldn't expect you to be a survivor in a zombie apocalypse,” he answered, lowering the chair.
“It's not an apocalypse, it was planned,” I said under my breath. “What's in that cabinet over there?” I asked, walking toward it.
“Don't know, didn't go snooping around.”
I opened the cabinet and found a box, which I grabbed off the shelf and started to open. Eve and Brutus hovered over me. “Do you mind?”
“Sorry,” they both said, almost in unison.
I finished opening the box and dumped the contents into my hand. I smiled.
“Dynamite? Why would the school have dynamite?” Brutus asked.
“Not dynamite, flares,” I said, then promptly demonstrated by uncapping one of them. It flashed into a controlled, continuous stream of sparks.
“How do you stop it?” Eve asked. Brutus turned to me wearing his usual big-dumb-mouth-breather face.
I leaned out the door and threw the flare as far as I could down the hall. It burst into a brighter, yet silent explosion. I pocketed the remaining flares.
“What do you expect to do with the flares?” Eve asked.
“I really don't know,” I said flatly. I had been acting mostly on instinct and didn't have a plan.
“Were you planning on signaling for help or...” Eve was cut off by a rain of gunshots into the open door. She slammed it shut, and we all dived to the ground.
Silence. Then shuffling outside the door. Then more silence. We lay on the floor without breathing. Tension turned the seconds to eons. Then shots whistled through the door. The floor would not consume me, though I desperately wished it so.
“Got any plans now, Cross-eyes?” Brutus growled.
I momentarily reminisced about our altercation from earlier that morning. I looked under the door at the feet of the attacker. “It's only one of them. I think I know what we can do.” I crawled to the point where the door would open its widest, then I whispered a quick plan of attack, purposely leaving out one important detail.
I uncapped a flare, handed it to Eve, and she passed it to Brutus. I started another and nodded to Eve to open the door. She flung it open, and there stood the gunman, reloading. As the figure looked up, Brutus rolled his flare out the door so it stopped just beside the figure, who stared down at it.
The flare burst into sparks and I knew if my plan was to go correctly I needed to hurry. I sprang into action, throwing myself at the gunman, assuming my weight would be enough to knock it backwards. I wrapped my arms around its neck and hung there. It hadn't worked. I decided to skip the rest of that step. Besides, the flares were burning out.
The gunman was swatting about its head with one limb, trying to dislodge me. I positioned a flare in front of what I thought was its eye and stabbed. It dropped its weapon and flung me away like a fly. Then it put its hands to its face and tried to remove the flare. Too late.
I smiled as I watched the carnage. The flare burst into sparks, and with it, the gunman's head. The figure dropped to the floor with a clank, and I heard two screams. I recognized one as Eve's, but I was surprised to hear the other coming from Brutus.
“You killed him!” Brutus yelled, looking down at the pitiful, headless carcass on the floor.
“Oh, calm down. It isn't even human, see?” I said, picking up a handful of metal and wires.
“I think they caught up, William,” Eve whispered.
I looked down the hallway and dropped the scrap metal. “To the gym!” I commanded. We sprinted the thirty or so feet to the gym and pounded on the door until someone walked up and peeked through the window, then disappeared. NO! Don't leave! The door opened just enough for us to slip through.
The gym, which had been set up for the kindergarten graduation, now resembled a war zone. Chairs had been knocked over, the decorations on the stage had been mostly destroyed, and the press box was filled with students and teachers. The unfortunates who were too late to get into the press box peeked out from beneath the bleachers.
“Wow!” I looked around, my mouth gaping. “This looks like a bomb shelter.”
I heard a tiny voice from the press box. I didn't understand what it said, but for some reason it captured my attention. I looked up; a very tall person was waving his or her arms. Then I realized it was a tiny person being held up by a larger person.
“Maggie!” I waved back and took a step forward but was stopped by someone behind me. I turned and saw the last person I would have expected: my band teacher, Mr. Gogh.
“I'm glad to see you, Will,” he said simply.
“Uh, me too...?”
He pulled me away from Eve and Brutus and said, in a more serious tone, “You don't know what's going on here, do you?”
I shook my head. “Not a clue.”
He sighed. “Then you should probably take this,” he said, offering me a handgun.
“Wha...you've got to be kidding!” I said, putting my hands behind my back.
“I am trusting you not to shoot it, OK?”
“Wait. What?”
“The Projects should stay clear of you once they see that you are armed.”
“Projects? What are...” I was overflowing with questions.
“If I tell you now, you must promise not to relay the information to Eve unless I tell you to. Agreed?” He looked over his shoulder, apparently making sure no one was eavesdropping on our conversation. When I nodded, he continued. “Project Alpha wasn't some random act of terrorism. It was a plan to get...someone...out of this school and back to the, um, testing sites. A governmental department has been doing this for years, but only now did they locate the right place. When that...someone...came to this school, the entire school board was informed of this plan of repossession. They had to create a way to evacuate the school in case of such an emergency.” Mr. Gogh paused, and again he looked around. “It gets very confusing, so I'll just say that the evacuation plan leaked, and now we're stuck in the gym.”
I couldn't help but ask, “Do we know who that 'someone' is?”
Mr. Gogh smiled and put the gun in my hand. “I do. You might too.”
“Can you give me a hint?”
“Let's just say he's closer than you'd expect.” Mr. Gogh slipped under the bleachers.
“That's not much of a hint.” I doubt he heard me.
I sighed and returned to Eve, who was standing by the doors. She screamed. “They're going to blow the doors again!”
I looked back at the doors and said, “No, they're just going to...” All three doors dropped to the floor. “...break them down.”
Three gunmen stood in the opening pointing their rifles at Eve and me. My first instinct—show them my new toy. I raised the gun and pointed it at the middle gunman's head, hoping I was at least holding the weapon like I knew what I was doing. The gunman started to move toward us.
It may have been panic, but something caused me to pull the trigger. Maybe it was beginner's luck, but I hit the figure just below its right eye port. Sparks flew from the bullet hole and it dropped to the floor, leaving permanent black marks in the light-colored wood.
My action must have prompted the other two, because they opened fire. “Get down!” I yelled and threw Eve to the floor. I dropped to my knees, and Eve looked up at me in horror. I smiled meekly at her then fired two shots in rapid succession, hitting one of the gunmen in the head and the other in the chest. They joined the first gunman on the floor.
The “zombies” began to wander around aimlessly, ignoring everything. Apparently I had removed their commanding force, and without guidance, they simply left the same way they had come, walking as if they were students themselves.
I stood up and looked down at Eve, but she looked at me as if she'd never seen me before. “What?” I asked, my voice sounding unusually soft.
“You're hit, William,” she said.
“Huh?”
She pointed.
I looked down at my vest, and sure enough, there was a bullet hole in it just above my hip. “I don't feel any pain.”
“Will!” Brutus yelled.
“Will are you OK?” Mr. Gogh shouted.
“I...I don't feel any different.”
Mr. Gogh circled around behind me. “Take off your vest, Will.”
I didn't hesitate to follow his command. There were two bullet holes in it, one in the front pocket and one in the back about where the exit wound would line up. Yet my shirt was free of anything bullet-related.
“You must have avoided harm when you pivoted to shoot the next guy,” Brutus said.
“I...pivoted?” I was confused by his choice of words. I began to question him.
Eve was almost in tears, but I did not notice until she hugged me and began crying on my shoulder.
Mr. Gogh patt
ed me on the back. “I think it's about time we put this school back into working order,” he said, smiling at me.
I nodded and smiled back.
Katie Arman is an aspiring short story writer. She likes to write fictional stories about dragons, wolves, and people. Another of her talents is drawing; she wants to write and illustrate her own stories. Her favorite author is Christopher Paolini. She has written a few stories for personal use and a few that have been school assignments.
DAMAGED GOODS
By Taylor Green
Change. We all go through it, the good and the bad. It seems things never stop...well...changing. My first memory of a big change happened at age five when I got a new baby sister. At age ten I had to take care of her and my younger brother every day while Mom sucked down a few packs of smokes and a fifth of whiskey. And while Dad was at work, I had to look for food in our small mountain-of-dirty-clothes-and-trash house.
I tried my best to act like a mom for those two kids, but I was too young to know how. My efforts always ended in fights with them, and eventually I'd give up, especially after being told, “You're not my mom!” I tried to reason with them. “I know, but I'm the oldest, and Mom's passed out.”
This is my story. I'm Darcy, now 15 years old. Some people say my life has already had more ups and downs than my share, and I've been hiding a lot of them. I'm ready to come out with the truth now and share a story I've always been a bit ashamed of, but it's time for change. I can remember nearly every event during the time things started to turn for the worst, as if it were yesterday. I was in the fifth grade.
~ ~ ~
My teacher called to me from her desk, “Darcy, come here please.” I was one of those kids who never got in trouble, so I didn't expect to hear what she said to me next. “You are to report to the principal's office immediately.”
2012-2013 Pickford Young Writers Anthology of Short Stories and Poetry Page 5
