The Release

Grant leaned closer, “Before...when we were watching the television? Someone reported that military planes were flying over cities and dropping a green gas into heavily populated areas. Is that true?”

“I don’t know anything,” she said and put her hands up in surrender. “No one knows anything.” Her heels clipped on the tile, picking up her pace to a brisk walk.

“Who attacked us?” said a sophomore girl toward the back of the group—she clutched her bright red leather purse in front of her like a shield, knuckles turning white. “Do they know who?”

But Mrs. Johnston had decided she was done answering questions, so she did not acknowledge the growing bombardment of worries. As each student lobbed up a theory or a snippet of news, she just walked faster, until the whole group shuffled along at a near-run to keep up with her. It was clear that she was taking the group to her own classroom, steering them back through the trail of bodies that Lucy had traversed earlier. As they hit the long corridor littered with the dead, some of the students slowed. This carnage was new to them, and some of these people were their friends. The sophomore girl closed her eyes tight and stopped moving entirely. She just stood there in the middle of the hallway, her red purse covering her stomach, her feet shoulder width apart, unmoving. She kept her eyes scrunched closed, her mouth grimacing, her teeth showing.

Lucy recognized a boy named Clayton from her biology class among their small group. He called down the hallway. “Mrs. Johnston! Wait up!” Then he walked back and stood next to the girl, touching her purse and gently leading her forward.

“I won’t. I won’t go,” she said and stiffened her body even more.

But Clayton was patient. “I’ll lead you. But you have to take my hand. Like those trust walks, right?” But she wouldn’t lift her hand up, wouldn’t take it off the purse, and wouldn’t open her eyes or budge.

By that time, Mrs. Johnston had noticed half the group wasn’t keeping up with her quickened pace. She stopped and turned, eyes red, new rivulets of black ru

Then Lucy felt it.

Not the quick buzz-buzz-buzz of a text.

But the long and sustained buzzzzzz of an incoming phone call.

At first she thought she was imagining it—that all of her hoping and daydreaming had turned into an auditory hallucination accompanied by phantom vibrations. Frantic, she dug her hand into her pocket and retrieved her phone. The phone slipped, but she caught it against her jeans, and her sweaty fingers attempted to grab ahold.

As the other students noticed the action, each one looked to their own phones, scampering to send a text, place a call. Hope. Lucy saw it in an instant in all of their faces. Technology was back, so there was hope.

Without even looking, Lucy answered. A lump rose in her throat as she waited for her mom’s voice to hit her ear. Please just tell me everyone is okay, she thought. Please, Mommy, please.

She pleaded for the news to be good.

“Lula? Lula? Are you there? Are you there?” The voice was high-pitched, rushed, and jumbled. Voices swirled in the background and there was a distinct gunshot again—it was louder in the phone, but the blast echoed in the school too.

From outside, this call was from somewhere right outside.

Salem.

“Sal? Sal?” Lucy answered. “Where are you?”

“I’m at the school,” Salem said and Lucy hopped up and down when she heard the news.

“Thank God! Sal, I’m here too! It’s a long story…but I’m inside Pacific right now. No one can get out, Salem. They have everyone locked inside! It’s a total nightmare.”

“Lucy, listen. I’m outside. I’m right outside the cafeteria, by the big doors. We can’t get in Lucy. No one can get in!”

“No one can get out!” Lucy said overlapping. Then she paused and processed their conflicting wishes.

Another gunshot. Again, she could hear it both in the phone and in her ear. There was a slight delay between one and the other—a small disco

“Salem? What the hell is going on?”

“They’re trying to shoot the card lock off. They’re trying to shoot the glass. I tried to tell them it’s bulletproof, but it’s madness here. God, Lucy, help me! Help me, please!” Salem’s voice was beyond begging, her sobs shot through the phone in short bursts of pure panic.

“I’m coming! Okay, okay! I’m coming,” Lucy yelled into the mouthpiece and, with only a quick look to Mrs. Johnston and the rest of the group—all of whom had frozen to listen to her conversation—she took off ru

“I’m almost there, Sal. I’m almost there,” she said into her phone.

“Lula. You have to get me inside the school. You have to get me inside the school right now.”

CHAPTER SIX

Lucy slowed to a stop in front of the windows and doors in the cafeteria. They were covered in thick black paper, and even though she couldn’t see the people outside, she could hear them—yelling and crying and pounding on the glass. Part of the district’s safety plan included upgrading all the windows to war-grade fortification, thick, resilient, bulletproof glass. Before the update, an angry student on a rampage after a suspension broke an entire windowpane by throwing a metal garbage can into the center of the cafeteria door. It shattered during the school day and wasn’t replaced until the following evening at which point an assistant principal found a homeless man curled up in the waterless pool.

In an instant, Lucy reached as high as she could and grabbed hold of the paper and tore it down. The strip slid to the floor and bathed the area in light. She tore another and another, swinging each discarded piece to the side.

Then she stepped back.

Forty. Maybe fifty—she was never good at estimating—people congregated outside in the alcove beyond the cafeteria doors. They were everywhere, pressing up against the glass, their fists pounding in earnest. A woman near the door was pushed forward, the side of her cheek flat against the smooth surface, and in her arms she held a toddler. The child was wearing a blue backpack, and his face was stoic, shocked, and he clutched to his mother out of necessity, trusting that she was leading him to safety.

Lucy sca

The crowd breathed in and exhaled as one, so Salem seized her chance and pushed against the flow, rushing forward to reach the door. Against the glass at last, she reached her hands up and placed them flat. Lucy sprinted forward and matched them—the two-inch thick windows separated them, but their hands touched nonetheless.

“What can I do?” she asked. Her voice was loud, booming in the cafeteria; she was shocked by the sound of it. Salem couldn’t hear her, but she understood.

“Please, please, please,” was all Salem said in return. Over and over she said it, begging for Lucy to do the impossible. She took a step back and the crowd surged and what Lucy saw scared her. She could feel her classmates, Clayton, Grant, and the group, assembling behind her, but she dared not turn to look at them. She knew she would see on their faces what she already knew in her heart: There was no way to open that door.