The Release

Room 126 felt like a tomb. Mrs. Johnston kept the lights off, and she huddled at her desk, refreshing the Internet browser on her computer religiously and keeping her phone situated in her line-of-sight, next to a picture of her husband and her kids. For the most part, she ignored the students in her charge. If anyone tried to talk to her or lean over her shoulder, she shooed them away, relegating them back to the uncomfortable chairs or coarse carpeting. Pretense melted away—there was no time for comforting pep talks. They could tell they were in danger and no one was trying to spin it any other way.

Every ten minutes a security guard popped his head in and did a quick head count, then he shut the door and moved on. Every ten minutes. Like clockwork.

When Mrs. Johnston taught her English classes, she was like a puppy dog—full of boundless energy and eager naiveté—and it was something that Lucy always appreciated. This notion that someone still woke up enthusiastic about Jonathan Edwards’ “Si

But since they had locked themselves into her room, Lucy couldn’t find any of that Mrs. Johnston left in the space where they once held spirited slam poetry competitions and waxed philosophical about Emerson’s Transparent Eyeball. The new Mrs. Johnston was taciturn and cold; she barely spoke a word and didn’t try to hide her disgust toward each of the children in her care.

After an hour, they were down to five.

The security came by and took note of bodies and survivors; then a group of surviving teachers carried the dead away. But even the number of adults seemed to dwindle as time passed. Six teachers, now only two, continued to act out their roles despite the futility of it all. Mrs. Johnston never moved from her desk; her eyes never wavered from her computer screen as she clicked and clicked and willed the news on her screen to be different. She moved between the news sites, their updates slowing down as the time slipped away from them and then on to her own feed and her email. Lucy watched as she went through her pattern. Site one. Site two. Site three. Wait. Look. Repeat. As if it was not the intake of information that interested her, but instead the cathartic nature of the ritual.

A phone buzzed in the room.

The sporadic nature of sending texts and receiving calls made it impossible for her to communicate with Salem, but Lucy looked down at her phone, disappointed that her screen was blank. Even so, Lucy’s fingers flew into action. She fired a note, “Stay strong friend. Working on a plan.” And she watched, stomach in knots, until the little green arrow indicated success. If Salem could read it, if she was still out there, she would know that Lucy had not abandoned her. Lucy would never abandon her.

Even if that was not entirely true because she had abandoned her—she had left Salem crumpled on the ground with hoards of scared people tearing around her. Scared people with guns. Lucy took a deep breath and held her phone to her chest. She felt it apropos to pray, but specific requests eluded her, so she just repeated over and over inside her head: Help me, help me, help me, help me. Less like a prayer and more like a mantra.

“I have to get home,” Mrs. Johnston said. It was the first thing she had said in hours. Everyone turned to look at her and gawked, as if she had grown a tail and barked wildly. She looked at the students in the room, assessing their faces and then to the clock. Jumping up, her chair crashing backward behind her; she rushed to the window and pried it open—the bottom half was designed to open only an inch, and she ran her hands over the metal. Unless they could remove the entire pane of glass from the window, that was not a viable escape route. “Can’t. I can’t. I can’t!” Mrs. Johnston hit the metal radiator beneath the window in frustration and immediately cradled her hand. She spun around and leaned back, breathless.

Clayton, who had been slumped in the corner of the room, using his backpack as a pillow and drawing doodles in a notebook, sat up. “I’ve been thinking,” he said.

Grant had moved himself under the television and he turned his head. He’d been watching the news without saying a word for most of the time they were trapped in the room, but at one point he had sidled up to Lucy and put a reassuring arm around her shoulder. She shrugged him off and then apologized. It was easier to think Grant had single-handedly stopped her from rescuing Salem than to accept that any course of action was futile.

“You have an idea?” Grant prodded and Clayton nodded.

Purse Girl, who also hadn’t said a word since they got to the room, raised her body off the floor, alert. They each stared at Clayton expectantly.

“You have a master key? You know, from coaching?”

Mrs. Johnston’s shoulders slumped as if she was already preparing for this plan to fail. “It doesn’t unlock the main doors. They have control for the locking mechanism in the security office and outside the main office. My keys are worthless,” she said. She took out a rubber band and tied her hair up into a high ponytail, her blonde hair cascading down her back. Lucy marveled that somehow throughout the entire day it had not lost its curl.

“No. I’m not interested in using them to get outside,” Clayton answered. He stood up and brushed his hands off on his jeans. “Does your key unlock the doors in the East wing?”

Mrs. Johnston clamped her mouth tight for a minute and peered at Clayton curiously, as if she were trying to guess what he had in mind. Then she reached into her pocket and produced her keys, turning them over in her hand. “Yes,” she nodded. “They do.”

Clayton broke out into a huge smile, and he flipped his long blonde hair forward over his shoulders. “If you can get me into the metal shop, then I think I can get you out of this school.”

“Wait!” Lucy popped up from her chair by the desk, forgetting she was holding her phone and it skittered away from her across the floor. “Can you get someone into the school the same way?” She bent over to retrieve her cell and admired a fresh crack across her screen. It seemed, even amid everything else, a tragedy worthy of tears, but she pushed them away and tried to keep her head clear and focused.

He nodded. “Yes,” he replied. “Trickier, but yes. But if we don’t want to get caught, we have to work in shifts. I’ve been plotting it since they trapped us here. Do you trust me?”

“What choice do we have?” Lucy answered and then realized it sounded harsh and unfair. She opened her mouth to add something softer, nicer, but Mrs. Johnston stepped forward—her open palm extended toward Clayton, handing him her keys.

“Just tell us what to do,” Mrs. Johnston said. “I’ll do anything.” Her eyes were supplicating and she walked right up to Clayton. Standing next to each other, she looked so tiny, fragile, and afraid and he towered above her, a man-child, with massive, calloused hands, broad shoulders, and a smattering of acne.

He turned to Lucy. “If you can get your friend on the roof, leave everything else to me.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

The East Wing was entirely its own entity. Separated from the rest of the school down a long and often forgotten-about hallway, the tiny square plot of school that held the metal and wood shops, the art studio, and the journalism lab, seemed to function as an independent school within Pacific Lake. Many students didn’t even know the wing existed—it was easy to miss the narrow hallway leading to the classrooms. The East Wing was so independent and often ignored that it took administrators two years to notice that the teachers had converted an abandoned storage room into a sitting lounge complete with couches and a coffee maker.