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The Fairlane rolled to a stop and A
“Five minutes,” Ethan reminded her.
Lucy opened the door and crawled out, grabbed her brother’s black backpack to transport her work and left the door ajar for A
“Morning, A
“It’s crazy in there,” A
Lucy pivoted and opened her mouth to ask how, but Ethan motioned her away. “Go! I’m leaving in five minutes if you’re back or not. It wouldn’t be fair for Mom to have to kill two children in one day.” A
Slipping in through a small patchwork of shrubbery, Lucy walked with purpose and determination toward the door—which had been tagged some time ago with bright neon green spray-paint. She tugged on the handle and the door pulled open, leading to a damp, dark stairwell. A dim light guided her forward; the handrails were sticky with used gum wads and crushed soda cans were abandoned in the corners—the smell of mildew, dirt, and urine permeated the air.
When she pushed on the door leading to the supply closet, the door opened and then crashed back into her shoulder; she groaned. Someone had placed the old pool cover against the door. She aligned her shoulder, grabbed the handle, and pushed with all her strength—the metal cart rolled inch by inch with each well-placed body-slam. Lucy squeezed her body through the opening she had created and then, because she couldn’t get back out that way anyway, shoved the pool cover back against the door. Then for good measure, she toppled some dusty chairs down too. She let her imagination play out what would happen when A
It made the unfortunate events of the morning seem a little less ominous.
While Lucy navigated the supply and the pool, she grabbed her phone. Four minutes. And still no texts from Salem. Even in mourning, Salem would make an attempt to co
With her eyes on her phone, Lucy checked her feed.
She stopped walking because she was unable to process what she was seeing and move forward at the same time.
All over the country, people were sending and posting alarming updates. In just thirty-minutes everything had gone from sad and speculative to real and nightmarish. A sickness was spreading. Hospitals couldn’t handle the intakes of the ailing who were arriving at steady-intervals. Someone who worked in an ER posted a photo of a crowded hallway, the caption reading: “Busy day. Damn this flu.” So-and-so had heard that 9-1-1 was jammed. A friend who went to another school updated her status to read: RIP Aunt Rosemary.
Lucy’s phone buzzed and she almost shrieked, juggling the device before checking her text. It was Ethan: “A
Lockdown.
They had done a lockdown drill during the first week of school.
It meant there was an immediate threat to the student body within, or around, the school. All students would be held in classrooms until the lockdown was lifted. Lucy took a step forward around the empty cement cavern; she could see from her vantage point the long stretch of hallway dedicated to the science department. The lights were dimmed. The entire place was clear of movement. If she could get straight down the hallway, closer to the English classrooms, she would be able to get to her locker and exit out the double-doors that opened toward the senior parking lot.
The high school was built as a giant rectangle. Students could start walking in one direction and the school would eventually lead them back to their starting point—classrooms lined the inside and outside of the rectangle. There were small hallways off the ends leading to the pool and the library on the opposite side. The science hallway ran at one end and directly down from the main office; the other end of the hallway passed by the gym, the cafeteria, the counseling center, and eventually the social studies hallway. Then came the English and math hallways. At her present location, she could not be further from her locker, but at least her exit would be close.
“Go to senior lot. By double-doors,” she texted to her brother and then opened the door from the pool, aware of the clunking echo of the metal swinging open. For good measure she added a text: “I can do this.”
She had never heard the school so quiet. On her tiptoes, she crept forward, moving at a fast enough pace to make it to her brother on time, but slow enough to watch for a patrolling guard or a teacher on-watch. But after fifteen feet, Lucy realized that the classrooms were abandoned. The lights were turned off; the desks were empty. She pressed her face against the glass of one room; there were discarded backpacks scattered on desktops and on the floor—books and papers without owners, a solitary shoe, coats still hanging on the backs of chairs. Students had been asked to leave in a hurry.
She shivered.
The clock showed that it was partway through first period. With great trepidation, Lucy moved forward, inch by inch, stepping along the white tiled flooring, her feet tapping along, the only sound in earshot.
Down the hall, Lucy heard the distinct crackle of a walkie-talkie. She pushed her body into a small opening between a locker and a drinking fountain and held her breath. Her phone vibrated in her hand. In the absence of all other noise, the vibrating seemed loud and commanding while drawing attention to her hiding space. She pushed the ignore button with her thumb and closed her eyes.
There had to be rational explanations. Students and teachers were frightened by the news and had been called to an emergency assembly. Perhaps the grief over pets and sick loved ones had impeded any valuable learning and the students were ushered into an impromptu counseling session. During Lucy’s freshman year, a senior football player was killed in a car accident. The administration canceled every class and held a series of honorary assemblies and meetings with counselors—they even held a vigil out by the flagpole.
Occam’s Razor.
Her father taught her that.
The simplest explanation was usually correct.
They were under lockdown out of fear, not necessity. The students were at an assembly, perhaps to alleviate or control the rising worries. The pets were dead because someone had poisoned them. People were not in danger.
Her father had told her: She was not in danger.
Back on her feed, all the doomsday prophets were broadcasting their end of the world theories as a full-fledged assault. Several of her feed items were calls to faith in the midst of judgment day. If Lucy believed in evangelical Christianity, she would have guessed her classmates had been spirited away through rapture. But Lucy shook her head and scowled—she may not be perfect, but she had a hard time believing that God would leave her behind and take the entirety of Pacific Lake High School instead.