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“No one asked you, Sloane,” Grace says. “And Cary told them it was clear.”
“But they offered to do it.” My voice gets small. “Cary didn’t force them.”
“You know what? I’m fucking tired of all of you,” Trace declares abruptly, but his voice cracks and I think he’s going to cry because he leaves the room with his head down.
Because of me.
How to salvage a moment: Rhys suggests we move whatever we can from the teachers’ lounge to the auditorium to make it more livable. No one talks as we fight the couches down the stairs and position them in the corner of the room. We find a lone lunch table we missed for the barricade under the stage, set it up, and steal chairs from the main offices for it. Grace uses the fake bouquets as centerpieces. I feel so sick watching her. I have to make things right. I walk over to her. She fiddles with the flowers. I stand there and try to think of what to say while she ignores me.
“I didn’t mean anything by it, just that Cary wouldn’t send them there to die,” I tell her. “You know he wouldn’t.”
She looks at me and she’s so student government president. Her posture is diplomatic but her tone is frosty. “But he did … and they did.”
“But—”
“Look, it’s hard enough for Trace right now,” she says. “If it’s how you feel, fine. But I want you to stay away from my brother if you can’t keep it to yourself.”
She walks away. At first I think I’ll cry, but I don’t. I’m too jealous of the way she guards Trace to cry and I hate that she thinks of me as someone she has to protect him from.
Eventually, Cary calls us over to the stage. He shows us the locker haul. They found toothpaste—we take turns passing the tube around and dabbing microscopic globs on our fingers—floss, deodorant … there are some clothes, which makes Grace happy. I spot a pink sweater with a name written on the tag: CORRINE M. Corrine Matthews.
I remember her curly black hair and smile and then I don’t want to touch it.
There’s lots of candy and gum. Some lighters and cigarettes. I look at Rhys, expecting him to be happy about it but he doesn’t look happy about it
We settle in for the night. The room is … the word home crosses my mind, but it’s not the right one to use. Lily and I used to play house. I was eight, she was ten, and Mom was dead, but Mom had been dead for a while by then, so I guess that’s not an important part of this memory. I had dolls and an old box. She had paper, pencils, and erasers and she’d ask questions while I leaned Barbie up against a flimsy cardboard wall and tried to figure out what to do with Ken.
How big should the bedrooms be? Should we have a guest bedroom? Okay. Separate bathrooms for sure. No, Dad doesn’t need a room, Sloane. Because he’s not going to live with us. This is our house.
FOUR DAYS LATER
“Grace! GRACE! Dad’s alive! He’s outside! He’s ALIVE!”
Trace bursts into the auditorium screaming these words at the top of his lungs and then we’re awake like we were never asleep.
Mr. Casper. Alive.
Trace is breathless and crying as he leads us to the second floor. The flashlight jerks in his hands as he tries to explain. “I couldn’t sleep—I was wandering around and I heard him, he was calling for help—I went to the window and I saw—”
Mr. Casper. He’s alive, in the parking lot, calling for help.
Rhys is going are you sure? Are you sure you’re sure? Maybe you were sleepwalking. Trace is so beside himself he doesn’t even tell Rhys to fuck off.
We sprint down the halls and up the stairs so fast my lungs feel like they’re going to explode. My heart is numb. I don’t believe this. I can’t believe in this.
Mr. Casper is alive.
“I told you, Grace, I told you—they knew we were here—I knew one of them would try to get to us—I fucking knew it!”
I’m at the window first. Trace hands the flashlight to Harrison and pushes himself against me, forces me into the glass. We look past the edge of the auditorium roof, trying to see, searching—Mr. Casper, alive—but the lot is empty. Dawn edges up the horizon, but it’s not doing it fast enough. It’s not light enough to see anyone or anything.
“Where?” Rhys asks. “I don’t see him—”
“He was…” Trace nudges us away. “He—”
“How could you even see—”
“Shut up—”
“Listen,” Cary hisses. “Just listen.”
I press the side of my head against the glass and listen with everything I have. I hear car alarms in the distance. Grace takes a sharp breath in.
Trace spins around. “What—”
She points and I follow her outstretched finger to the crumpled shape of a man facedown on the pavement. I don’t know how we missed it at first, until I realize we missed it because we were looking for signs of life.
“No—no,” Trace says. “No—that’s not—he was alive—”
I squint. It could be anyone from here. I don’t know how Trace could have made out his father’s face in this lack of light. I’m too afraid to ask him in front of Grace.
“If he’s dead, infected can’t be far off,” Cary says. “Was he shouting?”
“He’s not dead! He was standing—he was up! He’s just hurt or something—he just—Dad! We have to go out—we have to bring him back in—we have to help—”
“Trace—”
I tune them out. The parking lot is empty. I look for others—the shambling, broken bodies of people we used to know surrounding the school again—but there’s nothing.
“Dad! DAD!”
Cary pulls Trace away from the window but Trace is made of the kind of energy people with hope have. He frees himself and shoves Cary against a row of lockers.
“Don’t fucking touch me—”
“You don’t even know it’s him—”
I hear it first and then I see it: Trace drives his fist into Cary’s face. It’s a dull sound, but I know it’s a sharp hurt. I know what it feels like. Cary’s knees buckle but he doesn’t fall. He rights himself and stands there, stu
“You’re useless—” Trace spits at him. “You fucking murderer!”
Cary tackles Trace and they’re a sloppy mess of fists and legs and Grace is screaming get off him, get off my brother!
Rhys is the one who separates them. He has to hold Trace down in the end by climbing on top of him and pushing his knee into Trace’s back.
I turn back to the window, the man outside.
Trace gasps under Rhys. “We’re wasting time—”
“He’s not moving, Trace—”
“Are you sure it’s him?” I ask.
“Who else would it be? I have to go out there—I have to get him—”
“No!” Grace says. “You are not going out there. You can’t—” And Trace says, Grace, it’s Dad, I know it is, I saw him, we have to get him because he believes this. He’s fevered with it. It’s his father out there because it can be no one else.
And she’s saying, “No, you can’t. You can’t leave me—”
She repeats this over his insistence he has to go outside and the more she says it, it’s like the more she believes he will leave her until she’s crying so hard she’s hyperventilating. Trace tries to reach for her, but he can’t unless Rhys gets off him. When Rhys does, Trace holds Grace and she sobs all over his shirt. He holds her and stares at me, at the window beyond me, trying to soothe her and figure this out at the same time. Then his eyes spark. He turns to Cary.
“You go out there and get him.”
Cary stares. “What?”
“It’s your fault he’s out there. Go out there and bring him back in.”