This is Not a Test

Footsteps.

Outside the auditorium.

At first, I think Cary. Cary, wandering his way back from the nurse’s office. Those footsteps are his. But they’re not. They are heavy and uneven, familiar in a way that makes my skin crawl. A hand against my face. Dad? They get closer. A shadow moves across the floor as it passes by the door. I jerk my head in the direction of the hall, see the last of the shadow drift away. A person. That was real. No. I press my hand against my chest, feel myself working. My breathing is shallow, a sick juxtaposition against Rhys’s soft and steady breaths in and out. I just saw someone. I know I did.

No. Something is wrong with me. I went outside and I came back broken and now my heart is trying to convince me I just saw my father walking the halls. I’m losing my mind. This feeling circles me until I get to my feet and my legs feel so strange I start to wonder if I’m actually awake after all. When I pinch my arm, I feel pain but—I tiptoe over to Grace and shake her shoulder lightly until her eyes open.

“Sloane?” She blinks. “What’s wrong?”

“Am I awake?”

“What?”

“I mean—did you hear something?”

She rubs her eyes. “No—I was asleep. What’s going on?”

“Nothing. Nothing. I’m sorry. Go back to sleep—”

“Sloane—”

“Forget it.”

“No, what was—”

“It’s nothing,” I say. “I’m sorry. I think I was having a nightmare.”

She glares at me through half-lidded eyes and rolls over. I stand in the center of the room, not knowing what to do next. I can’t go back to sleep. I was dead asleep and then I wasn’t and I heard—no, I didn’t hear anything. I did not hear anything.

I sit on my mat and try to calm down. I last a minute before I’m back on my feet. I grab a flashlight and walk to the bathroom and stand at the sinks with my hands on the hot and cold taps. My heart does a little dance before twisting them on. How much water is left in the tank? How much did they use up in the shower, trying to get all the infected blood off me? How much was in it when we got here? I cup my hands under the stream and splash my face. The last of sleep is washed away and I’m really awake now and I’m not sure that was a smart thing to do. I keep the tap ru

Of course there are.

I turn the water off and leave the bathroom. Instead of heading back to the auditorium, I wander in the opposite direction, where I thought I heard the footsteps I imagined go.

I don’t know why I need to chase this nightmare.

The sound of my bare feet against the cold floors is u

It’s been so quiet since the gas station.

I wonder what it looks like out there. I wonder what my house looks like. I miss my room, my bed. In my room, at home, I slept with the window open in the summer, listened to the cars go by, to the leaves on the maple outside rustling against each other when the wind was just right. Lily used to sneak out through my window, scale that tree up and down …

Someone is behind me.

I whirl around. My side co

“Dad?” I call. “Dad—”

The man squares his shoulders. He begins a slow turn, but I feel like if I see him the world is going to come down on me. I don’t want to see him. I can’t. I turn the flashlight off and run blindly back to the auditorium and then I’m at Grace’s side, shaking her awake again.

“Grace, wake up, wake up, please, please, please—there’s something—there’s someone in the school, someone got in—”

I sit on my mat with Grace’s arm around me, while Cary, Rhys, and Trace shuffle in after doing a sweep of the building. Cary is rumpled but awake, very hung over, and judging by the way he’s looking at me, so not impressed. I don’t care. I pick at my fingernails, trying to distract myself because if I don’t, I will lose it. Harrison is on Grace’s other side. He’s too terrified to talk, was too terrified to help the others look. But there’s nothing for him or me to worry about because there is no one else in this school. No one else is in this school.

No one.

“It’s just us.” Cary rubs his eyes. “Jesus, I could have used twelve more hours.”

I bury my head in my knees.

“It’s okay,” Grace says, rubbing my back. I melt at her warmth. It goes straight to the deadest parts of me. “It was probably a nightmare.”

“How’s your head feel?” Rhys asks.

“Go to hell,” I mutter. I feel Grace’s surprise and then I forget the only two people that know Rhys and I are not okay right now are me and Rhys.

“I’m just saying—”

“It’s not that.”

But maybe it is that.

“Has it happened before?” Grace asks.

This is the worst moment, walking myself into that question. My silence is as good as yes and then she starts in with this gentle line of questioning—when, where were you, how did you feel. I go as far back as the nurse’s office in my recounting but I don’t tell them about those first few days after we got here when I imagined his cologne. Except if I knew the cologne wasn’t real and I think this is, then maybe I did hear someone in the hall, I did.

Didn’t I?

“No one could get in,” Cary says firmly. “We made sure of that.”

It’s morning. When I look at the windows overhead, the sky is gray-white and I think it might rain. Maybe they’re right. No one is in this school. Maybe it’s just me, my head.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

Cary crouches in front of me. His closeness sends Grace to her feet. She moves away from both of us. There is this moment before she goes, though, where her eyes meet his.

“You’ve been hurt. You got scared,” Cary says. “It happens.”

It happened.

Everyone treats me way too nicely because of the things I think I’ve seen. They don’t want me to feel awkward but it makes me feel awkward. I last about half the morning in their company, trying to act more okay than I feel when the whole charade starts to get to me and I excuse myself. I decide to retrace my steps last night and I’m all of five minutes alone before Rhys shows. I want to tell him to go away, but what does it matter. He’ll always be here.

All of us will always be here.

This place is a coffin.

“So are you trying to scare us all out of the school?” Rhys asks. “Am I going to have to watch you to make sure you’re not going to fuck with us so you can find some dramatic way to leave?” I don’t say anything and he studies me. “If you’re not lying, it could be a concussion or something. Underneath that bandage, you’re missing a chunk of your forehead. It’s probably going to scar.”

My hand moves to the bandage. I push at it.

The sting is so sour I can almost taste it.

“Why are you out here?” I ask him.

“Why are you?” he asks back.