“It’s almost peaceful,” Mei whispered.
A few of us nodded in agreement. Of course, Beverly couldn’t allow the moment to pass without disrupting it.
“Yeah, sure is…until you look down.”
We did, and in the flashes of lightning that lit up the sky, we saw what kept us locked inside our school, what had kept those dads from coming home to turn on that BBQ. Just as before, the Infected wandered around in no particular order and with no obvious direction in mind, their bodies bent to the side or tilted forward, their heads down in search of food.
“You know what, Beverly?” Doc blurted. “You can shut the hell up.”
“Excuse me?” she said, turning to glare at him.
“You’re so damn negative. If you were on the team you’d have been shoved in the shower and shaved down by now.”
“Excuse me?” she repeated, her offensiveness growing.
“By team,” I interjected, “he means the football team.”
“I know!” she spat.
By this point, Harrison and Mei were watching tensely to see where it might go, and Doc showed that he wasn’t finished. “I’m tired of your comments and your stupid sense of self-worth. You’re not as important as you think you are, Beverly.” Her jaw dropped farther, impossibly farther. “In fact…” He licked his lips in anticipation. “You’re not important at all anymore. The world isn’t about if your name’s on the ballot for prom queen or what color lipstick you just bought from Target.” I had to stop myself from laughing, knowing she’d never set foot in Target, and Doc went on to prove this point. “No one cares what clothes you wear anymore. No one cares who you’re dating anymore. No one cares! So when we’re standing up here and appreciating what we see – for the first time since the world has gone to hell – you can…JUST…SHUT…UP!”
Beverly, who had never been put in her place before, snapped her mouth shut, just as Doc had demanded. The rest of us stood in awkward silence, our heads now dipped toward the Infected below, avoiding the dissension between the two of them. No one came to Beverly’s defense, and the reason for it was clear. We were tired of her attitude and Doc, who was known for correcting others’ attitudes, stepped up to do it.
Wondering about Harrison’s reaction to what had just happened, I glanced to my side to find he was actually studying me. When my eyes landed on him, his striking features drew tight and his breath seemed to become trapped in his throat. I’d caught him, once again, taking me in, as I had done so many times over the last year. But this time was different. There was no thrill over the possibility he’d cross the room and start a conversation. I didn’t hope to be asked out. As Doc had pointed out, neither of those approaches would work now, not in this uncertain world. This time was different because we knew each other now, we’d spoken, told each other about our families, seen each other act under extreme circumstances, and despite all of that, there was still electricity between us. That sizzle made me want to lean toward him, to reach out and touch him, to feel his skin make contact with mine. And it was more than comfort or security that drew me to him. Those were superficial wishes and I didn’t need either one of those to survive. No, the attraction I felt for Harrison ran much deeper. The intensity of his stare and the swell of emotions coursing through me made my shoulders grow rigid and my breathing cease. And I seemed to provoke the same reaction from him. Our concentration hung there, testing us, seeing if we had the resilience to keep the distance preserved between us, and it was only cut off by Beverly’s gasp and Mei’s simultaneous utterance.
“No…,” she breathed, the word carrying with it a powerful note of fear.
My eyes darted to each of them and then back to the city, in the direction of their gaze. The street lights blanketed before us began blinking off, one by one, in large square blocks. They did this silently without fizzle, without a bang. They simply went out, leaving us standing in the inky blackness broken only by the intermittent flashes of lightning in the distance. It was as if the city was saying to us, “Good night, Survivors. In case you didn’t know it yet, this is your warning sign. You’re on your own now.”
In the dark, Doc drew in a slow, deep breath and exhaled shakily. “Okay….”
Beverly’s response was a little more dramatic. “What the fu-”
Mei nervously interrupted, asking no one in particular, “Do you think the water and gas will go out too?”
After an apprehensive pause, Harrison was the only one to reply. “Utilities need to be maintained.” He didn’t need to add for our benefit that there probably wasn’t anyone left to do it.
“Okay,” Doc muttered. “Okay…” I got the impression that he was nodding his head.
Beverly sighed loudly. “Great… Just perfect…”
My only reaction was to draw my hand to my waist and retrieve the guard’s flashlight I had hung through a loop.
A sharp charge of thunder snapped at us and I saw Doc step back.
“The storm looks like it’s getting closer,” Harrison mentioned. “We should head back inside.”
We did, using my flashlight and Beverly’s and Doc’s cell phones for light. Inside, the halls were pitch black with the halo of our light sources casting only enough illumination to see halfway down. Since our school’s lights had been set to remain on twenty-four hours a day, especially in the higher traffic areas or locations which would deter vandals, it hadn’t felt like anything other than familiar, sterile, cold, indifferent. Now, without the light and with the storm rumbling outside, it was intimidating, and the entire group walked in close proximity to one another until we’d reached the main hallway.
The piles Beverly, Doc, and Mei had assembled were still there, forming small mountains which we veered around. We stopped only at the electronics heap to scour for flashlights. There were two, which Beverly and Doc took. When we stopped at the spot in the hall where we’d slept the night before, the location where we all seemed to feel most comfortable, we looked at each other for a long while. It was Harrison who broke the uncomfortable silence.
“I’ll hang out here for a while and then I’ll make my rounds.”
Beverly sighed, leaned against a locker, and slid down to the tile where she tried her dad again. When his voicemail came on, it broke our frozen stances and the rest of us took a seat on the floor. During the silence that followed a flash of lightning sent shadows from the main entrance’s glass doors and down the hall. Beverly’s head swiveled to stare absentmindedly in its direction. Maybe it was the bleak, empty hallway that did it. Maybe it was the flashlights’ desolate streams of light crisscrossing the tile, illuminating only our legs and a little of our torsos and faces. Maybe it was the lights going out as a sign that fewer and fewer people existed beyond the main entrance doors. Maybe it was the abrupt rebuke Doc had given her on the roof a few minutes earlier. Whatever it was, Beverly finally mentioned where she thought her dad might be.
“He’s held up,” she said to herself. “Held up, stuck somewhere…just like us. That’s why he hasn’t reached me yet.” We looked at her and then my eyes met Harrison’s. He shook his head, almost imperceptibly.
When no one answered, she spoke again, and I understood why he’d suggested we keep quiet. She was trying to tell herself the truth, and as with all things Beverly, she had to do it in her own way, on her own time, independent of anyone else. “It’s the second day. He wouldn’t leave me here this long if he had a choice.” A sharp jab of guilt hit my stomach, stunning me. I forced myself to exhale through the discomfort, which brought Harrison’s concerned eyes back to me. In a silent signal, I shook my head, telling him not to bring it up. Beverly would be in far greater pain than me in just a second because she was on her way to breaking free of her denial and realizing that the horrors outside weren’t limited to everyone else, that she wasn’t immune to it, and that her dad hadn’t been either. Then, she opened her mouth, making a statement that absolutely and completely confounded me.
“I’ll just need to
make the most of it while I wait for him to get here.”
As I sat in stunned silence, she licked her lips and dipped her eyes to her Jimmy Choo heels. Staring at them, she stated casually, “These are eight hundred and fifty dollars, from Bergdorf.”
After a brief pause, Doc tipped his head at his feet. “These are Nike’s right off the shelf at Footlocker: on sale for fifty-nine ninety-nine.”
Laughter erupted, although he couldn’t understand why, and suddenly the dark hallway, illuminated only by small beams from our flashlights and the frequent flash of lightning from outside, didn’t seem so overwhelming.
From there, the conversation turned to sports and whether we’d have crushed Meadowbrook High on Friday night. That led to stories about the coaches, which turned into stories about the teachers. I never knew, until that moment, that Mrs. Doyle kept a bottle of Jack Daniels in her car to take a swig before classes started each day, and I doubt Mr. Packard did either; or that Mr. Wertzle slept through his quizzes, giving everyone in class the chance to cheat, because he was tenured; or that Mr. Nielsen, the janitor, had three degrees in biochemistry and only pushed a broom for a living because it was less stressful than managing five hundred biochemists.
Eventually, the storm passed and the night went silent, and one by one we fell asleep. Mei’s head went down first, landing on Doc’s shoulder again. He left her there and lowered his voice as he spoke so she wasn’t disturbed. Oddly, he appeared contented by it. Then he yawned, closed his eyes and didn’t bother opening them again. Beverly turned her nose up at the sight and made some comment about the end of the world being a good time to hook up. Then she rolled to her side and told us to keep it down. Only a few seconds passed before we heard her heavy, sleep-induced breathing.
“We’ll need to find better beds tomorrow,” Harrison suggested and then flinched. The very topic of a bed made him uncomfortable and I wondered if he’d thought about me in one before. I took some satisfaction in that.
“You think we’ll be here for a while,” I said.
“I didn’t think that, until tonight.”
“Until the blackout,” I clarified.
“Right.”
Without either of us saying it, we knew the lights going out was a turning point for all of us.
“No one’s coming,” I stated. “There will be no rescue party.”
“No,” Harrison said in his typical no-nonsense approach. “There won’t.”
There was really nothing to say, no reason for tears or a frown. All that would do is contort my face and flood my eyes again, so I simply nodded.
“I’m glad we talked the day it happened,” he said, reflecting.
My head tilted to the side. “Why?”
“Because,” he said and paused to sum up his reasoning. “If we hadn’t, I’m not sure we’d be together right now.”
I didn’t reply immediately, and instead took the time to evaluate what he’d said. He was correct. I probably would have been on my way to homeroom when the Infected reached our school, and that would have placed me somewhere else in the building. Of course, I had skills that would have kept me alive a little longer, hand-to-hand combat for example, but that side of the building had taken a bigger beating. There were more bodies there, Mr. Packard being one of them. My survival prospects would have been far more questionable if Harrison hadn’t crossed the hallway and delayed me. I hadn’t realized it until now, but his choice to finally breach our unspoken agreement of avoidance had very possibly saved my life. It was ironic that he had just admitted he appreciated the fact that we’d somehow ended up in the same place at the same time and I had come to that same conclusion yesterday.
“I’m glad you’re here, Harrison.”
A crooked smile lifted his gorgeous lips. “As much as I don’t want it to be the case, it’s good to hear you say that.”
“Because you want to keep your distance from me.”
The smile flickered back to his face and disappeared. “You don’t heed warnings, do you?”
I laughed through my nose. “Never.”
He joined in with a chuckle before suddenly pushing himself to his feet. “Well,” he said as if we were having a casual conversation and not a sorting out of willpowers. “This time the choice isn’t up to you. I’m going to keep my distance, Kennedy, because there’s enough danger in the world right now as it is. You don’t need me adding to it.” I opened my mouth to argue with him, which he saw coming and cut me off. “Get some sleep. It’ll be dawn soon and we’ll need to empty the rest of the lockers.”
He turned before I could respond and headed down the hall. The flashlight he took created a cone of illumination that started with him and stretched several locker sections ahead. His profile was enticing so I watched him leave, noticing the sturdy broadness of his shoulders, the determination in the way he moved, the steady, assured pacing of his steps. He was tough, physically and mentally, and that told me that he meant what he said. He’d keep his distance. I kept my eyes on him until he turned the corner and then I turned off my flashlight and looked out the glass doors on the opposite end. It was absolutely quiet now, no thunder claps or subsequent rattling from their compression blasts. The only exception, if you listened closely and really focused in on it, was the faint growling that drifted up from the parking lot below.
The next thing I knew it was morning, and Beverly was snapping her fingers in my face.
“Wake up,” she said, obviously annoyed. “Come on, damn it. Wake up!”
“I’m awake!”
“Good. Where’s Harrison?”
I wondered if she even realized that she had just woken me up. “How would I know?”
She sighed irritably.
“Why?”
She rolled her eyes before stating impatiently, “He’s strong. I need the locks broken on the girls’ shower room lockers. I’m going to take a shower. And I need soap.”
“Use mine.”
Her lips almost curled up, but she held it back. “Is it in a bottle?”
“Are you kidding me?” I retorted. “Yes, it’s in a bottle.” I wanted to add that beggars can’t be choosers. “It’s locker 8F. The combination is 35-10-6.”
She didn’t move. “Will you come with me?” She said this in a way that reminded me of a toddler. I’d seen that face once before, when she’d asked to borrow a sweater she’d been drooling over since I first wore it to school. Her face had retracted to its typical bored indifference immediately after I consented, and it did the same now.
“Hurry,” she said, already turning and heading for the girls’ locker room. “I feel grubby. Besides, none of us should go anywhere alone,” she added.
Apparently, that rule didn’t apply to Harrison, who she’d apparently forgotten was on his own during the nights as he made his rounds.
Thinking of him, I asked my question in a roundabout way so as not to clue her in. “So where is everyone?”
“Mei and Doc are in the library. She said something about figuring out biological pathogens.”
“That should be fun reading,” I mumbled.
Beverly snickered. “For her… Apparently not for Harrison, though.”
“Why?” The mere mention of his name cleared away any lingering sleepiness.
“I’m not a mind reader, Kennedy.”
I sighed, wondering why she had to be so difficult. Trying again, I asked, “What did he do to make you think he wasn’t happy about them researching the Infected?”
“He looked…irritated.”
“Huh,” I said to myself. “I’ve never seen him that way.”
Her eyes lit up suddenly and she twisted halfway toward me in excitement. “So there is something going on between you two!”
This was exactly the kind of annoying behavior that had driven me away from her in the first place. One would think she would have overcome her lust for gossip in the face of all that had happened, but no. Beverly was who Beverly was. “Do you know where he is?”
“I heard you two last night,” she said, as if that were an answer. “Talking. Sounded like there was something going on between you.”
Instantly, my back stiffened, both because she was eavesdropping and because I didn’t want anyone to know my true feelings. The only way to avoid flaming the gossip she would start was to ignore her. So I did just that and asked again while keeping my tone complacent, “Do you know where he is, Beverly?”
“You could have had any guy in school, Kennedy. Any guy. And yet you chose the Lone Ranger.” She said this while shaking her head in pity for me.
“So you don’t know where to find him?” I followed up.
“Guys would come up to me all the time, testing the waters and ask me about you.” She paused to look me up and down. “Even after you started dressing like a sniper. If they only knew it took cowboy boots and a transfer slip…”
“It took more than that,” I countered.
“Oh?” she said, taunting. “I knew you two had a history.”
I really didn’t care to go into it, so I excused myself by reverting back to the original subject. “Okay, since you don’t know where to find Harrison, I’ll ask Doc or Mei.”
She sighed, openly disappointed that she wasn’t getting any information from me. “He’s finishing his walk around the school. We’re supposed to meet them at the main entrance at ten.”
“Ten…” I repeated. That seemed like a long way off.
“To finish the lockers…obviously.” Her head tilted to the side, suddenly in deep reflection. “Maybe we’ll find something actually wearable. We’re getting close to Jane Mayer’s locker. She had a good style.”
Beverly referring to Jane in the past tense unnerved me and I had to remind myself that it was Beverly’s tough exterior that kept her interior functioning. Still, I didn’t bother speaking to her again until we’d reached the girls’ locker room. Beverly and I pulled the necessary bottles from my locker and then she disappeared into the shower.
Haven (Apocalypse Chronicles Part 1) Page 11