Virulent: The Release

by Shelbi Wescott

  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.

  This was ridiculous. The overreacting. The fear.

  “Bears are not trying to poison me,” she thought to herself. “Bears are not trying to poison me.”

  There was no way that any of this amounted to anything remotely exciting. She just needed her damn homework so she could go on vacation with her family. For a moment, she thought of just walking with confidence down toward her locker, and if a guard stopped her, she would just say with calm precision, “My ride to the airport is waiting outside. I just need my Ray Bradbury book and I’ll be on my way.”

  The walkie-talkie crackled again, but it was moving away from her. Further down the hall it traveled. A man’s voice, some security guard, sounded an “All Clear” for the science and main hallways. The talking turned a corner, toward the cafeteria, and away from her.

  Two minutes.

  With a deep breath, Lucy hesitated. Then, without thought, she sprinted, running as fast as her legs would carry her, shoes slapping heavily on the tile. She closed her eyes and ran; straight by lockers and classrooms, past the front of the building and the main office, they were all a blur as she sped down the wide stretch of hallway.

  Then, she rounded the corner toward the English hall. Within eyesight of her locker, she slowed her pace, her heart beating with rapid thumps against her chest, blood pounding in her ears. Then her body flew forward. Pain shot up her legs and arms as she hit the tile with a crash, knocking the air out of her body. She landed on her elbows and knees and slid forward several feet before stopping. Her head caught the metal of a locker—a burning pain traveled from the top of her ear and all the way down her neck.

  After a few moments, Lucy collected her composure and took in a giant gulp of air. She hoisted herself into a sitting position and then turned to see what had caused her fall.

  And that was when she saw the body.

  Crumpled in a heap, like someone dropped a wet rag on the floor and left it there.

  She scooched herself backward, her feet slipping against the tile, until she felt her back hit the hardness of the lockers. It was a boy, his face turned in her direction, his eyes open and staring past her; one eye, one-solitary eye, was filled with blood, the blackness of the pupil still peeking through the bright red. It was a freshman she didn’t recognize.

  One minute.

  Lucy stood up, viscerally aware of how her knees wobbled together. Her heart thumped wildly in her chest; pulsating outward all the way to her fingertips. As if walking on a small ledge, she high-stepped along the row of lockers, until she reached her own and only then did she turn around, her hands shaking as she spun the lock.

  Nine.

  Twenty-six.

  Seventeen.

  There was a dead boy in the hall.

  A dead boy in the hall.

  Someone left a dead boy in the hallway.

  And yet she was still fully fixated on her homework and getting the hell out of there.

  She couldn’t shake the boy’s image as she pulled up and opened the locker with a click. Lucy grabbed her big purple binder that was covered in Salem’s doodles, political cartoons, and a photo of her family stuck on one side and a picture of her holding Harper on the other. She dropped the binder into the backpack and then grabbed her copy of Fahrenheit 451, sliding it into the bag and zipping it up. Only then did she realize she had been holding her breath and she let it in one giant hot gush. Voices down the hall snapped her to attention. Men’s voices, conversational, but hushed.

  Time was up.

  The voices were gaining on her.

  No more than thirty feet away were the doors leading outside. Lucy could hear the distant sounds of sirens traveling up the street. Ethan was out there, waiting for her, and her mother and her family were at home. They had a plane to catch. This couldn’t be happening; she had a plane to catch.

  Lucy struggled to wrap her mind around the evidence—the lack of students, the dead classmate. The lockdown. Her fear was intense; Lucy gnawed on her bottom lip until she tasted blood.

  Her time was up.

  The voices approached. To run to the door now would risk exposure. To wait would risk abandonment. She ducked into the closest classroom, grabbed the handle and shut the door without making a noise. Then she reached for her phone. It blinked with three unread messages. Amidst the panic she had not felt the phone pulsating in her pocket.

  The first was a cryptic message from her mother:

  “Not what we expected. Please come home. Please come home. NOW.”

  The second was from Ethan:

  “Mom needs me. She called. She was frantic. Bawling. Screaming. Going home. Taking Anna. We will come back for you. Sit tight.”

  The third was from Salem:

  “My family is dead. They’re all dead. It’s the end of the world.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Lucy collapsed against the door.

  She closed her eyes and listened as the footsteps reached her and then passed her without incident.

  When she opened her eyes, she cried out and then flung her hand over her mouth.

  Splayed outward in the center of the classroom was another body. A man. His green Levis crept up to his mid-calf, exposing pink and gray argyle socks. The acidic smell of vomit wafted from his direction. Dried blood pooled on the floor, it had trickled down from the twisted mouth, opened wide as if in protest. His skin was yellow and waxy, and his eyes glassed over with a thin film, giving them the appearance of having cataracts.

  Lucy knew that she was looking at Mr. North: Senior English teacher, recently married, advisor to the chess club. He was young and funny and impeccably dressed—a combination that added up to an adoring fan club of bright-eyed girls. She turned her head and then she saw the other bodies. A girl, head on her desk and a boy right next to her. And more. Six people altogether.

  Some looked like they had sat down and fallen asleep, but others were a twisted mess of limbs and clothing.

  She shook her head. A scream caught in her throat.

  Lucy dialed her house number on her phone and hit send, but the phone beeped angrily at her. She dialed again. It beeped. Her screen flashed an angry All Circuits Busy message. Busy. Busy. Busy.

  Lucy stuck the phone in her pocket and stood up; she gathered up her white shirt and pulled it over her nose and mouth—the futility of this act was not lost on her, but Lucy didn’t know what else to do. She pushed her anxiety away and focused as best she could. Was this related to the dogs? What was happening? Would this happen to her? Had it happened to her family? Where was Ethan? Would he really come back? The questions flooded her brain, and ran in a loop, like a clip playing without stop.

  Staying in the room with the dead was not an option, and it was not a fear of the bodies, but a fear of what killed them. Lucy peered out into the hallway and discovering it quiet, left the room with her bag hoisted up on her shoulder. She rounded the corner toward the social studies hall and froze.

  Scattered up and down the long hallway were more dead students.

  Like the ones before, many of these victims had thrown-up prior to collapsing. They bled from their eyes,
noses, and mouths; under the bright florescent lights of the high school, their skin took on a green tint. For the first time, Lucy noticed that one boy was covered in hives. The sickness did not bother her, but the smell was overpowering. While Lucy was certain from her biology classes that decomposition wouldn’t begin for hours or days, these bodies already seemed to bloat and smell like decay. Frozen in the hallway, she watched one boy, eight or ten feet away, and waited to see the subtle movement of his chest—waited to see his breathing resume.

  This is what she did during movies after key characters died. She ignored all other dialogue and just watched and waited to see if she could spot the imperceptible movement of life. A short breath or small twitch. Most of the time, the camera cut away before she could see it, but sometimes she was rewarded with the slight rise and fall of an actor’s chest. Then she would clap her hands and jump the scene backward, watching again, pointing out the subtle movement to anyone around.

  It was a reminder that this death was not final.

  But the boy in the hallway didn’t move, didn’t breathe. He didn’t sit up and laugh and wipe away the blood—corn syrup and food coloring—from his mouth and ask if that was it for the day. This was real.

  Her mother’s text haunted her.

  In some way, she was comforted by being at the school and staring at this lifeless body of a stranger, instead of facing the grim reality that someone at home had fallen ill after she and Ethan ran off.

  Where were all the living people? Where were her friends and teachers? Why was the school achingly quiet? When would Ethan come back for her? Her nagging questions changed direction. She now had one singular focus: Wait for Ethan.

  “No one can see me,” she muttered to herself. “No one can know I’m here.” Her hand shook as she raised it to her face to wipe away a flyaway strand of dirty-blonde hair.

  Lucy glanced inside the small rectangular window of a door to a social studies classroom and found it void of bodies and movement. She stepped inside and pushed the closest desk against the door, then another, barricading herself from the multitude of unknown threats with nothing more than cheap furniture. World maps covered the walls, stuck into the thin cardboard walls with multi-colored tacks; a globe had been knocked from its perch on a front table—it had broken open and rolled a few feet and a large cavernous gash extended from the Atlantic Ocean and cut down into South America. Lucy kicked it to the side. Then she climbed up onto a table and tore down an American flag hanging uselessly next to the clock. Using masking tape, she affixed the flag over the small window—blocking the view from the outside. Security on patrol wouldn’t spot her easily and that was comforting.

  On the inside of the door, the teacher put up an old World War 2 propaganda poster. “He’s Watching You” it read, with a shady man peering out under his helmet. Lucy turned away from the figure’s militant stare.

  The large canvas blinds had already been drawn over the large windows, per lockdown instructions. While everything inside of her wanted to peek out and catch a glimpse of the parking lot, Lucy worried that even the slight rustle of a curtain would give away her position. So, she steered clear. With the lights off, the room was dark. Heat funneled through large vents above her, creating a warm, womblike atmosphere, which made Lucy feel claustrophobic.

  Creeping on her tiptoes, Lucy reached her hand up and flipped on the television in the corner. She pressed her pointer-finger on the volume button instantly, lowering it to just barely above mute.

  Then she stumbled backward and watched the images flood the screen.

  The emergency broadcast system ran below—a ticker of bright red, following by instructions. Stay inside your house. Threat origin unknown. Do not drink water from the tap. Avoid all fruits and vegetables. Avoid contact with infected people. Stay away from populated cities. This is not a test. Stay inside your house.

  Above the warnings, a young woman sat behind an anchor desk; her hair pulled up into a sloppy pony-tail; thick black glasses pushed up to the bridge of her nose; she was wearing a college sweatshirt, a coffee stain in the shape of the state of Florida above her right breast.

  “I’m getting word…” the girl said tentatively. She squinted her eyes—they darted back and forth as she tried to read the teleprompter, her lips curling around letters she hadn’t yet said. “That…” she leaned forward, adjusting her glasses, “the…center for disease control…is linking these attacks to several sources.”

  Attacks.

  “There is no...clear indication...of how the...vi—vi—virus,” she stopped and sighed. Then she glanced off camera, her eyes pleading.

  “I can’t do this, I’m sorry.” She started to tear at the microphone hooked on her sweatshirt. From the left, a man with a headset appeared, shaking his head and trying to get her to stay in her seat. But the young woman pushed herself past him and left him alone on the set. He turned toward the camera, his eyes wide. He opened and closed his mouth like a fish. Someone shouted something indecipherable; the man inched his way behind the desk and sat down, fumbled with the abandoned microphone, and pinned it on his own shirt. He then smiled a non-smile; his lips pulled upward, but his eyes were frantic.

  “Sorry ladies and gentleman about that. We’re experiencing some difficulties in studio. That was our sound design intern Jennifer. I am Tim…managing editor of KPSV news. Forgive our scattered delivery. We are trying to get everything to you as fast as we know it, but our communication is spotty. If you are just joining us, we can tell you, that many regions of our world today are experiencing great loss of life at the hands of a deadly, fast-acting, virus.”

  Lucy took a giant step away from the television. She lifted herself upon a desk, her legs swinging over the edge, and watched as the screen bathed her in a blue and green tint.

  “We are posting your updates and pictures now...if you can, keep sending them in. Our audience is our...are our...men and women in the field today.” Tim gulped, the microphone picking up on the sound of his swallow.

  Then the screen went blank for a long, agonizing, second, and an electronic hum replaced the frenetic voice of the newscaster. The silence was jarring, but Lucy didn’t move; she remained planted on the desk, sitting on her hands, her legs twitching.

  An image popped up. A familiar man. A nightly news anchor from some East Coast station—he was in his seventies with two hamsteresque eyebrows and a bad comb-over. Studio lights cast a yellow pallor over his face, and he wiped his brow while the sweat beads dripped down the side of his face. He addressed the camera, his voice strong and steady, and the familiar tone of it put Lucy at ease. In a world falling apart, here was something she knew and something recognizable she could cling to.

  “Good morning,” he said. “It is with a heavy heart that I address our nation today. The news is grave beyond these walls.”

  From outside the school, Lucy heard the unmistakable blast of a shotgun. She jumped, her heart pushing out painfully against her ribcage. She reminded herself to breathe and sucked in a shaky breath. She checked her phone. No new texts. She pushed her call log and tried to dial, but her phone would not relent to her request.

  The anchorman continued.

  “It appears our nation is under attack. Details, at this time, are few and far between. And we do not present this information to you to frighten you and your loved ones, but to express the importance of binding ourselves together to fight this unknown enemy.”

  A scream. A siren wail. From the street outside, a crash of glass breaking, tires squealing. Then nothing. An eerie disquiet followed. Lucy glued her eyes to the man talking to her, just her, from the box on the wall. A country away, he sat and addressed her fear. His authority comforted her and she was happy that he had answers. She felt a hot tear roll down her cheek.

  “It appears that over twenty-four hours ago, our water systems and the very air we breathe was contaminated. By what, we don’t know. By whom is only conjecture. While the sickness claimed its victims, nations began to
place blame. It appears that some of the loss of life today is based on retaliation from our political enemies as well as the initial biological threat. But to be honest, viewers...” The man dipped his head. Lucy saw his grief in the wrinkles around his eyes, the quivering of his chin. And then his heavy brows lifted and sank, but he continued.

  “We are a nation at war with several enemies. The bioterrorism is our first threat. The government is asking that you stay inside. Do not leave your house. If you find yourself away from home and need shelter, then schools and churches are our sanctuaries. Find one. Stay there. Our…”

  Thunk. Thunk. Lucy jumped. Someone was pushing against the door and sliding her carefully positioned tables forward. The flag came unfettered from the tape and drifted downward and an angry face from one of the school’s security guards peered through the glass, his eyes darting around the room—landing on the television before finally locking on Lucy. She dropped off the desk and rushed to the window, throwing wide the curtain, before realizing that these windows would never grant her an escape. But her eyes caught a glimpse of the world outside for one brief moment. It was long enough to see a tower of smoke billowing into the sky, and even the clouds looked yellow and green and hazy. This vantage point had her looking across the football field where a storm of people gathered huddled in masses, their tiny bodies approaching the school like a death-march.

  The security guard gained access to the room and he placed a hand on her shoulder and pulled her toward him. She stumbled into his grasp and felt her hopes of reuniting with her brother slipping away from her.

  On the screen, images from around the nation and around the world surfaced in a slideshow. Nurses in biohazard gear treating the sick, a man slumped over a steering wheel in the middle of traffic, the wreckage of a downed plane, and a young mother carrying a small bundle out of her house, agony written on every angle of her face.