Virulent: The Release

by Shelbi Wescott

  “No one saw you? No one followed you?” Grant asked.

  Salem looked at him, her mouth closed, assessing his presence and then realizing there was an absence of anyone else in the room. “Grant Trotter,” she stated matter-of-factly.

  “Hey Salem,” he said back and then: “And no one saw you?”

  “Jeez, the inquisition. No one saw me.” She collapsed on to the couch and rubbed her eyes with her heels of her palms. “You have no idea how happy I am. I am really glad to see you two,” she said, with her eyes still covered.

  And then her chin began to quiver.

  Lucy sat down next to her friend and watched as Salem let loose and her shoulders shook with rolling sobs. Salem hardly ever cried. She got angry and scared and she yelled and kicked inanimate objects, but she rarely turned her sadness, fear, or nervousness into tears. It was Lucy who was the crier—misting up when teachers corrected her in stern tones, spilling tears over poor exam scores or if her parents wouldn’t let her go to the movies. But these twenty-four hours had turned Salem into a blubbering mess. No one could blame her.

  Salem turned. “I walked to school, you know? Walked here. I tried to drive, but after I got off my street, it was a total traffic jam. People were getting out and just abandoning their cars. Sirens everywhere and yet the ambulances couldn’t get through.” She let out a small gasping hiccup and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. In a swift motion, Salem clutched at her crucifix necklace and held the small golden Jesus tightly in her hand. The necklace was a prized possession given to her by her father at her quinceañera. Her mother had wanted to give her a locket, but Salem helped pick this necklace out herself. The icon was a rich gold, the cross, encrusted with tiny diamonds.

  Ethan once mocked the necklace one day while Salem lounged on their couch after school. “You’re wearing a dead guy around your neck,” he said. “And that doesn’t make you creepy?” But Salem’s response was quick and ruthless; catlike she pounced, slapping Ethan across the face with an open-palm. Not hard enough to hurt, but he recoiled and rubbed his cheek.

  “Que dios tenga pieda de tu alma,” she spouted as he nursed his wound. “I can forgive a lot. But never blasphemy.”

  “My God is better than your God,” he replied, standing up and running behind their couch. Reckless teasing always turned into a game for him. But Salem wasn’t laughing.

  “The Kings have no God,” she muttered. Then sulked back to the couch; staring blankly ahead, waiting for Lucy to intervene, but Lucy never knew what to say. Salem’s faith was a novelty in their household and they tolerated it like she was an exotic pet, allowing her bizarre rituals out of curiosity.

  Out of the hole in the ceiling, Clayton lowered his head, his hair tumbling downward and obstructing his face. Salem screamed when she saw him and scrambled off the couch toward the door, continuing to let out worried cries until she saw Grant and Lucy’s confused stares.

  She put a hand over her chest and inhaled. “It has not been a good morning for surprises,” Salem said between gasps. “Next time. Warn me. If you know there is a guy in the ceiling.”

  “Thought I’d check again. Y’all coming?” Clayton called. “I didn’t know if I should wait or not?”

  Grant made a move toward the ladder. “Yeah, wait up,” then he turned back to the girls. “Coming now?” he asked, looking first to Lucy, then to Salem.

  Lucy stared at the ladder and she stood up as if she was ready to go. She paused, looking back and deferring to Salem.

  Salem let out a low whistle. “I’m not going back outside there. Took enough effort to get inside today, I don’t think I’m up for a repeat attempt.”

  “Lucy?” Grant asked expectantly.

  Lucy shook her head. “I’m with Salem. I stay with her.”

  “This place is a prison. And Spencer said he wanted everyone out,” Grant replied.

  Without saying a word, Salem lifted the side of her shirt. She held it high enough to expose a patch of skin along her ribs and then she tucked the loose end into her bra. Running from her stomach, up her side, was a long red stripe; her skin puckered at the end, a dark hole covered in dried blood.

  “What is that?” Lucy asked, rushing over. “Sal! What happened?”

  “A man tried to stab me today,” Salem responded.

  “What the—” Grant muttered and took two steps back toward the girls. “How? Why?”

  “Over my water bottle. When I got out of my car, I took a water bottle for the walk. Halfway to school and this guy comes from nowhere and demands I give it to him. I refuse and he tries to grab at my clothes, we struggled, I don’t know what happened, and then I just feel this pain in my side. When he was gone, I looked down, and I had this long scratch.”

  “A scratch?” Lucy looked at Salem her mouth open. “My friend Salem would never call this a scratch. You’d have called me and told me you were bleeding to death.”

  Salem moved away from the door and back to the couch, she untucked her shirt and let it fall back over the slash mark. “You weren’t out there when the news broke today. You didn’t see everything with your own eyes…the bodies, everyone so afraid…” Salem choked on all her words.

  “Go,” she motioned toward the ceiling, “go if you need to. But the threat outside is unknown...the sickness, the fear, the fighting and rioting and the looting. It’s war out there. There are guns and fires. People are assaulting each other.” Salem’s eyes went vacant, remembering. Then she rolled on to the couch, tucking her knees up along her belly.

  Lucy sat down beside her. Grant hesitated.

  “Grant, the threat inside is known. One man. Honestly, the fact that he wants people out of here is helping us. Maybe that’s what we want.” Salem closed her eyes and then continued, “We can make it work here. You weren’t out there today, Grant, Lula. You didn’t see it. You survived the hardest part and now we just need to survive the next part.”

  “Survive what?” Lucy asked. “What are we surviving?”

  Salem pointed a shaky finger at the room’s TV and Lucy walked over to it and stood on her tiptoes and hit the power button and then she took a giant step back. Grant looked at both girls for a long minute and then he climbed up the ladder; he rested at the top, closed his eyes, his shoulders slumped. Then he motioned for Clayton to continue on without him, and he descended back down to join Lucy and Salem as they glued themselves to the footage of a world descending into mayhem.

  The emergency broadcast ticker still scrolled its perpetual warnings.

  The pictures were from around the world. Houses in flames, bodies in the street. The US military sprinting into action—armed with gas masks and semi-automatic weapons.

  But the picture that made Lucy sick was that of a downed plane; its tail was upright and the body was almost fully submerged in the Columbia River with waves licking and slapping the sides in poetic rhythm. No survivors, the caption read.

  They wouldn’t have.

  They wouldn’t have boarded that plane without her.

  Maxine King would never have allowed it. There was solace in that single thought—her mother would never leave a child behind. She shook away the image of her family in that plane with their terrifying last moments and life flashing before their eyes. This was not the way it ended, not for her, and not for them. Lucy felt like she would know if her family was gone because she would feel the loss inside her. And she didn’t feel hollow and empty; she didn’t feel limbless and alone. In her marrow she knew the King family was thriving, and they would come for her as Ethan promised. But knowing that didn’t cure how much she missed them. It was an ache so powerful that her legs started to give out, and she tumbled to the floor, the coldness of the tile seeping through her pants.

  “Sal?” Lucy asked, turning toward her friend. “Momma and Dad Aguilar?”

  Salem didn’t move a muscle; her hand still glued to her necklace. After a long moment of silence, she looked down to Lucy. “I’m not ready…I can’t.” Then Salem t
urned to Grant, wiping her nose, “How about you? Your family?”

  He shook his head. “Normal when I left.”

  “Nothing was normal,” Lucy replied. She pointed at the screen. “This was a planned attack against us. It was totally calculated.”

  The screen skipped and buzzed—a jolt of static, a mechanical purr. A stark studio appeared and the newscaster from before faced the audience. Again, there was comfort in his appearance, by this small idea that something out there was still up and running like it was supposed to; the world had not quit yet. Here was someone, someone familiar, who was not gone.

  But when he opened his mouth to speak, his voice wobbled dangerously.

  He addressed his audience.

  “We are in a dire place my fellow Americans. We are at a place untraveled before in our history. By the time the sun sets tonight, it is estimated that over ninety-seven…perhaps ninety-eight percent of our earthly population will have succumbed to the act of bioterrorism unleashed upon us. No group has come forward to take credit for the attack, but it is clear that this group was not trying to send a message. They were simply trying to destroy the earth and everyone on it. The loss of life today has been staggering either through direct contact with the virus or as part of a side effect. That means...if you are watching this...you...me...we are one of the few. The very few.”

  Salem reached out and grabbed Lucy’s hand, sliding her fingers between all of Lucy’s fingers until their skin melted together with body-forgetfulness—as if their hands didn’t know where one person started and one person stopped. Lucy let those numbers sink in. Ninety-eight percent of their city was dead or dying? In Portland, that meant there were no more than twelve thousand people still trying to cope in the aftermath of the virus. Not enough to fill up even half of the city’s soccer stadium. The statistics were overwhelming.

  “It is the decision of our dwindling numbers to cease broadcast. Whatever was released upon the world was a well-executed attack by a patient and cautious enemy. Our crops are contaminated, our water supply no longer safe to drink. The misting of some cities with a live virus was a secondary attack. I ask you, those of you here and with me, to remain aware and kind.”

  Grant slumped against the back of the couch. Lucy saw him wipe his eyes and she turned to look at him. Then with her free hand she reached out to him too, enveloping his clammy hand into her own. They sat there, connected in a line, bonded together with sweat and pain.

  “Whatever is left of our grieving earth will be divided into two. Victims of a senseless genocide and those who perpetrated this crime against humanity.”

  Off-camera someone spoke and a row of lights flickered and the newscaster’s eyes watched the studio dim. The TV station’s soundstage rumbled and the anchor desk swayed.

  “Earthquake?” Salem asked.

  “As we speak, this city is under attack. Fires are sweeping up streets destroying what is left. What you hear are...” the desk shook again, a facade of a cityscape toppled backward. “...bombs. It is unclear from where this particular...” A resounding clap; the camera shook and glass broke. “...attack is coming from. But we call to you to be ever vigilant and kind. We will rise from the ashes, but we cannot rebuild on the back of evil.”

  The screen erupted with golds and yellows, oranges and then nothing. Only blackness.

  The trio sat in stunned silence before Salem peeled her hand free and disappeared to the computer. She tapped the mouse and watched the screen come to life; then she opened a browser and scrolled.

  “It’s like there aren’t any journalists left,” she said. “None of the news sites have been updated in hours.”

  “But the feeds?” Grant asked. They hoped the Internet was not gone completely, although they all knew it was a matter of time before that piece of their world disappeared too.

  And Salem’s head moved up and down slowly. “People are still updating as they can. And I can’t even process it. Come read this stuff.”

  Together Lucy and Grant walked over to her, peering over her shoulder. They read the statuses and saw the pictures. Each of them gasping or turning away as the realization dawned on them.

  Someone had dropped a nuclear bomb on New York City.

  The virus had decimated the city first. And the fires and the fallout wiped it off the planet.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Ding-Dong.

  The group jumped at the interruption.

  The intercom clicked on.

  In that nanosecond between the end of the tone and the start of Principal Spencer’s slurred voice, each of them raised their head in anticipation. There was a sharp intake of breath, and then he launched, his breath hitting the microphone like a punctuation mark.

  “If anyone is out there…if anyone is left…you have five minutes to reveal yourself at the front office. After that time, I am closing the gates. Do you understand? I am closing the gates. You will lose access to an exit, to food, and to protection. And this will be my fortress. And I will not allow or tolerate intruders.”

  There was a loud crash. A shuffling. And then he returned to the intercom.

  “Am I clear? Five minutes. And if you don’t believe that I’m serious about protecting this place…my health…my building.” A shot rang out.

  Grant pointed at the ceiling speaker, “Did he just fire a gun?”

  Lucy nodded.

  “Please show yourself at the front office…because I am very welcoming with this gun!” Grant mocked, but his eyes were wide with shock and disbelief.

  Lucy nodded again.

  “A gun.”

  “He wants the school all to himself and if he can’t do that then he wants supreme rule over the minions,” Salem said. “Megalomaniac Spencer till the end. I never trusted that moron and I’m not about to deliver myself to him on a platter.”

  “I don’t think he’s crazy,” Grant challenged. “I think he’s scared.”

  Lucy looked at them and grimaced. “A man who is afraid for his own life is way more dangerous to us than just some power-tripping jerk,” she said.

  Despite the warning, they didn’t move.

  The metal gates were thick metal garage-like doors that descended from the ceiling and locked into the floor with the help from powerful magnets. They were impenetrable; designed to herd students like cattle away from classrooms and into community areas like the gym or the cafeteria. Once Lucy had attended a football game and wandered into the school during halftime. She didn’t get very far, stymied by the metal walls. Each time she tried to work her away around them, she encountered another and another.

  From the East Wing, the gates would lock at the start of the English hall and math halls and end just past the computer labs before the main part of the school. They would be left with a ‘U’ shape of accessibility, and Spencer’s warning rang true: The cafeteria, the teacher’s lounge, the front office—areas with access to food and water—the nurses station and the security office, all would be behind the gates which made it infinitely more difficult for them to sustain themselves for long periods of time.

  As the minutes ticked down, none of them made a move until Lucy rose from her crouched position in front of the screen and walked over to the door where a school emergency disaster plan booklet hung in a plastic cover. She took it out and walked back to the journalism teacher’s desk, rummaged for a highlighter, and then slapped the paper down in front of Salem and Grant.

  “Look,” she said and took the cap of the highlighter off with her teeth. “The gates will come down here and here.” She drew a line separating the hall to the gym and the auditorium and from the pool to the main office. “And here.” She highlighted the gates’ locations separating the English hall and the computer lab. “We’re locked in.”

  “Right,” Grant said. “Clearly.”

  “It’s to our benefit,” Lucy replied. “Spencer is keeping himself in the main office. And why not...he walks down the middle hallway and he has cafeteria access and with the except
ion of the cafeteria courtyard doors and the main entrance, he’s isolated himself from intruders too. But—” Lucy ran the highlighter over the English and math hallway and the East Wing. “He doesn’t have access to us either.”

  “That’s fine, but how will we eat?” Grant asked.

  “Easy,” said Salem. She pointed at the Boiler Room on the map. “Boiler Room. Next to the cafeteria. The gates going down don’t affect us. We have no reason to let him know we’re here. It’s a big building. We can hide.”

  Grant looked up to the ceiling and then down at the girls. “How long before he figures out we have open access to the roof and shuts us down?”

  “We’ll have to be careful, of course. And quiet. Figure out the best times to sneak in and back without detection, but it’s entirely possible to hunker down here and fly under the radar,” Lucy added. “I’m a little concerned about the roof though. We’ve created open access for anyone to get inside and people seeking shelter here won’t be deterred easily.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about that,” Salem said sadly. “If what the news guy says is true, then there won’t be many people left wanting to get in. Even by the time I climbed up, the numbers outside were...”

  “It’s about resources,” Grant interrupted, “not how many people are still alive. People will know the school has food. Eventually people will want inside.”

  “Then we make it hard for them.” Lucy walked over to the gaping hole and pointed at the ladder. “Without the table and the ladder, it’s a what...twenty foot drop? If we move everything away from the skylight and...I don’t know...glass shards?”

  At this suggestion, Salem laughed. “Glass shards? You been watching action-adventure movies in your spare time?”

  Lucy sat down on an empty chair and plopped herself into it and stared ahead. “It’s not like I’m good at this. It’s not like I woke up this morning and suddenly I’m an expert on how to booby-trap the journalism room. None of us are equipped for this. If we even live until morning, I don’t know how we’ll make it to the next day or the next.” Her tone was sharp, cutting in all the right places. Little daggers of truths wrapped in fear.