by Bryan Way
“You know… we have a lot of shit…” Mursak mutters.
“All the shit you have now, sir… is in your sphincter.” Anderson retorts.
“Uh, if it was in his sphincter, he’d be shitting it out.” Rich contributes.
“Naw, that thing on his face…” Mursak struggles to focus. “Mouth… that’s a sphincter… and he’s shitting out of it now.”
Caught flatfooted, Anderson purses his lips and blows a raspberry, ejecting masticated blobs of potato chips. The sight is enough to make all of us erupt into laughter. I hear Melody run by, now heading the opposite direction. “Hey, Landon!” Anderson shouts out. She stops in the following doorway, takes out her earbuds, and enters. “It’s your turn for a shot.” She thinks about it for a moment, and then saunters over. “You’re on.”
Anderson howls in appreciation, pouring her a shot of the Grey Goose Rich and I were enjoying the other day. “Someone’s gotta teach you motherfuckers how to drink.” She takes the glass, and, to our astonishment, presses it against her right cheek, rolls it across her lips, throws it back, and slides it across her left cheek in one motion, completing the act by dropping the empty glass into her vacant left hand. Anderson blows up in astonishment as Melody looks at the glass in shock.
“That was friggin’ awesome…”
“Surprised?” Rich asks.
“Most of the shit I drink burns.”
“Grey Goose, milady…”
“Bangin’.”
With that, she pops her earbuds back in and makes her way to the door while the four of us watch her ass. Anderson, Rich, and Mursak realize that we did this in unison a few moments later and suppress their laughter. Anderson offers me a shot, which I decline, citing my nightly duties. He insists again, so I decide to sip one. After a short and familiar discussion involving the highlights of our new vodka of choice, Mursak steers us in the direction he was heading earlier at about the same time that Anderson appears to be slipping in and out of consciousness.
“Hey… hey… hey…” He insists, affecting a Brooklyn accent. “You know how much shit we got…?”
“Yeah…?” I start.
“And we’re good… for a long time… we’re good.”
“Yeah, we got it made… GOT IT MADE!” Anderson shouts.
“And I’m always sayin’… we gotta get more. Right? I’m the guy…”
“Okay, so?” Rich asks.
“I’m just sayin’… I get to pick what I eat, right?”
“…yeah… we all get to pick…”
“I mean, like… what’s mine is mine…”
“What does that mean?” I ask.
As he starts his reply, Helen’s voice comes over the PA.
“Alcon 2, Alcon 2. Vehicle approaching. I repeat, vehicle approaching. Alcon 2.”
“What the fuck…” Anderson starts, popping out of his seat.
“Jake, get to the flank, copy?” Rich says into his radio.
We all scramble in a mad dash toward the door with Anderson turning out the lights before he exits the cafeteria.
“Jake, get to the flank, copy?” Rich repeats.
“Copy.”
“Gimme that…” Anderson arrests control of the radio. “Radios off… AlCon three… assemble in the keep… secure the kids… copy, Helen?”
“Copy.” She replies.
Helen repeats his commands over the PA as we rush up the steps. Mursak and Rich break off toward 218 while Anderson and I head to the classroom immediately next to the entry stairwell. As we jog down the hall, I realize that I’m mildly intoxicated, but the wash of adrenaline flowing through my veins has me alert. I don’t think any natural amount of adrenaline could sober Anderson.
Jake is already perched at one of the windows when we enter the flank, and I can see the snow heavily descending just outside. Anderson shoves Jake out of the way as I come up beside him. “M35.” He says before I can make it to the window. The twin headlights of a large military transport vehicle cut through the precipitation. A massive, angled snowplow attached to the front blows sparks off the asphalt as it crawls along the street just beyond our front yard.
Fear tightens its grip around my heart, followed by my bowels as I see an impossibly bright flashlight cut through the sky and point toward the auditorium. The light goes out a moment later, followed promptly by the engine cutting out and the headlights turning off.
“What the f-…” I burble.
“Quiet.” Anderson replies.
“Are they coming back…?”
“Quiet!”
Two men in camouflage hop out of the front cab, followed by four more from the back. I can’t be certain at this distance, but it looks like they all have automatic weapons.
“They’re not army.” Anderson says in shock.
“What?!”
“They’re not in formation…”
“What-…?”
“Get DOWN!”
Anderson speaks forcefully enough that I almost shit my pants. While Jake and I hug the floor, the top of Anderson’s head remains illuminated in pale blue light as he examines the scene with increasing desperation. In a move that carries the sensations of a nightmare, Anderson slowly stands and cracks open the window. I can’t speak, looking back to find Jake crawling toward the door. “SIX!” Anderson shouts through the slanted frame. He flails away from the window as an explosion blasts shards of glass across the room.
“FUCK! Move it!” Anderson orders, grabbing my shirt and pushing me toward the door. I don’t have time to ask what happened, finding myself hyperventilating as he shoves me toward the keep while Jake high-tails it in front of us. Everybody in the room is armed when we arrive, and as Anderson charges into the weapons closet, I try to control my breathing.
Before I can get a handle on the situation, Anderson comes out of the closet mumbling with rage, gruffly shoving one of the Kevlar vests into my arms as he cradles Rich’s shotgun. Before I bother trying to divine the plan, I run into the closet, use my inhaler, strap on the vest, throw on my trench coat, and arm myself with everything. “Come on…” Anderson says, prompting us all to follow him into the hallway.
“Lights off and stay in positions… no one fires until I do… these motherfuckers killed our guys at the checkpoint… NO QUARTER!”
“What are you talking about?!” Melody squeaks.
“They’re comin’ through the gate or the windows, so we man the battlements…” Anderson mutters, ignoring Melody. “Grey, Melody, Rich, Ally… top floor. Jake, Helen, Me, Sak, bottom. Me and Grey closest to the door… move out.”
“Wait, what the…?!”
I spin into the cluster of bodies huffing down the hall, again trying to regain some semblance of order. I spot Karen looking back at me in the same state.
“Karen, get the kids in the security office with Rob, can we trust him?” I ask.
“I… enough, yeah…”
“Good… got your pistol?”
“Yeah…”
“Don’t let him touch it… if it gets bad, go on the PA and say we’re surrendering in the main office… head to the pinnacle and barricade the doors. Radio on low, don’t use it.”
I turn and catch the end of Anderson giving the rest of the group an exaggerated grimace before pushing Melody’s rifle toward the ground, then doing the same for Ally and Jake. “Keep your fingers out of the god damn trigger guards until you’re ready to shoot!” With that, Anderson darts down the dark hall and we follow, heading toward the stairwell adjacent to the main entrance. Karen takes the kids, who are understandably mortified, into the security office with Rob. As Anderson’s group takes the lead, I shepherd mine, walking backward while I attempt to describe the situation as Anderson and I had previously discussed in snippets.
“Okay… we get in the doorways… they’re, what, four feet deep? Protects us from return fire, like castle battlements. Let’s go… me and Althea on the left, Melody and Rich on the right… Rich, you got Anderson’s gun?”
“You’re in the back. Melody, up front, across from me.”
“I’ve never used a gun before!” Ally protests.
“Tight to the shoulder, and squeeze the trigger, don’t jerk it… the lever under your hand reloads it… pull it down and away, hard, like John Wayne… aim for something small, like a button, and be ready for the recoil… you’re covering fire, so just don’t hit any of us…”
“No! Why can’t we just talk to them!?”
“Because they already shot at us…” I state. “Aim center.”
“Oh god, oh god…”
I notice that Melody is right handed.
“Melody, we’re switching, you take the left side up front.”
“Why?”
“You’re a righty… you’ll be less exposed when you shoot. Listen, I’m the only one who pokes his head out, okay? Maintain cover until the shooting starts… after you shoot, pull back and reload… listen for gaps in their fire before you shoot, and peek out to assess before you take a shot… if they’re drawing down, you take cover. If they get the upper hand, get on your radio to Karen. Do not take a shot until we hear shooting downstairs. Clear?”
Ally starts sobbing as she nods, but Rich and Melody seem ready. I think back on the amount of times I said the word ‘shoot’ and its derivations in the last few seconds. We’re going to shoot at people. I don’t think anything could have prepared me for this, short of someone drawing down on me. Luckily, perhaps, that has happened to me in the last two months.
After we’ve covered the necessary distance, we take our positions in the doorways, finding my assessment accurate; each classroom door is accompanied by a three foot depression in the concrete, giving us excellent cover. I glance back at Rich to see him unscrewing the suppressor, which is smart; firing from his position without a suppressor will allow him to draw return fire, which may give one of us a window to get off a clean shot. If we’re lucky, the confusion after the first few shots will make them believe there are more than eight of us, and though this is being put together at the last minute, the appearance of organization may have them pull out before a volley of bullets erupts.
There’s no procedure for what Karen should do if something happens to us, so I hope Rob’s okay enough for them to mount an exodus. If something happens to us? I hadn’t fully considered how horrifying it would be if Rich or Melody got shot until just now, and I feel I’ve failed to stress the importance of protecting their heads and torsos. Noticing how encumbered my shooting will be, I tear off my trench coat and toss it in the corner, then take off my katana and put the belt loop over the doorknob.
I hope nothing happens. I hope they’re just passing through. But if they were, why would they shoot at Anderson? My heart is pounding and my hands are shaking, and although I fear the lingering effects of alcohol will impede my shooting, I’m grateful for the sheen of detachment it has imparted me.
“Jeff?” Melody whispers.
“Yeah.” I reply quietly.
“…I’m still kinda drunk.”
“Me too. Think you can shoot?”
“I’m scared.”
“We all are. Got your mags?”
“Yeah… but what happens if we lose?” Melody asks.
“Don’t think like that… when you’re low on ammo, lay into the Glock. They won’t have cover, so shoot blind if you have to.”
“…okay.”
“Ally, Rich, watch that crossfire.” I say, only slightly louder. “Do not shoot blind. Everyone… chamber.”
Six weapons load in quiet succession as Rich calmly instructs Ally on how to chamber a round. Why does Anderson assume they’ll come through the gate? I suppose they’d make too much noise coming through the windows, and the school bus blockage is a dead giveaway. Shit. We should have pinched them off at the bus. Maybe if we’d fired a few shots from the door when they approached, they’d scurry off. What if we didn’t see a few headed toward the back? The school may or may not be Zombie proof, but it’s definitely not human proof.
“Headed up the gate… eight of ‘em…” Karen’s voice comes in over the PA with perfect precision. The PA doesn’t carry in the gate stairwell and can’t be heard from outside, so this announcement is restricted to us. In the silence that follows, I manage to hear a muffle of rhythmic sound; we left the CD player on in the cafeteria. The combination of bass and drums I hear can only be Climbing up the Walls. I consider taking up my radio to point this out, but realize quickly that it may be beneficial: they realize we’re in here, and the presence of music echoing in the halls may provide enough of a distraction to give us the upper hand.
I hear the door open in the gate. I look around to be sure that Melody, Rich, and Ally are all keeping themselves in cover, then turn my head around the painted cinderblock corner to my left until I find a position that reveals as little of me as possible. Silent conversation echoes in the stairwell. I then hear a person mounting the railing, followed by several more. I take a moment to adjust myself into a kneeling position so I can practice turning and drawing. If all of them go downstairs, Anderson and his group are in deep shit. If there’s no one up here when the firing starts, I’m going down the steps to catch them in crossfire. If they split up, we may have a chance. They’re trying to be stealthy, but I can hear steps ascending the stairwell with absolute clarity.
The door opens. An assault rifle pokes through first, followed by a dark figure with a dim green light near the top of its head. He looks directly at me. Night vision goggles. I freeze. An instant later, he looks back through the doorway and I hide my face, exhaling silently. The door stretches again, guaranteeing at least two up here. Depending on how quickly they move, they’ll be on Melody and me in between twenty and thirty seconds.
The door opens again as their footsteps draw near. If Anderson’s going to open fire first, he’d better do it soon. One of them whispers to another, but I can’t make out what he’s saying. “If there’s anyone up here…” Another one starts loudly. “…we’re not here to fight.” I restrain the urge to tell them to drop their weapons. If Anderson’s right and they killed the soldiers at even one of the check points, this might be a ploy to get us to reveal our positions.
A shotgun blast explodes downstairs.
I poke my head around the corner to find four men bunched up and looking back at the door. Automatic rifle fire chatters up the stairwell, so I turn and draw, aiming center mass on the one closest to the door and squeezing the trigger. The shot illuminates the hall as he jerks back with a high-pitched whimper, then I take cover. Melody turns and fires two shots. A string of explosions minces the air as the wall by my head ruptures and smoke blasts out in every direction. I shove my body as far into the corner as I can just when the screaming starts.
Isolated shots ring out behind me, followed by a compression wave from the automatics in front of me; it feels like I’ve had the air sucked right out of my lungs. I turn to look across the hall, watching bullet holes explode out of the cinderblocks, sending puffs of fractured concrete parachuting into the hall. Melody sticks her pistol out and fires off three blind shots while another pistol fires back, producing a yelp from either Rich or Ally a moment before the fire alarm blares out along with a blinding strobe. I try to peek around the corner as the mortar blows out a few inches from my eye, nearly taking my sight with it and forcing me back.
Strings of automatic shots ring off the floor, sparking as the bullets ricochet while I violently rub the dust out of my left eye. Melody rounds the corner and empties her magazine, quickly taking cover as another volley blasts apart the wall where her head used to be. She throws the spent magazine against the door and pulls up a new one with remarkable ease. “COVERING FIRE!” Someone shouts. The automatics unleash and chew up the doorway; chunks of cinderblock tick off closer and closer to my head as I hug the wall, looking straight across to see a pair of arms reach into Melody’s doorway. I swing my rifle around, but a shot catches the stock and tak
es it out of my hands, pushing it far enough away that I can’t reach it without exposing myself. Melody looks directly at me as she drops her gun and allows herself to be dragged away.
“NO!” I shout, staring at my rifle as I free my pistol, craning my arm around the angle and firing blindly toward the ceiling. After two shots, the trigger pull does nothing. I pull my hand back to see a shell stove-piped in the breech. For one instant, there is no sound other than the fire alarm. A shot rings out from around the doorway as I smack the bottom of the magazine and pull back the slide, clearing the jam. I struggle to depress the slide stop, wincing as another burst of concrete shards pepper my face. The slide unlocks and I pause, hearing only one rifle firing as someone struggles to reload while another magazine hits the ground.
I point the nose of my .45 along a shattered cinderblock, aiming toward the ceiling. “ALLY, SHOOT!” I pull the trigger simultaneously with the instruction and pull back as the return fire continues to chip away at the wall, shrinking my defilade inches at a time. Two rounds fire off in quick succession behind me along with a squeal of pain and a long string of automatic fire beneath us.
I try to time the flashing lights of the fire alarm, and when I see a flash, I poke my head around the corner along with my .45 to see two men lying dead against the wall and another on his knees by the doorway. I fire off two rounds at his chest, sure of only one hitting him. He turns with his automatic in one hand and points it toward me, but as I recoil, I hear a booming shot behind me and watch the top of his head explode into fragments with a spray of blood.