She had all she needed for the day, hair, spit, and virgin’s blood. Closing the door on Shawna, who stayed behind to finish up her last algebra problems so she wouldn’t have to take her text home, Cadi stepped into the science quad. In the short time she had been in the classroom, campus had emptied. A boy sprinted by shouting to friends, who were climbing into a car pulled up to the curb; two stragglers ambled in the other direction to the parking lot. As she descended the stairs into the central quad, the door to the teachers’ lounge opened to release Mr. Hauser. He was looking at his phone while walking back to the science quad, not seeing Cadi.
The fastest route to the parking lot was through the languages quad, but she’d parked at the end by the drama room. That was much farther down the lot, and shade was scant along the way. Skipping the languages quad, she stayed underneath the trees and the covered areas around the office. Between the office and the stairs leading down to the math quad was another route to the parking lot, and it was shaded. Even one extra minute of her journey being out of the sun was welcome.
People walked back and forth within the office, every door and window sealed shut to keep in the air conditioning. She resented that they had it when no one else did, like being young somehow made you immune to heat. And they got paid to be here as well. One of the counselors was playing solitaire at her computer.
A flash of light temporarily blinded Cadi. A compact catching sunlight at the corner of the math quad, maybe, but a feeling of unease came over her. Yet there were only normal sights and sounds. Horns were going in the parking lot as students rushed to make the green and turn out to the road. At the break between the library and a quad, Cadi saw the number five bus loaded with students pulling away from the curb. The number five was the last bus of the afternoon, taking students northbound to Murphy neighborhoods and then up to Murphy Hills.
On the sidewalk before the bus, a few kids zipped by on bicycles and skateboards going south. She was the only person left in the central quad. It was quiet, the voices in the office muted by the closed windows, no locker doors slamming shut anywhere, no one else in sight.
There was nothing wrong.
A breeze blew past, pushing away the heated air and replacing it with more heated air. Leaves rustled in the trees, and an empty soda can rattled over the concrete. Cadi hesitated, not quite at the break between the office and the stairs to the math quad that would let her reach her end of the parking lot. Maybe she should have cut through the languages quad. But the Nychos weren’t here. They couldn’t be here. No screams, no terrified people fleeing the repulsion, the Nychos were not physically capable of sneaking up on anyone.
A shot rang out.
She knew what it was as the second shot followed, not fireworks but a gun. A spray of dust and concrete chips rained down over her. A figure stepped out of the math quad, the face masked, but the person had a masculine set and a short haircut. He was wearing a cloak despite the hot weather. A sawed-off shotgun at his hip, he broke open the barrel to reload. Cadi bolted away from the break, throwing herself through an island of foliage to the concrete walk on the other side. Sprinting up the steps, she reeled to see a Hispanic woman in fatigues appear from the corridor to the cafeteria. A gun was raised to her shoulder. Shouting, “Goddammit, Mayan!” she fired at Cadi.
Something tore through the sleeve of her shirt, slashing her arm. Her emblems! She’d been too surprised to think of them. Pressing down on speed, she darted through the central quad in the direction of science. The side door to the cafeteria flung open as she passed it, two teachers coming out angrily and one saying, “Who’s setting off fireworks?”
Seeing the guns, the other teacher let out a cry. They ran back to the door, screaming when a blast ripped through the air. Cadi threw herself to the ground and rolled behind the school tree. The central quad didn’t have any good hiding places. Except for the islands of foliage and low concrete dividers, there was nowhere to stay concealed for long. Her sudden movement and the distraction of the teachers had bought her a few seconds, the shooters calling, “Spot her! Spot her! Charlie, do you read?”
Slipping a compact from her backpack, Cadi edged it out carefully. The shooters were coming up the steps, the woman looking to the library and the man in the direction of the languages quad. Cadi picked up a rock and threw it at increased speed. The man exclaimed, “There, I saw movement!” As the woman swung her gun in that direction, Cadi slid along the ground to a stone divider separating the walkway from another island of grass and bushes. Crawling on her belly to the end, she curled around the side as they stalked to the languages quad.
Over the intercom came the principal’s voice, calmly stating, “Mr. Gary G. Garcia, please come to the office.” It was the school’s code to initiate lockdown. More screaming erupted as students exited a restroom, the man bringing up the gun in reaction but not firing. Cadi took advantage of it and rushed to the science quad. The woman cried out as Cadi leaped the steps, stopping dead at the door of the first science classroom. A blonde girl no more than twelve, standing across the quad and shocked to see Cadi, raised a pistol in a wavering hand.
Cadi pulled up her glamour and said sweetly, “Hi, honey! Will you put that down?”
“That- that won’t work on me,” the girl stuttered fearfully. She fired as Cadi spun right, hearing doors locking throughout the quad, and ran to the gate. That exit was always kept locked, but she climbed the gate clumsily in her wedges, forcing her toes into the tarp for purchase on the metal links. Before the girl caught up, Cadi had come down on the other side. Moving away from the tarp to the cinderblock wall, she tried to calm her ragged breathing. Two more pairs of footsteps approached.
“Check the restrooms,” the woman ordered.
“She was so fast, Avery! Like in the Olympics!” the young girl replied as toilet stalls were kicked in.
The man called, “Not here. She might have made it into one of the classrooms.”
“Or gone over this gate,” the woman said dismally.
Cadi slunk around the building. It was not possible to be farther across campus from her car than she was at this moment. Skirting north off campus took her into the grassy park, easily spotted. East of the road was tract housing, but she would be out in the open until she got to Shoreman. Even now she wasn’t well hidden; a slope was all that hid her from the road. Anyone on the sidewalk could look down and see her.
She needed her car. Her speed would last a little longer, and she used it to skirt around the outside of the science quad. There was a shout as she broke from the building to the teachers’ parking lot. Dodging for the minivans, she took shelter as the woman screamed, “Mayan, don’t!”
Peeking through a window, Cadi watched him lob a grenade into the air. Bouncing off the cars, it ricocheted off a window and skidded right to her feet. She ran away, striking her emblem in desperation for one last burst of speed before the grenade exploded. Debris hailed down upon her, stinging on her skin as she left the packed teachers’ lot for the barren ground of the students’. Her car was a shining spot completely on the other side.
Slowed by her platform wedges, she ditched them. The shooters shouted at one another, a second explosion coming from the teachers’ lot. Cadi had a good head start, and the burning concrete under her feet propelled her along even faster. Her phone chimed with a text from Torvi, simultaneously with sirens beginning to wail in the distance.
Keys. Her keys were in her backpack. She should get them out now, have them ready when she got to the car, and then she needed to swerve around the posts and rip over the field since she couldn’t double back to the exits with those people there. Slipping one arm out of the strap, she swung the backpack over her shoulder and fumbled for the zipper of the front pocket. Torvi texted again, Cadi shoving aside her phone to scrabble after her key ring. Hooking it over her index finger, she left the pocket unzipped. The strap slid off her shoulder. She caught her bag before it fell and ran with it wedged in her armpit. Cars were scatte
red through the lot, a dozen at most, and a window exploded beside her.
“Mayan, stop shooting!”
The last meters to the car took an impossibly long time. Slowing too late, she struck the trunk with her hip and stumbled around to the driver’s side while jamming her finger into the fob to undo the locks. Jerking open the door, she threw her backpack inside and lifted one foot to get in. She heard the whistle just as a sharp sting blossomed across her lower back.
Her legs went dead. Falling out of the car, she staggered and sank to the ground. The concrete was scorching but her body was increasingly unable to move, her mind grasping after the fear that had gotten her this far for motivation. But everything was dulling, even the sun blinding her, and she looked to a figure standing beside the drama room. A gun lowered at his side, he walked to her. Cadi’s vision grew bleary as she attempted to focus on him, the guy’s dark brown hair smearing into the gray of the building behind him. Not in fatigues or a cloak, just jeans and a T-shirt, in his late teens and with an angry set to his lips before it was washed away.
Move. Move! She gripped the keys but was unsure if her fingers actually squeezed. A chime rang through the air, and slowly it occurred to her that it was Torvi. He was making cookies; they had plans to mess around and she should be in her car without this pain in her back turning to numbness . . . she should be driving home. She needed to get home to Torvi. Her brain looped and stuttered, clarity breaking into sharp pieces between isles of nothingness. Cadi was about to die, here in the parking lot of her crummy second high school, and Torvi would be waiting at home while she bled. She needed to move.
The keys dropped from her fingers.
Torvi . . . footsteps were coming at a quick clip from the other side of the car. Her head jerked in response, a reaction without thought. It fell away from her, Torvi, the school, everything, she was only an animal having been hunted down and in its last seconds. The sun was hot on her arms, a shallow heat that could not penetrate the deadness past her top layer of skin. She stared dumbly at the guy in jeans with the gun, who blocked out the sun as he reached the car. It cast his features into darkness. Nudging her foot with his own, he called, “Got her. Told you she’d run for her car, Mayan.”
“Quick, the cops are coming!” the woman said. “Is she all the way under?”
“No, she’s looking at me.”
The woman appeared, her long brown hair tightly curled and her eyes nervous at the sirens. “Then shoot her again and let’s go!”
“N-nn-nnn,” Cadi mumbled. She tried to move, to put up a hand and block the muzzle as the guy lifted the gun, but only her finger twitched.
He took aim at her chest and fired.
THE SIGILS: VOLUME ONE
About the Author
Macaulay C. Hunter was born in the Midwestern United States but grew up in southern California. Earning a degree in Classical Languages and Literature, Hunter has worked in education and agriculture in addition to freelance writing. Hunter currently resides in northern California.
Other titles by Macaulay C. Hunter
Titles below are zombie-related:
The Zombies:
Volume One
Volume Two
Volume Three
Volume Four
Volume Five
Volume Six
Plantation
Zombie Child
Blood Games
The Earth/Sky Trilogy:
Earth/Sky
Above/Below
Heaven/Hell
Titles below are mostly zombie free:
The Rune Series:
Runefool
Runefly
Runegame
Runemaster
Runeslade
The Dammerung
Toys
The Sigils:
Volume One
Volume Two
Volume Three
Ravenstone
Mother's Little Helpers
Grayscale
Find Macaulay C. Hunter online
Twitter: @pandaloonery
Blog: pandaloonery.com
The Zombies: Volumes One to Six Box Set Page 181