His urge to throw the mug melted away as Joe, one of his few friends, appeared in his doorway. The two upperclassmen looked at each other but didn’t say anything. Joe gave Evan an understanding nod then hunkered down next to his friend to help him pick up the mess. Evan nodded back with grateful half-smile.
#
Michael paced all four floors of Bonny Hall. No one. Where the hell was that girl? Or any of the girls for that matter? At this point, Michael wanted to take his frustration out on anyone he could find. His mind roamed from Sophia to the other girls he knew about. Melissa? No…besotted with Lee. Rose? A possibility but she seemed to be spending a lot of time with Shane. Toni? He smiled at the thought of his hands tangled in her dark hair. But no, he had seen Aaron and her making eyes at each other.
Seemed like the apocalypse, and the idea of a limited number of partners made the kids couple up faster than the idea of going to the Winter Formal alone. Michael frowned at that idea. Hell, the Harridan was looking good these days.
Then he remembered the water bottle in Sophia’s room and the chill of the water. The basement. They had to be there. At least one of them. Kimberly had taken to giving the girls fortifying tasks to keep morale up. Michael picked up his pace and hoped that Sophia was in the basement. It was one place he hadn’t had her yet. Too cold. But, the way he was feeling, a quickie would do.
Whistling as he came down the steps Michael wanted to make sure he was heard. If Sophia was down here, it would heighten her anticipation. If it was another girl, well, it wouldn’t do to frighten her into thinking he wasn’t human. These days, you couldn’t be too sure.
“Hello?” Michael kept his voice light and listened.
“Hello. I’m in the root cellar.”
The voice belonged to Rose. Michael nodded to himself. She was pretty enough. A bit on the wild side outside of the Academy with dyed red hair and a tongue piercing. Perhaps it was time to feel her out. See if she’d be interested in a man instead of the boy she’d been hanging out with. He grinned at the idea of the tongue piercing and wondered what else she had pierced.
Two
“Swenson is fucking useless.” Jeff scowled at his small group of cohorts, Caleb, Steve, and Ron. “He doesn’t seem concerned at all that someone is stealing food or that we’re going to run out by mid-winter.”
Steve shrugged. “Well, you’re keeping him up-to-date.”
“That’s not enough. There are too many people here for too little supplies. Not to mention that damn dog.” Jeff shook his head. Just thinking about the dog made him want to vomit. He held onto that anger and the anger at the stolen food to keep himself from panicking at the missing food, at the thought of all of them slowly starving to death, at the knowledge that the weak were fodder for the strong.
Caleb looked up from the comic he was leafing through. “Gives me the creeps.”
“It’s a danger.” Jeff warmed to his audience. This wasn’t anything they hadn’t already heard. He’d been complaining about the supply situation and the dog situation for a couple of weeks now. “Too many people’s a danger. Not enough supplies is a danger. We’re just lucky that the Outbreak happened between Summer and Fall Quarters. Otherwise more people would’ve stayed for the break.” Jeff specifically didn’t think about his friend, the one they had lost on the last supply run, and he certainly wouldn’t think about her.
Ron, who hasn’t said anything in weeks it seemed, raised his head and a finger. “So, there’s a problem. A couple of them. What are we going to do about it? What can we do about it?” He gazed at Jeff with an expectant air.
Caleb and Steve shared an uneasy glance. They both knew about Ron’s more violent tendencies, the ones he kept secret from the world. They also knew that if it came to a fight they wanted Ron on their side. Only Ron’s long friendship with Jeff seemed to keep him in check. Without that, who knows what Ron would get into. In this case it really was the quiet one you needed to watch out for.
Jeff rubbed his goatee. He’d grown it since the Outbreak. It was one more means of protection. If infected blood splashed on his face, it would run down the outside of the goatee instead of into his mouth. Ever since he told the boys about it, and cut off his ponytail as handhold danger, the rest had followed suit with varying degrees of success. “What can we do about it?” He repeated the question, giving himself time to think.
Caleb and Steve sat up and watched Ron and Jeff with interest. Jeff wouldn’t ever hear a bad word about Ron. The two had each other’s backs. And, until this point, it had been nothing but complaints. Jeff would complain. They would listen. With Ron leading Jeff’s train of thought perhaps they were going to finally do something and stop the missing food. Stop the worries about the dangers of an ‘unplanned tomorrow.’
“I’m the cook. I can insist on the lock on the pantry door.” Jeff’s voice was distant with thought.
Ron nodded. “That will stop the stealing. Hopefully.”
Jeff ran his fingers down the sides of his goatee. “The dog…it’s a danger. We should kill it.”
This time Ron smiled.
“But what about Swenson?” Caleb’s voice cracked.
“Swenson be damned!” Jeff continued to watch Ron.
Ron continued to smile at Jeff and nodded. “We kill the dog. It’s a danger. And what about the too many people thing?” His voice was soft, almost seductive.
“We kill them.”
Now that he’d finally said what he’d been thinking about ever since he’d discovered the food thefts Jeff held his breath and waited. Caleb and Steve looked at each other, their eyes wide and disbelieving.
“We kill them.” Ron repeated Jeff’s words and tone then looked off to the side. “Kill how many of them?” He made the question sound academic.
Jeff frowned and thought about it. “There are twenty-six people on campus. If we get no more food at all we can only feed sixteen, seventeen, maybe. And that would be rationing it.”
“We’re not going to kill ten people.” Caleb paused. “Are we?” He looked faintly sick to his stomach.
“No.” Jeff shook his head. “Swenson’s going to call for a supply run. Four people will be chosen.”
“So we kill six?” Ron licked his lips and tilted his head, still not looking at anyone.
Steve and Caleb shared another uneasy glance.
“Maybe. Six is the upper limit. Especially if the supply run is successful.” Jeff looked at his ever-present notebook. “If they aren’t, we just don’t let them back in. That takes care of four of them right off.”
“Who and how?” Steve’s voice was filled with both awe and revulsion. “How do we kill people without them trying to kill us back? How do we choose who should die?”
Jeff thought about it. “We wait to see who is going to go on the supply run. I’ll make a list. We’ll talk about it. And all agree.”
“Make sure Melissa’s name is on that supply run list.” Ron’s voice was far away.
“Why?” Caleb frowned. “How?”
“Because Lee will volunteer if Melissa goes.”
Steve laughed. “You’re just mad that she turned you down and Lee used to shove you in the broom closet.”
Ron’s look was venomous. “Does that matter?”
Jeff shook his head and cut off the squabbling before it began. “No. I’ll make sure Melissa’s on that list. And Evan. It’s time Swenson realizes he’s not really in charge here anymore. No matter what he thinks.”
#
Athena sat across from Principal Swenson. “Thank you for seeing me, sir.”
“My door is always open to Salton Academy students. I’m here for you.” Robert smiled at her. It made him happy to see someone other than Jeff or his faculty coming to see him. “What can I do for you?”
“It’s about Evan.”
His smile faltered. This was not what he had expected. “What about him?”
“It’s his medicine. He’s run
ning out.” Athena worked to keep the fear and concern out of her face. Instead, she strove to look and sound like the expertly trained nurse she would never be.
Robert sat back and looked around the walls of his well-appointed office. His degrees and certificates adorned the walls in proud display and many of the awards the Salton Academy had won sat is prefect place with shiny splendor. For all his success there was one failure wedded to his name that he could do nothing about. It was the hardest failure of all. “How long?”
“He told me that he has about a month of the methotrexate left which means he probably only has a couple of weeks. He’s suffering.”
Bowing his head, the man thought for a long moment about the son he no longer knew. Then he nodded to himself and looked at Athena. “There will be a supply run soon. I’ll have them go to the hospital to pick up the medicine. You should give me a list of needed supplies for the infirmary.”
Relief made her pale face light up. “Okay. Good. I will. I’ve been keeping track. I can write you a list now. Nurse Krenshaw and I talked about what we needed this week.”
Robert nodded and gestured to pen and paper on his desk. He watched her write, wondering about her and wondering about Evan. “Is there anyone else with illnesses that I need to be concerned about?”
Athena didn’t look up as she wrote. “Jeff has asthma but it’s under control. He doesn’t even take an inhaler for it. But we have do have a few rescue inhalers. Toni has allergies but there’s not much we can do about that.”
“Except add allergy medicine to the medical needs list.”
She nodded, wrote that down, and paused, thinking. “Everyone else is relatively healthy. I suppose we could all use Vitamin D for the winter season. Evan is really our main concern.”
He noted the studied casualness of the last statement. It seemed that she had been spending a lot of time with his son. And without her family’s privilege and prejudice to get in the way. “How is he? Really?”
“Doing as well as someone with a crippling autoimmune disorder with limited medicine can be. He hurts.” She glanced up at him. “When’s the last time you talked to him?”
“Recently.” Robert lied without blinking. “But, as his father, he doesn’t tell me much.”
She nodded and opened her mouth to say he should try harder, thought better of it, and shook her head with a smile. “This is all I can think of.”
Robert took the offered piece of paper. “I’ll add it to the list. Thank you. Dismissed.” He continued to look at the paper, his eyes rolling over the wish list, taking them in with little interest. Instead he listened to her leave and close the door behind her.
#
“What are you doing back here?” Michael tilted his head and looked into the darkened root cellar, lit with a battery power camp lantern. The room had a dirt floor with a stone walkway on one side. It smelled of must and vegetables.
Rose raised the lantern to show off the room’s shelves, containing rows and rows of green tomatoes. “Checking to see if any of these had ripened or rotted. We had to bring in the last of the tomatoes as the weather turned chill. Now, we wait to see which will make it and which won’t.”
“You’ve got a deft hand at that.” Michael moved into the doorway, acting as if he was trying to get a better look. Mostly, he was trying to catch the girl’s scent. Baby powder with a hint of acrid sweat. Not bad at all. The electricity was gone but water still flowed. It made for damn cold showers but kept those still rattling around the school fairly clean.
She shrugged. “I like tomatoes. As Mrs. Hood says, ‘If the individual works to their passions and strengths, the community as a whole prospers.’”
Michael raised an eyebrow. “Does she now?”
Rose nodded. “I’m good at gardening. We can’t do much of it right now but when the spring comes the hot house will be my domain.”
“Thinking that far ahead, are we?” Michael lowered his voice. “I guess I’m a little more concerned with immediate…needs.”
She looked up at the sudden purr in the teacher’s voice and didn’t like the way he was looking at her. “Oh? Um…”
Michael nodded. “Like safety and security. And comfort.” He smiled and leaned down toward her. “Is there anything you need? Anything at all?”
Rose took a step back and could not believe this professor was suddenly hitting on her. No, he couldn’t be doing that. He wouldn’t. He was a professor. Even if it was the apocalypse. “Uh. No.” She shook her head.
“You sure?” Michael licked his lips in a deliberate and sensuous motion. He wanted to laugh at how big her eyes got. As skittish as a doe, she would be fun to chase.
“Professor Leeds!” The strident voice carried well down the echoing hall. “I trust you have a very good reason for interrupting my student in her duty?”
Michael grimaced and almost winced with every clack of the Harridan’s sensible heels. He put a smile in his voice as he turned to the dorm mistress approaching the root cellar door at a rapid pace. “Yes, Kimberly. I came to see if you ladies needed anything. I was just talking to Rose about her ripening tomatoes.”
From her matching pant suit to her curly black hair in a bun to her ebon skin scrubbed clean with icy cold water, Kimberly Hood was all business. “I prefer you call me Mrs. Hood, Professor Leeds. The end of civilization as we know it is no reason to forget your manners.” She put her hands on her generous hips.
“Yes, Mrs. Hood.” Michael heaved a sigh. “I thought we’d gotten past all that.”
Kimberly stared at him for a long moment. “Well?”
“Well what?”
She looked between Rose and Michael. “Did she tell you that we’d like to have another honey pot moved to the basement?”
Rose shook her head. “I forgot, Mrs. Hood. And speaking of which…I gotta…” She stopped at the look in the dorm mistress’ eyes. “May I be excused?”
Kimberly nodded with approval. “You may. I will see you in a bit to discuss your progress.”
Rose ducked her head and hurried by Michael, refusing to look at him. Kimberly noticed how Michael watched the girl’s quick retreat and narrowed her eyes. “So, you’ll get some boys and get it done?”
Michael looked at Kimberly. “Huh?”
“The honey pot. We want it moved into the same room as the first.”
“Oh, right. Yes. I’ll get it done.” He sighed inwardly. The honey pot idea was a good one. Not that they actually used them right now. But it seemed that the Harridan was taking no chances with the coming of winter. They were all lucky that the school had started breaking ground on astronomy tower in the west end of the academy land.
“Thank you.” She took his elbow. “I’ll see you out. Let me know when you need to get in the basement loading ramp.”
#
“Nurse Krenshaw didn’t really know what the best way to stretch my medicine was. She told me to try the half dose thing so I had a consistent level of health and pain. Neither good nor bad. Just uncomfortable all the way around.”
Evan sat with his back against the cold tile and watch Beauregard as he shuffled and moaned a low keening sound. He hunched his shoulders and pretended that it was a soft howl. He had had the dog since he was a puppy and it was the one thing in this damn place that was all his. It was the one thing in this damn life that had loved him without reservation. Beau had saved him from the one zombie that had gotten through the school’s defenses. And this was his reward.
The black lab suddenly snarled and threw himself at the equipment cage, trying to get to the teen. Evan winced as the dog tore part of his muzzle away, revealing gleaming teeth in rotting gums. If he had realized that Beau would hurt himself trying to get to him he would’ve connected the harness chain to the back of the cage instead of the side. Along with the bite mark on his shoulder the dog was missing flesh on parts of his paws, his legs, and now his muzzle. His once glossy black eyes were cloudy as if the dog
was suffering from cataracts.
“Sometimes I think you got the better end of the deal.” Evan’s voice was soft and filled with longing. “No pain. No realization of death. No cares except to feed.”
He shifted into another, less pain-filled position. “I never liked this school. I didn’t like it when dad divorced mom. I didn’t like it when he got custody. I really didn’t like it when he gave me a dorm room. I suppose I should’ve been happy. I had my own room with almost no rules. Except to do well.” Evan mimicked his father’s voice with a sneer. “‘You’re a Salton Academy boy now, son. Be proud. Make me proud. As one of my students I’m going to expect excellence from you.’”
He scoffed at the dog. “But nothing more than that. The only reason he got custody, that he wanted custody, was because it hurt mom.” He heaved a sigh and struggle to numbed feet as Beau scrabbled claws at the underside of the cage door with a futile fury. “Never thought this place would become a prison for both of us.”
Turning, Evan picked up the lantern and limped from the room. “Yeah, you got the better end of the deal.” He closed the door to the gym office with a soft thump.
Three
Robert Swenson looked over the assembled students and faculty of the Salton Academy. This is what’s left of civilization, he thought with regret. This once proud school is reduced to this: twenty-one students and five faculty. He clenched his jaw. This was the one thing he was a complete success at. He would not allow it to fall into disrepair. Jeff was correct. He needed to take a firm hand here.
“Ladies and gentlemen, it has come to my attention that someone has been stealing…taking…food from the Commons pantry. Flats of canned goods and other such consumables have been taken without permission.” He ignored Jeff’s offered list. “If these things are returned, no punishment will be given. It was not explicitly stated that we were rationing food. It is being explicitly stated now. As such, the Commons pantry will be locked and a few notable people will have the key. Myself, Mrs. Hood, and Jeff.”
The Last Days of Salton Academy Page 2