Quarantine: The Saints q-2

by Lex Thomas

  Gates whacked Will on the arm to get his attention and pointed at the clear cube. “Hey, guy who knows everything about this place, what the piss is that?”

  Will stared in awe.

  “No way,” Will said. “I heard about this thing. The soldiers used it when the graduation machine was broken. I wonder if it needs keys.”

  Gates grinned. “I know how to hot-wire shit.”

  Gates had never driven a clear box before. Just the pure novelty of being inside a transparent cube as it rolled through the halls of McKinley was beginning to lift his spirits. He barely even noticed the sting of his eye.

  People were starting to gather in the halls. He and Will had become quite the spectacle. Shocked and psyched faces came popping out of classrooms to ogle the rolling box. Kids started running after them, wanting to hitch a ride. He and Will drank beers as they did a wide loop through the school. Will was driving at the moment and sitting in the only seat inside the cube. It was about the size of a golf cart on wide all-terrain tires. The walls and ceiling were made of half-foot thick slabs of clear plastic. He could see the clear epoxy they had used to seal it together, and the excess had squeezed out of the borders between the slabs and hardened. The only door was in the back, also clear, but the door frame, lock, and knob were all metal. Empty beer bottles rolled around on the diamond cut metal sheeting floor. The electric engine produced a continuous buzzing sound. Gates crouched beside Will, fiddling with the rubber glove that extended into the cube from the outside, so people could evidently test themselves. Gates had turned it inside out, and he was using it to reach out the front of the cube and high-five people they passed.

  Will hadn’t lied, the school loved him. Everyone seemed to know his name. When they saw him, they got really excited. They’d call out to him. Sometimes they shouted requests for the next drop. But most of the time they just shouted his name, or started applauding as he passed.

  While Will drove, Gates took camera phone photos of the five Skater girls who rode on the top of the cube, their butts pressed into the clear plastic over their heads. The Skater girls were hitching a ride to Geek territory. When Gates started showing Will the pics he’d taken, the cube drifted too close to the wall and hit a few locker handles, jostling the whole thing. The girls squealed above and banged on the plastic.

  “Watch the road!” one of the girls shouted.

  “Sor-ry!” Will said, and both Will and Gates started laughing.

  “You know what, this is good times, man,” Gates said.

  “I know. I didn’t even get to see this thing last year. Never thought I’d be inside it!”

  “Lemme try driving.”

  “Sure.”

  Will pulled over, and they switched places. Gates jammed his foot on the tiny gas pedal, while Will eased back to look up at the girls.

  “This is what life’s about,” Will said.

  “Oh, yeah?” Gates said, keeping his eyes on the hall.

  “I think so. Life should always be riding inside a future car with cute girls on top.”

  “Ha-ha! Hard to argue with that.”

  Gates started weaving the cube from side to side down the hallway. The Skater girls shouted at him and began to hop off.

  “Aw, come on, I was just weaving a little!” Gates shouted, as the last of the Skater girls lowered herself off the edge and dropped to the floor.

  “Bye, girls,” Will said, wistfully.

  “Easy come, easy go.”

  “Totally.”

  They passed through a hallway intersection.

  “My old gang used to live in a stairwell down that direction,” Will said. “David would have loved taking a joy ride in the cube.”

  “Did he like to have a good time? Sounds like my kind of dude.”

  “Well… not really. He more liked to worry all the time.”

  Gates glanced at Will and saw that his mood had gone somber.

  “Sounds like my brother, Colton.”

  Will sat up. “Really?”

  Gates nodded. “He was always worrying about me, trying to keep me out of trouble.”

  Will nodded like he knew what that was like, then cleared his throat. “Uh… Fowler told me what happened to Colton. I’m so sorry, man. That’s awful.”

  Gates tugged on the steering wheel, suddenly annoyed at how slow the cube was.

  “There must be another gear or something,” Gates said.

  “Do you miss him?”

  They were crawling along. Gates needed more speed. He felt all around the base of the steering wheel and around the boxy dashboard that must have once held virus-testing equipment. His fingers found a little plastic pull handle in a recessed nook on the underside of the dash. He pulled it.

  There was a dull thunk, and the cube sped forward.

  “Ho ho! E-brake! We’ve been riding with the brakes on the whole time!” Gates said.

  “Oh shit,” Will said. He gave the clear wall an excited double slap. “How fast does it go?”

  The wobbly cube accelerated. The hallway began to race by.

  “This thing can move!” Will said.

  “We’ve got to see what she can do!” Gates said.

  Will started laughing. Lockers and doorways whipped past. A group of Geeks had to dive to get out of the way when they saw a giant ice cube zipping toward them.

  “Whoa! You almost hit them,” Will said.

  “She’s still got more in her! She’s still going.”

  The hallway ended at the open double doors to the basement, and they were fast approaching. The motor buzzed at a higher pitch.

  “You gotta hit the brakes, hit the brakes,” Will said.

  “We gotta wait. We’ll jump at the last possible moment!”

  “What? Why?”

  “It’ll be intense!”

  “We’ll die. You’ll break the cube!”

  “Once-in-a-lifetime chance, dude!”

  “Ah!” Will screamed. “All right! Go! Shit, this is crazy!”

  Will was laughing as he kicked open the thick back door to the cube. Ten feet from the top of the stairs, Will jumped. Gates turned halfway around, getting ready to jump, but still holding the steering wheel steady with one hand. He watched the slanting ceiling of the stairwell rush toward him, and for a moment he didn’t want to jump. A small part of him wanted to stay put, and hope the crash destroyed him. As the front tires were rolling over the top step, he jumped instead.

  The sound of his torso slapping down to the floor was nothing compared to the cacophony of the cube crashing down the stairs. Will went running past Gates, to the top of the stairs. He pulled himself to his feet and rushed over to Will’s side. At the bottom of the stairs, by the closed doors of the basement, the thick plastic walls of the tube had broken apart from each other, and now were piled with the black plastic trash bags at the basement doors. The motorized base was bent and missing a wheel.

  Gates turned to Will, who still stared down at the wreckage of the cube. This was a moment Gates was familiar with. Usually at this point, when he’d taken things this far, whoever he was hanging out with would politely excuse themselves and then avoid ever hanging out alone with him again, or would start yelling and screaming at him about how stupid a thing to do that was.

  Will looked up at him and grinned. “We got to get something faster,” he said.

  Oh shit, Gates thought to himself. He might just have a new best friend.

  22

  THERE WERE FOURTEEN CHOCOLATE HO-HOS on a paper plate on the floor. That was what the Saints had been giving Sam to eat. Junk. As worthless to him as eating stacks of Post-it notes. If his father had taught him anything, it was that his body was holy. This pile of shit cakes was an insult. Fourteen cream-filled slaps in the face, one for every day since the Saints claimed his father had delivered on Gates’s threat. But Sam refused to fall for that crock of shit. They were trying to mess with his head.

  All the stuff he’d seen those Saint kids carry past his clear cell
door, they must have somehow brought it in from the outside, before they’d gotten locked in here. It was all a show for Sam’s benefit. They wanted him to crumble and do whatever they said. They needed him to be a blubbering baby in front of his dad so that he would break down and stop starving them out, which was really the truth of what was happening. But his father would never give in. In all his life, Sam had never once seen his dad back down from a fight. So, neither would Sam. They’d stand against this together.

  Sam sat on his cot, his hands behind his back, the only part of him still bound with packing tape. He was out of breath and sweating from his morning calisthenics. His body was getting weaker. It scared him a little, if he was being honest. He could feel his mind getting cloudier, and his eyeballs plumping out of their sockets. Starvation would do that to a person, but he’d been there before. He’d drink from the small sink to his right, by his toilet, awkwardly turning the faucet on with his cheek. Water was the only meal he’d had. He wasn’t going to bend to the Saints’ will in any way, he wasn’t going to put those processed, sugar clumps they called food in his body.

  He could wait this out. He could do it. He just had to last until his dad stormed the school with the other parents, and came for him. Only, it was taking longer than he’d expected.

  Sam looked up. Someone stood beyond the door, in the shadows, watching him. Sam stared the kid down, even though he couldn’t see his face. It was probably Will. He’d come and watch Sam for sometimes twenty minutes. Sam knew what that was about. Fear. The kid was in over his head and he knew it. Will was looking for some way to undo the knot he’d tied his dick into, but there was no way out for that kid. Sam was going to find Will when he got out. He was going to cut Will’s throat out.

  The door to Sam’s cell opened.

  It wasn’t Will. It was Gates that stepped in. He kicked the plate of Ho-Hos forward a foot on the floor.

  “You really should eat more,” Gates said.

  “Bring me a steak,” Sam said, his voice cracking from so little use.

  “No problem. All we have to do is ask your pops.”

  Sam laughed. Here’s where it came, the part where they’d force him to make a plea to his dad, to pull at his heartstrings, to cry and scream and get his dad to cry and scream too, all so the parents would finally give in.

  “In your fucking dreams, rich boy,” Sam said.

  “Whoa,” Gates said, frowning. “Fine by me. I don’t care.”

  Sam didn’t quite understand the response, and it threw him off.

  “You got a real temper, huh?” Gates said.

  “You can’t break me down,” Sam said, getting more fed up by the second. “I’m never going to be your puppet. You can break every bone in my body, I am never going say what you want me to say.”

  Gates twisted his head with a confused look and smushed his eyebrows down like a caveman with a cell phone.

  “I don’t want you to say anything,” Gates said. “They just want to see you. If that means I keep getting what I want, fine by me.”

  “Give up the act,” Sam said, shaking his head. “I know he hasn’t given you what you want. That’s why you need me to talk to him.”

  Gates started laughing.

  “What the hell are you talking about, man?” Gates said. “Haven’t you seen us walking by with all our new shit? Your dad gave us everything we wanted.”

  “I know that’s all fake,” Sam said, sweat pouring down his forehead, dripping from his eyelashes.

  “Fake, huh?” Gates was laughing solidly now. “Wow. I thought you were slow when you couldn’t figure out your gang sacked you, but this is bonkers—”

  Sam thrust himself off the cot and charged Gates. He laid his shoulder squarely into Gates ribs, knocking the Saint off his feet. Gates landed on the toilet, but by then, Sam had already stomped his foot into the plate of Ho-Hos and sprung out of his cell. He scrambled left into the hallway and saw the doorway out of the processing facility, with no one guarding it.

  He pushed off down the hall. He heard shouting behind him, hammering footsteps too. All he had to do was get to the red button to the right of the door. The white room was beyond it. He remembered it all from the day the Saints first arrived.

  Something swung out from the doorway of an open containment cell. It cracked across his chest and knocked the wind out of him. His body crashed hard against the floor, and before he could catch his breath, Sam was surrounded by Saints.

  Will stepped in, blocking Sam’s view of the door. He wore a heavy down vest and held an aluminum bat over his shoulder. He looked down at Sam with a fierceness that made Sam second-guess everything he’d thought when he was in his cell. Gates threw his arm around Will and shook him with delight.

  “Atta boy, Willie! What a hit!” Gates said, then turned to the other Saints. “Let’s get the little prince out to the quad before his daddy has a breakdown. I can’t wait to get my hands on the new stuff!”

  The Saints hoisted Sam up. Nothing made sense. His father had really given in to their demands right away? He must have had no faith that Sam could escape himself.

  A Saint peeled a long strip of duct tape and pressed it over Sam’s eyes. The first image he saw when his eyes were closed was his father’s glimmering key chain falling through the night sky. The Fighting Irish. It was a symbol of endurance to his family. His dad’s alma mater, all four years on a full football scholarship. It was a message for Sam to stay strong and kick ass. But instead, Sam had gone and fallen apart. He could see it all clearly now. It had been game over from the minute he let himself get captured. He’d given his dad no other choice but to treat him like a baby.

  Someone shoved Sam forward.

  “Move it.”

  He did what they said.

  23

  LUCY STOCKED THE ALREADY PACKED shelves in the kitchen hall with energy drinks, sleeves of microwaveable popcorn, squeeze bottles of chocolate syrup, and whatever other goodies were in the bulk boxes on the floor. Such an excess of food should have been comforting to her. But it was beginning to gross her out. Lucy didn’t like what the food drops had become. Initially, she didn’t think she could trust the parents, but over time she saw that the parents were trying to help them, and protect them. Once she allowed herself to wonder if her mom and dad were up there with Sam’s parents, then she couldn’t get right with the way everybody, and Will especially, was treating them.

  As Lucy tried to make room on the bottom shelf for a row of energy bars, she heard the scuff of feet behind her. She glanced back to see a Slut holding a flower in a clay pot. The girl held it close to her heart, and guarded it closely with her arms. The flower mesmerized Lucy. It was a ball of tiny petals, a pom of white on top of wide green leaves. She hadn’t seen something so precious and lovely in all her time in McKinley. Where did she get it? Lucy had never seen any flowers in any of the food drops.

  Lucy forgot about the energy bars. She stood and watched the girl pad toward the entrance to the kitchen. Lucy had seen her before, but they had never talked. Her name was Maxine. She was serious. Never chuckled, never joked, never seemed to even let her neck muscles relax. Sophia said that starting up a conversation with her was like trying to superglue water. Maxine didn’t fight, she was barely ever around, but she could do as she pleased. There was good reason. Maxine was pregnant.

  Getting pregnant was every McKinley girl’s worst nightmare, because babies would die with their first breath. Their mothers were toxic to them. Lucy had known a girl named Rorie in the Pretty Ones who’d gotten knocked up. Hilary had sent her to a secret location in the ruins, where there was a Nerd you could meet there, and for the right price, he’d fix that kind of “problem.” When Rorie returned to the gym, she looked like half the girl she used to be.

  A single white petal fell off the flower. It fluttered to the floor behind Maxine, who failed to notice. She was walking at a brisk pace, enough so that her cherry ponytail flapped up and down to the rhythm of her scissoring step
s.

  Lucy hurried over to the fallen petal. She plucked it up with her thumb and forefinger. It was a curl of white, so soft that she was almost afraid to hold it. She didn’t want to damage its tender silk. She smelled it. Its fragrance filled Lucy’s nostrils. So alive, so fresh.

  Maxine heeled it into the kitchen. Lucy entered after her, petal in fingers. The girl stepped to one of the deep, metal double sinks and held the clay pot so that a thin stream of water hit the dry soil. She jerked her whole body when she saw Lucy approaching. Her eyes flared.

  “What do you want?!” Maxine said.

  “Oh. I just…” Lucy held up the petal. “You dropped this.”

  Maxine looked pained at the sight of the petal, then her focus switched to Lucy’s eyes. She didn’t trust Lucy, that much was clear.

  “Thank you,” she grumbled. “You can put it on the counter.”

  “No problem. Great.”

  Lucy placed it on the cold metal countertop with care. Maxine continued to scrutinize her.

  “I love your flower,” Lucy said.

  Maxine relaxed an inch. “You think it’s beautiful?”

  “Just the petal made me happy. Where did you get it? I’m dying to know.”

  Maxine straightened up and stood a little prouder. “It was on Mrs. Gemser’s desk.”

  “Mrs. Gemser? That sounds so familiar… Wait, was she a history teacher?”

  “Yup,” Maxine said.

  “I remember that from my class schedule,” Lucy said. “I would have had her… fourth period! Yeah. If, you know, all this didn’t happen.”

  “I had her in summer school. She was nice. You would have liked her.”

  They both nodded, each casting their eyes at a different spot on the floor.

  “So… you’re saying, this flower—”