by Amber Garr
Mario scrambled out from under my arm and rubbed his hands through his dark, shaggy hair. “Whatever,” he grumbled, making sure every last strand was in place.
“Zach!”
Mario and I directed our attention to the bubbly, blonde cheerleader making her way over to me. Her bright pink sweater barely covered her ample cleavage, and the tight jeans didn’t even try to hide the rest of her assets.
“Hi Kayla,” I groaned. Mario just stared, mouth wide open and eyes glued to her chest. “You’re drooling,” I whispered to him.
Kayla bounced to a stop in front of me and wrapped her hands around my waist. “I’ve been waiting for you,” she cooed. Lifting up on her toes, she kissed my lips. I didn’t kiss back.
“Why were you waiting for me?” I felt Mario nudge me in the arm.
Kayla wrinkled her brow and tilted her head. “What do you mean?”
“We broke up last week,” I said.
“Did we?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t recall that.” Her hand squeezed my ass and she pulled me closer. “I don’t think we broke up. Besides, we can’t.”
“Why not?” I asked, trying to pull free of her grasp without making a scene. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Vee standing near the entrance. Despite the sullen Nathan hanging all over her, blue eyes bore into Kayla’s back.
“Because you’re the football star and I’m the head cheerleader. We’re supposed to be together. It’s one of the cardinal rules of high school.”
“What about the wrestler I saw you sucking face with last week?” I asked.
“Ooh, good one,” Mario added, then cowered when Kayla glared at him.
“That meant nothing, sweetie. You’re my boyfriend.”
Just as I was about to say something I might regret later, the warning bell rang. Thankful, for the first time ever, that classes were starting, I walked toward the door. Kayla continued to rub against my body and Mario chuckled by my other side.
Vee disappeared around the corner and once inside, Kayla turned down the opposite hallway for class. But not before giving me another kiss.
“I think you have a stalker,” Mario teased.
“What part of ‘I don’t want to be around you anymore’ doesn’t she get?” Quickly shoving my bag into my locker, I grabbed the books I needed. “Besides, she’s so annoying.”
“Yeah, but she’s hot,” Mario said.
“Yeah.”
“And she’s sexy.” He started to drool again.
“Maybe.”
“Maybe? Didn’t you say that she was willing to try—”
The final bell rang, cutting off Mario’s question about my sex life and making me regret even telling him some of the stuff Kayla and I had done.
“All right, later man.” Mario gave me fist bump and ran down the hall.
As I entered my first class of the day, I thought about Vee and how she might have been right. School really did suck.
I stared at the newest poster on the wall as Mr. Lenhart took roll. “You Can Be Part of the Solution” it said in bright red letters. Underneath was a picture of a young male and female in fatigues holding one of the portable water sterilizers the government started handing out last year. Below that it said “Conservation Means Preservation”.
It seemed like each week, a new poster would appear encouraging young minds to join the National Disaster Response Authority and help serve the communities. I knew a few people who graduated early just so they could get out of here and work for the government. No one had heard from them since.
Nathan thought there was some kind of conspiracy going on and I couldn’t help but wonder the same. Zach’s dad worked for the government and didn’t seem too thrilled with what he saw at his job, either. Although, he never hinted at a conspiracy. So I still hadn’t really made up my mind as to whether or not I would join them when I finished school. I was leaning toward probably not.
“Vivienne.” A finger poked in my back as Jessa whispered at me.
I turned my head just enough to let her know I was listening but not enough for Mr. Lenhart to notice. “What?”
“Did you hear about Zach and Kayla?”
I spun back around in my seat and rolled my eyes. This was not a subject I had any interest in discussing.
“Apparently, they broke up,” Jessa continued. “Do you think I should talk to him?”
“Why are you asking me?” I whispered through gritted teeth, turning to face her. “If you like Zach, you should talk to him.”
“Can you put in a good word for me?” she asked with pleading eyes. Nervously twisting a red strand of hair in her fingers, she looked so hopeful. As if I could change the course of her life.
“Why are you asking me?”
“Because.” Jessa looked at me like I just sprouted three baby alien heads. “Because you two have a thing and he won’t date anyone without your approval.”
Taken aback, I found myself momentarily speechless—a very atypical situation. And then I burst out laughing. “Trust me, I have nothing to do with Zach’s love life. Where did you get that idea?”
Jessa’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped open, gaping like a fish. “I…everyone knows that—”
“Ladies, would you care to enlighten the class with what you think is so amusing?” Busted by Mr. Lenhart. Jessa slunk low in her seat, thoroughly hidden behind me. Damn her. “Ms. Witterly?”
“Yes?” I asked.
“Do you have anything to share?”
The classroom filled with quiet snickers and anxious glares. Heat scorched my cheeks but I refused to be embarrassed. “We were just admiring the new poster,” I said. Jessa shifted in her seat behind me, making the chair groan.
“The poster?” Mr. Lenhart continued. “And what’s so interesting about the poster?”
“The guy. He’s really hot.”
Everyone started laughing and several girls nodded their heads vigorously. Mr. Lenhart wasn’t as amused. “Well, I’m glad you’re all so enthralled with that soldier because today we’re going to be learning about survival techniques that I’m sure he knows all about.”
“We’re going to learn how to fight?” someone shouted.
“No—”
“Can we practice hand to hand combat with each other?”
“No—” Mr. Lenhart tried to explain, but the mere mention of survival techniques sent the excitement level in the room into overdrive.
“I want to fight Pete.”
“I’ll kick your ass.”
“Enough!” Mr. Lenhart slammed his hand on his desk and everyone fell silent. “We will not be learning how to fight. We will be learning about how to survive.” He lifted his arm, stopping one of the guys up front from saying something. “And by that I mean we’re going to learn how to take apart the sterilizers and put them back together again.”
“But we already know how to do that.”
“Yeah, we did that last year.”
“This sucks.”
I had to agree.
Mr. Lenhart bent down behind his chair and picked up a large box. Letting it fall to the desk, the contents rattled around like broken pieces. “We haven’t worked with the new ones yet.”
“I thought this was chemistry class. How come we don’t blow anything up anymore?”
“Because we’re using chemistry to survive,” Mr. Lenhart said. “That’s much more important for your future.”
A chorus of groans filled the room and I swear I saw Mr. Lenhart smirk. Most of our regular classes had been reorganized to include lessons about the world we were living in today. History focused heavily on the last two decades leading up to the water crisis. We studied drought tolerant species and extinction science in biology classes. Math was…well math. And chemistry had focused on teaching us the reason why sterilization drops, sanitizing equipment, and desalinization plants worked the way they did.
“Now, fir
st, I’d like you to divide into small groups. I only have a few prototypes of the new sterilizer so we’ll have to—”
A deafening boom shook the classroom floors a split second before all of the windows along the side wall shattered. Tiny glass shards flew through the room, covering most of us in sparkling pieces. Everyone screamed. Some tried to run. I covered my head and fell to the floor, feeling the glass slice my arms like a thousand little teeth.
Jessa’s red hair blended in with the crimson blood running down her face. Her shallow breaths and teary eyes met mine, begging for help. My focus narrowed on her and I lifted my arm. Scrambling to my side, Jessa hugged me tight and sobbed against my shoulder. I looked around the room, ears ringing and adrenaline pumping. Most students were on the floor. Those behind me, and closest to the windows, were covered with scratches and bloody wounds. Some were on the verge of passing out.
Another explosion ricocheted through the air and another round of screams pierced my ears. The blast wasn’t coming from our school but it couldn’t have been more than a couple of blocks away. Glass continued to fall to the floor while I scrambled out of Jessa’s grasp and up to my feet.
“Are you okay?” I asked Brent, the guy hounding Mr. Lenhart with all of the questions earlier.
“Yeah, I think so,” he said, holding his head. He tried to stand and his face paled three shades of white.
“I think you should sit for a little bit.” I ripped off a piece of my shirt and pressed it against his skull. “Just keep pressure on that.”
He nodded and then almost passed out. I jumped forward, cupped his neck, and lowered him to the ground so that he wouldn’t have too far to fall. Sirens started to blare outside and a second later our classroom door flew open.
“We need to evacuate!” one of the other science teachers shouted. I think her name was Mrs. Kraftner. “Someone blew up the bottling company and everyone within a two mile radius has to leave.” She rushed out of the room in a panic, leaving Mr. Lenhart with thirty freaked out teens staring at him.
“Okay everyone,” he slowly pulled himself up to standing, wobbling a little on his feet. “Remember our drills. Please exit—”
Complete chaos interrupted whatever kind of authoritative power he tried to exude. Several panicked students rushed out of the room. I helped Jessa to her feet and leaned down to grab Brent. But someone pushed me to the floor and I fell on top of Mr. Lenhart’s back.
“Asshole,” I growled at them. Trying to untangle myself, I felt a strong pair of arms lift me off the ground.
“Vee! Come on, we have to go,” Zach said.
“Where’d you come from?”
He looked at me like I’d asked the dumbest question in the world. “From my class. Now come on. Someone threatened to bomb the school.”
“What?” Mr. Lenhart, Jessa, Brent, and I asked at the same time.
Zach bent forward to help Brent. “I don’t know,” he grunted. “That’s what everyone’s saying.” He jerked his chin toward the hallway which was now full of panicked students running for the front doors.
“Oh my god,” Mr. Lenhart said.
“Why would they bomb our school?” Jessa asked, standing a little too close to Zach.
“Because we have our own water storage tanks,” Mr. Lenhart said gravely. “If they’re destroying the water sources, we’d be a prime target.”
“Who’s destroying them?” Brent asked. The left side of his face was covered in blood, and his skin still had that pasty, freaked out coloring to it.
“My money’s on Nathan’s gang,” Zach said.
I punched him for the second time today. “Are you serious?”
A hint of smirk passed over Zach’s face and he lifted one eyebrow. “I don’t know, maybe?”
“We need to get out of here,” Mr. Lenhart said like a robot, staring at the door and apparently experiencing the first signs of shock.
Zach and I exchanged a look and then assisted the three others out of the room. A wave of shoving and pushing followed our entrance into the stream of people trying to leave the school. “So much for our organized drills,” I grumbled when someone slammed me and Jessa into the side of the hall. My shoulder throbbed from the force and that only made me angrier. “Move!” I yelled to no one in particular.
The five of us shuffled along with the mob, holding on to each other despite being jostled back and forth. When we finally reached the front doors, the crowd cleared as people began running in all directions.
“Come on,” Zach said to me.
“I’m parked over there,” said Brent, pointing to the opposite side of the building.
“Me too,” Jessa said.
“So am I,” Mr. Lenhart added. “I’ll take them,” he told Zach and me.
“Do you need help?” I asked.
“No. Go ahead, get out of here.”
I hesitated, feeling uneasy about letting them out of my sight. Why? I didn’t know. But something in my gut told me today would be the last time I’d see them.
“Come on!” Zach pulled me toward his Jeep. For a moment, I felt overwhelmed by his eyes that showed so much concern for my safety. I struggled briefly with the fact that he’d gone out of his way to find me. But just for a moment, because I knew I would have done the same for him had he not beaten me to it.
Another explosion rumbled the streets, a ball of fire shot a mile up into the sky. The ground trembled beneath our feet, causing me to stumble into Zach’s side. He wrapped a long arm around my shoulders and pulled me tighter.
“Look!” he shouted and pointed to the smoke in front of us. “Something closer than that bottling factory is burning.”
As if on cue, a loud crackling reverberated around us. Flames dashed out of the shattered school windows at the far side of the parking lot. Either the school had been attacked or the fire had spread. Either way, we had to escape.
A car swerving erratically to get away from the chaos nearly sideswiped Zach and me moments before we reached his vehicle. “Asshole!” Zach called out, beating his hands against the trunk of the car as is sped past. Turning to me, he asked, “You okay?”
For a split second, the world around us disappeared. Explosions quieted, the screaming ceased, and all of the running bodies blended into the background. Zach’s worried eyes and focus only on me took me by surprise. And my reaction to him twisted something deep inside.
Snapping out of it, I said, “Yeah. I’m fine. Let’s go.” I pushed past Zach, running into a few students in the process. With elbows flying, I made my way to the passenger side and climbed in just as Zach did. He started the Jeep and slammed it into gear. The roar of his horn caught the attention of people scrambling passed. Thankfully they moved out of our way.
Something crashed to the ground behind us and I turned around in my seat to see the last remnants of the east wing of our school crumble to the ground. “I hope everyone got out,” I whispered to myself.
“What?” Zach focused on zigzagging around people and debris and emergency vehicles trying to enter the same way we were trying to leave. All around us the world had changed in an instant. No longer could we hide in our little safe haven pretending that what was happening in the rest of the world would never happen here. The gates had only delayed the inevitable.
War had reached our doorstep.
“We need to get home,” I said, sitting back in the seat and trying to ignore the grim scene.
“Where do you think I’m going?” Zach snapped.
I ignored it. He had every right to be upset and I had no doubt that we both had the same fears racing through our minds right now. Were our families all right? What would we find when we reached our compound?
“This is it, isn’t it?” I asked after a long stretch of silence.
Zach turned and quickly looked at me. Whatever smart-ass comment he had ready to dish out disappeared when his gaze landed on my face. I knew he saw the tears brimming in my eyes, and
although I hated showing any weakness in front of him, my fear of what lay ahead trumped my ego.
He reached across the seat and grabbed my hand. “Yeah, I think it is.”
“We have to leave, don’t we?”
“Yeah.”
A thought suddenly danced in my head and I laughed. “I guess we don’t have to go to school anymore after all.”
Zach squeezed my hand, a small smile lighting up his face. “You can’t fool me, Vee. I know you liked learning things.”
“No, I didn’t,” I teased.
“You’re a nerd disguised as a slacker.”
“Am not.”
This time, Zach winked and raised a brow. A small dimple in his cheek caught a hint of sunlight. No wonder all of the girls swooned over him. I looked down at our clasped hands and for a moment wished that we would have been born a generation earlier. Like our parents, who didn’t have to worry about rations and wars and could simply enjoy life. Perhaps then Zach and I could have escaped to California where I’d be a veterinarian and he’d be a doctor. But as we neared our complex and the blaring signs of a world breaking down surrounded us, I knew those dreams were lost to us forever.
I didn’t let go of Vee’s hand until I needed to stop at the roadblock. The quick trip from school to our home had been littered with police and government vehicles, trying to corral a frightened community back into submission. I’d managed to avoid being pulled over by traveling through the back roads and hidden alleys, but the gate to our complex now had a tank parked in front of it.
“This doesn’t look good,” Vee said, eyeing up the imposing vehicle.
“They have to let us inside,” I replied. “Right?”
Vee didn’t respond and instead reached into her bag to find her identification card. I grabbed mine from underneath the visor just as a soldier waved us to a stop. He sauntered up next to my Jeep and I let out a small sigh of relief at seeing it wasn’t my nemesis.
Lowering the window, I tried to smile. “We need to get inside,” I said. “Our families are still in there.”
“ID,” the soldier said and thrust out his hand.