Divided (16 page)

As I checked out my books at the counter, the clerk's eyes lit up. "Oh, it's you! I have something for you." She turned around and picked up a small red box with a bow on top. I quickly grabbed Nathan's arm to get his attention. The fear in my eyes must have been enough to tell him what was going on because he stepped in front of me. "A handsome young man left this for you." She smiled at me as she leaned around Nathan to hold out the box.

"Thank you, I'll take it for her. Her hands are full. You said this guy was handsome? What did he look like?"

She smiled sweetly. "He asked me not to say. He must be shy. I'm sure, in time—"

"He's stalking her. You're welcome to call campus police to check. She's already filed a complaint. Now can you tell me what he looked like?"

Her jaw fell open. She seemed so surprised. "He—he was young—maybe a freshman or sophomore, brown hair, brown eyes, average height."

"Anything else? Something unique about him maybe?"

She shook her head. "I'm sorry. I had no idea."

I tried to smile at her. It wasn't her fault. "I know. It's okay." Nathan took the box and pushed me toward the door, his hand on my shoulder.

"Call your dad. I'll call Gary."

I nodded and called Gabriel, but his phone went to voicemail. I briefly explained what was going on and hung up. It took a few minutes, but Gary and Sonya came rushing down the pathway between two buildings across from us.

"Don't open it." Gary's voice was stern and authoritative. "I'm taking it directly to campus police. They can open it." As we walked toward their office, I felt like I might throw up. That awful eerie feeling I had in the library had intensified, making my hands shake.

We were within 100 feet of the campus police office when we all stopped in our footsteps. Several officers came running out, armed and looking very intimidating. They ran to their cars and took off with sirens blaring. A scream in the distance made me jump a mile, and I had to grab onto Gary's arm for support.

"Nathan," Gary said calmly, too calmly. "Can you go ask them what's going on?"

"Yeah, be right back." He ran into the office and was back before the doors closed. Panting, a little sweaty, and completely white-faced, he shoved us in the direction we had just come from. "Go! Just go!"

We hurried back to our dorm room and closed the door.

Turning to Nathan, I asked, "What was that about?"

"A gang fight or a mob, I don't know what to call it. They said there's a group of fifteen guys destroying the Manning building. It's bad. They attacked several students."

It was happening. The Infection had spread to campus, and I'd been too busy trying not to be paranoid to see it. I felt so stupid. I moved away from Nathan and calmly, slowly picked up the box. Untying it, my hands shook as I lifted the lid. I wasn't even surprised to see what was inside. It was like I already knew it would be awful.

"Oh my God!" Nathan shrieked as he looked over, and his reaction seemed to surprise me more than the gift I'd been given.

"Evie! Put that down!" Gary took the box and set it on the desk next to me. "Shit! He signed this one."

Sonya turned to the box lid. "Al? Al?"

My whole body shook. Sonya put her hands on my face as I stared, almost motionless at Nathan in horror over his reaction. "Evie? Evie, look at me. Evie!"

I just couldn't get my brain to move beyond the fact that Nathan was shocked. This was so normal-business for me and my life. Why would he be so surprised at that? Finally, I was able to make myself focus on Sonya and tears started to flood my eyes.

"It's okay. It's fine, Evie." She pulled me into her arms and Gary wrapped his arms around me from behind, sandwiching me in a hug.

After a moment, Gary pulled back one arm, and I'd calmed myself down enough to see him pressing buttons on the screen of his phone. "Gabriel. No, you need to come now. There's a group on campus tearing things up, and he's sent her another present… an engagement ring—with a finger still in it."

Things sort of blurred past me after that. I was there, and I wasn't comatose, but I felt like I was taking in too much oxygen. Everything just sort of felt fuzzy or something. Gary called the real police and told them about the gifts and what was happening on campus. He was told to hide until they could get the gang under control, but they couldn't give an estimate on when that might happen.

I sat heavily on my bed and looked up at Gary. My hands shook almost as much as my voice. "It's the psycho brigade all over again."

Sonya pulled the shotguns out of the closet—Gabriel wasn't about to leave us unprepared—and directed Gary to the bullets while Nathan stared wide-eyed. We were just starting to barricade the door when it hit me. "We shouldn't be here! He's after me—Al's after me. He'll come right to this room. We have to hide somewhere else. This—"

"You're right," Nathan agreed.

Gary handed me a shotgun and picked up the other one, as a gut-wrenching scream came from outside. "I'm wishing there were more of us right now."

Sonya and Nathan pulled down our barricade as Gary and I stood with the shotguns ready. The hallway had been nice and quiet since the day before, but now it made my skin crawl like an empty ghost town. More screams could be heard, but they weren't close.

Gary pointed to the doors to his left. "Sonya, let's take this side of the hallway. Nathan and Evie, take that side. Let's find an open room." We started checking doors, but they were all locked. When I turned around to see Sonya and Gary at the other end of the hallway, panic bubbled up in my chest. They were too far away from me. The sound of what seemed to be an angry mob came from the stairwell, and I wanted to run to them, but the stairwell was between us.

I took a step in that direction anyway, not knowing what else to do, but Nathan grabbed my hand. "No. Not that way." A small, but terrifying blond-haired, infected green-eyed guy came through the arch leading to the stairwell. I could feel myself shaking like a house in a tornado. Gary found an unlocked door and Sonya was stepping inside when he saw the Infected.

"Evie!" Gary yelled, and the Infected stared at Gary then me, as if trying to choose who he was going to go after.

"I've got her!" Nathan yelled and grabbed my hand. "Get inside! Lock yourself in!"

Gary hesitated, but then the Infected turned toward Gary, forcing him to lock himself in the room. Petrified, I let Nathan pull me around the corner and down the other side of the hallway, trying each door. One… locked… two… locked.

"Come on, we have to run!" Nathan grabbed my hand again and pulled me toward the elevator at the end of the hallway. Just as we jumped inside, the Infected was turning in our direction, heading down the hallway toward us. I punched the "close door" button maybe fifty times, and finally, the doors closed. Nathan and I were both able to breathe again as the elevator descended.

On the ground floor, we cautiously left the safety of our elevator and ran as quietly as we could out of the dorm building. The second we stepped outside the building, a larger group of Infecteds spotted us. They had a guy and two girls screaming in pain and terror while their group of maybe twenty did who knows what to them. Nathan started to slow down a bit, but I wouldn't let him and pulled him harder by the hand.

"We can help." He panted. "We have a gun. We have to help them."

I shook my head. "The gun doesn't mean anything," I tried to explain. "You don't know what this is." I yanked harder on his hand, and he trusted me enough to follow.

I had no idea where to go. We wouldn't be safe anywhere. Hiding seemed to be the only option, so I headed for the next building, hoping to lose the Infecteds I could hear following us.

Inside the next dorm, it was as completely, eerily quiet as ours had been. We ran up several flights of stairs and started trying doors again. I could hear people on the other side, but no one would open their door.

"Over here!" A guy I didn't know yelled from down the hallway as he made gestures for us to hurry. Nathan and I ran inside, and we shut and locked the door. I helped them pull the heavy dressers up in front of the door and the solid tables and mini-fridge—everything we could, we used as a barricade. When there was nothing left, we crouched in the closet and huddled as quietly as we could.

I felt like such an idiot. How could I not have known there were Infecteds on campus? Why hadn't I been suspicious? The screams of the people outside haunted me. I closed my eyes and wished to be somewhere else—anywhere.

When the screams came closer and closer, I thought I would have a heart attack. No heart could be built for the crap I'd been surviving. The sounds of doors being broken down, screaming girls and guys—they followed us. We led them here. The pounding was right at our door. Nathan was shaking now too. The guy next to us was praying silently. They were relentlessly attacking the door. It seemed like forever passed as we waited for them to get inside, but really it was only moments. Then with one large crash, it got quiet—too quiet. I closed my eyes—I just couldn't handle waiting to die.

When the door was pulled open and ripped completely off its hinges, I started firing as many rounds as I could, but the gun was ripped out of my hands before I was yanked out of the closet. I could smell the blood and saw that I'd managed to damage two of them, but then I realized why they had followed us. Sneering at me was the face of Al. I didn't know it was possible, but I started to shake even more.

"I can smell you, bitch!" There was blood on his hands and his shirt, and his eyes were such a scary shade of green. What would he do to me? He hated me. He clearly wasn't going to make this quick. The owner of the room launched at him and Nathan went after him as well, trying to fight him or hurt him, but Al flung each of them at the walls like they were crumpled up pieces of paper. I watched as Nathan curled up into a little ball on the floor. I got up and tried to attack him too, but he just shoved me back into the wall, leaving me dazed.

"Well, bitch. It looks like I'm not your only secret admirer." He was insane. "Did you like my gifts? The History teacher pissed me off. It was like Christmas Day when I found him screwing a student and killed them both. He was wearing the necklace. Did you appreciate the souvenir?" He was psychotic. How had he managed to act normal? "How about that figure from the girl I did in the park—she was hot. Not as hot as you."

Tears poured down my cheeks—I didn't even try to stop them. Al went after the guy who let us into his room and started punching him over and over and over. Blood splattered the walls, and all I could think was how sorry I was for leading Al here. He'd been nice enough to give us a place to hide, and I brought death in with me. At least his death was quick—there was no way he could survive many of those blows from Al. Another Infected stepped into the room, but Al growled at him, and he left. Then Al leaned down and bit off a chunk of the guy's skin. I wanted to throw up.

"You didn't seem to like the prettier gifts, so I went with the teddy bear next. She was a sweetheart. She begged and begged." I cringed at the thought—could imagine what he'd done. "Then it hit me! You're one of those uptight bitches who demands a ring."

Nathan was in pain, but he turned to me and mouthed the word, "run." I managed to crawl toward Nathan, refusing to leave him behind, but Al walked over to Nathan, laughing this high-pitched laugh. Did all Infecteds laugh that demented laugh?

When he reached down and picked Nathan up by his throat, I couldn't just sit there, and I couldn't run. I had to do something. I picked up the lamp that was lying on the floor—the only heavy thing around—and smashed it against the back of Al's head twice before he punched me in the abdomen and sent my flying at the wall. I actually counted myself as fortunate when my head cushioned my body's blow as it hit the wall. It was so much nicer to die while unconscious.

I don't know how long I was out, but when I opened my eyes, my head felt twenty times larger, my body hurt everywhere, and I couldn't breathe without a stabbing pain in my ribs. The first thing I saw was Nathan crumpled on the floor with Al leaning over him, teeth bared.

Purely by luck, the shotgun caught my eye—it was only three feet from me, pushed slightly under the rug that was crumpled on the floor. Trying not to draw attention to myself, I slowly and painfully inched toward it. I could hear rounds and rounds of gunfire outside, and Al got up and went to the window to look out, chewing something with blood dripping from his mouth. I looked back at Nathan and squeezed my eyes shut. A large portion of his cheek was gone and blood was everywhere.

I wanted to cry and scream and throw up, but I had to get to that gun. Nathan could still be alive—I had to get to the gun. I inched along and slid my hand to the shotgun, wrapping my fingers around the barrel. Al started cussing a whole stream of curse words as he continued to stare. I pulled the shotgun into position and aimed at his head. When I pumped it, I finally got his attention, and his eyes turned on me. The unnatural green was almost as terrifying as the anger. The words I'd heard Harm tell me thousands of times repeated in my head. "If you're sure someone is out to hurt you, don't hesitate, shoot. Don't hesitate, shoot."

"Don't hesitate," I said out loud and pulled the trigger. I aimed for his head, but my hands had been shaking so badly that I hit his shoulder instead. I knew then that I had lost my one shot. He got up, blood all over him, and lunged at me with his hands looking grotesquely claw-like. I closed my eyes and thought of Dev, but the sound from the doorway made me throw my eyes open in time to see bullet after bullet enter Al's body. He stumbled backward a few steps and came forward again. It was unreal. Several more bullets flew at his head before he finally collapsed on the ground. I turned to find fully armed soldiers in the doorway. Their lasers were trained on me for a moment before I pushed the shotgun away and put my hands up.

"He—he attacked us," I stuttered, trying to force the words out through the gasps I was forced to take. "He—tried to—I shot him."