The building they had broken into turned out to be the administrative building. A cursory glance down the white hallway showed offices on either side, and halfway down the hall a sign indicated the teacher’s room. Beyond that were walls lined with blue lockers stacked two tall.
As they walked toward the far end of the hallway, Zeke tried each door knob. None yielded to the twisting force he applied. At the end of the hall was the double door through which he had first attempted to enter the building. Both doors had a crash bar which he carefully avoided pushing as he put his face to the narrow window and peered through the tinted glass at the crowd milling around outside. His actions on the roof had formed the second Bowden Horde. It was just as large as the first and they showed no signs of losing interest.
“Let me see your tool again,” Meagan said. He handed it to her and she opened the knife blade. Zeke turned back to the window and continued to look despondently at the mass of bodies waiting to sink their teeth into his flesh. His attention was drawn away from the window by a metallic
click
. He looked back for the source of the noise and saw Meagan pull a door open, revealing rows of four foot wide counters inside a classroom. Each counter had a sink with a long curved faucet at one end. On the other end of the counter, there was a conical spigot with a chrome handle. He recognized the spigots from his days in high school and college chemistry. They provided methane gas for the Bunsen burners.
Meagan walked across the hallway and slipped the knife blade between the door jamb and the door. The point speared the latch. Working the knife from side to side, she was able to push the latch into the door and pull the door open. Inside was another classroom. This one had rows of tables, each with two chairs neatly pushed in, facing the front of the room. Along a counter in the back were jars of pickled animals and organs. The next room they opened housed what appeared to be the physics lab.
The building had been constructed in the 70’s when the educational theory stated that the classroom should be devoid of all distractions from the outside world. In an effort to achieve that goal, the classrooms had small windows just below the ceiling. They let natural light into the room and provided ventilation when opened, but were too high to permit students to see more than the sky outside. In order to maintain a uniform appearance in architecture, the offices had the same window configuration.
The short-lived, bad idea in the ever-changing world of educational philosophy was cemented in time by the architecture of schools built during the era. Bad as the philosophy was, it turned out to be a life saver for anybody trying to find refuge in a school built during that time. In this case, it kept Zeke and Meagan out of reach and sight of the infected outside. The windows were too high to allow them to gain entrance into the building.
Meagan worked her magic one more time on the door across the hall from the physics lab. The sign on the door read “Teachers’ Room.” The spacious room had two cheaply made, large, round tables at one end. The tables were surrounded by molded plastic chairs with shiny chrome legs. Two silver refrigerators and an upright freezer adorned the wall space nearest the tables. To the left side of the refrigerators was a vending machine full of candy. Flanking it was another with drinks. A flat screen television hung from one wall. At the other end of the room, an oak pool table, an air hockey table, and a foosball table occupied the central space. A row of computers lined the back wall, each in a partitioned off section of a long table.
Zeke whistled as he took in the room. “It must be rough teaching in this school.” As he walked to the vending machine, he added, “I don’t think I’d ever leave the teacher’s room if I worked here.”
The contents of the vending machine alone would keep them fed for at least a week. In addition to the junk food, the refrigerators contained a substantial stash of real food and a pile of sack lunches that were left when teachers fled the school. There were enough bags of lettuce to make salad for several days. Zeke picked up a gallon size jug, sloshing milk around the top of the nearly full container, as he lifted it to examine the expiration date. “Good for two more weeks,” he proclaimed. Somebody must have made their daily breakfast on the stove because there was enough bacon and eggs to produce a statin requiring spike in cholesterol levels of three large men.
Zeke pulled the handle on the freezer door. As the door opened, frigid air rolled out, colliding with the warm air of the teachers’ room. When the two air masses collided, a steamy cloud of vapor formed, rolling and swirling at the edges.
Zeke pulled out a clear vacuum sealed bag with a warning message written in black sharpie: “Hands off, G. Howe.” Holding up the half pound package of frozen meat, “It looks like we’re having steak tonight,” Zeke proclaimed. “And tomorrow night,” he added as he held up a second package, “And the next night,” as he held up a third package. With his hands full of meat, he smiled and said, “It looks like we’re going to be having steak all week. I hope G. Howe doesn’t mind.”
Zeke dug a handful of change out of his pocket and
clinked
seventy-five cents into the shiny coin slot in the face of the vending machine. He pushed the button with a picture of a bottle of Gatorade next to it. The innards of the machine
thumped
and
thudded
softly until a twenty ounce bottle made its way out of the machine, landing in the black holder near the bottom with a
clunk
.
Zeke picked up the bottle, refreshingly cool in his hand, sat down at the table, and said, “Pull up a chair and I’ll share.”
Meagan pulled out a chair beside him, and enthusiastically answered, “You’ve got yourself a date, Mister.”
Zeke took a long draw from the mouth of the bottle and pushed it across the table toward Meagan. She lifted it to her mouth and didn’t set it down until it was half empty. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and slid it back to Zeke.
While Meagan was taking her second nip at the bottle, Zeke reached across the table for the slender black remote and turned on the TV. When the screen lit up, it was tuned to CNN. “That figures,” he chided.
“What figures?” Meagan asked.
“That the TV in the teacher’s lounge is tuned in to the
Communist News Network
.”
“You’re saying that teachers are liberal because the TV was tuned to CNN?” she asked accusingly.
“Hey, if the shoe fits,” he answered.
She grabbed the remote from him as she said, “My mom and sister are teachers. They’re the most conservative people you’d ever meet.” She pushed the recall button on the remote and the TV switched to Fox News. “It looks to me like the teachers here are conservative and the janitor is the liberal one,” she countered as she set the remote back on the table. She sat looking at the TV and then let out a long breath, “Liberal, conservative, it doesn’t matter anymore. With all that’s happening out there, nobody is going to care about politics anymore. At this point in history, we’re all just people trying to survive.”
Zeke nodded in silent agreement without turning from the TV. He watched for a couple minutes and turned it off. “Nothing’s changed. I don’t have it in me to watch any more of that. We’ve been living it all day.”
Zeke visited the drink machine again, expending the last of the change from his pocket. “I guess that’s it for the drinks. I’m not sure how to break into the machine.”
“I don’t think you’ll have to,” Meagan said, standing on her tip toes and stretching to get a metal coffee can from the top of one of the refrigerators. She reached in and as she pulled her hand out, allowed a stream of quarters to flow between her fingers and
clink
back into the nearly full can. “Think anybody will mind if we raid the coffee fund?” she giggled.
“I hate to take coffee from anybody’s cup,” he said sarcastically. “We’ll leave IOUs for every dime we take.” Becoming more serious he added, “With all of your not-so-secret admirers out there, I think we may be stuck here for a while. Do you want to explore the rest of the building before dinner and see if there’s anything else of value to us?”
Having had a chance to cool down and rehydrate, Zeke and Meagan left the teacher’s room and continued opening locked doors as they proceeded down the hallway. For the most part, the rooms proved to be an uninteresting assortment of offices. The second to last room was identified by a sign on the door as the sick room. When the door was opened, Meagan was pleased to see that either side of the room had a single bed with crisp looking white sheets.
She smiled and said, “This may be the best find so far. I was afraid I was going to have to sleep on the floor.”
“That’s great,” Zeke said. “For the past two days, I’ve been worried about getting eaten alive and trying to keep you from being torn to pieces and all you’ve been worried about is having to sleep on the floor. I’ll never understand the female mind.”
Meagan punched him in the arm. “That’s not what I meant. I’m just glad to have an occasional reminder of the finer things in life.”
“A bed that doesn’t even have a blanket qualifies as one of the finer things in life? If you’re that easy to keep happy, I should marry you right now.”
“Sorry to burst you bubble, but I’m only twenty-two and since I was about five years old, my dad has told me I’m not even allowed to date until I’m thirty-five. You’re gonna have to wait for thirteen years.” As soon as she said it, her head dropped, her infectious smile vanished, and tears began welling up in her eyes.
Zeke cautiously wrapped his arm around her shoulder in an awkward attempt to comfort her. Accepting his half-hearted embrace, Meagan wrapped both of her arms around him and for the second time in two days, buried her head in his chest and wept.
In less than a minute, Meagan was wiping the tears from her eyes and apologizing. “I’m sorry for losing it again. I keep forgetting my parents are gone,” she said, sniffling. “My dad and I were really close. Talking about him reminded me that he’s gone.” She inhaled again, the loose mucus in her nose gurgling as air passed through it and sucked it further up into her sinus passages.
“Don’t worry about it. I understand,” Zeke said, trying to comfort her and surprisingly not minding her exhibitions of emotion. “I’ll give you two more outbursts and then you’re going to have to keep it together.”
Meagan laughed and said, “Thanks. That’s really generous of you.” Tears continued draining from her eyes and into her sinuses and nose, resulting in the formation of more snot than she could contain. Embarrassed, she turned away from Zeke, pulled the front of the shirt up to her face and blew her nose on the fabric.
“That has to be the most repulsive thing I have ever seen. And in light of what I have experienced during the last day, that’s saying a lot,” Zeke asserted, feigning disgust as she turned around.
Zeke’s response caused the capillaries in her face to open up, raising the temperature of her skin and turning it a rosy hue of red. “I’m sorry. I can’t believe I just did that in front of you,” she uttered in humiliation.
“This definitely takes our relationship to a new level. I think this means I can fart in front of you now,” Zeke teased with a twinkle in his eye.
“Uhh, no! You will never be allowed to fart in my presence,” she said as her face once again lit up and the excess blood drained away, removing the previous sign of embarrassment. She grabbed onto the bend in his arm and pulled him to the last door. “Let’s see if there’s anything worthwhile behind lucky door number thirteen.” Slipping the blade of her knife between the latch and the door, she quickly circumvented the lock.
“I’d say this one is worthwhile,” Zeke exclaimed excitedly. The last door opened into the maintenance shop. Sitting in one of the bays was a red pickup truck. He loped across the shop and pulled the door open. The interior of the truck dinged, indicating the keys were in the ignition. Sliding into the seat, he twisted the key forward. The engine growled to life without hesitation.
Zeke looked over the gauges and stuck his head out the open door, happily proclaiming, “It has a full tank of gas! We’re in business.”
“That’s great. Now why don’t you turn it off before you poison us with carbon monoxide?”
“Fair enough. I want to check on your admirer’s outside and see if they’re losing interest anyway,” he answered.
Encouraged by the presence of a vehicle, especially one with a full tank of fuel, Zeke quickly traversed the length of the hallway and peered out the window. The area in front of the building was still full of infected, standing room only.
Meagan stood beside him and looked out the window in the opposite door. “There are just as many as an hour ago. Why aren’t they leaving?”
“Who knows? Maybe they don’t have a reason to go anywhere else. Right here is probably just as good as wherever they were before. This does present an interesting opportunity, though.”
“How can this be an opportunity?” she asked dubiously.
“With all the noise we made up there, I suspect we attracted most of the free infected in town and now they’re all huddled in a tight group right outside the front door. We have an opportunity to help out the town by killing them all with a single
BANG
!” he said enthusiastically as he clapped his hands together. “We have everything we need right behind you in the chemistry lab.”
“Do you know anything about chemistry?” she asked doubtfully.
“I should,” he answered excitedly. “When I was in college, I doubled majored. Chemistry was my second major. I have just the thing in mind. Have you ever heard of TATP?”
“No, I can’t say that I have. What is it?”
“Triacetone Triperoxide, or TATP, is a high order explosive that’s made from chemicals found in every basic chemistry storeroom. It’s unusual among explosives because it doesn’t contain any nitrogenous compounds. The other thing that makes it unusual is that its decomposition isn’t exothermic or heat producing. The instability of the molecule comes from weak bonds between oxygen atoms within the molecule. When these bonds are stressed by shock or heat, they catastrophically break apart. A single molecule of TATP rapidly breaks down into a molecule of ozone and three molecules of acetone in its gaseous state. The four new gas molecules take up a lot more space than the original molecule which was in the solid state. The decomposition creates a shockwave as the new molecules are forced outward. The force of one molecule decomposing into four gaseous molecules is enough to cause all the other TATP molecules to explosively break down at the same time. All of the molecules coming apart at once create a huge blast. The explosion is eighty-three percent as strong as an equal amount of TNT, so it’s pretty powerful stuff.” Zeke paused as he transitioned from instructor mode back to conversation mode. “Unless you have something more pressing to do, I was thinking of whipping up a batch this evening.”
“Do you even know how to make it?” she asked with notable skepticism in her voice.
“Does the pope wear a funny hat?” he asked.
Meagan stared at him blankly.
“Yes, I know how to make it. I probably made fifty batches of it in college. It was our Saturday night study break ritual. As long as the weather was good, we would make a couple ounces in the lab and then go set it off somewhere out in the countryside.”
With her eyebrows raised questioningly, she asked, “What are we going to do with it?”
“We’re going to blow it up,” he said, unable to restrain the glee in his voice.
“Are we going to need blasting caps to set it off?” The more she heard, the more uncomfortable she was becoming.
“Blasting caps?” he laughed. “No way. This stuff is super unstable. The first time I made it, I was a TA for the high school chemistry teacher. I started it after school one day. The next day I went in to finish it while Mr. Robertson was at lunch. I was just about to pour the beaker through a filter to separate out the crystals when the door opened. I thought it was the teacher and spilled half the beaker on the counter. It turned out it wasn’t the teacher, but I got spooked. Instead of doing a proper cleanup, I wiped it up with paper towels and tossed them in the garbage can. I didn’t think about it at the time, but the paper towels picked up all the crystals from the countertop as well as the acid solution.
“Back then I didn’t know anything about chemistry. I made it using an internet recipe I downloaded in the
Anarchist Cookbook
. It turns out the recipe was no good and the stuff was way too unstable. I was lucky I didn’t blow my fingers off.
“Anyway, the trash can didn’t get emptied over the weekend and the crystals dried out and decomposed. Monday morning, Mr. Robertson came into class and tossed an old printer ribbon cartridge into the trash can from across the room. The crystals were so unstable they only required a small vibration to set them off. The three point ribbon shot was more than enough. The explosion split the trash can in half and blew out the closest window. Luckily, Mr. Robertson was across the room and didn’t get hurt. I heard about it later that day and didn’t make any more TATP until I was in college and had the knowledge to do it safely, or at least relatively safely.”
Zeke was all grins by the time he was finished with the story. The memories it brought back greatly improved what had been a dreary outlook minutes before.
“What do you need me to do?” Meagan questioned, not really sure she even wanted to be part of the science experiment Zeke was proposing.
“That door over there has to be the chemical store room. Go do your thing on the lock so I can get the chemicals I need to get started.”
“I wish I could, but my magic won’t work on that door. It has a latch guard. Apparently word of your high school chemistry exploits must have made it all the way across the country.”
“That figures. The educational system is hard at work to prevent imaginative boys from fully appreciating the wonders of what you can do with chemistry. It looks like we’re going have to do this the old fashioned way. I’ll be right back.” Zeke disappeared from the classroom, his running footfalls echoing down the hall way only to slap their way back moments later. When he entered the chemistry room, he had a hammer in one hand and a chisel in the other.
“Are you going to chisel the latch out of the door?” she asked suspiciously.
“No, nothing so draconian as that,” he answered ruefully as he used the hammer and chisel to first knock the lower hinge pin out of the door, and then the upper pin. The door teetered as its weight rested precariously on the latch and the unsecured hinges.
“Step aside, if you don’t mind.”
As Meagan moved to the left, Zeke placed the chisel behind the hinge and leveraged it outward until the door tilted slightly in the frame. The door hung, momentarily seesawing. Then Newton and his apples took over and the whole thing came crashing down, nearly crushing Zeke’s toes into a pulpy mess as the weight of the solid oak door took a gouge from the floor a mere quarter inch from the end of his shoe.
Zeke smiled at the metal shelf lined with large, brown glass bottles. He ran his finger over the labels, examining each as he went. Grabbing three from various locations on the shelf, he enthusiastically roared, “This should get us started,” as he set them down on the counter. “Hydrochloric acid, peroxide, and acetone: just what the doctor ordered.”
“You’re into this way too much. Should I be calling the FBI right now?” Meagan warily asked.
“If the FBI were to show up, we could skip this whole process. Why don’t you see if they can come on over and rescue us?” Zeke said as he poured a clear liquid into a large graduated cylinder, carefully eyeing the level as it slowly climbed past line after line, making its way up the glass sides of the container. “That ought to do,” he said, bending down so his eye was level with the meniscus, making sure it was exactly where he wanted it.
He poured the liquid into a larger beaker and set it aside and repeated the process with the other two bottles. With the measuring done, he took the beakers into the teacher’s room and placed them in the freezer. As the liquids were cooling, he returned to the classroom and brought a cart full of supplies from the chemistry lab into the teacher’s room.
“Why are you bringing the lab into the teacher’s room?” Meagan questioned.
“I figured I could work on the bomb while I cook up a couple steaks for dinner. Personally, I’ve always found it a lot easier to cook dinner on the stove than over a Bunsen burner. Besides, the atmosphere is way better in here than in the lab. Half of a good steak dinner is the atmosphere in which you eat it.”
Ten minutes later, with the aid of a spatula, Zeke scooped two sizzling steaks from the pan and flopped each one onto a plate beside the salad Meagan had prepared. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starved,” he said, sliding Meagan’s plate in front of where she sat at the table.
After dinner, Zeke combined the chemicals and put them in an ice bath which he placed in one of the refrigerators. “That should do it for the bomb until tomorrow.”
The next afternoon, he dumped the contents of the large beakers into coffee filters which collected white crystals as the liquid drained through. “We’ll let these dry over night and by tomorrow, they should be ready to go -- or maybe I should say, ready to blow.”