Virulent: The Release (10 page)

But despite its cosmetic deficiencies, there was something powerful about the East Wing. It was the only place in the school entirely dedicated to creation. A birdhouse. A watercolor. A ceramic vase. Key chains. A newspaper.

Immediately after the last round of security, the whole group left the confines of the English classroom and darted up the hall with Clayton leading them down the hallway, left toward the art studio, up to the woods workshop and the metals room. They twitched eagerly as Mrs. Johnston opened up the door and led the group inside, hushing them, and pushing them, until she could close the door without a sound. Then Clayton hit a switch and the room tumbled to life—overhead lights flickering, the room awash in a golden glow, illuminating shiny metal from one end of the room to the other.

The room was large, expansive. Row after row of long workbenches and tented workstations, each equipped with tubes and wires, stools, machinery. A staircase at the very end led to a narrow walkway where large sheets of metal were stored, each placed upright against the wall, reflective and bright. The entire room echoed as the group walked around inside, and when Lucy ran her hand over the nearest table, small shards of aluminum collected on her skin, and she brushed them off on her jeans.

“I’ve never been here,” Grant said, peeking his head into a work station, the large green plastic curtain crinkling loudly as he pulled it back. “Four years in this place and I’ve never had a class back here. I didn’t even know it existed.” Lucy understood—she hadn’t known about the East Wing either until Salem joined journalism.

“I live here,” Clayton replied with pride. He walked over to a section of the room and pulled back on a white bed sheet, exposing a fiberglass body of a racing car. “I’ve been working on this for my electric car competition. Hours and hours,” he said with a touch of sadness. He ran a hand through his long hair and then shook away whatever was going through his head. After a prolonged glance at his handiwork, Clayton threw the sheet back over the car body and turned to the group.

Mrs. Johnston’s foot tapped by the door. “Get what you need and hurry!” she instructed.

Clayton pointed toward Grant. “In that closet, grab the ladder. You,” he pointed at Lucy, “help him carry it to the hallway.”

Then Clayton disappeared into the belly of the workshop, and after a moment he emerged carrying wire-cutters and a cordless blowtorch. He motioned for everyone to follow his lead back out into the hallway and Grant and Lucy lugged the full-sized ladder after him.

“Alright,” Clayton said as the door to Metals clinked closed. “Open up this room. Hurry,” he instructed, nodding toward the journalism lab.

Lucy raised her eyebrows, perplexed, but she followed them inside all the same, shuffling her feet along the tile, the ladder heavier than she had originally assumed it would be.

The lab used to be a drafting classroom. It was large with heavy cement walls, which the journalism students had painted pink and green. She had been in the room dozens of times, waiting aimlessly for Salem to finish a column or meet a deadline, and she had made a home of the dark blue couch in the corner and perused the journalism teacher’s books out of boredom on many occasions. And once, while Salem argued about her advice column with her adviser, when no one was looking, Lucy stole a book of Joan Didion essays. Her intent was to read it and return it, but the book was lost somewhere—it had wandered off and adopted a transitory lifestyle, which Lucy always thought was better for books anyway.

Trancelike, Mrs. Johnston walked inside and straight into the center of the room, not even bothering to flip on the lights. There was no need to engage the overheads because the room was bright enough from a giant skylight in the ceiling. Made of milky plastic, the skylight served an aesthetic rather than functional purpose, and Lucy remembered when it rained the sound of water hitting the material amplified the drops to an alarming degree, making conversation with someone right next to you nearly impossible.

“Of course,” Mrs. Johnston said as Clayton and Grant hoisted the ladder upright and stood it up on top of the long tables under the skylight. One leg on one table, the other leg on another table, and when it wobbled, Lucy sucked in a breath. Clayton climbed up onto the table and grabbed hold of the ladder, sliding it this way and that way, and testing its ability to hold someone’s weight as it towered to the ceiling.

“She didn’t even come to school today,” Mrs. Johnston said, crossing her arms over her chest, and wandering to the journalism teacher’s desk. “Yesterday we talked about starting herb gardens and taking the kids on a play date.” Mrs. Johnston trailed off. She sat down in a big squeaky black chair and leaned back, and she trained her eyes on a row of pictures in frames—smiling faces on the beach, a Pomeranian dog licking a little boy’s face.

Lucy remembered that Mrs. Johnston and the journalism teacher had been good friends, always huddling with their heads together at assemblies, sharing class adviser duties, bringing each other lattes in the morning.

It was strange that people were lost instantaneously and their lives released from the world in a moment. Those people were held in memories and nothing more. Best friends absorbed into bedlam in a single breath and simply—poof—gone in one startling second. Lucy was most alarmed by the fact that so many people had died and not any of them could be properly mourned. She grieved for mankind and for herself, but she knew the individual people were already turning into a collective.

Clayton climbed up the first few rungs and held the blowtorch and wire-cutters in his hands. Grant and Purse Girl each held a side of the ladder while Lucy looked at the clock. She watched as Clayton reached his hand up until he could touch the plastic segments, and when he pushed up on them they gave slightly under the pressure. He put the wire cutters down and grabbed the blowtorch, turning it on so the blue flame sprouted up a few inches and hissed angrily. He began to work on the plastic around the edges of the first panel, melting away the sides—they curled under the heat—their edges turning black. The room began to reek of burning plastic, but if anyone cared, no one said anything.

“Are we going back to your room?” Lucy asked Mrs. Johnston. “We have three minutes.”

Mrs. Johnston stood up. The chair turned in lazy circles behind her. “Clayton?” He turned the blowtorch off and looked down.

“Five minutes?”

“Keep going,” she instructed and she sat back down.

Lucy took a tentative step forward. “Why risk it?” she said. “Let’s just go back. Then we’ve earned another ten minutes.”

No one answered her.

She hadn’t heard from Salem, but she had sent three texts about getting to the roof in the East Wing. Lucy hadn’t thought through the next stage of their plan. If they could get Salem inside, that would be fantastic, but what happened after that? One thing seemed clear: The entire plan would be easier if they didn’t already have security looking for them. The journalism lab didn’t have windows and the entire room was isolated, and while that worked to their benefit as they plugged along, burning the plastic ceiling away, it seemed to be a detriment if they couldn't plot an escape.

Her tendency to overthink and dwell in restlessness was a trait inherited from her mother. But at least her mother was strong enough to transform anxiety into action. She wondered how her mom would have organized the troops if she were here and she couldn’t help but smile at the thought of Mama Maxine swooping in and taking charge, charting their course without room for error. Mama would have already set up camp somewhere, hunkered them down and have them eating an elaborate lunch. She would have found a way to help the people trapped outside while still protecting herself. She would have all the answers. But she was not there; Lucy had not heard from her since her frantic text. All the text messages sent to her mom and Ethan remained without reply.

Her apprehension grew as the second hand on the school’s wall clock made its rounds.

They were zeroing in on the point of no return.

Around. Around. Mrs. Johnston circled in the chair. Her face appearing and disappearing in even intervals. Then she threw her foot down and the chair stopped. “Are we close?” she asked and, from atop the ladder, Clayton said he only needed one more minute. He had burned around the perimeter of the whole first panel and now his hand was the only thing keeping it in the air. With impressive dexterity, he handed the blowtorch to Grant and then grabbed the piece with both hands and lowered it down.

Everyone looked up. They had a perfect view of the sky—blue, virtually cloudless.

A mesh of chicken wire covered the four-foot by three-foot hole, but in a moment, Clayton was snipping the metal into pieces, where it fell with small plinks on to the table below. He seemed to sense the question before anyone asked, and he turned to his audience. “Last year, I almost got suspended for climbing up onto the roof during metals class. We spent over an hour up here exploring,” he shrugged. “We could hear everything from this classroom on the roof and that’s when I realized it was just plastic. I kept thinking, if the wires weren’t there and I stepped wrong, I’d just fall right through. It was kind of a funny thought.” With a final snip, Clayton had created a large enough space for any of them to fit through.

If they stood on the very top of the ladder, it wouldn’t take much to grab the side of the roof and hoist themselves upward to freedom.

Clayton looked down at everyone. “Well?” he asked. “Do we just...go?”

Grant looked at Lucy. She marched over and climbed up on the table, swinging her legs off the floor. She stood and stared up at the hole, frowning.

“Someone should go and check for Salem.” Lucy pulled out her phone and punched in Salem’s number.

The
All Circuits Busy
message beeped at her. Frustrated, she sat atop the table and felt the cool wind rustle down through the hole.

Then as loud as an air-raid siren, the two-tone announcement bell jolted them into attention.

They all froze.

The microphone clicked and Principal Spencer’s voice filled the room.

“Nikki, Nikki. Where’d you take your room of kids?” He cleared his throat, and the noise crackled through the temperamental sound system. “Either you
defied
my instructions or dead bodies just learned to get up and walk away. Whether you like it or not, you are still under my leadership. You have one minute to get back to your rooms…or…”

He paused, baiting them. Lucy stood up. Clayton remained motionless at the top of the ladder. Mrs. Johnston rose from her colleague’s chair and walked over to the room’s speaker. She stood directly beneath it with her hands on her hips. She looked up at the box expectantly as the intercom hummed.

Then Principal Spencer hiccupped, his words slurred together. “Never mind. Forget it. Forget
you
. You don’t want my protection? You don’t want my
help
? Then leave. Go ahead. Come to the front doors and I’ll let you out myself. I want everyone out of this building. DO YOU HEAR ME?” He screamed so loudly that the intercom clicked off, obscuring the end of his rant.

Mrs. Johnston shook her head. “Moron,” she muttered and rolled her eyes.

“Is he drunk?” Grant asked.

“Absolutely. He keeps a bottle of single-malt scotch in his coat closet,” Mrs. Johnston replied and then turned swiftly and climbed up on the table, where she just looked at Clayton, her big eyes wide and waiting. “Well, Clayton, you heard the man. He
wants
everyone out of the building now.”

“Sure would’ve saved me some work if he’d just invited us to go out the front door ten minutes ago.”

“You want to go out the front door, be my guest. I’m not holding that man to his word. I’m going up.” Mrs. Johnston started to climb the ladder, but she stopped when she traffic jammed with Clayton. “Are
you
going up?”

Clayton looked down at everyone and saluted. “Best of luck comrades,” he mumbled and then climbed the rest of the way up the ladder. He grabbed the edge of the exposed roof and using all his upper-body strength pulled himself to the black tarred surface.

“Do you see Salem?” Lucy cried out, grasping the ladder’s leg and peering up into the sky.

Clayton didn’t answer.

Mrs. Johnston took her turn next. She reached the top and swung herself up. Then she popped her head back down. “Everyone,” she started and then her voice broke. “Take care of yourselves,” she told them all and then was off. They could hear her footsteps trailing away with the creak of the ceiling and the steady thump-thump above them. They could make out every other word of Clayton’s instructions as he directed her to get down. “That way…a dumpster…you…jump.”

Purse Girl ascended next. Lucy took over holding the ladder as she wobbled upward—throwing her purse on the roof and then taking Clayton’s hand as he helped her past the lip. The girl ran across the roof toward the edge and her running shook the tiles above them.

Grant looked at Lucy and held out his hand.

“I’ll hold it steady. Promise,” he said and grabbed on to the ladder with both hands.

Lucy stared at the sky through the ceiling. She looked at Grant and patted his arm. “No, you go first,” she said.

Grant dropped his hands to his sides. “It’s okay. I don’t mind. Just go. Clayton can help you up if you’re worried. I don’t mind climbing up without someone holding the ladder. I’m a pole-vaulter,” he paused. “
Was
a pole-vaulter? Look, I’m good at balancing, so I’ll go last, and I don’t mind. Let me hold it for you.” He reached up and grabbed the side, giving it a little jiggle to show that it was sturdy.

She narrowed her eyes. “I’m not
worried
about falling. I’m not arguing chivalry. I’m just...” Lucy looked at him and her shoulders slumped. “I’m not going.”

He let his hands slide from the sides of ladder. “Not going?”

“My family knows where I am. Ethan said he’d come back for me…what if…we miss each other. What if he comes back and I’m not here? Plus, Salem.” She motioned upward, “She was scared out there and she was trying to get inside. Maybe it really
is
safer in here.”