So far, he’d slept mostly in air ducts, some closets, and once in the second-floor girls’ bathroom in the East Wing. It had been stripped of its sinks, its mirrors, its stalls, and its toilets.
Even the tiles had been chipped out of the walls and floors.
He lost sleep trying to think of what the thieves intended to do with those toilets.
Last night had been his first night in a trash can. It was a big one that must have been for the janitorial staff. He’d knocked on its side, emptied all the contents, and lined the inside with a clean trash bag from his sack. Inside, it was a little plastic cocoon. His legs stuck out, but he camouflaged them with trash.
It sure left him stiff. He stood and cracked his back. He fished his backpack out of the trash can and looked through it. He had only one can of tuna left.
Will had taken a whole pack full of food with him from the Stairs, but not enough. He figured if he ran out of supplies, he could thieve in the market. But gangs hadn’t gathered in the market for a week, because the food drop never came.
He knew the gunfire had something to do with it. He ran to the foyer that day to see what was happening and was almost spotted by Lucy and David when the Loners ran out. He hid. It still felt too soon to face them.
The next day he watched from the third-floor balcony as the three kids who were supposed to graduate the day of the massacre tried the graduation booth over and over, but the doors never opened. They ended up coughing their lungs out on the foyer floor.
Will decided to save the tuna for later. He rummaged through his bag some more and pulled out a bottle of water, reinforced with layers of masking tape, and a pencil case. He opened the pencil case and pulled out a clean white toothbrush. Will set off down the hallway, dry-brushing his teeth and rinsing his mouth with slugs of water.
Above him, the ceiling lights went out. Will looked up at the fluorescent light panels that ran the length of the hall.
That’s weird, he said to himself.
The lights were out all down the hall. He clicked on his phone to use it as a flashlight, and continued on.
The hallway was wide and emptied into a small area that used to be a student lounge. Two vending machines, pillaged and bashed, were knocked over on the floor. The whole room was burned black, probably by a controlled burn that got out of hand, some moron burning furniture to make ash for black hair dye. No one came here anymore, and that was exactly why Will was here. It was the same reason he’d gone to the suicide room, the old student counselor’s office where four people had decided to kill themselves since the quarantine began. Will was searching through all of the places no one else went.
Will kept replaying in his head over and over the night it all went wrong, as if he thought he could change it. He’d whipped open the curtains. David was pinned to the floor, Hilary on top of him, a shiv raised. And then it all went black. When he came to, there was a lot of shouting. He was on the floor. His brother‘s face was painted with blood. Will thought he’d been slashed. Then David’s head rolled heavily toward him. His eye was destroyed.
Will couldn’t go back to the Stairs until he avenged his brother. There were only so many places Smudge could hide.
Traitor. It killed Will that he had been played so easily. He was sick and tired of losing. It was no wonder Lucy never took him seriously. He was an idiot. Smudge may have opened the door, but it was still Will’s fault. He’d put David in that situation because he couldn’t control himself. He’d never had any self-control.
He knew he couldn’t make it right. David’s eye was gone for good. But he could make Smudge pay. Outside of his time with the Loners, Will only ever saw Smudge at night. Smudge lived on the fringe. The only people he associated with, other than Will, were thieves.
So far, Will had struck out, but there was one last place to look.
A wicked smell stung his nose. Putrid flesh. A whole lot of it. He’d been here before, a long time ago, with David. It was the teachers’ graveyard, lockers upon lockers stuffed with corpses. Will quickly pulled a bandanna from his bag and wrapped it around his nose and mouth. He stomach was doing backflips. He took a small breath, only through his mouth. Will was entering the ruins, the decrepit East Wing of the school. There was talk that it was haunted by the ghosts of teachers and dead students. The stench only added to the atmosphere. No sane person belonged here. This had to be where Smudge was hiding.
Will climbed a staircase that had an enormous crack separating it in two all the way up to the next floor. By the light of his phone, Will saw the words KILL ME scrawled in what looked like dried blood across a wall of the next hallway. He hesitated before taking the final step up. He hated to admit it, but the ruins were freaking him out.
Will needed to calm down. He pulled a smut phone from his pocket. It barely had one bar left on its battery life. He’d found it in a desk drawer in a classroom overrun with flies. Some kid must have stashed it there to hide it from his girlfriend. The Nerds sold beat-up phones that were loaded with porn. They collected all the dirty pictures and videos they could find from laptops and phones that they charged or serviced. The photo was a girl he recognized, a Freak, and she was nude. She must have struck a deal with some enterprising Nerds, because there were tons more galleries of her on there.
That’s one way to make some money, Will thought.
All the hall lights flickered on ahead. They weren’t putting out their maximum wattage for some reason, and the quality of the light fluctuated.
A horrible noise came from far away. It was a gut-wrenching scream that slid into a deep belly laugh.
It must have been one of the burnout kids who lived in the ruins. There was a small group that never could hack it in McKinley. They hid in the ruins, getting high off whatever chemicals were left from the science labs. The only time they ventured out of the ruins was at night, to rob people. Kids said their minds were gone, and they were just animals now.
Another scream rolled down the hall at him. It sounded closer than before. Will pocketed both phones in a hurry. He needed to stay sharp. He rounded the corner into the main hall of what used to be the science department. He came to a hall with a caved-in ceiling. Everything smelled like mold.
Will figured there was a broken water pipe somewhere, and it probably had been flooding since the explosion. Water trickled down the walls in steady rivulets. The floor was slick. The rest of the hallway was impassible, caved in completely. He ducked into a doorway.
The room beyond had no floor. A ragged, gaping hole took up nearly the entire room. Floor clung to the walls around the room’s edges. like a shattered window. Will stood on one of those shards, inches from the crumbled edge. Wavy brown stains marked the ceiling and the high part of the walls.
Below, as best as he could make out, were the remains of four smaller rooms, their walls crushed by what used to be the ceiling above them. Will tried to make sense of what they used to be. The obliterated skeletons of computers, printers, and swivel chairs were half buried in the rubble. It was the computer lab for the science department, a part of the school Will never had a chance to see when it was new.
There was a dog in the middle of the room below.
It was a German shepherd with tan-colored fur and a black snout. Will felt like he was dreaming, but he knew he wasn’t.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a dream. Will softened, looking at the dog.
“Hey, buddy.”
Will lowered himself into the room below. He held his hand out as he approached the dog.
“Come here, pooch.”
The dog cocked its head like it was considering the offer. It sniffed the air.
“Come here.”
The dog sniffed his hand.
“What are you doing here, pal? Where’d you come from?” Will marveled at it. He dared to scratch behind its ears. The dog let him.
“I’m not so bad, right? You like me, huh?” The dog panted. The corners of its mouth pulled up, which made it look like the dog was smiling. Its breath was hot and comforting. It was an amazing thing for Will to be in the company of another creature that meant him absolutely no harm.
There was no duplicity in the eyes he saw before him. If he ever got out of McKinley, he was definitely getting a dog.
