Her leg was in an aluminum mop bucket that was lodged into the innards of the floor. The interior of the bucket was lined with whittled wooden spikes extending down at a forty-five-degree angle. It was easy to get your foot in, but any effort to pull it out drove the sharpened spikes farther into your flesh. The rough-hewn spikes were plunged deep into Violent’s calf. She was literally nailed to the floor.
“We have to get the bucket out,” Lucy said.
Julie nodded. They dug their fingers into the floor and pried at the bucket. With a few minutes of work, Violent was able to lift her leg out, bucket and all. They marched ahead.
Violent dragged her bucket foot in long scrapes punctuated by painful grunts. Lucy couldn’t understand how Violent kept from crying. They reached the turn in the hallway.
The long hallway ahead was mostly dark, except for a few broken lights that spotlighted small sections of the floor, making it look like a suburban street at night. Junk was piled up along the sides of the hall. Halfway down it, the doors to a row of lockers on one side were bent and torn. Sharp metal edges stuck straight out from the wall like thresher blades.
“We need more bricks,” Violent grunted out.
“Let’s go back and get some,” Lucy said.
One of the Sluts walked over to a nearby pile of stuff. It made Lucy nervous how casually she kicked through the pile.
She wrenched a desktop from the junk.
“This’ll work.”
Lucy heard a click. A locker next to the Slut sprang open.
Inside there were three spray bottles full of liquid. Their squeeze triggers were tied with strings that ran through a series of pulleys, to a stack of books. The books dropped down the length of the locker. The bottles drenched the Slut, high, low, and middle. When the books hit the bottom of the locker they triggered the spark of a lighter. An aerosol can blast shot a plume of flame at the girl. It ignited her soaked clothes, and fire engulfed her.
The Slut howled and ran toward Lucy. Lucy could feel the heat coming off of the girl’s burning torso and head. The Slut was blazing white. Lucy and the others had no choice but to run into the rigged hallway.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! Violent’s bucket-foot clapped against the floor as she ran.
Ahead of them, a tile popped out of the ceiling. A sharpened broom handle dropped out of the ceiling. A block of bundled library books the size of a guitar amp was duct-taped to the top as a weight. The heavy spike sank into the second Slut’s torso, right behind her collarbone. The flaming girl was gaining on them, baying and dripping fire. She cast a blazing orange light on the hallway that made Lucy and Violent’s shadows stretch out long before them.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
Julie had managed to get ahead. She was staying a safe distance from the mangled lockers ahead on the left, but a trip wire snapped loose by Julie’s foot. An overstuffed duffel bag detached from the ceiling, swung down on a rope, and crashed into Julie like a wrecking ball. It launched her into the bent metal teeth of the mangled lockers.
Violent yanked Lucy to a stop. Lucy whipped her head to look back, expecting the burning Slut to crash into her.
Instead, the girl was smoldering on the floor, crushed under a set of five weighted lockers that had fallen out of the wall.
Lucy heard sobbing. Violent was crying, holding her face in her hands, and staring at Julie. Julie’s spine was folded in half.
Her body hung over a twist of metal like a wet towel. Violent collapsed. Lucy stumbled to catch her. They fell against the wall together in an awkward embrace, both out of breath.
They sat in silence. Clumps of gray dust floated in the air, blown upward by the swing of the heavy duffel bag that had rammed Julie into the locker doors. Bricks spilled out of a rip in the busted bag. The dust fell like dead snowflakes to the floor.
Five minutes passed, maybe ten. Violent rolled her head right to look at Lucy. Sweat had grown cold on her forehead.
“You believe there’s really a way out?” Violent said.
Lucy nodded. “I believe Will.”
“You think the two of us can make it to the ruins?” Lucy looked at the bucket on Violent’s foot. Blood dripped out onto the floor.
“I think we should deal with that first,” Lucy said.
It took them ten minutes to get the spikes out of Violent’s leg. When they did, Lucy helped Violent to her feet and carried as much of her weight as she could. The pair walked cautiously to the end of the hallway. They walked past an upturned table. Looking back they could see it was a warning sign, a message from the Nerds vigorously scratched into the dark faux wood
surface of the table. It read: Past this point = DEATH.
36
Everything was going to hell.
Will ran down a hallway, and Nelson followed. All of the hallway’s linoleum floor tiles had been ripped up. A hardened squiggle of glue remained for every missing tile, the color of peanut butter mixed with blood. Nelson huffed and puffed; he kept wanting to stop. Will wouldn’t let him. There wasn’t time. David would be gone soon.
All of this was Sam’s fault. And now Sam had David, probably locked up in a trophy cabinet. After the ambush, Will had tried to run after the Nerds who’d carried David off. He couldn’t catch them. He was able to find Nelson and Belinda.
He sent Belinda off to room 1206 to meet up with Lucy. Will had a plan, and it required a little muscle. Nelson was going to have to do.
As he and Nelson ran toward the school’s administrative offices, Will could feel the tension building in his gut. He had to control it. Now was not the time to lose himself. He had to keep a clear head. Will laid on the speed, hoping that Nelson would keep up.
Within minutes they reached the door to the teachers’ lounge. Will trotted down to a walk. Nelson panted his way over to him. Nelson had a smear of soot across his face. His pants seemed like they were about to fall down. He bled from a cut on his scalp, and blood drizzled down his face. If Will looked anything like Nelson, they were in trouble.
“Can you look meaner?” Will asked.
“What?”
Nelson didn’t have his ear horn. Will spoke directly into his ear.
“I said, can you look meaner?”
Nelson tried to sneer his lip and bare his teeth like a wolf.
He looked more like a worried troll doll.
“That’s all you got?”
Nelson kept his face frozen like that and nodded his head.
Will sighed.
“Okay.”
Will shook his arms to get his nerves out. He knocked on the door and backed up. After a moment the door opened a sliver. A Skater with a shaved head and a fat lip peered out.
He instinctively recoiled at the sight of Will’s white hair and slammed the door shut again. He heard the kid send an alert out to the rest of his gang.
“Loh-ners!”
