Scarlett looked at us. She winced at the flashlights in her face. “I’m okay. Zoe’s right, I bumped my head too. But I’ll live.”
I studied her face. Her knitted beanie hung low on her brow. Her skin seemed paler than usual. I mean, we were all pale without the sun, but Scarlett was sickly-looking, and that wasn’t normal. Her eyes were no longer lively. I just figured stress and fear were to blame.
Then Scarlett flashed us a reassuring smile. It was anything but, however.
Ell and I exchanged a concerned glance while Zoe repeated her cuckoo gesture, but George and Chad didn’t seem too bothered by this sudden display of odd behavior.
“Who was it? Was it more of those crazy assholes that were chasing the new girl? What’s her name? It’s a fuckin’ weird one, I know, but I can’t remember,” Chad said.
“Credence,” I answered.
“Yeah,” Scarlett said. “Yeah, it was them.” There wasn’t much conviction in her voice.
I thought she sounded different. The usual inflection, the giddiness, the buoyancy, was gone. Now she sounded flat.
Reasoning, I kept telling myself she was in shock over whatever it was that happened while we were gone. But then wouldn’t she have sounded scared? Distressed? If she was human, yeah, I believe so. Then again, everyone was different.
I don’t know. In hindsight, it’s hard to say exactly what was going through my head. All I really cared about at that point was getting to Mia, Monica, Stone, and Chewy, and making sure they were okay.
“Are they dead, those bastards that attacked?” Chad continued. He slapped the side of his rifle. “Please tell me you lit those motherfuckers up.”
“Dead. Yeah,” Scarlett said. Monotone.
We were coming upon the cafeteria’s entrance. It was silent, and I also found that odd. If they were watching a movie, shouldn’t there have been sound?
Scarlett grabbed the door’s handle “All right, here we are.”
I heard nothing, nothing at all. Where was everyone?
As if reading my mind, Scarlett said, “Must’ve relocated. No problem, we’ll find them. Probably felt safe enough to cross back to the hub’s entertainment rooms.”
“Nothing like a Disney movie to get ya in a better mood,” Chad said.
Scarlett pulled open the door. “After you.”
The inside was dark. Pitch-black. We had our flashlights, and I saw something on the floor, but what the puddles and smears were didn’t register until it was too late.
Ell, George, and I went through first. Chad and Zoe followed. If the three of us hadn’t led, I don’t want to think about what would’ve happened, but what did happen occurred in a blur.
The puddles and smears on the floor were red, I saw as we entered. Some part of me knew it was blood. I felt like I could almost smell it, that coppery scent; but another part of my brain couldn’t reason with the fact that it actually could be blood. Whose blood? That was the question. The people who'd attacked? My friends and family?
I was staring down at it when Zoe said, “Whoa, what the fuck are you doing—?” But, like the blood, her voice didn’t register until it was too late.
Two concussive bangs went off behind us. They were immediately followed by two bright flashes that lit up the entire cafeteria, confirming my theory.
Blood. Blood everywhere.
I spun around and put my body between Ell and the gunshots, and somehow kept my grip on the flashlight. Eleanor had dropped hers. It clattered off the floor, but after the thumping against my eardrums, I barely heard it. My beam lit Scarlett. She was standing there with a raised pistol.
Chad had collapsed on the floor in a heap, blood spreading around him. Still up in front of Scarlett stood Zoe with a hole in the right side of her face. From her right eyebrow to the middle of her cheek was nothing but gristle and gore. Her left eye rolled without direction, and then she fell forward, landing next to Chad, both of them dead.
I wish I could say I acted fast, but I can’t. I didn’t act at all. Neither did George.
Luckily for us, Eleanor did. She started shooting her rifle before she had it up all the way. Chunks of the floor exploded and sprayed linoleum in all directions. The pieces burrowed into my shins like bee stings. The rifle’s recoil forced Ell’s aim up and to the left. She missed most of her shots, but all it took was one bullet in the right place.
Poor aim or not, the automatic fire and close range performed their jobs, and a line of rounds slashed Scarlett across the chest.
She screamed in pain and stumbled backwards, her arms pinwheeling, her hat flying off, and then she thudded against the door frame before collapsing on her side.
Ell threw her rifle away in disgust and erupted into gasping sobs.
The gun also clattered off the floor, but at this point my ears were finished. I couldn’t hear anything, not even my own thoughts.
We stood there in shock for a long moment before any of us spoke, and although I couldn’t hear him, I read George’s lips.
Why? he mouthed. Why?
That was a good question.
It took sixty seconds for any of us to move from our spots. I was the one who did first. I went over to Scarlett and examined her. The answer to her odd behavior was evident when I reached her corpse. On her forehead, which had been previously hidden by the knitted hat, was a black mark. A deep etching, as if scratched by a diseased fingernail which left in its wake a toxic residue. Scarlett had been touched by one of the monsters. Really, there was no other explanation for her murdering Zoe and Chad in cold blood.
I knelt and pointed my flashlight at her face, tears welling in my eyes. They were a result of the terrible fear I felt then. Fear of the unknown, of what lay before us in this supposed place of safety. I noticed now that Scarlett’s
