Quaranteen: The Loners

  weapons. Kemper gave his people a casual wave.

  “All right, guys, open it up.”

  A black-haired kid with an infestation of freckles shook his head.

  “We want David,” he said.

  Will clamped his hand tight on David’s arm. He shot Kemper a furious look.

  “What the hell’s going on, man?” Will asked.

  Kemper furrowed his brow and shook his head.

  “No, no. This is not . . .” Kemper clucked, trying to make sense of what was happening. “Henry, what are you doing? Is this some sort of joke?”

  Will could see it for what it was. Mutiny. Nerds filed out from the stacks on either side of them. They were stone-faced.

  Their earlier distractions, reading and gaming, that was all a ruse. Nerds clutched thick, heavy dictionaries in their hands, ready to swing.

  “Give us David now!” the freckle-face said again, with more bass in his voice.

  Kemper stomped forward and stretched his arms out as if he was protecting all the Loners.

  “Henry, this is unacceptable. Put that bat down right now—” Henry planted his bat right in Kemper’s gut. Kemper stared at his gang mate in confusion and crumpled to the ground.

  Violent growled and threw the freckled kid to the ground.

  “Push!” a voice shouted.

  Bookshelves behind Will toppled over, crushing the majority of the Loners underneath them and raining books down

  on their heads. The Nerds attacked from every angle. Will fled, pulling David and Lucy with him. Nerds poured out from every corner after the trio. Books sailed through the air after them. One smacked directly into Will’s temple. It was a hardback encyclopedia, and it knocked him off his feet.

  “Will,” Lucy cried out.

  He lost his grip on David and fell to the ground. He was in pain. He rolled over and struggled to his feet, still woozy.

  He saw a cluster of Nerds tear David away from Lucy. She shrieked. It took four Nerds to hoist David up and push him onto a rolling book cart. They ran fast, wheeling David through the common area and back toward the west fire door.

  He couldn’t lose him.

  But he did. Will tried to run, and he fell, still dazed from the book to the head. By the time he pulled himself back up, David was gone. He had spent years protecting Will, and Will hadn’t lasted an hour in David’s shoes.

  35

  Lucy rattled the handles of the library

  doors and yanked with all her weight. The Nerds had forced her out, but she had to get back in. She had to get back to David.

  Behind her, Violent fought a hulking Nerd with a droopy face and giant hands. Three other Sluts stood and watched as the Nerd threw a punch at Violent. It connected with her ribs, and she stumbled back. She shook it off and swung a swift kick into his kneecap. Instantly, his leg buckled. He squawked and collapsed to the ground.

  “Wait,” Lucy shouted. “He can help us get back in!” Lucy ran to intervene, but one of the other Sluts stepped into her path and shook her head. It was Julie Tanaka.

  “Keep out of this,” Julie said.

  “Get up,” Violent said to the Nerd. He struggled back up, keeping his weight on his good leg. “You fuckers messed up big. You’re nothing without Kemp.”

  “No, he messed up when he started making out with you. . . .

  Slut.”

  The Nerd hopped forward like he was going to attack. Violent kicked him in the chest. He stumbled back down the hall.

  He looked up to the ceiling, and his face flashed with panic.

  “No . . . ,” he said.

  A rain of bricks fell out of the ceiling and pummeled his skull. He dropped to the ground. Lucy jerked her eyes to the ceiling above her, terrified that the same thing was about to happen to her, but no more bricks fell. Violent stepped toward the Nerd’s broken body and knelt. Blood oozed from his head onto the chunks of ceiling and fallen bricks that piled around him. She placed her fingers under his jaw to feel his pulse.

  “Dead,” Violent muttered coldly.

  Lucy looked up, above the dead body. An entire line of ceiling panels had broken away. Some still dangled from the ceiling. A heavy curtain that had been holding the bricks and rubble hung down.

  Lucy’s stomach sank. She stared at the short hall before her.

  Ten yards down, it cut right. The floor was covered in dust. No one had walked through in ages. This was the main entrance to the library, where all the traps were.

  “I told you to stop!” Lucy shouted at Violent. “We could have

  held him hostage to get back in!”

  “Hostage, huh?” Violent laughed and arched one of her black tape eyebrows. She kicked the dead Nerd’s shoe and said, “Well, he’s kind of useless now.”

  “We’re not getting back in the library, that’s for sure,” Julie said. “Those doors won’t budge.”

  “What happened in there?” Lucy said. Every second she was away from David made her more panicked. “I thought you had an understanding with the Nerds! You said we’d be safe!”

  “This is Lucy, that girl who turned us down,” Julie said with smug grin.

  “Yeah, because I have a gang. And you set them up.”

  “You better think twice before you get in my face, girlie,” Violent said. “I didn’t set anybody up.” Julie rolled her eyes. “Can’t believe I thought you were Slut material.”

  It was a comfort to know that Lucy and Julie would have never been friends. She could scratch that off the bottom of her list of regrets. Violent looked Lucy up and down with a sneer, then turned to Julie, “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Yeah, that’s the thing,” Lucy said. “How?”

  “It’s a hallway. We walk out,” Violent said.

  “But the booby traps . . . there’s gotta be more. Do you know anything about traps?”

  “No,” Violent said, “I don’t know anything about traps! Who the hell does? I grew up in Hillcrest.”

  Violent edged forward. Lucy stared at the ominous hallway beyond the Nerd’s body. Behind every surface hidden pockets of death lurked, coiled up and waiting to burst. Lucy didn’t want to go down that hall. She didn’t want to be crushed by bricks. What she wanted to do was plop down on the floor with her arms crossed like a six-year-old’s and shout, “No!” She knew she couldn’t do that. She was going to have to trust Will to find David, and she was going to have to get back through these deadly traps. Her only shot at survival now was sticking close to Violent.

  “You know, my grandparents live in Hillcrest,” Lucy said.

  “Congratulations,” Violent said.

  “I visited them a lot. I’m surprised we never ran into each other.”

  Lucy had assumed that Violent grew up someplace rough, like an evil orphanage or some war-torn foreign country.

  Maybe in a jungle. But not Hillcrest. It was one town over from Pale Ridge. It was full of yogurt shops and golf clubs and had wide black roads that were repaved every two years.

  People from Hillcrest weren’t tough.

  “Do you know the bicycle shop on Sixth?” Lucy said. “My uncle owns—”

  “Shut up.”

  Violent picked up a brick and chucked it. It scuttled to a stop at the end of the hall. The other three Sluts liked Violent’s plan. They chucked brick after brick down the hall to

  try to trigger any traps ahead. Nothing happened.

  “Let’s go,” Violent said.

  The five of them ventured out into the hall. Lucy stuck close to Violent. She cringed with each step, waiting for something awful to happen to them.

  Violent screamed. Lucy jumped.

  Violent’s leg had gone through the floor. She was grabbing at her leg and shouting. Julie tried to help her pull her leg out.

  “Spikes!” Violent screamed.

  Violent peeled back the broken floor tile to reveal the hole in the floor.

  Her leg was in an aluminum mop bucket that was lodged into the innards of the floor. The i
nterior 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 3

  slammed the door shut again. He heard the kid send an alert out to the rest of his gang.

  “Loh-ners!”

  Will felt a chill.

  “Let me do the talking,” Will said quietly to Nelson.

  “What?” Nelson said, still holding the same ridiculous expression, except now he was bugging his eyes out. Will didn’t know what that face was, but he had to admit it looked weird as hell.

  The door flew open, and Skaters poured out, surrounding them. The fat-lipped Skater held the jagged edge of a broken skateboard deck to Will’s neck, pinning him against the wall.

  “Where’s David?”

  “I want to talk to P-Nut,” Will said.

  “I said, where’s David?”

  “Sam’s got him.”

  Fat-lip eased off on the skateboard, sparing Will’s throat.

  The Skaters grumbled at the news.

  “Sam caught David himself?” Fat-lip asked.

  “No. The Nerds,” Will said.

  “The Nerds?”

  “Come on!” one Skater said. “God damn it!” said another.

  Fat-lip looked at Nelson, who stared back with his I’m worried and I’m in an electric chair look.

  “What’s wrong with this kid?”

  “He’s c
razy,” Will whispered. “Don’t look him in the eyes.” 3

  Fat-lip followed Will’s advice and looked away from Nelson.

  Nelson was pulling it off. Will got a surge of confidence.

  “So, if Sam’s got David, what the hell did you come here for?” Fat-lip said. “You gonna pay us back for our boards?”

  “Like I said,” Will said, “I need to talk to P-Nut.” Fat-lip laughed.

  “Your funeral, kid. But your friend stays here.” Will turned to Nelson and shouted, “Try not to kill anybody.” Nelson nodded, his nostrils flared in faux anger. The Skaters kept their distance.

  Fat-lip and his friends grabbed Will roughly by the shirt and shoved him into the teachers’ lounge. A half-pipe skate ramp dominated the room. The surface of the ramp was covered in the missing linoleum tiles from the hallway. It formed a seamless surface. The ramp was at least eight feet tall, and they’d torn out the ceiling to access about three feet more of headroom. But no one was skating. They didn’t have many boards, thanks to Will. Every Skater in the room stared daggers at him.

  He was pushed into the next room where they’d created a mini skate park, full of school benches and wall-mounted handrails pulled from the stairwells, all marred with black scuffs.

  Fat-lip pounded on a heavy wood door on the far end of the room. There was a placard on it that read PRINCIPAL WARFIELD. The name WARFIELD was scratched out. Underneath

  it, P-NUT had been scrawled in silver marker.

  The door opened, and a cute Skater girl in a bikini top stuck her head out. The sides of her head were shaved, but the hair on top was long and black and fell to one side. Fat-lip whispered something in her ear. She gave Will a once-over and opened the door wide. One of Will’s other escorts gave him a halfhearted pat down and shoved him into the room.