Quaranteen: The Loners

  First step, Will had to get to his locker.

  He wasn’t dumb. He knew he had to nip this David-the-hero business in the bud. It was just the kind of thing girls melted over. David didn’t deserve her; he didn’t even know anything about her. He didn’t know that she makes amazing quesadil-las. He didn’t know that she does a hilarious French accent.

  But Will did. He knew everything about her.

  Will stepped out of the elevator control closet and into the dark hallway. An uneasy smile stretched his lips. Ventur-ing out now, after what David had done, was idiotic. Danger

  tickled his fingertips, vibrated through his arms, and sent a shiver rippling up his neck. He couldn’t stop smiling. He felt electric.

  Will sprinted softly down the hallway, gaining confidence with every footfall. He hated being cooped up in that elevator.

  Running through the empty halls, all alone, while everyone else slept, he almost felt like he was outside again.

  Something rumbled toward him out of the darkness. He jumped into the nearby stairwell. A Skater with a spiked Mohawk bombed past on a longboard, with three full garbage bags slung over his shoulder. The skateboard’s rumble came to a stop. Will peeked around the corner. The Skater dropped his bags on the floor and jumped up to place an adhesive label on the high wall clock. It had a ballpoint pen drawing of a duck on it. The Skater picked up his bags and kicked away down the hall. Will exhaled with relief. If Will wanted to pull this off, he had to remain unseen. It was a real possibility that some gang could kidnap Will, trade him over to Varsity, and maybe use him as leverage to lure David out of the elevator.

  Will ran and fantasized about his plan. He would return to the elevator with enough food for David to survive on for weeks, then announce that it was too dangerous for Will and Lucy to keep coming and going from the elevator. The two of them would have to move out and find somewhere else to live. Together. He pictured the look on their faces when he returned with arms full of food. Both David and Lucy would

  realize that Will had risked his life to get it. David would flip out, but that would only make Will look more brave.

  He snatched up an apple-size hunk of concrete from a pile of rubble and chucked it. It smashed into a PA system speaker, knocking it loose. The speaker hung by a wire and swung from side to side, scraping the wall. It was stupid to make this much noise. There were hundreds of kids sleeping in the classrooms all around him.

  Let them come out here and take me on, Will thought. I’d like to see them try.

  Ten minutes later, he’d reached his locker. It was always a small relief to see the door still there with the lock attached.

  A lock was a sign of valuables. Will had written RIP Emmett Dorn on the front of the locker in white-out. Who would want to open a locker that might have a corpse inside? He dialed the combination, and the lock popped open.

  Will’s locker was full of months’ worth of stolen goods.

  Sometimes he’d steal something from the market, but most of his best finds were the products of his night walks, when he snuck around the perimeter of gang territories looking for anything left unattended. He’d occasionally find something valuable, but the bulk of his stuff was small things: school supplies, old clothes, books, an occasional laser pointer. But when he’d accumulated enough of this stuff, he was going to trade it all to buy the phone charger that David refused to

  rent for him. Tonight, things had changed. Getting Lucy all to himself was way more important than any phone charger.

  Will moved fast, grabbing a garbage bag and stuffing the locker’s contents into it. He locked it up and hurried off to where he knew Smudge would be.

  Will and Smudge had been friends since middle school. For as long as Will could remember, Smudge had been frail and bony, but now his face was creased with wrinkles that a kid shouldn’t have. Will had gone through a growth spurt, like most kids their year had at this point; Smudge hadn’t. He was still the size of a child, and he looked about as healthy as an old woman’s finger. But he was a survivor. The kid was a cock-roach.

  Will found him in his usual place, the closet of a first-floor computer lab that no longer had any computers in it. A single candle lit up the closet, casting long shadows up Smudge’s gaunt face.

  “Willy! How goes it?” he said.

  “Same old. Got some big items to trade tonight, man. You’re in luck.”

  “Same old, my ass. I heard what happened.”

  “What did you hear?” Will said.

  “Varsity is going crazy. They want your brother bad.”

  “It’ll blow over, probably.”

  “I don’t know, they’re all having a funeral for Brad in the

  quad right now. Your bro is suicidal, man. It’s retaliation, right? ’Cause Sam shut you fools out of the gangs?”

  “No, it’s not like that at all.”

  “Maybe that’s not what he tells you, but if I was some football star that got knocked down to being a washing machine, I’d want a little revenge.”

  “Yeah, laundry this, washing machine that, it’s always the same stuff with you,” Will said.

  “They want to kill him. Straight up. I heard they’re gonna cut his head off and play soccer with it in the quad.” Will pictured David’s severed head sailing through the air.

  “Hey, you okay? You’re not gonna spaz out on me, are you?

  I don’t want you peeing everywhere,” Smudge asked with a flickering grin.

  Will tolerated Smudge’s shithead comments; he’d known Smudge long enough to know that he was all right underneath. His meanness was his armor. Smudge mimed a seizure, sticking his tongue out and rolling his eyes.

  “I’m fine,” Will said. The truth was Will hadn’t had a seizure in a month, and it was making him antsy. He was due for one.

  He wished there was a way to induce it himself. Then he’d be able to relax.

  “Yeah, but you guys both gotta be crapping your pants, right?”

  “Anyway . . . you know who’s living with us now?” Will said.

  “Lucy.”

  “What! For real?”

  “She got kicked out of the Pretty Ones. So we’re helping her out.”

  “How much you charging for rent? A grope a day?”

  “Don’t be such a scumbag,” Will said, and then realized what a pointless a request that was.

  “You lucky bastard. Seriously, congrats. It’s high time you closed that deal.”

  “It’s not about closing a deal, man.”

  “Oh. My bad. What’s it about? Love?”

  “No,” Will said.

  Smudged laughed so hard that drool spilled from his mouth.

  He shook his head and wiped the errant spit off his chin.

  “You actually think you love her!”

  “Screw you. Just show me what food you got.” Smudge shrugged and spread a bunch of food items across the floor between them. He hooked Will’s garbage bag with his other hand and picked through it. Will looked over the food. It was enough for David to stretch out for a good two weeks.

  A gleam of gold caught Will’s eye from inside the closet. He looked closer. It was a grime-covered gold necklace with a sparkling pendant on a pile of stolen goods. Will fished it out of the closet. He held it up, the candlelight glittered up and down its gold links.

  “Where did you find this?” Will asked.

  “Found it in a clogged toilet in the ruins.” Will grimaced at the necklace and dared to sniff the grime.

  He instantly recoiled. He gave the necklace another look. If he could polish it up and make it sparkle, no one would know where it came from. He could see the look of love on Lucy’s face when he placed it in her hand.

  “What do you want for this?” Will asked.

  “That’s a real top-notch item. I could sell it to a Pretty One for some major loot.”

  “It smells like a vulture’s ass,” Will said.

  Smudge shrugged, “Well, since you might not be around much longer, I??
?ll make you a deal. I’ll give it to you for everything you brought.”

  “Are you kidding? Just the necklace? That’s three months’

  worth of snatching right there!”

  “Hey, listen. We don’t have to do the deal. I’m sure whoever you were gonna give this to wouldn’t mind a can of collard greens instead.”

  Bastard. Will felt stuck. It was either the necklace or the food. His brother couldn’t leave that elevator; he needed food. But Lucy. Will thought of the two of them in the elevator, alone. His mind flared with the image of David and Lucy tearing off each other’s clothes the moment that they noticed Will was gone.

  “You got a deal,” Will said.

  “You got a necklace.”

  Will pocketed the necklace, then reached over and grabbed his garbage bag. He turned it over and emptied all the contents on the floor.

  “Hey, what the hell are you doing?”

  “The bag wasn’t part of the deal,” Will said as he scrunched up the bag and stuffed it into his back pocket. “Good tradin’.” As Will turned to leave, Smudge piped up. “Hey where are you guys living now?”

  “Ha! Where do you go during the day, Smudge?” Smudge smiled. Neither of them would be revealing any more.

  “Keep your ear to the halls for me,” Will said as he walked out.

  “I hope she likes it, Willy boy,” Smudge called out.

  Will chipped the filth off the necklace with his thumbnail as he bopped down the hall. The necklace would put him over the top. He felt like he’d found a diamond in the garbage. No one could get their hands on a new gold necklace in McKinley—they didn’t exist. Lucy would be floored. He ran faster, with no other purpose but to run, to pump some blood through his veins.

  He skidded to a stop when he saw the west entrance of the gym. How had he run that far into Varsity territory without noticing? He nearly darted off the other way, but he noticed the gym was silent. They must be still in the quad.

  Will had always fantasized about going to one of Varsity’s

  legendary parties. The drinks, the girls, the food. A brilliant idea bloomed in Will’s mind, and he shivered from the sheer danger of it. He fingered the crumpled plastic garbage bag hanging out of his pocket.

  Varsity had a giant stockpile of food in the gym.

  If Will returned with a garbage bag of food on top of the gold necklace, that would be the killing blow. Lucy would forget all about David, wouldn’t she? He had an idea, and before he could decide whether it was a good one, his hand reached out and knocked loudly on the door. He ran back into the shadows behind a line of lockers. All was still. Will gradually stepped back into the hall. His heart walloped in his chest. He crossed the hall, put his hand on the gym door handle, and opened it. Will stepped inside. There wasn’t a soul in the gym.

  Holy shit. He was inside Varsity headquarters. The place was a mess. Party cups were strewn all over the basketball court. There were individual rooms separated by hanging sheets; free weights littered the ground; there was a lounge area; and on the opposite end, a gigantic pile of food cascading down the extended bleachers. Will guessed the pile could have fed the entire school population for a week. It was obscene. Will’s pulse pounded with fear and with a raw hatred for Varsity.

  Will bounded over to the food. He had to work fast; who knew how much time he had left? He shoveled food into his bag. His hands shook. His breaths were short and shallow. It

  was taking too long to fill the bag. He shoved bread in there, jam, sugar, salami, cookies, canned chili. He couldn’t believe it. There was so much. The bag ran out of space. Will cinched it up and dashed toward the exit.

  A basketball in the middle of the court caught Will’s eye. He stopped. He knew he shouldn’t. It was stupid. Pointless. His luck couldn’t last forever. But then again, who could say they shot a three pointer in the middle of Varsity’s home base?

  Will ran to the basketball and picked it up. As soon as he touched the ball, he felt a surge of bravery. He checked the main entrance. Nothing. He dared to dribble the basketball once. The thwap of the ball on the floor exploded like cherry bomb, sending tinny shock waves of sound to the farthest corners of the gym. It sounded too good not to do it again.

  Will dribbled. Then again. Each loud bounce was like a middle finger in Varsity’s face. His heart beat faster with each thwap.

  He took a moment to line up his shot. One more long breath.

  He let it fly. The ball arched gracefully toward its target. Just as it swished through the hoop, savage bellows echoed in from the market hall outside the main entrance.

  Varsity.

  Before the ball even hit the ground, Will grabbed his heavy bag and launched himself toward the west entrance. The voices were approaching too quickly. He shifted his momentum, reversed, and dove behind the bleachers. The main entrance doors flew open. The entire gang thundered into

  the gym. They raged, kicking chairs over, tearing down whatever they could lay their hands on. Will braced himself and stared out at them through the slats of the bleachers.

  He watched as the Varsity guys started punching each other and smacking themselves in the head. They howled. A pack of them ran onto the bleachers and stomped and kicked all around Will’s hiding place. He had seen video footage on the Internet of a zoo where all the monkeys went crazy in their cage at once. This wasn’t much different.

  “I WANT BLOOD!”

  Will’s stomach twisted into a knot. He recognized Sam’s voice. Varsity roared in response. Will spied Sam through the slats of the bleachers. He was standing on a chair with his arms outstretched, looking down at his gang like some crazed preacher. His yellow hair looked unnatural against his skin.

  He looked bigger than Will remembered.

  “We won’t let this stand!” Sam said.

  Varsity cheered louder.

  Hilary glided over to Sam and entwined her arm around the inside of his leg. She looked up at him with a soft smile and said something that Will couldn’t hear. Sam’s expression lost some of its menace. He held up his hand, signaling that he needed a minute. He climbed down from the chair. The gang entertained themselves with vicious conversations about David. Sam and Lucy walked over to the bleachers. Will lost sight of them, but he could hear their conversation; they were very close.

  “Are you sure about this?” Hilary asked.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “What if you captured him and kept him as your prisoner?”

  “He has to die,” Sam said.

  “But if you locked him up in the equipment cage and kept him there, he’d have to pay for it day after day, and then, baby, he’d end up wishing you killed him.”

  There was a pause.

  “Why do you want this?” Sam asked.

  “If you kill him it will spook the other gangs. They’ll want to take us out.”

  “They’re not strong enough to take us out.”

  “They could band together,” Hilary said.

  “Together, they aren’t strong enough! What are you up to?”

  “Strategy, baby.”

  “You still love him.”

  “No, that’s in the past. You know that.”

  “You don’t want your boyfriend to get hurt, huh, bitch?”

  “Sam, don’t.”

  “Say another word. I dare you.”

  Hilary said nothing. Sam stormed back into Will’s view and stepped up on top of the chair again. He shouted to his gathered flock.

  “David dies tomorrow! Everyone will see. They’ll all see what you get when you cross us. We’ll get our blood in the morning, you can be sure of that!”

  One Varsity echoed Sam. “We’ll get our blood in the morning!” The chant caught on. “WE’LL GET OUR BLOOD IN THE

  MORNING!”

  The gym reverberated with the threat. The senior Varsity members escorted their Pretty One girlfriends to their respective sheeted cubicles. The Varsity underclassmen all climbed onto the bleachers above Will to
lie down.

  “WE’LL GET OUR BLOOD IN THE MORNING!”

  Will stared up, petrified. He lowered himself to the ground, amid the trash and giant clumps of dust. He shut his eyes and tried not to make any noise, as a nest of his enemies piled up above him.

  10

  David was five years old. He lay on the

  couch eating a bowl of cereal. He could feel the warmth of his mother lying behind him. The living room of their old house was bathed in an easy morning light. He felt safe, nestled in against his mother’s body. He could smell something sweet baking in the kitchen. His mother placed one of her arms over David, squeezing his belly with affection. It all seemed too perfect.

  Just as that thought entered his mind, David knew he was dreaming. Everything started to slip away. He tried to hold tight to his cereal bowl, to the couch, to his mother, but he couldn’t get back to that perfect moment no matter how hard he tried.

  David opened his eyes, and he stared at the cold brushed

  steel of the elevator wall, only inches from his nose. There was an arm around him, but it wasn’t his mother’s. It was Lucy’s. Lucy’s body pressed firmly against his back. He could feel every curve and swell of her, the slight pant of her breath on his neck. David strained to keep any movement minimal.

  He didn’t want Lucy to wake up. As he inhaled, he smelled the sweet scent from his dream. It belonged to Lucy. She smelled like cookies or something. How did she do that?

  He knew he should throw her arm off of him and stand up.

  He should tell her that he wasn’t her protector, and it was time for her to go. But she was so warm.

  He sighed and placed his hand around Lucy’s arm. He contorted his body to slip out from underneath it. Her skin was seductively soft but goose-bumped from the endless cold of the elevator car. David and Will had adjusted to it long ago, but Lucy must have been freezing.