Текст книги "This is Not a Test"

Автор книги: Courtney Summers

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“Do you think I killed them?”

It’s dusk. Cary and I walk down the dimly lit hallway together. Soon it will be dark. When we reach the fork, I’ll go to the gym and he’ll head to the library to make sure everything’s the same as it was yesterday and the day before that. The constant thudding is wearing on me, like a permanent headache behind my eyes. Talking about the Caspers feels the same way.

Because, of course, Cary wants to talk about the Caspers.

“The Caspers?” I ask. He nods, slowing his pace. “What does it matter?”

“Rhys is on my side. Harrison will say whatever he thinks whoever he’s talking to wants to hear. I know how Grace and Trace feel. I want to know if you think I killed them.”

“They were swarmed. That’s what killed them.”

“You think it’s my fault?”

I stop. Cary stops.

“I think it could have happened to anyone.”

He gives me a pained look. “You should be a politician, Sloane.”

I pause. I don’t think it’s his fault but …

“You won’t repeat it?”

“Never.”

“I don’t think it’s your fault. I don’t think you killed them. I think…” I shrug. “I think you’re crazy good at this survival stuff.”

His shoulders sag. He gives me a small, relieved smile and we start walking again, his step a little lighter than it was before. It feels strange to have that kind of power over someone.

“I mean, you’re crazy good at it for a stoner who couldn’t seem to get his shit together academically at all,” I add.

He laughs. “First of all, I only sold. Second, high school was only that thing I was doing until I infiltrated the family business.”

“Yay nepotism,” I say. He gives me a thumbs-up. His parents run a small press. I wonder where they were when this started. “Where are your parents, anyway?”

“Toronto. They might have been in the air when it started. Maybe they didn’t make it.” He says it so easily. He glances at me. “I mean, I just have to think I’m never going to see them, either way. Not hope for anything. Seems greedy to make it this far and want more.”

“Does it?”

“Kind of. Do you think Lily made it?”

Hearing someone else say her name makes me want to find something I can crush into dust. Do I think Lily made it. Of course she made it.

“I mean, I’m sure she did,” he says hastily.

“You think?”

“She knows how to take care of herself.”

“Did you have sex with my sister?”

“Oh, man, Sloane.”

“She bought pot from you,” I say, and then I keep pushing it because for some reason, I have to know. It’s important now. “Did she pay you or…?”

“Yeah, she paid me.” Pause. “And we fooled around. Sorry.”

I don’t know what to say. I’m not shocked or anything, I just don’t know what to say. It’s something Lily would do. It’s something Cary would do. Lily never had a boyfriend when she lived at home, ever. She said it would be too complicated and she’d spin stories about what would happen if an imaginary significant other found out about what our father did to us. The stories always ended in separation—us being ripped from each other. Never tell. For me, that meant never having anyone because she was sure I’d blurt out our secrets to the first person who was nice to me. For her, it meant nobody was allowed to get too close. There were boys who were friends and make-out sessions she’d spill about if she felt like it, but Lily wasn’t the Popular Girl. Guys didn’t have to have her. She was blond and pretty, but mostly she looked tired all the time.

“Fooled around as in had sex.”

“Yeah, that would be—yeah.” Cary’s face turns red. “Wow. Seriously, Sloane. If I just made shit awkward between us, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. It doesn’t make things awkward.”

“Good.”

But then I change my mind. Maybe it’s not okay. He fooled around with my sister and sold her drugs and he never looked at me twice before. I don’t know why but that bothers me.

“She made it,” Cary decides in a voice that tells me he’s thinking about being with her, touching her. I feel nauseous. “We were hanging out the night before she left and I knew she’d make it then. I know it now. She’s a fighter.”

I freeze. There are so many things wrong with what just came out of his mouth.

He was hanging out with her the night before she left.

He knew she was leaving.

“You saw her before she left?”

“Yeah.”

“Did she say where she was going?”

He stops as the question settles in.

“No,” he says.

I bite my tongue for a full minute. I should leave it at this because it’s only going to feel worse if I don’t. I should, but I can’t.

“Did she say why she was going?”

I know the answer to this, but I want to know if Cary knows. I want to know if whenever they fooled around, she told him about what it was really like in our house.

“No,” he says again, softer this time. “Shit, Sloane. I thought you knew. The way you two were … I would’ve never…”

“It doesn’t make a difference now,” I say.

“No,” he says. “I guess not.”

In the gym, I stare at the doors. My pulse keeps time with each thud, beating hard, filling me with the kind of anger I never thought I could be capable of. I study the desks and step forward. I kick one lightly and then I kick it again, harder. The feel of my shoe against the desk’s metal leg is satisfying and sends a little electric jolt through me so I kick it again and again and again until my heart is louder than the thudding. I make a mountain of desks shift just enough that one of them tumbles onto its side. A loud crash fills the gym and breaks me out of my trance. The anger disappears—I don’t know where it goes—and I realize what I’ve done.

I rush at the desk and pull it upright, like the doors are seconds away from bursting open, but they’re not. The sound causes a fit outside, though. It makes the dead frantic. Next thing I know, everyone runs into the gym because everyone heard. Cary, Harrison, Rhys, Grace, and Trace. They all ask the same questions.

What’s going on, what was that, are they inside, did they get in.

I tell them I don’t know what happened, the barricade just moved.

They believe me.

A whole day passes where barely anyone speaks.

Trace does his laps. We eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner to the soundtrack of our impending death. Everyone drifts around the auditorium looking hollowed out. There are dark circles under their eyes. They pace the room stiffly, like they’re hundreds of years old. Cary sits against the wall facing the doors and just stares at them. I think the thudding might drive us insane before the doors actually give. Trace thinks we should move to the library—it’s quiet there, after all—but no one is willing to do it and that’s when he and Cary have the only exchange of the day: Cary says a watched pot never boils. Trace reminds him there are three other doors in here no one is watching. That’s when I leave. I circle the first floor for a while, listening as the noise outside the front entrance gets louder and fainter the closer and farther I am from it.

The light wanes.

I walk the same path over and over until I need to stop. I’m not ready to go back to the auditorium, so I end up in the administration office. I push buttons on Mrs. Ramos’s computer and watch nothing happen.

I e-mailed Lily after she left, every day for the first two weeks. How could you do this to me? Who are you? I know she got them because eventually, they started bouncing back. Account closed. I push the power buttons on the monitor and the tower again. Turn on, turn on. They don’t. Carrier pigeons will come back in vogue. My eyes travel over the photos lining the desk. In them, Mrs. Ramos looks happy.

Nothing matters anymore.

The ferocity of this thought makes me want to run back to the gym and shake everyone until their necks snap. Nothing matters anymore. Nothing. My blood goes white-hot and I give the monitor a push without thinking. Not off the desk, just into the wall. It’s unsatisfying.

Cary knew she was leaving.

Not thinking about it. I am not thinking about it. I leave the office, closing the door behind me. It clicks shut. The hall is empty, looks kind of burned out in the dark. My gaze moves from the path back to the auditorium, which I’m not ready to go back to, and the stairwell. I climb the stairs to the second floor. When I reach the top of the landing my body feels impossibly heavy like the weight of the sky is on top of me. I make it halfway down the hall before I’m sitting, resting my head against my knees because Cary knew.

He knew.

This is how I imagined it over and over: it’s my eighteenth birthday. I wake up before I have to be awake. My bags are next to the door. Seeing them makes my palms tingle, I’m so nervous/excited/scared/excited/nervous/excited. I hear Lily in the hall and all I can think is how lucky I am, how she’s the best sister ever. She stayed two extra years just for me so we could leave at the same time, so I wouldn’t have to be alone with him. I wouldn’t have to be alone. You’d die without me. She said it all the time. She said it because it was true. It wasn’t a secret.

I’d die without her and she left anyway.

And Cary knew.

I never thought anything could feel like the morning I woke up and she was gone but this is what that feels like. It feels exactly like that. I stretch out on the floor and press my face against the cool tiles. I wait for my blood to turn to cement, for my heart to stop beating. I stay still until everything I’m feeling closes my eyes and the next time they’re open a hand is on my shoulder. Rhys is crouched in front of me. I sit up faster than he can stop touching me and he overbalances and nearly falls over. He recovers and then he’s looking at me, equal parts concerned and wary. I get to my feet. He does the same. He has a flashlight with him.

“Grace noticed it’s been over an hour since you left the auditorium,” he says. “I didn’t think anything bad happened to you, but…”

“The noise is less—” I gesture feebly. “Up here.”

As far as explanations go, it’s a good one, but still, he chastises me.

“We should stay close together,” he says. “You know that.”

I nod and rub my face. Brush my hair out of my eyes. I keep doing it and he just stands there and watches until I say, “You can go back. I’ll be there soon.”

“Did you completely miss the part where I said we should stay close together?”

“I know but,” I say, and I stop because I don’t know how to finish.

I feel like there are bugs under my skin.

“What’s wrong, Sloane?”

“Nothing.”

“Yeah, you’re really acting that way.”

“Okay, everything’s wrong.”

“Now you’re sounding more reasonable.”

“It’s just—this is … it’s all…”

“It’s bad,” he finishes. I nod. “I get that but I feel like it’s more with you.”

A weird sort of laugh flutters past my lips, something bordering on hysteria. He doesn’t back away but waits for me to explain, to fill the silence. That’s such a dick thing for him to make me do.

“I’m tired, that’s all.”

“Everyone is.”

No, we’re not all tired, I want to say. Not like this.

“At night,” he says, “I wake up every five minutes thinking I’m at home. It’s like I can’t get this through my head no matter what.” He pauses. “Do you want to go back now?”

Before I can answer, the world explodes.

It’s a sound like a bomb going off. I don’t know if I felt it first before I heard it or if I heard it first and then I felt it. But I couldn’t have felt it. It magnetizes me and Rhys. We reach for each other and he pulls me down the hall as fast as he can and a thrill courses through me. They got in. We reach the landing at the same time Cary, Trace, Harrison, and Grace do. Their flashlight glares in our faces. I hold my free hand up to cover my eyes. They’re coming up and we’re going down.

“It’s outside.” Cary gasps. “I need to see—we have to know how close it was—we think it might—we think it might be—”

“It’s help!” Harrison bursts out. He pushes past Cary and Rhys and runs toward the window. Cary screams “Wait!” and tears after him and then after a stunned moment, we run after Cary, down one hallway and up the next and it’s dark because of the poster board over the window but I still make out a lumpy shape beneath it. Cary is holding Harrison, half-restraining him, half really holding him.

“Stop, Harrison, just stop—”

“But they won’t know we’re here—”

“We can’t draw attention to ourselves,” Cary says. “We have to think how we’re going to do this—we can’t just uncover the window, you know that—”

“But they’re going to leave us—”

“Jesus, you’re such an asshole—get off him!” Trace shouts. “All you have to do is take the poster board down and look outside—”

“Slowly,” Rhys interrupts. “We have to do it slowly—”

“Then fucking do it already!”

We surround the window and pull at the tape holding the poster board up. Cary says careful over and over while we’re doing it, but no one’s careful. Everyone is fevered with the idea of rescue. When the last of the tape releases, the poster board slides to the floor. We jump back and then stand there, terrified of what has to be done next.

Maybe we don’t want to see what made that noise after all.

“Someone has to look,” Harrison says, but he doesn’t move.

No one does for the longest time. Trace finally steps up. He stands in front of the window and leans forward, squinting.

“What is that…?”

We move in next to him so we can see what he’s seeing. An intense orange glow lights up the distance. Smoke billows into the night sky.

Fire.

I’ve only seen something like this once before when Cortege’s old feed mill burned down and the whole town left their beds in the middle of the night to watch the piece of local history get devoured by the flames.

“Where is that?” Grace asks. “Is it close?”

“I think it’s Russo’s,” Cary says. Russo’s Gas Station. “Shit…”

I let my eyes travel from the fire to the street below. Cortege is almost a parody of itself. Shadows move across the street, the illusion of a former life. Men and women stand in the school’s parking lot, the road, before hurrying away, like they have somewhere very important to be. They’re all moving that way. All in the same …

“God,” I whisper.

“What?” Grace asks.

I blink, try to make sure of what I’m seeing.

“They’re leaving.”

“What?”

Waves of dead are running to the fire. Of course. Of course they’d want to investigate, in case there’s something there to satisfy their hunger. Other survivors …

I want to tell them we’re in here.

Grace laughs in disbelief as the school parking lot clears.

“Oh my God … they are—they’re going—they’re going away—Trace, they’re going away!”

The announcement is slow to sink in but when it does, it really does. Rhys and Cary grin at each other like idiots and Harrison keeps asking, that’s good, right? I know he knows it’s good but he needs to hear someone else say it because it’s not real for him until someone else says it. Trace punches him in the arm and goes of course it’s fucking good! Everyone is so happy. I turn back to the window and push my hands against the glass.

When we get back to the auditorium, the thudding has stopped.

“—Soon. This is not a test—”

“Blow. Me. Tina T.”

Trace says each word loudly into the radio speakers. I push my breakfast away.

Today we’re having juice over cereal.

“Tina T?” Harrison asks. “Is that her name?”

“It’s what I’m calling her,” Trace says over Tina T’s voice. “This Is Not a Test.”

“Would you turn it off?” Grace asks. “Please?”

He turns it off. Today is subdued, relaxed. Something that could pass for good, I guess.

Everyone is so glad the gas station exploded.

“I can’t remember the last time I ate breakfast,” Grace says, finishing hers.

“How about yesterday?” Trace reminds her. “And the day before and the day—”

“I meant before all this started.”

“Really?” Rhys asks, but the way he asks isn’t like he’s actually interested. More like there’s a conversation happening and he might as well participate because there’s nothing better to do. “It doesn’t take that long to eat.”

“It does when you’re—”

“Student government president,” Trace finishes. “An hour and a half in the bathroom every morning, just to get ready for school.”

Harrison stares at her. “Why would you do that to yourself?”

“She’s got this convoluted makeup routine,” Trace says. “Like, every inch of her face had to be covered in product before she was ready to face most of you douchebags.”

“One of us should care about our appearance.”

“You’re just insecure because I’m the better looking twin.”

The affection Trace has for his sister makes his voice sound like honey to me. The way he teases her makes her eyes light up in a way I haven’t seen anyone else’s light up since we got here and in a way no one else’s will. He notices me staring and my mouth does something it can’t help—it smiles at him. He gives me a small smile back.

Rhys yawns.

“Tired?” Cary asks.

“Had a hard time getting to sleep last night. Almost too quiet.”

“Don’t jinx it,” Harrison says.

“I’m jinxing it. Seems like there’s jack all to worry about today.” Trace gets to his feet and stands in front of Cary with his hand out. “Gimme LaVallee’s keys. I want to go exploring.”

Cary’s hand goes to his pocket protectively and he tries to pull a face like he’s doing anything but intending to keep them from Trace. “I don’t think—”

“I don’t give a fuck what you think. Keys. Now.”

“He has as much right to them as you do,” Grace says before Cary can protest. Her voice is soft but her eyes meet his and they’re steel, daring him to disagree. Cary sighs and takes the keys out of his pocket. Throws them at Trace.

“If you happen to see anything useful lying around, feel free to bring it—”

“Get one of your two bitch boys to scavenge for you, Chen.” Trace points at Rhys and Harrison. “Because I’m not.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Rhys says.

Trace flips everyone off and leaves. Cary sits there, cracking his knuckles. I can tell he wants to bitch about what an utter asshole Trace is and how much he’d like to punch him, break his teeth, whatever, but Grace’s presence keeps him from doing it. He glances at her a few times.

“You know, just because we’ve had one good night doesn’t mean it’s time to dick around. I saw a pair of bolt cutters in the custodian’s office. We should do a locker raid.”

“Sure,” Rhys says.

They get to their feet. Harrison gives them a five-second head start before running after them and then Cary turns back to me and Grace.

“Coming?”

I want to, but Grace shudders and shakes her head.

“That’s like grave-robbing.”

“Sloane?”

Grace looks at me. I get the feeling she wants me to stay.

“I’ll pass,” I say.

And then it’s just Grace and me and it’s quiet. She doesn’t talk at all and after about ten minutes I’m annoyed I stayed. I guess she doesn’t have to speak to me. It’s probably not high on her list of priorities. She’s got Trace.

“Sloane?”

“Yeah?” I cringe at how eager I sound.

“Will you come to my locker with me? I left my purse in there before everything happened and I want it but I…” she laughs, self-conscious. “I don’t want to go alone.”

“Sure.”

Grace’s locker is on the first floor, close to the administration office. We walk there wordlessly. Cary’s, Rhys’s, and Harrison’s voices drift back to us from somewhere nearby, but it’s hard to tell what they’re saying. It sounds effortless though. I hang back at her locker when we get there, unsure of what to do while she thumbs at her combination, straining to see in the poor light. After it’s unlocked, she stands in front of the door like she’s afraid of it. It’s a while before she opens it and when she does, I glimpse cutouts of actors and musicians taped to the door and I wonder what they’re doing now, if they’re dead. I wonder if they’ve saved all the celebrities. When this is over, society will need entertainment to get past it. We’ll make movies about it, hundreds of movies, and in every one of them, we’ll be the heroes and the love interests and best friends and winners and we’ll watch these movies until we are so far removed from our own history, we’ll forget how it really felt to be here.

Grace grabs her purse. It’s a designer purse. I watch her unzip it and riffle through it until she finds what she’s looking for. As soon as she does, the purse slips from her grasp and hits the floor. Clutched tightly in her fingers is a piece of paper. She unfolds it and then presses it against her face, breathes it in.

“Look at this,” she says. She kisses the note once before she gives it to me. As soon as my fingers curl around it, she says, “Be careful—”

I stare at the bubbly handwriting.

Daughter dear, I didn’t manage to throw something together for your lunch—I’m a flake! Here’s some money instead. Buy something healthy! Remember, Miss President, the student body looks to you to set a good example!

Love you, xo Mom

The first thing I think is, Mrs. Casper still makes Grace’s lunch? And then I cross that thought out until it’s not even there anymore because it’s the kind of thing Mrs. Casper would do and besides—it’s a note from Grace’s mom. This is what has value. This is the new money.

“Lucky,” I say.

“I know. I knew it was here … but I couldn’t—I mean I just couldn’t. Until now,” she says. “I just woke up and I really wanted it today. I miss her.”

She takes the note back and runs her thumb over it. My throat is so tight and there’s a weight in my chest that’s hard to breathe around. Memories of my mother are hazy things. They feel like a kid’s blanket, fuzzy and soft but mostly insubstantial. Grace’s note doesn’t make me wish for a woman I spent most of my life not having. It’s not that …

She looks at me. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

Neither of us moves or says anything for a long time. It’s like—suspended animation. I don’t know. We could stand here for hours and not say or do anything because there’s nothing to say or do. Grace looks at her note and I cross my arms, once again fighting the urge to ask her if she remembers the sleepover. I don’t know why I want to but I won’t let myself do it.

“Hey!” We turn. Trace makes his way down the hall, twirling LaVallee’s keys around his fingers like they’re a trophy. Grace picks up her purse, hastily shoving the note inside it. He grins. “I want to show you guys something cool.”

We end up in the teachers’ lounge.

Cary, Rhys, and Harrison come with us after piling a bunch of their locker finds in the auditorium. Their company makes Trace pissy but as Cary points out, Trace doesn’t own the school. They’re still bickering when we step into the room. It’s on the second floor. The big joke is—was—all the money went here. The lounge has a fridge and flowers (tacky fake bouquets, but still, it’s a splash of color), soft couches, chairs, and nice lamps. Storage cupboards and desks. A microwave, a water cooler. Magazines.

“Check this out.” Trace rummages in one of the cupboards and when he faces us, he’s holding a generous bottle of whiskey. “The rumors are true. I knew they kept good shit in here.”

“Alcohol?” Harrison asks, and like that, I can tell he’s never drank anything, let alone been drunk before. “Holy shit.”

“What’s that doing in here?” Rhys asks.

Trace sets the bottle on the table in front of the couches and flicks a tag wrapped around its neck. “Read that. There was an ice-cream cake in the fridge, but it melted.”

Grace peers at the tag. “Enjoy your retirement, Vick. We wish we were you.”

Vick Bergstein. Our graying world history teacher.

“Think he’s enjoying his retirement?” Trace asks, and I laugh before I can stop myself. He soaks it up. “I know, right? He’s probably dead. And then I got thinking about the teachers here that I wished were dead, like over and over—like Mrs. Good—and it’s funny because now they probably are dead and it’s like—like that’s what I—”

His eyes go wide, almost like he’s thinking to himself I wanted this. I wanted them dead and now it’s happened because I wanted it.

“They weren’t all bad, though,” Grace says. “I liked Mr. Ford. And Mrs. Lafferty. Mrs. Tipton was kick-ass. I bet she survived. Some of them were great at what they did…”

My head is full of faces, faculty members, and I wonder where they are now and if it’s a given, like Trace said, that they’re all dead. I wonder if I ever wished them dead—if something as simple as that would be the reason I’m here and they’re not. But then I think they must’ve wished us dead at some point. They must have. What teacher wouldn’t?

Trace stares at the bottle. “So do we open this because we’re still alive or do we open it when we’re sure we’re going to die?”

“We’re not going to die,” Cary says.

“Didn’t you say the same thing to my parents before you sent them in that alley?”

“Give it a rest, Trace.”

“Oh, did I hurt your feelings, murderer?”

“They offered to go down that alley first,” I say, because for some dumb reason I think that will help. But then everyone stares at me and I wish I could put the words back in my mouth. Trace looks like I’ve gutted him.

“No one asked you, Sloane,” Grace says. “And Cary told them it was clear.”

“But they offered to do it.” My voice gets small. “Cary didn’t force them.”

“You know what? I’m fucking tired of all of you,” Trace declares abruptly, but his voice cracks and I think he’s going to cry because he leaves the room with his head down.

Because of me.

How to salvage a moment: Rhys suggests we move whatever we can from the teachers’ lounge to the auditorium to make it more livable. No one talks as we fight the couches down the stairs and position them in the corner of the room. We find a lone lunch table we missed for the barricade under the stage, set it up, and steal chairs from the main offices for it. Grace uses the fake bouquets as centerpieces. I feel so sick watching her. I have to make things right. I walk over to her. She fiddles with the flowers. I stand there and try to think of what to say while she ignores me.

“I didn’t mean anything by it, just that Cary wouldn’t send them there to die,” I tell her. “You know he wouldn’t.”

She looks at me and she’s so student government president. Her posture is diplomatic but her tone is frosty. “But he did … and they did.”

“But—”

“Look, it’s hard enough for Trace right now,” she says. “If it’s how you feel, fine. But I want you to stay away from my brother if you can’t keep it to yourself.”

She walks away. At first I think I’ll cry, but I don’t. I’m too jealous of the way she guards Trace to cry and I hate that she thinks of me as someone she has to protect him from.

Eventually, Cary calls us over to the stage. He shows us the locker haul. They found toothpaste—we take turns passing the tube around and dabbing microscopic globs on our fingers—floss, deodorant … there are some clothes, which makes Grace happy. I spot a pink sweater with a name written on the tag: CORRINE M. Corrine Matthews.

I remember her curly black hair and smile and then I don’t want to touch it.

There’s lots of candy and gum. Some lighters and cigarettes. I look at Rhys, expecting him to be happy about it but he doesn’t look happy about it

We settle in for the night. The room is … the word home crosses my mind, but it’s not the right one to use. Lily and I used to play house. I was eight, she was ten, and Mom was dead, but Mom had been dead for a while by then, so I guess that’s not an important part of this memory. I had dolls and an old box. She had paper, pencils, and erasers and she’d ask questions while I leaned Barbie up against a flimsy cardboard wall and tried to figure out what to do with Ken.

How big should the bedrooms be? Should we have a guest bedroom? Okay. Separate bathrooms for sure. No, Dad doesn’t need a room, Sloane. Because he’s not going to live with us. This is our house.