The Day the Dead Came to Show and Tell (7 page)

The doors hadn't locked. The doors were supposed to have locked—and whenever a live outbreak was happening in an enclosed space, like a school, any door that wasn't locked was considered an infection risk. Even building barricades to keep the infected out wouldn't make any difference; barricades could be broken, barricades didn't have the weight of a securely locked door. Everyone on campus was infected now, legally speaking, and anyone who came onto campus was likely to come on shooting. It didn't matter that the victims were children. It didn't matter that many of them were too small to have amplified. The school had failed to lock down properly, and while their parents would mourn them, the safety of the city was more important than a few little lives.

Sometimes Elaine thought the most unfair thing of all was that she had to live in this day and age, where children were collateral damage. But then, before there were the walking dead there had been school shootings, and those had been much easier to get rid of, hadn't they? Ban the assault rifles, make the background checks tighter…save lives. And none of that had happened, until the dead rose and people found something better to shoot at than kindergarteners and cafeteria workers. So maybe every day and age was bad, in its own way.

“Please take off your clothes and get in the bin, Scott,” she said, and handed a sponge to Brian. “We need to wash him all over. I know it's hard. But we have to do it, or we could get sick.”

Brian was crying. So was Scott. So was she. But they had to do it, or there was no way she could justify taking Scott with them when they left—and they had to leave. They had to get out alive. They had to try.

Elaine Oldenburg's class was one of five in the first grade. The school extended from kindergarten through fifth grade, although there were only three fifth-grade classes; many students were withdrawn from the physical school system after fourth grade, or transferred to a middle school where they would be less likely to endanger smaller children through their mere presence. All told, thirty-three classes were in session when the alarm began to sound. It was too much to ask for that many students to remain calm and collected, especially when the restraints failed to activate correctly, resulting in fewer than half the students being locked into their desks.

Nathan Patterson had started feeling unwell fifteen minutes after the end of recess, and had been sent to the nurse's office for observation and blood tests. Mr. O'Toole had followed school policy and not asked Nathan to take a blood test before leaving the classroom. If it had come back positive—which it couldn't, there was simply no way Nathan had been exposed; it was a ridiculous idea—the door would have locked, and the safety shutters on the windows would have descended, containing the infection, yes, but also containing the entire class. Blood tests were only requested in the case of student illness when the student could not be safely transported from the classroom to the office.

Joseph Lee, who sat next to Nathan, kept casting anxious glances at his friend's empty desk. Nathan should have been back by now. But instead, the alarm was sounding, and Mr. O'Toole couldn't get the office on the phone. Something was seriously wrong. And why wasn't Mr. O'Toole calling for help? Someone needed to tell the police that something was going on at the school.

Cellphones were forbidden during class, but with Mr. O'Toole pacing back and forth in front of the whiteboard and half the class distracted by crying, or sitting very still and trying
not
to cry, Joseph decided he could risk it. He slipped his phone out of his pocket, swiping his thumb across the screen to unlock it. The familiar glow of his background sprang into view. Habit made him fold himself around the screen, trying to keep from attracting Mr. O'Toole's attention. He needn't have bothered. In that moment, his teacher wouldn't have noticed the students beginning to dance on their desks and sing the national anthem. His mind was miles away, following a trail that would have been familiar to everyone in the room: like the rest of them, Mr. O'Toole was trying frantically to convince himself that this wasn't what it looked like.

It wasn't an outbreak.

It couldn't be an outbreak.

Joseph brought up his keypad and considered it for a moment, waffling between calling home and telling his dad what was going on, and calling 911 and letting the authorities know what was going on—although he wasn't really sure what he'd say in the second instance. Like, was it prank calling if you told the police that the alarms at school wouldn't stop ringing, and the desks weren't locking right, and the doors weren't locking at all? It seemed like something that somebody ought to know.

Finally, he decided that he should call his father. Dad could take care of the difficult part, like deciding whether or not to contact the police. Joseph brought up his father's number and pressed Call.

Nothing happened. Joseph frowned at the phone. The display said he had five full bars of service, so why wasn't the call going through? He tried again, this time dialing his mother's cell, and got the same result: nothing. Fear began to gather in the space behind his eyes, swelling and twisting until it filled the entire world.

Mr. O'Toole was still pacing back and forth, paying virtually no attention to his class. Joseph worried his lip between his teeth, trying to decide where the line was between “reacting normally to a crisis” and “losing your shit.” He was pretty sure Mr. O'Toole was on the wrong side of the line. He was just terrified of slipping and joining his teacher there.

Joseph wiped his mouth dry with the palm of his hand before he resumed worrying his lip between his teeth. The small abrasions this created were perfect for the fomite specks of Kellis-Amberlee that he had picked up from Nathan's hand when they were sitting under the slide—Nathan, who had touched the ground where Scott Ribar had scraped himself. The virus was invisible to the naked eye, but not to Joseph's immune system, which promptly launched an all-out defense against the invaders. This defense included the boy's own store of Kellis-Amberlee virus, which recognized its brethren, even in their new, strangely folded configuration, and began to refold itself in viral sympathy. The cascade was beginning.

Joseph was unaware of all this; Joseph would not begin to feel unwell for another five minutes, by which time it would be far too late to take any precautions or attempt any quarantine. In many ways, fomite transmission was more dangerous than the flashier and easily detected bite or splatter transmissions, because it was so quiet, so easy. Touch a contaminated surface, touch your mouth, nose, or eyes, and wait for the virus to do what comes naturally. Joseph had become an incubator for Kellis-Amberlee.

Hands shaking—with nerves, nothing more; not yet—he raised his phone a third time and dialed 911. Again, the call did not go through. Fear fully bloomed in his chest, setting his heart hammering against his ribs and speeding the infection through his body. The faster the blood circulated, the more quickly the live-state Kellis-Amberlee would be able to convert the slumbering stockpile in his veins. “Mr. O'Toole?” he said, thrusting his hand into the air.

Mr. O'Toole stopped pacing and turned, frowning blearily at the room for a moment before his attention finally focused on Joseph. “I cannot approve any trips to the restroom while the alarm is sounding,” he said stiffly.

“It's not about the bathroom,” protested Joseph, cheeks flaming red as uneasy giggles broke out around the rest of the room. Unlike Sharon in Miss Oldenburg's class, Joseph didn't ask to go to the bathroom very often. He found the idea of broadcasting his bodily functions to his classmates faintly mortifying. “I tried to call my dad and the call didn't go through.”

Mr. O'Toole's frown deepened. “No cellphones in class,” he said. He started down the aisle between the desks, heading toward Joseph. “Hand it over.”

Joseph pulled his phone back, out of his teacher's reach. “You don't understand,” he said, hating the thin whine that was beginning to appear in his voice. “I tried to call my dad, and my mom, and the
police
, and none of the calls went through. Their numbers didn't even ring. Something's wrong with the phone.”

“It's not the phone,” said Mr. O'Toole. “If you had asked me before you decided to panic yourself and your fellow students, I could have explained that you would be unable to get a call out. When the alarm starts ringing, the cell blockers in the school's communication network activate. None of us can make calls out right now.”

Joseph stared at him, slack-jawed. His tongue was dry, probably from panic, so he swallowed hard to moisten it before asking, “Why would they do that? Who thinks that's a good idea?” Murmurs rose from the classroom around him, echoing the sentiment.

Mr. O'Toole pressed a hand to his temple, like it hurt, and thrust his hand out again. “The phone, Joseph, please.”

“But I didn't even make a call!”

“The rules are still very clear about cellphones in class.” Mr. O'Toole gave his hand an admonishing shake. “You can have it back after the end of the day.”

“This is so unfair,” said Joseph, and slapped the phone—now thoroughly contaminated by fomite traces—into Mr. O'Toole's hand.

“Life is unfair,” said Mr. O'Toole. “As for who thought blocking cell communications from the campus was a good idea, it was recommended by our state's governor when he approved the current security plans used by this campus, and our sister schools. It prevents local law enforcement from being swamped by calls from students—like yourself—when the alarm goes off. If there is any need for law enforcement, they will be contacted by the office. It helps keeps things under control. It prevents a panic.”

“But you can't get the office on the phone,” said Joseph, looking more concerned than ever. “What happens to us if the office doesn't call the police?”

Mr. O'Toole—who was five minutes away from wiping his eye with one contaminated hand, and who would not need to worry about complicated issues like cellphones and law enforcement for very much longer—didn't have an answer. “Everyone, take out your history books and turn to chapter twenty-three,” he said, turning and walking back toward the front of the room. “If we're going to be stuck in here, we're going to use our time productively.”

The groan that rose from the collected students was briefly louder than the persistently ringing alarm, and could almost have been mistaken for a moan.