36 Hours (2 page)

“He’s nice.”

“That’s good. I didn’t know you knew him.”

“We bumped into each other in the halls.” Wanting nothing more to say, she headed for the door with the streaming flood of high school students. Peyton stood by my side. “She’s known you for how long, Austin?”

“What? Oh. Tired. I don’t know. Four years. Five.”

“And she wouldn’t go with you. But she didn’t know what’s-his-face-“

“Hal,” I threw in.

Peyton nodded. “She hasn’t known him for a day yet. And she went to a movie with him yesterday.”

We strode for the entrance. Hannah jumped into a wave of popular kids. “Do you have a point?”

“You know what this place is?”

“School.”

“Yes. And more. It’s a game. A game, Austin. You know what game?”

Might as well play along. “No. What game is it, Peyton?”

“It’s a game where the losers die and the winners suffer. The dice are popularity and good looks.”

If I were to be ranting now I would say girls nowadays only care about popularity, reputation and sex. Do you need an example? Les asked a girl out last school year. They had been friends, and the girl had admitted
to Les’ face
that she real y did like him. They had kissed several times. Seems like a surefire win to ask, doesn’t it? But he didn’t look at the grim facts. Quoting Les, who quotes the girl, she said, “I like your personality and I like you, but maybe lose some weight and take care of your face…” I won’t ever get a girlfriend because I’m not popular, not cool and beneficial to a dumb reputation, and I’m not physically attractive. Oh. I know. Forget about what’s important. Look at the glossy wrapping paper—screw the present underneath. You may think this twisting of what matters is coming mostly from what I see here at Clearcreek High School. Lo, it’s not. Yes, it’s here, but you would never believe that it runs
rampant
in the doors of my own Spring Falls Ohio Non-denominational Church. A body of Christ, infected to the core by the world. You might think I hate the girls who are like this. I don’t I don’t really hate anyone. But I am Anthony Barnhart

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sorry. Not so sorry for me, but for them. Because when they grow up and marry the jocks and preps and the kids with the money, they will sit alone in their homes, within white-washed walls, and stare into the dreary rain, and wonder,
Where did I go wrong?

I noticed two police cars in the bus lot. Cops sat inside. One was reading a paper, the other sipping a paper cup of coffee. “You’re a weird guy, Peyton.”

Betraying all I knew. We pushed through the front doors. Some mangled talk of the Hartford situation. Growing. I could’ve cared less, but kept note for my journal that night. I never could have imagined how terrible the next several hours could possibly be.

Nightmares. Dreamscapes.

“You think I’m wrong?”

“No. You’re right.”

“Don’t count on getting her, man. She’s too obsessed with all the other crap.”

“Yeah. I know. I didn’t mean anything by the movie.” I side-stepped a teacher barreling through the cafeteria. “I was going to go with Alex, then with Les, but they couldn’t make it, and Drake wasn’t old enough, and neither were you, and I knew your sister was seventeen, so-“

“You’re lying and you know it.”

D Hallway closed around us. “Whatever, Peyton.”

The atrium loomed up. Brick pillars held up the second floor, and a rounded petition looked up past the railed sides of the second floor, to a looming glass dome shining sunlight down into the school. We split there. He was a freshman, and his hallway was in the other direction. He offered a hand. “I’ll see you at lunch.”

Shaking his hand, “You know it. Later, man.”

He called over his shoulder, “Forget her, man!”

Never heard that before
.

I dismissed him with a wave of my hand.

On the way to class, I happened to steal a glance into the administrator’s office. I saw on the principal and vice principal’s faces a look I knew not too well—worry. Nervousness. Fear.

7:00 a.m.

Anthony Barnhart

36 Hours

12

The boy in the nurse’s of ice

Conversation at the front desk

Outbreak

I skipped into class several seconds late. I slipped through the door, tried to make it to my seat, but Ms. Hood glanced over her shoulder from the window. Her eyes glazed over. I stood entranced, a raccoon caught in the headlights of a speeding car. She growled, “That’s a detention. Get in your seat.” So my trek to being on time was another failure. Chalk up yet another detention. I slipped into my seat next to the chalkboard. Freshly-applied chalk dripped off the board. Hood went to the front of the room. “How was-“ The phone hooked onto the wall rattled. She picked it up and started talking.

I opened up my folder, glanced at some Chemistry and World History homework, shut it. The Stephen King book of short stories,
Skeleton Crew
, made my mind salivate. The introduction last night was interesting. I grabbed it and flipped open to the story,
The Mist
. Looked out the window. A thin line of trees separated the school grounds and the Greenview neighborhood behind it. A mist curled around the trees and spilled over the grassy lawn, between picket fences and squat houses in Greenview. Mist. Mist has always been cool. In
The
Mist
, the mist was a harbor of fiendish, almost prehistoric—or alien—creatures. However you interpret it. I imagined the mist crawling towards the High School, ominous and-“Austin?” Hood called, setting down the phone. “Since you were so eager to wander the halls, why don’t you go down to the administrator’s office real quick and get me some papers. I forgot my attendance roster. Thank you.”

I set my book down.
The Mist
was just getting good. But in this hellish place, a run to the administrator’s office was better than Accounting. I said okay and went out the door.

The once swarming halls were empty; the hive dripped with silence. I came to the atrium. The glass windows reflected my figure as I walked towards the door. I had lost a lot of weight. Forty pounds. And building muscle, too. I had decided to get rid of my overflowing love handles and get set for summer. It would be great to be able to do push-ups without choking on my own fat. The door opened easily. I think it had been greased last night. They did stuff like that Sunday nights.

Anthony Barnhart

36 Hours

13

The receptionist was gone. There were several chairs, and an aerial photograph of the school hooked onto the wall. I rapped my fingers on the desk. I would’ve rang a bell if there had been one. I waited. And looked up at a television. Just a blue screen. Usually they scrolled announcements. Not till about eight or nine, though. When kids started waking up. I rubbed my eyes. The white light from the double doors near the bus entrance burnt brightly. Reminded me of how tired my body really was.

Bit my bottom lip. Then my ears picked up something. From an office. No. The nurse’s ward. It sounded like the voice of an angry boy. No receptionist. Waited. A receptionist did not come. Needed the papers. A girl walked the halls, collecting attendance rosters from little posts on the doors. The voices. The papers.

I stuck to the walls and made my way into the corridor. Offices on either side. Glass windows revealed humming computer screens and empty chairs. I went on down the corridor. It bent to the side.

The voice grew stronger.

A sign hung over a door:
NURSE’S OFFICE
. Underneath it was a small square window. I pressed my face against it and peered inside. A boy sat in a chair. His head was down, long hair falling in braids; he wore jeans and a long-sleeved, black
Independent
t-shirt. The principal stood to the side, rubbing his chin. A phone rested in his hands, and he looked agitated. The vice principal paced in circles around the chair, talking to the student. And the nurse. She looked the worst of them all. Painfully afraid. She stuck to the back of the room, next to a glass cabinet filled with gauze and first aide medicines. The voices passed through the door.

Vice principal: “Who was the last person you touched?”

Kid: “My mom when I kissed her good-bye.” Anger. Strange fury. I imagined the kid only an hour or two earlier, going into his mom’s room. She lies asleep in bed. Hazel morning light floats in from the one window. He kneels down beside her. One of the blankets falls to the floor; he rests his knee on it. He smiled. The sound of the shower shutting off, and feet scampering in the bathroom. His dad drying. His mom sleeps soundly, eyes closed, lips quivering with every deep breath. Lost in a dream. A whirlwind through a thorn tree. He couldn’t know. He doesn’t know. He kisses her on the cheeks. They were warm with life. She opens her eyes, and she kisses him on the lips. Nothing sensual—gross—just a motherly-son peck. He stands. “I’m going to Anthony Barnhart

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school.” “I love you.” His dad comes out of the bathroom. “I love you, too,” he said in a whisper, and scurries away.

The nurse asks the boy, hours later, “Is your mom in an affair?”

“Whose business is that?”

“Did anyone else touch you?”

“No.” Malevolence.

“Did
you
touch anyone?”

“I give high-fives to half the school.”

“Sensually.”

“What the heck kind of question is that?” Deeper anger. Guttural anger.

“Just answer the question, son.”

“I kissed my girlfriend. And she kissed me.”

“Is that all?”

“I kissed Ellie Grabeman.”

“Isn’t she going with Alan?”

“And another kid, I know! Don’t give me a dumb sermon!”

The vice principal grabbed the kid roughly by the arm. The kid howled, and ripped away. He lifted his face—and I wanted to jump backwards. His pale skin had gone a deep purple; his eyes had sunken into the back of his head; the lips curled back, revealing yel owing teeth. The veins in his neck bulged. Sweat cascaded down his face. I was horrified, yet entranced. I pulled myself back up to the glass.

The kid’s wild eyes darted between the three people in the room. He roared,

“Let me out of here!”

“No,” the vice principal snarled. “No. I need to know what you’ve been up to.”

The kid snarled, “This isn’t right and you-“

Stepping forward, the principal placed a hand over the vice principal’s shoulder. “He’s sick.” To the kid: “You’re sick.”

“Really? Wow. How especially inquisitive you are.”

The nurse croaked, “Matthew, you’re sick. Look. We’ve called the paramedics…”

“I don’t need the paramedics! Let me out of this cage!”

“You’re not in a cage…” The principal looked straight at me. “Hey! There’s a kid out there!”

Anthony Barnhart

36 Hours

15

I ducked down and scrambled down the corridor, around the bend, nearly running into the receptionist. I swung around her, then remembered. “Ms. Hood left her attendance roster down here…” My voice seemed to strangely dance with an untamed, unprecedented reluctance. “She sent me to-“

“To crawl down the hallways? What’ve you been up to?”

“Looking for you. I waited.”

“Well. You found me.”

“Yeah. I did.”

She disappeared a moment, then returned, and handed me some papers. I heard shouting. She said, “Get along now.”

Remembered the kid’s name. I couldn’t help asking. “What’s up with Matt?”

She frowned. “You know him?”

“He’s a friend of mine.”

“I just didn’t think a skater and a nerd would be-“ She shook her head. “I didn’t mean to stereotype.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“How do you know him?”

“He’s my next door neighbor.”

“Then you know what happened to his mom?”

“What? No. What?”

“Her husband woke up—Matthew’s step-father—and found his mom missing. She had slept on the couch downstairs. I guess he got drunk, and she didn’t sleep with him when he’s drunk. That’s what Matthew said.”

“Yeah… He’s an alcoholic.” I didn’t know the kid. But it sounded good enough.

“Sad thing. But the back door was knocked off its hinges. And she was gone. Matthew remembers her kissing him before she went downstairs to bed. The dog was gone, too. And then Matthew broke out in these purplish rashes, and his skin got all tight, his eyes bulged, lips curled. Real y something terrible.”

Under her breath, “I saw something on television. About Hartford. They had found someone roaming about twenty miles northwest-“ Our direction. “-and they looked exactly like this kid here. And this woman. She was angry. Really angry. Screaming and hollering. Flailing her arms. She reached out for anyone who got close. She couldn’t speak. Just angry ranting. No words. Sounds. Hideous sounds. Horrible sounds. Made my blood run cold. They had her bolted Anthony Barnhart

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in chains. And they said that they had more, and they were all very angry. Then the video-tape cut off.”

“And the woman in the video looked like Matt?”

“Yes. Except he seems a lot less—seriously ill.”

“Is it a disease?” The Hartford disease. Catchy.

“Yeah. They don’t know how it’s transmitted, though. They think through sensual contact. Body fluids. Saliva, blood, what-not. All of the government workers have been warned that if any of the symptoms break loose, to restrain the victims and call for help.”

“I saw some police cars outside…”

“They left. Had other things to do.”

I glanced out towards the bus entrance. A patrol car pulled along the curb.

“This looks serious.”

“It
is
serious. All of Hartford is wiped out, I think.”

“From this disease?”

Her face hardened. “From
something
.”

The cops were coming into the building. Shouting from the nurse’s office, echoing down the corridors. I dipped away and scurried back to class, holding the papers under my arm. Everyone stared at me as I walked in. I suspect my face was ashen white. Hood said, “Did you get the papers?”

I nodded, and handed them to her.

“What took you so long?”