13.| Hero Amidst The Chaos

Before The Fall

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I race down the hallway, desperate to find a door I can lock behind me. The K-9 is right on my heels, growling and snapping. From my imagination alone, I can almost feel its hot breath and slimy drool on my skin. Horrible images flash in my mind of all the different ways it could tear me apart. 

Finally I reach the end of the hall and spot the front door, but before I can even reach it, a strange old man wearing a cowboy hat barges into the room with a shotgun. 

"Please don't shoot!" I yell, halting and raising my hands. 

"Duck down, boy!" The old man shouts, aiming his gun at me. 

I don't hesitate. I drop to the floor as fast as I can. The k-9 jumps over me with its mouth gaping. 

The old man fires his shotgun and hits the k-9 in the head. It slams into the desk with a loud thud, spraying blood and chunks of brain matter everywhere.

I sprawl on the floor, panting and trembling. I can't believe I'm still alive.

"What the hell is going on?" The man demands as I roll onto my back.

I look up at him with my heart still pounding in my chest. "Haven't you seen the news?" I ask him.

"If I saw the damn news, do you reckon I'd be asking you?" The old man snaps back.

I take in his appearance: a graying mustache, hardly any eyebrows, a worn leather jacket and dirty boots. He looks like he's been living off the grid for ages, so I wonder why I even bothered asking him anything.

"We're in the middle of a pandemic. There's a virus that's loose." I tell him.

The old man tips his hat and slings his shotgun over his shoulder as Rose and Paula rush into the office. 

"I thought he was going to shoot us." Paula blurts out.

"He said if we warned you he'd blow our brains out." Rose adds and I glare at him. 

He shrugs. "Precautions, I thought you might be a school shooter. You're that boy I saw in the newspapers a while back. Your mom," He starts to say, but I cut him off.

"Yeah, but this isn't a school shooting." I say. He has some nerve to talk about me, coming into a high-school with a loaded gun and no clue what's happening.

 "Where are all the teachers?" He asks, eyeing the two dead bodies under Principal Riley's door that was ripped off its hinges earlier.

"Gone or dead." I say, pushing myself off the floor and brushing the shards of glass off my shirt. They glitter in the red light. "They left as soon as they saw the news and didn't tell anyone."

He grumbles, digging in his pocket for something. He pulls out a crumbled pack of cigarettes and bites the end of one with his yellow teeth. I can tell he's been smoking for years by the wrinkles on his face and the foul smell of his breath. 

He flicks a lighter and speaks with the cigarette dangling from his mouth, a trail of smoke curling in the air. "How many of you are left in here?" He asks.

"Nine of us." Rose answers him, her voice trembling slightly.

The old man takes a drag from his cigarette, his eyes narrowing. "Is it only affecting the animals?"

"No, it's people too. I didn't know animals could be infected until just now." I say, remembering the dog that almost killed me. "We're being ordered around by another student to clear the school of them. He has everyone scared out of their minds, he even broke my friend's arm." 

I need him on our side. He's an adult, he has a gun, and he saved my life. That has to count for something. Jake can make the rest of our classmates cower in fear, but not this guy. He looks tough, like he's been through some nightmares and lived to tell grisly tales.

"Shut up!" Paula snaps, her eyes flashing with anger. "He's just trying to keep us safe."

"Shut it, teacher's pet. Can't you see we'll starve to death at this rate, and so will you?" I snap back at her, sick of her crap.

"Alright, alright. Enough bickering, kids." The old man steps between us, his gun still in his hand. "How about I help you see if the school's clear of them, then we can go up and deal with this bully." He says, and Paula huffs and rolls her eyes.

She'll get over it. When she sees this man will have power next, she'll be kissing his ass soon enough. But I still don't know if I can really trust him either.

Sure he saved my life, but I don't know anything about him. What's to stop him from turning the gun on us? It's not like we have any other choice. If Jake runs things, I'll never make it to Ivan or Jack. So I'm putting my trust in him.

"As long as you don't shoot us." I finally say, and he smirks.

"I like you, kid. You've got some guts talking to someone holding a gun like that." He pauses for a moment, then continues after leaving me in a moment of suspense. "But I don't plan to waste my bullets when we don't know what the hell is going on."

I force a nervous laugh even though I don't find his words funny, and I think he can tell because his smirk only grows wider before he turns and leads us back into the hallway. 

The person from the cabinet comes running out with us. It's Principal Riley. "Take me with you guys!" 

Rose and I stare at him in shock. This whole time we were dealing with this nightmare, he was hiding like a coward. He didn't warn any of us.

I feel disgusted by the sight of him. He's supposed to be our leader, our protector, but he abandoned us when we needed him most. He left us to fend for ourselves against the infected animals and people, against the unknown virus that could kill us all. 

How can he expect us to trust him now? How can he expect us to take him with us?

"No way," I say, shoving past him. "How did you even survive? It's kind of suspicious."

"You're right," Professor Riley blurts out. "I saw them die. Some man came in here looking for you right after the announcement. Under regulations, I told him you weren't here and he shot Mrs. Gaiza and Mr. Smith."

"What did they want with me?" I ask, feeling a chill down my spine.

"They didn't say. Uh, wait," Riley snaps his finger, trying to remember. "Something about your father."

"And what did you do after that?" The old man asks, bringing us back to the story Riley was telling. He takes his cigarette out of his mouth and walks up to principal Riley, giving him a cold look in the eye.

"I-I ran to my office and locked the door. They were pounding on the door and I covered my ears. I heard them scream because I was too scared to open the door." Riley confesses, his lips quivering.

"I thought so." I say and walk past him. "Screw you."

Rose nods in agreement and follows me. Paula hesitates, torn between loyalty and fear.

The old man shrugs and walks past Riley as well. "Sorry, pal," He says. "You made your bed, now lie in it."

Riley grabs the old man's arm. "Please, guys," He begs. "Don't leave me here alone. They'll find me. They'll kill me."

The old man shakes his arm free, then keeps walking down the hall, leaving Riley behind, hoping he'll get what he deserves.

I know it's cruel of us, but he's not reliable. I trust this stranger more than I do Riley.

"I hate cowards." The old man says, his voice laced with disdain.

"Do you think someone really came to the school looking for me?" I ask Rose, my voice hushed. I am a familiar face. I've been splashed all over the news, and my father's case is still open with occasional updates.

It was hell for me, trying to lead a normal teenage life while being stalked down the street by cameras and microphones. But why would someone come now?

"He didn't look like he was lying." Rose says, her eyes wide.

"I have to tell you something, but you have to keep quiet about it." I whisper to her, leaning closer.

"I promise, you know I always keep my word." She smiles at me and I brace myself to say what's been weighing on my mind these last few days.

I take a deep breath and say, "My father texted and called me."

Rose's mouth falls open, then she checks our surroundings to make sure no infected are around. "What? I thought he was..."

"Dead? Me too, but he's been alive. In hiding I think." I think of the newspapers Zeke showed me earlier. "The day they claimed my father went missing, Zeke showed me he was caught in a snapshot outside Biotech."

"Oh man, what kind of trouble was he in?" Rose asks me, but I don't have an answer. All I can think of is how mom went crazy because she thought he was dead.

"How could he do this?" I ask no one in particular. "I watched her fall apart every day."

"Ian," Rose touches my arm gently. "I'm so sorry."

"It isn't your fault. It's his."

I don't think I can forgive him. Every day I came home to my mother anxiously sitting on the couch, scanning every available news station in hopes of seeing if there was a lead on where my father was.

First, she forgot to cook dinner, too busy sitting at the table staring at her phone, waiting for a call from the FBI that never came. Sometimes I'd fall asleep on the couch, having my own hope someone would call so things could go back to normal.

Things only got worse though.

On the fourth month of him missing, she'd pace the hallways. I'd always see her shadow from beneath my door. She'd crack the door open, and I'd hear her standing there to make sure I was still breathing. The subtle things added up.

She was always so paranoid that someone was going to break into our house and take me like she claimed someone had taken my father because he knew so much.

Then even I turned into a stranger. I'd come downstairs to make myself a bowl of cereal, because by then, she stopped cooking. She was smiling so brightly and called me by my father's name.

I told her I wasn't him and when the illusion broke, she'd slap me, then pull me into her arms and cry until her tears ran dry. She'd tell me just how much I looked like my father.

A month and a half after that, she tried to kill three students.

It's all his fault.

"Ah shit." I hear the old man say and look ahead.

Jane's dead body is still on the floor, her back torn open, and her spine lays beside her.

"You didn't tell me one of you didn't make it." The old man scrunches up his face.

"Yeah, I'm sure a lot of people didn't make it. This is someone we knew." I look away. The sight is too gruesome.

"And you want to go to the cafeteria?" The old man asked and lifted his thin brow. 

I nod. "We need the food."

He cursed under his breath. "Alright, the cafeteria we go. Lead the way."