Jason Morrow - Anywhere but Here

Hank walks to the refrigerator and pulls out a bag of something. “I was instructed to get you a few items of food to take with you, but I don’t think you would turn away a hot meal right now, would you?”

“Of course not,” I say.

“Why don’t you store the food in the cafeteria?” Gabe asks.

Hank smiles at him. “We do. But this is more of an immediate access for those of us that live on the second and third floor of the school.”

He motions for us to sit at one of the tables as he pulls out frozen vegetables and spaghetti noodles. “I hope you don’t mind the cheap store-bought sauce,” Hank says. “I usually like to make my own, but ever since the dead started walking, tomatoes have been scarce.”

I look at Ethan and he smiles at me.

“Uh, weren’t you going to tell us why you don’t need walls?” Ethan says.

“Oh, I forgot,” Hank says. He stops what he’s doing and points to the other end of the room. “You see that box over the door?”

My eyes go to where he’s pointing and I see it. It’s a clear plexiglas box with a red lightbulb inside it.

“All of the rooms in the school have them installed,” Hank says. “I helped make it myself.” He stares at the box with a smile on his face. “It’s pretty incredible really. We have sensors all across Foley, making an invisible perimeter around the school. Anytime someone or something crosses the perimeter, that red light blinks silently, alerting everyone in the school to the presence. About twenty minutes ago, it started blinking red, so the guards on duty went and found you guys.”

“Do you ever get a false alarm?” Ethan asks. “Like the wind blowing something around?”

Hank laughs at this as he begins frying the vegetables in a skillet over one of the burners. “All the time. When we first had it installed, everyone was in a panic just about every time a bird or a squirrel moved in front of the sensors, but we’ve all gotten used to it by now.”

The smell of the vegetables cooking makes my stomach rumble with hunger. Hank hums to himself as he sets a pot full of water on a second burner. It has been years since I have seen someone this cheerful. It’s refreshing.

“You know that’s still going to get you eaten one day,” Gilbert says, killing the mood. “Having no wall means you’re exposed.”

“The point is having enough warning so that the greyskins have no reason to try to get into the school,” Hank says, keeping his smile.

“Yeah, but one mistake, one baby crying out, one sneeze could get your entire compound destroyed,” Gilbert presses. I wish I knew him well enough to kick his foot or to just tell him to can it, but it would only make him angry.

“Every breath we take is a risk,” Hank says. He smiles even wider now. “Every risk we take is a reminder that we are still alive.”

“Every wall you don’t put up is a path for a greyskin to take,” Gilbert says grimly, but Hank just shrugs and breaks the noodles into the pot of water.

A voice from somewhere unseen calls out for Hank. He jumps a little and laughs at his own reaction, then reaches at the back of his belt and pulls out a small radio. “I’m here,” Hank says.

“Our new friends are fueled up and ready to go,” Walter says from the other end. “Are you through with them?”

“I’m feeding them,” Hank says. “No reason they shouldn’t get a hot meal. They look like they haven’t eaten in a week!” Hank looks at us and winks. There is a long pause from the other end until finally, Walter decides to talk again.

“Just hurry so we can get them out,” he says.

Hank shakes his head and snickers when he clips the radio back to his belt. “These guys are so uptight. Here I am trying to bring back a little civilization to the world and they just want you out of here.”

“I suppose I can understand,” I say. “There are a lot of bad people out there. Raiders, you know.”

“Oh, I know all about that,” Hank says. “People get selfish. They get to a point where only their own survival matters. I don’t see it that way. I think it’s important that we all try to survive. That we all try to help others survive. For example, I would love to ask you three to stay with us indefinitely, but the others here wouldn’t have it. They would say that supplies are low enough as it is. I, however, look at it differently. I would say that three recruits like you would heighten our chances of finding more supplies. It would be a mutual benefit.”

“I wouldn’t stay here if it were the last group of people on earth,” Gilbert says under his breath.

Hank doesn’t miss a beat. “I just think this whole thing would be over a lot more quickly if people just banded together. Make super-towns with giant walls so no greyskin could ever get in. I tell you what, if someone had the resources and manpower, people would flock in droves to a place like that.”

“I would,” I say.

“So would I,” Hank says, winking again, a couple of dry noodles sticking out of his mouth.

He finally sets a plate full of spaghetti in front of each of us and decides to have a plate himself. We spend most of the meal listening to Hank tell stories. Mostly funny ones. Ethan laughs the hardest, and I try to, and Gilbert sits with a straight face, eating his food quickly. Hank takes bites like he has all the time in the world.

He is in the middle of a story when he stops talking and the smile fades from his face. I follow his eyes to the box above the door and it is blinking red.

According to Walter, the herd of greyskins walking through the middle of Foley is gigantic. Hank stands next to us as Walter and Barry look at us like we betrayed their trust.

“We didn’t see anything,” Ethan says.

“We didn’t lead greyskins here,” Gilbert adds. “Sensors don’t do much more than tell you when something is coming do they?” He looks at Hank when he says this.

“We’re just going to have to wait them out,” Barry says. “If we stay quiet, they won’t come into the school.”

“We have everyone on lockdown?” Walter asks.

Barry nods.

Walter lets out a sigh. “We aren’t blaming you three for bringing them. Just weird timing is all.”

“We hate it worse than you,” I say, but it sounded better in my mind before it came out.

Walter looks at me sideways and shakes his head. “Hank, you got a place for them to stay?”

“Of course!” he says a little too loudly. “I’ve got plenty of more stories to tell. Some good, some sad, all of them with a purpose.”

“I’d almost rather take my chances with the greyskins,” Gilbert says.

Barry looks at him with an eyebrow raised. “We don’t know you, pal. Don’t tempt us to make you try.”

We sit for hours, waiting for the herd to pass like a slow moving storm and I feel like a child that can’t go outside because of the rain. The morning turns into afternoon, and the afternoon, evening.

“Oh, these herds can last for days,” Hank tells us. “It’s madness. Every step we take has to be taken with care. We aren’t even allowed to flush the toilets for fear that one of those creatures will hear.”

Gilbert makes another snide comment about having a wall, but he is ignored. By sunset we know there will be no traveling for the night and Hank helps us set up cots in his apartment that used to be Room 204 — Biology. He explains to us that in the morning, a few of the guys will try to go out and make noises away from the school to point the herd in a different direction. It is a dangerous job that sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t.

Late into the night, despite my lack of sleep the night before, I’m wide awake, thinking about Lucas. Hank snores away at the other end of the room. Gilbert’s cot is near the door, and Ethan’s cot is only a few feet away from mine, which is next to the window. I try to look out into the streets. Occasionally, I will spot a greyskin lurking around in the moonlight and every time I do, I get a sick feeling in my stomach.