Scott Andrews - School's Out Forever

I was through with talking.

Without even thinking I raised the gun and fired a single shot, taking the soldier right between the eyes and spraying her brains all over Mrs Atkins’ best floral pinny.

The soldier’s legs crumpled and she fell in a heap on the floor as Lucy screamed and screamed and screamed.

It was the first time in my life I’d ever killed someone and enjoyed it. I felt a glow of satisfaction. It felt good.

The vomiting quickly put an end to that.

When I’d finished spraying my lunch all over the cobbles I turned and walked back to Barker, wiping my mouth with my sleeve and noticing that it came away covered in blood from the gash on my cheek.

“On your fucking knees,” I said.

Barker knelt down and begged for his life.

He fell silent when I pressed the gun barrel into his forehead.

“It’s in the best interests of everyone here for me to shoot you. You know that, right?”

NEXT MORNING, I sat in front of the school and waited.

It was so silent. All the kids had left, the staff too. I lay on a glorious lawn, in the warm spring sunshine, listening to the birds and the first crickets. There were rabbits nibbling the grass not twenty metres from where I sat, and sometimes the breeze carried the distant cry of a peacock from the gardens behind the house.

I lay back on the grass and closed my eyes, rested my hands on the cool ground. I tried to visualise how fast I was moving — around the sun, around the Earth’s core. It sounds strange but it’s the closest I’ve ever come to meditation. Lying on grass and trying to feel the Earth move calms me down.

I needed a lot of calming down.

I thought back on my decision and I knew in my heart that I’d done the right thing. With everyone relocated and in hiding, all the blame for the slaughter would fall on me. It was the only way to make sure everyone was safe. The buck stopped here, and that was only fair. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t scared to death.

So as I lay there, a row of bodies draped in sheets beside me, waiting for the rumble of army vehicles, I felt okay with my choice. I was ready to accept the consequences.

My thoughts went back to that day at the swimming pool, all the ideals Kate had when she’d started medical training. The Hippocratic Oath seemed like a sick joke to me now. I wondered what the woman at the swimming pool would have thought of me, lying here surrounded by bodies. The thought caused a sharp pang of loss.

“Your cheek looks a lot better. I don’t think it’s going to be a bad scar,” said the man sitting to my right. “You stitched it really well.”

“Thanks, Barker,” I said. “But I don’t really think I’m going to have to worry about my good looks much longer, do you?”

He didn’t answer and I didn’t open my eyes to see the look on his face.

“I’ll tell them what really happened,” he said.

“But you weren’t there, were you? Not in the cellar, not in the surgery. I appreciate the thought, but your word’s not going to carry much weight when you stack it up against all these corpses.”

He didn’t say anything else, so we sat and listened to the birds.

“Do you ever think things will get back to normal?” he asked eventually. “I mean, telly and buses and elections and stuff?”

“Not in our lifetimes,” I said.

“The king says it will.”

“The what?”

But before he could answer I heard the sound of tyres on gravel.

“You’re on,” I said.

I heard him get to his feet and begin walking away, towards the fellow soldiers he’d radioed yesterday. I just lay there, eyes closed. I caught snatches of conversation, and the sound of boots on gravel, then someone walking towards me.

I sighed. Time to face the music.

“Miss Jane Crowther?” The man’s voice was deep and strong, the voice of someone accustomed to being listened to and obeyed. I’d tried to develop a voice like that over the last few months, but my efforts in the courtyard suggested I’d probably failed.

The voice was also oddly familiar.

“That’s me,” I said, and I opened my eyes. The soldier was standing over me, and the sun behind his head made a halo and shadowed his face. I winced at the brightness.

“No, it’s not.” The voice had changed. It was softer, surprised, almost friendly. And definitely familiar.

“Pardon?” I said, as I sat up. I rested my weight on one arm and raised a hand to shield my eyes so I could get a look at the man who’d come to serve justice on me. It took a second for my eyes to adjust.

“Hello, Miss Booker,” he said. “What have you got yourself into this time?”

KATHERINE LUCY BOOKER — Kit to her family, Kate to everyone else — died five years ago in a warehouse on Moss Side.

Then she gave herself a bit of a makeover. She dyed her hair, got that nose ring she’d always secretly craved, dumped the Jigsaw wardrobe and went a bit more casual. She even started listening to different kinds of music — out with Kylie, in with Dresden Dolls — and stopped watching thrillers and horror films altogether, preferring inoffensive romcoms and bodice rippers. She walked differently too, but only because she stopped wearing heels.

Her sleep patterns altered. She used to sleep like a log for eight hours straight, preferring early nights and cosy jim jams. Now she was more likely to crawl to bed in the early hours in her knickers and t-shirt, cuddling a bottle of chianti, before waking, sweating and alarmed after four hours fitful rest.

She moved to a different part of the country, broke contact with all her friends and family, abandoned her career as a doctor and became a far less illustrious type of medic, ministering to spotty boys and institutionalised teachers with bad breath and nicotine fingers.

Kate Booker became Jane Crowther.

Then, one day, lying on the grass surrounded by corpses, Jane was visited by the ghost of Kate.

And I couldn’t think what to say to her.

“I’M SORRY, DO I… do I know you?” I stuttered as the ground, which had been so solid beneath me only a moment ago, began to spin.

“Lieutenant Sanders, Miss,” he said cheerily. “I was part of the team that oversaw your training.”

I wracked my brains. Sanders? I didn’t remember any Sanders.

He reached down a great paw. I took it and he pulled me up without the slightest effort. The man radiated strength.

Once I was upright the spinning was even more pronounced and I stumbled a bit. He caught me in his arms like I was some kind of swooning schoolgirl. I blushed red with embarrassment. This, of course, made it even worse. I shook him off firmly and regained my composure with a brisk cough.

“It’s been a long time since a man’s made me dizzy, Lieutenant,” I joked.

He laughed awkwardly as I took a closer look at him. He had the tanned skin of a man who spends time outdoors; thick black eyebrows topped deep-set brown eyes that sat either side of a classic Roman nose. His large chin jutted out slightly, making him look like a weird mixture of toff and bruiser. It was a striking face rather than a handsome one.

“Wait a minute,” I said, as realisation dawned. “I do remember you! You were one of the soldiers Cooper took me to train with out in Hereford. You were the judo guy, weren’t you? Spent a whole day throwing me round a gym like I was a, oh, I don’t know what.”

“That’s me, Miss. I was part of the assault team at the warehouse as well. Nasty business. I’m sorry about… you know.”

“Yeah, right. Wow. It’s, um, it’s been a really long time since anyone’s called me Miss Booker. You threw me there for a minute.”