Ellen Datlow - After - Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia

The cops were there before I could get myself out of the chair. They wrapped a blanket around me and led me down to the principal’s office. I was in a daze for a while but could feel them moving around me and could hear them talking. Then my mother was there, and the cop was handing me a cup of orange juice. They asked if they could talk to me, and my mother left it up to me. I told them everything, exactly how it went down. I started with the blood drive. They tested me for gunpowder to see if there was any on my hands. I told them my gun was back in the classroom in my lunch box, under the table, and it hadn’t been fired since the summer, the last time I went to the range with my dad.

It was all over the news. I was all over the news. A full one-third of Bascombe High’s senior class was killed in the shoot-out. The only one in Mrs. Cloder’s class besides me to survive was McKenzie, and the flying glass made her No-face Batkin.

Senator Meets showed up at the school three days later and got his picture taken handing me an award. I never really knew what it was for. Constance whispered, “They give you a fucking award if you live through it,” and laughed. In Meets’s speech to the assembled community, he blamed the blood drive for the incident. He proclaimed Mrs. Cloder a hero, and ended by reminding everyone, “If these kids were working, they’d have no time for this.”

The class trip was called off, out of respect for the dead. Two weeks later, I went to the prom. It was to be held in the gymnasium. My dad drove me. When we pulled into the parking lot, it was empty.

“You must be early,” he said, and handed me the corsage I’d asked him to get—a white orchid.

“Thanks,” I said, and gave him a kiss on the cheek. As I opened the door to get out, he put his hand on my elbow. I turned, and he was holding the gun.

“You’ll need this,” he said.

I shook my head and told him, “It’s okay.” He was momentarily taken aback. Then he tried to smile. I shut the door and he drove away.

Constance was already there. In fact, she was the only one there. The gym was done up with glittery stars on the ceiling, a painted moon and clouds. There were streamers. Our voices echoed as we exchanged corsages, which had been our plan. The white orchid looked good against her black plunging neckline. She’d gotten me a corsage made of red roses, and they really stood out against the turquoise. In her purse, instead of the Beretta, she had a half pint of Captain Morgan. We sat on one of the bleachers and passed the bottle, talking about the incidents of the past two weeks.

“I guess no one’s coming,” she said. No sooner were the words out of her mouth than the outside door creaked open and in walked Bryce, carrying a case in one hand and dressed in a jacket and tie. We got up and went to see him. Constance passed him the Captain Morgan. He took a swig.

“I was afraid of this,” he said.

“No one’s coming?” I said.

“I guess some of the parents were scared there’d be another shoot-out. Probably the teachers too. Mrs. Cloder’s family insisted on an open casket. A third of them are dead, let’s not forget, and the rest, after hearing Meets talk, are working the late shift at Walmart for minimum wage.”

“Jeez,” said Constance.

“Just us,” said Bryce. He went up on the stage, set his case down, and got behind the podium at the back. “Watch this,” he said, and a second later the lights went out. We laughed. A dozen blue searchlights appeared, their beams moving randomly around the gym, washing over us and then rushing away to some dark corner. A small white spotlight came on above the mic that stood at the front of the stage. Bryce stepped up into the glow. He opened the case at his feet and took out a saxophone.

“I was looking forward to playing tonight,” he said. We walked up to the edge of the stage, and I handed him the bottle. He took a swig, the sax now on a leather strap around his neck. Putting the bottle down at his feet, he said, “Would you ladies care to dance?”

“Play us something,” we told him.

He thought for a second and said, “‘Strangers in the Night’?”

He played, we danced, and the blue lights in the dark were the sum total of our reality.

YOU WANT TO KNOW WHO I AM AND HOW I GOT HERE?

Reality Girl is the name my mother gave me but Real’s what I’m called. I’m fourteen and until one day, a week or so back, my ambition was making it to fifteen. What I want to tell starts that day.

Me and Dare—my girlfriend and partner—led our boys, Nice and Not, Hassid, and Rock, down to the river for this appointment I’d set up.

It could have been any October afternoon: hot orange light and the sun hanging over the smashed towers on the Jersey Shore. Like always, rumors ran of everything from a new plague to war between the Northeast Command and the Liberty Land militia.

But I could see planes coming in and taking off from Liberty Land Stronghold in Jersey like always. And along the waterfront little ferry boats took people on, unloaded freight.

The world that day was the way I was used to: broken cement under bare feet, bad sunlight that’d take off your skin if you let it, the smell of rot and acid on the water. Mostly I was trying to get control of this thing inside me. I wasn’t sure I owned it or it owned me.

Dare looked all ways, kept her hands inside her robes so no one knew what weapon she was holding, ignored the boy babble.

Hassid told Rock, “You look too much at who’s watching you dive instead of on the gold.”

“I gotta take this from a loser midget?”

“Listen to the lovers,” Nice said.

Dare stood tall with that crest of hair like a web singer or some photo you see and know is of a hero. “Look tough,” she told them, and they formed a front as we moved down to the waterline.

Me, I just stared around, looked downtown where black Hudson tide water was over the banks and in the street. Anyone looking maybe would guess I was Dare’s useless little girl trick. In truth I was seeing through her eyes, which was part of the thing inside me.

When I was a little kid I had flashes where I was inside someone else’s head for a second. It began to happen more often once my monthlies started. It scared me till I saw it as a weapon and tried to take control.

This summer was me and Dare’s second together and we fit like a knife in a fist. At first she hated it when I began slipping into her brain, and we fought. Then she saw how no one would know I was studying them, and went along.

That day I saw what Dare could see: used-up diving boys with the skin coming off them in clumps, and scavenger ladies with bags of garbage, all turned toward us snarling. But Dare saw fear in their eyes, knew they were looking for ways to back off, and she gave them the chance.

For what was left of the afternoon, we owned that stretch of the shore. But even here some water spilled over the walls onto the walkway. And barefoot kids don’t ever want to touch river water unless there’s gold in the air.

Then Dare and me caught sight of a long ground car with tinted windows and double treads coming down the highway, dodging the holes, bouncing over the rubble. According to the deal I set up with Depose, this was a party of tourists who wanted to see New York diving boys.

The car stopped, the doors opened, and Depose’s people jumped out holding their AK474’s ready. One kept an eye on Dare and the rest of us—cradling the rapid-fire in her arms. Two covered the other directions, on the alert but not tense. One stayed at the wheel.

When Depose runs things there’s no reason to worry. You don’t cross her and you’re okay unless she’s been given the contract on you or she sees some reason her life would get better without you. In those cases you’re dead. Simple, the way not much else is in this world.