Carver Pike - Scalp

Nitsy blinked and remembered the faces of students scrambling for their lives.

One boy had turned toward her in his effort to flee, but something or someone had grabbed hold of his leg. He seemed to lose hope instantly like it was too late already, and then it was. His mouth fell open in a painful cry as his body pitched forward and scattered the seats around him. An infected girl crawled onto his back.

A female student was nearly at the door, had almost escaped with the rest of them when an infected boy jumped onto her back. His hand reached over her forehead and Nitsy watched in horror as the boy’s fingernails dug into her eyeballs. The girl screamed and reached out to her, but it was too late. The boy continued to claw at the girl’s face as Robbie yanked Nitsy out of the auditorium.

Even if she made it through this and returned to her home, she knew she would never close her eyes again without seeing those faces. So many more haunted her. The way the infected, zombie-like kids spread through the group so quickly was unlike anything she could ever fathom. It seemed like whatever was happening was jumping, not moving through bites like in all the horror movies. It was so much faster.

She and Robbie had been their only warning. If only they’d listened to her. They could have had a head start. There might have been more than seven of them cowering in this classroom now.

The other two kids with them she didn’t know. The girl looked too young to attend the conference. The boy looked too old. They definitely knew each other. The two held hands and the boy whispered to the girl often.

“Are you two from the same school?” Nitsy whispered to them.

They froze as if her sudden interruption of the silence might bring the creatures down on them.

The girl nodded.

“What are your names?” Nitsy asked.

“Shh,” Lance warned her.

“Don’t shush her,” Robbie warned him.

“Fuck you, man,” Lance shot back. “We need to be quiet.”

“Well you’re being louder than I ever was,” Nitsy replied.

Lance scoffed and scooted away from the rest of them. He stood and made his way to the door. Nitsy knew he wouldn’t be dumb enough to open it, but she didn’t trust that he wouldn’t accidentally make a loud noise and alert the monsters. He was bossy by nature, and Nitsy didn’t need to ask to know he was the leader of his group. He would have been her competition if they’d ever gotten to the point of explaining their projects to Mrs. Price.

Mrs. Price. She’s dead too. They’re all dead.

“Her name is Yasmin,” the older boy answered, pulling Nitsy from her thoughts. “I’m Beau.”

“Where are you from?” Nitsy asked.

“Portland, Oregon,” Beau replied.

“I wanna go home,” Yasmin whined.

Beau squeezed her tighter. Nitsy hoped the young girl would make it home. She wondered if any of them would. She wanted to be back at her home in Florida, sitting at the dinner table right now, about to help her mom clean the table before sitting down to watch a TV show. She wished she’d never shown interest in this program. She’d been told she was one of the lucky ones. She didn’t feel so lucky now.

“They’re out there still,” Lance whispered as he returned to the rest of them and plopped down at a desk. “I didn’t hear any footsteps, but they’re near. It sounded like someone screamed.”

“Someone screamed?” Phyllis asked.

Lance nodded. Nobody needed to mention what that might mean. If any of the others had escaped the auditorium, the monsters might have caught up with them. Nitsy closed her eyes and tried to focus on her breathing.

What if this place isn’t good enough?

What if they break down the door?

We’ll be trapped.

“I don’t like staying in here like this,” Nitsy said.

“We did what we had to do,” Robbie reminded her. “We didn’t have a lot of time to plan it.”

She shrugged. “I guess. We could have run away from the campus.”

Lance laughed and tapped his fingers on his desk, way too loud for comfort. Robbie glared at him and it was clear he wanted to give him a piece of his mind but held back, probably out of fear of a commotion starting. That was all they needed. Some stupid fight that would get them all killed. If the monsters never found them, they might make it for a while, but if they all came crashing against that door at the same time, they were done for.

“We’d never make it out there in the woods with those things chasing us,” Bradley said, surprising everyone. He hadn’t said a word since they’d fled the auditorium. He tucked his face back into his knees.

“Maybe,” Robbie agreed.

Bradley lifted his face again. “You said you saw Elias break his neck?”

Robbie nodded.

“I was with him this morning,” Bradley said, “for wake-up crew.”

Everyone sat still, silently waiting on the rest of his story.

“The girls wouldn’t come out of their room,” Bradley added. “We knocked and tried to wake them up, but they wouldn’t come out. Elias was convinced there was something… I don’t know… sexual going on in there. I turned my back for a second and then he was gone. He’d entered the room.” Bradley was silent and then he wiped at his eyes, getting rid of his tears. “I thought he was the luckiest guy in the world. I thought he was in there… you know… doing stuff with those girls.”

“Room 214?” Robbie asked.

Bradley lifted his gaze and nodded, wiping at his eyes once more.

“Bianca’s room,” Nitsy said.

“I should have told somebody,” Bradley said, “but I didn’t want to get him in trouble. I thought he was just skipping out on the conference for a little while so he could hook up with the girls.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Nitsy said, doing her best to comfort him but knowing it wouldn’t help.

Bradley buried his face in his knees again and mumbled, “I should have said something.”

“Well, you didn’t, bro,” Lance whispered. “So, suck it up, and let’s get through this.”

Lance was that kind of leader. The kind who belonged in the military, not in politics. He would be the kind of coach to tell him to, “Put some ice on it.” Nitsy hated those kinds of people. It was the reason so many teenagers were afraid to share their true feelings. They had fathers who’d raised them to toughen up and shut up.

“You’re a lot of help,” Nitsy said to Lance.

“And holding his hand is supposed to get us through this mess?” Lance shot back.

“Back off,” Robbie warned him.

Lance stood. “Or what?”

Robbie met him eye to eye. “Really? You want to do this now?”

“Boys,” Phyllis said. “Now’s so not the time. Nobody cares who’s tougher. Not unless the tough one is willing to go out there and lead those things far away from the rest of us so we can have a chance to escape.”

Lance and Robbie both stared down at the girl.

“I think I know how it spreads,” Beau, the older boy said.

Everyone turned their attention to him.

“I was sitting next to our team leader, a girl named Andrea, when it happened. Yasmin was to my right. My mind is quite… analytical, let’s just say, and while everyone else was freaking out, I paused to try to get a closer look. If it weren’t for Yasmin, I’d be one of them out there.” He pointed at the door.

“So, what did you see?” Lance asked.

“Just before Yasmin pulled me to safety, I saw a girl scream and fall backward out of her seat. She got trapped there in the aisle as everyone else ran for safety. One of the girls who’d already been turned crawled across the floor toward her, and I swear it, I know this is going to sound crazy, but it was like her hair was leading her. Wisps of it were out in front of her like her hair was reaching out to the girl.”