Bentley Little - Dominion

Directly in front of her, four drunken members of the school's football team were having a pissing contest-- with Mrs. Plume, the band teacher, as the target.

Mrs. Plume didn't seem to mind.

Penelope turned away in disgust, looking down the street in the opposite direction. There were people here, but fewer, and the school a block away appeared to be deserted.

Vella's street was only a few blocks down.

She started walking quickly.

There was a scream behind her, a sudden earsplitting screech that made her jump. She whirled around to see a topless girl attack a young man with an ax in the middle of the street. The wedged blade lodged in his chest, and then he began screaming as the blood spurted and she pulled the weapon out and swung again. In an instant everyone was screaming, members of the crowd, dozens of them, converging as one on the combatants. Penelope saw other weapons, saw splashing blood.

She ran, away from the melee, toward the school. There were a few people here, on the sidewalk, on the street, on the lawns of the houses, but not many. Again, most of them were kids from her school. She recognized some, but they did not seem to recognize her and for that she was grateful. She sped past them, hoping to make it to Vella's without incident.

"Penelope!"

She stopped cold at the sound of the voice, glancing quickly around. It was a human voice--it was not his voice--but the fact that someone was calling her name at all jolted her.

"Penelope!"

She recognized the voice now. Kevin Harte. But where was he?

There. Across the street, in the shadow of a tree, kicking an old woman who was lying on the sidewalk, clawing at his ankles. He looked over at Penelope. "Over here! Help!"

She paused only for a moment, then ran across the street to where he struggled to free himself from the woman's clutches.

"Grab something!" he said. "Hit her!"

The woman looked like a zombie. She was naked save for torn, dirty panties, and she was drooling, cackling crazily as her nails dug into Kevin's legs. Penelope looked around for a branch or a stick or a broom, something she could use as a weapon, but there was nothing in the street, on the sidewalk, or on the lawn of the adjacent house. She wasn't sure she'd be able to hit the woman anyway, but at least she could provide Kevin with a weapon he could use.

"Kick her!" Kevin yelled.

But at that moment he broke free from her grip kicked her hard in the chest. Her cackle turned into wheeze, and he grabbed Penelope's hand and pulled with him down the sidewalk.

"What the fuck's going on?" he said. "The whole < world seems to have snapped."

"It's a long story," she told him.

He turned toward her, though his pace did not slow "You know what's going on?"

"I'm part of it."

He stopped, his hand tightening on her wrist. "Wait minute. You're--"

"It's a long story. I'll tell you later. Let's just get Vella's so we can call for help."

"There's no one to call. The pigs are all out partyii I tried them."

"I know. I meant call for someone outside. The National Guard or something. The San Francisco police. Ij don't know."

"Where does Vella live?"

"On Ash." Penelope gestured down the street. "A few| blocks past school."

Kevin's face paled. "Don't go there."

Chills surfed down Penelope's arms at the fear in his voice. "Why? What is it?"

"Don't go there. I've been there."

"What is it?"

"You don't want to know."

He was right. She didn't want to know. She had seen tool much already, had heard too much, had experienced too| much. Her limit had been reached. She wanted only to : away and escape, to have troops come in here and clean aul this up, and to return in the daytime when it was all over.

"Do you think Vella is ..." She could not finish thefj sentence.

"If she was at her house, she's dead." He looked up and down the street.

The area from which she'd come was f coming even more crowded. Others were joining the frayl the fight spreading. In the yellowish glow of the street-1 lights the silhouettes of unmoving bodies could be seenl on the asphalt. "School," he said. "It was abandoned when I went by earlier. We can go there."

"And do what?"

"Hide. Find a classroom, lock ourselves inside, and wait for morning."

"I don't know ..."

Kevin smiled thinly. "Dion won't care. He knows he can trust me."

Penelope blinked. He didn't know about Dion. Tears seeped out from between her eyelids-and down her cheeks, and she wiped them angrily away, willing herself not to cry. She had not had the luxury of experiencing her feelings, and as far as she was concerned, that luxury was still not yet available to her. She would have time to wallow in her misery later. Right-now she had to act. She had to keep herself alive.

And away from Dion and her mothers.

Kevin saw her wipe away the tears. Their eyes met, and he looked away, embarrassed. "I'm sorry," he said. "Dion's dead?"

"No."

"He's all right, then?"

"Not that either."

"He's one of them?"

She shook her head. "It's a long story. Let's find a room. I'll tell you there. We'll have a lot of time to kill."

Kevin nodded. "I was thinking Sherwood's history class. It's on the second floor, facing the street. We'll be able to see anyone coming."

Penelope nodded tiredly. "Fine with me."

They hurried, side by side, down the rest of the block, checking first to make sure no one was around before dashing across the faculty parking lot to the classroom building.

The front doors were locked.

"Come on," Kevin said. "Around the side. We'll break a window and crawl in. Too much exposure here."

Kevin took off one of his boots and used it to break and clear out the window glass of one of the science rooms. He crawled in first, then grabbed her arms and helped her in. They waited a minute, listening, ready to jump back out and escape if necessary, but there were no alarms, voices, no sounds within the building at all.

They exited the science room, walked down the hall-l way and upstairs to the history classroom. It was unlocked, and they had no trouble getting in, but ther seemed to be no lock on the door at all. Kevin wanted try another room, maybe the teachers' staff room, some! place that would have a lockable door, but Penelope like the idea of being able to see the street, and they pushe the teacher's desk against the door, then sat on two of thej students' desks and stared out the window.

There were fires and searchlights, mobs of people passed in front of the street, going first one way and then the other. In the still air, sounds were amplified, distorted.! Everything sounded close. Gunshots. Car crashes. Laughter. Music. Screams.

A lot of screams.

Kevin fell asleep a few hours later, after she had told 2 him of Dion and her mothers. It was a wild story, but I questions he'd asked made it sound as though he believe it.

Why wouldn't he after everything he'd seen?

She couldn't sleep, though. She stayed awake, staring] out at the city above the rooftops and the trees. The gun| shots stopped, as did the crashes. The laughter died. The| music faded.

Only the screams remained.

And they continued throughout the night.

In the morning, she could almost believe that none of it had happened, that it was a normal world, that she and Kevin had merely stayed late in the classroom to study and had fallen asleep, or even that they were rebellious teenagers in love who had snuck into the building for a romantic rendezvous and had spent the night together.

Anything was easier to believe than the truth.

Getting up quietly, Penelope walked across the cold tile to the window and peeked through the closed slats of the blinds. The street outside looked the same as it always did. There were a few cars parked next to the curb, and the houses across the way were early morning still. The weather was gloomy and cold, the air touched with a tinge of fog.