The Rains (Untitled #1)(22)

“Should we break a window?” he asked.

“Too much noise,” Alex said. “What if they’re in there?”

Morning was coming on, leaving us visible here outside the building. Inside, everything was connected—classrooms, gym, cafeteria. A necessity for our harsh winters. If we could only get in there.

“Wait,” I said. “The back door by Dr. Chatterjee’s room might be unlocked. He has trouble with the key and dead bolt because of, you know, his hands.”

Dr. Chatterjee often stayed late to grade papers. Rather than make his way through the school’s warren of corridors and doors to the front exit, he sometimes left out a back door so he could circle easily to the parking lot. Because of his weakened grip, he couldn’t use a key, so he tended to leave the door unlocked behind him. It was worth a shot.

JoJo’s tiny hand rose, pointing. “Look,” she said.

A few Piggly Wiggly stockers had appeared along with Eddie Lu at the edge of the baseball field. It was only a matter of time before one of them noticed us standing here in the open and breached the fence.

I rushed along the building, put my hand on the doorknob, and took a deep breath. The others crowded at my shoulders. I clenched and turned.

The door creaked open.

We piled in and closed the door. Alex reached over and locked it behind us. We slipped through the open hallway, ducking into Chatterjee’s room to take cover. The familiar scent of formaldehyde washed over us. Never before had I been so relieved to be in a classroom.

Patrick clicked the light switch quickly to check the electricity, but nothing happened. He shrugged. “Worth a shot.”

Cassius stuck his head in the trash can and came up with an apple core. No matter what else is going on, dogs will be dogs.

“Drop it,” I said.

He opened his jaw and let the core drop back into the trash with a thunk. From the look in his brown eyes, you’d have thought I’d kicked him in the ribs.

Patrick peeked around the jamb into the hall for a while, then signaled us to come. We moved out into the dark corridor, the swinging door blowing a Ziploc bag across the floor, chased by a trampled brown paper lunch sack. The rows of battered lockers, that dirty-sneaker smell, the dented recycle bins. Flyers curling from bulletin boards announced various events in bubble letters: Blood Drive Week! Buy Your Tickets for the Harvest Dance! Auditions for Sartre’s No Exit! A varsity jacket was stuffed above the lockers where someone had forgotten it. For some reason the sight of that stupid jacket without its owner tore open something inside me, and I had to fight to keep my composure. How many kids were missing? How many adults were missing as well, even inside their own bodies? It felt too huge to contemplate. Here in the safety of the school where I’d spent so much of my life, it all seemed unreal and impossibly close at the same time.

Patrick’s voice cut in on my thoughts. “Let’s make sure all the other doors and windows are locked,” he said. “Secure the school as a base.”

That was Patrick, grace under pressure, burying the horrific present beneath What Had to Be Done. I thought about his reassuring hand on my shoulder when he’d found me downstairs, crying over the bloody spill of windshield glass from Mom’s purse. I remember wondering if I’d ever be that grown up.

I wondered it again now. I bit down on my lower lip and put my hand on JoJo’s shoulder, as Patrick had put his on mine. If I couldn’t be as brave as him, at least I could fake it.

We moved as a group, going corridor by corridor, floor by floor, checking that everything was secure. We spread out to get the job done faster but stayed within eyeshot—or at least within shouting distance. Everything looked to be empty. We moved as quietly as we could. We reached the humanities wing and disappeared through different doorways. In Mr. Tomasi’s English classroom, alone, I paused by my desk. I ran my fingers across the graffiti scratched into the wood, some bad joke by a student who’d sat there before me—LURNING SUKS. I wondered where that kid was now. Trapped in one of our dog crates in the bowels of the church?

I crossed to the windows and made sure all the latches were thrown. They were. Through the tall chain-link fence hemming in the school’s front lawn, I could see a few men in the neighborhood walking their bizarre spirals. I stood watching them, pins and needles pricking my skin. It felt as though I’d landed on Mars and was staring out at an exotic landscape populated with alien beings.

Turning for the door, I weaved between the empty chairs, giving my desk a little tap with my knuckles as I passed. I suppose it was a good-bye to all the learning I’d done in that plastic chair, all the great books we’d talked about, the homework I’d read aloud from nervously but with bits of pride shining through whenever Mr. Tomasi nodded his shaggy head.

I stepped out into the hall at the same time Patrick and Alex emerged from their respective classrooms. We waited for Rocky and JoJo to come out from their room with Cassius, the delay making us nervous. I was just about to head after them when Cassius padded out, his tail wagging, the kids behind him. We all flashed one another thumbs-ups and gestured at the next set of rooms we would tackle.

I headed through the open door into shop class, the biggest of the rooms, filled with slumbering machines. It was creepy, the air thick with the scent of grease and sawdust. Half-finished projects lay on shelves to the side. Pig-shaped cutting boards, the hind legs still trapped in wood. An unsanded back scratcher. A model of a jalopy missing a roof and two wheels. They’d never be finished. They’d just lie there, incomplete, collecting dust. Heading for the windows, I passed between the belt sander and the band saw. That’s when I heard it.