Inflicted
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stephanie Teasley writes contemporary fiction with generous forays into the speculative genre. Her writing entertains and captivates audiences with its depth and breadth of meaning, as she explores her characters’ layered identities. Writing as much for herself as her audiences, Stephanie creates worlds that help her “make sense of life and its fickleness.” Her work has appeared in Lunch Ticket, Cuisine Noir, HerAgenda and NuOrigns. Stephanie is in the Muses & Melanin Fellowship for creative writers and is currently working on a collection of experimental, personal essays titled When Life Gives You Ragi, Make Boundaries. When she is not writing, Stephanie enjoys playing video games, being a Trekkie and spending time with her loved ones, both human and furry, at her home in Palm Springs, California.
AN EXCERPT FROM THE NOVEL
Inflicted
BY STEPHANIE TEASLEY
©2016. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Chapter One: Autumn Grove, Missouri, United States. March 18th, 2040
Adana Bond was the world champion at losing her possessions. Her parents didn’t seem to mind; most of her items were hand-me-downs from her older sister, fourteen-year-old Dedra, who was shooting up at an alarming rate. Adana was also tall, one of the few physical traits they both inherited from their parents. Adana’s parents, George and Gina, were educators, so they laid down some rules for her and her sister as they progressed through school: Don’t share anything except with each other, wash your hands whenever you can, carry hand sanitizer and use generously. Since Adana usually lost the only one allowed into her possession, Dedra always had four mini bottles of sanitizer on her. Lately, a lecture accompanied them whenever she asked Dedra for a spare.
Adana and Dedra attended Hower Middle School, and on Friday mornings, Adana had seventh-grade home economics. She had skill in the kitchen thanks to her father, but her friend, Trey, “could burn water,” as George would say, so Adana always stayed behind to help Trey clean up. This shaved off five minutes of the ten-minute breaks the students were allocated between classes, and Adana wouldn’t have time to wash up in the preferred and trusted third-floor girls’ bathroom that was one story up at the end of a crowded hall. When she realized she lost her sanitizer again, she told Trey she was going to her sister and she’d see him in class. Trey enthusiastically offered to follow Adana to Dedra’s locker.
As was typical, Dedra held court around her locker, chatting with a few friends. Dedra glanced over to see Adana heading towards her and gave her an amused, knowing look. She said something to her friends, nodding her head at Adana, and they turned to watch as she and Trey approached.
“Again?” Dedra asked. Dedra’s friends, Jeff and Cynthia, let out good-natured giggles. They were twins who liked to color-coordinate outfits with each other. Today, Cynthia wore a long red sweater dress with white flowers, and Jeff wore a red shirt and white pants. On Dedra’s left side was a medium-height White boy who Adana didn’t recognize.
“I don’t even want to hear it,” Adana said but slightly smiled as Dedra got out the sanitizer bottle from her shimmery silver purse. Adana took the bottle from Dedra, rubbed it on her hands, and dropped it in her own, almost identical purse, except it had a violet color mixed in the material.
“This is my sister, Adana,” Dedra said to the boy. “Adana, this is Kenny. He just transferred here from California.” Dedra was in the student government club as a campus ambassador.
“Nice to meet you,” Adana smiled at Kenny. He smiled back. “I would have never thought you were sisters,” He said.
“They hear it all the time,” Cynthia said.
“We do,” Adana said. Adana’s tawny skin tone and hair coloring looked like the product of a biracial union; Dedra’s rich dark skin and dark chestnut hair did not. “No one understands how genetics can be a crapshoot.”
“My bad, I didn’t mean it like that,” Kenny said to Dedra.
“Don’t trip,” Dedra said, smiling reassuringly. “No offense taken. You don’t know things unless you ask.”
Adana watched Kenny give her sister a small smile before looking down. She’s so charming; he’s hooked already, she thought. Dedra had a comforting spirit. Out loud, she said, “I think I’ll probably just go home instead of waiting for you after school.”
“Ok. You can go and work on not losing shit,” Dedra said to Adana. “Since you’re really good at it.” She grinned at Adana, and her friends laughed. Adana shook her head at Dedra but wore a smile.
“Hey, Trey,” Dedra said. “Adana showed me a pic of your oil paintings. I love it.”
“Really?” Trey’s smile was large. And a bit goofy, thought Adana.
“Yes. I liked your idea of space,” Dedra said. “The eye of the beholder and all that.”
“Thanks!” Trey said eagerly. “I like to imagine what galaxies could be like.”
“The best part is that it’s all left to interpretation,” Dedra said while rummaging through her purse. She pulled out a small and colorful flyer that Adana recognized. Dedra was president of Sketchy People, Hower’s art club.
“Dedra persuaded us to do space-themed art for the end-of-the-year exhibit,” Jeff told Trey. “It’s going to be awesomely amazing.”
“Adana inspired it,” Dedra said, smiling at her little sister. “She’s got the brains to understand it. I just draw and color.”
Adana’s love for science and nature started early when she realized she was not as creative as Dedra. George and Gina were forever buying Dedra sketchbooks, pencils, paints and canvases, which Dedra encouraged Adana to practice on. After a while, George suggested that eight-year-old Adana try something else, handing her a kid’s science magazine. “Let Dedra use her paints,” he said. “You find something else to enjoy.”
“It’s just because art stuff is expensive,” Dedra assured her that night as the two sisters sat on an array of blankets in her enormous walk-in closet. “It’s ok; I can still teach you how to draw.”
Dedra tried, but Adana grew frustrated that it didn’t come as quickly to her as it did to Dedra. All she had to do was envision something, and she could sketch it to life. Adana’s mind was interested in the logistics of their world and found herself pulled into nature and the science behind it. She was completely fascinated with and by all things space and talked Dedra’s ears off about the universe and its wonders. Dedra would draw and then paint pictures of alien planets and galaxies that Adana would describe to her. Adana loved anything Dedra created; the swirls of green and purple and orange and blue worlds that remained uncharted to humanity decorated the walls in her room.
Nature was a close second to Adana’s love of the cosmos, and fortunately, George liked the outdoors as well. The Bond family took summer trips to Arkansas, floating in tubes down the river all day and camping out at night. In Autumn Grove, there were many nature trails that George and Adana would hike on, and Adana would recite whatever new nature facts she had learned to her father, who would just happily nod and say, “That’s interesting.” During one of their longer hikes, a rotten, stinking odor crept up their noses, making Adana gag. George took her hand and quickly led her down the hill away from the smell. “A rotting animal carcass,” he told her. “In this humidity and heat, it will get worse. Breathe through your mouth.” Adana researched and read everything about death, smells and heat when they returned home.
Over the years, Adana would enthuse about the universe during a few of their late-night talks, held in Dedra’s closet, which always smelled like cherries.
“Did you know that our solar system is weird? Because we only have one star. Most have two,” Adana said.
“Wouldn’t we be burned up?” Dedra had asked.
“Only if we were far away,” She paused and then said, “I wonder what the planets and surface would look like.”
“I can help with that.”
Dedra was intrigued by their talks but on the creative side. She wanted to illustrate the unknown and came up with the Sketchy People exhibit theme after Adana saw a deep space documentary and talked about “weird and cool shit that we’ll never see.” When Trey showed Adana his painting, she told him it was really good and encouraged him to join the art club, but he rejected the idea, saying he just dabbled in art and wasn’t skilled enough. They had been at Trey’s house, in his open garage, where he kept some of his work. Trey’s mom and sister had pulled up from an outing and were walking by them when Trey said that. “We told him no art until his grades got better,” Trey’s mom had said. “He’s neglecting everything for it.” Being one of the few times she was allowed the cell phone, Adana took a picture to show Dedra.
“Here,” Dedra said, handing the flyer to Trey. “There’s a meeting next Tuesday. You should be a part of this already, though. Adana said you got crazy talent, and she was right.” Dedra flashed her massive smile at Trey and shut her locker door. “Bye, guys. See you later,” she said as she and her friends headed in the opposite direction down the hall.
“See, I told you,” Adana said as they walked down the forest green halls to their world history class.
“I know,” Trey said. “But I thought you were blowing smoke up my ass.”
“Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know ... no one in my family is artistic. They only understand data and numbers.”
“Same. Except my family is all creative, and I’m the odd one. Oh yeah, Brooke texted me last night and said her class had a pop quiz.”
“Oh man, I only got through halfway of the last chapter. What did it ...” Trey's words cut off abruptly. Adana glanced over. She stopped in her tracks. Trey’s whole body was shaking violently, with a red river gushing out of his mouth and running out of his nose. Her body stiffened, her feet planted. Adana let out a fierce scream just as Trey dropped to the floor, spraying blood on the bottom of her jeans and the dark grey tiles. Another scream followed this time from a red-headed boy yelling his friend Anthony’s name. Anthony was violently shaking and bleeding on the floor, just like Trey. Adana’s eyes were frozen on him as he convulsed and flailed. Her feet were blocks of concrete, and she could feel her lungs ballooning and deflating as she hyperventilated.
Frightened screams and panic came from all sides of her. The teachers rushed over to the middle schoolers as their bodies jerked, spasmed and collapsed. There was no order to it: random bodies, all colors, all creeds, dropped one by one onto the dark grey tiles. Adana’s eyes were still on Trey, who was looking back at her with his gouging ones, blood sputtering out of his mouth onto Adana’s violet skater shoes. She knelt beside him, taking his hand in hers, and held it tightly. She cradled his head under her free arm, and he looked up at her, still spewing out his blood, his eyes filled with frightened confusion. He lurched forward once more, darker blood pouring from his nose onto Adana’s black shirt, then laid perfectly still. The dropped bodies stopped convulsing simultaneously, like someone turned off a switch. They went motionless, blood dripping from their open mouths, spilling out of their noses, staring at Adana’s frightened face with eyes wide open and vacant.
Blood covered the tiles and soaked through the shoe soles of frantic feet attached to terrified bodies. Teachers pulled the still-standing students into the classrooms and shut the door to keep death out. Adana’s screams had turned into cries when she felt a hand grab her arm and pull her away from Trey. Adana saw bodies, dead and alive, everywhere as she felt someone haul her into a classroom. Her computer teacher, Mrs. Meers, had Adana’s arm in one hand and another student, a sixth grader Adana didn’t know, in another. She yelled, “Eyes shut!” as she closed the door behind them. Adana couldn’t order her eye muscles to close. The horrific scene had her full attention, and she thought she’d miss an explanation if she shut her eyes.
Other students were in a seventh-grade homeroom besides Adana and the sixth grader. A very small White kid with black hair was hyperventilating, and Mrs. Meers was attempting to calm him down. Standing five feet from her were two girls, eighth graders named Allie and Tessa, who were both biracial, like Adana and Dedra; she recognized them as two members of the crew who were at war with Dedra. They were holding each other and sobbing, the top of their heads resting against one another. Behind them were two boys, a Latino kid wearing red pants and a Black kid wearing a hoodie with a wolf design. They were from her grade, but Adana’s seventh-grade class consisted of 250 students, so she didn’t know their names. The only one she recognized and the only one who wasn't in tears was Cristen Harrick, who had had several classes with Adana. She and her stoic demeanor just stared out of the window that overlooked the front of the school.
The desperate sounds from the hall pounded through the door.
“What the hell is going on?!” Adana sobbed, her thoughts on Dedra. Was she safe? Was she dead? Was she trapped in a room like she was?
“I don’t even fucking know!” said Mrs. Meers. Pretenses were no longer warranted. “What happened? I heard screams!”
“I saw Ed bleed everywhere, and then he dropped,” said the small, sixth-grade boy, crying but no longer hyperventilating.
“The same happened with Miranda,” said Allie as Tessa wailed louder. Miranda had been the quintessential ringleader of the group. “We were coming out of the bathroom.”
“We were going to class,” said the sixth-grade boy.
“We were in class!” said the boy wearing red pants. “We were talking ... it looked like he got a nosebleed. His head hit the desk when he dropped. I went for help.”
“Just try to calm down,” Mrs. Meers’ voice trembled. Her eyes were bulging out with disbelief and uncertainty. The faint sound of distant sirens came through the closed classroom windows. So did a foul smell, a putrid mix of ammonia and sulfur, that assaulted Adana’s nose. The stench was almost palpable as it slid down her throat, into her stomach and upchucked its contents. She dashed to the large, circular trash and expelled her morning breakfast. This triggered several gag reflexes, and Tessa, Red Pants and the sixth-grade boy ran over to join Adana. They stood around the trashcan like pigs at a trough, vomiting, then dry-heaving, then heavy breathing.
“Give them some air,” Adana heard Mrs. Meers say. Allie came over and gently rubbed Tessa’s back.
Due to safety concerns, the only open windows were tiny and rectangular at the top of the windowpane. Red Pants and Wolf Hoodie opened it for fresh air, only to be hit with another shock of stench from the outside. It was more ammonia than sulfur, mixed in with rotten dirt. They left the tiniest sliver of a crack at the top, and Mrs. Meers turned on the overhead fan. Suddenly, the phone on Mrs. Meers’ desk rang, startling everyone, and she picked it up to answer. She mainly listened, asked for any explanations, and made a few sounds and words of affirmation before hanging up.
“We have to stay here,” she told the students, tears in her eyes. “That was the front office. The police are coming.”
“What’s going on?!” Allie wailed.
“It’s ... happening all over the city.” Mrs. Meers was dumbfounded. Cristen, who had returned to her spot at the window, said, “There’s no signals. My phone isn’t working.”
A few others checked their cell phones and declared the same thing. Adana and Dedra shared a cell phone at their mother's insistence, but that remained solely in the responsible child’s possession. Adana and Wolf Hoodie logged onto the classroom computers located on the back-left side of the classroom. Adana typed “kids dying” into the search engine and waited. The computer icon kept spinning and spinning, but the page didn’t load.
“It’s not going through,” Adana said. She looked over at Wolf Hoodie’s white and blank computer screen. Cristen turned on the flat screen hanging at the front of the room to a national news station, then another. Every channel replayed a declaration by President LaVaughn, who cited a national emergency. It wasn’t just the city; kids under 18 were dropping dead all over the country. There was no rhyme or reason, a favorite expression of her mother, Adana thought. Her legs were cemented into her spot, and Adana couldn’t take her eyes off the screen. Kids were dying all over the country, the nameless news anchors said. No explanations could be made at this time. Medical staff and law enforcement officers did all they could but were spread thin in many areas. The President asked for patience and calm heads in this tragic time.
Adana didn’t want to listen, but she had to get out of her head. When she thought she was done crying, her eyes found more tears to squeeze out. Her hands were shaking. She wanted Dedra. The thought of her sister caused Adana's heart to drop once more. She hoped Dedra was alive. She wanted out of the classroom so she could find her. She had to be close.
“I got a signal,” Cristen said after another hour. She made it through to her dad, and his frantic voice cracked through the phone’s speaker. “You’re alive...love you so…it’s happening...” then the call dropped.
“Fuck!” Cristen said.
“Try texting him,” Mrs. Meers said. That worked better. Cristen’s dad texted back that kids had been dropping dead all over the city at the same time. Adana’s breathing intensified, and her heart beat rapidly in her chest. She wanted to ask if they were still dying. Cristen was texting him back when her phone rang again, her father’s number popping up.
“I...impossible to get help,” Mr. Harrick said through the speaker. “Emergency...jamming.. towers and emergency...I can’t get…streets…” Mr. Harrick's voice dropped in and out. Cristen moved over to the windows, and the static cleared up. “... won’t let parents near the school... Cops are everywhere, and the National Guard is coming.”
“Dad, please come get me,” Cristen’s voice cracked a bit. It was the only display of emotion she showed during the entire time.
“My sweet girl!” Mr. Harrick cried. “I’m down the street...soon...I can, I will. Kids are dead everywhere…terrorist attacks.” He said something else, but the call dropped again. Cristen stared at the phone for a moment, then looked towards Adana. They locked gazes, and Adana noticed Cristen's tears forming in the corners of her eyes. She took a long blink, threw her head back, and shook it slightly. When she opened her eyes, the tears were gone.
During the third hour, Allie complained of hunger, and Tessa mentioned that she was starving. Adana noticed her stomach was also empty, and Red Pants said he had salt-and-vinegar chips in his backpack. Mrs. Meers went to her desk and opened a drawer, producing two king-sized candy bars. Cristen stayed by the window, occasionally checking her phone, and the sixth-grade boy had a couple of chips between his crying. He hasn’t stopped, thought Adana. But she felt it, too. The uncertainty about Dedra made her heartache; she wanted her sister to wrap her warm arms around her and tell her she would be ok. Adana’s tears were hot as they slid down her cheeks.
The front office was doing their best to update on the situation, calling Mrs. Meers’ phones sporadically. Every time the phone rang, the sixth-grade boy sitting by Mrs. Meers’ desk would start to weep loudly.
“Holy shit, stop crying!” Tessa snapped at him. Allie tried to take her arm gently, but Tessa shook it off. “We’re all fucking sad!”
“Tessa!” Mrs. Meers said sharply, covering the bottom of the phone with her hand.
“He keeps fucking blubbering,” Tessa’s voice was exasperated and almost hysterical.
“Calm down,” Allie said, touching Tessa’s back softly.
“I cannot deal with this!” Tessa screamed. “He’s driving me crazy with the constant sniffling!”
“Then learn to deal with it!” Adana shouted at her. Tessa and Allie whipped their heads around and were greeted with Adana’s glaring eyes. “We’re all sad, and this is how he is when he’s sad!”
“Yeah,” said Red Pants, sitting by Wolf Hoodie in the back row. “Stop being a bitch.”
Tessa opened her mouth to say something, but Mrs. Meers had put down the phone and said, “Enough! I understand tensions are high, but they are not helping the situation. Tessa, try compassion. It costs nothing.”
Tessa looked angry and a bit gobsmacked but sat back down and started crying into Allie’s shoulder. Adana went over to the sixth-grade boy and sat next to him. He was very tiny, and pieces of his dark hair stuck to his wet face. She put her arm around him and hugged his body to hers like Dedra did when they shared a room, and Adana feared the shadows.
“It’s ok to cry,” she said the exact words Dedra had said to her. “This is ... really messed up.” He nodded and leaned into her, silently crying. Just like me and Dedra, Adana sadly thought.
Mrs. Meers got several unsatisfying updates from the front office, either from the principal or vice principal and occasionally the school’s security guards. Most calls were to check on the students and staff stuck in the classrooms. The sixth grader, whose name Adana learned was Steven, cried himself to sleep every time Mrs. Meers recapped what the calls had been about. Tessa and Allie softly spoke to only each other, stopping when the phone rang. Cristen hadn’t left the window. A lot was going on outside, she said. The streets were flooded with cars, and there had been a couple of crashes down the street. “Probably teenagers driving,” Cristen said. She announced when a new ambulance arrived; she got to six when Wolf Hoodie asked her to stop because it was giving him anxiety. While he paced the room, Adana noticed he was scratching his elbow pit and the left side of his neck. Dedra softly traced her fingers across Adana's elbow pit when they were little. She said it used to calm Adana when crying, but she didn’t remember.
The phone ringing always startled Adana out of her thoughts, and her eyes would flicker with hope that the news was good. Six calls, and it was still all bad. The principal said they were trying to get a hold of parents to let them know if their children were still alive based on who was still on campus, whether in a classroom like Adana's or in the hallways where Trey still lay.
Red Pants had turned the TV off because it was the same news repeatedly, but during hour four, he turned it back onto a local channel. Aerial shots of a high school were on the screen, complete with streets full of jumbled cars that were roped off with yellow tape. Sporadic white blobs were on the ground. Adana’s eyes narrowed in confusion and then widened with realization.
“This can't be real!” Red Pants said as they all watched the screen. Then the phone rang, scaring them. Mrs. Meers went to answer. It was a short call. “Police are moving the ... students, but we can’t leave just yet.”
“What the fuck!” Adana blurted out. Her skin felt bulky like she could slip or jump out of it. She felt like she was on fire as beads of sweat rolled down her forehead. She closed her eyes, feeling her chest rise and fall, and tried to calm herself down. Tessa had fallen asleep in Allie’s lap. Steven had chosen a spot near Cristen at the window.
“We can’t leave because the school is a crime scene,” Cristen said from the window. “Look at all the police cars. There are seven ambulances out front. My dad said it was crazy.”
“I just want to go home!” said Steven.
“Mrs. Meers, can you call and see how long it will take?” Wolf Hoodie asked, a stream of tears sliding down his face.
The students started crying to go home, asking Mrs. Meers for more answers than she had. Except for Cristen, who said over the commotion, “There’s dead bodies out there.”
A loud cry escaped from Adana, and her right hand shot up to cover her mouth. She felt it shaking against her face as tears drained from her eyes. Mrs. Meers stuck out her short arms to hug Adana close to her. Adana wished that Mrs. Meers’ arms were Dedra’s instead; she would make her feel safe. Trey was dead. Her school was dead. She wanted to go home.
They kept the TV on, and breaking news interrupted breaking news to report new developments. Adana watched with the rest as national news networks told bits and pieces as information trickled in from the LaVaughn Administration and the sporadic calls. All the elementary, middle and high schools were quarantined. It seemed only to affect the United States and those under eighteen. The news told them the police and medical personnel were arriving in batches, and all the campuses and surrounding areas across America were now crime scenes. Adana silently cried when a news anchor said the youngest reported age to die was five. She felt her left eye started twitching as the tension rose to the surface.
Time and air were both stagnant. Adana paced the room for an hour, vainly massaging the back of her neck with her left hand. Steven had a couple of violent vomiting sessions. Adana got nauseous hearing the sounds but kept the hot, sour bile down. The terrible smell from the hallways had not diluted, but they were slowly going nose-blind to the odor, although sometimes she would get a big whiff and feel sick. Tessa and Allie were sitting far away from the group, sporadically checking their phones to see if there was a signal. Wolfe Hoodie stayed near the computers to see if the internet was working. Red Pants cried on and off silently, like Adana. Mrs. Meers jumped between her desk to answer the phone and the television to hear about new developments. The news had told them the odor was being reported at all the schools and that the deaths were still estimates, but reports were still flooding in. That was the last they heard while locked up in the classroom because Mrs. Meers turned the TV off for good. “The only breaking news is updating death counts,” she told them.
Early evening, around 6:15, the phone rang with new news: the fire and police department would be getting them out soon.
“How soon?” Adana asked.
“They just said soon,” Mrs. Meers answered. By now, they had been in the classroom for almost six hours. Adana had chosen a spot by the window next to Cristen, and the rest had gradually followed suit, except Mrs. Meers, who hovered by the phone. Adana counted ten huge SUVs with darkened windows parked by the front entrance. She wondered out loud what those vehicles were for. Cristen, who was standing next to her, said, “Cars for dead bodies. The city contracts them out.”
Adana sharply turned to look at Cristen, who turned to look back at her. Cristen’s face was heart-shaped, and her hair was the color of dark cherries. She wore an oversized blue beanie hat and a long, worn jean jacket that Adana guessed was an old jacket of her father’s, as well as a black shirt, pants and shoes. She hadn’t cried once; her face was not red and puffy like the rest of them, including Mrs. Meers. Her green eyes were clear, her makeup still perfect. She had spent hours by the window, watching the bodies of her peers stop moving, then get covered by white sheets. Adana wondered what was wrong with her. “My aunt works in forensics,” she said to Adana. Is that why she is so calm? Adana wondered. But she thought of how Dedra always kept a clear head and smiled, even in stressful situations.
At 7:15 came some relief. “Firemen will have to carry the students down the halls and flights of stairs to preserve the crime scene as much as possible,” Mrs. Meers told the group after hanging up the final call she’d get from the front office.
“They’re going to carry us out of class and not through the window?” Adana was incredulous. “What about their ladders? What about the smell?”
“There was nothing they could do about the smell,” Mrs. Meers answered, putting her arm around Adana. The stench had gotten so strong, as if someone had just painted fresh coats on the walls. “But they would protect everyone’s senses as much as possible.”
“When can we fucking leave?!” Allie asked.
“We’re on the third floor,” Mrs. Meers calmly said. “They have to be careful to clear everything. But it shouldn’t be too much longer.”
Adana had been sitting by the window, and the flashing red, blue and yellow lights from the cop cars and fire trucks lit up the room. She sat so still, with only her eyes moving, that she started to disassociate from her surroundings. She watched the crowd of living students at the front of the school grow. Cristen pointed out that there was a lot of yellow tape in the distance and that the parents couldn’t come through. Adana watched firemen carry out students for eons and looked for Dedra in the expanding crowd. She looked for her sister’s black, mixed with blue boxer braids, but the flashing lights made everyone and everything the same color. Her eyes erratically scanned the bodies, hoping to zero in on a glimpse of Dedra somewhere as students cried and held one another. Her surroundings faded away in her search, and by the time the firemen showed up, she had to pitch herself to adjust to the real, terrible world.
Four firemen and one police chief came up, all wearing firefighter masks and carrying an extra one. They explained to the group in somber voices that they’d have to carry them out of the school to preserve the scene. The masks were to protect their noses from the smell “because it gets even worse.” All five men told the students to keep their eyes closed.
Adana was the fourth one to be carried down. The mask smelled of sweat and blocked the bottom half of her vision. The burly fireman asked if she was ready before swooping up Adana’s tall, slender frame like a groom carrying his bride over the threshold. Adana never saw anyone again. Her last look at the group was Mrs. Meers, who was talking to the police chief when Adana was carried out. The fluorescent lights buzzed louder through the dead and silent halls. The firemen’s grip was gentle but firm, and she felt stationary, like on a plane, as he carried her past the spot where Trey dropped dead. She couldn’t see much except white. There were still a lot of white sheets, she thought. Her body found more tears to dampen her cheeks.
Adana was brought to a sea of living bodies talking, crying and yelling in the huge courtyard attached to the back of the school. Adana took the mask off once the fireman sat her down, causing her nostrils to flare out and burn when the smell of blood and ammonia hit. He told her to go over and stay with everyone and then headed back into the school. The courtyard was full of students, faculty and staff trying to be calmed down by the police and military officers. There was too much noise, too many bodies, too much anguish.
Adana attempted to look for Dedra, but she was a middle school sardine overstuffed in an entire can of traumatized, living bodies. The air was repugnant: a burning mix of sour eggs, sulfur and dirt that flowed down the nostrils of the crowd and caused many to vomit from the smell. The gagging and spewing sounds intertwined with the police officers, medics and the military's orders to stay calm. They were trying to get answers, trying to help and then everyone could leave.
It overwhelmed Adana, who felt her body heating up. The back of her mouth started to water, and she felt sweat forming on her forehead. She pushed through the bodies, past teachers, friends and peers, their fearful voices almost harmonizing. She felt her body cooling as it got out of the epicenter of the crowd. Her breathing slowed when she got to a small clearing at the very far end of Hower Middle School’s courtyard, where the large, square hedges hid an eight-foot gate. It had been designed to hide the gate that spanned the entirety of the courtyard, which connected one side of Hower Middle School to the other.
With a clear mind much later, Adana would wonder how she managed to leave unnoticed, especially with so many uniformed personnel on the scene. She deduced it was because most of the commotion was focused on the back doors of the building, where the firefighters were carrying out the living bodies. She would remember hearing the sorrowful voices of parents and guardians calling for their children or their children’s friends, pleading to say if they saw them alive. Adana walked through them, head up, looking without seeing. She would remember later that she thought she heard her name, thought she heard shouts if she needed medical assistance, but her brain had blocked out chunks of her rescue.
Adana didn’t remember the twenty-minute walk home. She didn’t remember the hardness of the concrete under her blood-soaked shoes; she didn’t remember tasting the salt of her tears as she walked three blocks before turning left at the yellow mailbox; didn’t remember the lights from the news trucks and didn't remember people calling out to her as she walked deeper into her neighborhood. She didn’t remember the sweat running down her back as she took the next right by the grey-brick house with blue shutters. She didn’t remember seeing the gathering groups of her neighborhood’s residents asking after her as she walked near them, up the hill, past the orange, white, green and blue houses before turning on her street. She didn’t remember turning onto the concrete pathway leading from the sidewalk to the front steps of her purple house with rectanglular white windowpanes. Adana didn’t remember grabbing her house key from the small front pocket of her black jeans and unlocking the back door. She did remember going into the house and closing the door behind her. She remembered standing still momentarily before crying out, “Dedra!”
Frenzied footsteps could be heard over Adana in her room. It was Dedra. Her footsteps went from Adana’s room to the hallway, and she appeared at the top of the staircase overlooking the foyer. She came running down the stairs, crying loudly as she grabbed her little sister. Adana took a sharp breath of relief, her tense body relaxing at the sight of still-alive Dedra. She wailed as Dedra ran into her arms, hugging her tightly. Adana squeezed Dedra hard, crying into her shoulders.
“I thought you died!” Adana said.
“I thought you died!” Dedra answered. “Everyone dropped around me. I ran to the faculty lounge because I didn’t know what to do. They didn’t understand what I was saying until they heard the screams. Then everything was ... it was scary. I ran home! I thought you'd be here too!”
“Trey died in front of me! Mrs. Meers pulled me into a classroom with other people! They just let me out.” All her emotions were fighting each other; she felt too many things. Excitement, relief, comfort, exhaustion. She hadn’t truly believed that Dedra was dead, but the world was dying around her, and she questioned herself. She should have fought against Mrs. Meers and ran home. She shouldn’t have worried. She should have known that Dedra would have been fine; she always was.
“Mom and Dad aren’t here; I think they’re stuck at work,” Dedra said, hugging Adana close again. “Some college campuses had people dying. There’s been a lot of car accidents, really bad ones. I hope they’re safe.” Dedra started crying.
“You’re here, we’re home, safe,” Adana cried.
Happiness won, and tears flooded Adana’s face again. The two sisters embraced.
***
None of this was true. But after her mother, Gina, blew up at her in a rage in the weeks that followed the tragic event that would be known as the Merciless Spread, Adana concocted her story. It’s what she told her father, George, when he finally returned after abandoning her. She only repeated it a few times, but she thought about it enough that she started to believe it herself. Then, not long after she turned 30, Adana got a news alert that a former classmate, Cristen Harrick, had committed suicide. She had left a note: “I’ve only dreamt about blood-filled schools.” Her father was interviewed. He was devastated and regretful for not asserting that Cristen get help. “I didn’t want to push it. I thought she was fine,” he cried. “She talked about it occasionally—not often—and I thought that was enough.” After watching and hearing his words, Adana sought out a therapist.
It was true, she told therapist number four, that she had watched Trey die, but when he went down by her feet, “All I could think about was my sister.” She turned back in the direction of Dedra, who wasn’t more than twenty feet away from her. Dedra was the one convulsing with a river of blood coming out of her mouth. Dedra was the one who sent Adana into hysterics as she rushed over to her big sister. She kneeled to the floor, cradling Dedra in her trembling arms. Dedra was the one who held Adana’s hand as she looked up at her younger sister’s face. Dedra is the one who died in Adana’s arms, lurching forward to exhale the last breath that would end her fourteen years.
Adana’s devastation came from a deep place inside her she didn’t know existed. She wailed her agonizing heartache as she hugged Dedra’s lifeless body. The same body that had been alive moments before, lecturing her about responsibility. Dedra had been smiling at her just minutes ago and proudly announcing that Adana inspired her new creative idea. She screamed Dedra’s name through staggered breaths, her hands quivering, her voice starting to go hoarse as she cried out her anguish. A numbing heaviness kept her rooted by her sister, still dead in her arms, as she continued to cry and plead for Dedra to wake up.
The surrounding panic had been blocked out until Adana felt a hand on her arm that was pulling her away from her sister. “Don’t!” The havoc around her drowned Adana's protesting screams out. She was being yanked into a classroom, and she looked back over her shoulder to see Dedra's lifeless body surrounded by teenage blood and death. It would be the last time she saw her. “I need more time with her,” she screamed, but she could barely make out her own words through her grief. Mrs. Meers got Adana and a sixth-grade boy into the classroom and shut the door behind her.
“My sister is dead!” Adana screamed at Mrs. Meers. “I saw her die!”