Lockdown (4 page)

I blink. It feels like the floor has shifted under my feet. Like the earth has tilted a different direction. I search Zoe's eyes for a sign of what we had, but all I see is fear and anger. Eyes that just an hour ago held warmth now chill me. Her words yank my guts like she's turning me inside out. When I can speak, I say to her, “So you have nothing to lose.”

Baker clears his throat. When he speaks, his voice is quiet. “If I wanted to shoot up the school, I'd hit the caf. That's where I'd find the most people.”

Baker and I exchange a look. He's right.

Zoe says, “The cafeteria is locked down. He won't get in.”

I think about Cook Training class last term, how Josh and I used to goof off in the supply hall behind the kitchen. It connects to the theater concession and, from there, the theater. During school performances, the concession sells coffee and snacks. Between performances, like now, the concession is just an unlocked storage area for stage props. One time last term, Josh and I used the supply hall to find our way into the darkened theater, and we sat there for the entire cooking class. Being there was as good as vanishing from the school.

I say, “Josh could get into the caf.” I tell them about the little-used corridor from the theater to the kitchen. “He doesn't even have to use the locked stairwells. He can enter the theater up here through the second-floor doors. If anyone was in the theater when the alarm sounded, they'll be locked-down backstage.”

Baker nods. “So even if the cops are in the main halls, Josh can get into the caf.”

“But the last shots we heard were in the other direction,” Zoe says. “They sounded like he was heading away from the theater.”

Baker shrugs. “The school will be crawling with cops. If this Josh guy is going to move anywhere without getting spotted, he'll have to use that back hallway. He'll double back.”

Natalie offers me her phone. “Tell the cops. They'll find him.”

I wave away the phone. “You call them. But they'll be too late.” I head to the door.

Zoe looks like she's going to cry again. “You could be too late, Adam.”

I struggle to find enough spit to speak. “Then I have nothing to lose either.”

As soon as I'm outside the washroom, I regret my decision. Every instinct is to hide from Josh, to run as fast as possible in the other direction. It's exactly the feeling I get when I watch scary movies, like my bones have gone to mush. But this feeling is more. Way more. I'm so scared that I have to tell my feet to move.

The hallway is empty. People's lunches are scattered around from before the lock-down. Locker doors swing open. Being in
this hallway is like being in a dead place. I stay as close as I can to the wall—not that the wall gives me any cover. It's just that, close to the wall, I know there's one side he can't get me from.

The second-floor theater door is down a smaller hallway off the main corridor. At the corner, I pause. I can't see around the corner, of course, and I don't want to walk straight into Josh. I feel ridiculous doing it, but I extend my arm around the corner and wave my hand. If Josh is taking aim, maybe he'll shoot my hand before he shoots me in the head. I peer around the corner. No Josh. The hall is empty. With a jagged breath of relief, I make the turn.

At the theater door, I listen. I can't hear anything from behind the door. If the door is locked, I'll have no choice but to go back to Zoe and the others.

Please don't open. Please don't open.

I try the handle. It opens.

I step inside the theater and let the door close behind me. The theater is dark, lit only by the exit markers. The vast silence of the
space greets me with the coolness of a cave. I'm aware of the sound of my breath, panting, as if I'd been running. I blink, trying to get used to the murky darkness of the theater. Finally, I can make out the rows of seats and the stage area, below.

I remember this from when Josh and I sat in here. If you sit still and don't make a sound, it's dark enough that someone could look in and not see you. It's like the way a rabbit stays still, and its brown fur makes it disappear in the grass. The rabbit is there, but unless you know it's there, you'll never see it. So it's like it's not there.

If Josh is sitting quietly in the theater, he could be watching me right now and I wouldn't know it. New sweat squirts under my arms. I scan the rows. If he's crouched down between the seats, I'd never see him. Not until he jumped up and aimed his gun at my head. My feet freeze. I'm the rabbit. Josh is the hunter.

This morning, he was just Josh. Last night, when he brushed his teeth and said goodnight to his parents, he was just Josh. I
met his parents last term, when the cooking class hosted the parents to a dinner. My parents came in the clothes they wore to work. Josh's parents looked like they were going to church. Josh's dad wore a suit with one of those poofy pocket handkerchiefs. His mom wore a string of pearls at her neck. They were so proud of Josh, so happy to sit at a table and have him serve them food that he'd made himself.

When did it happen? When did he go from being just Josh to who he is now? Maybe he's been thinking about this for a long time. Maybe last term, when he and I sat in this theater, he was thinking about it.

Josh isn't here. I have to tell myself that or I can't make my feet move. He's not here. I take another step down. He's not here. I step down from one row of seats to the other, then another. If Josh were here, I'd already be dead. But maybe he's waiting until he has an easy shot. Fear freezes my feet to the step.

When Josh found us in the washroom, when he was aiming that gun at us in the stall, I didn't feel fear, not like this. In the
washroom, it was like I resigned myself to being dead. But now, as I stalk him through the school, I'm making a choice to face him and that gun again, and it scares the crap out of me. I bolt down the steps all the way to the bottom.

He's not here. I feel almost giddy as I reach the concession door. He's not here. My chest is heaving. He's not here.

But that means he could be anywhere.

At the concession door, I stop again. I know Josh isn't in the theater. I could just hide in the theater. I could hide between the rows and no one would see me. I could wait here until the cops storm the school. No one would blame me. Anyone in his right mind is holed up somewhere, finding religion. I don't have to stop Josh. It's not like I'm Josh's friend. I barely know the guy. I'm just in some classes with him.

I think about the guy who locked Zoe, Natalie and me out of the classroom. His name is Justin or Jordan or something. I know him too.

Earlier today, in science, if I'd said
something, would it have made a difference? I could have tried to stop Chase from opening the hamster cage. I could have stepped between Chase and the cage, told Chase what a weenie he is for tormenting Josh. But I didn't. Josh probably thinks I'm just as bad as Chase.

I can hide, or I can face Josh. I gaze around the darkened theater. A few moments ago I was scared to be here, but now the theater feels like a refuge.

I have to try. I yank open the concession door and step in.

The door closes behind me. If it was dark in the theater, the concession is pitch-black. I fumble for a light switch. The walls feel cool, and I feel a hundred scrapes and divots, but I can't feel a switch. I know the concession has two doors: one to the theater and one to the cafeteria supply hall. I can just make out the door to the supply hall from the crack of light that appears under that door.

I've heard that people who can't see develop a keen sense of hearing and touch
so that they “see” their world through the other senses. In the dark, every one of my nerve endings is tingling. I can smell dust. I can smell latex paint from stage backdrops. I can taste the darkness. I reach my hand out in front of me. Nothing. I sweep my hand through the air. Nothing. I take a step.

Immediately, my knee cracks into something hard and metal. I suck in a breath. Whatever I just walked into clatters to the floor. The noise makes me jump back against the door. I laugh because it's so stupid, what I'm imagining: that Josh is in here with me.

I stand still and wait for my heart to stop pounding. It takes a long time. I'm breathing so hard that I can't hear anything else, so I hold my breath and listen.

Now blood pulses in my temples, and I stifle the need to breathe because I can hear him. I can. Not in here. Out there. I can hear someone breathing on the other side of the door.

My throat closes. I want to cough. Don't cough. Don't make a sound. I wring enough spit to swallow.

It's too late to hide. Josh knows I'm in here. Maybe he's waiting for me to make another move. Maybe he's giving me a chance to get away, a chance to find somewhere to hide.

Between Josh and me is the supply hall. And beyond the supply hall, hundreds of people hide. Hundreds of people who think they're safe. Hundreds of people who thought this morning they were just going to school. Maybe they hugged their little sister. Probably not. Maybe they told their old man they loved him. Probably not.

I fed the dog this morning, I remember now. Our dog's name is Festus. He's a black lab cross we rescued from the pound. He drools when I feed him so I make him wait on his carpet, but this morning I forgot and I stepped in his drool with my bare feet. It was a cold slippery rope that slimed my foot. I wiped my foot on the leg of my jeans. When I dumped his food in his bowl, Festus thumped his tail against the cupboard like a drum.
Thump thump thump
. His dog tags clanked against the metal bowl as he ate, and I thought for the thousandth time, does that
bother him, those tags making such a racket as he eats?

Tomorrow, someone will feed the dog. The day after that, they'll feed him again. And each time they feed him, the dog's tags will clank on the bowl, and the dog won't give a damn because that's the way it's always been. For Festus, it's normal. For Festus, it's just what it is.

Tomorrow, someone will feed the dog and it'll be a normal morning. Except their kid will be dead.

In a way, it would be easier if Josh put the gun against my head and blasted me away.

Slowly, carefully, I stretch my hands out in front of me. When I feel nothing, I take a step.

And I trip over whatever crashed a minute ago. I slam down onto my knees. The pain makes my eyes water. On my hands and knees, I fix my stare on the crack of light under the far door. I feel the floor ahead of me for a clear path. I set my hand in something wet. It's cold and sticky, and for a second I think of Festus and his drool.

Then it occurs to me. I've put my hand in blood.

I bolt to my feet and crash toward the door. I trip, get up, trip again. I feel my own blood soaking one knee of my jeans. In full-blown panic, I reach the door and am scrabbling for the handle when the overhead light comes on.

Instinctively, I cover my head.

“Adam?”

It's Zoe. I blink in the sudden glare of the concession light. I look up to see Zoe at the theater door, her face drawn and pale.

She's the most beautiful sight.

She says, “It sounded like you were wrestling six people in here.” Zoe picks her way over the heaps of backdrops that I've trashed and kneels down beside me. She says, “What are you doing, crashing around in the dark?”

I look at my hands, at the floor. No dead body. The sticky stuff seems to be from an oozing canister of Coke syrup. I wipe my hands on my pants. I say, “I couldn't find the light switch.”

“It's on the outside, by the door.” Zoe smiles. “You just have to know where to look.”

I say, “You shouldn't be here, Zoe.”

She touches my face. “I couldn't let you get yourself killed, Adam.”

My relief is so huge that I almost laugh. I grab Zoe into a hug. She melts against me. I bury my face in the warm crook of her neck. Her hair is damp and she smells a bit like sweat. It's a nice smell, though, and I breathe it in. She says, “I'm sorry for the things I said. I'm just so scared.”

I shake my head. “It's all right. I'm not scared at all.”

She laughs.

I say, “I just want to turn back time. I want to go back to before this happened.”

Zoe says, “I want to go back to when we were at my locker.” She pulls away so she
can see my face. “Before the lockdown, when we were at my locker, you were going to kiss me.”

I feel my face turn red. Was it so obvious?

She says, “Do you know how long I've waited for that kiss?”

Yes, I think to myself, I know how long I've waited. Months. Since the first day of last term when I sat with her in Planning and thought she was the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen.

I smooth a strand of hair from her cheek. “I didn't want to risk it.”

“Risk it.” She closes her eyes.

I touch my finger to her lips. Soft. She smiles. Her teeth are perfectly white. I rest my hands on her hips and pull her closer. I can almost forget where we are. Almost. I say, “Zoe, this is crazy. Josh could storm in here any minute. You need to hide.”

Zoe shrugs. “You can't do this alone. I'm not sure you can do it at all. But if you're willing to try, so am I.”

She feels so good in my arms I almost
believe that we can do it. “You left Natalie with Baker?”

“He said he had something to calm them down. I didn't ask what.”

Trust Baker.

Zoe continues, “Adam, when we're through this, I want to go for that walk on the seawall.”

I hold her tight. “We will.”

She says, “Josh and the hamster, it wasn't your fault. No one expects you to be a hero.”

“That's the thing, Zoe. I'm not a hero. But I can't keep living with my head in the sand.”

She says, “Why now?”