Generation Dead - 07 (28 page)

Joey was snapping his fingers next to Sam’s head. “Dude
wake
the hell up. Jeez man, you stoned or something this morning?”

Sam slapped Joey’s hand away and took the opening to deliver a devastating
titty
twister.
“My bad man.
I couldn’t hear you so I had to turn the volume up.”

“Bastard,” Joey hissed while rubbing the area of Sam’s attack. “Next time, I’ll give you something to grab with your mouth.”

“I’ll make sure to bring my tweezers and magnifying glass,” Sam laughed, but cut it short as Alice approached the empty seat in front of him.

“H-hey Alice,” Sam stammered and instantly tried to cover up, “You, uh ready for that test today in science?” Smooth, Sam internally chided himself. Why the hell couldn’t he just talk to her like he did in class? Why was it so difficult here? And as if in response to his unspoken questions, Joey chimed in.

“Hey Alice love what you’re doing with your hair,” he smiled obviously content with his operating skills.

Alice smirked briefly at Joey and turned her attention back towards Sam, “Yeah Sam, I guess I am, but you get that stuff so much better than I do. I really wish we could have studied together or something.” Alice knew that half of what she had just said was a complete lie; she was top of the class for every subject, but she really did wish Sam would ask her to study with him. It was the only way her parents would let her see him.

Sam blushed, “That probably would’ve helped me more than you. Well, I’ll see you in class.”

Alice started to speak, but stopped herself, “Yeah, see you fifth Sam.” As she turned to continue down the aisle, a folded square of paper slipped from her stack of books and lazily wafted towards Sam.

Sam’s eye’s widened, maybe there was a God and this was his way of telling Sam to go for it. Maybe this was fate giving him a push towards Alice.  Almost reflexively, Sam’s arm shot out to grab the errant sheet of loose-leaf from the middle of the aisle. As Sam started to lean back into his seat, a heavy push caught his arm and propelled him face first onto the dirty, rubber-ridged aisle. Before Sam knew what was going on, something huge crashed down on top of him and a collective gasp echoed through the bus.

Sam rolled over trying to see what had just landed on him while still clutching Alice’s paper, but before he could see for himself, he had his answer.

“You dumb shit,” an overly deep voice growled. Sam closed his eyes for a second and wished he were anywhere other than where he currently was. Of all the people for him to trip, literally an entire busload to choose
from,
and it had to Chris Kelly.

Chris Kelly was in the same grade as Sam, but that was where all similarities ceased. Chris had been left back numerous times, so while many of his classmates were dealing with the onset of pubescent awkwardness, Chris had moved into the deep-voiced, thinly bearded, angry phase of life known as full blown
teenagehood
. And while Sam was not a small or sickly kid, he was eclipsed by the height and mass of Chris, all of which presently sat on top of him.

“Hey Chris, sorry man.
I didn’t see you there,” Sam offered apologetically.

“You tripped me,” Chris said somewhere between an accusation and a question. He seemed slightly perplexed by the current situation, having gotten used to his peers steering wide of him, but the inquisitive expression on his face quickly passed and a cloud of red anger seeped across. “You
friggin
’ tripped me Williams?” He shouted as he grabbed Sam by the collar and hefted him from the floor.

“Dude, it was totally an accident,” Joey tried to interject, but only succeeded in getting his face palmed and being pushed back into the seat.

Sam knew what was next, but tried to smooth it over, “Chris, my bad. I’m clumsy.
Total accident.
Never happen again.”

At this moment, Wally caught a glimpse of the situation in his angled safety mirror. “Hey you two stop screwing around. You
wanna
slow dance, save it for Saturday night.” Sam winced at Wally’s remark knowing it would do nothing to assuage Chris’s anger.

Chris’s grip tightened and he pulled Sam closer to his gritted teeth. “Later,” he hissed as spittle flecked his chapped lips and then he released Sam and made his way to his honorary spot in the back of the bus.

“Shit,” Sam muttered as he slumped down into his seat next to Joey. In that moment, Sam was sure that both fate and God must be real, and that both must absolutely hate him.

***

The school day seemed to slow down and stretch, painfully extending every minute. And while Sam was almost thankful that the day seemed to be delaying his meeting with Chris Kelly, he almost wished he could just get the beating over with and move on.

The bell chimed its two rounds of a three-tone synthetic xylophone song; the students would almost reflexively fill in the missing third round while they moved down the hall.  As Sam moved through the seething mass of students, he wondered if maybe there was some
Pavlovian
reason, known only to the
administration, that
the bells never seemed to finish, only so that the students could.

The rush of students in the halls pushed Sam closer to his next class and he instinctively moved to the right and slipped out of the flow and into the classroom. Alice turned as Sam walked in and smiled, but something about her smile struck Sam. She looked almost apologetic, almost sorry to see him. Had he really made that big of a fool of himself on the bus earlier today? Or maybe Alice was just offering an early condolence for the injuries he was sure to have later on. But Sam tried to put this out of his head and slowly picked his way through the minefield of backpacks to take his place at the lab table across from Alice. Sam tried to put the awkwardness of Alice’s hello out of his mind and concentrate on the fact that he had a
chem
test. No teenage boy that had ever walked the
Earth,
could pass on a chance for a good round of self-loathing over some mistake made in the presence of a cute girl, and Sam was no different. His ears burned with shame and he could feel the prickly heat dancing up and down his neck and back. He was sure that his typically fair complexion had transitioned nicely into one resembling an over-ripe strawberry.

The other students filled in around Sam, the test was distributed and he blindly circled answers and filled in equations. Failing this test was not going to be the worst part of his day, but Sam still chided himself for not being able to focus. He kept glancing over his shoulder at Alice only to find that she was staring back at him too, and every time accidental eye contact was made, she would quickly offer the same sad smile and look quickly away. Each time this gauche social dance played out, Sam could feel another piece of his self-image shrivel and die.

“Way to go this morning!” he chided himself internally, “Really a good way to get her to notice you by tripping some
cro
-mag and letting him sit on you!” Now Alice’s smile, something that used to make Chris’s guts turn to melted butter, was causing him more pain than anything Chris had planned for him.

The same half- hearted tone resounded and before Sam knew it, chemistry was over and he was moving one more period towards his inevitable beating at the hands of Chris Kelly.  Head down, hands in the kangaroo pocket of his hoodie, Sam moved towards the door, but something in the pocket brushed his hands. It was the folded piece of loose leaf that Alice had dropped on the bus. With everything that had happened, Sam forgot to give Alice back her work.
“Even that you can’t do right!”
Sam’s angry interior voice scolded, but his berating was cut short by the fact that Alice seemed to be waiting by the door, and not only that she seemed to be looking at Sam, she must have known that he had the paper. Sam figured he had probably kept her from handing in some homework, something she never missed, and now she was waiting to rescue it from his sweaty grip. Clumsiness aside, Sam figured he really had no chance now.

“Hey Sam,” Alice said hesitantly, “Did you, uh, find um, a paper on the bus this morning?”

Without thinking, Sam blurted out, “Yeah, I’m sorry. I should have given it back so you could hand it in.” His hands shot out of his hoodie pocket and thrust the now wrinkled and creased square of paper towards Alice. Her tan skin turned a shade of crimson and she started to speak, but was cut short by Sam’s attempt at damage control

“Just tell me what teacher the homework was for and I’ll tell them I had it. That it wasn’t your fault.” A look of confusion clouded Alice’s face.

“Uh, Sam, no that’s ok,” she paused, “You didn’t look at the paper, did you?”

Completely confused Sam shook his head dumbly, “Nah, I didn’t. I was
gonna
give it back, but, well, you know. I’m sure you saw.” He frowned.

Alice decided to take control of this situation and pushed Sam’s hand and the folded square of paper back towards him. “Yeah, I saw. He’s such an idiot. But, um, maybe you should hold onto that.”

Even more confused than before, Sam’s mouth hung slightly open, “
Wha
…?”

Alice smiled, but this time the awkward, apologetic one was gone. In its place was the gut melting radiant smile that Sam looked forward to every morning.

“You’re literate, right Sam?” Alice said jokingly, “I mean I’m
gonna
feel really bad if we’re in the same classes and you can’t even read.”

Sam felt as if he had entered an alternate universe where another Sam and another Alice were having a completely different conversation and he was totally lost.

“Yeah,” he said as his brow knitted together, “I read, I mean I can read.”

Alice’s eyes brightened with a hint of mischief, “Glad to hear it. Maybe you should read that.” And with that, her smile brightened even more and she ducked into the throng of students surging towards their next class.

Numbly Sam unfolded the square of paper. He had no idea what had just occurred or what Alice was even talking about.

The paper unfolded and with it some sense of reality crept back in; Sam looked down to see what Alice wanted him to read. Why would she want him to read her homework? Did she really think he was that dumb? That he needed to copy hers? But his questions were cut short as he looked down to see a short phrase written in the middle of the paper in Alice’s precise looping script.

There written carefully on the paper Alice had written:

Sam,

Call me sometime. I’d really like to talk to you more than just on the bus.

Alice

And there underneath her name was her phone number.

Now Sam was sure that he fallen into some alternate universe.
There was no way that Alice actually liked him. No way
he was
that lucky, but in spite of his attempts to prove his inner fears of loser status, there it was written clear as day.

The bell sounded and Sam was now late for gym class, which meant running laps, but he could not have cared less. Chris Kelly
be
damned, as far as he was concerned this was now the best day of Sam’s life.

***

The usually glib banter that passed as morning news reporting was somewhat more reserved. The anchors on CNN and MSNBC put aside their potshots and celebrity reports to relay a story breaking on the BBC. Even Fox News abandoned its typical apoplectic diatribe on the Left to run the story.

“Outbreaks of illness are currently being reported throughout the United Kingdom, as well as all major cities in France, Germany and Spain. Unconfirmed reports are coming in from as far as China and Australia, but the true scope of the situation is yet to be determined.” The reporter paused and wiped her brow, “Very little is known, but it appears that a virus or disease of some variety, attacks the nervous and circulatory systems resulting in sudden stroke or cardiac arrest. Victims complained of flu-like symptoms, reporting complaints such as headache, nausea and fever. It is recommended that anyone displaying these symptoms contact a relative, friend or lift company to provide them with transport to the nearest hospital. The authorities are asking that citizens do not attempt to drive themselves in the event of an incident while operating a vehicle.”

The reporter paused and swallowed hard as the cut away shots began to roll. Regardless of the city, all the scenes appeared the same, overwhelmed paramedics were loading ambulances as fast as they could pull up to office buildings, apartments and retirement homes. Large numbers of heart attack and stroke victims were being taken away as the police tried to maintain some sense of order on the streets.

The BBC reporter shifted uncomfortably and continued, “As of right now, all that is known is that the outbreak appears to be affecting older citizens. Reports of victims range in age from twenty to eighty. There have been no reported or confirmed victims under the age of twenty.”

More scenes were displayed showing French police trying to maintain order outside of numerous hospitals. Masses of people had panicked and were trying to force their way into the emergency rooms. As the camera zoomed in, a few tangled bodies could be seen wrapped around the legs and under the feet of the mobs. The station quickly cut the live feed and returned to the reporter, who currently looked waxen with large creases of stress and anxiety breaking across her brow.