Nemesis: Box Set: Books 1 - 3 (25 page)

He would have taken yours just as easy, and he wouldn't be sitting here looking at your body, trying to puke his stomach up.

Michael needed to get control of himself, because if he sat here staring like this for too long, those men would come, but they wouldn't care that he was a murderer (despite his earlier admonitions), they would only care about killing him.

His hands shook but that didn't mean his mind needed to. He had to focus on getting out of here, on getting to safety. On getting Julie to safety.

Michael stood, his legs shaking as badly as his hands. He looked down at Julie's bruised body and realized that he would need to carry her. Somehow. He couldn't leave her, that wasn't even a possibility. If he got shot trying to lug her down the stairs outside, then so be it, but he wouldn't walk away from this room without her.

"Julie," he said from the end of the bed.

Nothing.

He moved closer and lightly slapped the unbruised part of her face. She didn't stir.

Michael looked on for another second and then decided it didn't matter if she was awake or not. They had to go. He put his arms underneath her, picking her up like a groom would a bride, except this bride couldn't hold onto him. He lifted and her arm splayed out into the air while her head fell back, her spine having no control.

He went to the door and fumbled for a minute, then opened it, peering out into the parking lot. Most of the cars were gone, but what the hell did it matter now? Staying in this room wasn't an option.

Legs shaking, arms feeling like they might drop Julie at any moment, Michael walked out of their prison.

M
ichael put
his box down on the bed.

It was his box, but it wasn't his bed. His bed had been sold a week ago, and this bed here, well his mother wouldn't have bought it under any circumstances. He didn't even want to sit on it, didn't want to feel it against his skin at all. It was as if he could just keep from touching anything in this place, then it wouldn't be real.

"Motherfuck," his father's voice carried up the hall, though Michael wasn't sure you could call that tiny piece of building a hall. More like a few feet that separated his room from the living room.

Trailers don't have living rooms
, he thought.
Houses have living rooms. Trailers have a room that is a slight extension of the kitchen, where someone can put a television if they want.

His dad was moving boxes around in the living room, curse words moving to Michael's ears every few minutes. He paid them no mind anymore. Maybe there had been a time when it would have been shocking to hear such things, but that time was long past. Now cursing was the same as breathing in this household.

Tears filled his eyes as he looked at this small room. The walls were fake-wood, something out of the seventies. The walls of their house had been painted a crisp white. The floors here were a disgusting green, shag carpet. The floors back home had been what the walls here wanted to be, hardwood. His father, in this place, cursed and only stayed sober long enough to rearrange some boxes. His father at home had been…different. His father had cooked dinner and gone to work daily.

He shoved the thought away, tossing it aside the same as Wren tossed the boxes in the front of the trailer. That part of Michael's life was done and he couldn't dwell on it any longer. The life he'd known was like his mother, passed from existence, and if he were to sit there and think on either one of them, he wouldn't be able to go on.

Two years ago his father had walked into the house with an odor surrounding him that Michael didn't recognize.

Now the odor was the same as the house itself, permeating everything inside it, almost like cigarettes. Now, his father didn't walk in anymore, Wren did.

Shit happens
, Wren said when he told them they were selling the house.
Shit happens and you have to roll with the punches.

Michael was only ten but he understood what a cliche was, understood that those were just words and that Wren didn't have any real reasons for this, not outside of alcohol.

My checks will start coming in next month
, he had said.

Michael was sure they would. Checks for a job that Wren didn't have.
Disability
, Wren called it. He hadn't had any disabilities until the alcohol got involved. He had been fully-able.

It was all bullshit, just like this fucking bed. Michael saw the neighborhood when they drove his father's truck into this place, their belongings all packed away in the back. How had his life turned so quickly? How was he here now, with kids who simply looked fucking
mean
?

He would start taking a different bus on Monday and he didn't want to get on it with any of the kids he saw on the ride in here. Those kids weren't like Thera and Bryan. They certainly weren't like Julie. These kids had a hardness to them, something that said they simply didn't care. These kids were closer to Wren than they were to Michael. Because Michael did care. He cared about their old house and he cared about what this meant, what it would mean for the future, what it would mean for his family…

There is no family anymore.

Which was true. Looking at this flat, hard bed, and hearing his father down the hall, stumbling and cursing, he understood how alone he was. How alone he would be. It wasn't the future of his family he needed to worry about, it was his own. Because the temperature outside didn't matter anymore; a deep, pervasive cold was taking over, grabbing on tight, and not wanting to let go. Michael felt it tugging at him, that cold, that ability to not care, that path to become like the kids outside.

Michael missed his mom, and he missed his dad too. But both were gone.

W
ren didn't care
what the hell Glenn thought right now. He opened the flask and brought it to his mouth, sipping it a little longer than he should.

Not too long though. It didn't matter what he saw back there, he couldn't drink too long.

Michael
, he thought, bringing the flask back to his lap.

They were back in Wren's truck, neither of them saying anything. They had fled the police station, Wren driving as fast he could, but not knowing where to go. Just away from that place, as far away as he could get. It didn't matter where, and it didn't matter what they found when they got there, just as long as it wasn't ten dead cops with their eyes all open, staring endlessly into some dark oblivion that Wren didn't want to see.

They ended up in a Wendy's parking lot, the Waffle House right next to it. It was three in the afternoon and both parking lots were fairly empty, but high school wasn't out yet, so that might change soon. Wren didn't know what he would do if he ever saw another human face besides Glenn again. He didn't know if he could handle it.

He needed liquor right now.

Michael.

But even that name wasn't holding sway. The liquor, the stuff in the flask, that would deaden some of what he felt. That would allow him to function again, allow him to fucking
think
about anything besides all of those dead people.

Michael
.

The bargaining in his mind had begun and like any good addict, Wren usually bent as far as he could, until he broke. He couldn't afford to bend right now though; he understood that. He just needed the goddamn voice in his head, the one that spoke with his voice instead of Linda's, to shut the fuck up. It spoke now, his addict, because of what he'd seen, because all of the dopamine in his body had quite possibly dropped to its lowest point ever—at least that’s what they said in the meetings, and tilting that flask up for a good thirty seconds would give his brain an extra dose.

None of that mattered, none of the shit Wren learned in his brief Alcoholics Anonymous stint mattered right now. He was either going to drink the rest of this flask or not and he needed to make the decision now. His hands shook in his lap, the metal container bouncing slightly with them. He looked over to Glenn who sat staring out the window just like he had when Wren first picked him up. His hands shook too, even the one that he held between his teeth, chewing his knuckle.

"Are you going to drink it?" Glenn asked, not looking over.

"I want to."

"What happens if you do?"

Wren thought for a few seconds, before just thinking,
fuck it
. What did he have to hide anymore? "I'll get drunk and become everything that comes with it."

"Will you be able to drive, if so?"

"Yeah, probably."

"Then if you drink it, I want you to drop me off at my house. I'll get my own car."

Abandonment. That's what this was. A funny word to use, but Glenn was saying if Wren started drinking, then he could do this alone. An ultimatum.

He looked at the flask again, the goddamn metal thing that he couldn't throw away because he needed it. Not just psychologically, but to keep the shakes from creeping up on him. This was more than Glenn saying he wanted out.

Michael.
That's who this was about. The only person that mattered in all of this. What did they say in AA? Just for today I'm going to stay sober. Tomorrow, I can do whatever I want. Today then. Fucking today.

He slid the flask down next to the seat, out of his sight.

"What do we do?" he said.

Glenn gave no sign if he saw Wren's movement. "My wife and son. Where the fuck are they?"

Wren had no answer. In all truthfulness, it was the first thought he'd considered since leaving the station that didn't hold his disastrous will to drink. Glenn was wanting the same basic thing as Wren, only he didn't have this large ape clambering on his back. They both wanted their family back safely, but that was all Glenn wanted—he had no flask desperately trying to empty itself.

"What the fuck are we going to do?" Glenn asked. "Those people in there, those cops. Someone killed all of them. Jesus Christ, what if the same thing happened to Rita?"

Wren heard Glenn's voice shaking and understood he might lapse back into the same condition Wren found him in.

"The school," Wren said. "The school should be okay and maybe we can find something out there. Hell, maybe they're on lockdown or something and already trying to communicate out."

"The school?" Glenn asked, looking over with his eyebrows raised. "They're not at the school."

"I know they're most likely not there. That's not what I'm talking about. We can at least talk to some adults, and maybe they're on lockdown like at Columbine or something, trying to protect the kids. If so, outside authorities will know about it."

Glenn shook his head, clearly not agreeing with Wren.

"What else can we do?" he asked. "Sitting here isn't getting us anywhere, and if you think we should call nine-one-one, think back to what we just saw in that police station."

Glenn kept quiet, kept looking out the window, until he eventually said, "Fine."

G
lenn didn't like Wren
. He didn't hate the man, but he saw what he was, and it didn't take long to see it, sitting a few feet away from him in a truck that should have long ago been sold for scrap. The man was a drunk, and he had it bad, maybe worse than Glenn had ever seen. Not even Glenn's grandfather drank like this man, and he was a woman-beating drunk. The guy's son was missing, and yet he kept bringing that flask up to his mouth.

It really didn't matter though, whether he liked Wren or not. They were in this together, at least for now, and despite what Glenn said, he didn't want to do this alone. God no. Not after what they just saw. All those men and women, killed like cattle, yet cattle were at least killed for sustenance. These people were killed for…

But Glenn didn't know.

Wren turned right onto New Hope Road and the truck passed a cropping of trees on the left. When they disappeared from view, Glenn could see the school, and he knew immediately that something was wrong here. It was more obvious than the parking lot at the police station. This lot was empty, not a car in sight, and at just after three, that shouldn't be possible. Buses, teachers, kids—the whole deal should be here just getting ready to leave.

Nothing.

Wren pulled slowly into the entrance, taking a right and following the road all the way up to the bus line, or where the bus line should be.

"What…the…hell…" Wren said.

"I don't know."

Wren put the truck in park, both of them looking out the windows to the auditorium. The school appeared to be dark from the outside, and all Glenn could think about was Columbine. Those two kids going up and down the hallways, throwing homemade bombs and shooting anyone they saw. He knew it wasn't applicable here, that whatever this might be, it wasn't two deranged kids strolling around leisurely. But even so, he couldn't shake those thoughts. Couldn't shake the fear that Bryan might have been in there. That it might have happened to Bryan.

"Come on," Wren said. He opened his door and stepped out from the truck, breaking Glenn's deathly thoughts apart.

Glenn followed, leaving his door open as he walked under the pavilion. The closer he got, the greater the feeling of
wrongness
grew. The place was as silent as those corpses he and Wren stumbled upon. No lights were on the in the auditorium, and that made no sense at all.

Wren pulled on the door, but it didn't budge. He moved to the rest, down the line one by one, and each door gave the same response.

"Jesus," Glenn said.

"Do you want to go in?"

Glenn didn't. At all. He didn't want to go in and see the same thing he had at the police station, only this time with kids. This time with kids that would look like Bryan. This time maybe even Bryan.

"No," he said. "But we need to."

Wren looked around for a few seconds before spotting what he wanted. He walked across the parking lot and reached down for a hand-sized rock.

It broke through the glass door with one throw.

An alarm shrieked even before the rock hit the ground.

"WHAT THE HELL?" Wren said, trying to cast his voice above the alarm's noise. "DO WE GO IN?"

Glenn didn't answer, but moved through the broken door quickly. This was dumb, so dumb, but he didn't have a choice at this point. If what the two of them thought was happening was actually happening, then authorities much higher than the local police would respond to this alarm. Authorities that didn't come to investigate, but came to murder.

It didn't matter. He had to see. Had to know if this school looked the same as the police station. He started running, not listening for Wren's footsteps behind him. If kids were dead, then Lord Jesus, Bryan could be one of them. Glenn knew that if he saw even a single dead body, he wouldn't leave this place until he found Bryan or had seen every cadaver in the entire school. The people that showed up would have to shoot him as he walked from room to room looking.

He moved down the hallway, seeing the lunch room on his right, completely empty. He passed room after room, seeing nothing but empty desks, and finally he made it to the end of the hallway with stairs to his left.

"GLENN! WAIT!"

Glenn turned around and saw Wren running after him—the alarm finally breaking through his frantic thoughts again.

"No one's here," Wren said between breaths. "Look around. No one's here. But we have to leave. That alarm."

Glenn stared at him for a few seconds as he fought the urge to bolt up the stairs. His hands were shaking, but Wren was probably right. No one down here, and in a school with a few thousand kids? They couldn't hide them all in one room.

"Everyone's gone, Glenn. That's what this means. No one's leaving and no one's coming in.”

Glenn turned around and started walking back down the hallway. His chest was heaving and his hands wouldn’t stop shaking for a while, he knew that. The siren wailed around him, piercing his ears, dissolving the eeriness that should have hung in the air. He couldn’t hear if Wren followed behind him, and part of him didn’t care. Part of him was
only
concerned with his family, where they were and how he would find them.

“HOLD ON,’ he said just before taking a right into the front office. He wanted to check, to see if anything was amiss. If there were notes, or an open email, or any goddamn thing that might tell why the school was empty. The secretary’s desk was empty, and he paused only briefly to consider the empty desktop and the black computer screen. He moved down the hall, not knowing for certain if the Principal’s office was back there, but seeing more doors.

He opened them all, ending with the last one on the right, the one that held the name tag of Jill Broje. He turned the door knob, and the coppery smell that rose to his nose told him all he needed to know before the door was even three inches open. He should have stopped then, but he didn’t. How could he?

He saw the Principal, the one with beautiful, curly, red hair, lying on her desk. Her eyes were open and staring at the wood, as if she was in some deep conversation with the furniture—besides the streak of blood moving from her lips to the red pool beneath her chin. Besides the hole slightly right of the middle of her forehead. Besides those things, Mrs. Jill Broje was in an engrossing fucking conversation.

Glenn looked to the right of the desk, to the two chairs sitting in front of it. He saw the Assistant Principal, a man whom he had only met once, and the massively fat secretary—whose desk was so clean.

Glenn didn’t bother closing the door, and as he turned around he stood face to face with Wren.

“Let’s go. There’s nothing here for us.” He grabbed Wren’s arm and pulled until the man followed.

He didn’t stop walking and didn’t start talking until they reached the truck outside, until Wren was driving off.

“The Principal, Assistant Principal, and even the secretary were all dead. Shot just like the cops.”

“What?” Wren said.

“Whoever emptied the school, whoever made whatever announcement, it wasn’t the school’s leadership.”

Glenn felt a grim certainty about what he said next. “They’re decapitating the leadership. In the whole town. When they’re done, there won’t be a single person left to make a single decision.”