This Is Not a Test (15 page)

“Just tired,” he assures me. “You all address me like I’m still your teacher.”

“I’m sorry. We can—”

“I’m fine. I’m still your teacher…” He drums his fingers on the table. “If they hurt you, you can tell me. We can figure out what to do. You don’t have to pretend that they’re good.”

It is so strange to hear this question from someone in this context. I think of all the times I sat in Baxter’s class, long-sleeved sweaters on hot days, no one saying anything. I imagine how it would have sounded to me then.
If he hurt you, tell me. We can figure out what to do. You don’t have to pretend that he’s good.

“I’m not. We went outside the night you got here,” I say. “It didn’t go well.”

He stops drumming his fingers. “Why would you do something so ridiculous?”

I know I shouldn’t say what I say next but I say it anyway.

“We went to get that man—the one you came here with.” Baxter’s face goes white but he doesn’t say a word and I keep talking because I’m not smart but maybe these things should be said. “Mr. Baxter, we know you didn’t come here alone. We know you came with another man—he was outside. He was calling for you when we got to him … he was calling your name. Nick. He was alive. He’s not anymore. You can tell us about it. It’s okay.”

Baxter stares at me blankly. “I don’t understand what you’re saying. I came here alone.”

My heart sinks. “You really can’t remember how you got in?”

“You think I’d lie about that? Is that what you’re telling me?”

I shake my head but when Cary and Rhys come back that’s what I tell them. He’s lying about everything.

In spite of this, I think most of us envision our future with Baxter as uncomfortable but inoffensive; the kind of situation where the other person is so strange, you start to wonder if the actual problem is you, so you don’t say anything to them but nothing comes of it anyway and it’s okay. I don’t think any of us are expecting things to go so badly so quickly, but they do.

We are dead asleep when his shouting wakes us up.

“Where’s the gun?
Where did you put the gun?
I want the gun—”

Baxter’s voice echoes around the room, shrill and demanding.
The gun.
At first I think I’m dreaming but I realize my eyes are open and everyone is getting to their feet, so I do the same. Baxter stands at the edge of the stage with a flashlight, pushing aside garbage and crumpled clothes and running his hands through his hair.

“What the fuck?” Trace asks. “What’s going on—”

Baxter turns to him. “Where did you put it?”

“Are they inside?” Harrison’s as shrill as Baxter. “Did they get in—”

“No one got inside,” Rhys says quickly. “Mr. Baxter—”

“
Where
is the
gun
?”

Cary steps forward. “Mr. B, what’s wrong—”

“I want my gun, Mr. Chen. Where did you put it? I need it—”

“I don’t have your gun. What do you need it for?”

Trace grabs the other flashlights and hands one to Grace. The room brightens. Baxter makes a frustrated noise and moves back to the stage, tries to climb up on it. Cary turns to Rhys, panicked, and I know right away the gun is somewhere beyond the curtain, somewhere obvious. Luckily, Baxter is too weak to get himself on the stage. He drops back to his feet.

“If Roger is out there, I need—”

Cary grabs Baxter by the arm and pulls him away.

“I think you’re confused—”

“Roger is
out there
!” Baxter insists. He grabs at Cary’s shirt, his eyes everywhere, unable to focus. “I need the gun. You have to understand. I
need
it—”

“I do—I understand—I totally understand—but we can’t do anything until you calm down, okay? You need to calm down—”

“Roger is out there—”

“I know, but—”

“You have no idea what he’ll do—”

“Mr. Baxter—”

“He’s out there!”

“I know, but he’s not
in here
!”

Finally, a combination of words that work. They sedate Baxter, make him go limp. He sinks to his knees and realizes where he is. The way he breathes is so ragged and so worn out.

“Harrison,” Cary says. “Can you get Mr. Baxter some water?”

“I’m not going in the kitchen alone,” Harrison says.

“I’ll go with you,” Trace says.

They are the only ones who move. The rest of us watch Baxter try to get a hold of himself. Cary’s face is ashen. All of this is beyond him, beyond us. Grace moves to me. She grabs my hand and squeezes and just for a second, I feel the kind of strong she thinks I am.

Little gasps issue from Baxter’s lips.

“I’m sorry,” he tells Cary. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t know how to be comfortable, that’s all. I don’t—”

“It’s okay.”

“You have to understand—I’ve been outside so long—”

“We get it—”

“I don’t know how to be comfortable.”

“It’s okay.”

Cary helps Baxter to his feet. Baxter winces, falters a little, and rights himself at the same moment Trace and Harrison return with the water. Baxter takes it from them and presses the bottle against his sweaty forehead.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers.

“Who is Roger?” Rhys asks, because for some stupid reason he thinks this is the time to ask. I brace myself, expecting Baxter to go into another round of hysterics but thankfully, he doesn’t. He flinches at someone else saying Roger’s name, though. It’s undeniable now, that something happened between them out there.

“I’d like to take a shower,” Baxter says. “I need to—clear my head before we talk about this. Mr. Chen, maybe you could find me some clean clothes…”

“Sure,” Cary says. Baxter nods, dazed. He drinks the water and then hands the half-full bottle to Trace. Cary hauls Mr. Baxter up by the arm. “Let’s just … get you set up…”

We watch them exit the auditorium.

“If he’s going to be like this the whole fucking time he’s here,” Trace says, “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“He’s worse than Harrison,” Rhys agrees. Harrison gives him an indignant look. Rhys ignores it and turns to me. “His name was Roger.”

Roger. The man outside was Roger. Knowing his name makes it worse. I could have gone the rest of my life without knowing his name. My hands still feel what it was like to push him. If I think about it, I can hear him die, access that part of my memory easily. It makes me cold all over. The man outside, that I killed, was named Roger and Mr. Baxter knew him. I killed a man named Roger. My brain frantically tries to make excuses for me:

He was bad, he had to have been bad if Baxter left him out there, Baxter’s scared of Roger enough to want to get the gun back, Roger was bad so it’s good that I killed him …

“You should hide the gun somewhere else,” I say to Rhys.

It’s almost funny. Almost. The timing of my saying that. Maybe later I’ll think it was funny, we’ll all think it was funny how the second it comes out of my mouth, Cary bursts into the room shouting, “I need the gun—
I need the gun
!”

Before we can react, he’s onstage, past the curtain.

When he reappears, the gun is in his hand.

“What are you doing—”

“He’s bitten—he’s infected—”

Trace drops Baxter’s water bottle and leaps away from it. “Holy shit—”

“Where?” Grace asks. “Where? I didn’t see a bite—”

“His arm.” Cary looks like he’s going to vomit all over himself. “I got him some clothes from the drama room and when I got back he was getting undressed and I saw it. He didn’t know I saw him but he’s bitten. If he stays here, he turns and it doesn’t matter how he got in because we’re all dead anyway—”

Harrison covers his mouth. “Oh my God.”

Cary stares at the gun and he looks so young, younger than Harrison, and then his face changes, becomes more resolved. He strides for the door.

“Wait!”
Rhys grabs Cary by the arm and pulls him back. “You’re going to kill him? You’re going to go in there now and just fucking shoot him in the shower—”

“What else can we do?”

“Are you sure it’s a bite?”

“
Yes!
It’s—” Cary’s throat hitches. He presses his hand against his mouth. When he’s more sure of himself, he lowers it. “He’ll turn.”

“Is he hot? How does he feel?”

“What?”

“Like—like his temperature! Does he have a temperature? Is he cold?”

“He’s fucking
bitten,
Rhys! There are
teeth marks
on his arm! I don’t care how he
feels
!” Cary points to the hall with the gun and it looks like it belongs. A natural extension of his arm. “We have to get rid of him—”

“Are you
absolutely sure
? This is
not
the time to be wrong—”

“How many times do I have to—”

“Look, if you two pussies can’t come to an agreement, just give me the fucking gun and I’ll do it,” Trace interrupts. “Or do you
want
to wait until he’s turned?”

“What if he’s turned
right now
?” Harrison asks.

Rhys sticks his fingers in his mouth and lets out a whistle loud and sharp enough to silence everyone. Even after we’re quiet, he doesn’t speak. We just stand there, staring at each other helplessly. And I think—at least with Roger, there was no time to think about it. This—there is time, enough of it. It’s a decision so big it makes the room feel small and the only conclusion I can come to is we kill him, I think. He can’t be in this school alive anymore. We can’t keep him if he turns.

“He just got here,” I say weakly, like it makes a difference. “He just got here. How do we tell him? Do we just tell him…?”

Rhys shakes his head. “Don’t—”

“You have to do it fast.” I’m babbling but I can’t stop. “Maybe it’s dark enough that he won’t see, so you have to do it fast and you have to do it—you have to do it right … so you have to get him in the head—”

“Sloane—”

“And then—his body. We can’t keep it—”

“Sloane,
stop,
” Rhys begs. “We don’t even know if he’s really bitten.”

Cary turns to him, mouth open. “I just told you he was.”

“Even if he’s not, he’s clearly unstable,” Trace points out. “And he woke up freaking for his
gun.
What happens if he finds it the next time and accidentally shoots one of us?”

“He’s lying to us about not remembering how he got in and he lied to Sloane about being out there alone,” Cary says. “He’s not acting normal—”

“What the fuck is
normal
?” Rhys demands. “So he freaked out a little and he lied—these are
not
good enough reasons to end someone’s life!”

“You want to kill me?”

My insides disappear. Baxter stands in the doorway. His hair is wet, flattened against his head, and he’s in fresh clothes, dress pants on, a new shirt. He walks into the room looking more our teacher than he ever has—but his eyes are so sad, so disappointed in us.

“You’re infected,” Cary says.

“What? What are you talking about? I didn’t—”

“Your arm. I saw it.”

Baxter shakes his head slowly. He steps forward and the rest of us take a collective step back and I know at that moment this is settled. Even if we spend the next hour letting Baxter try to negotiate his own survival, we have already decided he’s going to die.

“Can I see it?” Rhys asks. “The bite?”

Baxter studies us. I’m hoping for something but I don’t know what it is. I want him to handle it the right way. I want him to make it easier on all of us. In a way, he does.

He does the most condemnable thing ever.

He tries to run.

“Get him!”
Trace shouts. He actually shouts that.

The world comes down on Baxter. Rhys, Cary, and Trace have him on the floor and the gun skitters beyond them. I grab it while Cary and Trace hold Baxter down and Rhys asks Cary, “Which arm?
Which arm?
”

Cary says, “Left! It’s the left—”

Rhys rolls up Baxter’s shirtsleeve. Grace shines the light on it. I’ve never seen a bite close up. It’s raw and angry, red and yellow teeth marks. The skin is clean—thanks to the shower—but inflamed. Weeping, sore. It looks like a fever.

“It’s not what you think. I promise, it’s not—”

Rhys presses his hand against Baxter’s forehead.

“If it’s not a bite, what is it?” Rhys asks. “You have to tell us what it is.”

“It’s—it’s not—” We wait. Baxter’s face crumples. “It’s a bite.” Harrison runs to the farthest corner of the room. “
No
—it’s not—it’s a bite—but it’s not—you have to listen to me—it’s not from one of
them
—I promise you—”

“But it’s infected,” Grace whispers. “Look at it—”

“
I’m not infected!
I’m not—you
have
to believe me,
I’m not
—”

“You have a bite but it’s not from the infected?” Trace asks incredulously. “That’s what you want us to believe?”

“That’s what it
is
!”

“Bullshit! You’re just saying that because you don’t want to die—”

“I think he’s telling the truth,” Rhys says.

But I’m the only one who hears him say it and I don’t have the courage to ask him to repeat himself. I look at Baxter’s arm, the bite, and I don’t understand how Baxter could be telling the truth. He’s infected and he needs to die.

“Who has the gun?” Cary asks. “Who has it?”

“Sloane,” Grace says.

Me. I have it. The gun. I stare at it. It’s heavy in my hands, hot. I raise it, feeling equal parts absurd and terrified out of my mind. I point it at Baxter. This is what they want me to do, isn’t it? This is what has to be done. Baxter starts to shout, but I can’t tell what he’s saying. It has the lilt of a prayer, though. I close my eyes.

“No!”
Rhys shouts. “Jesus, Sloane, no—”

I imagine the gun going off. A hole between Baxter’s eyes. It’s so real to me, I start to shake. Hands around my hands. Rhys gently takes the gun from me and I feel like I’m turning into nothing and I don’t know if it’s because he is taking the gun out of my hands or because the gun was in them.