Virulent: The Release (2 page)

Lucy held
Fahrenheit 451
, the essay assignment tucked into the center pages, and rose from her seat. Another student slithered behind her to present his notebook for grading and Lucy scooted out of the way; she walked back to her seat in relative silence.

The bell was minutes away, but her classmates were actively shoving papers and pencils into backpacks and messenger bags and lining up outside the door decorated with a “What are you reading?” sign and a pocket-chart where students were supposed to write the names of books they would recommend to other classmates. Someone had recommended “your mom written by me” and another had just drawn a crude picture of a penis, but two students took the task seriously with favorable endorsements for Harry Potter and some book about teen pregnancy.

Lucy’s cell vibrated in her pocket and she glanced at the screen. Salem. Like clockwork. She answered it and held it to her ear, unafraid of reprimand.

Salem’s voice carried on mid-argument with someone in the hallway. “I said just put it in my locker! Lula? Lula? You there?”

“I’m here, I’m here,” Lucy replied, answering to Salem’s nickname for her—an endearing take on the alliterative hell her parents saddled upon her at birth: Lucy Larkspur King. The Larkspur was generously hidden between two normal names, but she shivered to recall that the obscure moniker had almost been her first name. That was before her parents came to their senses and settled for something cute, simple, and normal.

“Meet me at our locker now,” Salem instructed and then ended the conversation. Lucy rolled her eyes at her own blind allegiance to Salem’s orders and elbowed her way to the front of Mrs. Johnston’s door, stopping long enough to remove the two offending reading suggestions and stuff them into her back pocket. It was a small gesture, but it was the right thing to do. Jealousy over the Seychelles notwithstanding, Mrs. Johnston was one of the good guys.

Salem opened and shut her locker in an animated fury—her dark curls, placed in ringlets around her shoulders, moving with a small bounce. “I hate getting in the middle of
dra-ma
,” Salem lied. Drama found its way into Salem’s everyday existence. It wiggled there and nudged its way into any open space it found, creating nests and reproducing at an alarming rate. If it wasn’t Salem’s personal drama, then it was her magnetic attraction to the drama of others—breakups and hookups, infighting among social groups, who had a crush on which teacher, who had slept with a teacher, whose parents were getting divorced, who was flunking algebra. Inside Salem’s brain was a catalogue of crisis covering their classmates from kindergarten to the present.

She remembered that:

Haylee Hij peed her pants in the third grade during that field trip to the Aviation Museum and that was why Jordan Warner didn’t ask her to prom: Because when he thought about asking, all he could remember was sitting next to her on the way home and she was wearing athletic shorts that were three times too big and holding a freezer bag filled with her wet and pee-ripe clothes.

Or that Tristin James bought his then-girlfriend, Jackie, a golden bracelet that had “together forever” engraved on the inside. Then, post break-up it was Salem who noticed Cassidy Blaga wearing the same bracelet—jangling it with pride to her girlfriends during physics and swooning over Tristin’s unbridled commitment. And while she could’ve let it go, turned a blind-eye, and let teenage love run its course, it was Salem who tore a picture of Jackie and Tristin out of the yearbook, Jackie clad in her telltale bracelet, and sent it to Cassidy.

Salem knew about Craig Moss, all-American water polo player, and his secret Internet boyfriend, Pedro, for months before the rest of the school even began to whisper about the scandal.

If something bad happened to you, Salem Aguilar would find out.

If something good happened, she would know too. But she might not tell as many people about it.

“Explain,” Lucy commanded, shifting her black and white herringbone book bag up on her shoulder. She shoved her books into the open locker, her three-ring binder, and the mounds of work that would inevitably ruin her vacation.

“Grant Trotter.”

Lucy shook her head. The name didn’t mean anything to her.

“Oh, really? Tall. Blonde-ish. Pole-vaulter. Dated Bianca-dad-buys-everyone-beer-Nelson?” She paused for a second. “Anyway, he dumped Holly
during
their first date. Just told her that it wasn’t going to work and took her home. Right then and there. That’s like some serious movie crap right there. Who does he think he is?”

“A guy who knows what he wants?” Lucy replied, feeling her phone vibrate against her leg and ignoring it.

Salem stuck a bony finger into Lucy’s face. “Don’t get cheeky with me. That’s a major self-esteem deflater. She’s going to require so much coddling now just to get out of the house! Boys are so stupid. Lie. Right? Just lie like the rest of them? Hey, Holly, I’m totally into you. Kiss her. Then don’t call. Am I wrong here? Wait,” she hushed her voice and drew her mouth close to Lucy’s ear, her breath warming the side of Lucy’s face in short bursts, “that’s him. Look. Look.”

With a furtive glance, Lucy followed Salem’s line-of-sight and spotted the offender; leaning against a locker, his hair flopping to the side, haphazardly whisked away from his eyes and his hands shoved deep inside a Pacific Lake High School hooded sweatshirt, shoulders rounded as he slouched. His group of friends laughed at someone’s joke, but Grant only smirked, rolling his shoulders forward even more and eyeing the ground. When he glanced up, he looked straight to Salem, pulling his hand out halfway for a noncommittal wave.

And just like that, the war was over. Salem waved back and twirled a long curl between her ring and middle finger. “I guess he’s not
so
bad,” Salem declared. “Holly’s a total bore one-on-one anyway, and she does have that misshapen nostril.”

Lucy snorted. “What are you talking about?”

“Just wait. Next time you see her, check it out? It’s freakish.”

“You notice her nostrils?”

“Bike accident.” Salem shrugged as if this common knowledge disinterested her.

When Lucy turned back toward the group at the lockers, Grant was still looking in their direction.

She smiled. A crooked-tight-lipped smile and then cast her eyes toward a neighboring bulletin board, exercising an interested stare at the ripped motivational posters encouraging her to “
Look to the future! Attend college!
” with multi-racial friends all sharing a toothy laugh.

The bell rang. Lucy muttered a goodbye and kissed the air in Salem’s direction, then skipped and drifted to her next class.

Halfway during Trigonometry, after Lucy had endured a short geography lesson with her Seychelles-ignorant math teacher and promised that she’d plug along through the four chapters of work, (even though she was certain that was more than they’d complete in her absence, especially considering Mr. Hegleton’s tedious review sessions and a tendency to dedicate entire class sessions to discussing Doctor Who) Ethan sent her an urgent text.

“In trouble. Ride home with Sal.”

A command. Not a suggestion. Ethan was a reliable ride home, so trouble was good for no one.

“Explain. Mom and Dad?”
Lucy texted back.

“Anna.”

Lucy’s older brother Ethan had an evil girlfriend named Anna.

She may not have been the embodiment of evil, but vilifying her had morphed into a pastime that neither she nor Salem was willing to abandon. Ethan had graduated two years ago and instead of venturing to the University of Colorado where a handsome scholarship awaited him, he enrolled at Portland State and became a commuter student. He was eager to leave his part-time job and his once close-knit group of friends, but for some inexplicable reason, he was reluctant to leave his clingy, cloying, and altogether horrific high school girlfriend.

Anna, a senior, already acted like she was marrying into the King family.

She would say things like, “How are Mom and Dad?” which made Lucy’s stomach flip-flop.

And Anna was popular on the basis of merely being involved in everything. A random assessment of the school day would determine that she never attended an academic class. She made posters with the leadership class, delivered notes as an office aide, sang soprano in the choir, ran the fastest mile in gym class, and made key-chains in Exploratory Metals. One thing that Anna could not do, however, was basic math or construct a passable essay.

Things had taken a turn for the worst when Lucy showed up in the library during her peer tutor hours for National Honor Society and it was Anna who needed assistance. If she hadn’t hated her before, spending two hours trying to eke an intelligent thought out of her on the theme of
Hamlet
was enough to do the trick.

Lucy growled at her phone. A few heads snapped up to look at her and she ignored them.
“Jerk,”
she typed.

“Shut up,”
he quickly shot back.

“Break. Up. With. The. Bitch,”
Lucy suggested.

Ethan didn’t text back.

“Thanks. Eternally,” Lucy said as she climbed into Salem’s decade-old Honda Civic. The interior smelled of stale French fries and vanilla body-spray; the passenger side floorboard was littered with half-full soda bottles that rolled around with each turn, hitting Lucy’s feet with soft thuds.

Salem pulled out of the school parking lot and traveled past the strip mall and the Lutheran church, up the hill, and into the row of tract homes where Lucy and the King brood lived.

“Have fun,” Salem said, as she pulled into the long driveway lined with well-groomed shrubbery. “I’m trying not to be jealous.”

“You should just own your jealousy,” Lucy suggested. “It’s healthier. Besides, I’d be hate-filled and moody if you were taking off for two weeks and leaving me to fend for myself in the trenches.”

“I’ll keep good notes on all major events.”

“I’d expect nothing less.”

“When you come back it will almost be Spring Break. Do you know what happens in April?” Salem asked with mock-excitement.

“It stops raining.”

“It never stops raining.”

“It will be our last full month of high school?”

Salem nodded, “Yes. That. Then May. And then prom. It will be our senior prom.”

Lucy groaned and reached for the handle. Dresses and corsages, awkward conversations with boys who needed remedial dating lessons from their mothers—the whole institution of prom was a frightening prospect, but at some point in her attempt to be a quality best friend, Lucy had agreed to attend with Salem. Sometimes she would lie awake at night already regretting the evening.

Salem’s phone broke out into a pop ballad about feeling trapped in love. It was the ringtone she selected for her mother. She held her finger up to deter Lucy from sneaking away and answered the call.

“Hello Mom,” she said. In the quiet of the car, Lucy could hear a shrill and riled voice; Mrs. Aguilar barked on the other end of the line with indecipherable syllables of anger and grief. Salem looked confused, then worried, but soon she erupted into full shock—her mouth a slack
O
—she gasped and bit her lip. “Ay Dios mio.” She shook her head. “Mom. Wait. Mom. Are you sure?”

Lucy leaned in, concerned for her friend. “What?” she whispered. “What?” But Salem turned her face to the driver’s window; she kept her back to her friend, and it was then when Lucy noticed that Salem was shaking. Small tremors rippled down her back and her hand couldn’t keep the phone steady. Fear and concern overwhelmed Lucy. Instinctively, she placed a comforting hand on Salem, waiting for the conversation to end. Lucy was self-aware enough to know she was ill-equipped to traverse the delicate minutiae of other people’s grief. Something big was happening with Salem, and she sat there like an awkward lump, already hoping that there would be appropriate words to say.

“I’ll be right there. Mom. Mo-m. I’ll be right there,” Salem finally got a word in. She hung up the phone and dropped it into her empty cup-holder. Her eyes were wet when she turned to Lucy.

“Sal,” Lucy started. “What’s wrong? I’m so sorry. What’s wrong?” She heard her own voice waver and she took a deep breath to steady it.

“It’s Bogie,” Salem replied. Lucy let out a slow breath. Bogie was the Aguilar family dog; he was a Rottweiler beagle mix whom Lucy had known since he was a puppy. Bogart was a prized possession, a member of the family. He was young and healthy and every night he slept curled up at Salem’s feet. Salem loved that dog more than anything, and Lucy searched for perfect words of comfort while gearing up for tragic news.

“Oh. Sal. Please...don’t tell me...”

“My mom came home and found him...just gone.”

“Missing?” Lucy held her breath, hoping that maybe he’d just gone exploring, he’d return. Catastrophe averted. Histrionics unnecessary.

Salem let out a small sob. “No Lucy...gone. Gone. Like, dead. Just in the middle of the kitchen floor, like he was asleep. But he wasn’t breathing, wasn’t moving. My mom looked around, thought maybe he had eaten something bad for him.”

“And?”

“Lucy, I don’t know. I don’t know!” She stared at her friend wide-eyed and frantic. “I mean…what’s happening? What is this? Some cruel joke?”

“I’m so sorry,” was all Lucy knew to say, and she reached out again to put a hand on Salem, but Salem pulled away.

“No! You don’t get it! Listen to me. They just are
all
gone. All of them.”

There was a pause and Lucy stopped. She gathered her hands into her lap and wrapped them in a ball; dread formed in her stomach, uneasiness replaced pity. “What do you mean?”

“My mom called the vet, but the line was busy, so she went over to our neighbor's house. She was distraught, right? And our neighbor opened the door just sobbing.”

The car fell quiet. Outside a motorcycle roared passed. Its engine grew louder and then faded away.

Salem turned to Lucy. “
All
the dogs, Lucy.
All
the dogs are dead.”

CHAPTER TWO

24-hours after the Release

Matriarch Mama Maxine King was short and stocky with wide hips and a helmet of full-bodied brunette hair. Her home was run with military precision; mixed with equal parts tenderness, unabashed sarcasm, and a healthy dose of profanity (usually directed at people on the television, rarely her kids, but sometimes her kids). Her kids’ ages spanned fourteen years with Ethan at twenty to Lucy, the second-oldest at seventeen, followed by Galen at thirteen, and the twins Monroe and Malcolm at ten. The baby, Harper, was six years old.