Free Virulent: The Release by Shelbi Wescott Page A

falling into single-file line, the old elementary habit returning.
    “Mrs. Johnston?” Lucy asked when they had left the auditorium and were making their way back up the long hallway toward the English hall. The other kids from the auditorium disappeared into other hallways, other classrooms, out of sight. “Mrs. Johnston?”
    “Yes...Lucy,” she answered, breathless, slowing her pace, dropping back to walk side-by-side.
    “How long can they keep us here?”
    “ They can keep me until the end of my contract hours and then I’m gone,” Mrs. Johnston responded through clenched teeth. “I have a family.”
    “But what about us ? They can’t keep us here. Right? They can’t force us to stay against our will.”
    Mrs. Johnson hung her head. “You don’t understand. I have to go. I have to go home. But principal Spencer isn’t wrong...it is safer in this building.” She glanced back at the ten students following her as each one sped up to walk in a huddle, hungry for news.
    Grant leaned closer, “Before...when we were watching the television? Someone reported that military planes were flying over cities and dropping a green gas into heavily populated areas. Is that true?”
    “I don’t know anything,” she said and put her hands up in surrender. “No one knows anything.” Her heels clipped on the tile, picking up her pace to a brisk walk.
    “Who attacked us?” said a sophomore girl toward the back of the group—she clutched her bright red leather purse in front of her like a shield, knuckles turning white. “Do they know who?”
    But Mrs. Johnston had decided she was done answering questions, so she did not acknowledge the growing bombardment of worries. As each student lobbed up a theory or a snippet of news, she just walked faster, until the whole group shuffled along at a near-run to keep up with her. It was clear that she was taking the group to her own classroom, steering them back through the trail of bodies that Lucy had traversed earlier. As they hit the long corridor littered with the dead, some of the students slowed. This carnage was new to them, and some of these people were their friends. The sophomore girl closed her eyes tight and stopped moving entirely. She just stood there in the middle of the hallway, her red purse covering her stomach, her feet shoulder width apart, unmoving. She kept her eyes scrunched closed, her mouth grimacing, her teeth showing.
    Lucy recognized a boy named Clayton from her biology class among their small group. He called down the hallway. “Mrs. Johnston! Wait up!” Then he walked back and stood next to the girl, touching her purse and gently leading her forward.
    “I won’t. I won’t go,” she said and stiffened her body even more.
    But Clayton was patient. “I’ll lead you. But you have to take my hand. Like those trust walks, right?” But she wouldn’t lift her hand up, wouldn’t take it off the purse, and wouldn’t open her eyes or budge.
    By that time, Mrs. Johnston had noticed half the group wasn’t keeping up with her quickened pace. She stopped and turned, eyes red, new rivulets of black running down her cheeks.
    Then Lucy felt it.
    Not the quick buzz-buzz-buzz of a text.
    But the long and sustained buzzzzzz of an incoming phone call.
    At first she thought she was imagining it—that all of her hoping and daydreaming had turned into an auditory hallucination accompanied by phantom vibrations. Frantic, she dug her hand into her pocket and retrieved her phone. The phone slipped, but she caught it against her jeans, and her sweaty fingers attempted to grab ahold.
    As the other students noticed the action, each one looked to their own phones, scampering to send a text, place a call. Hope. Lucy saw it in an instant in all of their faces. Technology was back, so there was hope.
    Without even looking, Lucy answered. A lump rose in her throat as she waited for her mom’s voice to hit her ear. Please just tell me everyone is okay, she thought. Please,