Free Virulent: The Release by Shelbi Wescott Page B

Mommy, please.
    She pleaded for the news to be good.
    “Lula? Lula? Are you there? Are you there?” The voice was high-pitched, rushed, and jumbled. Voices swirled in the background and there was a distinct gunshot again—it was louder in the phone, but the blast echoed in the school too.
    From outside, this call was from somewhere right outside.
    Salem.
    “Sal? Sal?” Lucy answered. “Where are you?”
    “I’m at the school,” Salem said and Lucy hopped up and down when she heard the news.
    “Thank God! Sal, I’m here too! It’s a long story…but I’m inside Pacific right now. No one can get out , Salem. They have everyone locked inside! It’s a total nightmare.”
    “Lucy, listen. I’m outside . I’m right outside the cafeteria, by the big doors. We can’t get in Lucy. No one can get in!”
    “No one can get out!” Lucy said overlapping. Then she paused and processed their conflicting wishes.
    Another gunshot. Again, she could hear it both in the phone and in her ear. There was a slight delay between one and the other—a small disconnect, as if two shots were ringing out upon each other.
    “Salem? What the hell is going on?”
    “They’re trying to shoot the card lock off. They’re trying to shoot the glass. I tried to tell them it’s bulletproof, but it’s madness here. God, Lucy, help me! Help me, please!” Salem’s voice was beyond begging, her sobs shot through the phone in short bursts of pure panic.
    “I’m coming! Okay, okay! I’m coming,” Lucy yelled into the mouthpiece and, with only a quick look to Mrs. Johnston and the rest of the group—all of whom had frozen to listen to her conversation—she took off running back in the other direction, her phone still pressed to her ear, her backpack rising and falling as she ran, the gravity of it threatening to pull her to the ground. She didn’t know what she would do when she got there, and it only occurred to her that she was running toward gunfire as the cafeteria doors came into view.
    “I’m almost there, Sal. I’m almost there,” she said into her phone.
    “Lula. You have to get me inside the school. You have to get me inside the school right now.”

CHAPTER SIX

    Lucy slowed to a stop in front of the windows and doors in the cafeteria. They were covered in thick black paper, and even though she couldn’t see the people outside, she could hear them—yelling and crying and pounding on the glass. Part of the district’s safety plan included upgrading all the windows to war-grade fortification, thick, resilient, bulletproof glass. Before the update, an angry student on a rampage after a suspension broke an entire windowpane by throwing a metal garbage can into the center of the cafeteria door. It shattered during the school day and wasn’t replaced until the following evening at which point an assistant principal found a homeless man curled up in the waterless pool.
    In an instant, Lucy reached as high as she could and grabbed hold of the paper and tore it down. The strip slid to the floor and bathed the area in light. She tore another and another, swinging each discarded piece to the side.
    Then she stepped back.
    Forty. Maybe fifty—she was never good at estimating—people congregated outside in the alcove beyond the cafeteria doors. They were everywhere, pressing up against the glass, their fists pounding in earnest. A woman near the door was pushed forward, the side of her cheek flat against the smooth surface, and in her arms she held a toddler. The child was wearing a blue backpack, and his face was stoic, shocked, and he clutched to his mother out of necessity, trusting that she was leading him to safety.
    Lucy scanned the crowd and finally saw Salem a few people deep near the door, waving at Lucy with wild abandon, tears streaming down her face. Salem was still in the clothes she wore yesterday. And for a moment, Lucy wondered if perhaps Salem had never gone to bed. Perhaps she had laid in wait, pondering Bogart,