Free Eat, Brains, Love by Jeff Hart

cover-up needed. We leaked stories to the papers about domestic violence, or home invasion, or grizzly bear attacks, or weird new drugs that made people go crazy. As for the people who weren’t so easily convinced—for them, we had “special techniques.” And just like that, our version of events became the truth.
    But this time, there were so many bodies and killers still on the loose. Plus, the attack had taken place at a posh suburban high school. There were a lot of eyeballs on this one.
    We were going to be here all night.
    So, Tom and I sat on the RRHS lawn, waiting for our orders. We shared a Ziploc bag of mandarin oranges Tom had packed that morning, and I kept bothering him about my earworm.
    It was past ten that night when another telepath named Linda came to find me. Tom was dozing in the grass and I was watching the stricken parents milling about the police barricade. There were a lot of kids still sequestered in the school, awaiting NCD questioning.
    â€œCass, they want you inside,” said Linda, dabbing at her bloody nose with a crusty paper towel.
    Linda and I had similar jobs, except she was in her thirties and nowhere near as good a telepath. Let’s just say I’d never gotten any bloody noses from overexertion. If they’d flown Linda out from DC, they must’ve really needed all hands on deck.
    â€œMe too?” asked Tom.
    â€œActually, Harlene wants you to go grab some coffees.”
    â€œAt last, a job I am uniquely suited for,” declared Tom before squeezing my arm. “Don’t work too hard, Psychic Friend.”
    Linda led me into the school. We walked down a hallway where a line of students waited, some of them blood-spattered and wrapped in blankets, all of them exhausted. They leaned or sat against the lockers, under the guard of a Jumpsuit holding a submachine gun. I was picking up serious anxiety vibes. How could we make a traumatic day even more traumatic? Just like this.
    I felt like maybe I should say something comforting because I was their age. Like, It’s cool, you guys, we don’t mean you any harm, sorry your friends are dead. But I doubted it would do any good. The kids not huddled together crying were fixing me with suspicious looks. I wasn’t one of them; I was one of the Jumpsuits.
    Harlene had set up shop in one of the classrooms. She sat behind the teacher’s desk, attendance sheets and permanent records piled up before her. We needed to go through every student before they’d be allowed to leave.
    I glanced around the room—there was a big antismoking poster on one wall, all yellowed teeth and cancer-speckled gum lines. Next to that was one of a couple kids in torn jeans and flannels—a total relic of the ’90s—that explained why it was “boss” to wait to have sex.
    â€œHealth class,” I observed. “Ironic choice.”
    Harlene gave me a tired smile. “You up for this, hon?”
    I nodded and plopped down into a chair next to her. Jamison showed in the first kid. She looked like a freshman. She was shaking like a leaf as she slid into the mustard-colored desk-chair combo pulled closest to Harlene.
    â€œEverything’s okay now,” said Harlene, her voice soothing.
    â€œWhen can I go home?” asked the girl.
    â€œSoon,” replied Harlene.
    The girl’s name was Victoria. She hadn’t been in the cafeteria when the incident took place; she’d been in math class, struggling with sine and cosine. She’d heard rumors, though, that Amanda Blake, the most popular girl in the school, had eaten a bunch of kids. Some other guy had been involved too. Some stoner dork whose name she didn’t know.
    Of course, Victoria didn’t actually tell us any of that. I picked it up off the surface of her mind.
    Every mind might be like a house, but that doesn’t mean I can just go barging in. Well—I could , except it’s unpleasant for me and even