Jamison

I GRAB ONE OF THE KIDS AND try to get between the flood and Andrew, but the water hits me hard, sweeping us off our feet and toward the cafeteria. Salt water fills my nose and mouth, burning my senses away. I try to stand, holding tight to the little kid in my arms, but I can’t get my footing. We’re moving too fast.

Then, all at once, we slam into a wall. All of us—Andrew, Daphne, the five kids with her—are a tangle of limbs grasping for purchase. The lights along the wall flicker as car batteries are ripped from their pedestals and the wires soaked.

The floodwater pulls us down the hallway again, and I roll to my knees, lifting the kid in my arms above the waterline. She gasps and cries out, wrapping her arms around my throat.

Next to me, Andrew manages to get to his feet, holding the hands of two of the older kids. But behind us, Daphne is still struggling both to stand in the rushing water and to keep her grip on the two kids in her arms.

I get to my feet, almost losing my balance as a folded cot bangs into my leg, and wade over to Daphne. Andrew helps me get her up, and the lights flicker again, then send us into pure darkness. The kids scream.

Outside the school, lightning flashes and a gust of wind howls over the thunder and rain.

“We have to get upstairs,” I yell to Andrew.

The lights flicker on but at a low voltage, and I see him nod. I point behind him, down the hallway, where most of the debris is gathering against closed double doors.

“Go!” Daphne yells. The kids are the ones pulling us along. The hallways sound like an underground tunnel with a freight train barreling toward us. Back the way we came, something crashes, and the ground shakes beneath our feet. I stumble, losing my balance.

As I twist my body, holding the girl in my arms above the water, I feel Andrew’s hands on me, trying to steady me. And when I stand, I see the other two kids, struggling against the current, also trying to help.

I doubt they can hear my thanks, but I catch my balance and move on with them.

Andrew reaches the door first and starts pulling away cots, boxes, insulation, and drywall. I readjust the girl in my arms so she’s on my side, and then try to help. The kids and Daphne are all there, too, pulling things away from the door, but the water shoves it all right back. I stand on a cot, pushing it down, and reach for the door handle.

The door barely budges against the water and debris. Andrew pulls at the jamb, shoving his body into the widening crack to the other side. I imagine something big floating down the hallway toward us, smashing into the door and crushing him, and I pull at his arm, trying to get him away. But he’s so determined he doesn’t notice.

He pushes hard, using the other door as leverage and then pulling the kids to the other side one by one. Daphne ducks under his arms, then he looks at me and the girl I’m still holding.

“Come on, quick!” he says. His arms are shaking. I lean against him, pushing him through as I bring up one of my legs to prop the door open.

Before he can argue with me, I hand the girl over to him. Beyond him, Daphne is already ushering kids toward the stairs. There are more adults there, ready to help them up. Another, even louder crash sounds on the other side of the school, and again the ground shakes.

Andrew takes the girl, giving me an annoyed look. But then his eyes go wide as he looks behind me. “Jamie, watch out!”

I turn to see a wave of floodwater almost as high as the ceiling pushing wood and rubble toward me. With all the strength I can muster, I push the door out and slip through before it can crush me.

As soon as the wave hits the other side, the door splinters and a waterfall bursts from every seam.

“Go!” I push everyone toward the steps.

Behind us, the doors finally give, and the water and wreckage spill into the stairwell. I grasp the railing for dear life as the flood hits us. Andrew is a few steps above me, but he almost loses his grip.

The water passes the top of my head, and something slices into my arm. Burning-hot pain explodes from the cut. More debris brushes against my face and neck, scratching me and probably drawing blood.

I find my footing on the stairs and use the railing to hoist myself up. My lungs burn as I break free of the water, gasping for air. Andrew is there, waiting for me on the landing, holding out a hand.

There’s blood spilling down the side of his face from a cut above his eyebrow, but other than that he seems to be okay.

I take his hand and he pulls me up, out of the water.

At the top of the stairs there are people handing out blankets and towels. Andrew wraps one around my shoulders. The cut on my arm goes from my elbow halfway to my wrist, but it isn’t deep.

I wrap my arms around Andrew, pulling him to me. It’s strange that we were just talking about our difference of opinion—the wedge driving us apart—and now I just want to hold him and keep him close.

He seems to feel the same way, because he wraps his arms around my middle and holds me tight.

Somewhere down the hallway, glass breaks. Wind whistles through the doors, making me shiver. Andrew squeezes tighter and I rub at his back.

Lightning flashes outside, and we go over to a taped-up window. The area behind the school where the baseball field used to be is flooded. The water churns as the rain continues to pour.

“Come on,” Daphne says, breaking the hypnosis the storm seems to have over us. “Let’s get away from the windows.”

We crowd together with all the others in the upstairs hallways. People sit on the floors or squeeze onto cots, huddled together. Some people are crying; some let out startled shouts as the storm kicks up.

“Where’s Liz and the other kids?” Daphne asks as she gets two of the kids to settle down.

“She took the other stairs on the gym side,” Andrew says. He bolts back to his feet, the blanket falling from his shoulders. “Oh! Taylor and the Kid came up here, too.”

“They’re safe.” I say.

If he goes looking for them in the dark, he’s bound to trip or step on someone, and who knows where tempers are at right now. Our food is all on the flooded first floor of the school—where it shouldn’t have been to begin with.

“Cara is with them, too. Just wait here till the storm dies down a bit,” I say, taking his hand. I can barely see the outline of his face in the darkness, but I think he’s trying to decide whether he wants to go or if he wants to stay with me. If he is, at least it means he’s torn on the matter.

Not that I would ever expect him to choose between me and anyone else. But the way things have been going between us, it might not have been a hard decision. He sits down next to me on the floor, and I feel him shivering against me. I wrap the blanket back around him, pulling it tight.

“You okay?” I ask quietly.

“Yeah, I think. Yeah.” He sounds wired—scared and anxious. I squeeze his hand tighter and he squeezes back, then puts his head on my shoulder. I lean over and kiss his forehead. For a little over an hour, every time thunder cracks or some part of the school clangs or smashes from the wind or debris, he startles against me. Each time I rub his back, and soon he doesn’t startle anymore, and I can feel his breath grow steady and calm. He’s asleep.

After what feels like a few hours, the thunder grows distant and the rain lightens. A little later, the wind dies down. And soon after that, just as the world outside is turning blue with the coming dawn, I fall asleep, too.

“Jamie.” Andrew shakes me gently and the muscles in my neck, arms, shoulders, and back ache. I groan and try to stretch, opening my eyes slightly against the bright sun blasting through the classroom windows, as though Armageddon wasn’t happening outside just a few hours ago.

“What time is it?”

“Still morning,” he says. There’s something in his voice that makes me focus on him, squinting against the brightness. His eyes are red and bloodshot as though he’s been crying.

“What’s wrong?” I look around the hallway. The kids are curled up around each other, fast asleep on the floor. Taylor is there, too, her legs pulled tight to her chest and her eyes puffy and red, tears streaming down her face. The little boy they call the Kid is asleep at her feet. She keeps a protective hand on his shoulder.

Andrew follows my gaze to her and nods in the direction of the stairwell we came up. I stand and follow him.

The flood on the first floor has only gone down about two feet, judging by the layer of mud up to the half landing. As soon as we round the corner, Andrew wraps his arm tightly around me. He buries his face against my damp, brackish-smelling chest and unleashes a howl of pain.

“What?” I ask, my heart racing. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him make these sounds before. I hold him tight with one arm while rubbing his back with the other. Asking quietly what’s wrong but knowing he can’t verbalize it yet.

He cries like that for almost five full minutes before he says something quietly against my chest. I hold him close to me while lowering my ear to his mouth.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, keeping my voice low, as if, if I get any louder, it will spook him and we’ll have to start this process all over again.

It comes out in a croak. “They’re dead.”

My heart seizes. Cara. She wasn’t there when I woke. My own legs feel wobbly and I try my hardest to stay upright. My mouth is dry but I manage to get out, “Who?”

“Liz. The kids.”

Oh no. The kids who tried to go upstairs. They sent them the other way. The way the flood came. I wait for him to add Cara’s name, but he doesn’t. He sobs again and I wait, still expecting the news to get even worse. Then I remember Cara was already upstairs when the flood hit. I hold him tighter, hoping that he doesn’t add another name.

When he’s ready to go on he leans back, looking up at me. “The other side of the school collapsed.”

My extremities go cold as my mouth drops open.

“Everyone who was in the gym, the people using the stairs on the parking lot side of the school, the people upstairs in that wing. They all got trapped. Crushed or drowned. Liz, Matthew, Lisa, Quinten, Jeremy, Lucy. Frank.”

The last one he barely gets out before he breaks down again. The little boy with the dodgeball. No-Filter Frank. That one breaks me, too, and silent tears stream down my cheeks as I try to comfort Andrew. My heart wrenches in my chest and I start to panic.

“What about Amy? Henri-Two and Cara? Are they . . . ?”

He lets out a long breath. “They’re okay. Cara’s a bit bruised, but Amy and Henri-Two were safe up here. Rocky Horror got up in time, too.”

Good. At least that’s something. Still, the number of people who must have died last night, trapped in the other side of the school—it’s horrific. Even after all the death we’ve seen from the superflu, this somehow seems worse, though I’m not sure why.

We stay in the stairwell together, silently, for a while, eventually sitting down and watching the floodwater drop inch by inch.

After maybe an hour of silence, Andrew sits bolt upright and gasps.

I’m not sure if I can handle more bad news, but I ask anyway. “What is it?”

He looks into my eyes—his are still red and puffy. “It’s Saturday.” I don’t understand what he means until he says the next part, and it feels like my chest is a pit.

“Happy birthday.”