Chapter 0.4

9-5-13, 4:20 P.M.

“So, why are a bunch of… them here?” Jeremy asked Jackie as they walked back through to the Ceramics Lab, Jackie taking out a key and locking the door behind them as she balanced her sniper rifle like a cane.

Jackie shrugged. “I think they were planning to send some kind of message to you. No idea what, though, cuz’ they’re all dead.”

Jeremy nodded, chuckling slightly – he immediately stopped as he realized he was taking amusement from cold-blooded murder. “I guess that might make sense – first guy I saw up here ran from me while warning the others.”

Jackie rolled her eyes. “And ran right into me. Idiot probably forgot I was here…”

Her stomach growled, and Jeremy looked at her curiously. “When’s the last time you ate?” he asked.

“A few hours ago – I found a stash of snacks in some kid’s backpack, and I’ve been rationing. Was gonna make a break for it to your hidey-hole once I ran out, but I didn’t know what was out there.”

Jeremy snorted. “All of nothing, looks like. Matter of fact, I think we cleared most of them out.”

Jackie looked at him in surprise. “Dude, there must have been hundreds of these guys, judging from what I saw on the first day. We were in the school-opening assembly, and suddenly they just swarmed in and start taking hostages – I slipped away midway through, and found this rifle.” Jeremy half-interestedly absorbed this information. “What about you, when did you flip the badass switch?” Jackie joked.

Jeremy cracked a smile. “Soon as I got here, really – dude tried to hit me with a steel pipe, I stole it and hit him back, killed him, and things just sort of… spiraled from there.”

Jackie snickered. “What, no crowbar?” she asked, and Jeremy put a hand to his forehead in embarrassed laughter.

“I’ve been looking, without much luck!” he retorted, and the two of them laughed together just like old times.

Just then, they heard a scuff of a boot, and fell silent. Jeremy slowly held up his rifle at where he assumed the noise had been coming from.

“Come out of there, hands where I can see them,” he ordered.

A black-clad, middle-aged man slowly complied, hands holding what appeared to be some form of laptop. Making sure Jeremy could see his movements, the man put it on the nearest table, then shakily moved back to the far wall, hands in the air in surrender. Jeremy jerked his head at the man as a signal to Jackie, who aimed her sniper rifle at his head while Jeremy examined the laptop. Opening it, he found a single file in the center of the desktop screen, named “PLAYTHIS.wmv”. Raising an eyebrow, Jeremy opened it.

He was met with a dark room, where he could just barely discern movements in front of the camera. “Ah, hello. We are the-“ – here the man said a word Jeremy couldn’t understand – “and we have sent this video to give you one last chance, Jeremy. We know who you are, and where you live. If you do not surrender within one hour of watching this, we will track your family down and kill them. It will be your fault. You have one hour.”

Jeremy closed the video once it had finished playing, and calmly closed the laptop.

“…Jeremy?” Jackie asked, sounding worried.

“Kill him,” Jeremy tonelessly replied, and Jackie swallowed once before nodding.

She pressed the trigger on her rifle – but not before the man, realizing what was happening, thumbed the button on his walkie-talkie. A loud burst of static echoed around the room, followed quickly by an ear-splittingly loud gunshot as the man’s head burst open like an overheated watermelon. For a moment, all was silent. Then, Jackie turned back to Jeremy, her eyes matching her worried frown.

“Are you… okay?” she asked. Jeremy sighed, and looked away, eyes downcast.

“They’ve… they’re kidding. Right? There’s no way they can get past the military, that’s why they’re in here in the first place. …Right?” he asked, looking to her for reassurance.

Jackie, for her part, was quick to catch on. “Of course not. If two high schoolers with barely any weaponry can hold them off, what makes you think they’ll get past the military?” she reassured, and Jeremy slowly smiled.

“Yeah… you’re right, it’s all bullshit,” he decided, feeling as though he had convinced himself.

The trek back to the high school’s main building was silent and uneventful – Jackie had explained that she was in fact the sniper who’d shot at him earlier, and upon realizing her mistake had promptly avoided aiming at him while he skirted around the outside. Jeremy, meanwhile, filled her in on the state of affairs of the main building, including the gymnasium where everyone else was and how many he’d killed. Jackie’s eyes went wide as he described the amount of corpses that were currently strewn around the high school’s halls, and went still wider as he detailed the amount of food he’d managed to stockpile for the rest over the course of the past three days. As they neared the gym, Jeremy became aware of the stench surrounding the dead bodies: He’d been around them so frequently, he’d built up a tolerance to it. He himself probably didn’t smell any better, he surmised, due to not taking a shower in days and barely even sleeping, not to mention all the physical activity that running around and shooting people involved.

He walked over to Sam, and shot him a devilish grin. “Wait, he isn’t dead – Shia Surprise!” Jeremy greeted, and Sam burst out laughing at the oddball quote.

“I’d continue that, but… no, fuck you,” he replied, and Jeremy barely suppressed chuckles.

“So, how were things on your end?” Jeremy asked, and Sam waved a hand in a so-so motion.

“Well, some of the Black Brigade stopped by while you were out, and we pushed them back with bullets,” he mentioned.

Jeremy nodded unenthusiastically. “Right… should’ve figured they’d wait until I was gone.”

Sam looked at him curiously. “What about you? I see you found Jackie – and where’d she get that rifle?”

Jeremy gave a brief explanation of the past few hours, and Sam’s eyebrows raised to the point Jeremy feared they’d spring off his forehead and fly skyward, never to be seen again. “Dude, they’re threatening to kill your parents? That’s… fuckin harsh, man.”

Jeremy shrugged. “It is also quite clearly bullshit – if they could’ve gotten past the military blockade, they would’ve by now.”

Sam gave him a frown, but a moment later simply shrugged. “If you say so…”

Jeremy decided to take the rest of the night off, now that Jackie was with them. The other kids crowded around to hear Jackie’s tales of her, a sniper rifle, and nothing but time, and she gave a nervous grin over at Jeremy as they continued to press around her, demanding more. Jeremy, who’d been on the other end of this exchange multiple times by now, simply gave her a “what-can-you-do” shrug and a guilty smile.

“C’mon, guys, leave her alone,” he called out after a while of watching this, and the students reluctantly slunk away to their assigned positions.

The gym had also been converted to a living space of sorts, the hard foam mats that had covered the yoga room being repurposed as mass beds and the gym itself sectioned off into areas. Around the outer perimeter was the loosely designated “guard” area: Here teachers patrolled, guns and ammo at the ready and stocked all around the outside walls instead of in a big pile at the back. Inside this, the gym was split into three rough areas, with ‘sleeping’ and ‘food’ taking up one half and ‘socializing’ taking the rest. Jeremy felt bad that they didn’t have blankets for the sleeping students, but there was no way to get any – the few that had been saved from the nurse’s office were still covered in blood, and currently being used to treat the injured – while nobody had died, plenty had gotten hit or bruised by a terrorist operative in their attempts to plead for mercy. All in all, it was a pretty decently organized system, though Jeremy couldn’t take the credit for devising it – that went to the admin staff. They were surprisingly effective at keeping things calm and orderly in this trying time, and Jeremy was actually beginning to feel some respect for them.

Jackie walked over, muttering a “thanks” as she surveyed the area. “So, was all this your idea?” she asked, gesturing in a wide arc to the layout of the gymnasium.

Jeremy snorted. “Nah, teachers came up with this little system. Personally, I think it’s a good idea – we’ve got everything we need here, after all. Food, water, medicine, a relatively comfortable space to sleep… We could hold out for a few more weeks, easy.”

Just then, there was a commotion among some of the students – a fight had broken out. Two teachers rushed over and pulled them apart, and Jeremy watched with a detached interest – he’d figured eventually people would start getting cabin fever, and it worried him somewhat.

Jeremy’s sleeping spot, which he rarely used, was right next to Sam’s, and Jackie took another spot right next to his – Jeremy moved his backpack, coat and shoes out of the way as she laid her backpack down, kicked off her own sneakers and sat on the floor with a thump.

“Oh, damn, it feels good to be in the safe zone,” Jackie sighed, leaning back, and Jeremy chuckled.

“Yeah…” He trailed off. He’d been about to quip that he was the only one who could ever leave the safe zone, but then the implications of that hit him. He tuned back in to the conversation to find Jackie staring at him.

“You alright?” she asked. Jeremy thought about it for a moment, then buried his face in his hands.

“I just… I can’t do it, Jackie, I can’t fucking do this,” he mumbled, taking shuddering breaths and trying to control the rampant thoughts of his mortality. “Every goddamn day I’m running and shooting people, and rounding up food, and all these kids look up to me as some sort of leader or hero – it’s not what they think, it’s not fun or cool or any of that shit! And eventually someone’s gonna get me in the neck, and then I’ll be dead, and then someone else’ll have to do this and they’ll die too, and…” he was cut short by Jackie placing a hand over his mouth – she never had been known for subtlety.

“Dude. You’re gonna make it. You know why?” she asked, looking him dead in the eye.

“…W-Why?” Jeremy asked.

“Because you are the most goddamn headstrong, stubborn idiot I’ve ever met. You won’t take anyone’s shit – not even Death’s. So when you’re at death’s door, bleeding out from some gun wound? You get right the fuck back up and kick some ass,” Jackie finished.

Jeremy smirked, laughing a little as his sobs subsided. “Heh… ha… yeah… thanks,” he got out. Sam had been watching the whole thing with a worried look on his face, but upon seeing Jeremy calm down somewhat he relaxed as well.

Jackie took out a sewing kit from her backpack, and Jeremy and Sam watched curiously.

“…What’re you doing?” Jeremy asked nervously as she examined a needle. He didn’t like needles of any variety, though the life-or-death motif of the last few days had managed to put this phobia on a temporary backburner.

“Just had a thought – you mentioned worrying about getting shot in the neck, and we do have a lot of those Kevlar vests…” Jackie muttered.

Jeremy and Sam, seeing where she was going, grinned and got up, hefting stacks of the Kevlar vests over to her spot as she began cutting them apart. A teacher surveyed this curiously, wearing a Kevlar vest of her own.

“What are you doing?” she asked, and Jackie looked up.

“Well, since Jeremy’s the one who risks his neck every day, I thought I should make his neck a little harder to risk,” she quipped, and the teacher looked at her suspiciously. Then, to everyone’s surprise, she took a seat next to them.

“I do some sewing and clothing myself – mind if I help?” the teacher asked. Jackie, Jeremy and Sam bemusedly shook their heads, and for the next few hours Jackie and the teacher sewed Jeremy’s new outfit together while Jeremy watched Sam play on his DS – it was almost like old times.

Just then, there was the static burst from the speakers stationed around the gym that indicated someone was making an announcement from the admin area. Everyone fell silent to hear the news.

“Your parents are dead, Jeremy. You are next,” a stunted and heavily accented voice proclaimed, and the speaker beeped once more, signaling the end of the transmission.

Jeremy’s heart felt like it had stopped beating, and was now immersed in liquid nitrogen. He’d refused to save them, and in his arrogance his parents had paid the ultimate price. Unless… unless they were lying?

“No… no, you’re lying – YOU’RE LYING!” he yelled up at the speaker, uncaring of the fact that the announcer couldn’t hear him.

He gave a frustrated scream of rage, slamming a fist down on the mat before collapsing in a heap, sobbing uncontrollably. Time seemed to disappear as he laid there, facedown with his eyes covered by his arms, and he felt a soothing hand on his shoulder as he lost track of reality.

9-5-13, 8:42 P.M.

When Jeremy finally poked his head up again, they were serving ‘dinner’ – this consisted of snacks, vegetables, and whatever else the cafeteria staff could serve that didn’t need to be heated. Many students complained about the lack of burgers, pizza and other hot foods, but Jeremy reminded them that he was physically incapable of lugging any of the massive grilling machines up one floor to the gym, and after that they reluctantly accepted their meals. On the plus side, no one had to pay for everything, though they did get rather small portions so the food could last longer. He slowly got up, walking over to the food line with a red face and a still-distraught complexion. He took his place in the back of the line, refusing any attempts to move him forward, and politely waited, expression like a zombie’s as he sluggishly grabbed his food and went back to his spot.

Sam and Jackie, who had already ate, were waiting for him with somber expressions.

“Dude, I am so, so sorry-“  Sam began, but Jeremy interrupted him before he could finish.

“I don’t want to hear it,” Jeremy snapped, and Sam was taken aback.

Jeremy’s expression softened a moment later, and he looked towards the floor – he’d just lost his parents, he didn’t want to lose his friends too. “Sorry…” he muttered, and Sam wisely decided to remain silent.

Jackie, however, cleared her throat nervously. “So, uh… we finished your new suit a while back… it’s got pads on just about everywhere, and we really bulked it up – you should be able to withstand everything short of a 12-gauge with this,” she announced.

Jeremy gave a small smile. “Thanks, Jackie…” he looked over at the suit she and the teacher had made, appraising it as he tried to distract himself from thoughts of his parents. It looked like at least six of the other vests had gone into the chest and back padding, with various thick layers of black fabric comprising the rest – even the neck and head was covered by a makeshift ‘hood’, padded with yet more thick Kevlar. To Jeremy’s confusion, the head area was blocked off by a thin layer of black, see-through fabric.

“What’s with this?” he asked, holding it up.

“Oh, that,” Jackie remembered. “Well, it occurred to us that this suit is all black, and you’re… well, no offense, but you’re really pale.”

Jeremy chuckled. “None taken,” he replied.

Jackie nodded before continuing. “So, we figured that if you went out there, that’d make your pale head an easy target due to color contrast. This fixes that problem while still allowing you to see.”

Jeremy nodded interestedly – that was good strategy. “Good to know someone’s looking out for me – this is genius,” he complimented.

Jackie smiled, going back to a book she had been carrying in her backpack – Jeremy wished he had brought a book. Finding nothing else to do or talk about, he returned to his meal, thankful for once of the lack of temperature – the miniature deli sandwich was just as good now as it had been ten minutes ago. Normally he only ate hot foods, preferring pizza and the chickenburgers – he’d tried the actual cheeseburgers here, and had quickly sworn never to do so again. Finishing the sub, he sighed and lay back on the mat, pulling over his jacket for use as a makeshift blanket and wishing he could just forget about existing for a while.

Next Chapter: Chapter 0.5 Estimated time remaining: 13 Hours, 53 Minutes