Chapter Nine
We Will Defend Our Cafeteria Home
‘It’s here.’ I showed Taggart the secret entrance to the Den. It didn’t occur to me to get Taggart to pinky swear to never reveal the secret door, but he hasn’t yet, so don’t curse me, Reform girl. Anyway, if it weren’t for me you wouldn’t be able to use it at all to sneak a smoke because it wouldn’t exist.
I did everything I could to not look at the Vault door, but I could still feel that Relief Cold Cream smoke in my lungs and vowed never to smoke another cigarette for as long as I lived assuming I did live. If I died, screw it.
Taggart took off his belt, looped it around his chest, and pulled it tight. He hissed, then he breathed for the first time in minutes.
‘OK.’ Taggart snapped his nose back into place, but I didn’t throw-up because there was nothing left in my stomach. I tried, but nothing comes from nothing. ‘They’re in the cafeteria. I saw the lights. We need to move fast, but quite.’
We little girls up to our necks in an international conspiracy of murder nodded.
I think that soccer chest kicking champ goon broke a rib or three in the only trained warrior on our side. Taggart breathed hard and he couldn’t stay still. He sweat. He twitched. He checked his right hand. The first two fingers were broken for certain. He checked the pistol he lifted off one of the corpses outside. He did it with only six fingers, and it looked like it hurt, but he was satisfied with the number of bullets, and I think a little comforted to have a gun in his hand, even if it was only the left one (unlike Snuggle Bunny, he wasn’t a South Paw). Shaking and hiding the pain it took to breath, he looked to Ash.
‘Thank you.’ He hushed, a firm, straightforward thanks. ‘You acted on your own and saved my life. That was battle, and battle is fluid. Up there is a bomb, people happy to kill themselves, and hundreds of scared girls. This is precise. We need to be precise, or we lose. I need…’
‘I’ll do as I’m told, sir.’ Ash meant it. The “sir”, too. ‘I mean, really this time.’
‘Good. OK.’ His face was desperate and he only half hid his pain. He looked around in long neck arcs as if an answer were written on the walls of the Den of Iniquity, and maybe it was because he found it. He ducked his head and thought through three deep breaths. He sprung up. ‘We have the element of surprise. You two,’ meaning Snuggle Bunny and myself. ‘Get to the engine room at the far end of the school. The utility room, you know it? Good. That’ll give us time to get into position. Get there and pull the red switch down. That will turn off the power. That will be our signal. After you pull it, run. Get as far from here as possible—it’ll be too late for you to help more.’
‘It’s locked. I don’t have my keys.’ Evelyn bit her lip. ‘It’ll take time to get to my—‘ I offered my ring of copied keys Ash made and left me.
I told the truth. ‘I don’t know which key is the key to the utility.’
‘You and I,’ SB snatched the keys from my little paw. ‘Are going to discuss these keys.’ I told the truth!
‘Ashley, head to the south entrance to the cafeteria; I’ll be at the north. Gregor will have the detonator. She’ll be next to the kitchen entrance to power the bomb. The only electrical outlet is there. Locate her, then stay tight until the lights go out. A second later the emergency lights will come on, but don’t wait for them. Rush her the second the lights go out, and kill her. Pick up anything hard, and cause maximum damage to her head or neck. Hit again and again until her brain is jelly. I can barely walk. From the north entrance I can give you cover. Ignore anyone who gets in your way. I’ll take them down, I promise. There will be others, but they don’t exist to you. Only Gregor will have the detonator, so only see Gregor. Do we understand?’
Ash looked at him askance. ‘The lights will be out. How will you cover me?’
‘I’m going to memorize their positions before the lights go out.’
Evelyn had followed like an apt student, but couldn’t figure it.
‘She’ll just set off the bomb when the lights go out.’
‘No,’ Still in that hushed tone, Taggart looked away from us as if to see if the coast was clear, but I figured it was to avoid eye contact because we were fucked. ‘Those four wheelers outside carried explosion augments that would substantially increase the weak bomb she hid here. And they had a battery pack incased in lead.’ Oh Superman, no wonder you aren’t here to save us. ‘Gregor’s bomb is energy powered, not chemical. It has to be, or our dogs would have sniffed them out on monthly inspections. And her bomb isn’t powered all the way. It takes hours, and our satellites will have picked it up after thirty minutes of charging. It’ll have enough energy by now to kill most of the people in the cafeteria, but not much else. And she’ll have to plug the detonator in and crank it, which is…’ he covered his mouth and coughed something wet into a handkerchief. He looked at his product then tossed the cloth aside. ‘It doesn’t matter. She doesn’t know we stopped her reinforcements. They’ve made her whole life about this. She’ll want a big bang. She’ll wait.’ Another cough. ‘I’m sorry, but I need your help. Ash and I should have at least five seconds, but we have to hurry because she must be charging the bomb right now. She thinks we’re dead. We have the advantage.’
‘Let’s go.’ Ash climbed into Southdown with the enthusiasm she used to use to climb out.
‘But if…’
Taggart looked Evelyn in the eyes. ‘Then everyone in that cafeteria dies.’
Son of a bitch never heard of a white lie?
----------------
‘We’re fucked.’
Snuggle Bunny gave me a look. We hadn’t seen a soul on our fast trek to the far end of Southdown, first floor. Ash and Taggart took the stairs to the second floor. My feet hurt, and I knew SB’s feet hurt too, because of our damn hobbling school shoes, but we made good time.
I’d never known the second floor corridors to be so quite. Even
Snuggle Bunny checked the hall, found it clear, and moved us towards the utility room. She shuffled through the copied keys. ‘This is crazy.’
‘I just said that.’
‘No, you said,‘ Evelyn found the key and inserted it. ‘And I quote, “We’re—“’ Alexia kicked Evelyn in the hand, snapping half the key in the lock, and punched Evelyn’s whirling face.
‘Alexia!’
Evelyn, indifferent to pain, charged the treacherous goonlet, but she kung fu’ed aside like a child. Evelyn hit the corner on her elbow and head. She didn’t move.
‘Alexia, they’re going to blow the school!’
‘No,’ she said, letting her accent slip. ‘We’re going to blow the school, and all the rotten roots in it.’ She didn’t talk like she was from
She waved away my punches. She kicked me in the stomach, and forced me down to the ground, my arm behind my back. She bruised my face with her shoe.
‘There is only we. Kiss it, Archer. Show us what a whore can do with your mouth.’ I refused, so she in turn knuckle punched me in both kidneys then kicked off her shoe, stepped on her sock with the other foot to peel it off, and shoved her sweaty foot in my face. Then she quoted herself in mock sympathy.
She shoved her foot into my face again and again, once getting her pinky toe into a nostril.
‘Now kiss it and show me what a slut you are.’
I couldn’t breath, my arm twisted to breaking, the lock to the Utility Room was jammed with a broken key, Taggart and Ash waited for the signal that would never come, a cafeteria full of girls could blow at any second, Snuggle Bunny was limp and maybe dead on the ground, and all I had was a foot to kiss. So I bit off the bitch’s pinky toe.
Alexia didn’t make a noise herself. Instead she bent my arm and I made a forced and muffled grunt. I fought the pain until Alexia jabbed me in the ass with a Agony Tazer (those are illegal!). It wasn’t even a fight. I spit out my last meal and let out an inhuman, alien to my ears scream without break. I couldn’t even gasp once. Of course I don’t know how long I was thus electro spanked, but I lost it a bit from lack of oxygen. I thrashed and jerked, totally out of control. Alexia, grabbing me, holding me down, completed the circuit. She felt the Tazer’s current too—but she liked the pain. While I twisted and screamed in anguish, she bore down on me, feeding off her raging neurons. I didn’t care about anything but me, and I was in Hell on Earth. She let off my butt cheek, and I could breath, then she jabbed my other cheek, and I screamed. I remember thinking that I wished I could beg her to stop. But I couldn’t. The pain was… something else. Something that I still think about. Sometimes. I don’t understand how or why a person could treat another person like that. So I screamed.
The light fading, I could barely make out Snuggle Bunny hurling her venerable hairbrush, smacking Alexia in the temple.
The world inundated me. The Tazer left no lasting effects except one giant flaming scorch mark on my rear, but my body returned to normal status except a useless arm and that every cell in my ass screamed. I flipped over to see Snuggle Bunny put a knee in Alexia’s face. I scampered backwards on my sore butt. My sitter hurt so bad that there was no difference standing or sitting, but I didn’t care because before me Evil-Lyn squared off with her treacherous goonlet lieutenant who wavered despite looking like a starved tiger.
‘Get to Taggart, tell him the lights aren’t going off. I-‘ Alexia kicked but Evil-Lyn moved into it and caught her at the thigh. ‘Run, dummy!’ She slugged but Alexia caught it and twisted the extended arm. Evil-Lyn twisted and both fell to the ground jabbing at each other. I took off my shoes and socks, and beat it.
My arm and nose hurt, my ass felt like hornets had it for a feast, and my lungs burned from the smoke of burning cans of Relief, and I had to hold my right arm against my stomach to keep it from flapping around dead. The cafeteria was dead above me, but the stairs were on the far end of the school. I had to run the length of the school, a flight of stair, then the same length back, and every second that bomb grew stronger to kill more and more girls.
Passed Gregor’s office. Passed Alexia’s room. Passed Snuggle Bunny’s room (was she dead?), hit the stairs. A blister broke on the first step.
I coughed something warm and wet out and hit a wall but I bounced off it no matter how comfortable it was. One of Alexia’s kicks hit something that didn’t forget pain as fast as I forgot all the kings and queens of
“Let us be sure that those who come after will say of us in our time, that in our time, we did everything that could be done. We finished the race, we kept them free: we kept the faith.”
Keep the faith. Goddamn right. Marathon, baby. Fucking
It was disappointing to pass the relay stick. I turned the corner, fell to my knees, and between bloody nose spewing gasps, said, ‘Ambushed. Lights aren’t going out.’ Taggart got to his feet and fired away like it was the plan from the start.
I crawled to the sill, under his legs, with my palms over my ears. Ash ran from her spot in perfect form. Men and treacherous goonlets fell all around her. She ignored them like the Queen of England I forgot about would have ignore guys handing out fliers to a XXX strip club on
God help me, it was beautiful,
A man in black robes, a curved dagger held high about his head, moved in on Taggart. I think it was my Math teacher. Killroy, a loyal goonlet, launched all her
That’s
Gregor was adorn in full battle armor. Gasping on the ground, it occurred to me that Taggart couldn’t just shoot her. She even wore a black helmet like an evil football player. She had to be killed up close, like any other dragon. Her shock wore off three seconds into Ash’s Run. She stepped idly to the bomb, a black box covered in wires sitting just outside the kitchen door.
The bomb was our microwave. The device that would blow my body apart into mere dental records had heated all the tacos that made up my body. The only good place to get tacos is
Gregor laughed and watched the spectacle. She put her detonator on the bomb. She didn’t even plug it in. She pointed a black rectangle at Ash. I didn’t know what it was, but it was a weapon for sure.
Taggart stepped two paces to the side, adjusted to a line of fire around my sitting classmates, and fired. Gregor wavered a little, but I don’t think she felt more than a slight shove from the bullet before pulling the trigger of her weapon. Ash, in mid stride, grabbed a cafeteria tray from the rack and blocked a wired dart from hitting her chest. The dart smacked the tray and exploded in volts, but Ash kept running.
Tray still splattering electricity, a second dart flew into Ash’s leg. It wasn’t fair. Ash couldn’t block both; nobody could with one tray. War, it would seem, wasn’t fair. She went down and convulsed as the amps played havoc with her nervous system. She twitched helpless on the floor, her beautiful red hair flaring out like Einstein. She didn’t make a noise, but then she never made a noise when Gregor attacked her nervous system.
Taggart, gushing blood from his face, tossed his empty weapon aside and slouched towards Gregor, a hundred feet away from him, and her two feet from the bomb. Beaten and helpless, he slouched towards hopeless doom with a single mind, making the last, perfect image of what a real man is for me. Except for my father, who is more than a man to me, though a gentle one that abhors violence. He didn’t even spank me. I thought about my father, and how he was right that Reform School would save me from myself, and what he’d think when he found out I was exploded in Texas. I thought about how he’d hurt himself for years. And the bitch of it was that he was right, I only then realized—Southdown saved my living soul, even if it killed me. But he wouldn’t know that. All he’d know was that I was sent here with his blessing and encouraging words to my unnatural death, and he’d suffer for it. Dad is sensitive. He’d suffer bad.
The girls sat in the chairs, too afraid to move, not knowing what was happening. I screamed at them to attack and kill everything, but it just came out as a gasp. Taggart slouched, I lay, Ash gyrated and there was nothing left to us but the glory of taking the enemy to the limit.
Or so it seemed.
Senator Gail swiped at Gregor with a chair, howling like a Viking. Gregor broke Gail’s leg and tossed her aside. The attack wasn’t without import—that limp would help on TV debates for sure. Some puss lawyer candidate walking up to the podium while Gail took longer due to the proud limp? Hell, you’ve got the Vet and Silver Fox vote right there. Also, the limp would show off her awesome, perfect, enviable ass… damn it. I want a perfect ass too.
Of course, I had to note to myself, I’d be able to beat her mile time now. Man, I am a self-centered bitch that deserves my spankings. Damn it.
Four men in black robes, stepping over Killroy and her choking playmate, attacked Taggart. He killed one of them as soon as he was in finger tip distance, the others he had to fight, which meant he was checked and we were all going to die.
‘So!’ Gregor screamed it. Then she laughed in a sniveling way.‘Now we reap what they sow!’ I stood, I don’t know where from the strength came, thinking to run at her, but she already had her trigger in the bomb. I ran anyway, around Taggart’s brawl, taking up Taggart’s course, because there wasn’t anything else to do. There was a chance Snuggle Bunny would live, and that was as good as I was going to get. If I had to die, then fuck Gregor, I’d die running like I was taught, like my father taught me, my fingernails for the eyes of the enemy, doing everything that could be done.
‘Archer! Come, meek!’
‘I’m going to—‘ I stood dead on a dime.
Hearing the gunshots through the music, Couch Van Brown exited the kitchen in her gray T-shirt, track shorts, and apron, and paddled Gregor’s head from behind with several pounds of bottom tested oak paddle. Eighties pop music spewing from the dangling ear phones of her pocketed IPod as she slammed her wooden paddle into Gregor’s floored brain again and again. It would seem the helmet was built to stop bullets, not Couch Van Brown’s paddle.
Taggart lifted himself from the now limp and useless goons, staggered to his feet, and watched the Coach deliver a final CRACK to the DDU agent’s brainpan. He looked like a confused fool, and I should know, because it takes one to know one.
Hundreds looked at the coach. Except for Ash, still paralyzed, all us girls and Taggart looked at the blood and gray matter drenched Coach Van Brown standing above the battered husk of a psychopath.
‘Meek,’ Coach Van Brown said, pointing a bloodied paddle at the mass of girls. ‘Does not mean weak.’
Then the lights went out.
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