WHEN THE DARKNESS COMES I NICK CLARK

Teenage Wasteland

Teenage Wasteland

Lourdes threw aside Alicia's bike, the wheels spinning wildly as she ran up the school steps, her breath coming in ragged gasps, legs aching. She'd cycled at speed along the sidewalks, skipping the roads choked with vehicles, civilization starting to come apart at the seams. Gripping the railing for support, she took a moment to catch her breath, glancing around her as she did, brow furrowing at the almost overwhelming silence. She had been expecting to see soldiers, but the military seemed to have mercifully vacated the school after evacuating everyone.

Ignoring Nick's sobs for her to stay, Lourdes had left Nick literally foaming at the mouth, his deterioration driving her to desperate lengths. Nick had crashed hard and fast, Lourdes force-feeding him coffee and barley broth, only for him to violently throw up both, Nick weeping with the way his body was bailing. She'd phoned the doctor, 911, Madison and her parents, but all she'd hit was dead end after dead end, and so she'd stolen Madison's spare set of school keys and Alicia's bike, armed with the intention of breaking into Madison's office, remembering the bags of drugs in the contraband cupboard she'd seen when Madison had confiscated the knife Tobias had given her. The memory seemed to belong to another life, but it was all she had, and she'd had no other option but to run with it, even if she had to get past an army to succeed.

But the army was now apparently an imaginary one, God at least granting her that, so she made to hurriedly let herself in, only to find the doors were already unlocked. Frowning, she stepped inside, briefly setting off an alarm before it was abruptly cut short. Tensing, she stepped through the metal detectors, straightening the straps of her backpack as she moved, remembering what had happened the last time she'd passed through them. Ignoring the ghostly sound of her footsteps echoing through the corridors, she then hurriedly made for the principal's office, everything Madison had ever moaned about in regards to the policies of Paul R. Williams High School forming the foundation of her plan.

Whenever drugs were confiscated from a pupil, they were immediately secured in the contraband cupboard based in the guidance counsellor's office where Madison worked. But confusingly, 'Call me Art' assumed sole responsibility over the contraband cupboard instead of Madison, taking the keys from Madison at the end of every school day, and leaving them hidden behind the bookcase in her office at the beginning of every new one, a system that made no sense, infuriating Madison at every turn.

But Lourdes knew she was pushing her luck. The drugs may have been picked up by the police before the army's intervention or maybe Madison might be carrying the keys on her, or 'Call me Art' had them on him instead, the disruption of the school day sending his screwed up system into chaos. Anything could have happened to those keys, but Lourdes was prepared to take the gamble since it was all she had, and so she picked up her pace. Ducking through the doorway of the principal's office, she sprinted over to his desk, her black hair swinging over her shoulder as she leant over, her hands frantically yanking open the drawers, only to hit possible pay-dirt.

Snatching up the set of keys, Lourdes sprinted for Madison's office, bursting through the door, only to suddenly stop short, remembering all the unlocked doors she'd just passed through including this one. Backtracking, she went back into the hallway, remembering the principal's nitpicking ways, how it had always sat at odds with his apparently easygoing 'down with the kids' attitude. Knowing she was wasting time, she checked all the classroom doors, only to find they were all open as well, before heading past the lockers, making for her father's classroom, slowing to a stop at the sight of blood splattered across the opposite wall, the door to the classroom closed, with a set of keys dangling from the lock.

Not realising she was holding her breath, she edged around the pool of blood on the floor, before checking the row of classrooms that preceded her father's, only to find them locked, Lourdes putting together a painful picture, one she didn't want to appreciate. Fighting the panic rising in her, she ran back to Madison's office, her footsteps shattering the silence. One by one, she tried the keys in the lock of the contraband cupboard, but none of them fitted, terror twisting in her gut each time, and when the last key failed her, she flung them aside before collapsing against Madison's desk, angry tears burning her eyes.