Night of the Living Bacteria

Chapter Eight

Ashley

I popped in another CD and mindlessly doodled in my sketchbook. The shades in my dorm were closed immediately when I walked in. Unlike other people, I could not stand spending time in my room with the shades open, even if it was still bright out. My one ritual from home was closing the shades when I returned from school. I'd brought at least three strands of fairy lights from my room and stored away the basic lamp the school provided for my desk. Instead, I replaced it with a much warmer-colored vintage lamp. My mother, just the night before, had gifted me a mini-fridge and a small safe. She'd had the safe for years and told me I'd be better off using it than leaving it to sit in the closet forever, and had bought the fridge as a going-away gift. I knew Mom worked hard to get her paychecks, and I ended up feeling terrible that she spent almost half of it on me. Usually, I'd use money from my summer jobs to fund my shopping. But I'd still been grateful for the gift, especially after realizing I could take all the snacks I wanted and keep them for myself.

The lounge was decently full, and quite a few kids crowded around the fridge. I knew I'd have to be careful about completely raiding it, but I was confident that none of the people there were even remotely interested in fruit. I'd ended up taking a box of teabags, some strawberries, and two chocolate bars back. My collection is growing, but not complete. I thought as I arranged everything carefully so that the teachers wouldn't find it. It was not made clear if stealing from the dorm fridge was good or bad. But, the food truck came once every other week, and I'd heard the fridges get stocked. "Like nothin' you ever seen before," I'd overheard an eighth grader say to one of the kids in my class. The academic building closed at seven o'clock sharp, and every teacher in sight would leave. That was when we were introduced to the night watchmen. Most of them were in their late twenties to early thirties, depressed (despite trying to hide it), and attractive as all hell. They had humor like that of college students, and most of the freshmen hung out with them. It was their job to make sure that nobody was trying to sneak out (or in, I guess?), or get into the school. There were twenty-three of them, of which four were women. They were posted by the girls' wing (on the right). Two of the women were super-bitchy, and the other two were really sweet. I could understand how people might be bitchy having a job where they have to stay up all night and make sure nobody's doing anything illegal. The men, who patrolled the boys' side (on the left) and the rest of the building, liked to play poker and smoke cigars. The ones who didn't smoke drank way too much coffee to be healthy.

Olivia joined me outside of my dorm.

"They never said anything about this," She motioned to the surrounding adults, laughing and socializing. Luckily, they did shut up (they were ordered to) at nine. We were all expected to be in our dorms at that time, and to be quiet. Ten o'clock was the official 'lights out, better be asleep now' call. But, the watchmen weren't allowed to come into our rooms. Some legal things about the invasion of personal rights.

"Yeah, now I'm starting to wonder what else they neglected to tell us." I grumbled. Olivia and I talked for a little while before the both of us turned in for the night. It was strange to be in this place; I knew I wouldn't get any sleep. So I sighed and turned over, facing the bleak and suddenly empty wall.