Dead Connections

Chapter 21 - Agony for the two of us

Midday had just past when I arrived at my brother’s school, jumpy and overdramatic. Ember and Drew ere by my sides. I had forced them to come with me.

Zack was in his double drama lesson at the moment we entered the school building. I knew this because before death had dragged us apart we used to be in practically all the same year 10 classes and Wednesday afternoons were always double drama.

When we first walked into the drama room a wave of relief washed over me when I saw Zack standing at the front with a script in his hand. He looked fine right now, unaware that any moment could be his last, and that a killer was targeting him.

“Is that him?” Ember asked, pointing at my brother. “The one with the beanie hat on?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. Beanie hats were Zacks thing. He wore it over the back of his glossy blond hair, revealing only his thick curly at the front through the top of the hat. “That’s my brother.”

“What now?” Ember asked.

“You tell me,” I muttered pessimistically. “I guess we wait.”

I was quite happy just to watch my brother for as long as Ember and Drew would allow me to, and I made myself comfy, leaning against the whiteboard on the back wall. The class was sat watching Zack and a small bunch of other pupils perform. I noticed Chloe was in my group. She was one of my best friends until… again, with the death.

“Wait a second lads,” my brother recited, reading slowly from his script, his voice well projected. “It’s an ambush. A ruse to draw us out and then ambush us. We’ll stay right here. We’ll wait to get order from up the line before we even consider moving a muscle.”

“He’s not half bad,” Ember whispered in my ear. Before I was killed, I would have spat back some kind of dig to down grade Zack but now I just nodded. He really was pretty good at drama, and you could see it even just in his stage presence.

“But don’t you think we should at least listen to them corporal?” a fellow actor addressed my brother who reacted with surprise.

“Lipton… Lipton? Are you crazy? Only weak heart give in like yours. For god’s sake, get your head down. You’re going to get it blown off.”

“Listen to the corporal,” Chloe chimed in, having to still read that one tiny simple line off her script. She could be good at acting if she wanted to be. I had seen her play the lead in our schools primary school. She really shone (no matter how cheesy that sounded) but now she was preoccupied with her look and she didn’t want to embarrass herself in front of all the boys in the class so she really shrivelled back when on stage.

They finished their scene and whilst the teacher was talking about their performance I began to wander round the class to look for any familiar faces. They were all vaguely familiar because I remembered seeing most of them around school but I did notice Blake in that class, and my heart seemed to miss a beat, but I didn’t say anything to the others. When class ended, and everyone impatiently filed out of the room I followed Zack down to the benches that he ate by with his mates.

“Isn’t this a bit pointless?” Ember asked. “It could be weeks before Unseen tries to take him.”

“He’s my brother Ember,” I hissed. “When he’s involved, nothings pointless.”

I watched Zack talk with my friends.

“Dude, you’re lucky,” his mate that I knew as Benny shouted punching him friendlily in the chest and laughing. “You haven’t done one piece of homework in months. I wish I could play that card.”

“It’s not a joke guys,” Zack muttered, looking down at his phone, texting with one hand and holding a sandwich with the other.

“But you can do what you want bro,” another of his friends stated. I didn’t know this friend. It must have been a new one. “The teachers don’t know what they should say to you, so you never get into trouble, you never have to do your homework… Sh!t! They’d probably say nothing if you skipped lessons all together.”