LICE: PART FOUR
A Short Story...
Hello Cherished Readers! This is Part Four of my short story, LICE! I hope you enjoy! :)
RECAP FROM PART THREE:
Crystal hissed over her shoulder, “Can one of you idiots help me look for a light switch? Is now really the time to pretend like you both aren’t dweebs who spend most of your time playing COD and fapping over Margot Robbie?”
Rhodes shook his head, “Look man, she’s right. Fighting right now isn’t what we need to be doing. Just try, okay? Please?”
Tucker didn’t respond, opting to nod and pull up Google while Rhodes made his way to the other wall, shining his phone light around to avoid stumbling in the dark. He was just about to give up when the whole auditorium lit up.
“Got it!” Crystal said, grinning.
“Thanks!”
Tucker whistled to grab their attention, and held his phone up, “Well, that didn’t take half as long as I thought it would. It’s all over the news!”
Date: Today. Time: 11:47am. Location: Genzberg High School. Auditorium.
“What do you mean, it’s all over the news?” Rhodes asked, snatching the phone out of Tucker’s hand.
“Well, kind of…it sounds like something went wrong at Luminate Labs, and it’s spread to the school. Of course, they’re not saying exactly what these things are, but, something was started there that the government wants kept under wraps,” Tucker said with a shrug. “I’m still trying to think what exactly I saw out there eating people, and you’re going to think I’m insane but I had a flashback to third grade.”
Crystal sighed, “And, that’s helpful…how, exactly? Honestly, I say who gives a fuck what it is? Why don’t you use your phone to call 9-1-1?”
Tucker pointed towards the exit, “Um, in case you hadn’t noticed, the fucking SWAT team outside won’t even let us leave! What the fuck are cops going to do? They said we were being quarantined.”
Rhodes ripped his phone out of his pocket, “He’s right. Besides, service is shotty. My mom still hasn’t texted back, and we should be conserving the batteries as best we can…we don’t know how long we’ll be stuck here,” he yawned. He was exhausted. “Tuck, what were you saying about third grade?”
Tucker yawned too, “Well, you hadn’t moved here yet, but Crystal will probably remember this. In third grade the two of us went to Ryerson Elementary, and there was a pretty bad head lice outbreak. We all had to go to the school’s nurses office and get our heads examined.”
Crystal gasped, “That’s right! And Tawnie Lawson got called Licey Lawson for two months because she was the first in our grade to get them.”
Tucker nodded, “Well, one thing I remember because we were getting our heads checked almost every day, was a poster in the nurse’s office. It was a giant poster of a head lice, and for some reason, when we were running and people were going down left and right, what little I could make out…the bugs reminded me of the poster.”
Crystal shook her head, “Dude. Are you really trying to say we’ve been shut up in this shit hole because of…what? Evil lice? You can’t be serious.”
Rhodes looked up photos of lice on his phone and held it up to Tucker, “Think really hard. Are these what you saw?”
“Man, I don’t know what I fucking saw…but, yeah? That’s the closest thing I can think of. And, obviously, this has something to do with Luminate Labs according to the article, so, I mean, is it really that far off? A lot of labs do animal testing. Maybe Luminate was trying something more…discreet? Maybe it got out of control.”
“Labs that do animal testing should all burn to the ground.” Crystal said.
“Especially, if they’ve unleashed an army of chemically engineered mega-carnivorous lice.” Tucker replied with a smirk.
Rhodes glanced at his mom’s unread text, and his stomach soured. Could his mom really have been involved with this? He blinked back tears, cleared his throat, and said, “Well, either way. We’ve been lucky that we’re pretty safe in here so far, but we can’t stay here forever. We’ve got to stay on the move and think of a way out. Crystal, do you know of any other exits we can try? I don’t care how inconsequential it may seem.”
Crystal ran her fingertips over her now chapped lips in thought and snapped her fingers, “Uh, I mean…maybe the roof?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa…hang on,” Tucker said. “The roof? All that’s going to do is trap us even more!”
“Maybe not!” Rhodes said, while he started pacing back and forth, a plan slowly unfurling in his mind. “We can get to the roof and two things could happen. Number one: we make it, and they call off the quarantine, and save us. Or, number two: we climb down and just make an insane run for it.”
“Climb down how exactly?” Tucker asked throwing his hands up.
“I’m sure there’s a way down, and if not—-half of campus is surrounded by trees…we’ll jump if we have to. I’d rather risk dying from a broken neck than withering away in fucking high school.”
Crystal piped up, “Or getting eaten alive. Fuck…I’m sold. I think there’s a vent in the audio room, we can maybe try getting out that way.”
“What is this? Mission Impossible? Who the hell actually climbs around through vents?” Tucker snorted.
At that moment, they heard a loud skittering sound from over their shoulders. Rhodes felt ice cold fear creep up his spine and the hairs on the back of his neck shot up at attention. Crystal grabbed him and Tucker by their wrists, and her voice was tight and clipped, “G-guys…what the hell was that?”
Rhodes strained his eyes across the auditorium and felt the air leave his lungs when a second wave of sound smashed against the sealed door to the auditorium. It was followed up by a chilling tidal wave of skittering and popping sounds.
“Actually, vents sound great! We gotta’ move and we gotta’ move now!” Tucker said.
Rhodes felt like his feet were glued to the ground, and was grateful when Crystal took off, lugging himself and Tucker behind her when a final, loud SLAM thrust against the sealed auditorium door and busted it down in a haze of watery, exoskeletal movement that tore towards the group at break-neck speed.
He wasn’t sure what Crystal’s plan was at first, but he figured it out soon enough when she had circled them around the auditorium and up a flight of stairs guiding them all towards the audio and projection room. Tucker slipped and fell half way up.
Crystal screamed at the top of her lungs, pausing to run back to help him as Tucker waved her off, “NO TIME! GO! GO!”
Rhodes realized in that moment, that Tucker had been right. There was no denying what these things were as they’re distinct exoskeletons stormed after them. It also wasn’t lost on him that the lice must’ve multiplied in the short amount of time since the school got infiltrated, because there had to be hundreds of them now, that all converged on Tucker instantly.
Tucker screamed as he got buried, and the last thing Rhodes could hear was the sound of his best friend’s body being ripped apart and eaten alive from the inside out. Rhodes grabbed Crystal, who was so weak on her knees, he felt like he was carrying her and darted into the audio room. Thank God, he thought, when his eyes landed on a vent in the ceiling.
He shoved a chair underneath, then propelled himself up and used his whole strength to rip the vent open. He shimmied his through and then pulled Crystal up right as another resounding SLAM hit against that door, too. The two of them didn’t stop for anything, as they shuffled through the vents, and the only sounds that echoed around them was their collective breaths heaving in and out. Rhodes led the way forward, and he kept his eyes peeled for a path that broke off and went upwards.
The vents were insufferable. Rhodes figured the power to the school must’ve been cut off, because he felt like he was baking alive, and even slipped a couple of times from how sweaty his hands had gotten. The vents were also dark. The only light coming through was from the sunlight emitted in from the windows in passing classrooms from down below. He wondered what time it was. It felt like it had been forever, but based on the sunshine, it could still only be a little past noon. Will this shit ever end?
Crystal’s shattered, ragged voice came from over his shoulder, “Rhodes…th-that was Tucker back there. H-he’s dead. We watched him die. Oh God, we watched him die! We didn’t go back for him, we—-”
Rhodes fought against the lump in his bone dry-throat, and closed his eyes to keep himself from vomiting, “We couldn’t have done anything, Crystal.”
“It was so fast.”
“Yeah,” Rhodes said, releasing a long, labored breath.
“Are we gonna’ die?”
“No, we’re going to get out of here, one way or another. We just have to stay calm, and—-”
The vents rippled beneath them, and Crystal rang out, “Oh God, Rhodes! They’re in the vents with us!”
He pressed forward with more determination than ever as creeping, liquid-sounding chitters echoed all around them, and the vents shook like an earthquake.
“What if there’s no way up?” Crystal asked. “I don’t know how much longer I can make it!”
“There has to be! Hold on!” He said, and he bit his lip against the pain from the fabric of his jeans rubbing blisters into his kneecaps.
The sounds got closer, and the shaking got more dense, and more terrifying, when Rhodes finally saw an opening up above that shot upwards. He bolted for it using his shoulders against the edges of the top to steady him from falling, and slowed his breathing down to help his Claustrophobia. He propelled himself forward while the top of Crystal’s head brushed against his heels as little by little they clamored towards the top. Thin traces of light shone down inside through the slivers of the vent, and he latched on with both of his hands and broke it open.
TO BE CONTINUED…
Oh no. Continued again? I saw a couple of places that need correcting: Tucker fell up the stairs? another place. Don't remember it now. this was an exciting chapter.