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freshman by playing off his last name, telling opposing teams that he had them each listed on a roster and would be checking them off as he incapacitated them on the field. After he proved he wasn’t just talk, someone gave him the name Doc, which was an acronym for Department of Corrections, implying that he was ‘correcting’ players on the field and checking them off his list.. Right now, he was nibbling on his thumbnail and scanning the floor as if it might stand up and attack him.
    Doc and Todd Beckholt were good friends, but I didn’t think he was aware of what had happened to Todd. Right now, he seemed unhinged because he’d witnessed the broader issue…that a lot of people outside had met the same fate as Todd.
    Next to Doc lay the third and final person who’d made it safely inside. Clearly, she didn’t do it on her own because she was unconscious. My jaw dropped at the sight of her, because she was the one I was trying to help earlier. I hadn’t taken the time to notice before, but I knew her, or more accurately knew of her. We didn’t have the same friends, but someone that smart didn’t go without some kind of social standing.
    I bent down to her. “Mei?”
    She didn’t respond.
    “Is she…injured?” I asked, assuming they’d understand who I meant, and had already checked for signs of life.
    Doc answered, which impressed me, even if he didn’t stop his pacing or look up when he did it. “She’s not bleeding anywhere.”
    “Did you carry her-”
    “Yeah, yeah, that was me,” he mumbled, still pacing.
    Harrison spoke for the first time, commenting, “Nice job.”
    That seemed to break through Doc’s stupor. He came to a halt, his head swiveled up at Harrison, and he replied bluntly, “Thanks.” His pacing resumed, although he did stop chewing his thumbnail.
    “We need an ambulance for her,” I said.
    Beverly snickered. “We need a lot of them.”
    I looked at her and noticed the cell phone again. “Did you call for any, Beverly?”
    “Yeah…,” she uttered, bleakly. It was unnerving.
    “And?”
    “They didn’t answer.”
    I fell silent, processing this news, but she led me to the conclusion I was getting to anyway. “It just kept ringing…like no one was there to pick up.”
    Immediately, I was on my feet.
    “Where are you going?”
    “Mr. Packard’s office. He has medical training.”
    Beverly sighed. “Well, good luck with that.”
    “Why?” Harrison asked, cautiously.
    “Because he’s dead,” she stated bluntly.
    And I came to a staggering standstill.
    “He was locking the back gate, you know, the ones designed to protect us,” she sneered, “and one of those…things…caught his arm. It pulled him through the bars while the others… chowed down.”
    Chowed down. That was something my dad used to say when he set my dinner plate in front of me. Chow down, Kennedy. Chow down on that tube steak and moo juice. That phrase was now being applied to his best friend’s cause of death, and suddenly everything felt surreal.
    I only dimly registered Doc’s loud exhale. “If Mr. Packard didn’t survive, how are we supposed to?”
    “Kennedy?” Harrison said, startling me.
    He was right next to me now. How’d he get there without me noticing?
    Get a grip, Kennedy.
    “Are you all right?” he asked.
    I nodded, even though I wasn’t quite sure.
    He didn’t respond, but I felt him watching me, waiting for me to collapse. No such luck there. No one in my family had ever fainted and I wasn’t going to embarrass them by doing it now.
    Spinning around, I found Doc had ended his rambling walk across the hallway and was now staring at the main entrance.
    “Where is everyone? Where are the teachers? The paramedics? The police? What’s happening out there?” he asked, justifiably perplexed, his gaze on the glass doors even though we were too far away to see anything but blue sky.
    “Whatever it is, it’s happening fast,” Beverly replied.
    “How do you know?” Doc