Haven Read Online Free PDF Page B

before remarking that he should have been taking a test in there right about then. We kept a cautious distance from each other, close but not enough to touch, and I was always acutely aware of every movement he made. We checked the administration offices, the gym, the library, the cafeteria, every large area we thought might be a place someone would go for help. There was no one.
    As we turned the last corner back into the main hallway and saw Doc, Beverly, and Mei there, still alone, he muttered the number three. “That makes five total.”
    I knew exactly what he meant. Our high school started with over 2100 students and 320 people on staff that morning. Only five of us made it inside.
    And even though I barely knew him, and hadn’t said more than a hundred words to him, I was incredibly thankful that Harrison was one of them.

~ 2 ~
    H AD THE TEMPERATURES BEEN COOLER, MAYBE more would have survived that first day. Thick winter sweaters and bulky jackets could have offered them some protection. As poor luck would have it, most everyone I saw wore short-sleeved shirts, a decision they wouldn’t even have a chance to regret. There were lockdown protocols and procedures in place. Mr. Packard scheduled drills in the past, but these had always been conducted while students were in class. We’d never held a drill when students were roaming the halls and arriving at school. We’d been instructed, but never put into practice, that if a non-weather-related emergency were to take place and we were outside that we should sit down, brace ourselves, and wait. These were the instructions of the School Board of Education, and far too many people followed them. Mei had been one of them. We learned this when her eyelids began to flutter and she sat up in confusion.
    “What…?”she asked and then started again. “What…?”
    “There was an attack on the school,” Beverly explained brusquely.
    “But you’re safe,” I added.
    Harrison knelt in front of her. “Do you have a headache?”
    “No…”
    “Dizziness? Ringing in the ears? Nausea?”
    “No…”
    He smiled and stood up. “I think you’ll be all right.”
    “How would you know, Lone Ranger,” Beverly mocked, alluding to Harrison’s life in Texas.
    She didn’t daunt him in the least. “You learn a few things on the range, including how to ID basic medical conditions.”
    She rolled her eyes back to the lockers, clearly unimpressed.
    Mei struggled to push herself to her feet, and Doc broke his stride to help her. “Thanks,” she said, giving him a weak smile.
    “He found you outside,” I explained nodding toward Doc, “and brought you in.”
    She studied him for a second. “Thanks…again.”
    “You’re welcome.”
    “Do you remember what happened?” Harrison asked.
    Her head fell forward as she thought about it. “I saw something…someone coming at me. There was blood down his shirt,” she shuddered, “and his mouth was open like he was screaming but…he wasn’t. So I went down, in a crouch, and then…then…” She looked back up at us, confused. “He…He was in my English Lit class…”
    None of us had a response to that.
    “Where is everybody?” she asked, noticing we were the only ones present.
    “Beats us,” Beverly yawned, and checked the time on her cell phone, again.
    I filled Mei in on what had happened so far and watched as her face grew steadily more alarmed. When I was done, she marched to Beverly and asked to use her phone.
    “No one’s answering,” she informed Mei.
    There was terseness in Mei’s tone when she asked for it again. “May I please use your phone?”
    Beverly exhaled loudly, gave Mei a piercing look, punched in her code, and then handed it to her, reluctantly.
    Mei rushed to dial a number as we watched. It dawned on me then that I hadn’t called a single person and neither had Harrison.
    Keeping my voice low, I asked Doc, “Did you try to call anyone?”
    “Huh?” He glanced up. “Yeah. Same thing. No