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  How quickly things had changed.

  All that wasted time. God, the days, the months, the years she’d let slip by. Ingratiating herself with the strong and the popular, maneuvering herself to make sure she was on the winning side. Worrying about what people thought instead of worrying about herself.

  No wonder she was always second best. How could you grow when you planted yourself in someone else’s shadow? She wanted Paul to see her for who she was, but she didn’t even show it to her best friends.

  I just wanted to be somebody, she thought. I wanted to be me.

  But she’d spent her days on games, stupid games, and none of it mattered anymore. Not now.

  She clutched her arm. It felt heavy and cold. She’d found a pair of black rubber gloves in a lab and put them on, because the creeping silver tendrils had made their way past her wrist now. It was a pitiful attempt to disguise what was happening to her, but she had no better ideas. She hadn’t dared look beneath her sleeve since the helicopter landed. If she didn’t look, it wouldn’t get worse.

  But it was worse. She could tell. This was what it felt like when you changed. This chill, sparkling feeling, followed by the numbness, like when you leaned on an arm too long and it went dead. It had happened rapidly to the other kids, sweeping through them in one swift conquest, taking them over in minutes. For Caitlyn, there was no such mercy. It seeped into her like rot, and turned her inch by inch.

  And when it reached her brain, what then? Would that, too, go cold and numb? Or would something even more terrible happen?

  She stared through the gaps between the planks. Out there, on the roof of the sports hall, she could see Paul and Mr. Sutton and the strangers. They were climbing down through the hatch into the building. In a few minutes, if all was well, they’d come running back toward the science block.

  He had to make it back. He had to. Because she had to tell him something. She had to tell him how she felt. And it didn’t matter that he didn’t love her back. It didn’t matter that it was all too late. What mattered was that she said those words. Because she refused to pretend anymore. And she wanted him to know her, before the end. She wasn’t going to waste another second.

  God, how could she think so calmly? Why wasn’t she wild, flailing about crazily and raging at her fate?

  Because it wouldn’t do any good. She was infected. It was over.

  She heard the door to the classroom open behind her. She didn’t turn. She knew who it would be. He’d come for her.

  “Alright, Caitlyn?” said Adam.

  She felt a wave of disgust at the sound of his voice. “Get lost,” she told him.

  He ignored her and wandered into the room. She heard the door close behind him, and turned away from the window. He stood there in the darkness. Slats of yellow light from outside lined his face and broad body. He was holding the radiator pipe in one hand.

  She was afraid of him, always had been. Afraid of his stupid, unthinking, brutal nature, afraid of the way he might lurch into violence at any moment. And she hated him, like she hated Erika. How was it fair that they’d escaped the fate she was condemned to?

  “You cold or something?” Adam asked.

  “Huh?”

  “The gloves. What you wearing gloves for?” he said in a tone that suggested he knew exactly what she was wearing gloves for. Why did he bother with those sly intimidations? They both knew what he was going to do next.

  “What do you want?” she asked him anyway.

  “I want to take a peek at that cut you’ve got. See if it’s healing up okay.”

  “It’s fine,” she spat. “Thanks for your concern.”

  “Think I’ll take a look anyway,” he said, stepping closer.

  She darted to one side, but he was quicker. He grabbed her by the shoulder, shoved her hard up against the wall. The impact was enough to bring tears to her eyes. He pinned her there with the iron bar pressed across her breastbone, and yanked back her sleeve hard enough to rip her cardigan.

  Silver. Her whole arm was covered in a mesh of silver.

  He shoved himself away from her, fear and anger in his own eyes now. He kept the radiator pipe pointed at her, keeping her at a distance, staring at her accusingly. She sobbed, shocked by his attack, dazzled by the pain.

  “Don’t,” she said, and was ashamed of herself for begging him. “Don’t tell them.”

  “Infected!” Adam yelled over his shoulder. “We’ve got Infected in here!” And he raised his pipe as if to hit her.

  Caitlyn cringed away and slipped to the floor, cowering there. She was crying in earnest now.

  “Infected!” Adam shouted, this time right at her, and she thought he was going to hit her then, to bring that pipe down on her skull, and part of her hoped he’d do it. There were running footsteps coming along the corridor, and two more boys ran in, with iron bars and Molotov cocktails in their hands. They stared at her there, amazed by what they saw, not knowing what to do. Then their eyes were drawn by the silver glint on her arm, and they understood, and their expressions changed. She knew what they were thinking then, and the horror of it made her cry all the harder.

  Monster. Outcast.

  Infected.

  Paul pushed open the door of the swim hall and looked through.

  Nothing moved, and everything moved. The restless play of light on the ceiling from the pool lamps made the whole hall alive. The drip and lap of water rang in the empty space.

  Paul waited. He searched out every hiding place he could see. The shadows under the benches. Behind the lifeguard chair. The corridors to the changing rooms, where he’d last seen the thing that might once have been Mrs. Fowler. No matter how hard he looked, he couldn’t be sure.

  “I think it’s gone,” he whispered.

  He pushed the door open, and they hurried into the room, Carson with his arm around Radley’s shoulder, hopping as fast as he could go. Paul took the lead, iron bar held at the ready, head turning this way and that to seek out danger. The shifting patterns of light from the water confused his vision.

  Don’t be here. Don’t be here.

  They passed along the side of the pool, following its length to the far end of the hall, trying not to make a noise. And miraculous though it seemed, nothing emerged to threaten them. They reached the far door, opened it, and found the corridor on the other side equally deserted.

  It was only as Paul was closing the door behind him that he thought he heard a splash from the pool. But when he looked back into the hall, he couldn’t see what had made it.

  They retraced their steps to the office where Paul and Mr. Sutton had broken in. At the back of the sports hall there was only a narrow strip of lawn with the campus wall on one side and the hall on the other. It was sheltered from sight, and out of the way. Paul checked that the coast was clear outside, and they helped Carson through the window.

  They could still hear the distant hue and cry from the science block as they crept up to the corner of the sports hall and faced the expanse of open ground that lay between them and safety. It would be a lot longer on the way back, now that they had to slow to Carson’s speed.

  He checked the way ahead. There were a few Infected running past the staff garage, over by the driveway. He thought he saw something moving near the fountain farther down the drive, but that was some distance away. Considering how many students had been on campus, and how many had presumably turned, there weren’t very many Infected around.

  So where were they? And what were they doing?

  Well, for now, he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He waved at Mark, who was standing vigilantly at the window with the rolled-up fire ladder. Mark spotted him and beckoned frantically.

  Paul looked back at the others. “Let’s do it,” he said.

  And they were off. Except this time there was no frantic sprint, no shoes pounding the turf and lungs bursting as their legs ate up the distance. Carson traveled in jolting hops, his arm across Radley’s shoulders like a man
in a three-legged race. Mr. Sutton went ahead of them, and Paul brought up the rear, but they couldn’t move much faster than a jog without leaving the pilot behind.

  On the way over, time had stretched to impossible lengths, turning a minute into ten. On the way back, it was worse. Paul had to resist the urge to bolt for safety. He didn’t even know why he stopped himself. What did he owe Carson after all? The man was all but useless if the helicopter didn’t work.

  And yet he wouldn’t let himself abandon the pilot. Not the scientist, either. It didn’t matter how useful or useless they were, it was because they were in it together. All of them: the teachers, the students, and these newcomers. And whether he liked them or not, it didn’t matter. He might not have chosen them as companions, but there they were.

  Mr. Sutton was right. They needed each other to survive. And Carson needed them right now.

  He saw a group of Infected nearby, running in the other direction. They didn’t look over, didn’t see. There was a flash of movement in a lower window of the science block, something passing across the hole left by the broken planks. Whatever it was, it didn’t spot them. By then they were halfway, and Paul was beginning to wonder how much longer their luck could possibly hold.

  The answer came a few seconds later, with a bloodcurdling screech.

  An Infected came racing toward them from around the west side of the sports hall, where a path ran between that building and the main body of the school. Though it had once been small, its limbs and fingers were long and thin, giving it the look of some hideous goblin. There was little that was human in its face anymore: Its nose had virtually disappeared; its mouth had widened and filled with fangs. Its hair had turned to filaments, hanging limply around its head. It moved with the flexibility of an animal, but there was no flesh visible now: tongue and tendons, joints and eyes, all were silver.

  “Move it!” Paul screamed at Carson as he dug in his satchel for a flash bomb.

  But they were already going as fast as they could. And right at that moment, another Infected appeared, coming from around the side of the science block. Rushing to cut them off.

  Paul clicked the gas lighter, trying to make a flame, but it wouldn’t work when he was running, so he was forced to halt. He clicked again, but it stubbornly refused to catch until the third time. By then he was panicking, and when he raised his head the Infected was closer than he’d imagined. He lobbed the flash bomb out onto the lawn and ran at full speed to catch up with the others.

  A few moments later, the bomb went off with a bang, stunning the scene with a flicker of artificial lightning. Both of the Infected froze; the one ahead of them tumbled to the ground, tripped by its own momentum.

  “Keep going!” he yelled at Radley and Carson, who’d slowed at the sight of the Infected in their path. He shoved them onward, past Mr. Sutton, who was struggling to light a Molotov cocktail. Paul looked back at the frozen creature that had been chasing after him —

  — and the creature burst into motion again, flailing at the air, screeching, as if it had never paused.

  No, no, that’s too fast, it wore off too fast!

  The flash bombs weren’t working so well now. The Infected were adapting.

  Paul swung the iron bar in his hand and caught the creature hard on the side of the neck with a loud ring of metal on metal. It went rolling to the ground, long limbs tangling like a killed spider. But it wasn’t dead: only stunned. He’d bought them a few seconds at best.

  A whump of flame and a wave of hot air brought his attention to the other Infected, but that one was out of the game now. Mr. Sutton had thrown his Molotov cocktail and burned it where it lay. It tried to get to its feet, but the fire consumed it, and its efforts didn’t last for long.

  Mark let down the ladder; it unrolled and thumped to the ground. Carson and Radley were almost there now. Three more Infected came rushing in a group from the direction of the lake. It seemed they all knew now, whether by the cry or some other, more insidious form of mental communication. They were flocking.

  The Infected that Paul had hit was trying to get up. Paul smashed it over the head again. He couldn’t kill it, but he could buy them the seconds they needed.

  Radley pushed off of Carson and climbed up the ladder ahead of him. The pilot clambered after, more slowly. Mr. Sutton yelled at Paul to get moving. Paul obeyed, having delayed as long as he dared. A glance at the oncoming Infected told him that they were too far away to intercept them before they got up the ladder.

  We’re going to make it!

  But then he saw movement in the shadow of the school building. Something huge. A hunched shape that slunk into the light.

  The dog. Except much, much bigger.

  “Oh, hell,” he muttered, and ran.

  It broke into a lope and then a sprint, rushing across the lawn toward them. When Paul had last seen it, it had been unusually big, but not freakish. Now it was more like the prehistoric mammals he’d seen depicted as models in the glass cases of a museum. It must have been nine feet long and five feet at the shoulder, a monster of armor and sinew with jaws like industrial machinery. It had warped and swollen into a thing of primal savagery, future and past all crushed together, raw instinct cased in cold metal.

  Mr. Sutton had seen it, too, and backed away toward the ladder. Radley was already at the top, clambering over the sill. Carson was struggling up behind. Paul had time for a flash of anger at the scientist, who’d left his companion stranded while he saved his own skin. Then he saw the horde of Infected come pouring around the side of the science block building.

  The distraction had finally failed. The Infected were alerted. They were coming.

  There was a blinding flash, and the horde stopped, some of them clattering into each other and tipping to the ground. It was a flash bomb, thrown by Mark from the window. Paul hadn’t even seen it coming, and it dazzled him, too. He kept running anyway, blinking the glare from his eyes. Mr. Sutton was shouting at him. “Go on, Paul! Go on!”

  But what about you? Paul thought. It wasn’t enough to slow him. He was too frightened, too scared of the beast bearing down on them and the horde closing in. There was no way to fight them now. His bravado had disappeared. And there was Mr. Sutton urging him onto the ladder and not even a second to waste on argument. So he launched himself at the ladder and scrambled up it as fast as his legs and hands would take him, following the pilot, who was being pulled inside by Mark.

  Then the horde was in motion again. They vaulted over the fallen and raced toward Mr. Sutton. Mr. Sutton grabbed on to the bottom of the ladder and began yanking himself up, and as Paul got one knee up on the sill he looked back and saw that the horde was still too far away, that Mark’s flash bomb had bought Mr. Sutton the seconds he needed to get to safety. And Mr. Sutton knew it, too. As he looked up and met Paul’s gaze, those sad eyes were full of hope.

  Then there was a blur of silver beneath him, and a tearing sound. The ladder was wrenched sideways, and Paul almost fell, but Carson grabbed his arms and hauled him inside with one huge tug.

  Paul collapsed on the floor on the other side of the sill, his breath shuddering. Mark was staring out the window, his eyes wide. Paul waited, and waited … but Mr. Sutton didn’t come.

  “The dog?” he asked quietly.

  Nobody replied. Paul felt a numbness spread through his body, killing all feeling. It had happened again. Just like his parents, it had happened again. One minute here, the next … gone.

  “Pull up the ladder,” he said.

  “There’s not much ladder left,” said Carson, who was also looking out.

  Mark began to say something, but then he started crying instead. Radley stood nearby, mopping his brow with his sleeve, looking awkward.

  Paul got to his feet. He could hear the baying of the Infected outside. Mr. Sutton was gone. That was all there was to it. They’d lost him.

  He looked from the pilot to the scientist and back again. “You two had better be worth it,” he said, and
he walked out of the room.

  Paul only made it a short way down the corridor before his legs went weak, and he had to lean against the wall to prevent himself from sliding to the ground.

  Mr. Sutton. He’s gone. Just like that. Damn it, what do we do now?

  He barely had a moment to recover before he heard footsteps and saw a Year Ten boy coming purposefully toward him. He recognized him by his emo bangs: a kid Mr. Sutton had called Johnny. Paul stood away from the wall and steadied himself.

  “Did you get ’em? The men from the chopper? Who are they?” Johnny asked.

  “We’re gonna find out,” he heard himself say. That calm voice couldn’t possibly have been his.

  “Where’s Mr. S?” asked Johnny, looking past him.

  The lights overhead dimmed and flickered. They both looked up. Were the generators running out already? Was it just a stutter in the supply? Or had the Infected gone after the generators the way they’d gone after the power lines?

  After a few seconds, the lights steadied again. Their eyes met, and each knew what the other did. Time was running out.

  Paul looked over the kid in front of him. He seemed like he was holding together well. He’d been in charge of arranging the distraction on the far side of the science block, appointed by Mr. Sutton.

  Well, if Mr. Sutton trusted him, then Paul did, too.

  “Listen, here’s what I want you to do. You did a great job causing a distraction, but now we need everyone back at their posts. Lookouts on the roof, people at the windows, and somebody watching the doors to the stairs in case the Infected try another push. Somebody responsible, who can give ’em a jolt of electricity if necessary. Think you can organize all that?”

  Johnny regarded him from behind the black shield of his hair. “Sure,” he said. “I’m on it.”

  “Soon as there’s news, I’ll let everyone know,” said Paul.