Chapter Text
A few hours later, when the sweet silence settled over the halls of Hatchetfield High, Richie, and Max slowly creeped out of the locker room. Pools of blue blood seeped out of the bodies of their infected classmates. Against the lockers, Alice’s body lay still, a gunshot wound in her stomach. Deb was crumpled in a ball next to her, her red hair had been stained blue as her blood flowed out of her temples.
“So they’re . . . dead dead,” Richie whispered.
“Super dead.” Max saw the limp body of a man in the doorway of the choir room. A bullet hole went right through his head.
There was no singing. No music. Nothing but an eerie silence.
Lockers had been blown open. The blue metal had been ripped from the hinges and scattered throughout the halls. The smell of smoke rose from burnt papers and backpacks. A cracked iPhone lay in the middle of the hall.
They headed for the door at the end of the hall. As they passed the choir room, Max saw the still body of Ruth. Her headgear was bent and her curly hair was matted with blood. Her skull had been cracked open and Max could see the spot on the floor where her head probably hit the ground.
Max hurried Richie past the choir room, hoping that Richie hadn’t seen his friend.
When the doors were opened, the cold air from outside rushed to them. The night sky was devoid of stars. The fog took on a blue hue and danced around the street.
“What time is it?” Mas asked.
Richie shrugged. “I have no clue. My phone died hours ago.”
Max looked around at the ruined town of Hatchetfield. Some of the lights were still on in the now-empty houses. The street lights shone down on the abandoned sidewalks.
“So, what now?” Richie asked as they walked through the fog. “Are we just supposed to stay in Hatchetfield? How do we get off the island? Can we get off the island?”
They made it to the small town square. They could hear faint singing in the distance.
Next to the fountain in the middle of the square, the two boys took a seat on a wooden bench.
The wind whistled through the trees that grew around the square and the fountain bubbled in front of them. The blue lights of the destroyed Starlight Theater shone from down the street, glittering through the fog. The buzzing of a helicopter somewhere in the sky covered the sound of someone singing a few blocks down.
Richie stared at the water that poured out of the fountain. He leaned onto Max and rested his head on Max’s shoulder. “Everyone’s gone,” he said.
“I know.” Max looked around at their hometown. Once buzzing with life, a small town full of weird people who went about their mundane lives without a care in the world was now empty. Devoid of human life. Replaced with shells of people who danced and sang together in harmony.
The buzzing sound of a helicopter rang out over Hatchetfield.
Richie and Max looked for where the sound was coming from.
“Do you think they’re here to get survivors?” Richie asked.
Max stood up, scanning the dark sky. “God, I hope so.”
The cracking beat of a snare drum sounded. Like the ones that the Hatchetfield High marching band would play during parades or halftime at football games.
Down the street, Max could see a parade of people, dressed in military uniforms, all marching to the beat of the snare drum toward them.
The soldiers had moved from the street and were now marching on the grass of the square.
“Maybe they’re here to help us?” Richie stood behind Max as they watched the parade of soldiers march up to them.
All of their faces were obstructed by helmets. Their eyes were hidden behind dark goggles. They nearly blended into the darkness that fell over the town, only being illuminated by the flickering street lights.
“Hello?” Max called out. “We’re human! We need help!”
The snare drum kept rattling the same marching tune as the soldiers inched closer.
None of the soldiers said anything until they were an arm’s length away from Max and Richie.
Max waved his hand in front of one of their faces. “Sir? Ma’am? Whatever you are, we need help. For the love of God, please tell me you aren’t infected too.”
“I don’t know what you’ve been told, but Americans should fit a mold.” The soldier in front of Max reached out for him.
Max jumped back into Richie. “Fuck,” he muttered. “We’re so fucking dead.”
One of the soldiers pulled Richie backward. “There’s a war to be fought in this country against those who are far too bold.”
“Let go of him!” Max tried to grab Richie from the soldier but was held back.
“Two-party system, left and right. There’s only room for right and wrong. It’s me or you or you or me. The loud has become the strong. Yeah, we’re great again.”
The chorus of soldiers sang out in harmony as Richie was dragged back to the fountain.
“America’s great again.”
The chorus continued to sing as Richie struggled against the soldier’s hold. “Max!” Richie’s legs hit the stone wall of the fountain. The realization of what was happening seemed to hit him when his face dropped and he looked back at Max, then at the water coming out from the fountain.
The fountain’s clear water had become a glowing blue as Richie kept trying to back away from it. “Stop! Please!” Two soldiers grabbed his arms and shoved him into the fountain. “Max, run!”
Max felt a pull on his arm as he tried to go after Richie. He turned to see the one holding him smiling at him. Their teeth were stained blue and drops of blue fell out of their mouth.
“You can’t run.”
“You can’t run . . .”
“You can’t run . . .”
Max threw a punch at the one holding him, knocking them back. He wrenched his arm out of their grip and stepped back, right into the grasp of two others.
“Cause our borders are closed.”
“Our borders are closed . . .”
“ Our borders are closed . . .”
He looked back at Richie, who was trying to climb out of the fountain. He was covered in the blue water. His hair was stuck to his forehead and blue streamed down his face. Just as he had one foot outside the fountain, a pair of hands pulled him back into the water.
“You’re staring down the gun . . . ”
Out of the corner of his eye, Max saw one of them pull out a gun and point it at him, but all he could look at was Richie. No matter how much he tried to save him, the soldiers were much stronger.
“‘Cause you’re easily disposed . . .”
Water splashed out of the fountain, staining the sidewalk around it blue as Richie struggled to keep his head above water. Every time he managed to bring himself up for air, he was quickly shoved back underwater.
“The final solution . . .”
Max saw Richie try to gasp for air just as his head went back underwater, no doubt taking in the blue liquid and not air. Max watched as Richie coughed up blue every time his head came back up.
“It’s a chartered course at the whim of our own evolution! Singularity had through a pre-destined self-destruction.”
Richie had said before that drowning feels like it takes an eternity, and now Max understood. Although he wasn’t the one drowning, watching it happen made time stop completely. He listened as the choir sang in perfect and haunting harmonies and watched as they drowned his classmate right in front of him, and there was nothing he could do about it.
“So that we may rebuild and experience a new construction.”
Richie thrashed around in the fountain, struggling against the infected soldiers. But his attempts at freeing himself became weaker and weaker. As Richie fought to keep his head above water, with each breath, more glowing blue liquid made its way into his lungs.
“Yeah, we’re great again.”
The notes that were sung echoed around him as he watched Richie stop fighting and fall still. Max couldn’t feel the two soldiers holding him anymore as he prayed for Richie to get up and climb out of the fountain. But he never did.
He almost didn’t notice when the sound of a gun firing rang out. An intense stinging pain in his shoulder caused him to stumble back as the soldiers continued to sing. His foot slipped on a piece of metal and he fell back onto some of the rubble of the destroyed picnic area covering. He didn’t know something could hurt more than the bullet in his shoulder until he looked down at the piece of wood sticking through his chest.
Stars dotted his vision as he looked up into the starless night sky.
The soldiers were still singing but he couldn’t make out what the words were over the ringing in his ears. He heard the faint chopping of the helicopter in the distance, just before he caught a glimpse of it falling out of the night sky, just like the meteor that crashed into the Starlight.
As Max’s vision began to darken, he watched as the military marched off in the direction of the theater, leaving the two teenage boys alone to die in the Hatchetfield town square. One dead in the fountain and the other with a bullet in his shoulder and impaled by scraps of wood.
They say when you die, everything turns to black. The blackout before a scene change. But as Max’s consciousness faded, all he saw was blue.