Zero Day

Previous Chapter

August 25th, 2016

Kinsky, California, USA

Zero Day

It was roughly an hour before the school day started, and Kinsky High was empty save for a few early-bird wanderers. When Lukas pulled up in his car, the parking lot was almost entirely empty. He picked a spot close to the front gate.

Out in the courtyard, there was an array of dozens of identical dark blue metal tables, yet only one caught Lukas’ eye. As he approached, he got a better look at Emily, who was writing in a small planner and wore a simple orange-brown knit sweater.

“Yo,” Lukas called out as he approached and put down his backpack across from the girl. Emily’s head turned up, her eyes sparked with familiarity.

“Hey.”

The boy sat down, unzipping the top of his backpack, fiddling with a few things inside. A red notebook caught his attention, and he remembered what he wanted to ask.

“We both have Reese, right?”

Emily had gone back to her planner after Lukas sat down, but once he spoke again she looked back up. “Oh, that’s right! You sit in the back next to Russell, yeah?”

“Oh, yeah, ha ha…” His laugh was weak. “Well, depending on how things go, I might… ah… need your help in that class. Don’t think Chem is my strong suit.”

Emily chuckled. “Yeah, I’m sure you will. You and Russell, both. Don’t worry, you can ask me for help anytime.”

“Thanks, Em.” Lukas scratched the back of his head. “I’ll try not to waste too much of your time with it.”

“Oh, it’s fine. Teaching stuff to other people helps you learn it better. You’ll be helping me, too.”

The two went back to their own activities. Emily checked the planner for a few more minutes, before putting it back into her bag and pulling out a large three ring binder. Lukas took out the red notebook, read two words, then closed it and went on his phone.

Around twenty minutes had passed when Lukas looked up towards the entrance gate to see Rodrigo walking quickly towards their table. Lukas had just opened his mouth to greet him when he slammed his hands down on the table and leaned into the two.

“You guys hear what happened?”

Lukas looked at the teen sideways. He turned his glance over to Emily, only to see her give the same confused expression.

“No… what?” Lukas asked.

Rodrigo took a big exasperated sigh of air, looking to his sides, behind him, and wiping some sweat off his temple. “Uh, can we… go somewhere private?”

Lukas looked around. There were two blonde girls talking at the table next to them, but beyond that the campus was still fairly sparse.

“Rod, there’s literally no one here.”

“I, uh, I… just… let’s go somewhere private, okay?”

Both Lukas and Emily knew Rodrigo was prone to exaggeration, but there was something different about him today. Something off. They decided to entertain him, putting their stuff back in their bags and following him to an empty hallway inside one of the classroom buildings. Once they walked in, he looked around and listened. It was silent. He turned back to them, his arms out.

“Listen,” he whispered to the two. “I-I don’t know what else to say, but… Anita’s been murdered.”

Lukas let out a big sigh, looking away from the two then turning his head back. When he faced them again, he looked at Rodrigo with antagonism.

“Rod, if this is some kind of prank, it’s not fucking funny, okay?”

“It’s not a prank! I’m n-not lying, man! Rose told me about it, said Maria sent it out this morning to her close friends list!”

Emily put the tips of her fingers to her lips, and shook her head. “You must’ve just… misinterpreted what Rose said, is all. What you’re telling us is crazy. It’s just crazy.”

“I know it’s crazy, man!” Rodrigo spoke with emphatic whispers, still trying to keep his voice down. “I couldn’t believe it either, but that’s what she told me!”

“It’s not that I don’t believe you, it’s…” Lukas hesitated. He turned around and looked out the rectangular window on the door. Two teens passed by the window, laughing about something. “I mean, you said you heard it from Rose, right?” He turned his head back towards Rodrigo. “I’d just… I’d rather hear it from Rose too, is all.”

“Alright. Alright, alright, alright.” Rodrigo walked away from the two, holding his head. “To be honest, I hope it’s not true, too. I hope it’s a big misunderstanding. Because, man…” As he walked down the hallway, he looked back at the two. “I-I’ll see you two later, aight?”

Lukas and Emily waved at him. He walked inside one of the rooms. The two remaining teens walked back out into the courtyard, stopping at a wall nearby.

“You think he’s telling the truth?” Emily looked a bit shell-shocked.

“I think he believes he’s telling the truth. But I don’t know. You know how Rodrigo can get sometimes, yeah?”

Emily shook her head. “God… I hope it’s not.”

“I don’t want to even think about it.” Lukas got off of the wall and walked a few steps forward. “We won’t know whether it’s true until more people start talking about it. I don’t want this to worm into my head. In the meantime, let’s just… play it cool.”

“Right,” Emily said, still reeling. “You’re right.”

Emily and Lukas continued their walk back to the table they were sitting at before.

…

But it did worm into his head. His entire first period Lukas couldn’t think about anything other than what Rodrigo had told him in that hallway. How he acted. Lukas didn’t even notice until halfway through the class that he never took anything out of his backpack, he just sat down and stared off into space, thinking about how his life might have changed.

The bell rang, and Lukas snapped back to attention. As he walked down the hall to his second class he saw Kat leaning against the wall, phone in her hand. He quickly got out of the foot traffic and leaned against the wall next to her.

“Hey, Kat.”

She looked up. Her eyes met his. But their vibrance was gone. There was a solemness in her expression, a pain she couldn’t hide. Her reply sounded like a pitiful whimper.

“Lukas.”

Lukas grabbed her gently by the shoulder, turning her away from the crowd and towards the wall. He leaned in close and whispered to her.

“Is it true? About Anita?”

Kat looked away. She brought her finger to the painted-white wall. It shook as it moved its way down the molded plaster between the bricks, then stopped at the intersection.

“Yes.”

Lukas’ heart skipped. A tingling sensation filled the tips of his fingers. An adrenal reaction surged through him, and he began to feel his armpits perspire.

“She… she was murdered? That’s what Rodrigo told me.”

She looked up. Their eyes met again. She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him into a door nearby. It led to an empty classroom.

Lukas began to breathe heavily, walking in circles among the desks. Kat leaned against the door, blocking anyone else from entering.

“She wasn’t murdered.”

Lukas stopped. A sense of relief washed over him, but then he turned and saw the same pained expression in her face. There was something more to it.

“What… what happened, then?”

Kat took a deep breath. She tried to find courage, but she couldn’t do it, and as tears began to fill up in the rims of her eyes, she began to speak.

“Lukas…” she said again, with those same pitiful notes. “She… she killed herself. They found her, hanging against the doorknob in her room.”

A physical, sharp, visceral pain hit Lukas as he heard the words. He shrunk back, his face cringing, his arms covering his head in some moot attempt to protect himself. His voice let out a loud, emphatic “Je-sus!” as he walked to the other end of the room and leaned his forehead against the wall. Silence draped over the two for what seemed like an eternity before Lukas spoke out again.

“How… how’s Maria doing?”

He could hear Kat’s weak voice behind him. “She’s at home. Didn’t want to come to school today, wanted to stay with her mom and the rest of her family.”

Lukas nodded. “Yeah, yeah. That makes sense.” He took his head off the wall, and took half a turn when he suddenly stopped and looked out into white space. The sun was moving, and a bright light came in from the large windows of the classroom, illuminating it. “The last time I saw her… was at Maria’s birthday party.”

Kat didn’t say anything in response. The murmurs and footsteps from behind the wall was all they could hear.

“Listen…” Lukas walked back to the door now, standing next to her. “We’ll get through this. You, me, the Cortezes, all of us. We just have to stay strong.”

“Yeah.” She sniffled, but looked away so that Lukas couldn’t see the tears on her face. With the sleeve of a gray sweatshirt she wiped them off. “Yeah, you’re right.”

…

The rest of the day was a blur. Lukas went in and out of classes, almost autonomously, not really thinking, hearing, or even seeing, but just coping within a numb shell. He didn’t talk to anyone else that day, though he did see a few people here and there. He saw Rose and Sadja whispering to each other in the hallway. He saw Russell and Emily at Chem, and Rodrigo, Kat, Cole, and Ash in English. All of them seemed just as numb, just as blind, as he had. A couple of them sat together at lunch, but Lukas stayed away, brewing in his own thoughts, devising his own plans for how to see the world after that day.

As the final bell rang and Lukas walked back to his car, he saw Cole leaning against a pillar, waiting for him.

“Hey, man.” Cole greeted him, solemnly but assuredly. The two hugged, patting each other on the back, then broke off and walked together.

“You doing okay?” Lukas asked.

Cole shook his head, trying to find words for the truthful answer. “I’m… trying, I’ll say that much.”

“You need anything — you or Maria — let me know, okay?”

“I will.”

When the two got to the front gate, they saw a white Hellcat parked up front, with two familiar figures leaning against it. One was Rodrigo, who looked up as they came in, his dark hair contrasting with his light-brown skin in the sunlight. The other was a black teen, much more tall than any of the others, with a long row of black dreadlocks tied into a tail on the back of his head. He wore reflective sunglasses, circular-shaped, which hid his expression. He was scrolling through his phone, unaware that Lukas and Cole had arrived until the Latino boy spoke up.

“Hey guys,” Rodrigo faced the two teens, pointing to the car. “Russell and I were gonna get Koko’s. Try and get our minds off of things. You two wanna come?”

Lukas and Cole looked at each other, then back at the boy.

“Yeah, sure,” Cole said. Since his friend didn’t have any complaints, Lukas tagged along as well. Russell took the driver seat, while the two new passengers slid into the back.

…

Cole put his head against the window, zoning out and focusing on the rhythm of the car. A Joey Bada$$ song played on the car radio. The other three were engaged in conversation.

“God, I missed Koko’s.” Rodrigo had his elbow leaning on the car door window sill. “That’s the problem ‘bout being in Johnston Nevada. No fuckin’ chicken places, man! Not a single one.”

“What do they have, then?” Lukas sat in the back seat, facing Rodrigo in the front from a diagonal.