The Raven's Gift - Don Rearden [37]
“I’m over here. Just stay put.”
“What’s taking you so long?” she asked just loud enough for him to hear.
“We’re saved. It’s incredible. There’s food here. Lots of food. I just need to figure out how we get enough out. Go back to the office and wait for me. I won’t be much longer.”
“I want to wait here.”
“Fine.”
He turned back to the kitchen and stopped at the freezer door. He didn’t need to look inside, but he found himself pulling the handle and swinging the door wide. Cases of beef patties, chicken, frozen corn dogs, and frozen vegetables lined the walls of the cooler. From the soggy-looking boxes he guessed everything had thawed over the summer and then cooled, so he knew the meat was probably spoiled.
He stepped out of the cooler and saw the solution to getting out enough food quickly. A handcart loaded with green plastic dishwashing crates stood behind the door of the kitchen. With the flashlight lying on the counter he could see enough to work. He pulled the handcart over to the shelves and quickly began loading the crates with all the food the cart would hold. He loaded it to the top and wheeled it to the kitchen door. He grabbed the flashlight and aimed it across the gym toward the girl. She sat in the doorway, with her legs pulled up to her and her hands covering her nose.
He took a deep breath through his mouth and bit at the edge of his lip. He had almost forgotten the wad of chocolate tucked in his cheek. His teeth crushed the melted chips and he swallowed the sugary remains. He left the food behind and started across the gym, pushing arms and legs away. He needed a path, just enough room to get the food through. The bodies felt light. Stiff, but light. He expected more substance to them. The dead should weigh more, he thought. They felt more like shells or exoskeletons than bodies, and he pushed them away with his feet. He was about halfway when he heard the sound come from the girl, something just short of a gasp. He flashed the light on her as she dropped her hands from her face and her head whipped toward the entrance of the school.
“He’s here! The hunter is here!” she whispered across the gym.
He reached for the pistol in his waistband, but it wasn’t there.
He flashed the light toward the sides of the door where the girl stood.
“Take three steps into the gym and then walk along the wall to your left. Sit down there against the wall. Do it now. Go. Don’t get up until I tell you. Go!”
He didn’t wait to see if the girl had listened. He sprinted to the kitchen, pulled the food back from the doorway, and dove inside. He whipped the light around the room, searching for the pistol, and then remembered getting sick and sitting on the floor by the sink. He grabbed the pistol off the floor and slipped back to the kitchen door, clicking the flashlight off as he did. He stopped at the entry to the kitchen and tried to let his eyes adjust as a figure appeared in the gym doorway.
THEIR CLASSROOMS were high-tech. Every student had a laptop, and each of Anna’s second- through fourth-graders shared a desktop computer. He had big plans for the LCD projector—his lectures would be funny and educational for the history and the English class. He wasn’t so sure about the science, though. He didn’t know much about teaching science at all. The idea of teaching in an area he wasn’t interested in and couldn’t even feign passion for scared him.
“Maybe you can just study things around here,” Anna suggested. “You know, for biology stuff dissect some fish and ducks or whatever. See if someone will bring in a moose heart or something.”
“A moose heart? Where do you come up with this stuff?”
“I’m a generalist. I teach second grade,” she said, and laughed.
“Guess I’m going to have to learn to be more like you,” he joked. “Christ, nine through twelfth grade, everything but math? They might as well make me teach math, too.”
“It’s going to be fun! Now get to making this classroom comfortable