Chapter Text
The lunch line burst into panic, students bolting in all directions. Through the screaming came a shout: “Kill that thing! Get it off her, get it off!” As the crowd cleared, I saw a senior hauling at a tentacle that had wrapped around a girl’s forearm, two others dragging her from the lunch line. Her screams were already fading, her face going pallid as the blood-clinger drained her. The first boy—Edward, a Washington enclaver, one of Cora’s shopmates—cursed as he pulled the tentacle taut and severed it with a crudely worked knife; what was left retracted with an angry hiss as he ran after the two dragging the girl to a table. The occupants cleared space to lay her down and handed the second carrier a juice bottle—how they got that, I don’t want to guess—which he promptly tried to make the girl drink. She didn’t respond.
Edward wiped his knife clean on the tablecloth. “Well?”
The juice boy shook his head grimly. “You’ll be writing another letter tonight.”
The words crumpled his face like tinfoil. “Damnit,” he swore, sitting next to the girl, hands over his face. “Damnit, damnit, damn. I’d hoped…”
One of the carriers put a hand on his shoulder. “There’s nothing to do but wait, Edward.”
The second carrier—Ishmael, I recognized him now—put two fingers against Alice’s neck. He drew them back after several seconds. “We won’t need to wait long.”
They turned to the serious business of eating; all save Edward, who took Alice’s hand and pressed it to his forehead. I could see his mouth moving behind her wrist; he was speaking to her? No, I realized as the sound drifted over; he was singing:
Come, come with me through this old churchyard;
we so well know these paths 'neath the soft green sward.
Friends slumbering there that we want to regard,
we will trace out their names in this old churchyard.
Mourn not for them for their trials are o'er;
Why weep for those who will weep no more?
For sweet is their sleep, though cold and hard
their pillows may be in this old churchyard.
We know that it's vain when friends depart
to breathe kind words to a broken heart,
And we know that the joy of life is marred
when we follow lost friends to this old churchyard.
But if you should rest 'neath yonder tree,
say, should we weep, my friend, for thee?
You’re so weary, so wayworn, oh, should we retard
the peace you seek in this old churchyard?
Should I weep for thee? Are you anxious to go
to that haven of rest where no tears e'er flow?
Do you fear not your fate when it's time to depart?
Will you sail with the sun in this old churchyard?
May you rest in the hope that one bright day
Sunshine will burst through this prison of clay
And trumpets will sound on the hills near and far
to wake up the dead in this old churchyard.
The trumpets will sound on the hills near and far
to wake up the dead in this old churchyard.
He closed Alice’s still-staring eyes at the last line, then joined his companions in bolting what little food they had gathered. When they were done, Ishmael checked for a pulse again. There was none. Paulina began stripping the body as Edward, Jonathan, and Farhad held tablecloths to hide the work. Once she were done, Edward lowered his tablecloth over the body. Jonathan, Farhad, and Ishmael others collected the loot and trotted off to their rooms while he and Paulina wrapped the corpse and carried it behind the steam trays. The cafeteria’s cleansing fires were already roaring to life. When the flames reached her, they would leave nothing behind.