COMMON ROOM: A Short Story Anthology

Locked Out by Grace Becker (Wattpad username: GracieWacie73)

LOCKED OUT

by Grace Becker (Wattpad username: GracieWacie73)

Mentor: Lori Goldstein, author of BECOMING JINN, releasing April 21, 2015, from Macmillan’s Feiwel and Friends and Virginia Boecker, author of THE WITCH HUNTER, releasing June 2, 2015 from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

 ***

The metal shed at my back is freezing, but nothing is colder than my arm. The liquid sliding down my right elbow blends in with the darkness around me. I know it’s blood. I know I’ve been shot. But I can’t feel anything other than the fear that controls my mind.

I try to steady my rapid breaths, but adrenaline still courses through my veins as the footsteps from behind me grow louder. Suddenly, a giant thud echoes from the other side of the shed wall. My hand flies to my mouth, praying whoever’s chasing me didn’t hear the gasp I wasn’t quick enough to stifle.

The footsteps stop. I close my eyes and hold my breath. I can’t die like this, I scream in my mind. Why am I so stupid? I should have listened to Elisa. I choke back a sob. Elisa. I dragged her into this mess, and now we’re both goners. If only I had listened . . .

Half an Hour Earlier

I hate scavenger hunts. They’re so vague. Lions. One of the objects is a lion. Our freaking mascot is a lion. Every hallway in this dumb high school has a picture of one. I pass the crumpled paper to Elisa. If she’s smart enough to do my homework for me, she’s got to be able to figure this stupid thing out. She takes one look at the wrinkled sheet and laughs.

“What?” I demand.

She smiles at me, confused, before she realizes I wasn’t kidding. “Do you really not know where this is?”

“Obviously not.”

“The list says lions.” She pauses, sounding hopeful. “As in more than one.”

I give her a blank stare.

Sighing, she decides to answer me in a way I understand. “It’s the mural back in the gym. You know the one with the three heads?”

“Ah, yes, I should have known,” I declare sarcastically.

“Oh, lighten up, Zoey. We’re supposed to be having fun!”

She waves the old-school Polaroid camera we’re supposed to use to document our finds at me. They confiscated our cell phones the minute we walked through the door.

“Yeah, because what’s more fun than sitting in a smelly gym with a crowd of annoying ninth graders all night long?”

Elisa gets a distant look in her eye, and that’s it. I give in. In the entire six years we’ve been best friends, I’ve never been able to handle seeing her sad.

Stupid lock-in, I think. What I actually say is, “But I guess I can bear it if I get to hang out with you.”

Her face brightens immediately. She takes my arm and starts to lead me in the direction of the lion, sorry lions, mural.

“To the gym,” she says.

I stop her and pull in the opposite direction. “I know a much faster way.”

#

            Five minutes later, we’re walking down a long, deserted hallway. No one ever comes down here; the classrooms along the walls have been abandoned ever since the shooting a couple of years ago. The simple chain running from one wall to the other blocking off the corridor isn’t exactly impenetrable, but it’s enough to seal it off. Everyone’s too traumatized to come down here, so now it’s just a hallway full of half empty rooms.