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and stench of urine. One, or maybe all — he couldn’t tell — were pissing on him.
    Adam struggled to get up but was kicked hard again, this time in the back.
    He screamed out, this time loud enough to bring a counselor. He didn’t even care if a knife followed.
    “Let’s go!” Morgan said to the others, and they left the stall.
    Adam stayed perfectly still, afraid of moving until they were gone.
    He heard them leave the bathroom and was about to sit up and turn around when he felt Tommy’s blade back at his throat and his other hand on Adam’s shoulder. “Just so you know,” Tommy whispered in his ear. “You even think about ratting us out ever again, we’ll fucking END you. Got it, freak?”
    Adam whimpered yes, and then Tommy retreated.
    He waited until he heard the bathroom door shut and then turned around and stood up. He shuffled slowly to the sink, hoping both that someone would come and that nobody would. He didn’t know which would be worse.
    He turned on a sink and began to wash the blood and piss from himself, one eye on the mirror in shame.
    Suddenly the bathroom door opened.
    Adam gulped as Brian Bob, the heavyset counselor with the goatee, who was sometimes nice and oftentimes not, met his gaze in the mirror.
    “What the hell? Is that you, Lovecraft?” he said.
    “Yes, Mr. Brian.”
    “What happened?” Mr. Bob said, moving toward him and looking around the bathroom. His eyes caught the piss and vomit on the floor and then came back up to Adam’s many bruises and cuts. “Who did this?”
    “I can’t say. They’ll kill me.”
    “Come on, we’re going to the nurse’s office.”

    Adam was allowed to shower and sleep in the nurse’s office after she put ointments on his wounds and gave him some pills to ease the pain.
    Mr. Bob, who had been extra kind to Adam following the ordeal, continued to ask questions. Adam felt bad that he couldn’t say anything. But if his “friends” had nearly killed him over something as small as ratting them out for stealing food, what would they do if he ratted on them for this?
    This was serious shit. But Adam didn’t know if it rose to the occasion of being serious enough to get the kids put in prison, and that was the only way he could ensure his safety. Without knowing that, he didn’t dare say a word.
    After a breakfast of a hot roll and meat links that Mr. Bob brought to him, Mr. Bob returned and asked Adam to go with him to the schoolmaster’s office.
    Adam walked down the hall, telling himself over and over that no matter what, he’d have to stay strong and keep quiet to the schoolmaster, also.
    Tell no one.
    But when the door opened to schoolmaster’s office, it wasn’t Barnum sitting behind the desk.
    Once again it was Mr. Keller.
    “Good morning, young Lovecraft,” he said. “I hear you’ve been having some trouble.”

CHAPTER 26 — Anastasia Lovecraft
    A na woke up to confusion as Kirkman’s voice was piped into the box surrounding her. In a monitor above her, she saw Liam and the child in their own separate boxes.
    When Kirkman announced that they were in a new mini-game, Ana knew only one thing — someone was about to die.
    The barn doors opened, and Ana was momentarily blinded by sudden beams of brilliant light interrupted by shuffling shadows which gave way to the influx of zombies.
    No!
    Liam’s screams over the monitor in the roof of her plastic cell pulled her attention up to it rather than over to his box. On the center screen, Kirkman smiled from ear to ear. The other two showed Liam and the child. Liam was still screaming, now mostly obscenities. The girl was screaming too, backing from one corner into another as zombies surrounded her.
    Zombies poured into the barn, splintering into three clusters, each headed straight for the boxes. Ana lost herself to the first scream as a pair of zombies slammed the plastic cell, jostling it. Surprised by the sudden sway, she made a small, involuntarily jump into the air, like a cat on coals, screaming without wanting to.
    Zombies were everywhere, so thick Ana no longer saw the barn door. They clawed at all three boxes. The girl’s screams were so loud that they crackled in the speakers, twisting a blade into Ana’s guts. Liam stopped screaming and was instead silently glaring at the swarm of undead outside his plastic wall, likely thinking he was safe — though Ana had to assume Liam was smart enough to know the mini-game was only beginning.
    Kirkman’s voice blared