Boseman High School Shenanigans: Episode 1

"There are other missing people here. I need to go find Belinda, not just because she's family, but well, otherwise I could lose the girls. No way they'll let me be a guardian for them if we lose another parent." He is glad for the medical grade antacids they gave him, because he'd normally be dry swallowing them by the handful now.

When Freddie sees Sarah by the door, he texts her, telling her he's back at the school.

When Lily asks about Zach, he says, "Well, he's hurt bad, but he was in, you know, Zach spirits. Didn't seem to be a lot of worry from the staff."

He slides out of the van, and says, "What are you all going to do?"

"I'm getting this annoying brat," Emily replies to Lilly, grimacing at Steve, "and going home to face the music, and I don't mean David Bowie."

Putting a hand on Freddie's arm, their new affection making her smile despite all the shit that's happened and the hell-storm that's about to occur at home, she puts a hand on Freddie's arm.

"I can drop Steve and come back and help you find Belinda? My parents probably won't even be there and if they are they can wait."

"Rose doesn't have her phone nearby?" Zach asks. "You don't believe that yourself." He follows his parents as they go through the process of checking out, then follows them to the car. He's keeping his arms crossed in front of his chest the entire time but still keeps looking around, paranoid that he might somehow run into someone from school. When he sits down in his parents' car, he's relieved.

He's silent for most of the drive home, then says, "Mom, dad, I can't stay home today. I have to meet my friends. Fred also got hurt a bit, Emily must be freaking out because those guys keep creeping on her and Lily... Well, she's probably fine, but the point is, I need to meet them again. You can't just keep me home on a day when something like this happened. And the nurses said I'm fine anyway, so no reason to worry."

"Oh my God, Steve. Grow Up!" She knows that was mean but she was in a foul mood and who better to take it out on than her annoying little brother?

As she turns the key in the old van along comes Sarah who glares at her Freddie.

"I suppose we can squeeze her in if she needs a lift?" She looks at Freddie, "But it's probably not safe."

"I'll jump out here and run Sarah home. I'll come back here after."

He squeezes Emily's hand and then exits.

"Hey Sarah. Let's go home."

Lily stammers a little, not sure how to proceed. Was there time to drive siblings here, there and everywhere?

"But… that thing knows we know about it. Won’t it try to…" she makes a face "… get rid of the evidence? AKA kill everyone it’s holding down there?"

"So we are just going to drive around town for a while while all this is going on under our feet?" Lily asks… herself maybe. She thinks to get out and pull Wendy out with her; with the intent to go and investigate some more. Yet, she’s stopped by the potential violence that could occur, with just the two of them alone.

With a sigh, she sits back and waits for Emily to take off. To Wendy, she turns and lets out a long, exasperated sigh. She takes a deep breath, and prepares to spill the beans.

"Wait, wha..." Emily sighs when Freddie hastily exits the van. But he said he'd see her later so that was good. Still, she was frustrated, anxious about everything, unsure what to do, and now she had her brother to cart around. Somehow she managed to think about Freddie. What insanity was that? Or perhaps it was her mind protecting her from thinking about the horrors they managed to survive.

"Ok look. I'm a hot mess. Who needs to go where? At some point, we have to meet again and figure all this out." Craning her neck around she says to Steve, "It's none of your business. Put your earbuds in."

The girl is close to a meltdown. It's too much all at once. She could use a joint but the last thing she needs is an impaired driver pullover from a cop.

Freddie pulls into the parking lot, knuckles white on the wheel, and looks over at Zach, both of them wide eyed and pale as ghosts. "I can't believe we survived that. Let's never speak of what happened ever again!"He clutches his friends arm. "You going too be okay for this? I mean sure, I was shot, but it got me in the head so what damage could it do?"

Zach chuckles at his friend's comment. "How do you always keep a positive attitude like this?" he asks. Then he nods. "Yeah, I'll be fine. it hurts a bit when I laugh or breathe or move in weird way, like getting dressed, but I'm fine." Zach is dressed fully as himself again, binder and hoodie included, so he looks like a regular teenage boy again. "Thanks for being so understanding earlier, at the hospital. I was nervous to tell anyone. It meant a lot." He smiles at the other boy, then glances around the parking lot. "You think the girls are already here?"

He texted a bit with Aaron earlier, but if Aaron is safe, then Zach has no intention of dragging him into this, as much as the one day he hadn't seen him since their kisses instead seems to feel like a week to him.

"There they are now," Freddie says and gets out of the Tesla. He checks his stuff and goes with Zach over to Emily's van as she pulls up. "That's quite the van, isn't it? Real badass 70s vibe."

Emily picks up Wendy and Lilly, glad to be out of the house and away from her loser parents and kid brother. She had managed to sneak in a few tokes of a joint when she went inside to change clothes and freshen up, water splashed on her face helping her to snap out of the strange fog she had been in. Was it a fog of disbelief? Fear? It didn't matter anymore as she had now replaced it with a fog of stone and no longer gave two fucks.

She sees Freddie and Zach and pulls up beside them, rolling down the window which gets stuck a third of the way down. Now she feels like an idiot as she sticks her mouth into the space and asks Freddie, "Meeting here or somewhere more private?"

She could have just gotten out of the van but the stoned factor was making her lazy and her thinking cloudy which had kind of been the goal anyway.

"The van seems pretty private," Zach suggests with a shrug. "We could just come over there to talk. I have some thoughts." He can't stop himself from blurting out, "I think the things have Rose!"

"Yeah, I know. Rose, Belinda, how many other of our families and friends are in there?"

When Emily hilariously tries to speak through the window, he chuckles and replies, "Here's good. I don't think we want to waste time going to the asylum directly, do we? Or just get into the school and go the same way?"

"There's another place we might want to go," Zach says. "I've been thinking. You all noticed how damn hot this school has been recently, right?" Considering he's the only one who wears a hoodie in those temperatures, he probably appears like the strangest person to point that fact out. "Gromn is - was - in charge of heating. So what if these things need the heat? In that case, it might be useful to head to the steam plant and disable the heating there. Or break it. Before we go rescue our families."

"Private as in not in the parking lot where everyone can see us. Jesus, Zach." She's losing patience already. So much for the pleasant fog. "Wait. What? Why do you think ... is Rose missing?"

She only half hears about the heat, Gromn, and the school and instead zeroes in on Freddie's words. She does NOT want to go to that place again. But she doesn't want to look like a coward either.

"Let's talk about a plan before we rush into another disaster, mkay?"