Boseman High School Shenanigans: Episode 1

"Plan sounds good," Zach agrees. "And I think she's missing because I told Abby where we were headed this afternoon and Abby told Rose and since then, I haven't been able to get a single response from her. I even made sure she's not just ignoring me because she's pissed at me again for some reason by having Fred message her, too. I doubt she'd ignore him."

"Going down there was bad the first time. It'll probably be worse the second. I have to go. Zach, too, because we have family missing. But do we go alone? Do you three come with us? Or do we call everyone we know and swarm the place with rowdy teens?"

Freddie knows he could call Clutch, and Kelly, and his best friend Norm the school council President, and between them, they probably had the phone numbers for all the jocks and half the school.

"Hey guys!" Lily calls from somewhere behind Emily. They’d sat in the back when they’d smelled skunk on Emily, in case there were any accidents.

She listens through the tiny space in the window, before finally getting fed up and pulling the van door open. She reveals herself and Wendy in the back, and sits half out, with her feet on the ground.

"Do we want word to get out about what we are doing? What if we accidentally tell a slug zombie that we are on the way?"

Emily turns and glares at Lilly sighing loudly while she throws open the van door and emerges, albeit a little flustered.

"We should call everyone and anyone. Make it a game if people don't believe us, which they won't. Strength in numbers and all that. Get the rest of the bats, hockey sticks, whatever gear that can act as a weapon, and go back to that insane place.

She chuckles and glances at Freddie and then the others and wonders whether they notice her ill attempt at humor.

"And… what if one of them gets killed? And we are the ones that brought them here?" she says, getting to her feet with some effort, and an appropriately concerned sigh.

"There's also the matter of Gromn," Zach mutters, still terrified of what will happen when his body gets found.

"You got a better idea, Lilly? Cuz I sure don't." The wheels in Emily's sluggish brain start slowly turning through her drug-induced haze.

"Anyone got a gun? A pistol? Bow and arrows?" She's kidding about the last one of course.

"I know someone who has a gun. The guy who shot Freddie," Zach says as the question draws his focus from their task at hand. He looks straight at Emily's face. "Who were those two guys? And don't tell me again you don't know. Because you do."

"That's an extremely long story and now is not the time, Zach," she snaps. I can't just walk up to the goons and say: Hey, can I borrow your gun for an hour?"

"Those guys put me in the hospital twice in one week, Emily," Zach argues, even though technically, the first time he didn't go to the hospital. He was just treated in an ambulance. It still wasn't fun. "And they shot Fred in the head! I don't need the full story, but I think we deserve to know why they're following you around."

As Zach confronts Emily, somehow blaming her for the pedos, Freddie pulls out his phone to dial Norm. "I don't even know what to say," he says to Lily. "I'm not thinking straight."

"I knoooow Zach and I'm sorry, but later. It's not going to make you feel any better. Trust me. And to tell you the truth, I'm not even sure about the details."

When Wendy starts to get curious, Emily looks to the others. How much do they want to tell her? They can use all the help they can get so she would vote yes to bringing the girl up to speed. She shrugs and her eyes suggest they should tell her.

"Wendy, the cops are useless. Been there, done that."

Zach is clearly not happy with Emily evading his question and he makes no secret of that in his expression. But he doesn't keep prodding for now. Instead, he turns to Wendy. "Well, we know Gromn was. And then Romanov and Polensky definitely, though it just seemed to make those two want to... uhm, have sex." He looks at Lily. "Didn't you say that Mr. Levitt went to talk to them and has disappeared afterwards?"

"Right! Whoever bothers to them seems to disappear, or go funny. Same with Principal Romero, right? When he saw us today, he looked wild.

They’d do the same to the cops, if the cops actually got off their asses in the first place and checked this thing out." she says, rolling her eyes at the idea.

"But… it seems like they only infect certain people, right? Not Priya, and they… killed the Vice Principal. How do they decide who to infect and who to kill?"

Freddie perks up at the aliens bit. "I talked to that old homeless guy down by the river. Totally out there, but he said he saw an alien ship the night of the storm a few days ago. That seems to be the only connection that I've seen, but it fits!"

Zach wants to make a comment about how ridiculous it is to believe some homeless guy that he's seen an alien spaceship, but then he remembers what they're currently discussing and stays quiet.

"Yeah, Chandling. Wasn't that who you said you saw, Freddie? And then the goo on the principal's office floor and the slugs in the crazy house. Maybe there really are space freaks here that landed by the river. I mean none of this shit has been making any sense so far, has it?"

Emily couldn't believe that she was actually beginning to believe in aliens. But what other explanations were there?

"Or a virus but then what happened at The Banks? Where did such a virus come from? Any research labs around here?"