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student body within, or around, the school. All students would be held in classrooms until the lockdown was lifted. Lucy took a step forward around the empty cement cavern; she could see from her vantage point the long stretch of hallway dedicated to the science department. The lights were dimmed. The entire place was clear of movement. If she could get straight down the hallway, closer to the English classrooms, she would be able to get to her locker and exit out the double-doors that opened toward the senior parking lot.
    The high school was built as a giant rectangle. Students could start walking in one direction and the school would eventually lead them back to their starting point—classrooms lined the inside and outside of the rectangle. There were small hallways off the ends leading to the pool and the library on the opposite side. The science hallway ran at one end and directly down from the main office; the other end of the hallway passed by the gym, the cafeteria, the counseling center, and eventually the social studies hallway. Then came the English and math hallways. At her present location, she could not be further from her locker, but at least her exit would be close.
    “Go to senior lot. By double-doors, ” she texted to her brother and then opened the door from the pool, aware of the clunking echo of the metal swinging open. For good measure she added a text: “I can do this.”
    She had never heard the school so quiet. On her tiptoes, she crept forward, moving at a fast enough pace to make it to her brother on time, but slow enough to watch for a patrolling guard or a teacher on-watch. But after fifteen feet, Lucy realized that the classrooms were abandoned. The lights were turned off; the desks were empty. She pressed her face against the glass of one room; there were discarded backpacks scattered on desktops and on the floor—books and papers without owners, a solitary shoe, coats still hanging on the backs of chairs. Students had been asked to leave in a hurry.
    She shivered.
    The clock showed that it was partway through first period. With great trepidation, Lucy moved forward, inch by inch, stepping along the white tiled flooring, her feet tapping along, the only sound in earshot.
    Down the hall, Lucy heard the distinct crackle of a walkie-talkie. She pushed her body into a small opening between a locker and a drinking fountain and held her breath. Her phone vibrated in her hand. In the absence of all other noise, the vibrating seemed loud and commanding while drawing attention to her hiding space. She pushed the ignore button with her thumb and closed her eyes.
    There had to be rational explanations. Students and teachers were frightened by the news and had been called to an emergency assembly. Perhaps the grief over pets and sick loved ones had impeded any valuable learning and the students were ushered into an impromptu counseling session. During Lucy’s freshman year, a senior football player was killed in a car accident. The administration canceled every class and held a series of honorary assemblies and meetings with counselors—they even held a vigil out by the flagpole.
    Occam’s Razor.
    Her father taught her that.
    The simplest explanation was usually correct.
    They were under lockdown out of fear, not necessity. The students were at an assembly, perhaps to alleviate or control the rising worries. The pets were dead because someone had poisoned them. People were not in danger.
    Her father had told her: She was not in danger.
    Back on her feed, all the doomsday prophets were broadcasting their end of the world theories as a full-fledged assault. Several of her feed items were calls to faith in the midst of judgment day. If Lucy believed in evangelical Christianity, she would have guessed her classmates had been spirited away through rapture. But Lucy shook her head and scowled—she may not be perfect, but she had a hard time believing that God would leave her behind and take the entirety