1. Ryan

“It’s right here.” He said, and picked it up off the corner of one of the girls’ desks. Rachel’s or Scottie’s: he wasn’t sure which. He’d placed it there for safekeeping after he’d volunteered to sleep on the floor last night: they were going to rotate bed spaces, and he’d seen no problem with getting the worst spot over with first. Especially since this would all be over before he’d have to sleep there again. Probably.

He cradled the object in his palm for a moment. It fit neatly there, as it had likely been designed to do. It felt soft and worn, and its silver insets were considerably less shiny than they had been six years ago, but the outer casing was still a brilliant dark red and bore only a few scratches. Of course it still worked as well as it had ever done, which was partly why he’d kept it for so long. He had other gadgets cached up as well, and one or two would have served as worthy replacements for this one, but all that was either back at home or trapped in his room downstairs. Besides, although he’d never admit it out loud, he almost felt an emotional connection to this one. There’d been times when it had felt like his best friend.

He turned it so its screen was facing him, and pressed his finger onto the main power button, aware of the six pairs of silent eyes now fixed on him. It wasn’t awkward, just expectant. One girl, wearing a dark purple v-neck shirt, sat near the desk opposite him, her chair turned to face the center of the room. She had her hands folded and her ankles crossed and her face placid. She smiled slightly and raised her head a little when he walked toward her.

Sitting cross legged on the dark tile floor near the girl in purple was his roommate, half yawning as he slid a hand through his hair. His green striped button-down shirt was surprisingly neat: knowing Cade, he’d probably thought to take it off before going to sleep last night. A second girl was perched on the edge of the desk itself, her jean-clad legs swinging a little as she shook a few mousy strands of hair out of her face. One of her bare feet accidentally nudged the shoulder of her roommate, who was curled up against the white wall with her knees clasped in her arms. She jiggled one knee impatiently, as if trying to discreetly rid herself of excess energy that her body was too small to process. She reacted with only a brief glance when her friend’s foot touched her, and the tall guy standing next to her, propped against the wall with his hands thrust deep in the pockets of his tattered khakis, echoed her reaction. Then he cleared his throat and awkwardly returned his gaze to the floor, eliciting a brief eye roll from the fourth girl, blonde and tan and long-limbed, who was draped elegantly over the second desk chair.

He pressed a few more buttons, flipping through menu options until he had set the device to its needed purpose. Gently clasping his hand around his favorite possession one more time, he offered it to the girl in purple, who they’d agreed was the best at talking. She smiled more widely as she accepted it, her square face framed by immaculately arranged dark blonde hair. As she raised the device to speak into it, he stepped aside and took his place next to Cade.

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Entry 1: September 20th, Rainier.

-Okay. Wait a minute. Hey, Ryan? Is this recording?

-Here. Yeah, that’s on.

-Good. Okay. Um, anyway. Today is Monday, September 20, 2010, and this is the first day of our log. My name is Andrea, and for some random reason, I’ve been chosen to “keep” this.

Because of the situation we’re in, we’ve decided that it would be best to keep an account of what happens to us, just in case—I mean, for posterity, and we thought that this would be the most accurate way to keep track, even though it might be kind of easy to destroy.

Right now, we’re in room 204 of Laughlin Hall, on the campus of Rainier University in Tennessee.

-Yeah. The middle of nowhere.

-Thank you, Peyton. Anyway, there are seven of us here, and we’re staying in the 204/206 suite.

-Which is designed for four people.

-It is. We have one bathroom, and the two bedrooms and study rooms. It’s kind of small, but it’s not as bad as it could be.

I think that now what we should go around and say our names, where we’re from, a little bit about ourselves, so that anyone who listens to this will know who was here. I can start.

Like I said, my name is Andrea Grace Harris, I’m from Baton Rouge, which, in case you’re totally uninformed, is in Louisiana. I have two sisters and a cat, but I haven’t been able to call my family…

-We don’t have to go there right now.

-Sorry, we probably shouldn’t. Anyway, I came to Rainier because I liked how the place was really quiet, and the people were really noisy. (Laughter)

-Wait. What…?

-I started saying that a couple of months ago. You know how every single person you ran into asked where you were going to school? Well, I got really sick of it. For me they’d always say, ‘Where? What? I’ve never heard of that. Why are you going there?’ And so I’d tell them what I just said. It’s true, it makes perfect sense to me, and it would confuse them long enough for me to change the subject. (Laughter)

So, in any case, I’m here now. I’m not sure what I want to major in. I love doing theatre, but I probably didn’t come to the right place for that and I really don’t know if I’m good enough to make it. This year I wanted to take a lot of different classes so I could figure out what do to. I was going to audition for the women’s jazz choir tomorrow, but I don’t think that’s going to happen now. Which is sad.

I think that’s all for now. I’m going to pass this over.

-Uh…I’m Ryan Baker, and this is my MP3 player. I’m from in town, and I came here because it was easy, and they gave me the most money. (Laughter) I don’t really know what I want to major in, probably information technology. I don’t know. Here.

-Okay. I’m Cade Remington and I’m from Virginia. I’m an American Studies major, and I’m probably going to go to grad school, but I really don’t know what I’m doing after that. Something. Anyway, I just really liked this campus, and it had really good programs for English and History, so...I’m here.

-Wow, it’s like Orientation all over again. (Laughter) Hi, I’m Rachel Ann Connors, I’m from Indiana…wait, I think I’m the only Northerner here. Am I?

-Are you?

-Yeah, I think she is.

-Interesting. I’m majoring in English. Like Cade, I came here because I really liked the program, but I also really love this area. I think it’s beautiful. I mean, here we have all the mountains and the woods and everything else, but Indiana is just kind of meh, flat, grass. Okay. Your turn, Scottie.

-I’m Scottie Grey—

-Come on, full name.

-Fine. Carolina Prescott Grey. Rachel…stop it. Shut up. Anyway, I’m from in state, and I came here so I could do Environmental Studies. Um…oh, yeah. I’m on the cross-country team. And Easy-Mac is awesome.

-Well, it’s lucky you feel that way.

-I know. I was just thinking that. Sugar’s awesome, too, but I’m probably going to have to cut down on that now.

-Yeah, seriously. You don’t want her high on sugar. Especially late at night.

-Like last week…well, that’s probably enough about me.

-I’m Eric Page, and I’m from West Virginia. I’m doing English and History, and I write fantasy.

-Yeah. He has a sword in our room.

-Wait. Really?

-Yeah, I do.

-Why?

-How’d you even get that on campus?

-Because it’s cool. I just brought it in with everything else.

-Wow…

-Uh, yeah. Here.

-Okay. I’m Peyton Frost, and I really don’t want to be here.

-I know. Nobody does.

-No. I mean, I just don’t want to be here. I didn’t want to come, okay? Just so you all know.

(Brief period of silence in recording)

-Um…Andrea, I think that we should kind of talk about what happened now.

-That’s a good idea, Eric. Peyton, I think you should give that to Rachel, because she was probably the first one to hear anything. Weren’t you?

-I think so. Here.

I was in the shower at about midnight yesterday, and I had the radio on. I remember that I’d just put in my conditioner, and the set of music they were playing ended, and they started doing a newscast, so I was kind of annoyed, because I like to sing along with the radio while I’m in the shower. Anyway, I got even more annoyed because the reception started to break up, and I couldn’t just get out of the shower to adjust the station. So I, well, kept on, and I was half-listening to the report. And I noticed something weird.

The newscaster was talking about the Reedsville ‘flu, which at first I really didn’t think much of. I mean, I know that started kind of near here, but it’s not something I ever really expected to affect us. But then I noticed that the news sounded more urgent than usual. Like it was an emergency report. I hadn’t rinsed my hair out, but I turned the shower off.

I heard her say something about it being recommended that everyone in the area to report to a safe location. That’s when I got out of the shower. I grabbed my towel, and I stood there and listened.

She went on to talk about how everyone needed to get off the ground floor, that it was essential that we slow the spread of the virus. I tend to overreact to things like that, so…I kind of panicked. I didn’t know if anyone was here, so I just yelled for someone to turn on the TV—

-She did. She sounded so freaked out.

-I’m sure. Anyway, I yelled for someone to turn on the TV, and ran back to our room. Scottie’d just gotten in from running, so she was stretching, and— (voice breaks off into laughter)

-Um, yeah. I was stretching, and the remote was sitting on the floor next to me, so I leaned over to pick it up, and I kind of leaned too far over and…

-She went crashing over into my desk. Anyway, I was already nervous, so I completely lost it when I saw that.

-I tried to stand up, but I kind of slipped again, and Rachel couldn’t stop laughing, so I started to, too…

-So we walked in.

-Yeah. Peyton and I were sitting in our room working, and after we’d listened to you two going through all of that, we decided to come over.

-Andrea finally turned on the TV for us, and Scottie and I finally stopped laughing.

Just watching that…it was so scary.

(Brief period of silence)

-You can keep going, Rach.

-I mean, it wasn’t literally scary, just really unsettling, I guess. The reception was really bad: I didn’t expect that, it just came out of nowhere. It was pretty clearly an emergency report, though, but it wasn’t all that detailed. The reporter looked completely calm, like there was nothing bad happening near the studio, but I couldn’t quite believe what she was saying. It’s not like you usually turn on the news and hear that, you know, the new strain of ‘flu virus has gotten so out of control that everyone’s advised to take their own action and place themselves under quarantine.

Actually, it was a lot like a tornado warning. We had to report to a room with as few windows as possible and make sure we had water and blankets. But the most surreal part was how they told us to go to at least a storey above the ground floor, instead of going to a basement or a closet.

It was so weird. I didn’t know how to take it seriously. Maybe that doesn’t make sense.

-No, I think we know what you mean. Even with all the stuff that happens all the time, none of it was ever really like this. I didn’t know what to say to it, and obviously none of you did, either. It was just awkward. I was kind of relieved when I heard you guys knock. Cade…?

-Okay, guess I’m taking it from here. Uh, we had no idea what was going on. Ryan and I were playing HavenBreak, and Eric was at his desk working on something. Will was out at the library…

-He claimed to be.

-Well, yeah, we don’t know exactly. He’s probably okay, though. So yeah, we were just hanging out, and suddenly Lewis started pounding on our door.

-That’s the RA from downstairs.

-What the hell, Andrea? Stop looking at me like that.

-Oh, Peyton…never mind. Sorry, Cade. Go on.

-Uh…yeah, he’s our RA. So we opened the door, and he looked so damn freaked out. He yelled at us to go upstairs to the room directly above us, and for us all to lock ourselves in. I asked him why: he just said that we’d find out soon, and to get our asses the fuck up there. (Laughter) Then I asked about Will, and he said that everyone was going to be fine, we just needed to get the hell upstairs.

So then we did…

-I let both of you in.

-When I saw who it was, I ran back to the bathroom to rinse out my hair and get dressed, but then I heard someone knocking on Peyton and Andrea’s door.

-He said to go to the room directly above yours.

-The guys were being literal, so I had to run over and let Ryan in, then run back to the bathroom, which I forgot was the only connection to the other room.

-She locked the door, so I had to stand there alone until she was done.

-Oh, shut up and get over it.

-It doesn’t fucking matter, okay? God, no one cares.

(Period of silence)

-I kind of understand how Peyton feels, guys.

-I’m sorry.

-No, it’s okay. You two weren’t there, but that was when we lost the reception. We flipped through all the channels: there was nothing. It was incredibly scary.

When Rachel came out of the bathroom, we checked the radio. We couldn’t get anything on there, either. There’s no internet or cell phone service, which…

-Doesn’t mean anything, because the service here sucks anyway?

-Exactly, Ryan. Anyway, eventually we went to bed, we woke up in the morning, and nothing’s really changed. We keep looking out all the windows. It doesn’t look like anyone’s come or left since yesterday.

Scottie’s parents took her shopping a few days ago, so we’re pretty well stocked for food. It’s going to be hard, but we’re going to do our best to keep it together here. All my life my mom’s been telling my sisters and me that no matter what happens—and my family’s been through a lot—that we should always show grace under pressure. My grandma used to tell her that when she was a kid.

So I think that’s what we need to remember now. Grace under pressure.

Okay, I think that’s everything for today, then. This is Andrea Harris, and I’ll do a new entry tomorrow, or whenever something new happens. So who knows how to turn this off? That’s

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