We Were Raised for the Harvest

The screen of the burner phone ignited in the dark, and the notification headline hit me like a poisoned ice pick to the gut.

MASSACRE AT WESTBRIDGE ACADEMY: 5,000 STUDENTS AND FACULTY DEAD. Right below it, in chillingly clinical font: Only two students unaccounted for.

My knuckles turned white as I gripped the device. I looked up at the boy standing by the window of our grimy roadside motel. Luke. My first love. Six months ago, we were worried about prom; now, he stood with his back to me, his varsity jacket damp with night dew, his shoulders shaking like a leaf caught in an autumn gale.

My mind raced back three hours to the study hall. The final bell had just rung when Luke, the undisputed valedictorian of our class, burst through the doors like a madman.

Hed grabbed my wrist and dragged me toward the parking lot, ignoring the gasps of our classmates. I had fought him, screaming, "Were six months from graduation, Luke! Youre throwing it all away for a stunt?"

His voice back then had been even more unstable than it was now. He just kept repeating, "Don't ask, just run," until he shoved me into a waiting car and we sped out of the city limits under the cover of a moonless sky.

"You knew," I whispered, my voice finally returning, my face pale in the reflected glow of the screen. "You knew something was going to happen, didn't you?"

He turned slowly. Beads of cold sweat glistened on his forehead under the sickly yellow light of the motel lamp. His lips moved, but no sound came out.

I thought about the biting words Id hurled at him when we first checked in"All this drama just to hide out in a cheap hourly rate dump?" Now, the air in my lungs tasted like rusted iron. Fear was a physical weight in my throat.

We weren't just two rebellious teenagers running away to be together. We were the ones who had slipped through the cracks of a death warrant.

The nightmare started at the end of evening library hours. I was just stepping out of the mahogany-paneled building, heading toward the dorms, when Luke appeared.

Before I could say a word, he grabbed my hand in front of everyone. The look on his face wasn't the calm, composed expression of the boy Id grown up with. It was something jagged. Manic.

A few students nearby let out low whistles and catcalls.

"Damn, Millers finally lost it!" someone yelled.

At Westbridge, "inappropriate displays of affection" were a fast track to a disciplinary hearing. For a scholarship kid like me, it was a death sentence for my future. For a golden boy like Luke, it was social suicide.

But he didn't care. When our history teacher tried to step in and block our path, Luke didn't negotiate. He shoved him aside with a ferocity that sent the man sprawling.

Screams erupted behind us. Luke didn't look back. He just kept running, his grip on my wrist so tight it bruised.

"Luke, where are we going?" I gasped, struggling to keep pace as my lungs burned.

He didn't slow down. His face was a mask of sheer terror. "There's no time to explain. We just have to get off campus. Now!"

"Off campus?" I stopped dead, trying to anchor myself. "Are you insane? We have finals in two weeks. Youre talking about throwing away our entire lives!"

Since the start of senior year, wed been drifted into different honors tracks. We barely saw each other, holding onto the promise of a road trip after graduation. He was headed for the Ivy League; I was fighting for a spot at a top-tier state school. There was no reasonnonefor this.

But as I struggled to pull away, he spun me around. His eyes were wide, reflecting a kind of primal, terminal dread.

"Casey, please," he choked out. "Trust me. Just once. If we don't leave now, were never leaving. We'll be dead by midnight."

He didn't wait for an answer. He dragged me toward the far corner of the athletic fields, where the perimeter fence met the woods. Someone had already stacked a pile of discarded crates there.

"Get over," he hissed, glancing over his shoulder as if he expected a monster to roar out of the darkness. "Go! Now!"

Confused and trembling, I let him hoist me up over the chain-link fence. He vaulted over a second later, his movements fluid and frantic.

A black sedan was idling on the dirt road outside. Luke shoved me into the back.

"Go! Drive!" he barked at the driver, tossing a thick envelope of cash onto the front seat.

The drivers eyes widened, but he didn't ask questions. He slammed the car into gear.

As we accelerated, I looked back through the rear window. The sight chilled me to the bone. Every single light in the massive Westbridge Academy complex went out at once. Total darkness. And then, carried on the wind, came the faint, muffled sound of a thousand screams.

I sank into the seat, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.

Luke collapsed beside me, his hands shaking violently. He kept his eyes glued to the rearview mirror until the school was nothing but a memory in the distance. Only then did he let out a long, ragged breath.

"What was that?" I demanded, my voice trembling. "Luke, what did you do? What is happening back there?"

He pulled me into his chest, his arms like iron bands. "Casey, don't ask," he whispered into my hair. "If I say it out loud... if I name it... we might not make it out."

His words sent a fresh wave of ice through my veins. What could be so horrific that even speaking its name was a threat?

I breathed in the familiar scent of his colognesandalwood and laundry detergentand forced myself to nod.

"Okay," I whispered. "I trust you. It's not like youre kidnapping me to sell me off."

He let out a dry, hollow laugh. "Casey, Id sell my own soul before I let a hair on your head be touched."

The car tore through the night. The driver kept glancing at us through the mirror, probably thinking we were just two rich kids playing at being outlaws. We switched cars twice, traveling through the early hours of the morning until we crossed the state line.

We finally stopped at a nondescript motel in a town so small it didn't even have a Starbucks.

The moment we entered the room, Luke didn't collapse onto the bed. Instead, he pulled a roll of black electrical tape from his bag. He covered the peephole. Then, he got on his hands and knees and taped the gap at the bottom of the door until it was airtight.

He looked like a man who had just finished defusing a bomb.

"What are you doing?" I asked, watching the black tape with growing unease.

"Blocking the line of sight," he muttered. "They like to watch. They find you through the cracks."

They.

I didn't press him. I just watched him stumble toward the bathroom to splash water on his face. While the faucet ran, I reached for the smartphone hed handed me earlier.

Thats when I saw it. The headline that shattered the world.

My fingers went numb. My vision narrowed until all I could see were those words.

"WESTBRIDGE ACADEMY MASS FATALITY. ENTIRE STUDENT BODY DEAD OVERNIGHT."

I clicked the link, my brain refusing to process the information.

Five thousand students and faculty were found dead at Westbridge Academy late last night. Preliminary reports indicate massive internal hemorrhaging. There were no signs of a struggle. Forensic experts are baffled.

Only two students remain unaccounted for.

I sat on the edge of the bed, a violent shudder wracking my frame.

"How?" I whispered. "How is this possible?"

In one night, everyone I knewmy roommate, my teachers, the girl who sat next to me in AP Biothey were all gone.

I clicked a video link. The footage showed the iron gates of the school, now swarmed by state police and a fleet of ambulances. Long rows of body bags lined the manicured lawn where wed had our fall festival just weeks ago.

The reporter's voice was thin with shock. "Authorities have cordoned off the area. While they have ruled out food poisoning, the strangest detail remains: security footage shows two students fleeing the grounds just minutes before the event began. A nationwide search is underway for these survivors..."

I looked at Luke as he walked out of the bathroom. "You knew this was coming."

He took my frozen hands in his. "Don't think about the 'why' right now, Casey. Were alive. Thats all that matters."

"But we could have told them!" I cried, tears finally breaking through. "We could have saved them! Why didn't you say anything?"

"Casey, look at me." His grip tightened, his eyes flashing with a desperate sort of pain. "I couldn't save them. If I had tried to warn anyone, if I had even whispered the truth to a teacher, we would have died with them. Probably worse. I had to stay quiet to keep our chance alive. I could only save you. Youre the only thing in this world I care about."

He looked so young, yet his face was lined with a weariness that belonged to someone decades older.

But the questions were screaming in my head. Why a mass death? How did he have a premonition? What were we running from?

Luke reached out, brushing a tear from my cheek. "Try to sleep. We have to keep moving tomorrow."

He checked the tape on the door one last time before lying down on the other side of the bed. I lay there, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the sun to rise on a world that no longer made sense.

The world had turned into a horror movie overnight. In this tiny, cramped room, he was the only thing I had left.

I fell into a heavy, feverish sleep filled with distorted shadows. We were jolted awake the next morning by the phone buzzing incessantly. Dozens of missed calls.

When I saw the caller ID on Luke's phone, the hair on my arms stood up.

Dad.

I frowned, whispering, "Luke... didn't your parents die in that car wreck three years ago?"

He lived with his grandparents. So who was calling?

The phone vibrated against the nightstand like a dying insect. Lukes face went ghost-white. He answered, but he didn't speak. He pressed his finger to his lips, signaling me to stay absolutely silent.

I held my breath, covering my mouth with both hands.

The line was open, but there was no voice. Instead, there was a sound that made my teeth achea rhythmic, screeching friction. Like fingernails dragging across a chalkboard, or bone grinding against concrete. It wasn't human.

Lukes pupils dilated. "Rot in hell," he snarled into the phone.

He slammed the phone down, ripped out the SIM card, and crushed the device under the heel of his boot in the bathroom.

"We have to go. They found us."

He grabbed the bags and pulled me toward the door. We didn't even check out; we just sprinted for the parking lot. The morning sun was blinding, but it offered no warmth.

"Where are we going?" I asked, my voice cracking.

"Farther west," Luke said, his voice grim. "Into the mountains. We need to go somewhere they can't reach."

We donned hats and masks, boarding a long-distance bus heading toward the Smokies. Before we left, Luke handed me a physical map with a single red circle drawn deep in the wilderness.

"Its going to get more dangerous," he warned. "If we get separated, go to this spot. If something happens to me... you keep going. Don't look back. That place is the only way out."

When I saw the location hed circled, my heart stopped.

I knew that place.

The pieces started clicking together, a terrifying mosaic forming in my mind. Why hed saved me. Why our school was a graveyard. What was following us.

I finally understood the truth.