They all turned and looked at the pile of soggy corpses. Sebastian stood with his mouth open, his eyebrows frowning.
Jonathan had already thought that through.
“The freezer,” he said. “Otherwise, they’ll—” He stopped and grimaced, then shrugged. “We have to put them in the freezer.”
Sebastian nodded at him. “That makes sense,” he said.
“The freezer’s a long ways away,” Tony said.
Sebastian raised his eyebrows at him. “Then we better get started.”
Sebastian did the math of eight bodies and sixteen boys and assigned each body to two boys. None of the pairs could get their body more than a few feet before dropping it with a stomach-twisting, meaty splash in a puddle, though.
Dead bodies are heavy, it turns out. When they’re wearing rain-drenched coats and wool trousers, they’re really heavy. And when they’re rain-soaked bodies of men being carried by a bunch of kids who don’t even really want to touch them, they’re almost impossibly heavy.
“Okay,” Sebastian barked, gasping for breath and still holding Mr. Warwick’s feet in his hands. “Two trips. Four people per body. Someone take one of these legs.”
The bodies were still heavy, but in teams of four, they at least managed to drag them toward the door. It was tough going, though. Curses and accusations echoed around the courtyard.
“Come on! You’re only pretending to hold that arm!”
“Lift higher! It’s hard to pull when his head’s dragging like that!”
“I am trying, Jason! His ankle is just too slippery!”
“No, not by the elbow, dummy! Grab under the armpits! Like this!”
“Gross! His tongue touched me!”
But, step by step, they got the bodies out of the courtyard and through the door and down the dark hallway and into the room where they’d eaten breakfast. The groups were spread out by then, depending on how big a body they’d gotten stuck with. Jonathan was with Colin, Miguel, and the kid named David. They, unfortunately, had ended up with the Admiral, and they were at the very end of the morbid, sweating, swearing parade.
“Dang, man,” Miguel panted, wrestling with a leg that was slippery with rain. “Why’d I get stuck with three of the littlest guys?”
David, who was trying to get a good grip on the Admiral’s right arm, shot him a look.
“I ain’t no weakling.”
“Nah, nah, you know what I mean,” Miguel said quickly. “We all know you tough. That’s why you’re here, right? For being all tough and stuff and, like, almost killing some guy or something?”
Jonathan glanced nervously at David, but David just rolled his eyes.
“No. Just for fighting.”
“Yeah,” Miguel said. “But, like, a lot of fighting, right?”
David shrugged. They struggled for a few more steps in silence, but then he spoke again, his quiet voice a rush of frustration.
“I’m the only Japanese kid at my school, right? And every day—every day—they make fun of me. They push. They throw things. Whisper things. And so, yes, I fight back. So I get lots of practice, right? So, after a while, I start to win. And what’s wrong with that? So some … some … moron starts up again and ends up with a broken jaw and a concussion and I’m supposed to be sorry? The judge says”—David bitterly slipped into a deep, adult voice—“ ‘All these terrible fights, all these stitches and broken noses, and you are the common denominator.’ Me? I laughed at the judge. ’Cause from where I was sitting, the common denominator was all those stupid white boys.”
Miguel dropped the Admiral’s leg and straightened up to catch his breath.
“Sure, man,” he said. “Whatever you say. You’re on top. You’re the numerator, man. Just remember I ain’t white next time you start swinging, okay, champ?”
David scowled.
“What about you?” he asked. “What are you in for?”
Miguel shrugged.
“Eh. Truancy. I’m not, like, super great at showing up to school, you know? My folks chose to send me here, to fix my attitude. Can you believe that?” A grin spread across his face. “But look at me now! Choosing to stay here, when we could go home! I’m reformed!”
He looked around at them, waiting for a laugh, but they were all too tired and out of breath. Jonathan gave him a little smile and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
“What about you, newbie?” Miguel asked. “What’d you do to get yourself sent here?”
Jonathan’s smile flickered away. His eyes dropped away from Miguel’s. The Admiral was looking up at him, his foul mouth open and his dead eyes gaping.
“Come on,” Jonathan said. “Let’s get this over with. This guy ain’t getting any lighter.”
The boys stooped and regained their holds and hoisted the Admiral up with a chorus of grunts and curses.