She was seventeen, though the mirror in the ruined department store told her she looked forty. Her uniform was no longer a symbol of youth, but a tool. The pleated skirt, hemmed with fishing line and razor blades, allowed her to run. The white blouse, stained rust-brown and charcoal, was stuffed with Kevlar scraps from a shattered police drone. The red bow at her collar? That was for her. A last piece of the girl she’d been before the Siren went off.
And somewhere deep in The Hollow, the Siren began to wail again. But for once, Sherry didn’t run. She just listened. Then she walked toward the sound.
She didn't kill him. That was the mature part. Instead, she sliced his belt, his bootlaces, and the tendons behind his knees. He’d live. He’d crawl. He’d tell others: The Schoolgirls are real. Don’t hunt near the cathedral.
They ate in silence. Yuki leaned her head on Sherry’s shoulder. Mei hummed a pop song from before the Fall—something about a boy, a summer, a car. Sherry couldn't remember the words. Sherry Apocalypse Schoolgirl Pack 1 P Mature
Their objective today was the Vault of St. Agnes, a pre-Fall school rumored to hold a working cryo-pod. Inside: a pharmacologist who’d developed a partial cure for the Rustlung plague that turned adults into shambling, calcified statues.
The dog sensed Yuki a half-second too late. A silenced .22 round entered its ear. It dropped without a whimper. The shotgunner never even raised his barrel.
No one said “okay.” Words were precious. She was seventeen, though the mirror in the
She stood, adjusted her red bow, and helped the other two to their feet. Three schoolgirls in a dead church. The last pack of a broken world.
Mei uncorked a brown bottle. The liquid inside shimmered like diesel rainbows. She rolled it gently. It shattered at the feet of the man with the mask. His scream lasted two seconds—his lungs turned to jelly inside his ribs.
They called her pack “The Schoolgirls.” It was a joke the raiders made—until they didn’t. There were five of them originally. Now, in Pack 1 P (Mature designation—meaning they had survived longer than any other juvenile unit in the sector), there were three. The white blouse, stained rust-brown and charcoal, was
Her training, if you could call it that, kicked in. She’d learned from a dying soldier in the first year. Don’t hesitate. Hesitation is a hole they bury you in.
“Contact,” Yuki whispered from the choir loft. Her voice was a reed in the wind. “Three mature male scavvers. Armed with pipe guns. They have a dog.”
The rain over the dead city tasted like tin and old pennies. Sherry had stopped trying to remember its real name three winters ago. Now, it was simply The Hollow—a graveyard of shattered highways and glass-toothed towers that clawed at a sky the color of a bruise.
Sherry pressed her back against a fallen pillar. The church smelled of mildew and old incense. Through a gap in the stained glass—a serene Mary now missing her face—she watched the men argue over a broken vending machine.
Sherry sat on the floor, back against the pod, and took out a piece of hard candy she’d been saving for two months. Butterscotch. She broke it into three pieces with the pommel of her knife.
