Sky on Fire

Robbie was grisly, with the blood, but the sheet we’d thrown on him stuck to his face, so at least I didn’t have to look at him.

I got them wrapped up and I laid them side by side on the floor. The next step was to drag them over to the wall. Then I thought I might get some boxes or maybe decorative rocks or something and cover the bodies, so the kids wouldn’t see them if they came into the storeroom.

And I needed to wipe down.

I smelled like something dead. Dead men, to be specific.

That’s when I felt the hit.

There was a sound, like a big THUNK, but more than the sound, I felt the impact. The floor shook.

I grabbed a chainsaw and rushed back into the store.

“Dean?” I heard Astrid shout.

“I’m back here!” I yelled.

THUNK.

The impact came again. I was close to it.

I scanned around with my headlamp, trying to find what could be making that noise.

THUNK. And now a heavy chunking noise—the sound of cinder blocks caving in.

I scanned the wall, running from aisle to aisle. The sound was coming from the corner of the store near the storeroom, near the Dump.

“Someone’s trying to break through!”

I saw Astrid’s light come jagging toward me.

Then I saw the attack site. The cement bricks were caving in at the floor. Then they moved and we saw the reason.

Two metal prongs had crashed through the wall.

“It’s a tractor or something,” I yelled.

The prongs retracted.

“They’re trying to get in!” Astrid screamed.

Behind Astrid, Chloe and the twins appeared with Luna at their heels, barking her head off.

“Go back to the Train!” I yelled at them.

“You always say that!” Chloe shouted back.

More bricks crashed inside.

There was an opening maybe two feet across now, down at knee height.

“Get back!” I shouted.

I pulled the starter on my chainsaw and it roared to life.

“Dean,” Astrid yelled. “Dean! We need our masks!”

The tractor came back, puncturing higher this time. The hole was getting bigger. Blocks rolled inward, toward us.

Astrid pulled the kids away from the site.

“GET TO THE TRAIN! LOCK YOURSELVES IN, OR YOU’RE DEAD!” she hollered, dragging them back, back, back.

“Come on, Chloe!” Henry shouted, and the twins hauled Chloe off toward the train.

Astrid took off toward the front gate. Going for masks, maybe.

I didn’t care.

I could already feel my blood rising.

Who was trying to get in?

I would kill him.

Going to wreck our store?

I would kill him.

More cement blocks fell.

And I saw the front of the machine. It wasn’t a tractor, it was a palette lifter.

My chainsaw roared and vibrated, shaking my arm.

I loved that chainsaw. It felt like a natural extension of my body.

And so I stepped over the rubble, on top of it, and ducked through, into the black world.

I was out and I was about to kill someone and I had never felt so alive or so full of blood or so bone-deep fantastic in all my life.

Luna raced out alongside me, barking her head off.

“Dean!” I heard Astrid call, her voice muffled. “Dean, careful!”

But I didn’t need to be “careful.” No. “Kind” and “considerate” were all in my mind. I was in my body now, and the body had a strength that puny mind could never wield.

I pushed Dean, the whole personality, right out of my being.

I was the chainsaw now.

I vaulted over the prongs of the loader as it came forward again. The driver saw me coming but he was too slow. Way too slow.

He pulled out a pistol and aimed it at me, but I was moving so fast now.

Whirring, moving, slicing, I pulled him out of the loader and cut right through.

Neckarmtorso. Done.

Then through again. Shearing through torsobellyhip. Done.

Then my hands were wet and the chainsaw was lodged in the man’s pelvis. The motor whined, growing louder and louder. It wanted more.

I pulled and pulled and meanwhile, I heard talking.

Voices.

A boy and a girl.

Something like, Jake? Jake! I came back. You came back? I saw the guy attacking but I was too late. Help me. Dean’s O!

And I thought, Two to kill. Two to kill.

But my chainsaw was still stuck and whining. It was jammed with bone and had bit into the metal and I couldn’t get it out.

I could kill them with my hands, though.

I ROARED and turned.

And then I was felled.

Jake.

He had hit me with something.

A cement block.

And I fell facedown on the ground. There was blood in my mouth and it tasted good.

Now I can kill Jake, I thought.

But then there was rope and he was tying me up.

I strained against the ropes as hard as I could, bucking and fighting. The rope cut into my wrists and ankles.

I bellowed in outrage, my face pressed onto the bloody asphalt.

He started dragging me back into the store, my arms and legs bound behind me.

Facedown on the pavement, I got dragged.

I would kill him. Jake was a dead man.

Then white-sneakered feet came close to my face.

And a gas mask came into view.

It was Astrid.

“Don’t bite me!” she shouted through her mask.

“AAAAARRRRRRGH!” I shouted.

And she forced an air mask over my face and duct-taped it to my head.

Jake. Jake. Jake. My blood beat the name of the kid I would kill.

CHAPTER TEN

ALEX

26 MILES

I have been thinking about it and I think it would have been better for all of us if Brayden had died on the bus.

Then Sahalia wouldn’t be so mad at Niko, and Niko wouldn’t be so mad at himself.

And Josie.

Well, when Josie wakes up, I think she will be very upset.

But if Brayden had just died, then we could all feel bad or sad or whatever, but get on with it.

* * *

Niko napped next to Josie for a while, then Jean made him wake up and give her his clothes to “purify” them. He put on some men’s clothes she had lying around.

Everyone was hungry so we had some trail mix and some cookies and some water. Jean took some and wolfed it down.

The speed at which she ate the cookies let me know that she wasn’t about to share any food with us. It let me know she didn’t have much. Or any.

We went through Niko’s backpack to take stock of what we had.

Of course, he had packed well, so there was a little of everything:

1. 2 40-ounce bottles of water.

2. 1½ bags of trail mix.

3. 5 packs of beef jerky.

4. 4 packages of tuna.

5. 8 protein bars.

6. Bandages, Band-Aids, and antibiotic cream.

7. 2 bottles of Benadryl.

8. Assorted foil packs of pills in a plastic bag.

9. 1 gun.

10. ½ box of ammunition.

11. 2 flashlights.

12. 1 long rope.

13. 2 boxes of matches (each in its own plastic bag).

14. 3 pairs of wool socks (This seemed like too much to me, but I didn’t say anything.)

15. 1 rain poncho.

16. 3 candles.

The water was definitely a problem. We would need more. And the food situation was not great either.

Max wanted to eat a protein bar but Niko said absolutely not.

I felt stupid I hadn’t grabbed a bag.

Niko didn’t say anything, but there was a moment when he said, “This is all we have? Out of everything on the bus?”

And I felt bad.

He’d packed it so well and now a bunch of mean thugs had it all to themselves.

* * *

Sahalia cried herself to sleep. She was curled on one of the banquettes.

Max, Batiste, and Ulysses went and lay down on the bed around Josie. They arranged themselves like puzzle pieces, fitting themselves next to her body as closely as they could. We were safe, but I think they wanted some extra feeling of comfort.

I took the other banquette, which was not comfortable at all, and used my very smoky sweatshirt as a pillow.

* * *

I woke up to the sound of arguing. I had missed the start of the argument. I had also missed the moment when Josie woke up, but it must have been quite a shock for her to find us not on the bus and learn she was type O and how Niko had drugged her and then about the cadets and Brayden.

It was Brayden she seemed stuck on.

“How could you leave him?” she demanded.

“Josie, I had a choice. Him or you,” Niko protested.

“He’s wounded!”

“It all happened fast. I didn’t have time to do anything.”

They were standing near the door. Just one candle was lit on the Formica counter, peach-scented, I think, and it gave them a glowing quality. I could just make out their shining silhouettes.

“After everything you said about not wanting him to die, you left him on a bus with a bunch of strangers?” she asked softly.

“I had no choice.”

“There had to have been a way, Niko!” Josie said.

I could hear the tears in her voice.

“Josie. Josie, please,” Niko pleaded.

Their voices became hushed. I craned my neck up to see. He had her by the arms and had drawn her close to him so their foreheads were touching.

“I promise I feel just as bad as you do,” he said.

And then they kissed.

Okay, that was new information.

I guess Niko and Josie were boyfriend/girlfriend now.

“We have to go after them,” Josie said.

“It’s impossible. We have to go on. We have to try to make it to Denver.”

“But Niko—”

Suddenly he was close to shouting. “You’re the one who said we could do this! You said if anyone could get us to Denver it would be me!”

“And I meant it—”

“Well, now we’ve got to try,” Niko said. His voice was flat and gruff, the way it gets when he’s serious. “We’ve got maybe two days’ worth of food and water if we really conserve and we’re about 25 miles away. Jean told me she heard there is an Army camp about 10 miles down the road. If we get there, they’ll help us.”