Sky on Fire

Max’s cries turned into wails, but then I heard a vicious shriek. It made me feel elated and sick to the stomach at the same time.

Josie’s war cry.

And the lights went off us and we heard the fight.

* * *

She attacked the dad first and had him down and I guess was pounding on him. Then I think the son tried to hit her with something. There was a thwack and then the kid was crying, “No, please, don’t.”

And then Josie roared at him, “GO ON, THEN!” Her voice sounded like a monster but she let him go. “GO!!!”

As much as I hated the kid, I didn’t want him to die. And more than that, I didn’t want Josie to be the one to kill him.

And the dad? Was he…?

I heard sobbing then. Josie’s voice, ragged and desperate.

And then the sound of her standing up in the mud.

“Josie! Josie, it’s not your fault!” Niko shouted. “You can stay, Jojo. You can stay with us!”

“I can’t,” said Josie, dark and tortured above us.

“Josie!” Niko cried. “I love you, don’t go!”

And then nothing.

She was gone.

* * *

After a few minutes, the boy came back.

“Dad?” he said. “Daddy … Daddy?”

Then the light shined down again on us.

“You give me an air mask!” he shrieked. “You throw it up right now!”

He started pelting us with rocks and clumps of mud. “You give it now!”

The thing is, we did have an extra. We had three extra.

Niko wasn’t speaking or moving or anything.

“Hold on!” I shouted. “Hold on a minute!”

“I won’t hold on! You throw one up now so me and my mom can get out of here or I’ll bury you alive!”

That just didn’t seem like a credible threat, actually. He couldn’t have been more than 11 years old and where was he going to get the dirt? But I didn’t blame him for thinking illogically. His father was dead.

“We will throw one up if you let us out!” I shouted.

“What?”

I tried to think like Niko.

“We will throw up an air mask if you put down a rope for us.”

“Fine,” he spat. “Throw up two, then.”

“Okay,” I bargained. “But first the rope.”

“No way. First, the masks.”

“How about I throw one mask, you put down the rope, then I’ll throw the second?”

The boy hesitated. “Okay,” he agreed reluctantly.

“He won’t throw down a rope,” Sahalia scoffed.

“The mask is an extra,” I said with a shrug.

“We’re going to die down here,” she said.

Niko just stood there.

I took Niko’s old mask, the one he’d used before he got the good Army one, and pitched it up.

“Now give us the rope,” I yelled.

The boy, Eddie, leaned over the edge, shining his own flashlight onto his face so we could see him.

“I hope you all rot in hell!” the kid said, his face covered with tears and snot. “Your friend killed my dad!”

And he left, sobbing.

* * *

Niko took the gun out from his backpack.

“Niko?” I asked.

He looked at me blankly.

“Niko?” I asked again. He was acting scary.

He aimed the gun in the air.

“HELP!” he shouted. And fired BANG.

“Stop!” I yelled. He was scaring me. He was scaring everyone.

“HELP!” BANG.

The kids were screaming.

“HELP!” BANG. BANG. BANG.

“Niko, don’t!” I screamed.

But he didn’t listen. He fired our last shot and then he pitched the gun out of the pit and up onto the slimy grass above.

During all this, Sahalia had just lain down in the dank mud and was weeping.

“Get up,” Niko told her.

“It’s no use. We’re going to die.”

“No, we’re not. Get up,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’m going to give you a boost and you’re going to go get a ladder.”

“I can’t,” she moaned.

But he did get her up.

First, he tried that thing where one person steps into the other person’s hands. But she was still 4–5 feet short of the edge.

Then he tried putting her on his back. Still way short.

So then they tried that again, but then I was supposed to climb up their bodies somehow and get on top of Sahalia’s shoulders, but that didn’t work. I couldn’t climb up Niko. I just grabbed fistfuls of his clothing and pulled him backward until Sahalia fell backward.

“It’s no use!” she screamed. “We’re going to die!”

“What about the flares!” I shouted. “We can shoot up some flares and maybe someone will come and rescue us.”

“Or kill us!” Sahalia spat.

“It’s worth a try,” Niko said after a moment.

I wiggled one of the flares out of the belt. It was sealed in a plastic wrapper with a white string hanging off. I pulled the string, and a scored middle section ripped open.

The flare was cardboard and there was a cap with a sandy surface on it.

I studied the flare. It was essentially a large, fat match, complete with a sandpaper striker attached to the cap.

But before I could light it, Sahalia gestured for me to hand it to her.

“I’ll do it,” Sahalia said. “I’ve done it before. And if you do it wrong too many times, it won’t light.”

I handed her the flare. I had wanted to light it, but if she was showing an interest in our survival again, I thought I should encourage it.

She struck the cap against the tip of the flare.

Then the red light sparked up and molten light spewed out of the end. Sahalia held the flare as far away from her body as she could.

Neon orange light lit her up. I will never forget the sight of her there, her balaclava pushed away from her face, her long hair peeking through. Wearing a yellow slicker over her five layers. Ulysses and Max cowered behind her, each hugging the other for dear life, faces obscured by their air masks. Batiste’s form just behind them, bent over and sobbing. Mud and grime all over them, and her, and roots and rocks jutting out from the sides of the pit.

“Should I just, like, throw it?” she asked.

Niko took it from her and hurled it up, over the side of the pit and out onto the grass.

* * *

Niko wrapped Max up in the tarp to try to keep any more water from getting to him. The wet was burning his legs and feet now and he kept making this low, animal kind of moaning.

Ulysses started praying in Spanish and Batiste started praying in English.

And then it started to rain.

That’s when Sahalia asked me for my book.

Here is what she wrote:

My name is Sahalia Wenner.

It looks like we’re going to die and I wanted to write this in case anyone finds it. If you do, please deliver my letter to Patrick Wenner, 106 McShane Place, Monument, CO.

Daddy, I’m sorry I wasn’t a better girl for you. If I could go back in time I’d be up in the morning, helping you to make breakfast and do the dishes when you asked me to. I didn’t know how good I had it and that’s the truth.

I don’t know why we had to fight all the time. I don’t know what I was so mad about, now. I really can’t remember.

I want you to know that after the hailstorm I was in the Greenway. Right there in our town. I don’t know where you got to, or if you’re even alive. But I was there with all these kids and I love them all now like they’re my own brothers and sisters.

I fell in love with a boy there and now he’s probably dead. I think you would have liked him, but I don’t know. His name was Brayden Cutlass and he had the most beautiful brown eyes.

I wish I could have been a fashion designer or a singer like I wanted to. I wish I could have lived a life where I moved to LA and made my dreams come true. But that’s not the world anymore—those dreams are dead now. Most of all I wish you find this, Daddy, so you can know that I love you so much and all I can think of is how much I wish you knew that. I guess maybe you’re dead already and you already know what’s in my heart.

Or maybe you knew all along. That would be the best thing. Better than I deserve. If somehow you knew all along how I really feel about you.

Love, from your girl,

Sahalia

Here’s what everyone else wanted to say:

Batiste: “Mother and Father, if I die, I will wake up in Heaven and maybe I’ll see you there. Love, Batiste”

Max: “Mom and Dad, I’m sorry I didn’t find you. Be good and don’t fight.”

Ulysses: “I am Ulysses Dominguez.”

Niko wouldn’t tell me anything to write.

“Stop writing in that book!” he yelled. “We’re going to get out of here. Let’s light more flares. Someone must be out there.”

He lit and threw a red, another red, and a white.

We waited and the rain started seeping in through our layers.

A little while later, Max threw up.

He threw up inside his air mask and there was a lot of blood.

“Help us!” Sahalia started to scream. “Somebody help us!”

We still had his old air mask and so now we had to try to switch it out.

Niko didn’t need to call me over. I knelt next to Max and prepared to help.

Sahalia was still screaming her head off, her voice going raw and hoarse.

“Hold your breath, buddy,” Niko told Max, but he was gasping and choking.

Niko took the air mask off. Max’s face was a mess. Red, splotchy blisters all over the area around his mouth and nose and eyes and blood dripping from his chin.

I pressed the new air mask over his face and he gasped in.

The sound was muffled. It was a horrible sound.

Max was going to die.

Niko gave an anguished, frustrated cry. Then he jumped up, like he’d been stung into action.