Sky on Fire

“Chloe, you stay here and take care of Caroline and Henry,” I ordered. She closed her mouth with a snap.

I grabbed a headlamp and Astrid took a flashlight, and together, we ran toward the front gate, winding our way through the dark, cold store.

Luna ran beside us, barking her head off.

BANG. BANG.

Someone was shooting at the gate.

“Stand back,” I told Astrid, throwing my arm out to block her. She stopped, close behind me, her body pressed against mine, and even in that moment of tension and fear, I was aware of her body.

We moved around to the side, out of the way of the gate.

“What do you want?” I yelled toward the closest bullet hole.

Luna was barking herself hoarse.

BANG. Another shot tore a tiny hole through the gate.

“Luna, shut up!” Astrid grabbed Luna’s collar and held her back.

“Who are you and what do you want?” I hollered.

“Stop! Stop shooting,” I heard from outside. Had to strain to hear the voice.

Then there was a thud and a rattle on the gate, as if something or someone had been smashed against it.

“Hey, kid,” came the voice. “It’s me, Scott Fisher.”

“Why are you shooting our store? We already gave you food!” I yelled.

“That’s just it, man. This guy here—”

And again came the thudding sound and a dull rattle from beyond the plywood.

“This guy here found me and he said I had to show him where I got the stuff, and if you don’t give us more, he’s going to kill me.”

I looked at Astrid, illuminated from below by her flashlight.

“Shoot,” I said.

“We have to help him,” Astrid pleaded.

“I know,” I said.

Scott Fisher gave a cry of pain.

“Okay,” I shouted. “Okay!”

“He says you have to open the store!”

“We’ll throw down food,” I shouted.

“He’s going to kill me if you don’t open the store!”

“Look, we can’t open the store. But we’ll throw down lots of food and water, okay?”

There was the sound of an argument, but we couldn’t hear the words. I could hear the tone, though, and Scott’s voice went higher and higher. Fighting? Begging?

Another rattle on the gate and now his voice was desperate.

“Watch out, kid! He’s gonna—”

Another BANG. BANG. Then it was quiet and it seemed clear that Scott Fisher was dead.

“Gonna what?” Astrid said in a quiet, scared voice.

“I’m going to go look for weapons,” I told her. “You stay here and hit the air horn if they try anything.”

* * *

Thank God we’d found those stupid headlamps.

I knew I looked like an idiot, but as I ran through the store, looking for weapons, I was glad I was wearing my flashlight on my head, and had my arms free.

If only Jake hadn’t taken the one gun. We’d had two, from the outsiders.

And when he left, Niko had taken one. That was good. I wanted Niko to have one.

But Jake had taken the other gun and then walked out on us. I begrudged him that gun.

I thought of potato guns. I didn’t know how to make them and I was pretty sure they took a long time to make.

There was some way to use aerosol cans to make blowtorches, but I didn’t know how to do it.

What could I do? I guess I could go and get a bunch of knives from the Kitchen aisles and throw them at the intruders. So lame. I wanted to wring my own neck for being so lame.

“Dean?” came Chloe’s voice. She must have heard me moving around in the aisles. “What’s happening out there?”

“It’s nothing,” I shouted. “You’re doing a good job, Chloe. Just keep the twins there. Just wait for us. Everything’s okay.”

“We’re bored!”

“Just be bored, then,” I yelled. She was such a brat.

I raced toward Home Improvement.

Why had I spent time building us a room? I should have been making weapons.

I needed my brother, who could make anything out of anything. Or Niko, who just naturally thought in terms of survival.

I paced through the store, aisle after aisle.

Home Improvement seemed like the best option.

I came to the barbecues.

And the lighter fluid.

My best idea was to squirt it on them and light them on fire.

Stupid idea, I know, but I was in a panic.

* * *

Back at the gate, Astrid was poking putty into one of the holes in the gate.

“Are you okay?” I asked as I ran toward her.

I carried a case of lighter fluid and a couple of those long-neck fireplace lighters.

“They’re gone,” she said quietly. “At least for now.”

“Are you sure?”

“I haven’t heard a sound.”

“Okay, okay, good,” I said.

“Were you going to barbecue them to death?” Astrid asked, her hands on her hips.

I was mad, for a second, then I saw her eyes twinkle in the glow from my headlamp.

And I started to laugh.

Her laughter joined mine and it totally got away from us until I had tears coming down my face.

“Shoot,” I said. “You’re funny.”

“Sometimes,” Astrid answered. “I got some wood putty. Want to help me plug up these bullet holes?”

“Sure,” I answered.

As we worked, I told her about an idea. “I saw some chainsaws in Home Improvement. They’re mostly kerosene, but there are a couple of battery-powered ones.”

I knew a little about chainsaws, because I’d helped my uncle clear some land down near Placerville during the summer. Uncle Dave had two chainsaws, one gas and one battery. The battery one was a lot less powerful than the gas one, but it cut scrub oak okay. I shuddered with the thought of what it would do as a weapon against a person.

“Can’t you use the lighter fluid?” Astrid nodded toward my can of Kingsford.

I grabbed the bottle.

“No, it’s not kerosene. It’s … aliphatic petroleum solvent. Whatever that is.”

“Well, how are you going to charge the batteries?” she asked.

“Maybe a car battery?” I suggested.

“Yeah, that could work,” she said.

We were a good team. I was glad we had decided to work on being friends. She was holding up her end of the bargain and I was trying my best not to worship her.

* * *

“Where have you been? Do I have to do everything around here?” Chloe chided when we returned from hooking up the chainsaws. They were playing hospital, and Caroline, appropriately enough, was the patient.

“Bad guys were trying to get in,” Astrid told her.

“Bad guys?” Henry repeated.

He and Caroline looked up at us with an identical expression of fear in their two sets of eyes.

Every once in a while, taking care of the twins, I’d feel a sort of a lurch in my heart. They were so, erm, beautiful. I know that’s a dorky word to use, but they were. Their smallness and warmth. Their wide-open smiles and abundance of freckles. It made my chest ache to think of how Mrs. McKinley, if she were still alive, must be missing them. Whether it was in her honor or in her memory, I had to keep them safe.

“How bad?” Chloe asked.

“What?” I said.

“On a scale of one to ten, how bad were the bad guys?”

“I don’t know,” I told her. “Bad enough.”

“They couldn’t get through the gate, though,” Astrid said. She ruffled Henry’s hair. “Too bad for them.”

Astrid had a pretty good approach with the kids. Josie would have withheld the truth, probably, and spun some story. But they seemed happier just knowing the facts: Bad guys had tried to get in and couldn’t.

“Caroline, it’s time for a sip of ginger ale,” Chloe directed.

Caroline sipped dutifully.

“Okay, now Henry’s going to take your pulse,” Chloe said. Henry knelt by the futon and pressed his fingers somewhere in the vicinity of Caroline’s elbow.

Henry and Caroline looked at each other with big, serious eyes.

“It’s better!” he announced. “One hundred nine and four eighty pressure.”

“Excellent,” Chloe nodded. “Now the patient must eat more crackers.”

Henry fed his twin crackers a bite at a time, and Chloe looked on, content and the very model of efficiency.

“Dean, I had an idea,” Astrid said. “I saw a brass fire pit in Home Improvement. I thought maybe I’d drag it over to the Kitchen. I don’t want to light it in here, in case it gets too smoky, but I thought it might be kind of cheery to have a fire at night.”

“Yeah, sounds cool.” Exhaling, I ran a hand through my hair. So far, the morning had been pretty … intense. “I’m going to eat some breakfast,” I told Astrid. “And then I’m going to do a security check on the store.”

“Good idea,” she answered.

CHAPTER EIGHT

ALEX

26 MILES

Niko had Josie in his arms. Her head lolled back, bobbing loose. Sahalia was sobbing, clinging to Ulysses, who was also crying.

Me and the others were just standing there gaping. It was hard to grasp. Our bus had been taken and we were out in the dark.

“We have to get it back!” Sahalia shrieked. “We have to attack them and get Brayden and kick them out!”

“Guys…,” Max tried to butt in.

“How?” Niko said from behind his air mask. “They have guns. There are five of them!”

“Guys!” Max yelled.

“We need to find somewhere safe until Josie wakes up. Then we’ll figure out what to do.”

“They’ll be far gone by then!” Sahalia protested.

“Guys!” Max shouted.

“What?” Niko yelled.

“I know where we can stay,” he said. Then he pointed over to a clump of dead trees. There was a military floodlight near there and in the glow you could make out a sign: “Meadow Flowers Mobile Home Community.”