Monument 14

^{CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE} THE HATCH

At seven a.m., I didn’t wake up Chloe. She was supposed to be my helper for the day. I bumped her and instead I woke up Max.

“Max,” I whispered into the nest where he lay curled up with Ulysses and Batiste. The little kids didn’t have hammocks. They slept on crib mattresses set side to side.

The three boys looked both feral and adorable, like wolf puppies in a den. Their hair was messed up, and the sheets and blankets were all twisted up. They looked like the wild boys from Peter Pan.

“Max,” I said, shaking him gently.

“Yeah?”

“Will you be my helper today?”

“Again?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I owe you.”

“Two days in a row, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“Heck, yeah, I will!” he said as he lurched, still half asleep, to his feet.

As we walked to the Kitchen, he pulled on a fleece jacket. It seemed to be getting colder day by day. Maybe that’s what happened when the sun’s rays are blocked out by a giant metallic cloud.

“So, what’s for breakfast?” I asked him.

“Sundaes.”

“Like ice cream sundaes?” I asked.

“Exactly.”

“Max, I don’t think that’s a good idea. We need food, real food, to start the day.”

“Yeah,” he said. “But still. You do owe me, like you said.”

“Well, Max…”

“You were awful mean to me yesterday and you did make me cry…”

I should have said no. But I shrugged. “Okay.”

Why not? We could serve nuts to put on top, or something…

We loaded the shopping cart with sundae accoutrements.

“You know who has the best sundaes? The Village Inn,” Max said.

“Really?” I murmured. My head was aching again. The bruises, from what I’d seen, were even more brutal than the day before. There was some blood in my left eye.

To tell the truth, I thought I looked kind of tough.

But my head—I needed coffee and Advil.

“Once we was eating at the Village Inn and my mom went off to the bathroom,” Max said as he tossed a bottle of strawberry syrup into the cart. “My mom took forever and then my dad went off to see what was taking her so long and they did not come back for the longest time. And I sat there and waited and waited and the waitress asked me if we wanted dessert and I said sure. So then she brought me a banana split, like I had asked for, and I ate it. And I was going to share it with my mom and dad but they took so terrible long I decided to eat the whole thing up and then I didn’t feel so hot and I went to the bathroom to look for my dad and he wasn’t even there so I just went back to the booth and then the waitress woke me up and she made me tell her my phone number and she called my mom and it turned out they had just plumb forgot me there and they had gone on home without me.”

“Jeez, Max,” I said. “That’s terrible.”

“That ever happen to you?” he asked me.

“Not really,” I said.

“Yeah,” Max said. “It’s ’cause your folks probly don’t drink like my folks do.”

“No, not so much,” I agreed.

“But you know what the upside was,” Max said. “They forgot to charge us for the banana split!”

I had to hand it to him. That kid could really tell a story.

So we laid out the sundae bar. It was pretty impressive. We had nine flavors of ice cream, from vanilla to Chocolate Moose Tracks. Hot fudge, caramel, butterscotch, pineapple, strawberry. Every type of topping: crushed Oreos, gummy bears, gummy worms, all the nuts, chocolate chips, butterscotch morsels, white chocolate chips.

“They’re gonna flip!” Max said.

“I agree. Hey, Max—”

“They’re not going to believe it!”

“I know,” I said. “Max, about yesterday. I’m sorry that I yelled at you. That wasn’t a nice thing to do.”

“Pshaw, yesterday’s over. I never think about yesterday. If I did, I’d be dead meat.”

He took a maraschino cherry out of the open jar and popped it in his mouth.

It seemed to me a pretty good life philosophy, actually.

Especially with the state of the world ruined as it was.

“Can you tie the stem in a knot?” he asked me. “There was this stripper named Bingo I met at Emerald’s. She could tie a cherry stem in a knot around the handle of a plastic sword! All with her tongue!”

I shook my head no.

“But she had these buck teeth so maybe that was her secret weapon.”

The ice cream was getting soft. I looked at the clock.

“When are they coming? Can I go get them?” Max asked.

It was eight thirty.

Where were they?

Suddenly I realized that the store was completely quiet.

We could hear no distant voices.

No early-morning quarrels among the little ones.

No husky laughing from Jake or Brayden.

No movement.

I started to run.

“What is it? Where are they?” Max yelled as he followed me.

The Train was completely empty.

I spun around.

Max ran up to me.

“Where is everybody?” he cried.

“Shhhhh!” I said.

And I heard, faintly, sounds coming from the storage room.

“They’re in the back,” I told Max. “Come on.”

Just as we reached the doors, Alex came out.

“Dean,” he said. “I was coming for you. There’s people at the door!”

I pushed my way through the little kids to the front of the group, near the intercom.

The screen was a dull gray, with two shapes standing a bit off.

Niko: “They could be dangerous!”

Josie: “They need our help!”

Jake: “We can not trust them!”

Brayden: “But they know Mrs. Wooly!”

It was the last one that caught my attention.

“What?” I yelled. “They know Mrs. Wooly?”

“We’re going to vote,” Niko declared.

“WAIT!” I shouted. “Somebody tell me what’s going on!”

“We were taking the trash to the Dump when Henry heard a voice,” Josie told me. “I came back here and a man was asking us to let him in. Craig Appleton is his name.”

“And he has a friend,” Niko interrupted. “There’s two of them.”

“The friend knew Mrs. Wooly,” Brayden added. “He’s the maintenance guy from the grammar school.”

“Yeah,” said Chloe. “He fixed the buses and snowblower and stuff.”

“How did they get through the guy?” I asked Niko. He looked at me blankly. “The guy guarding the store.”

Now the little kids started asking what guy guarding the store and Niko shrugged.

“I didn’t ask.”

“Well, shoot,” Jake said. “Let’s ask them now.”

So Niko stepped up to the intercom.

“Excuse me, sir, we have a question for you.”

One of the shapes stepped up to the intercom. His face was wrapped in layers of some kind of plaid material. Maybe a wool throw rug?

“Yes, Niko, what’s the question?”

“Well… There was a man. Who was deranged from the compounds. As we understood it, he had sort of decided the store was his and he wasn’t letting anyone get—”

“Yes,” said Craig Appleton. “We had to shoot him.”

Niko told Josie to take the little kids, including Sahalia and Alex, back to the Living Room. Josie refused.

“I’m not going to be left out of this decision,” she argued.

“Me either,” said Sahalia.

Niko took a deep breath.

“I tell you what, Sahalia,” Niko said. “If you take the kids to the Living Room and play with them, I will stop considering you a little kid. You’ll have full big-kid status and all the privileges of a big kid.”

“Oh, now I’m a big kid? You guys treat me like dirt but when you need something—”

“Sahalia!” Niko shouted. “I. Need. Your. Help!”

“Fine,” she spat. “But I want my vote counted.”

“And what’s your vote?” Niko asked.

“Let them in. Maybe they can tell us what the hell’s going on out there. Come on, guys,” she said, rounding up the little kids.

“Let them in! Let them in!” shouted Chloe through the ruckus of little kids’ voices.

“Hey, Sahalia,” I called as she herded the kids off. “We set up a sundae bar…”

“For breakfast?” she said, disapproving.

“Mr. Appleton, you’ll need to wait for a moment,” Niko said into the intercom. “We need to discuss this and take a vote.”

The man’s muffled face came close to the monitor.

“We understand that you need time to decide,” he said. “There’s a lot of very scary people out here. But you can trust Robbie and me. That’s why Mrs. Wooly told Robbie about where you were. She and Robbie are good friends.

“But now I am injured and we’re out of supplies. Food and water are very scarce out here. If you could just help us stock up, we can give you the only thing we really have to trade.”

“What’s that?” Niko asked.

“Information,” he said.

It was as heated a debate as we’d ever had. Niko and Jake made a good case for not letting them in.

Niko was really concerned that they had shot the O monster. They could use their gun (or guns) against us. We could end up their prisoners. They might take over and try to rule the Greenway.

“My job is to keep you safe,” Niko said, his arms crossed. “They have guns and they are adults. They can take care of themselves.”

“If they try to take over it’ll be a total downer,” Jake drawled. His eyes were glassy and strange. “They should just go on their way. We don’t want strangers in here, telling us what to do.”

Brayden shook Jake’s arm.

“Dude, are you insane?” Brayden said. “They can tell us what’s going on out there! We need to know! And we got tons of stuff. We trade stuff for information.”

“I agree with Brayden. We should be generous and share what we have. We need to know what’s going on outside. It’s worth the risk,” Josie said.

Alex was opposed to adding any variables into what was a stable environment.

What tipped it was the rules Brayden proposed.

And my vote.

Niko turned to all of us.

“I just want it on the record that I am against this. I am only doing it because I’ve been outvoted. I think it’s a bad idea.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Brayden said. “Do you want to tell them or should I?”

Niko turned, sighing and pressed his finger onto the Talk button.

“We’ll let you in,” said Niko into the intercom. “On the following conditions. One, you give us your guns for the duration of your stay. Two, you agree to leave tomorrow morning, no matter what. Three, you promise to take no more than we give you, and four, you swear you will abide by our rules.”

“Agreed,” said Mr. Appleton, without consulting Robbie. “Now how can we help you open up this door?” he asked.

“We can’t open it,” Niko answered. “We’ll throw you a ladder down from the roof.”

I was banished from the storeroom, as were Niko and Brayden.

“You, too, Josie,” Niko said.

“But we don’t even know what type I am!” she protested.

“Exactly,” said Niko.

Alex and Jake would be the ones to let the men in.

Jake and Alex got bundled up in layers of clothing as a preventative measure. Niko handed Jake the home security ladder and then Jake and Alex went up the metal staircase and worked on opening the hatch.

After the woman had been attacked, Niko had wanted the hatch to be really easy to open (though still airtight) in case we had another emergency.

I guess he’d made the hatch really darn easy because by the time we got back with baby wipes, two gallons of spring water, and fresh clothes for the two men, we could hear adult voices through the storeroom doors.

They sounded friendly.…

Josie, Niko, Brayden, and I waited impatiently outside the storeroom doors.

Eventually Alex came out holding two handguns. He held each by the grip, barrel facing down, held out away from his body. He held them the way you might hold a couple of dead rats. He also had a fanny pack filled with ammo looped around one shoulder.

“Guess what?” he said after he unwound a scarf from his face. “They have a dog! A nice one.”

“I’ll take the guns,” Niko said. He held out a two-gallon Ziploc bag and Alex placed the guns and ammo into it. Niko wrapped it up neatly and headed off toward the Accessories Department. To hide them, I guess.

I gave Alex the clothes and cleaning supplies to take back into the storeroom.

“What are they like?” I asked Alex.

He shrugged.

“They’re acting nice,” he said. Then he looked at me. “Wouldn’t you?”

Sahalia brought the kids over.

“I couldn’t keep them away any longer,” she said. “They’re all hopped up on the idiotic amounts of sugar you set out for them.”

They were pretty wired. They were buzzing around and laughing and shouting and pushing each other and bopping up and down.

Then the timbre of Mr. Appleton’s voice came through the doors and they stopped talking.

A grown-up’s voice. Grown-ups were among us.

Caroline and Henry were holding hands, and I saw Max and Ulysses grab on to each other.

The door swung open but it was just Alex again.

“They’re changing their clothes and tidying up,” he told us. “And guess what, you guys? They have a surprise!”

“What is it?” “What is it?” “What’s the surprise?” “Are they staying forever?” “Are they here to rescue us?” “Is it anyone we know?” came the questions.

Josie motioned for the kids to follow her and she took them just a little ways back from the door.

“The two men are here to trade with us,” she said. “We are going to give them food and water and let them spend the night here. In exchange, they are going to tell us how things are going outside.”

“But… but…,” stammered Henry. He started to bawl. “I want to go home! I want my mommy! I’m tired of waiting and waiting!”

Josie hugged him and picked him up.

“I know, Henry,” she said. “You and Caroline have been so patient. But maybe these guys can tell us how much longer we will have to wait. Come on, guys,” she said to the little kids. “You can each pick out a welcome gift for the outsiders.”

Off they went, chatting and chirping like a little flock of birds.

There was manly laughter from behind the doors. Meanwhile, for those of us on the other side, it felt like time had stood still.

“Aaaaaargh,” Niko said under his breath. “I hope this wasn’t a huge mistake.”

“It’ll be okay,” I said. “Mrs. Wooly wouldn’t have told them about us if she didn’t trust them.”

Niko sighed and ran his hands through his dark, straight hair.

“I will never forgive myself if something happens to one of us,” he said. “Never.”

“Lighten up, Scouty,” Brayden said. “It’ll be fine.”

Chloe came back with two Snickers bars. Max and Ulysses lugged one big bottle of Gatorade each. Caroline and Henry had picked out some greeting cards. Batiste had two new bibles.

“Well, the Welcome Wagon’s ready,” Josie said.

And finally the doors swung open.

Mr. Appleton was tall, maybe six feet tall, and dressed now in a pair of khakis, a plaid flannel shirt, and a gray pullover sweater. The kind with patches on the elbows. His eyes had red rims, and his nose also was red around the nostrils. Besides that he looked pale and shaky. He had salt-and-pepper hair that was cut short and stood up pretty much straight. It was dirty—there was only so much you could do with a gallon of water and baby wipes, but it probably looked a lot better than it had before.

He was limping and there was already some new blood seeping through the khakis.

We should have brought medical supplies, I thought to myself.

Robbie was a good foot shorter. He was Latino and had a deeply tanned face with crinkle marks around his eyes. Smile lines. His eyes and nose were also red but he was grinning at us. And he held in his arms an old dog.

It was wet, and though Robbie had an awkward grip on it, the dog seemed patient and resigned to the indignity of being held. The dog was of no particular breed. A grayish-brownish-colored mutt with a scrunched-up face, white around the muzzle. It had one of those smushed-in faces dogs sometimes have, with one bottom tooth that stuck out over its upper lip. Ugly, but definitely lovable.

The kids cheered and oohed and aahed at the dog.

The dog woofed and wagged its stumpy tail politely.

“Everyone,” Jake said. “This is Mr. Appleton and this is Robbie.”

Robbie held the dog up.

“And this here is Luna,” he said cheerfully.

Robbie let the dog down. She came forward to smell our feet. Luna had a length of twine as a leash.

We’d soon fix that. Luna would have every pet luxury a Greenway could provide.

The little kids pressed forward all at once, offering their gifts.

Mr. Appleton duly shook hands and tousled hair and accepted the offerings, then he seemed to sway and Robbie held out his arm to support him.

“Let’s get you to the Pharmacy,” said Niko.

“Or perhaps you could bring some bandages here,” Mr. Appleton said as he slumped to the floor.

^{CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO} BREAKFAST WITH OUTSIDERS

My first impression was that Mr. Appleton was an ex-army guy. We had a lot of them in the area. He had that very good posture of the army men, and also the haircut. His haircut was the way army men let their hair grow out. They didn’t quite want the buzz—maybe they felt they didn’t deserve to wear a buzz anymore, but they didn’t want their hair flopping over either.

Mr. Appleton seemed to tolerate the little kids, but I didn’t have the sense he liked them one bit.

Robbie, on the other hand, was a family guy, you could see that straightaway. He looked like he was in heaven, surrounded by all the little kids. But it was the way he handled Ulysses that won me over.

After Niko went for medical supplies, the kids gathered around Robbie and Luna on the ground. Robbie was learning the names of the kids and introducing them to Luna. I saw him watching Ulysses, waiting for it to be Ulysses’s turn to introduce himself.

And Ulysses said, “Soy Ulysses,” and Robbie just reached out and grabbed him and hugged him. Spanish words poured out of the two of them and soon Ulysses was crying and Robbie was crying, too, and just holding him in a one-armed hug while the other arm held on to Luna, who decided she should begin washing their two faces with her tongue.

Ulysses, apparently, had had a lot to say this whole time. And only hadn’t said much because none of us could understand him.

Why I had chosen to study French in high school I will never understand.

Niko returned with the supplies. He knelt down in front of Mr. Appleton and cut a slit on the cuff of his new chinos. Niko began splitting them up the leg.

There were two wounds on Mr. Appleton’s leg. Near the ankle there was a horrible gash. I had never seen anything like it.

“Josie, maybe we should take the kids away?” I suggested feebly.

The wound looked like the guts of a fish, if that makes any sense. A big slash with pieces of flesh hanging out of it—green-and-yellow oozing flesh. It wasn’t bleeding, but you could see lines of red running under the skin, going up the leg, following the course of his veins. The lines were red and also a bruised kind of green in places.

The blood was coming from a different wound. This one above the knee. It looked like a bite, kind of. There was a chunk of flesh missing.

“What happened to you?” Chloe demanded.

“Razor wire,” Mr. Appleton said.

Niko poured hydrogen peroxide on the ankle wound and it hissed. Out loud.

“Come on, guys,” I said, feeling a little woozy. “Let’s give Niko some space to work. Everyone come help me in the Kitchen.”

There were protests and awws, but the stink coming out of that ankle gash was pretty ripe and eventually me, Josie, Sahalia, and Alex got the little kids rounded up and led them to the kitchen.

They were like a bunch of crickets, hopping and jumping all around, so excited by the arrival of GROWN-UPS and a DOG!

“Batiste,” I said, calling him over to me. “We need to fix something special.”

“Two breakfasts?” he asked.

“Well, the first one was sundaes, for God’s sake.”

“Don’t-take-the-Lord’s-name-in-vain,” he said quickly. Then “Yes! We’ll make a feast of thanksgiving, but for breakfast.”

Batiste ran ahead to the Food aisles. Chloe went with him to help. I guess they were starting to get along, somewhat.

I told Alex and Sahalia to throw away all the sundae stuff.

I got the other little kids busy making banana nut muffins under Josie’s supervision while Batiste and I cranked in the Kitchen.

In just under forty-five minutes, Batiste and I prepared roasted vegetable quiches, hash browns, a kind of a fruit salad Batiste told me was called ambrosia, and the last four packages of bacon.

Niko led the men into the Kitchen, just as the coffee finished brewing. Mr. Appleton was now equipped with crutches, which I hadn’t known we even had.

“Ay Dios!” Robbie exclaimed. “Look at all of this food!”

“And we made muffins for you!” shouted Max.

“And mine is the biggest!” shouted Chloe.

The little kids were a-boppin’ again, all yelling at the same time. And then Luna started barking.

“Shhh, you guys!” Josie said.

But they didn’t listen.

“Quiet! QUIET!” Mr. Appleton shouted.

The kids shut up immediately.

The silence was tense.

“I’m sorry,” Mr. Appleton said. “It’s just… we’re… I’m a little shell-shocked. It was very chaotic. Outside. And I’m not used to so much… noise.”

“We understand,” said Josie. “You’ve been through a lot.”

“Please sit down and I’ll get you two some food,” I said.

“Are you the chef?” Robbie asked me.

“Ah, yes,” said Mr. Appleton. I could see he was straining to be jovial. Trying to recover. “Who can we thank for this food?”

“I’m Dean. I do most of the cooking,” I said. “But Batiste here is the one who put this together.”

Robbie shook our hands heartily. Then Mr. Appleton shook them as well. His hand was papery but strong.

“Pleased to meet you,” Mr. Appleton said to us.

“Yes, sir,” Batiste said.

“I’m in charge of the food,” I said. “So I guess I will be the one who loads you up with provisions. I’ll be sure to give you lots of good stuff for when you leave.”

Somehow I felt strongly compelled to remind them that they’d be leaving sooner than later.

Maybe it was because they were eyeing the food like animals.

Everyone ate, but those two men really ate.

Halfway through their meal, Robbie stopped eating and said an impromptu prayer in Spanish.

He winked at Ulysses and then explained to all of us, “I was so hungry, I forgot to give thanks to El Señor for sending us here to this little paradise of a Greenway, filled with angelitos.”

“Amen!” Batiste said. “I’m always telling these sinners we should pray before each and every meal.”

Robbie chucked Ulysses under the chin. The boy shined like a new minted penny.

“Well, now we said thanks, so I’m gonna eat more!”

There was laughter at this and I gave him thirds.

^{CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE} MR. APPLETON’S STORY

Niko and Josie discussed what to do with the little kids while we all met with the grown-ups.

“I don’t want to miss out on the meeting,” she said firmly.

“I understand that, but I don’t think Sahalia will watch them either.”

Sahalia was skulking against the wall, eyeing Brayden with venom.

Niko looked over to me.

“No way,” I said.

“Well, somebody’s got to keep them away!”

“I have an idea,” I said.

I walked over to the kids.

“Okay, you guys, I have a problem and I need your help. Me and the big kids and the men need to have a meeting. But Luna really, really needs a bath. Do any of you know how to give a dog a bath?”

Caroline and Henry’s hands shot up like arrows.

“Oh, oh, oh!” they chorused.

“I do, too!” yelled Chloe. “My nana has a Bernese mountain dog and I wash him all by myself!”

“Great!” I said. “We have three experts. You guys need to get all the supplies and bring them all here. Then wash the dog. Then dry her. Then comb her hair.”

“Then we’ll make her a bed and give her some food!” Max shouted.

“Then we’ll sing her to sleep!” Caroline added.

Josie watched me, nodding her head.

“Nice one, Dean,” she said. “I’m impressed.”

“Let’s start our meeting now,” Niko said to the men.

So Mr. Appleton and Robbie held court in the Living Room. Robbie groaned as he lowered himself down onto one of the futon couches and patted his belly.

“I feel so happy now,” he said, smiling at all of us. “I thank God he brought us to this place.”

Mr. Appleton chose a straight-backed desk chair. He put his bad foot up on an end table. I tried to ignore the smell.

“What would you like to know?” he asked us.

“Maybe you could just start at the beginning and go from there,” Niko said. “We’ve been here since the hailstorm, so any information you can give us about what has happened outside would be good.”

“Fine.”

He took a moment and began: “The hailstorm caused a significant disruption for everyone, as you can imagine. There was panic when the Network went down, as no one could reach 911. However, it was the news of the disaster on the East Coast that created what I would consider to be a chaotic environment. Many people gathered at the VFW to watch the news coverage, such as it was, on an old television set. It was a time of mourning and there was a sense of camaraderie that was admirable.

“I am proud to say there was no rioting or looting at any of the stores in town. At the stores whose riot gates had not deployed, people stood quietly in lines and purchased only necessities. From what I understand, people in Colorado Springs were not as well behaved.

“I set out for the hardware store first thing the next morning. My Land Cruiser was garaged, so it was undamaged by the hail, which is more than I can say for most of the cars in town.

“I was surprised to find the store was closed. There were some employees gathered in front of the store who weren’t sure if the store would be opening or not. There was a spirit of confusion and discouragement among the employees and the few customers who had arrived.

“Then the earthquake hit. People fell and were hit with some debris. A part of the roof of the store collapsed and the windows shattered. There were some minor injuries among those of us gathered around the store.

“There was discussion among those of us uninjured about how to best care for those who had been injured. I am fully trained in first aid, so for about an hour, I issued directions and tried to oversee the care of the injured. I went into the store and found a basic first aid kit. I decided we should move the injured away from the store in case further aftershocks brought more of the building down.

“It was at that moment that I detected the change in the color of the air. I saw a black plume rising in the sky toward Colorado Springs.

“In a matter of minutes, the people around me started acting in ways that were beyond my comprehension.”

Mr. Appleton stopped to wipe sweat from his forehead. He was staring straight ahead, as if watching a movie of the events he was describing to us.

“I was helping a young employee of the store carry a female employee who had a broken leg. She was quite heavy. African-American descent. I would estimate two-hundred to two-hundred-fifty pounds.

“As we carried her across the parking lot, the air turned around us. Everything became quite green. The woman’s skin erupted in blisters. They started small, but as we continued to carry her they grew and burst. She began to scream and writhe. We were forced to set her down, not only because she was moving but because her blood was spurting from the many lesions and she became too slick. Just as I realized that she was dead the young man I had been assisting gave a furious cry and attacked me.”

Mr. Appleton was now rocking slightly front and back as he spoke. This small movement was a metronome and the story kept coming out of him at a steady, even pace.

“I fought the young man off for a moment, but he might have injured me seriously if he had not been attacked in turn by another person. It was an elderly man who had earlier told me he was there for chicken wire. I watched as the old man and the young man fought each other to the death. The young man was the winner.”

Suddenly Mr. Appleton seemed to come back to the present moment.

“Are you sure you want the younger ones hearing this?” he asked Niko, pointing toward Sahalia and Alex.

Sahalia huffed.

“It’s okay,” Niko said. “They’re big kids. They have all the rights and privileges of us high school kids.”

Mr. Appleton continued.

“The light got more and more dim and soon it was as if night had fallen. The sounds around me were horrific. I heard screams of rage intermixed with the screams of the murdered and the gurgling sounds of what I assumed to be people choking on their own blood.

“I pulled my sweater over my face and began to walk to my car. I got in my car and took care not to turn on the lights. I turned on the radio and heard the emergency broadcast that explained what was happening around me. I attempted to drive back to my home. The highways had become glutted with cars and none were moving. Around me, in the cars, I could see some people blistering up and dying. In other cars I saw people begin to attack each other. And in a few cases I locked eyes with other people who seemed to be just as sane and frightened as I felt.

“I was sure that if I tried to walk home on foot I would be attacked, so I drove my car over the median and made my way over the land. This was made difficult because of the hail, but my Land Cruiser has four-wheel drive.

“However, as I neared my home, I could see that the development was on fire. All of Woodmoor was ablaze. The fire had spread quickly from house to house. Among the burning homes, I could see many people running and screaming. I decided not to try to get to my house, but instead to go try to take shelter in one of my schools.”

“What do you mean, one of your schools?” Niko asked.

We all looked at Mr. Appleton.

“Well,” Mr. Appleton said, “I’m the chancellor of schools for El Paso County.”

Sahalia groaned out loud, which was so startlingly funny that I burst out laughing.

Everyone laughed, even Mr. Appleton.

“Sorry,” he said. “But it’s true.”

Mr. Appleton went on, in his measured, efficient way, to tell us that he’d met up with Robbie at Lewis Palmer. Robbie had told him that Mrs. Wooly had come to see about getting a bus to get a bunch of kids home who were currently stranded in the Greenway (that was us).

“Yeah, I was at the school during the hailstorm,” Robbie told us. “It was me and some teachers. They left, after the storm, but I stayed. That’s when Mrs. Wooly showed up. She told us you were safe here.”

“Is she okay?” Niko asked. “Where is she?”

“I’m not sure.”

“What do you mean?” Josie asked. Robbie looked flustered.

“We were trying to calm people down because some parents were coming, looking for their kids.”

“What parents?” Alex interrupted. “Did Mrs. Wooly tell them we’re here? Do you know the names of the parents?”

“Well, no. Not really. Because, well…”

“There were a group of us there,” Mr. Appleton took over. “We gathered together, sharing the resources and information. We were trying to create a secure, uncontaminated area that everyone could bring their families to. But we were attacked.”

“By who?” Jake asked.

“By people with O-type blood,” Niko said softly.

Mr. Appleton nodded.

“They were all killed.”

This landed like a punch to the stomach.

“Mrs. Wooly?” asked Niko.

“I’m not sure,” Mr. Appleton answered. “It was very chaotic.”

“I think she got free,” Robbie said.

“But if she’d gotten free she would have come for us,” Alex said.

“So what’s it like out there now?” Niko interrupted.

All of us fell silent to listen.

Mr. Appleton took a drink off his water bottle. He looked greenish and not at all well.

“It’s dangerous,” Mr. Appleton said. “Most people are staying inside. Those who have no water are out, trying to find it. The O-affected are out and raving mad. They lie in wait and attack foragers.”

“There’s some cadets, from the Academy, that have made, like, a gang,” Robbie added. “They have been attacking people’s houses, if they think people are inside with food and water.”

“All in all,” Mr. Appleton said, “You are the luckiest children in Monument, Colorado. Very lucky to be holed up here with enough food and water to last you for… months?”

“Years,” Alex said. “We’ve been looking at the inventory. I think we could stay here for up to twenty to twenty-four months, given the supplies we have. Fresh oxygen and power are bigger issues than food and water, for us.”

Mr. Appleton rubbed his hand over his forehead. He was sweating.

“Niko,” he said. “Can you show me to the latrines? I think I ate too quickly.”

Niko stood and offered Mr. Appleton his arm.

He led him toward the Dump.

“You guys, get some beds set up,” Niko directed.

“Yes, sir, Niko, sir,” Brayden snapped.

Robbie smiled at Brayden.

“He’s pretty serious, huh?” Robbie asked quietly.

“He’s our very own dictator,” Brayden answered.

“That’s not fair,” Josie protested.

“Come on,” I said to Alex. “Let’s set up the beds.”

Alex and I made a space in a back part of the Automotive aisle with air mattresses, sheets, blankets, and a little battery-powered floor lamp and flashlights to help them get around in the darkened store.

Niko and Brayden came over with the men a couple of minutes after we’d finished.

Mr. Appleton looked a little better. He had some antibiotic foil packs in his hand.

“Thank you,” Mr. Appleton said. “I’ll sleep for a few hours now, I think. And you have my word, tomorrow morning, we leave.”

“Yes,” Niko said. “That’s our deal.”

Robbie helped Mr. Appleton to lower down onto the wobbly air mattress.

“I have to hand it to you kids,” Mr. Appleton said, looking up at us. “The way you have arranged things here is smart. Ingenious, actually.”

Hmmm. How did this make us feel? It was dark and the only light came from the one table lamp, so I couldn’t see the other kids’ reactions but I thought I saw Niko cross his arms.

He really didn’t like these men.

I felt Alex, who was standing next to me, straighten up somewhat. I could tell he was pleased by the compliment.

And Alex deserved praise. He had worked really hard to help our little colony thrive.

Brayden, I’m sure, was rolling his eyes.

I felt a profound uneasiness.

The compliments seemed like the type of compliments that come when you’re doing something and then a grown-up comes and takes it over from you.

Robbie turned to follow us away.

“Aren’t you going to rest?” Mr. Appleton asked.

“Me? Naw. I want to get a look at that bus,” Robbie answered.

^{CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR} BUSES HAVE TYPES, TOO

As we neared the kitchen, and the bus, the kids swarmed out to greet us with a happy, fluffy Luna.

She was white under all that grime!

Robbie laughed. He had such a broad, good-natured laugh.

“I had no idea you were white, mi angelito!” Robbie said, bending down to gather her in his arms.

All the little kids talked at once, regaling him with the adventures of giving Luna a bath.

I looked at the kitchen. A kiddie-pool full of filthy water stood in the center of the dining area of the Pizza Shack. Water was everywhere, along with towels, empty shampoo bottles. It was a mess. Whatever—it had been an activity that bought us enough time to hear the outsiders’ story.

Josie came and stood next to me.

“I’ll help clean it up,” she offered.

“Good,” I said.

Robbie went over to the bus, so all the kids, big and little, followed him. He walked around it with an appraising eye, Luna still in his arms. Then he let her down and got on his back and slid under the front of it.

“Oye, can somebody bring me a flashlight?”

Many pairs of little feet went pattering off to fulfill his request.

Apparently there are several types of school buses—the one that had delivered us all safely into the Greenway was a type D.

Now, the high school bus had been a type C, that’s the kind that has an engine up front. The front of it has a hood and an engine. You can open the hood and fix the engine the way you would any car.

But a type D bus has a flat face.

The engine is under the body of the bus. And that’s why Mrs. Wooly’s bus weathered the storm so well. And that’s why it could still run—the hail hadn’t damaged the engine one bit.

The tires were another story.

There were six tires total on the bus. Two up front and four in the back—two on each rear axle.

One of the front tires was flat.

“This one is no problem,” Robbie said, showing Niko. “We patch it with a kit. They have them in Automotive. Then we reinflate.”

Then he walked around and shone the flashlight under the bus, at one of the back sets of tires.

“But the inside one, here, see it’s melted? That’s not good.”

The inside tire was collapsed and had a gaping, melted hole.

“Can the bus run on just the outside tire?” Alex asked.

“Maybe for a short distance,” Robbie answered.

“Well, thanks for taking a look at it,” Niko said.

“I’ll try to patch it,” Robbie said. “I’ll try this crazy thing I saw on TV—they filled a tire with tennis balls and then used fiberlace.”

“Cool!” Brayden said.

“We should fix the bus up,” Robbie said. “Change the oil, tune up the engine. You could have it running in case of an emergency.”

“That’s a really good idea,” Alex said.

“It would probably take more than one day, though,” Niko said. “Thanks anyway.”

“The kids could help me.”

“Niko, we should totally do it,” Brayden urged. “In case of emergency.”

“Of course you can work on it,” Niko snapped. “I just doubt you’ll be able to fix it in one day. And these guys leave tomorrow. That’s all.”

“Aw,” complained Chloe. “I don’t want him to leave. Not ever.”

“Me either!” said Max. The other kids agreed.

Niko walked away.

I looked at Robbie, smiling and rustling the hair of the little kids who were gathered around him.

It didn’t seem to me like it would be the worst thing in the world if Robbie stayed more than one day, either.

He grabbed Chloe and Max and lifted them off the floor. They squealed, delighted.

Robbie appointed Chloe the note taker. She kept a log of the repairs needed as Robbie inspected the bus: Pound out dents in roof; replace broken windshield; replace windows; repair seats; tune engine; fix tires.

Henry suggested they paint racing stripes on the bus and Robbie told Chloe to put it on the list.

Robbie had a good sense of kids and how to manage them in a crowd. He sent Brayden and Alex off to get some supplies from Automotive and then he told the little kids that the first thing to do was to clear a working space around the bus. The kids set to work pushing the carts away and cleaning up any pieces of glass or debris that had been missed before.

“I’m good with engines. I have experience. Wanna know why, Mr. Robbie?” Max said in his cheerful way. “Because my dad sometimes works at a chop shop.”

“What’s a chop shop?” Chloe demanded.

“It’s a secret club where you go to take cars apart. It’s really fun.”

“What’s so fun about that?”

“Because it’s a secret and you can’t tell nobody! Especially not the police, because they’re never allowed in the club. They’re always so jealous. The cops would give anything to get in a chop shop.”

Robbie caught my eye and he grinned. I had to grin back.

“And sometimes the cars are really fancy, too,” Max continued. “BMW, Lexus, Subarus…”

“Wow,” Batiste said.

“Our mom drives a Subaru!” Caroline said, her sweet little voice excited and proud.

“It’s a Forester!” Henry added.

“Cool,” Max said.

They were pretty cute, our kids. I could see why Robbie liked to hug them. They were definitely huggable. At times.

I decided I’d better get working on lunch.

As I turned and headed into the Kitchen I saw that Sahalia was sitting on top of the low dividing wall between the Pizza Shack and the cart corral where the bus was sitting.

She was biting her cuticles with determination. She looked really left out and downhearted. I felt bad for her, but not that bad, since she’d been such a pain in the ass to us all in the last couple of days.

I saw Robbie notice Sahalia and walk over.

“We need everyone to help if we’re going to get this bus in shape,” he said softly.

“It looks like you have enough helpers to me,” she said.

“Yeah, but they’re little,” Robbie said. “I need people who can actually help.” He smiled at her and patted her on the knee. “Grown-ups.”

Was Sahalia a grown-up? Not really.

But he knew exactly what to say.

Sahalia smiled. She gathered her hair up and twisted it in a knot.

“Okay,” she said. “Show me what to do.”

“That’s my girl,” he said, giving her knee a squeeze.

^{CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE} HANDS

I let Max help fix the bus instead of making him come do KP with me.

They were having a great time.

While Robbie, Brayden, and Sahalia worked on the tires and then on the engine, the little kids washed the bus with baby wipes, which was absurd but very cute.

Robbie gave Alex the task of figuring out how to replace the windshield and broken windows. Alex set off into the store to forage for Plexiglas. This was exactly his kind of challenge.

I made tuna sandwiches for lunch, with some peas and carrots on the side. I figured Robbie and Mr. Appleton could use the protein from the tuna and fresh (frozen) vegetables are something grown-ups seem to enjoy.

Mr. Appleton was still sleeping, so he didn’t come to lunch, which, truth be told, probably made lunch all the more fun. That guy was a grump.

And Niko had come, taken a plate of food and left, so we also didn’t have him there to be worrying in our faces and bringing us down.

Robbie had all the little kids play a guessing game called I’m Thinking of an Animal.

“I’m thinking of an animal,” said Chloe. “It’s black and white and wears a tuxedo!”

“A penguin!” Max shouted. “Now, I’m thinking of an animal. It’s brown and lives in the woods.”

“A bear?” asked Caroline.

“A squirrel?” guessed Batiste.

“It roars and eats people!” Max added.

“A bear!” Caroline insisted.

“No, a lion!” Max announced.

“They don’t live in the woods!” Batiste said.

“Yes, they do!”

“They’re not brown,” Chloe objected. “They’re yellow.”

“I’m think of animal,” Ulysses offered, interrupting the spat. He was more confident now, with Robbie around. “I’m think of animal—it’s a dog!” he said.

We all laughed.

Everyone was in their finest form.

Josie came and sat with me and Alex.

“What do you guys think about the outsiders?” she asked us quickly.

“I really like Robbie,” Alex said eagerly. “He knows so much about engines. I’m going to show him my video walkie-talkies later.”

Josie turned to me.

“Dean?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I like Robbie. I mean, everyone likes Robbie. But Mr. Appleton is pretty heavy.”

Josie nodded, chewing her sandwich.

“You know what troubles me? That Niko doesn’t like them.”

I was glad, for Niko’s sake, that Josie had even noticed his feelings at all. She seemed pretty oblivious to him, most of the time.

“I worry what the effect on the kids would be, if we all want them to stay and Niko still wants them to go…”

I had been wondering the same thing.

“God,” Josie said with a yawn. “Is it really just lunch time? This day already feels a million years long.”

“It’s because so much has happened,” Alex said through a mouthful of tuna. “Our whole universe has changed in just a few hours.”

Alex was right. As usual.

Everyone worked on the bus in the afternoon except Jake (high), Niko (pissy), Mr. Appleton (sleeping), and Astrid (AWOL).

Robbie, Brayden, and Sahalia got the engine purring nicely.

Robbie and Sahalia got along really well. It turned out that if you treated her like an adult, she acted like one.

Josie helped Alex with the windows. For the front windshield they used Plexiglas that Alex had taken out of the Media Department display cases. The side windows they decided to just cover with wooden shelves from the Home Improvement section. Robbie helped them screw them into place.

The little kids were given the delightful task of putting epoxy glue into every dent, chip, nook, or cranny that looked like it might let air into the bus.

Josie and Alex used the same epoxy to seal around the windows.

“Looking good,” I heard Robbie say, inspecting their work at the end of the day. “Looking very good.”

He boarded the bus and walked down the aisle.

I couldn’t resist, I put down my spatula and went over to see how they’d done.

“Look, Dean,” Alex said, showing me the interior.

The inside of the bus was dark, now. Most of the side windows had been replaced by wood.

It smelled kind of dank in there.

All in all, I did not like being on a bus again.

“We have a little more work to do,” Robbie said.

He pointed up.

We could see slivers and shards of light coming in through the dented roof.

“I guess you guys can do it tomorrow,” Robbie said. “After we’re gone…”

“No,” Alex said. “Niko will let you guys stay longer. I know he will. Now that he sees how helpful you guys are. Don’t you think, Dean?”

I shrugged.

“A deal is a deal.” Robbie sighed.

The atmosphere at dinner was completely different than it had been at lunch.

Mr. Appleton came over, looking a lot better for his day’s sleep.

“Look what we did, Mr. Appleton,” Max said, bounding over to him. “We fixed the bus!”

“My goodness,” Mr. Appleton said. “What good work.”

Robbie walked over to him.

“You’re looking better,” Robbie said.

Chloe came over and snuggled up to Robbie. Robbie tousled her hair.

I saw a flicker of surprise on Mr. Appleton’s face at Chloe’s gesture of closeness.

“Thank you, Robbie,” Mr. Appleton said. “I must be feeling better, because I feel like I could eat a horse!”

Anticipating this, I had prepared like eight bags of chicken alfredo frozen pasta.

Mr. Appleton clapped Niko on the shoulder. “Niko, I think we hit on the right antibiotics. I am feeling a lot better.”

“Good,” Niko said. “Then you two will be ready to leave in the morning.”

“Of course we will. Perhaps you’ll lend me an alarm clock so we can wake up at a reasonable hour. Then we’re on our way.”

All the friendly chitter chatter of dinner stopped suddenly.

“What?” Chloe said. “Who died? Why’d everyone stop talking?”

“Niko’s going to make Robbie and Mr. Appleton leave tomorrow,” Sahalia said.

“Nooo!” shouted half the kids, and the others screamed, “You have to let them stay!”

“We have a deal!” Niko shouted, but the ruckus was too loud.

Ulysses was crying in Spanish and Robbie drew him onto his lap. Those fat tears welled up in Ulysses’s eyes and he put his head down on Robbie’s shoulder.

“We have a deal with these men and they can only stay for one day,” Niko repeated.

“Now, kids,” Mr. Appleton tried. “Be reasonable now…”

“I hate you!” Chloe screamed at Niko. “I wish we had elected Jake president! He wouldn’t care if they stayed.”

Niko turned to me and Josie.

“How about some backup here?” he asked us.

But it was basically futile to try to talk to the kids when they were so worked up.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” shouted Alex. “They should stay at least until we’re finished fixing the bus and Mr. Appleton is feeling better.”

Part of me was happy that Alex was now mad at Niko, his hero.

But truly Alex was right. What would a couple more days do? The men were safe. They could be trusted. Why couldn’t they stay a little longer?

“We made a deal,” Niko insisted.

“If you make them go, I’m going with them,” Brayden shouted.

“Whoa now,” Mr. Appleton said, holding his hands up.

“Me, too!” Sahalia announced. “I’d rather take my chances out there than stay here with you losers!”

This caused more screaming and crying from the little kids, who, I think, were less insulted by being called losers than afraid their new “family” was breaking apart.

“Everyone, please quiet down,” Mr. Appleton said. “Quiet down!”

The kids tried to rein in their distress, sniffling and hiccupping back their tears.

“Right. Good,” Niko said sarcastically. “Listen to him, but not to me.”

Mr. Appleton turned to Niko.

“Niko,” he said. “I give you my word that we will leave. But the truth is… my leg is worse than I thought. Robbie could finish fixing the bus. I could rest… If perhaps we could stay one or two more days…”

The chorus of whining “pleases” went up from the kids and Niko stormed off.

Josie got up.

“I want you all to settle down,” she said to the little kids. “I am going to talk to Niko and see if we can’t work something out. Dean?” she said, turning to me.

“Yeah.” I rose and followed her.

“I’m coming, too,” Alex said.

“No, Alex,” I said. “You’re too upset. You won’t be impartial.”

He nodded, looking down at the table. He prided himself on remaining impartial.

“You think he’s just insecure about losing his power?” Josie asked me as we looked for Niko.

“I guess. I don’t know. He’s so disciplined. Maybe he just really wants them to stick to the deal, even though it makes sense for them to stay.”

Niko wasn’t in the storeroom or in the Living Room.

We passed the towel aisle.

Jake was lying on a hammock, strung between the aisles.

“Hey, Jake, you seen Niko?” I asked.

“Naw,” he drawled.

There were shadow circles under Jake’s eyes. His sunny blond hair looked gray and dirty. He looked like his own evil twin.

“What’s all the ruckus?” he asked us.

“Everyone wants the outsiders to stay, but Niko says they have to go.”

“Oh.”

That was it?

He didn’t have an opinion?

He reached out his foot to the shelf and pushed himself into a gentle sway.

“Don’t you think they should stay?” Josie asked him.

“Who cares?” he said. “We’re all gonna die anyway.”

He looked up at us.

His blue eyes were dark like a stormy nighttime sky.

“Maybe Niko’s in the Train,” I said, steering Josie away.

We hurried away.

Josie stepped into the Train.

“I’ll knock on his door,” she said.

A moment later I heard, “Dean, can you come here?”

I opened the door to Niko’s berth. Josie was standing there, looking around, totally transfixed.

Niko’s berth had a hammock, like mine.

It was the only thing in the berth, besides drawings.

Drawings covered all three walls.

Each drawing or sketch was meticulously stuck into the soft wall with thumbtacks. The drawings were on all different-size pieces of paper. Some eleven by fourteen. Some no bigger than a Post-it. There was a little edge of the fuzzy, orange Greenway dressing-room wall showing between them. The berth looked ordered and neat, and at the same time, it was wonderful and wild. It boggled my mind.

For one thing, who had any secrets left?

We were all with one another all the time.

This guy, the leader of our group, had kept his drawing a secret. How did he do it? I guess I’d seen him sketching on his clipboard at times. I think I just assumed he was making lists or something.

I looked more closely at the drawings. On one whole wall, there were hands, lots of hands. They were rendered in charcoal or felt-tip pen. Some in plain old ballpoint pen.

On the other walls the drawings were varied. There was a drawing of Henry and Caroline, looking at a book. One of me, cooking something. From the grimace on my face, I guess I’d burned it. I looked taller than I remembered myself. There was a drawing of the bus, broken-down and leaning on its two flat tires near the front entrance. There was a beautiful color pastel of Josie. She looked radiant and glowing, her brown skin captured in a spectrum of chocolate and mocha tones.

“Did you see this?” I asked her, pointing.

She nodded yes.

“It’s beautiful,” I said.

There was a sketch of the ink cloud pouring up into the sky. A drawing of our memorial circle—the one we’d had after Josie woke up. A really crazy-good drawing of Luna, which he had to have made in the last twelve hours…

Josie had her back to me, looking at the wall with the hands.

I saw that they were all different hands. Hands from different people. They were labeled at the bottom-right corner in Niko’s neat block printing: Dad. Grandpa. Tim. Mrs. Miccio. I saw Chloe’s chubby little mitt. And one of Jake’s big meat paws.

Josie was looking at one drawing in the center of the wall. Tears were streaming down her face.

I knew whose hands they were before I read the label. The hands were open, as if welcoming, or calling someone into them. The palms seemed soft, drawn with gentle lines and a sort of a rosy effect from the charcoal. The fingers were long and thin and tapered off at the tips. A wedding band and engagement ring were on the ring finger, but you only saw the back of the rings because of how the hands were opened.

They were the hands of Niko’s mother.

Sometimes, when you’d least expect it, the grief would chop your legs out from under you.

And that’s how it was with me when I saw that drawing there.

“What are you guys doing in here?” Niko said from the doorway.

“Oh, Niko,” Josie said, turning to him. “Your drawings are so beautiful.”

“And private,” he said. He motioned for us to leave.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “We were looking for you.”

“Please get out of my room!” he said, raising his voice.

We went into the Living Room and he followed.

“Thanks for making me the enemy with the kids, by the way,” he said derisively. “I’m trying to keep everyone safe and now everyone hates me. I really appreciate it.”

His jaw was tight. I could see this was pretty much Niko at his worst—uptight, being a stickler for the rules, going for sarcasm to try to defend himself.

“We just want to understand your logic here,” I said.

“We made a deal. One. Day. That’s my logic.”

“But, Niko, Robbie is really helpful and the kids love him,”

“I know,” Niko said. “But don’t you think he might just be trying to win everyone over so we’ll let them stay?”

“But Mr. Appleton needs more time to recover,” I protested.

“I know! Look,” Niko turned to us. “Robbie’s just…”

“Just what?” Josie asked.

“I don’t like him.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “Why?”

“The way… I don’t know. The way he’s all over everyone. It doesn’t feel right.”

“Come on, Niko,” I protested.

“I saw him put his arm around Sahalia. They were going to get motor oil. He had his arm around her. It just wasn’t right.”

“Niko, she’s thirteen,” Josie said. “You can’t think…”

“I don’t know what I think!” he exclaimed. “Except that everyone is putting pressure on me to do something that feels wrong.”

He looked from my face to Josie’s face. Back and forth.

“Don’t you feel it?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I mean, Mr. Appleton is kind of a jerk, but everyone loves Robbie. He’s friendly. He’s nice. He’s helping us to fix the bus. Ulysses loves him.”

“Can we compromise, Niko?” Josie said and for the first time, I saw warmth toward him from her. “What if we just let them stay for two more days? Long enough for Robbie to finish fixing the bus and for Mr. Appleton to rest.”

Niko turned away from her.

“You can’t back me up on this?” he asked us.

“Just two days, Niko. I think the little kids really need some grown-up time. And it would also give Brayden and Sahalia some time to get used to the idea that they can’t go with them. I can get everyone used to the idea, if I just have some more time…”

Niko sighed. He shrugged.

“Okay, Josie. If that’s what you want to do. Fine.”

Josie told everyone that Robbie and Mr. Appleton could stay two more days.

Robbie and Ulysses hugged.

Mr. Appleton nodded and I think he even smiled.

That was about as positive as I’d seen him.

Robbie took over Josie’s job of storyteller that night.

On the floor of the Living Room, the kids gathered around him like he was a campfire.

He told them fables from Mexico about turtles and rabbits and frogs and crows.

You never saw a happier bunch of kids or a happier man.

I was so glad Niko had changed his mind.