Savage Drift

^{CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN} DEAN

They were not pleased with me, the soldiers. They thought I was an a-hole, and they let me know it.

Each of them wore safety suits. A heavier material than ours, but with the same baggy design. They had different face masks at their hips, too. More of a helmet, with a built-in mouthpiece instead of the ones like ours, that you held between your teeth.

They were some kind of a cleanup crew.

“You got any idea what the penalties are for interfering with the US Army, son?” bellowed the giant one who’d pulled me out of the car.

“Here comes Sarge,” said a different one.

I saw that the entire caravan had stopped up ahead and an officer flanked by three soldiers was walking to our car.

Then we heard it.

BREEEEEEEEE! A chorus of tiny alarm whistles.

“SUITS! MASKS!” they all shouted and everyone moved fast, the sun reflecting off their face plates and the sound of zippers all around.

And I suddenly felt icy, sick, cold—I had forgotten Astrid’s suit.

It was still hanging up on the back of the door at Rinée and J.J.’s house.

The soldier who’d been holding me was zipping on his mask. I darted away from him, scrambling to the other side of the car, all the while shucking my suit.

I had to get it on Astrid. I had to get her safe.

I opened the door and she fell halfway out onto the pavement.

The drift was swooping and wheeling in the sky, about a mile or so in the distance.

I got the suit off my legs. Astrid’s legs were in the car. I pulled them out. Got one leg into the suit.

The whistling died down as the soldiers zipped up.

The soldiers around us ran back up to the caravan, where they were unloading the sucker-jeeps from the flatbed trucks. I heard them shouting to one another—revving up engines.

I got her feet in and then lifted her weight up, getting under her shoulders and back, so I could tug the suit up her limp body.

There was only one whistling suit now—the one I was trying to get on Astrid.

Her head lolled back onto my shoulder.

The drift sent fingers to the ground here and there, little black twisters, reaching for what?

I zipped up the front of the suit.

“Here she comes!” cried someone.

“Ready the suckers!” came an order.

I fumbled for the headpiece. It was still in its holster, under her hip.

I got it.

“Steady!” I heard them call.

I heard a tinkling sound. Tiny tinkles, like hail. Coming closer.

Hail.

I got the headpiece on her.

I remembered hail.

Hail and blood was how it all started.

I zipped it closed, the rage blossoming in my brain.

Astrid. A girl. A girl in a suit. A green light near her face.

I pushed her back in the car, pushed her too hard, and I slammed it shut, slammed too hard.

There were men there.

Men with machines, aiming giant sucking funnels into the sky and I would kill one of them and put him in the funnel and chop him up.

Yes, a chopping machine!

I laughed.

They didn’t even see me coming and I got to the first one and I grabbed him by the back of the cloth suit.

A cloth suit for protection? Not from me.

I could taste his blood in my mouth I wanted it so bad.

To the machine, I pushed him.

But he was too strong. He threw me down.

And then I was on the ground and a cloth man was standing with one boot on my chest.

Machine gun! He had one! I would get it. And then I could—

“Sorry, kid,” came his voice.

And he brought the gun down on my head.