Sky on Fire

15 DEAN

THE CADETS JUMPED DOWN onto us, forcing us backward down the staircase.

They screamed war cries and were laughing with the raw exhilaration true bullies feel.

Punching and kicking and pushing, they whaled on us as they pushed us down to the bottom of the stairs.

I fell to the cement floor, bashing my head and my shoulder. Something tore inside my shoulder. It screamed in protest, and I had trouble gathering up my body again. I felt jumbled and frozen with the pain of it.

I just lay back down on the floor.

‘Zarember, go get Anna and the others,’ the lead cadet ordered. ‘Tell them the sweet little sissies opened right up for us.’

One of the two cadets started back up the stairs.

I saw Jake sit up, shaking his head to clear it, trying to recover.

‘Mickey?’ Jake said. ‘Mickey Zarember?’

The figure on the stairs stopped and turned.

‘Who are you?’ he asked.

He had short brown hair and a huge bruise on one side of his face.

‘Jake Simonsen. Remember me? I was a prospective at the Academy… I stayed with Jamie—’

‘Holy crap, Payton,’ Mickey Zarember said, coming back down the stairs. ‘I do know this kid. Jake. He stayed with Jamie Delgado. This kid can hold his liquor!’

Mickey wanted to cross to Jake, you could feel it, but he waited for a nod from Payton. Payton did not nod.

He swaggered over to Jake himself.

‘So we know you, huh, kid? Lucky for you. Pretty darn lucky.’

Payton gave Jake a hand and pulled him to his feet. He pulled Jake real close, right up to his face.

‘Cadet Lieutenant Colonel Bradley Payton, squadron commander of the Fightin’ Fourth,’ he said. ‘And you are?’

‘Jake Simonsen… sir,’ Jake answered, finding his footing.

‘Pleased to make your acquaintance, Jake,’ Payton said, his face just inches away from Jake’s. Then he released his grip and Jake backed away a step and looked at the floor.

‘I hope you got a lot of food, kid. ’Cause we’re starving.’

‘Yeah, totally, whatever we got is yours.’ Jake grinned, the model of jocularity. ‘We have more than we can use!’

I shot him a look.

Jake smiled right at me and I read total terror behind that smile.

There were five of them, including Payton, and a little girl. The girl was somehow wearing a white jacket that wasn’t filthy. She looked strange and withdrawn.

‘This is Anna. She’s my niece and she’s our little decoy. Our lucky charm.’ Payton ruffled her hair. ‘Like a rabbit’s foot. Only don’t touch her. Nobody touches her. It’s one of our rules. That’s because she’s my cousin.’

The girl looked far, far away. She smoothed her hair down with utter detachment.

None of them had an air mask or was wearing any layers so that meant they were all either AB (paranoia) or B (sexual dysfunction). They had guns. Shotguns and handguns. Each one seemed to be packing something.

As they clattered down the staircase, my mind was racing a million miles an hour.

Could I somehow go out and warn Astrid?

Would she know to stay hidden and not come hollering to see what had happened?

Most of all, how were we going to get them to leave?

It was obvious that Payton was paranoid. He seemed crazy and very aggressive.

After he’d helped Jake up, Payton saw the wrapped-up bodies in the corner and went right over to them. I cursed myself for not covering them up.

Payton poked them with the barrel of his handgun.

‘Naughty, naughty!’ he said, wagging a finger at Jake. ‘Somebody’s been killing grown-ups! We’re going to have to keep an eye on you. And your friend, too.’

What’s your name, honey?’ he said. He strode over to look into my air mask.’

‘Dean.’

‘Dean. I get it! Like the dean of a school!’

Payton was at least twenty, maybe twenty-one or twenty-two. Broadly built. His crew cut was brown and there were little dots of dried blood on his face. From a splatter that was not his own.

His eyes were the colour of yellow mud.

‘Hey, Deano.’ He tapped on my air mask with his gun. ‘What are you, O or A or AB or what? Is that your handiwork over there?’ He nodded toward the bodies in the corner.

‘I’m A,’ I lied.

‘Well, then we’d better get you out of here before you start to peel, son.’ He winked at me.

He turned to Jake. The last of his group were filing down the stairs.

‘Well? Let’s eat!’ Payton boomed. ‘Come on, Dean and Jake Simonsen, you two lead the way!’

One of the other cadets hauled me up and I cried out from the pain in my shoulder.

‘Oh now, don’t whine. I hate whiners!’ Payton tut-tutted.

‘Wait,’ I croaked as the cadet manhandled me toward the two main doors.

‘What?’ Payton shouted. ‘What did you say?’

‘Be cool, Dean,’ Jake said, anxiety heavy in his falsely light tone.

‘The hatch,’ I said, talking loudly so I could be heard through my mask. ‘We need to close the hatch.’

Payton looked at me as if he were seeing me for the first time.

‘Brilliant! Yes! Of course we need to close the hatch. I like this kid. I like these kids, Zarember! Nice work!’

And he threw his arm around me.

My shoulder screamed, but I kept my mouth shut.

Jake and I walked them toward the Food aisles (and away from the House).

My every agonized step was a prayer for Astrid to get the kids and hide, hide, hide.

The cadets whooped and started tearing into the cookies and chips and crackers.

Jake and I thought we were forgotten for a moment. I took my mask off and rubbed at my face. My whole body was covered in a cold sweat.

It was stupid, but I was almost glad my glasses were lost and broken, somewhere outside near the palette loader. Maybe I looked cooler and tougher without them.

Instinct told me coolness and toughness had suddenly become survival qualities.

A cadet came and stood watch over us.

‘Dude,’ Jake said to the cadet. ‘Aren’t you hungry?’

The cadet clearly wanted to be eating but had his orders.

‘Shut up!’ he growled.

‘We’re not going anywhere,’ Jake said, as friendly as could be.

‘I said shut up before I have to put an end to your chatter with the end of my Smith and Wesson!’ the kid snarled. He was shorter than us, with camouflage grease paint all over his face and through his hair. He also had a lame, scraggly mustache.

I nicknamed him Greasy.

We watched them gorge themselves, eating and drinking and spraying one another with soda.

If we hadn’t seen the kids by now, there was a very good chance that Astrid had gotten them all into hiding, wasn’t there?

Jake and I glanced at each other from time to time and that seemed to be what he was saying to me. It was definitely what I was trying to tell him.

And how the hell had Astrid managed to keep Luna quiet? I remembered reading something about mothers in World War II who’d had to smother their own babies to keep them from crying and revealing the position of the family to the Gestapo. I felt sick. How was she keeping Luna quiet?

‘You guys made out like bandits!’ Payton said, coming to stand with us. He held an open box of Chex mix. He offered it to us. ‘You want some?’

‘No, thank you,’ I said.

‘No, thank you…?’

‘No, thank you, sir.’

‘That’s more like it. Listen, you don’t know anything about us so let me elucidate for you. I am a second-class cadet. The rest of these losers are doolies. Fourth year. Like freshmen. That means I outrank them. That means they do whatever I say and then no one gets hurt!’

He threw his arm around me and I saw stars. I whimpered a bit and Jake shot a look at me.

‘You know what I realized,’ Jake said. ‘I never asked how you guys met Brayden.’

Payton looked blank for a moment and then he laughed.

‘Effin’ Brayden. Oh Lord. He wants to know how we met Brayden!’ he shouted to the gorging cadets. ‘We met him on the bus.’

I felt my insides turn to ice.

‘What bus?’ Jake asked, bluffing.

‘We ambushed the bus, Jake, don’t play stupid. We ambushed the bus and that’s how we found out about this place. One of the little squirts told us exactly where to come.’

Oh my God, he was about to say that he’d killed my brother? What would I do? What would I do if he said that?

‘We told them not to leave,’ Jake lied.

He was sweating. Jake was shaking and sweating.

‘Stupid idiots! Why would they ever leave here?’ Payton agreed. He munched another handful of Chex. ‘Oh, I know. They wanted to save Brayden. Well, he died.’

‘Yeah?’ Jake asked.

‘To tell you the truth, we killed him. He kept moaning and moaning. Oh Lord, it was driving me crazy. So I had to ask one of my guys to smother him. I couldn’t take that moaning anymore. I hate moaners.’

Payton looked sidelong at Jake, assessing his reaction indirectly.

Jake nodded. ‘Me too.’ He looked grey.

‘They never would have made it to a hospital anyway,’ Payton continued. ‘Nope, we kicked those losers off the bus. I believe they were going to try to make it to Denver on foot. Idiots.’

My brother, Niko, Josie, and the rest were now on foot. Or had been, whenever this ambush had happened. I felt sick to my stomach.

‘But you know what, I made a mistake when I let them go,’ Payton said. He looked around the Food aisles, and saw that Anna was drifting away toward the nuts and trail mix – out of ear shot. ‘I should have kept that sweet little girly on the bus!’

Payton elbowed Jake.

‘I bet you miss her right?’ he said to Jake. ‘Did you have yourself a little goodbye party before she set off?’

He was talking about Josie or Sahalia.

So he hadn’t killed them and he hadn’t messed with them.

That was good.

Okay, okay, Astrid had to have the kids hiding by now. She was very good at hiding away. They had to be safe from this sicko. I was starting to think he wasn’t crazy from the compounds. He was just crazy on his own.

‘Mr Payton, sir,’ I stammered.

‘Cadet Lieutenant Colonel,’ he corrected me. ‘What?’

‘I’ve been meaning to ask. How’d you guys get up on the roof?’

‘Old-fashioned grappling hook, Dean. That Zarember can climb anything. Then he found a ladder and threw it down for us. Real thoughtful of you to leave it up there,’ he said, clapping me on the shoulder.

I should have kept my mouth shut. I almost fainted from the pain.

‘All right, doolies,’ Payton said, addressing the group. ‘Spread out and give me a report. I want full recon on this here Greenway superstore. Exits, entrances, assets, liabilities, weapons…’

Payton winked at us.

I hated those mean, malicious winks.

‘Also be on the lookout for any alcohol! Daddy could sure use a drink!’

The cadets cheered.

‘Hey!’ Jake said, as if suddenly remembering something. ‘Where are my manners? Do you guys want to get high?’