Two gulls dove into the water before our eyes and emerged with fish a moment later. They didn’t look like they missed humans. A little distance away pelicans dozed on the beach and behind them the mountains rose up. Despite everything, it was almost too beautiful to bear.
I lifted my face and leaned closer to Joshua. His hand came up to touch my hair. He breached the distance between our lips. The kiss was soft and hesitant like we had to get used to our togetherness again after days of uncertainty, grief and despair. I tangled my fingers in his shirt, pulling him closer.
“Sherry, Joshua!” A familiar voice carried over the wind. We pulled back. Tyler was running toward us. His face was red and he was panting when he came to a stop in front of our bench. He must have run the entire way.
Joshua and I got up.
“What’s happened?” My voice caught.
Tyler tried to catch his breath. “Joshua’s dad is on the radio. They got it. They got the message.”
“Mom!” I rushed down the staircase. I couldn’t stop pushing my tongue into the hole where my tooth had been. It tasted funny. Like salt and metal. “Mom!”
She appeared in the doorway of the living room. “You’re bleeding! What happened?” She hustled over to me and lifted my head to take a look at my lip. I licked the blood off. “I lost a tooth. See.” I opened my mouth wide and pointed toward the hole.
“The one that’s been loose for a while?”
I nodded and thrust out my palm with the tooth on top. “I got it.”
“Put it under your pillow or the tooth fairy won’t know about it,” Mom said with a smile.
I grinned, whirled around and dashed up the stairs and into my room. I hid the tooth under my pillow, hoping the tooth fairy would hurry. So far she’d always brought me candy or money. I tipped my finger against my other teeth. Maybe another one was loose. Would I get something special if I had two teeth for the fairy?
But they didn’t wiggle. With a sigh, I dropped my hand. One tooth had to do.
Chapter 20
My lungs burned as I stumbled into the living room behind Joshua and Tyler. It was the biggest room in the mission, and we’d filled it with chairs and a table from other rooms in the building, along with two sofas, which we’d taken from one of the houses in the neighbourhood. Even then, there were only just enough seats for all of us.
Every member of Safe-haven was already there. There was hardly any room.
Karen and Larry sat on one couch and Mom, Bobby and Mia on the other. Mia flung herself into my arms the moment I entered. I felt a pang of guilt; so much had happened in the last few days that I’d barely had time for her. I lifted her up and she slung her legs around my waist.
Maria sat on the floor with her daughter Emma, together with Marty, Quentin, Alexis and a few other Undergrounders. Everyone was watching Geoffrey who perched on a chair in front of the radio. A heavy silence filled the room like static.
“It’s your father,” Geoffrey said, turning to Joshua, his eyes feverish with excitement. “He wants to talk to you.”
Joshua crossed his arms over his chest, his expression hard.
“He won’t talk to us. He says he’s only talking to you,” Larry said, not bothering to hide his disapproval. Fear shot through me. Something had happened. Something bad, I knew it.
Mom scooted to the side of the couch so I could join them. I shook my head and took a step closer to Joshua.
“How did you find us?” Joshua asked.
“Joshua? I’m so glad you’re alive. I didn’t think you’d make it —”
Joshua interrupted him. “How did you reach us?”
There were a few seconds of silence before Joshua’s dad spoke. “I did some research. There aren’t that many running radios on your side.”
“What do you want? I thought you made it clear that you’ve got a new family and don’t want anything to do with me,” Joshua said.
“That’s not what I said, Josh. I —” He paused. “It doesn’t matter now. I’m calling to warn you.”
Larry shifted forward on the couch. “Warn us?”
Quentin rose and joined Joshua and me. Even the youngest Undergrounders who’d been fidgeting restlessly, now paid attention.
“The mutant army is on its way.”
“Mutant army?” Karen echoed.
“What does that mean?” A clutter of voices rose.
My head spun from the noise and Mr. Bender’s words. We should have foreseen this. Now I realized we’d been foolish to think we wouldn’t have to deal with the consequences of our video message.
Joshua stiffened. “What do you mean?”
“The army is on its way to Santa Barbara. The video of the military base and the mutants – your message! It’s started a rebellion.”
Everybody fell silent. Joshua and I exchanged a look. I didn’t know what to feel. Triumph? Terror?
“But how do they know where we live?” I asked. They’d been no sightings of helicopters since we arrived at the mission.
“They traced back the signal. That way they knew your approximate location. But I think they must have implanted a tracker into one of you.”
My eyes widened in horror. “A tracker?”
“It’s probably in your neck,” Mr. Bender said. “Below your hairline.”
I touched the spot but didn’t feel anything.
Joshua did the same. “Nothing.”
Bobby shouted. “I’ve got a small bump!” He jumped up, scratching at the spot. “I want it out. Take it out.”
Fear shot through me. Mia’s eyes were wide and frightened, picking up on the rising anxiety in the room. I set her down and grabbed Bobby’s hands. Angry red scratches marred the skin over the lump. “You’re hurting yourself.”
“I want it out,” he whispered, tears filling his eyes.
“I can remove it. I’ve done it before,” Quentin said as he patted Bobby’s shoulder.
Bobby nodded, relief showing on his face. I forced him to sit down again. Mom wrapped her arm around him while Mia watched everything, fear and confusion on her face.
Marie grabbed Mia and Emma and got up. “Let’s go into the courtyard, girls, shall we?” She left the room with them in a hurry. I was glad that Mia wouldn’t have to witness any more of this.
“So let me get this straight.” Larry stood up, righting his glasses. “The Weeper army controlled by the military is on its way because of a chip someone implanted into Bobby’s neck? And they’re going to kill us because we tried to make their crimes public?”
“People are in uproar over the video. The TV stations are trying to make them believe the recording was faked but many people, especially in the riot areas, don’t believe it. There’s talk of a revolt.”
“So people are trying to overthrow the government?” I asked. Hope flickered in me.
“Yes, but the government intend to act fast. They want to kill you – use you as an example. If you aren’t prepared, most of you will die or be turned into mutants.”
“How many Weepers are in the army?” Quentin asked.
I looked to Joshua, but his head was already dipped in thought, always the fighter and strategist. But what could we possibly do against an entire army?
“This is a test run,” Mr. Bender said over the radio. “They won’t send the entire army. They might need it to strike down the protests in the east soon and that’s more important than a few insubordinate survivors in the restricted area. I guess there’ll be fifty mutants, maybe more.”
I staggered back and leaned against the wall. So many?
Joshua started pacing. “When will they be here?”
“In two days, maybe three.”
“That’s not much time. Could we hide from them?” Joshua asked.
Everybody glanced at Bobby with the tracker in his neck. And besides, I knew that I didn’t want to hide.
“You could try, but I don’t think it would be much use,” replied Joshua’s dad. “The army will just search the
area until they find you.”
“Then we will fight,” Joshua said. Quentin nodded. Looking at them both, I knew Joshua wouldn’t let anyone talk him out of it. I had a feeling Quentin wasn’t much different. Pride swelled within me. We wouldn’t run away.
“But there’s not enough of us. How are we supposed to beat them?” Larry asked. He had a point. Not to mention the fact the youngest Undergrounder was only ten.
Alexis straightened. “We’re used to fighting. We’ve done if for years.”
“You’ll have to use a mixture of the cure and a very strong sedative as weapon,” Mr. Bender said over the radio.
Geoffrey shifted on the chair, shame-faced. “We only have one vial of the cure left. I tried to reproduce it but I failed.”
“I can help you with that,” Mr. Bender said. “And about the sedative – check local zoos for what they use on elephants or rhinos. They’ll knock out E.M.s.”
Larry shook his head. “Even with guns and the sedative-cure mix as weapons, we are too few to fight against so many of them at the same time.”
“But they won’t expect you to use the cure as a weapon,” Mr. Bender said. “You need lots of bullets to stop a Weeper but one dart with the cure is enough. Once the sedative wears off, probably after a few minutes, the cure should start to take effect and that’ll confuse them. Take off their collars, then they won’t get orders any more.” He continued. “They’ve planned a sweeping blow. They don’t expect much resistance from you.”
“We don’t have much time if what you say is true,” Joshua said, a slight tremor in his voice.
I took his hand. “Then we should hurry and start our preparations.”
“I think we should move,” Joshua announced. “Sherry and I were at the Stearns Wharf earlier today; I think we should go there. It would provide us with much better protection. The Weepers can’t attack us from the sides because most of it is surrounded by water. They will have to run over the beach to attack and that would make it easier for us to shoot them with the sedative darts.”
“Okay,” interrupted Mr. Bender. “Listen, I don’t know how much longer I can repress the interfering waves. We should discuss the cure now.”
Geoffrey’s face lit up. I blanked out when they started throwing around chemical terms I had no clue about, but Karen and Larry crowded around the radio. As a nurse Karen understood stuff like that and I remembered that Larry had taught chemistry in his other life.
Geoffrey hurried out of the living room as soon as the conversation was over, eager to start working. Suddenly the plan was beginning to come together.
“Okay, it’s time I went now, before anyone gets suspicious,” Mr. Bender said. “Josh?” His voice was gentle.
“Yeah?”
“Stay safe.”
With that he was gone.
My knees pressed into the sand, the grains trickling into my shoes and and in the creases of my jeans, I dug my fingers deeper into the beach. I flung sand away, only stopping when I’d created a hole five inches deep.
Then Joshua slowly placed the mine into the hole, the muscles in his arms taut with tension. We then filled the gaps around the mine with sand to keep it in place and to hide it from view. I straightened and backed away carefully. That was the tenth mine we’d buried in the sand. If the Weepers attacked, a few of them would hopefully be taken down by explosions. I hated the thought of having to kill them when there was the potential chance of healing them with the cure. But our chances were slim as it was.
Larry and Quentin had constructed the mines with material they’d found in houses and shops while Joshua and I had searched the L.A. and San Diego zoo for the sedatives. We’d found enough to fill all of our darts.
I brushed off my clothes as we left the beach. From the sidewalk, we scanned the sand. The mines were virtually invisible, unless you knew where to look. But the impact of an apple was enough the blow them up.
“That won’t stop all of them,” Joshua said.
“I know. We’d better prepare the guns.”
We walked to the end of the wharf where Karen and Mom had piled up darts for the tranquilizer guns and packs of the new cure Geoffrey had produced, along with all kinds of other weapons.
Marie arrived with Emma and Mia, holding them both by the hands as they walked up to the boat anchored at the far end of the wharf. Quentin had fixed its motor, so the tide wouldn’t carry them out to sea and too far from the shore.
Mia tore away from Marie and dashed toward me and Mom. She gripped our clothes and pressed her head against Mom’s stomach. Mom’s face contorted. I could tell she was fighting tears.
“I don’t want to go,” Mia said.
I stroked her head. “Emma and Marie will look after you.”
“But I’m scared.” Mia sniffed. “What if I don’t see you again?”
Mom closed her eyes, swallowing hard.
“It’ll be okay. In a few hours you’ll come back and we’ll watch the pelicans, I promise, okay?”
Mia raised her head and the look she gave me made me feel cold – like she knew I couldn’t promise. “Okay,” she whispered, wiping her eyes. I got down on my knees, wrapped my arms around her and kissed her cheek. “I love you, Mia.”
“Love you too.” Her voice was barely audible.
Mom led her to Marie and Emma who were already waiting in the boat, and hugged her before she helped her climb down the ladder. Marie heaved her into the boat.
The boards of the wharf groaned. I turned. Joshua was carrying Zoe toward Mom and me. Her eyes were open but I wasn’t sure if she was seeing us, or if she even knew what was happening. Maybe that was why she was so calm. Karen had given her the tranquilizer to make sure she wouldn’t panic and fall into the water.
When Joshua arrived at the end of the wharf, he pressed his cheek against the top of his sister’s head, his lips moving. The wind carried his words away so I couldn’t hear them. His fingers tightened their hold on Zoe before he lowered her into Marie’s waiting arms. She put her down beside Mia who was hugging her knees and staring at me with pleading eyes. I had to look away.
Joshua loosened the rope.
With a last glance at us, Marie started the motorboat and pulled away from the wharf. Mia raised her little hand and waved us goodbye.
Mom clasped my hands, tears streaming down her cheeks. Joshua knelt at the edge of the boards.
“What happens to Mia if we don’t survive this fight?” Mom asked.
I didn’t reply – couldn’t get any words past the lump lodged in my throat. I squeezed her hand, hoping it would reassure her. I couldn’t offer more.
A few hours later we sat on the balustrade, muscles sore from work. My head rested on Joshua’s shoulder, the wind whipping our hair around and tugging at our clothes. Night fell and the cries of the gulls died down. The moon reflected on the water’s surface. I imagined I could see the outline of the boat in the distance.
Something caught my attention. I sat up. Joshua jerked. I’d torn him from his dozing. He swung himself off the balustrade and landed with a thud on the boards of the wharf. My legs shaking, I jumped off my perch and stood beside him.
What I’d seen in the distance, somewhere in the hills, wasn’t a figment of my imagination or sign of my exhaustion.
Red lights blinked up in a wall of black. Red lights like the ones I’d seen on the collars of the Weepers.
The Weeper army was on its way.
“Park it over there!” Joshua shouted at Larry who positioned the station wagon beside another car. Ten cars were now lined up in front of the wharf, their headlights illuminating most of the beach and the surrounding streets.
It had been Joshua’s idea. Everything beyond the headlights’ reach was cloaked in darkness – except for the occasional flash of red in the distance.
I wondered if we’d make it until sunrise, if I’d ever see the sky going from black to grey then violet and pink, if I’d hear the gulls cry and see them fight over a scrap of fish,
if I’d hug Mia again.
The Weepers were closing in on us. They were a mass of moving shadows and blinking red lights, their progress steady and robotic.
“They’re so many,” Alexis whispered as she glanced toward the wall of blinking red collars. “How can we win?”
Bile traveled up my throat. My eyes wandered over all the people poised to fight. “We should take our positions. It won’t be long until they’re here.”
Geoffrey and Larry crouched on the roof of the ticket booth, Quentin and Marty on a hut a few feet behind them. I couldn’t see who was on the other roofs. They had a good view from there, even though the rear of the wharf lay in darkness. The headlights of the cars would show the Weepers. Joshua and I positioned ourselves on the right side of the wharf, with the wall of cars just a few feet from us. The beach was mined on both the left and right. That way we could focus on the middle.
Bobby moved to my side. His face was frozen in fear. Alexis joined us while Mom, Karen and Tyler took their places on the left.
“Are you okay?” I asked Bobby, sensing his trepidation. “If you feel that you can’t fight, lock yourself away in one of the houses. Honestly, Bobby.” I put my hand on his shoulder.
He straightened, some of the fear replaced by determination. “No way. I’ll fight.” I squeezed his hand as the army drew closer.
Roars rose from the Weepers as they reached the headlights’ glare. It reflected off their eyes, made them look even wilder. My heart tried to jump out of my chest but my grip on the gun tightened. The army careened over the beach, sending sand flying. I could feel the pounding of their feet through my body, as if they were on full attack mode now.
The first Weeper reached the minefield. A bang filled the night air and the shock wave raised the hairs on my neck. After the sand had settled, I could make out dark chunks and black stains on the beach – the remains of the Weeper. The explosion had torn a hand off another Weeper but the army didn’t stop. Another explosion thrust sand our way. I closed my eyes as grains pelted my face and body.
Another boom. Very close this time.
A few Weepers had reached the cars and catapulted themselves over the roofs before I’d even registered that the fight had actually started. More booms followed. Soon the mines would be gone.
The Life Beyond Page 20
