The Only Ones

by Aaron Starmer

  “She’s ready,” was all Henry would say. Then he walked back outside.

  Kid Godzilla was painted green with curls of silver to produce the illusion of scales. A series of glossy white metallic teeth made up the front grill. A jagged tail fin stuck out from the back. The tires, thick and black, were at least five feet tall. Taller than Henry, in any case. When Martin, Lane, and Chet came out of the church, they saw the squat boy standing next to the monster truck, which was vibrating and spitting exhaust from its curling green tailpipe.

  Darla shoved her head and a fist out the driver’s-side window. “A Spacer! An honest-to-goodness Spacer!” she hooted. She gave the fist an overly celebratory pump.

  “She gets excited sometimes,” Henry explained.

  “Of course I do.” Darla laughed. “I’m psyched. Climb aboard, one and all. Three Vaporists and a Spacer. Makin’ a spaceship. Who woulda thunk it?”

  Henry began to hoist himself up to the passenger-side seat when Darla waved him off. “Shoo, boy. That seat is reserved for Mr. Maple.”

  Head down, Henry shuffled over to the extended cab in the back.

  “Thank you,” Martin whispered as he climbed up and into the truck.

  “And make sure you sit squirrel,” Darla commanded Henry. “We got a coupla huskies that deserve window seats.”

  Henry moved to the center of the cramped back cab, squeezed his legs together, lifted his knees, and brought his hands in close to his chin. His rifle stuck up behind him like a tail.

  “Whatcha waiting on?” Darla said to Chet and Lane, who hadn’t made a move from their spots along the edge of the church parking lot. By the looks on their faces, it was easy to tell they weren’t happy with the situation.

  “Flying pigs,” Lane deadpanned.

  “I’m sure Nigel could arrange something,” Darla said. “Come on and get in, ya bums.”

  “Yes,” Martin said. “I think it’s important that we all work together. Where are we going, anyway, Darla?”

  In response, she smiled, revved the engine, then pulled a small lever on the dashboard. Fire shot out from two nostril-shaped holes in the hood of Kid Godzilla, and the laugh Darla set free from her lungs was only a tad short of maniacal.

  —— 14 ——

  The Island

  They spotted the Ferris wheel first. It rose through the trees like the skeleton of a giant flower. As the truck got closer, they saw the sign.

  “What’s Impossible Island?” Chet asked from the backseat.

  “You’re looking at it,” Darla said. “Finest theme park within fifty miles of Xibalba.”

  “Theme parks are torture,” Martin blurted out.

  “What?” Henry said.

  “It’s something … someone told me once,” Martin said.

  “Well, someone was a real wet blanket,” Darla said. “Theme parks are all kinds of awesome. Even if abandoned ones have the occasional raccoon problem. Hope y’all had your rabies shots.”

  Darla parked Kid Godzilla next to the gate and Henry took the lead, hopping a turnstile with his rifle at the ready. He checked all sides, then motioned with two fingers for everyone to follow.

  The park wasn’t particularly big, but Martin didn’t realize that. To him it appeared to be an entire city. Lines of miniature houses, torn from the pages of storybooks, made up the downtown. Colorful insectlike rides lorded over the borderlands.

  Lane was in awe. She stepped on a slat of a fence and hoisted herself up to get a closer look at a Tilt-A-Whirl. “All right. This place is pretty rad,” she admitted.

  “Kelvin told me about it once,” Darla said. “I always figured it’d be a perfect site for a secret project.”

  Lane circled the fence, found the controls to the ride, and gave them a closer look. Chet occupied himself with a taffy machine, knocking away hardened braids of sugar so he could give the arms a spin. Henry kept busy scouting for raccoons, kicking open any door he saw and thrusting his rifle inside. While next to a food cart, Martin stood with Darla. She opened a silver cooler and plunged her hand in. It emerged holding an orange soda.

  “When we got in the truck, you said we had three Vaporists and a Spacer,” Martin said to her. “So you’re a Vaporist?”

  “Used to be,” Darla said, cracking the soda open. She took a big slug from it and gave Martin a quick nudge to the ribs with her elbow. “I’m on your team now. Your drawings officially converted me into a Spacer.”

  She lifted the can in a toast, then took another drink.

  “What about Henry? What’s he?” Martin asked.

  “He’s an idiot, Martin. But he’s eager, and he’s loyal. He told me once that he thought the Day happened because of all the bad things he did when he was a kid. Yikes! Right? He can’t help it, though, I guess.”

  “I never asked him to be a part of this,” Martin said.

  “He would’ve found out eventually,” Darla said. “Spying is his biggest talent.”

  “Well, it’s probably best if he stays with you in the truck,” Martin said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean? We’re all working together, right?”

  “Well …” Martin paused for a moment. He’d thought the distribution of labor would be obvious. “Lane, Chet, and I are going to do the actual building. I figured you, and Henry, could get us the supplies we need. You know, with the truck?”

  “Oh, yeah, sure,” Darla said quickly. “That makes perfect sense.” As if plugging up her mouth to stave off a snide comment, she immediately put the can back to her lips. When she was finished taking a long swig, she presented it to Martin.

  “Thank you,” he said. He reached for it, but she yanked it away.

  “No way, wild child,” she said with a half laugh, half snarl. “Gonna have to be faster than that if you want to keep up with me.”

  With that, she turned and skittered away, joining Chet, who was rummaging around in a wooden shack that bore a sign reading UNCLE SCHMITTY’S SHOOTING GALLERY.

  Chet pulled out a plastic toy rifle. He pointed it at Henry, who was prowling in the distance. “Lookie here, Darla,” Chet joked. “It’s me, Henry. I’m gonna win you a panda bear by shootin’ this here fire stick at a Mongoloid.”

  Darla giggled guiltily. Martin was too far away to be positive, but he was pretty sure he saw Henry’s lips trembling, as if he was muttering something under his breath.

  Impossible Island was the perfect place to build the machine. Not only did it provide an ample amount of hardware in the form of roller coasters and other amusements, it was also far from the prying eyes of Xibalba. Lane, Chet, Darla, and Henry were in agreement that the project was best kept a secret. For whatever their reasons, they believed in Martin’s designs, but they weren’t sure the other kids would be enamored.

  “They’ll think they got another Kelvin on their hands,” Chet said. “And we all know how that ended.”

  Actually, Martin didn’t know how that ended. The information on the Internet about Kelvin’s exile was limited at best, and kids always changed the subject when asked about it. All he knew was that it had ended badly and that Nigel had been involved. That compelled Martin to keep quiet about his meeting with Nigel as well. There was a good chance that in some minds, Nigel was a lunatic.

  So as not to arouse suspicion, every evening for the next month, the team gathered in the parking lot of the large brick hospital on the edge of town, about as desolate a place as you could find in Xibalba, due to rumors that it was haunted. Unseen, all five would pile into Kid Godzilla. Darla would drop Martin, Lane, and Chet off at Impossible Island, and she and Henry, armed with the latest list of supplies, would go searching nearby communities. Around midnight, Kid Godzilla would return, full of the latest take. They would unload the gear; then they would all get back in the truck and go home together.

  Their mornings and afternoons were still dedicated to their various “day jobs.” Martin tended to solar panels and installed a security system for Felix’s Internet. Chet worked his
greenhouse. Henry guarded the town’s streets and hunted turkeys and rabbits and the occasional deer, which he traded for other goods and services. When she wasn’t driving Kid Godzilla, Darla made submissions to the Internet and sat on her front steps, doling out orders in the form of advice to anyone who happened to pass by.

  “Hey, Wendy,” Martin once heard Darla holler from the steps. “A girl with your complexion should stick to the earth tones. Calls less attention to the acne, don’t you think?”

  Only Lane, whose spectacular shows used to be Xibalba’s nightly entertainment, gave up the work of her former life. “Thanks to your solar panels,” she told Martin, “no one cares about live entertainment anymore. Video games and DVDs. The wave of the future.”

  Martin felt guilty, of course, but he didn’t know what to do. Every time he tried to reach out to Lane, she gave him the cold shoulder. Other than contributing to the conversations that building the machine required, she remained silent on most evenings. It was strange that she even wanted to help. Still, she was always there. She always worked hard.

  The plan was to make the machine twenty times as big as the one Martin had built with his father. It seemed ludicrous when Martin first thought of it, but when they put it into action, he saw how achievable it was. He was not limited by materials. The colossal rides at Impossible Island provided more than enough gears and knobs and metallic casings. He was also not slowed by the constant need for redesign. In all the years that Martin’s father had been working on the machine, he had tinkered and adjusted and rebuilt over and over again. But by the time of his departure, the machine had basically been completed. That was the machine Martin had studied, the machine that was only missing that final piece.

  That final piece. That was another thing Martin kept to himself: he still didn’t know what it was. He had hoped either Lane or Chet would naturally figure out what it might be, but as both of them were willing to admit, they didn’t understand the machine beyond what Martin told them.

  “Hey, chief, I’m far from a rocket scientist, but I’m still curious as to how this birdy’s gonna fly,” Chet once joked.

  Martin was curious too. The machine looked like a giant bullet, and he could picture it ripping and flaming through the atmosphere. The only problems were it didn’t seem suited to the harsh environment of outer space and there wasn’t any logical place to put fuel. Martin tried to push these worries aside. His father had told him the machine was magic. After all Martin had experienced, after all the world had experienced, he was willing to believe in a little magic.

  —— 15 ——

  The Skyway

  It was late in the fall. The fireworks of color that were the autumnal forest had finished their show. The trees were now bare, and the air crisp. Snow hadn’t taken to the ground yet, but Martin would occasionally feel tiny swarms of cold crystals against his cheek. The shell of the machine was complete. When the winter did come, which it would, they’d be sheltered. It would be cold, but they could work.

  It was warm on the evening Darla dropped them off at Impossible Island and set out on a mission to find blowtorches. When she left, she was her chatty self, and if asked, Martin wouldn’t have been able to recall what she had said. It was probably no different from any other evening.

  The big project of the night involved attaching the interior door. There were two doors in the machine. There was the exterior one, which was constructed from sturdy sheets of steel sandwiched into multiple layers and bolted together to keep the weather out. There was also the interior one, which went next to the control panel and divided the machine into two chambers. In the original version of the machine, the interior door was only three feet high and a couple of feet wide, but it was an essential piece. Martin’s father had always said it opened the machine’s heart. For the supersized edition, they were going with a massive fifteen-foot-tall slab of glass that had served as the entrance to the park’s cafeteria.

  “Not sure why you sent the fattest one,” Chet joked as he climbed onto the roof of the cafeteria and got down on his hands and knees so he could remove the last set of screws that held the hinges near the top of the door. Dangling a few feet above him was an oval gondola that was part of the Skyway, the park’s cable-supported transportation system. Twenty feet below him were Lane and Martin, holding the door steady.

  “It’s almost out,” Chet announced, one hand on top of the door, the other manning a screwdriver. “Careful now.”

  As the door came off the top hinge, Martin could feel its immense weight pressing against him. His shoulder began to ache, and he figured that Lane needed to get in a better position so she could bear more of the weight. “Don’t let it go yet,” he told Chet. “We’re not ready.”

  Martin motioned with his head for Lane to move around to the other side. She nodded and let the door go.

  The moment her fingers released the glass, it became apparent that Lane had been holding up more than her share. The door began to tip. Its bottom began to slide along the gravelly ground and emit the awful shriek that comes from scratching glass.

  “Mutha!” Chet bellowed. He lost his grip. The door was sure to fall on Martin. Chet dove forward, snagging the corner just in time and leaving the front half of his body hanging precariously over the edge. He reached his free hand up and grabbed a rail that ran along the bottom of the gondola. The gondola tipped. Its door flew open. From inside, a nasty snarl escaped.

  A raccoon jumped out from the gondola and down onto Chet’s back.

  “Get it off me! Get it off me!” Chet screamed, letting go of the door and swatting at the raccoon. The raccoon hissed and swatted back. Its fangs were drawn and its head was cocked, ready to strike.

  Martin couldn’t hold the entire weight of the door and jumped away. The glass struck the ground, let out a monumental boom, and shattered into hundreds of sharp little cubes.

  The sound stole the raccoon’s attention for a moment. It was enough time for Chet to deliver the decisive blow, knocking the animal with his elbow down into the pile of glass. The momentum from the melee might have sent Chet down into the glass too, but his grip on the gondola was firm, even as the cable that held it dipped, then sprang back, causing the gondola to jump away from the roof.

  The raccoon, its fur now decorated with bits of glass, locked eyes with Lane. She didn’t hesitate. Lane lunged at the creature—fingers poised, chest unleashing a primal scream. The raccoon did the smart thing. It scurried into the darkness.

  Chet, on the other hand, remained where he was, hanging from the gondola, twenty feet off the ground. “Sonuva …,” he panted as he got both hands on the rail and rocked back and forth in the air.

  “Holy cow, are you okay?” Lane asked.

  “I … think … so,” Chet said between breaths. “Dirty rascal was going … was going for the throat.”

  “He’s gone now,” Martin assured him.

  The gondola was swinging like a pendulum, but its arc was gradually getting smaller. Chet looked down over his shoulder and saw the twinkling galaxy of glass that had once been the door.

  “Sorry, pals,” he called down. “Didn’t mean to wreck it.”

  “It’s okay,” Martin said. “There are plenty of other doors out there.”

  “Gonna have to say, did not see that one coming,” Chet said, chuckling.

  “You were lucky,” Lane replied. “I guess Henry isn’t so crazy, always out there on coon patrol.”

  “Am I too high to jump down?” Chet asked.

  “Probably,” Martin said. “Let me get the ladder. It’s over by the Gravitron.”

  “No rush,” Chet joked. “Enjoying the view up here.”

  Afterward, Martin would play the next moment over in his head countless times. It was a quick succession of events, but he was sure he could have done something differently.

  It started when he turned. That was when he heard the creaking sound. He thought nothing of it. He took a few steps away. Next came the snap and the ghostly
howl whipping through the air. That was when he turned back. That was when he looked up. The cable had broken.

  Instead of trying to break Chet’s fall, Martin went straight for Lane, knocking her from the path of the falling gondola. As his shoulder drove into her, he felt a rush of air behind him. Then he was lying on top of her.

  At the same moment, Chet landed on his back, right in the glass. There wasn’t time for him even to blink his eyes, let alone sit up or slide over. Because the gondola landed square on Chet. As it crushed his chest, it forced all the wind from his lungs. “Pffffaaaa …” was the only sound that came out of his mouth. Then there was silence.

  “Chet. Chet. Chet,” Lane said softly, her mouth right next to Martin’s ear. It sounded less like she was calling for him than it did like she was trying to calm herself down. Her heart was pounding ferociously; Martin could feel it against his shoulder.

  Martin rolled off her and onto his back. He sat bolt upright. Chet’s head was just inches from his feet. His face was turned toward Martin.

  “Chet. Chet. Chet.”

  Blood was leaking from Chet’s mouth onto the cubes of glass. His eyes were open, and they were blinking. He was still conscious, but he wasn’t saying anything.

  As Martin reached forward to touch him, a glob of snowflakes, plump and wet, landed on his hand.

  —— 16 ——

  The Tarp

  The invasion of snow came fast. It was like a switch had been turned, shutting off the world’s thermostat and opening up the clouds. There was no wind, only a downward tirade of flakes.

  However much the gondola weighed was too much. Martin and Lane couldn’t move it an inch. Even with a lever, fashioned from some two-by-fours, they couldn’t begin to lift it off Chet. They couldn’t get access to his hands or feet. They could touch only his face.

  “Hang in there,” Lane said as she ran her hand across his cheek. The snow was piling up, and Lane was doing her best to keep Chet from getting covered. He was still conscious, but only barely. His lips were a straight line. His eyes were struggling to stay open.