by Jack Blaine
“How many of those have you taken, you little asshole?” Zeke pulls the guy’s hair so that his neck is stretched. “I ought to shoot you here and now, but that would make me as bad as you. Now get the fuck out of here.” He shoves him so hard he stumbles and falls. From his knees, the kid sneers at Zeke.
“I’ll remember you.”
“You’d better!” Zeke roars it, and lunges at him. He scrambles up and runs out of the garage.
“That’s a . . . finger.” I whisper the last word. I can’t stop staring at it, lying there on the concrete floor. The nail on the finger is covered with chipped purple polish. It looks like somebody’s pinkie.
“They take them for trophies. The more you have, the tougher you are.” He walks to the edge of the garage opening and checks the street. “We gotta go.”
I follow him up the ramp and we make our way down the block. At the corner Zeke points toward a restaurant sign halfway down the next block. It’s hanging from one chain, dangling sideways. ROSY’S KITCHEN.
“That’s where we’re going.” Zeke doesn’t wait to see if I’m following. He takes off and is at the door of Rosy’s before I even get across the street. By the time I catch up, he’s scoping out the interior through the glass.
“Looks clear,” he says, and shoves the door. The lock has been completely bashed off the door, so it opens easily. Zeke heads to the back of the restaurant, where the restrooms are located. We go into the ladies’ room and he goes into the first stall. He lifts the toilet-tank lid and starts loading dripping cans of food out of it into his grocery bag.
“Get the other one.” He nods to the second stall. I do what he says.
“Nice hiding spot,” I say, loading the cans into my bag.
“Meagan thought that up.” I hear him chuckle. “She was always . . .” He stops talking.
I finish loading my cans. There are green beans and lima beans and kidney beans and black-eyed peas. Zeke finishes too and steps out of his stall. I want to ask him who Meagan is, but he won’t look at me. “Let’s get back” is all he says.
Chapter 22
When we get back, Tank is snoozing. Lara and Kath have planned a huge feast for dinner, but I plead exhaustion. “You guys go ahead. I just want to crash for a while.”
“I’ll show you where you can sleep.” Lara looks worried. She leads me down the hall to a bedroom. She’s put my backpack next to the bed and turned back the sheets. The little lamp on the bedside table is lit. It makes me smile.
“Just like a fancy hotel, except no mint.”
“Well. Like a fancy hotel, or maybe your mom.” She laughs, but then she gets serious, like she’s realized she may have said something painful. “Where are your parents, Nick?”
“Um. My mom died when I was seven.” Those words are familiar now, almost meaningless. I’ve said them for so many years. “And my dad . . .”
It catches me without warning. My dad’s dead. I’ve known it, known it since I saw him leaning against my bed with his clouded eyes and his bloody chest. But I haven’t known it. I sit down faster than I mean to on the bed.
“Oh, Nick. I’m sorry.” She whispers the words. Her hands are warm when she sits down next to me and takes my hand. I can’t hold back the tears; they flow down my cheeks. I don’t feel ashamed, though. Lara doesn’t make me feel that way.
We sit quietly. When my throat loosens up, I scrub my cheeks with my fists and try to laugh.
“You don’t have to talk about it. I know it’s hard.” Lara studies her hands holding mine. “I still can’t believe Brian’s gone, either. I haven’t been back downstairs since it happened.” She looks really tired. “You need some rest. Mind if I keep Tank out there with me for now?”
“Tank! Oh, man, I bet he has to pee.” I start to get up.
“It’s okay. We showed him how to go on the balcony while you guys were gone. He’s been really good.” She laughs a little. “I mean, at first he wasn’t crazy about it—I think he wanted some grass.”
And there we are again, in the thick of the pain. There is no grass anymore. Unless things are different somewhere in the world, all the grass is in its final death throes, wilting in the dark.
“I’ll let you get some rest.” Lara gets up to leave.
“Lara.” She turns at the door and looks at me expectantly. “Who’s Meagan?”
She looks so sad. “Meagan was—is—Zeke’s little sister. They took her while he and Kath were saving me. He thought she was hidden. He didn’t know there were more than four of the Crescents in the garage, but there were. And while he was saving me, they grabbed Meagan and left.”
“Crescents?” The white sliver of a moon on the back of the boy’s jacket flashes in my mind. As does the one on the jacket of the man who murdered the little boy in the station wagon.
“We just call them the crazies most of the time. They all wear black jackets with a crescent on the back. I don’t know much about them—the news reports stopped yesterday and they were just beginning to mention them. They believe that the moon caused the darkness. They claim they want blood sacrifices for the moon, but I think they’re really just a bunch of assholes using the whole thing as an excuse. They would kill people and steal things regardless.”
Sounds right to me. I think of the book in my pack—Lord of the Flies. I finished it the night before I left Charlie’s, but I took it with me anyway, because I kept thinking about it. It’s like that. Assholes will be assholes. But what nags at me is the fact that even the boys who were good, even the boys who tried to make things right on that island, even they ended up being cowards.
“Get some rest, Nick.” Lara watches me for a minute from the door. “I’m really glad you’re here.”
“Me too, Lara.” I’m not sure how to say how I feel about her. “I’m glad you’re alive.”
She smiles and pulls the door almost closed behind her.
I try to sleep, but I’m too tense. I keep thinking about the dark and the dying grass. I drag my backpack over and dig around in it until I find the box containing the device. I never did figure out how to get it open. After a few minutes of trying different combinations on the latches with no luck, I try to think like my dad would. He was always saying that the simplest solutions are the best. I try the latches in order, one, two, three. Nothing. Then I try them in order but only once for the first, twice for the second, and three times for the third latch.
It pops open. I almost drop it, but I manage to keep a grip.
Inside is a black object, roughly spherical in shape. It’s cool to the touch, and it feels a lot heavier than its size would indicate, like a golf ball is—they’re small, but they have some weight to them. There are seams in the surface—places where it looks like the thing might open up into something else, but I can’t make any of them budge. There are three round silver balls inset halfway into its surface. When I press on one of them it gives, like a button of some sort. I turn the thing in my hands, examining it from all angles. I try the buttons a few times. I try them in different orders. Then I press all three down at the same time.
It starts to glow.
The room is pretty dark anyway—just a tiny lamp on the nightstand is on, and I quickly switch it off. The glow coming from the device is clearer. It’s got an odd quality to it, almost like it’s a living entity. I press the three buttons again, expecting it to go out, but instead it grows. It doesn’t get brighter, the light just extends farther from the sphere. While I’m watching it, tendrils of light reach out like sun flares and then fall back to the surface of the sphere. There’s no heat to it, just cool, white light.
Optimus Prime. Protector of the Universe, but especially Earth. I remember my dad’s comment when I saw the label he had made for the cabinet that held this device.
“Transformers?” I had said.
“Hopefully,” he’d said, and laughed that sad, weird laugh.
Was this device supposed to make a difference? I think back to what Dad said the night befo
re he was killed, when he was talking about photons and Higgs particles. Does this have something to do with that? Was it possible that it could bring light—
“What the hell is that thing?” Zeke bursts through the door. “I’ve been watching you from the hall, playing around with it. That doesn’t look like it’s just some toy.”
Before I have time to do anything, Tank comes roaring into the room, growling at Zeke. He positions himself between us and presents Zeke with a mouthful of teeth.
Zeke pulls his gun. He seems to like to do that. “Better get your animal under control.”
“Zeke!”
Lara bursts into the room, followed by Kath. They both look scared.
Grabbing Tank’s collar, I drag him back to my side. I lean down and whisper into his ear. “Sit, buddy. It’s all cool.” He doesn’t stop staring at Zeke, but he cuts the growl and he obeys. I look up at Zeke. There’s no way I’m telling this loose cannon anything about the device. “It’s not a big deal. Just a fancy toy my dad made for me. Before he died.”
“Let me see it.”
“Like I said, last thing I have from my dead dad. So, no.”
“Zeke, get out of here.” It’s Lara. She faces off with Zeke, her hands on her hips. “Put your stupid gun away and go get some sleep. You’re acting like one of the crazies.”
Zeke’s shoulders slump. He does look tired. He shakes his head. “Sorry, dude. I’m just . . . I’m just tired, I guess, like she says.” He slouches out of the room, gun pointed down at the floor. Kath shoots me an apologetic look and follows him.
I box up the device and put it on the nightstand. Suddenly I’m tired too. “I guess I’d better do the same,” I say to Lara.
“You do look beat.”
I give her a grin. “I think I’ll definitely sleep tonight.”
She shuffles her feet a little, starts to back toward the door. “Well, good night, then.”
“Night, Lara. I’ll see you in the morning.”
She starts to nod. But instead she looks straight at me, straight into my eyes, searching for something there. “Nick?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re one of the good guys, right?”
I think of the boys in Lord of the Flies. “I hope so.”
She considers that. “I need you to know so.”
Memories of my dad come to me; the way he pulled it together after Mom died, even though I’m sure he just wanted to quit. And Charlie, always my best friend, always there, even through his own hard times. They would both have my back if we were stranded on an island. I would have theirs too. I meet Lara’s gaze. “I’m one of the good guys. You can count on it.”
“I thought so. I thought you were a good guy all the way back in middle school. You never acted stupid, or mean, the way some of the kids do. And you were always good to Charlie.”
“Why wouldn’t I be good to Charlie?”
“Some people weren’t so nice to him.”
“They were jerks.”
She nods. “I know. Remember in fifth grade, when Jim Williams threatened to beat him up behind the gym because Charlie wouldn’t give him the math homework answers?”
I grin. I remember it well; Charlie was scared to death and so, frankly, was I. But I knew I had to show up and at least try to be a friend. We both waited for Jim, along with most of the class, behind the cinder-block gym building, but he never showed up. I heard later that somebody turned Jim in to the principal for something else, and he was already in detention. “I remember being really nervous, waiting for him to come beat the both of us into little piles. I never did figure out what happened.”
“I ratted Jim out.”
“What?”
“I told the teacher that he was threatening kids for their homework assignments. He did it to lots of them, not just Charlie. I think Charlie was the first kid to stand up to him.”
I nod. “Charlie wasn’t about to hand over his homework. I remember he said he had to work hard for those answers and damned if Jim was getting them. Thing is, if I had asked him for them, I know he would have passed them right over. It wasn’t really about the homework.”
“It was about the bullying.” Lara frowns. “That’s why I ratted. Jim just went along doing whatever he wanted, and then Charlie told him no. And when Jim threatened Charlie in the hall, I remember what you said.”
“You do?”
She nods. “You said, ‘We’ll be there, asshole.’ She laughs. “You sounded so scared! But somehow I knew you were going to show up and stand next to Charlie. And you did.”
My cheeks are hot and I sort of want to crawl under the covers. But at the same time, I feel . . . proud. The look on Lara’s face when she calls me one of the good guys is worth everything.
Chapter 23
“Listen, I’m sorry. About last night, I mean.” Zeke is standing at the door to my bedroom. “This fucking dark—it’s getting to me. I want to go outside and see the blue sky, you know?”
I sit up. I don’t want to say anything. I don’t feel especially forgiving of Zeke, but I don’t think I want to piss him off either.
“Are we cool?” Zeke isn’t letting it pass.
“I guess.” I don’t feel too cool with him. I don’t feel like I trust the guy at all, really.
“I just overreacted.” Zeke watches me from the doorway.
“To what?” I watch him back, interested in seeing what his answer might be. No such luck, though. He just shrugs and tells me breakfast is ready. Then he leaves.
I get out of the bed and rub my eyes. I’m hoping Zeke is okay—he just freaked me out a little last night. I keep telling myself he’s fine as I walk down the hall from the bedroom. I can hear Kath’s voice from the kitchen. When I reach the room, all three of them—Kath, Zeke, and Lara—are laughing.
“What’s the joke?” I smile at Lara. She looks beautiful even with mussed-up hair and sleepy eyes. I wish I could kiss her.
“We were just comparing notes about what our parents made us eat for breakfast.” Lara rolls her eyes. “Mine were hardly ever home, so I ate what I wanted.”
It’s strange how we’ve adjusted to talking about people from before the darkness in the past tense.
“My dad always made us eat eggs and bacon and hash browns, every single morning.” Zeke chuckles. “I guess he didn’t know about cholesterol.”
Kath grins too. Parents are easy targets. “Mine were hot on grains, so we had to eat steel-cut oats. Every freaking morning my mom cooked them on the stove for forty minutes. My brother hated them.” Kath’s voice trails off. She looks pensive.
“I bet he’s okay, Kath.” Zeke puts his arm around Kath’s shoulders. “He’s probably in some safe place with your parents.”
Kath doesn’t look so sure.
I try to change the subject. “So what’s for breakfast?”
Lara gives me a grateful look. “Pancakes!” She grins. “It looks like the electricity is back on for a little while, so we took full advantage.” She opens the oven door and shows me a foil-covered heap. “We just have to set the table.”
“I can help with that.” I notice that we’re still walking around in the dark, even though the lights could be on right now if the electricity is working. “We’re keeping the lights off?”
Zeke snorts. “First thing they look for—lights.”
“He means the crazies.” Lara hands me some silverware. “They watch to see if lights come on in the high-rises when the power blips on. If they do, the crazies come up after whatever they think they can get.”
We set the table that’s in the kitchen. I guess that breakfast is going to be a more formal affair than our other meals have been. As if she’s read my mind, Lara explains.
“Kath and I thought it would be fun for us all to eat like it used to be—at the table, you know?” She laughs. “Except me and Brian hardly ever ate at the table, and neither did Zeke’s family, and Kath says they only did at holidays.”
I smile, but I don
’t say anything. I’m remembering how Dad used to be sure to eat with me every morning and every night after Mom died, until we both got so wrapped up in our own stuff. I miss those mealtimes. I bet everyone here is missing something like that. Wondering if they’ll ever do it again.
Kath comes to the table with the foiled pancake mountain. Zeke follows with some syrup.
“Let’s eat!” Zeke helps himself to five cakes.
We pass the plate around, and I smother my pancakes in maple syrup. They taste delicious. I eat mine slowly, savoring the flavor. None of us talk much over the meal. It seems like just the act of sitting together around the table is enough.
“Any plans for today?” I mop up the last of the syrup off my plate.
“I was hoping we could just lay low today.” Lara looks at Zeke. “It would be nice just to spend some time together.”
He raises both hands up at her. “I’ve got no beef with that.”
Lara looks relieved. I think about what it must be like to wait here while Zeke goes out to get supplies, wondering if he’ll ever come back.
“I’d like to get some wash done.” Kath raises her eyebrows at Zeke, and he laughs.
“I guess I know what I’m doing today.” Zeke shakes his head at Kath, but he’s clearly happy to help her.
After we’ve cleaned our plates, we stack them on the counter next to the sink. Lara fills one side of the double sink with water from a bucket and adds some dish soap.
“Want to wash or dry?” She holds out a towel.
“I’ll wash,” I say. “Why are we using water from buckets?” I nod toward the bucket.
“That’s from the balcony—rainwater, like I was telling you.” Lara takes the plate I hand her and dries it. “We try to use it for everything except cooking. We have several buckets now, and we have some netting that Zeke brought home from one of his forays. We put the netting on top to keep bugs out of the water. I wish we had some big old rubber bands. I’m using shoelaces knotted together to hold the netting over the buckets.”
