Last Chance--A Novel

by Gregg Hurwitz

  I watched them continue on, vacuuming up the lay of the field with their eye membranes. I released the breath I’d been holding.

  There was no sign of Patrick anywhere. He’d probably already circled and was working his way across the fence line in the front.

  I was on my own.

  Finally unlocking my legs, I stepped lightly back onto the grass behind second base, willing my boots not to scrape against the ground. Then I sprinted for the school, giving the Mappers a wide berth.

  I hit the math-and-science wing at a full sprint.

  Mrs. Wolfgram’s classroom door was ajar.

  The black rectangle of the doorway stared back at me.

  I swallowed down bile, crept closer, put my face to the dirty window.

  Not just one Mapper inside the room but two.

  If I ran inside to face off with them, I’d be spotted. If I killed one of them, another would map my body contours and convey my position to the Harvesters. Even if I killed them all, they’d blip offline abruptly at the same time, which would no doubt raise suspicion. Either way the Harvesters would know that there were kids on the premises. The high school would be blown. They’d send more Hosts or worse—Hatchlings.

  There was no way to stop the Mappers and remain invisible at the same time. My insides twisted with frustration, wrung like a wet towel.

  I reversed course, jogged an arc around to Chatterjee’s room. My panic flared a notch higher when I saw another Mapper in there, covering the floor I’d occupied minutes before. He was really tall, six and a half feet, with narrow hands and elongated fingers. He’d been a stocker at the Piggly Wiggly. I didn’t remember his name, but the mean kids called him Boo Radley.

  He finished spiraling his way through Chatterjee’s classroom and stepped into the corridor, turning to head for the heart of the school.

  Toward the gym.

  Where a hundred or so kids were sleeping.

  I bolted along the side of the building, hurdling bushes and sprinklers.

  As the classrooms whipped by, I spotted another Host inside, veering off into the chemistry lab.

  I peered through window after window, searching for someone to warn. I passed the labs and then the physics rooms with no luck.

  Through the open classroom doors, I caught flicker-glimpses into the halls—Boo Radley shadowing my movement as he progressed through the school. Flecks spun around his head, flies in perpetual motion. I ran ahead of him, hoping to spot one of the kids. But I was running out of room—and time.

  At last I came around the corner to the final hall that ended at the gym. Desperately, I peered through the nearest window and spotted movement up ahead.

  JoJo.

  She trudged through dim blocks of light falling through the panes. She wore one of my T-shirts, which drooped down over her knees. Bunny’s head swung at her side. Her cheeks looked plump, her eyes puffy with sleep. She turned for the bathroom.

  I tapped on the window with my fingertips. It took everything I had not to hammer the glass with the heel of my hand.

  At first she started, scared. Her head swiveled over. A few blinks as she registered it was me. And then she walked over to the window.

  “Chance?”

  I tried to talk, but only a strangled croak came out of my injured throat.

  She leaned closer. “You okay?”

  I pointed violently down the hall behind her. My mouth moved, but it could barely force out the word: “Mappers.”

  “What? What’s wrong?”

  I waved my hand again down the hall but then realized that my crazy gesticulations weren’t helping. I waved for her to come even closer. She leaned in, her temple kissing the window. I put my face to the glass and choked the words through my vocal cords.

  “Bunch of Mappers … inside … heading for the gym.… warn others.”

  Her eyes widened. She pulled back from the window, shot a glance up the corridor. And then she sprinted for the gym.

  Only now did I see that Rocky was farther down the hall on front-door lookout. She grabbed his sleeve and yanked him up off his chair. He ran at her side, the two of them barreling along.

  I pressed my cheek to the window, peering in the other direction up the hall. A swirl of flies came into sight around the corner. A distorted shadow fell across the floor, stretched over the tiles and up the opposite wall, holes of light showing where the eyes would be.

  Any second and Boo Radley would step into sight.

  Frantic, I whipped my head back toward JoJo and Rocky.

  She reached the door to the gym, yanked it wide, and they vanished through. The pneumatic closer stalled the door as it swung shut. It moved in infuriating slow motion, the seam at last vanishing.

  I turned back just in time to see the tall Mapper step into view.

  He moved with his spine erect, almost regally, floating down the hall. A living halo of flies pulsed above his head.

  He walked right past me.

  Helpless, I watched him go. His heels were cracked. The skin of one ankle was rubbed through, the Achilles tendon straining, vibrating like a plucked cello string.

  Behind him more Hosts appeared and entered the other classrooms off the hall. They were finally mapping the school interior. Every square inch of it.

  Boo Radley trudged toward the double doors to the gym. Soon enough those talonlike fingers would curl around the door handle.

  Too late I remembered that we’d barricaded the gym’s other exits to protect against a Host invasion.

  The door Boo Radley headed for was the only way in or out.

  The kids were trapped inside the gym.

  ENTRY 35

  After JoJo burst through the doors with her breathless announcement, the gym erupted in panic. Kids and teenagers hopped up from their cots and cowered at the base of the bleachers.

  Ben yanked his stun gun from the waist of his jeans. “I’m gonna kill any of them that come inside,” he said, keeping his voice as low as he could manage.

  Dezi and Mikey stormed past Eve into the supply station, grabbing for Patrick’s Winchester. Eve protested, but Mikey shoved her aside.

  “What are you doing?” Eve said. “If that shotgun goes off in here, every Host within a mile’ll hear it.”

  Chatterjee rolled off his mattress and fumbled with his leg braces. “Everyone stay calm. Quiet. If you’re this loud, they’ll all come stampeding in here.”

  That got everyone to hush.

  “We need to plan our counterattack,” Rocky said.

  “There’s no time for a plan,” Ben said. “Not anymore. We take him down fast and hard.”

  “JoJo said there are a bunch of Mappers inside already,” Eve said. “If we kill one, our cover’ll be blown. They’ll know we’re here. They’ll hunt us down.”

  Sweat dripped from Ben’s hairline, tracing the pathways of his scars. “We’re out of options,” he hissed.

  JoJo hopped up on the bleachers. “Hey. Hey.” She was raising her hand. “There is one other option. It’ll even let us keep the high school.”

  “Shut up,” Dezi said. “We’re handling it.”

  “You guys gotta listen to me,” JoJo said.

  No one did.

  Alex stepped up onto the bleacher beside her. “Let her talk,” Alex said.

  Something in her tone made everyone stop. They looked at JoJo.

  “Fine,” Ben sneered. “What’s our other option, JoJo?”

  “We let him in,” JoJo said.

  A sound echoed through the gym—the click of fingernails against the door handle.

  JoJo whispered, “Everyone take your shoes off. Now. And get behind me. Stay as quiet as possible.”

  She hopped down and ran across the basketball court to the side of the doors. The others moved behind her, a wave sweeping across the floorboards. Ben headed over last. But he kept his stun gun at the ready.

  “If he spots us,” Ben said, “I’m killing him.”

  The door eased open.

/>   The Host was so tall he had to duck to get through the doorway. He entered and stood there a moment, his head tilted down, eyeholes aimed at the floor.

  Boo Radley.

  Right to his side, the big group of kids and Chatterjee quivered in a mass against the wall. JoJo stood at the forefront, Bunny’s head clutched defiantly in hand.

  If Boo Radley turned his focus even slightly, he’d see them all cowering there.

  But he didn’t.

  Instead he walked to the center of the gym. Then he started his spiral pattern, turning at ninety-degree angles, picking his way through cots as he moved outward.

  He kept walking and turning, expanding slowly.

  The kids remained silent. Not a cough. Not a sneeze. Not a whimper.

  As Boo Radley got to the outer edge of the cots, JoJo directed the others with hand gestures, like a traffic cop. The group padded lightly, their socks quiet against the floorboards, a few teenagers skittering out ahead, others scurrying to catch up. They spread through the cots behind Boo Radley as he made a turn. It was like musical chairs without the chairs, a dance in tight quarters. Every kid had to place every step carefully. Dezi limped to keep up.

  Boo Radley reached the far wall and rotated, the kids swinging again to his blind spot, moving of a piece like a school of fish. They let him map, stepping where he stepped, keeping behind him.

  Boo Radley walked along the wall, and JoJo gestured for everyone to head to the center of the room now. They swept behind her again, trying not trip over one another’s heels. Rocky barely got out of Boo’s way, the long fingers of the swinging arm skimming across the back of his shirt.

  Boo traced his path along the bleachers, scanning through the benches to take in the space beneath. Then he mapped the far wall and pivoted on a heel.

  The kids flattened against the west wall, two bodies deep.

  Boo walked past them, his footfall and the buzz of flies the only sounds in the gym. He reached the double doors and plucked at a handle with his long fingers. The door swung open silently on greased hinges. He started to duck through.

  Way down at the end of the row, Maria Mendez stepped out of line so she could watch him leave.

  And kicked an empty Dr Pepper can.

  It clattered on the floorboards.

  It might as well have been an A-bomb going off.

  Everyone froze.

  Alex dove and caught the can. The silence sounded even louder than the rattling.

  Boo Radley stopped. He reversed back through the door. Started to turn.

  JoJo stepped out in front of everyone like a conductor. She stuck her arm to the side and swung it downward as she sank below the line of cots. Everyone flattened to the floor a second before Boo Radley rotated around.

  His eye membranes fixed on the wall across from him.

  Even at his height, he’d be unable to see over the final rows of the cots.

  Only the blank wall beyond was visible.

  He swiveled back to the doorway and passed through.

  When the door sucked closed behind him, it was as though the walls themselves exhaled.

  * * *

  I was half crazy with anticipation by the time I saw Boo Radley exit the gym and step back out into the hall.

  He was leaving them alone?

  It made no sense.

  Before I could react, the rear classroom doors banged open around me all at once. I grabbed my chest and flew back against the wall, knocking my head. I stayed frozen flat against the building as the Hosts exited the school through the row of rear doors. They drifted out toward the baseball field and the waiting slit in the fence.

  Staring at their receding backs, I kept telling myself to breathe. I took it a gulp at a time. Once the Mappers were a little ways off, I spun off the wall and ran through the nearest door. I collided with Patrick in the corridor, who was flying in from the front doors. I banged off him like the losing bumper car and gave a yelp.

  His jigsaw pendant had spilled out of the collar of his shirt. For Patrick this signaled full dishevelment. “What the hell went down in here?” he asked.

  My voice still didn’t work, so I shook my head.

  He hauled me to my feet, and we sprinted to the gym.

  He yanked the door open to reveal everyone inside.

  Safe.

  They were gathered around JoJo, who along with Bunny’s head was holding court: “—figured if we let ’em map the school, then they’ll think we aren’t here. And I remembered what Chance did in the cemetery, how they couldn’t see him because he tucked in perfectly behind a Mapper.”

  She grinned proudly and hugged Bunny’s head to her chest.

  I cleared my throat, glared right at Ben. “Good thinking, JoJo,” I said. “You saved us all.”

  My voice was still strained, but at least I’d found it again. It was worth it to see Ben’s face.

  “Where’d the Mappers go?” JoJo asked.

  “Back fields.”

  “Can I see?”

  Patrick nodded. “I think you’ve earned it.”

  JoJo led a small group of us out into the hall. We lined up against the windows, our breath fogging the glass at intervals.

  The Mappers were more than halfway to the baseball diamond by now.

  As we watched, they stopped walking one by one. Then they tilted their heads up to the heavens.

  Their eye membranes glowed to life, dozens of spots of blue.

  Familiar clicking sounds carried back to us. Throaty and irregular.

  The Mappers were uploading all the data they’d just gathered. Data that showed the school to be empty.

  A sense of wonder settled over us as we watched them across the dark fields. The blue spots floated like fireflies.

  The Mappers finished, their heads nodding forward, and then they plodded toward the fence.

  Boo Radley went down first. That worn ankle simply gave out, the tibia shoving its way through the ankle hole. His other leg kept churning even though it was tilted off the ground, and then he collapsed into a pile, his rotting body disintegrating before our eyes.

  Another Host dropped, and then they went down in twos and threes, putrefying puddles on the outfield grass. Only a few made it to the fence and stepped through, trudging off into the darkness beyond.

  We stayed there lined along the hall, watching breathlessly. It was impossible to look away.

  For a while parts squirmed on the ground. A foot waving in the air. A head quivering on the fragile stalk of a neck. Fingers clutching soil, clawing their arm forward right out of its shoulder socket.

  As dawn cast its pale light across the fields, the remains were still. A murder of crows swept in, picking over the offerings.

  Dr. Chatterjee backed away from the windows first, removing his glasses and rubbing his eyes. “Well,” he said. “That should buy us some more time.”

  Ben came off the wall next. “Not if we starve to death,” he said.

  No one had the heart to argue. It was the most battle-worn I’d ever felt without a battle.

  We streamed back toward the gym. I couldn’t help but pause and gaze once more across the fields.

  A raven dipped its beak into one of the puddles and came up with a glistening morsel. It flew off, banking against the dappled orange clouds.

  It was odd what passed for beautiful these days.

  ENTRY 36

  Foraging runs are governed by two rules:

  Stick with your crew.

  And never leave a man behind.

  For the grocery-store run, we took out two crews, ours and Ben’s.

  Ben had his group of five, stocked with the usual suspects. And we had ours, led by Patrick. In addition to me and Alex, we had Eve, Rocky, Jenny White, and Kris Keuser.

  There hadn’t been many volunteers.

  Though we hadn’t spotted any Hatchlings close to the high school yet, Patrick’s Winchester was loaded with rock-salt shells and Alex had taken her hockey stick and my baling hooks to t
he cafeteria kitchen and baptized them again with salt water.

  It was past midnight on December 14, and the waxing moon lent a pale gleam to the wild grass of the baseball outfield. Each crew pushed two empty wheelbarrows—Rocky and Kris steered ours. We reached the zone where the Hosts had disintegrated on the outfield grass. Over the past days, the puddles had bled together, leaving a soupy film across a patch of center field. The smell made my eyes water. For a moment I thought the organic matter was moving again. A trick of the moonlight? But no, it was throbbing with life. I went on alert, leaning closer.

  Maggots.

  My first thought was, How boring.

  Jenny White gagged a bit.

  I put my hand on her back, but she shook me off and threw up, contributing to the sludge.

  “Shut her up,” Ben hissed from over by the fence.

  “She’s ten,” I whispered. “Cut her a break.”

  Jenny wiped her mouth, and we continued on. The two packs moved separately, Ben’s crew angling up the first-base line while we took a circuitous route through left field, skimming along the third-base dugout.

  Ben reached the slit in the fence first. He’d repaired it himself after the Host invasion, cinching up the chain-link with a series of combination padlocks from old gym lockers. He had every last combination memorized. He went to work now unlocking them. Our crew waited over by the dugout. The purring of the first dial carried over to us, followed by a metallic click as the lock opened. The process went on for a very long time.

  At last we watched their dark forms vanish through the fence line. Dezi stumbled a bit on his way through, given his bad knee, sending a rattle of metal through the night air. Ben grabbed Dezi’s shoulders and held him balanced on one leg, perfectly still, halfway through the fence. Then he and Mikey guided Dezi through.

  After they filtered between the Dumpsters and faded into the darkness, Patrick held up his hand, holding us in place. We waited another five minutes, and then my brother lowered his hand. We crept across the infield dirt.

  Ben had laid the gap open perfectly like an unzipped jacket. He’d let the loose padlocks dangle from one side of the slit so their weight tugged the flap wide. Despite all the ways he was awful, I had to admit he was really useful when it came to stuff like this.