“Who is the president? What day is it? What’s Mom’s favorite flavor of ice cream?” Alex asked me.
“Cory Booker. Wednesday. She’s lactose intolerant.”
They let me up.
* * *
When we came out of the storeroom and walked back to where the others were waiting, we must have looked really funny in our pink sweatsuits.
Astrid started to ask us if everything was all right, then she burst into laughter.
“Hey, kids, look, it’s the ladies’ track team!” Astrid announced with a flourish, and they all cracked up.
Jake and Brayden joined in laughing. Alex, too.
But I still had some weird stuff happening in my body.
What I wanted was Astrid. She looked so good to me I wanted to take her, in a dark and terrible way.
Pardon my bloodlust. It’s just a little something they whipped up over at NORAD.
I swallowed. Tried to get my breath back.
“We made you guys some pizza,” Max said.
“Then we ate it all so Astrid’s making you some more,” Chloe added.
* * *
While Jake, Niko, and Brayden filled Astrid in on what had happened, I took a look at my brother, who I had really done a number on. The shopping cart of medical supplies was still in the Pizza Shack area, so I poked around, but I didn’t see what I wanted.
“Alex, please, come with me,” I said. “So I can fix you up.”
I knew what I needed to do the job right: Bactine. Our mom swore by it. She never used anything else to clean scrapes or cuts or what have you. She even carried it, in a small travel bottle, in her purse.
So I motioned for Alex to follow me and we headed back toward the Pharmacy section.
I felt horrible.
I had clawed him across the face. So brotherly of me. And he had a huge bruise developing along his jaw. Such familial tenderness. His eyes were red from crying. Because of me.
I rummaged through the fallen merchandise until I found the good stuff. I also grabbed a bag of cotton puffs.
“It wasn’t me,” I said, swabbing the first of his many scrapes. “Something in the air made me go crazy. You know I’d never attack you like that.”
Alex nodded, looking at the floor.
“Please,” I begged. “Say you forgive me. I feel so horrible. I couldn’t feel any worse.”
Tears welled up in my little brother’s pale eyes.
“It’s just…,” he said, his voice getting thin. “It’s just that I wasn’t scared before…”
And now he was.
Thanks to me.
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” he said. “Why you acted like that. Why Niko got those blisters and Brayden started seeing things.”
“We’ll figure it out,” I told him. “And I won’t… I won’t let myself get exposed to the chemicals in the air again. I promise.”
“But, Dean, if you can’t go outside, how are we going to find Mom and Dad? How will we go home?”
I could have lied. But Alex was smarter than me.
“I don’t know,” I said.
* * *
After I got him cleaned up we walked back together toward the others. He had forgiven me, but he was still kind of stiff with me. Wary, I guess. Or maybe he was just physically sore from the beating I had given him.
As we approached the Pizza Shack we heard: “I did too go to Emerald’s!” from Max.
There was this big disconnect between what the big kids were dealing with and what the little kids were thinking about. For example, while I was patching up my brother after having tried to rip him apart due to a chemical compound–induced mania, Max, Batiste, Ulysses, and Chloe were discussing Emerald’s, a strip club located near an off-ramp at the outskirts of town.
“He’s lying. You never went to Emerald’s. They don’t let little kids in there,” Chloe protested.
“They do if your uncle’s the bouncer!” Max countered.
“What do they do in there, anyway?” Batiste wanted to know. “Our church is always trying to get those sinners to repent. But I don’t even know what kind of sinning they’re doing.”
“Probably cursing,” offered Chloe.
“Tons of that!” said Max.
“That’s a sin.” Batiste sighed.
“And drinking liquor?” Chloe asked.
“Totally,” said Max. “They have these little glasses in all kinds of flavors like watermelon and peach passion and hot apple. But they taste horrible. Sweet and horrible. I had three of them one time and then I puked them all up, right on the bar, and my mom said if my uncle ever takes me there again, she’s gonna call the cops.”
“Drinking is a sin,” said Batiste.
“Wow,” Chloe murmured.
“I don’t want to go back, anyways,” Max continued. “Boring. Just a bunch of moms dancing around in their string underwear. Big whoop.”
I stifled a laugh.
“What?” Chloe said. “What’s so funny?”
“Oh… Alex was just telling me a joke,” I said.
“Tell us!” she demanded. “We love jokes.”
Alex shrugged, lost. “I forget.”
“Come on!” they pleaded.
“Okay, okay,” I said. “How do you make a tissue dance?”
“How?” Max said.
“You put a little boogie in it!”
Nothing. Not even a groan.
“That’s the worst joke I ever heard,” said Chloe.
“I don’t even get it,” said Max.
Alex and I left the grade schoolers to discuss the finer points of adult entertainment and went over to where the big kids were gathering. We crossed past Josie, who was sort of slumped in a booth. Still not saying much. Well, anything.
“How are you, Josie?” I asked.
Alex nudged me toward the other big kids. He wanted to hear what they were thinking about the chemicals. I did, too…
“I don’t understand,” Astrid said. “It made Niko blister up, Dean turned into some kind of a monster, and Brayden started having hallucinations. But Sahalia and Alex and Jake were fine?”
“It doesn’t make any sense but, yeah,” Jake said, scratching his head.
“Maybe they attack based on age or something…,” Brayden said.
“I noticed that the effects seemed to wear off very quickly,” Alex piped up. “It makes me think they attack the central nervous system.”
“That anyone could make this kind of poison is just horrible,” Astrid said. “The people at NORAD should be shot.”
“Hey! That’s my dad you’re talking about,” Brayden said.
“But why would they make such awful things?” Astrid asked us. “I mean, a chemical that makes people turn into savages? Or makes them blister up and die? It’s evil.”
“They made them to protect us.”
“Protect us from what? From who?” Astrid demanded.
“From our enemies!” Brayden answered.
“It’s inhumane,” I spoke up. “Just making those compounds violates the Geneva Convention. It’s illegal.”
“Nothing’s illegal if the government itself is doing it,” Brayden asserted, like an idiot.
“That’s just amazingly wrong,” I said.
“Hey, Brayden,” Astrid said. “What exactly does your dad do for NORAD, anyway?”
I’d been wondering that exact thing. I had sort of fantasized that Brayden’s dad was like a janitor.
“That’s classified, Ass-trid,” Brayden replied.
Then we heard some rattling.
Chinka-chinka-chink.
“Hello?” came a distant voice.
We jumped up.
Someone was at the gate!
Beyond the plastic sheeting and the blankets, someone was rattling the gate.
“They came!” shouted one of the little kids. “They’re here for us!”
“Anybody home?” came the voice from outside. “Hello!”
We rushed
to the gate. Everyone started clamoring at once: “Hi! Hello! We’re in here! Who are you? Hello! Hello!”
“Open the gate!” the voice shouted. “I hear you in there.”
“Yes, yes! We’re trapped inside, we want to get out! We want to go home!” shouted all the little kids in a big jumble.
Chloe turned to Niko and commanded him. “Take down the plastic. He’s here for us!”
“Don’t you touch it!” Niko growled. I’d never heard him so intense.
“Well? Open up! Come on! I’m hungry!” came the voice from outside.
The little kids were still bouncing with excitement, but I saw the others stiffen.
Listening real attentively. Something about his tone.
“We can’t open the gate,” Jake yelled. “It’s stuck.”
“You can! You can open it if you try! Come on!”
Chinka-chinka-chink.
“We’re locked in,” Jake tried to explain.
“Who’s in there?” the voice shouted.
“We’re kids from Lewis Palmer!” Jake continued. “We took shelter here from the hail and—”
“Open the gate, little kiddos!” the voice shouted.
“We can’t open it, dude!” Jake yelled. “It’s some kind of a security gate. But we want to get a message to our parents—”
“Get them a message?” The voice started to laugh. “Sure. That’s a great idea. I’ll get them a message. Open the gate, so we can make a message!”
There was something very, very off in this voice. I exchanged a glance with Alex. He knew it, too.
“Like I told you, we can’t!” Jake yelled again.
“Open it, you little twits! Come on, I’m hungry! Just open it. Open it.”
“We can’t—”
“OPEN THE F GATE! OPEN IT!!! OPEN, OPEN, OPEN!”
And the man outside started rattling the gate again. Chinka-chinka-chink.
I could see the fear wash over the little kids. Their faces, one moment ago bright with hope, went cold and pale.
Caroline and Henry, standing behind me, each clutched on to one of my legs at the exact same moment. I pried them off and crouched down, hugging them to me.
When the man outside shook the gate, our wall of plastic and blankets bobbed with the air pressure.
“Our wall,” I said to Niko. “Is it going to let the air in?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so,” he answered.
“Go away,” Jake shouted, his voice gruff.
“LET ME IN!” the man shouted. “BY THE HAIR OF MY F CHIN, LET ME IN OR I’LL HUFF AND I’LL BLOW YOUR EFFIN’ GREENWAY DOWN!”
He was shaking the gate now.
Chinka-chinka-chink. CHINKA-CHINKA-CHINK. CHINKA-CHINKA-CHINK. Wobble-wobble-wobble went the sheeting.
Astrid stepped in front of the little kids.
“Come on, guys,” she said. “Who likes puppet shows? I’m going to do a puppet show for you guys.”
No one moved.
Obviously their failure to move had nothing to do with their feelings about puppet shows. They were rooted to the spot in utter horror and shock.
“OPEN THE DOOR, YOU LITTLE SONS A BITCHES!”
“Go away!” Jake yelled. “Go away and leave us alone!”
CHINKA-CHINKA-CHINKA-CHINKA-CHINK.
“Guys!” Astrid yelled. “Free candy! Come on. Whatever toys you want! Let’s party! Come on.”
She was working so hard.
“OPEN THE GATE OR I WILL KILL YOU. I WILL TEAR YOUR LITTLE KIDDO HEADS OFF AND I WILL MAKE A SOUP OUT OF YOUR LITTLE SMART-ASS KIDDO BRAINS AND—”
I started to sing.
Yes, sing.
“I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy. Yankee Doodle Do or die.”
I let go of Henry and Caroline and started marching, like I was the leader of a parade.
“An old old something something la la la, born on the Fourth of July.” So maybe I didn’t know the words, exactly.
Alex joined in. Astrid, too. All three of us marching like idiots.
“You’re my Yankee Doodle sweetheart, Yankee Doodle do or die.”
I led the three of us, making up the words somewhat and we walked in front of the gate, getting between the eyes of the little kids and the plywood, just trying to break the terror spell of the monster outside.
Who now started to yell, “YOU SINGING ‘YANKEE DOODLE’? ‘YANKEE DOODLE DANDY’? I’LL F KILL YOU!”
Niko joined in and that guy, I am here to tell you, is entirely tone deaf.
But the little kids kind of snapped to. We caught their attention.
“Yankee Doodle went to town a riding on a pony. I am a Yankee Doodle guy.”
And the kids started marching and I led the parade, the saddest parade in the history of the world, away from the front of the store, away from the monster outside, and right to the stupid cookie and cracker aisle. We ate fudge-covered graham crackers for a good long while.
CHAPTER SEVEN
BLOOD TYPES
The kids fell asleep, after a while. It was maybe three in the afternoon—hard to tell inside because the lighting was the same all day long. I don’t know what time it was, but Astrid had told them it was time for a nap and the kids dropped into their sleeping bags like the walking dead.
The twins slept together, and Max and Ulysses moved their bags next to each other. Chloe and Batiste were sort of the odd men out. Batiste tried to snuggle up to Chloe, but she wouldn’t have it.
“Quit it, Batiste,” she said. “You smell.”
She pushed him away.
“It’s a sin to push,” Batiste mumbled.
“Yeah, well. It’s also a sin to try to hug someone who doesn’t want to be hugged!”
“No, it’s not!” Batiste protested.
“Yes, it is!”
“No!”
“Yes!”
“No.”
“Yes!”
“Come on, you guys,” I said, trying to be sane.
“Hugging is not a sin!” Batiste yelled.
“It is too, if the girl getting hugged doesn’t want it!” Chloe countered.
“Hey!” Astrid hollered. “Shut up!”
Then Chloe hit Batiste in the stomach, which I admit was not entirely displeasing to me, because that Batiste was an aggravating kid.
Then Batiste said it was a sin to punch someone in the stomach.
He cried for a while, and gradually his cries gave way to the shallow rhythm of sleep breath.
It was a relief to have them asleep. Astrid and I sort of looked at each other and smiled. The moment had a weird feeling of middle-aged family life, with the two of us cast just where I’d like us to be, in about twenty years, but, of course, with about five too many kids.
“You’re good with kids,” she said to me.
“Not really,” I said. “You’re good with them.”
Good conversation, right? I was really connecting with her.
“Counselor of the year, Indian Brook Day Camp. Three years running,” she said, brushing a loose tendril of blond hair behind her ear.
“That’s really something,” I said. Again, with the skills.
She shrugged and walked away, over to the broken television, where the rest of the big kids were sitting and listening.
Everyone looked up when we came over, except for Josie. She was sitting with everyone, but was just staring ahead. There but not entirely “there.”
“He’s talking about the compounds,” Alex told me in a whisper.
Whoever the anchor was, he had a very deep, reassuring voice. Nevertheless, what he told us was terrifying.
“Residents of the southwestern region of the United States,” he told us. “Please be advised: There has been a breach of the chemical-weapons storage units located at NORAD in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
“The compounds attack based on blood type. People with blood type A will develop severe blisters on all exposed skin. After prolonged exposure, the internal organs will begin to hem
orrhage, leading to organ failure and death.”
I looked at Niko. He was type A. Personality and blood type, apparently.
“People who have type AB blood suffer from paranoid delusions and possible hallucinations.”
Brayden buried his head in his hands.
“There is confusion as to the effects on people with type B blood. It is possible they will suffer from long-term reproductive difficulties and sterility. But there is hope that people with type B blood suffer no consequences from exposure.”
Alex and Sahalia had been on the roof and showed no symptoms at all. They were type B. Jake, too, as he had been exposed in the storeroom and showed no signs.
My brother would be okay. That was some comfort to me.
“People with type O blood, which is the most common blood type, will become deranged and violent. Avoid these people at all costs. Containing them in a closet or basement is advised, if possible.”
I felt everyone look at me.
My face went hot.
I was type O. Me and the gate rattler.
Awesome.
“Fortunately, the compounds wear off very quickly. If you are exposed, get to a safe place and flush your skin and mucus membranes with clean water. The effects subside within ten to twenty minutes. Prolonged exposure will lead to irreparable damage to all blood types except for type B.”
The voice went on to advise us to stay indoors and await help.
“Like we have a choice,” Brayden scoffed.
And then for the good news. Ha.
The anchor told us it was thought that the chemicals would disperse in between three to six months.
“Six months!” Astrid exclaimed.
He then reassured us that government operatives were hard at work deactivating the blackout cloud that now enveloped the area within an eight-hundred-mile radius of Colorado Springs. It was a magnetic cloud and would hover above the detonation site unaffected by rain or wind.
And then the anchor said this: “Good citizens of the United States of America, we are in the midst of the greatest crisis our country has ever known. But if we have courage and patience, if we persevere despite the great odds against us, we will come through this calamity. Good night, stay safe, and God bless you.”
Then the whole report started again on a loop.
* * *
Somebody (probably Niko) had dragged beanbag chairs into the Media Department, so that’s what we were sitting on. It was me, Jake, Brayden, Astrid, Niko, Alex, and Sahalia. Niko, who, I was beginning to realize, had a hard time sitting still, was starting to clean some of the earthquake mess up, but only in our area.
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