There’s a soft grunt.
The woman says, “No! Don’t—”
Then a scream, a flash of light. Three heartbeats and it’s done. I close my eyes, not wanting to see what I think I heard. There’s five seconds of silence. A wave of anger sweeps through me. I could have stopped him! I could have saved her and I didn’t. If I knew how to open this briefcase right now, I’d take the gun, point at the center of that hood …
Richie whistles. “You see that, my friend? Didn’t even hit the ground. I’m tellin’ you, they never miss. Not once!”
Hacker says, “Why’d you do that?”
Richie, the boots walking back to Hacker, says, “It’s simple. You lie, you die. That’s my motto.”
Hacker laughs, which turns into a coughing spasm. It’s a bad one.
When he’s done, Richie says, “There is one small detail I forgot to mention. This was in the safe.”
After a moment, Hacker says, “‘Bang, bang’? Who wrote it?”
“Whoever got to the safe before me.”
“So the lady wasn’t lying.”
“She said there would be a gun and there wasn’t. That’s close enough.” A pause, then, “Why you givin’ me that look?”
“Seems like a sad waste, is all.”
“Hey, someone’s gotta feed the aliens. Otherwise they’ll come lookin’ for food. Way I see it, I just did humanity a favor.”
Hacker spits and says, “You show this note to Mr. Hendricks?”
“Yes.”
“What’d he say?”
“Get the gun.”
“That’s it?”
“More or less. He doesn’t want the guests to have it. That point he made very clear.”
“You think it’s in the hotel?”
“No. Remember I said someone had a nest in the Navigator? Well, all that stuff, the sleeping bag and clothes, a yellow backpack—it’s all gone now.”
“What’re you thinkin’?”
“There’s a pirate co-habitating this garage.”
“A pirate with a gun.”
“According to the note.”
“You bring the .45?”
“Wouldn’t leave home without it.”
“So now what?”
Richie says, “We go on a little treasure hunt. Look for a sleeping bag and a kitten.”
They start walking away.
As their voices fade, Hacker says, “The lady said there was a grand in the safe. You happen to see any of that?”
Richie says, “The pirate must’ve took it.”
I wait until I’m sure they’re on Level 6. I crawl out from under the car, leaving my backpack and the briefcase where they are. I put Cassie in the backseat—this would be a good time for her to sleep. I don’t need to be worrying about a hungry kitten right now. Richie with a knife is bad enough. Now he has a gun. I walk over to the wall, reach into my pocket, and fish out the key to the safe. My mind pictures the woman, her sandals, her painted toes, her two kids back in the hotel. Why did I leave that note? What was I thinking? I throw the key as far as I can. It disappears in the empty streets below. I wait a few seconds, then walk back to the truck.
A plan, which I hope won’t be as stupid as it was to leave the note, is forming in my head.
I sneak down the ramp, hugging the wall and staying in shadows as much as I can. Ten more feet and I’m peering around a cement pillar, watching Richie and Hacker look for treasure. Richie stands guard with the .45 while Hacker uses a huge metal rod to pry open the trunks of cars. When they finish with a car they leave the trunk lid open, then move on to the next. There’s one car near the far wall, a blue Volvo four-door with a trunk lid that won’t stay up. After a couple of tries Richie says, “Screw it,” and they move on to the next victim. This goes on until they’ve hit every car on this level, twenty at least, pulling all the stuff out, keeping some of it and throwing the rest over the side, with Richie saying, “No point in leaving anything useful for our friend.” Finally they move down to the next level. I sneak back to fetch my pack and the briefcase. And Cassie, who misses me, of course.
“Let’s check out our new home,” I say as she licks my thumb. “It’s my favorite color. Blue.”
DAY 11: PROSSER, WASHINGTON
Bam
“The water is off.”
I search for the clock beside my bed. It’s off, too—oh, yeah, no power. That would explain why Dad is peering down at me, his head lit up by the candle in his hand. I drag a pillow over my face. He pulls it away.
“No more showers, no more toilet,” he says. “We urinate in the green bucket in the garage and defecate in the brown bucket, then toss the contents out the side door in the garage.”
I stare at him. He actually said “defecate.”
Sitting up I say, “So our yard is the toilet?”
“We don’t have a choice.”
“You woke me up to tell me this?”
“I needed to catch you before you went to the bathroom.”
Whatever time it is, it’s way too early for words like “defecate,” or to think about color-coded buckets of crap and how our life has just slipped down another notch. I roll over, facing the wall. “I’m going back to sleep,” I say.
He’s still there. I feel him in the room. After a few moments he says, “There’s something else I need to say.”
“Can’t it wait until the sun comes up?” I ask.
“No.”
“Okay, so say it already.”
“You know that rule I made about Mom?” he asks.
“The one where we’re not supposed to talk about her?”
“It’s a stupid rule,” he says.
“You can say that again,” I say, looking at the wall.
Mercifully, the door clicks and he’s gone.
The clock on top of the piano runs on a battery, so it’s one of two ties we have to life PP (-Pre-POD). My Seiko is in my locker at school. Dad has a Timex digital that he wears constantly, but he’s spending more and more time in his room. My old standbys, the displays on the microwave and cable TV box, are useless. But that doesn’t stop me from checking them at least fifty times a day. If time flies when you’re having fun, it moves like a tree sloth when you’re not.
So the piano clock says 2:30 in the afternoon. I’ve been trying to find the apartment girl pretty much nonstop since breakfast. Nothing but the usual suspects scratching their butts. I pick up the binoculars, sit down in the chair, put my feet up, and scan to the third floor.
Showtime! She’s standing at the window.
She holds a sheet of paper against the glass. In thick black letters it reads:
HT IM Amanda
It’s text-message for Hi there, I’m Amanda. I motion for her to wait, then tear through the house, snagging a stack of paper from the useless printer in Dad’s office and a marking pen from the utility drawer. But the top’s off the pen, so the ink is dried out. I run around opening and slamming drawers, waking Dutch and getting the raised hairy eyebrow from Dad. I find a bazillion markers, but they’re all too thin. She’d never see them. Finally I track down a thick marker in the closet with all the present-wrapping supplies. This one works, so I run back to the window. She’s waiting, but she seems anxious, looking over her shoulder. I write in big letters, asking her, How’s it going?
Me: IM josh HIG?
She puts down her binoculars and replies.
Amanda: IM starving.
Is she really starving, or just saying it? It’s hard to tell with those sweats she’s wearing. I’m not skin-and-bones starving, but the refrigerator is empty and we’re eating from cans. I write, Me too. Let’s order some pizza.
Me: M2 lets order za
Amanda: ROFL RU scared?
Rolling on floor laughing. Are you scared? Yeah, well, only all the time, except when I’m doing this. Or sleeping. I wonder if she knows there’s a POD right over her apartment. Then I wonder if there’s a POD over our house. I answer, Scared of what? Just kidding.
Me: scared of what? JK
Amanda: RU alone?
Me: no. stuck w/dad n dog RU?
Amanda: no IWIWU
I wish I was you. That’s what she thinks—she doesn’t know my dad. But I wonder about the skinny dude.
Me: Y?
Amanda: he stole r food n watr n beer :(
Me: he?
Amanda: BAM w/gun
I’m pretty sure I know what this means. Since he stole her stuff and has a gun, I’m guessing badass man. I get a memory flash of the man on the sidewalk—small round holes leaking streaks of red. This skinny dude needs to go. The marker shakes in my hand as I write.
Me: where is he now?
Amanda: ZZZZ
Sleeping. I wonder where her parents are.
Me: where r yr rents?
Amanda: KIA
Killed in action? By the PODs or the skinny guy? I keep it simple for now.
Me: :(
Amanda: my lil sis is sik.
My little sister is sick. This keeps getting worse. I think about it, then write, Sucks to be you. Call for help.
Me: S2BU 911!
Amanda: LOLA URYY4M
Laughing out loud again. I need to think on the second part. You are … something … for me. But what’s up with the two Y’s? Then I get it. Too wise! You are too wise for me. I look at her. She’s holding up another sheet of paper, glancing over her shoulder. It looks like the monster is waking.
Amanda: GTGB
Got to go, bye. She scoops up her papers, blows me a kiss, and is gone.
She blew me a kiss! Just like in my dream. My head spins. I want to run over there and kick the skinny guy’s ass. But I can’t do that either. So I sit in my comfy chair, feet up on the ottoman, and quietly resist the urge to throw the binoculars through the window.
I must have fallen asleep—it’s dark outside. The clock reads 7:23. I stand up, stretch, and walk into the kitchen. Dad is sitting at the dining room table, punching numbers into a calculator by candlelight. His POD notebook is open; he’s working on yet another graph, no doubt. I know he’s had dinner—there’s a spicy smell that’s vaguely familiar. The counters are spotless. I wonder if he used some of our precious water to clean them.
Dad takes off his glasses and says, “Well, someone’s had a busy day.” He smiles, hoping for more.
I shrug. “All this activity wears me out.”
Still hopeful, he says, “You empty every drawer in the house and that’s all I get?”
I pick up his pen, flip to an empty page in his notebook, and write: NIYWFD. Never in your wildest freaking dreams. “Figure that out and I’ll tell all.”
He puts his glasses on, studies the page. I sit at the table and watch. His lips are moving, sounding things out. The gears are really spinning. He writes down a couple of words, not even close. After a minute he says, “Do I get a clue?”
“Ha! In your dreams!”
It’s his turn to shrug. He says, “You hungry?”
“I could eat.”
“Well, tonight’s menu features a can of chili or a can of clam chowder. I recommend the chili. The chowder is supposed to use milk.”
That’s an easy one. I hate clams. “I guess it’s chili,” I say.
“Would you like it hot? I’ll fire up the camp stove if—”
“No thanks. I prefer my chili cold and congealed.”
“Okay, then.” He gets up, starts for the pantry.
“Hold on. I’ll manage this one,” I say. “You sit down, work on that puzzle.”
He returns to the table. I snag a can of chili from the pantry, open it, dump the contents into a bowl. It sits there in a lumpy brown and red pile. Now I recognize the mystery smell. Chili seasonings and beans sear my nostrils. Dutch, unaffected, is up and drooling on my foot.
Dad, back to the riddle, says, “Not In Your Wacky Friend’s Dorm?”
I hear him but I don’t. I’m staring at the bowl, thinking: I can’t believe I told her to call 911. I’m an idiot! I poke at the glop with a spoon. It makes a sucking sound that reminds me of a bodily function. Whatever appetite I had is out the window.
Suddenly the brown bucket is calling.
Dad says, “You look a little green in the gills. Would you like a baggie of water?”
“I’ll eat this later,” I say, knowing that will never happen. “Right now I need to make my donation to the neighborhood beautification project.”
Considering the events of the day, this seems like the right thing to do.
DAY 11: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
My New Address
This is my new address:
Megs Moran
Level 6 Orange
Row J, Space 12
Los Angeles, California
Here are the directions. You go to Level 6 Orange—orange because all the levels have different colors. If you have kids, avoid the bloaters on Levels 3 and 5. The smell is so bad they might puke. Find Row J—you can’t miss it, there’s a little brown Toyota truck at the front with muddy monster tires that Richie slashed. Walk all the way down to space 12, that’s two cars up from the end. If you go too far you’ll be staring at three huge spaceballs. I’m next to the white Ford Focus with dangling side mirrors (be careful not to step on the broken glass—there’s lots of it). Knock three times on the trunk of the blue Volvo. I’ll pop out like a weasel and say, Nice to see you!—unless you’re Richie or Hacker, in which case I’ll scream my head off. Like I did an hour ago when I woke up from a dream about Richie cutting into the trunk with a chainsaw.
I like my new home. It smells nice, like leather and perfume. A thin beam of early-morning sun is shining in through a broken window. The front seat is my dining room—that’s where I would eat if I had any food. The backseat is my living room—that’s where I stretch out and read the Aliens vs. Predator comic book for the fiftieth time or play with Cassie when she has the energy. The trunk is my bedroom—that’s where I sleep. It’s really dark in there. My bedroom has two exits, one through the backseat, which folds down, and the other through the trunk lid, which Hacker busted with his metal rod. I hang out in the backseat—excuse me, living room—and scurry like a squirrel into the trunk whenever I hear a noise. Which is almost all the time. I tied a piece of string to the inside of the backseat so I can close it from inside the trunk. I’ve got it down to five seconds. Richie won’t even know I’m here.
After the dream I couldn’t get back to sleep. That’s two nights in a row of not sleeping, and it’s wearing me down. I’m so thirsty I can’t lick my lips. I finished the water just a minute ago, two sips for me, one for Cassie. It didn’t help. My stomach is cramping and I’m starting to smell like a bloater. I look in the rearview mirror. A wild animal stares back at me. Dirty face streaked with engine oil, red zombie eyes, hair like a bird’s nest. If Mom saw me now she’d run away or probably just die. It’s official. I’m a total cave troll.
To cheer myself up I open my backpack and empty the treasures I’ve found onto the seat. Mom was a big fan of writing things down, so I make a list.
STUFF I HAVE
2 screwdrivers, 1 Phillips, 1 flat
1 sleeping bag
1 pair smashed glasses
1 cigarette lighter
1 flashlight pen
1 pocketknife with a broken blade
2 nearly empty packs of cigarettes
1 sm. bottle with 18 pills (-azithro-something)
1 makeup mirror, 2 tubes red lipstick, a hairbrush
3 comic books (2 Spider-Man, 1 Aliens vs. Predator)
2 totally empty water bottles
2 paper clips, 1 sewing needle, 1 thing of yellow thread
2 bites of chocolate (thanks to Grandma Bloater!)
1 kitten
1 briefcase
1 gun (I think)
Then I make another list.
STUFF I NEED
Food and water
Toilet paper
Toothbrush and toothpaste
Shampoo with conditioner
More chocolate
I really, really like chocolate.
So now what? I try opening the briefcase but can’t pop the lock with a screwdriver. I decide it’s not safe to keep the case in the car, so I hide it under the trash in the garbage can next to the green door. I could try sneaking into the hotel, but I don’t like that idea—too many scary people come out of those green doors. I’d rather take my chances in here. But I have to do something. The food I have left wouldn’t fill a Dixie cup. I heard the body can live without food for days, maybe even weeks, but I don’t know about water. It seems like less—a lot less. I think Cassie is starving, too. There’s nothing but bone under skin when I pet her. She hardly ever wants to play anymore. I know I should get supplies, but my heart isn’t in it. I have this creepy feeling that Richie set a trap. He’s waiting around the next corner, behind the next car. And when he catches me he’s going to take the metal case. And then he’s going to feed me to the aliens. Every time I close my eyes I see his snakeskin boots. I hear that lady scream “No!” just before the flash of light. So I don’t do anything.
It’s like I’m a long-necked chicken. I sit in my new home waiting for the farmer with the ax.
DAY 13: PROSSER, WASHINGTON
Blue-Light Special
The screeching sound again, this time in the middle of the night. I twist like a worm on a hook in my bed, then pull my knees up to my chest and wait for it to end. Or wait to die—whichever comes first.
It stops, sort of.
A blue light seeps into my room. At first it’s just a curiosity, maybe a reflection off something. But within seconds I know it’s something much bigger. It fills my room. The light is so intense that my eyelids can’t stop it. And my hands—I see the veins, like I’m turning into some translucent jellyfish. This can be only one thing. I get out of bed and look out the window. The PODs are glowing, each one as bright as a blue sun. It hurts to look at them, even for a second.
Pod Page 8
