The Last Days

by WESTERFELD, SCOTT

  Me and Moz could make it for that long, couldn’t we? We knew to eat lots of garlic. Probably all those other smelly herbs were just for show.

  Zombie meowed, still staring at me with gleaming eyes. In our own place, he could go play with his little friends whenever he wanted.

  Astor Michaels was talking again. “Once you’re out of that room, the band can rehearse every day. Think what that would do for you, especially with your first gig coming up.”

  I bit my lip. Pearl had been complaining about having only one more Sunday to rehearse. Zombie stared at me, tail twitching, anxious.

  “Okay. I’ll move.”

  “I thought you might say that,” Astor Michaels said, and I could hear his smile. It slid through the airwaves like a needle. “Go pack.”

  “What, right now? But it’s midnight.”

  “Best time to run away, don’t you think? I’m on the road as we speak, coming over to collect you.”

  “Um, but Moz said he was going to call later.”

  He filled my ear with a little sigh. “You can call him instead, Min. Remember my little present? The one we’re talking on?”

  “Oh, right.” I giggled. “Clever Astor Michaels.”

  “I’ll see you in twenty minutes. Pack light.”

  Pack light? Puh.

  I needed lots of dresses—all my black ones, for wearing onstage. All my necklaces and rings too, even though my old jewelry box was pink and tattered. Only a few pairs of shoes, because I really had to buy all new ones; none of mine were very rock star. I packed every bit of the underwear me and Pearl had bought the day we’d gone to Red Rat Records, but no pajamas, because I was so bored of lying around all day. Bored of sleeping.

  Never again, I thought as I stuffed my two suitcases full. I could save up all my sleeping for the grave.

  I packed my notebooks, of course. I’d memorized most of the songs in them, but they smelled good, and I liked to stare at my old handwriting. It was sweet how only I could read the songs, all of them in my own special language.

  Zombie trilled from the top of the dresser, reminding me to bring cat food and a place for him to pee. I grabbed his bag of dry food and promised to get him a litter box. And big piles of bones—Moz and I were going to need lots of meat, especially without Luz’s tinctures and teas to help us.

  I wondered if he would come and stay with me. . . .

  The thought made me shiver a little, and I looked around my room again, the place I’d lived for almost eighteen years. It was time to grow up, after all.

  The illness had emptied this room of meaning. Luz had cleared all my old possessions out, back when they’d made me scream. She was reintroducing familiar things one by one, but none of them held any significance now. Everything from before the disease smelled like old toys from childhood, sugary with memories, a little embarrassing.

  Better to let my parents keep it all.

  Mommy and Daddy would be upset, but I could call them from my new phone and tell them how happy I was.

  I snapped the suitcases shut, then crossed to the door, closing my eyes to listen. Maxwell was sleeping loudly down the hall. He’d started snoring lately, puberty making him prickly and restless. He’d be much happier without a crazy big sister sucking up everyone’s attention.

  I listened harder, trying to hear through Max’s snuffling. The slightest creak of settling sounded below . . . was it Astor Michaels on the stairs? But he didn’t know about the secret key.

  The phone vibrated again, like a tiny, nervous animal in my hand.

  “I’m ready,” I whispered.

  “Excellent. We’re just pulling up now. Heavens, this neighborhood’s seen better days.”

  “It’s not our fault. The mean garbagemen won’t come here anymore.”

  “Well, I’m glad I’m taking you away.”

  I frowned. Suddenly I wished it wasn’t Astor Michaels helping me escape. Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea, rushing off with him. Mozzy could help me instead. . . .

  But I couldn’t imagine unpacking my bags, putting everything back into closets and drawers and under the bed, defeated.

  One more day, even one more hour, was too long to stay here.

  “Okay,” I whispered. “First you have to get the key. Then you sneak to the top of the stairs without making any noise—”

  He laughed. “Just a moment, darling Min. I don’t do sneaking.”

  “But . . . there’s a lock on my door.”

  “Yes. And you can break it.”

  “The lock?”

  “The door. You’ve had the condition for five months, Minerva. You can feel your strength, right? I’ve broken doors down by accident. Just hit it with the palm of your hand. Hard.”

  I touched the door softly, thinking of all the nights I’d tried to stare holes in it. But knock it down?

  “It’ll make noise,” I whispered. “Wake them all up.”

  “You’ll be down and out the front door while they’re still wondering what’s going on. Don’t be shy. Just hit it, Min.”

  I remembered how I’d lifted Pearl’s mixing board with one hand last Sunday, making her eyes as round as buttons.

  But bash down my own door?

  “Do you want to stay in your room forever?” he said.

  I hissed at the phone. Astor Michaels and his little tests. Were we mature enough to stay together? Tough enough to face a nasty audience? Strong enough to . . . bash things down?

  Fine.

  I hung up, scooped Zombie from the floor, and placed one palm against the wood. Drew my arm back . . .

  And smashed it into smithereens.

  Moz stood just outside, his jaw open.

  “Mozzy!” I cried.

  His smell rushed into the room, and Zombie struggled to jump down and say hi.

  I stared at my stinging palm. “I’d have heard you coming up except for smelly Astor Michaels distracting me.”

  “Um, I . . .”

  “Poor Mozzy. You look frazzled.”

  “Something happened to me. Something weird.” He looked down at the bits of wood around him. “Why did you do that?”

  I bent to pick up a suitcase. “I’ll tell you on the way.”

  “What way? The way where?”

  “My new place,” I said. “Quit squirming! Not you, Mozzy. Grab that, would you?”

  He blinked a few times, then saw my other suitcase and gripped its handle.

  I paused for a moment, listening. Maxwell was definitely awake, his snores shattered into little pieces, just like my door. I could hear him twisting on his bed, snuffling with confusion.

  Downstairs in my parents’ room, the floor was creaking with footsteps.

  “Come on,” I hissed.

  We didn’t bother sneaking. The stairs complained, but it felt so good not to be worrying over every squeak of the cranky old steps. We were past my parents’ room, almost at the front door, when Daddy flicked on the lights above us.

  “Minerva?” he called softly. “Max?”

  I pulled open the front door. The outside smells rushed in: the garbage mountains, the rotting leaves of fall, Zombie’s little friends skittering in the dark.

  “Bye, Daddy,” I called up, trying to sound a little sad at leaving. “Don’t worry, please. I’ll call you soon.”

  “What are you doing? Who is that?”

  Moz looked very embarrassed to be stared at. But it was Daddy in his pajamas who looked silly.

  “Tell Max and Mommy goodbye and that I’ll see you all on my birthday, okay?”

  “Minerva! You can’t just leave. . . . You’re not well! Where are you—?”

  “I said I’d call you!” Daddy never listens. I stomped out the door.

  “How are we going to get anywhere?” Moz sputtered, running after me. “Won’t they call the cops? I sent my cab away, and we can’t take the subway! There’s this thing down—”

  “It’s okay, Moz. Look, there he is!”

  Astor Michaels was hal
f a block away, standing next to his limo, looking surprised to see Mozzy. His driver hovered close to him, scanning the piles of garbage nervously, one hand in his pocket like he was getting ready to shoot some of Zombie’s little friends.

  We ran up, and I handed Astor Michaels my suitcase. “Take this; Zombie has his claws in my dress.”

  “You’re bringing your cat,” he said flatly, staring at Moz.

  “And Mozzy too!” I said.

  “Yes, I see that.” Astor Michaels sighed tiredly. “Hello, Moz.”

  “What’s going on here?” Moz said, sounding all manly and jealous, which made me giggle.

  But then Daddy yelled something, and we all got in the limo, dragging the suitcases in behind us instead of opening the trunk. The driver put the car into gear and whisked us away.

  I waved to Daddy out the back window.

  “We’re going to our new place, Moz,” I explained. “You should come stay there with me.”

  “Um . . .” Astor Michaels said.

  “I can’t go home,” Mozzy said, staring out at midnight Brooklyn rushing past. “I saw this thing down in the subway, and the angels caught me. They almost took me away, like Luz always says.”

  “Angels?” I asked. For the first time, I noticed how shaky Moz was. He was pale with shock, twitching and sweating like he’d seen something much worse than my door exploding.

  “It’s real, Min,” he said softly. “The struggle’s real.”

  I wrapped my arms around him. “Don’t worry, Mozzy. We’ll take you someplace safe.”

  “By all means,” Astor Michaels said. “Must keep the talent happy.”

  22. CROWDED HOUSE

  -PEARL-

  The morning after the Morgan’s Army gig, my phone rang—Astor Michaels calling.

  “You gave me a hangover,” I answered, still feeling all the glasses of champagne he’d brought me. Mom gave me a stern look across the breakfast table, but I ignored her. Stupid champagne genes.

  Astor Michaels laughed at me from the other end. “Well, at least we have something to celebrate. They’re finally ready.”

  I squinted in the sunlight streaming into the dining room. “The contracts?”

  “In my hand.”

  “Your lawyer works on Saturday morning?”

  “They were ready yesterday.”

  Mom was pretending not to listen, but I tried not to swear too loud. Everyone had been nine kinds of bugging me to get the negotiations over with, like the delay was all my fault. “And you didn’t mention this last night why?”

  “I had a very busy evening in front of me.”

  “Oh. Your mysterious errand.” He’d left me and Alana Ray at the club before the gig had ended, smiling like he had a dirty secret.

  “And after that, things got even busier.” Astor Michaels sighed tiredly. “If you meet me downtown in two hours, I’ll explain everything.”

  “Explain whatever you want,” I said. “Just bring the contracts.”

  “Contracts?” my mother said the moment I hung up. “Does this mean you’re really going through with all this?”

  I looked down at my hands, which were quivering a little—half hangover, half excitement. “Yeah, I really am.”

  She looked out the window. “Why we wasted all that money on school, I don’t know, if you were just going to do something like this.”

  “Juilliard wasn’t a waste, Mom. Not hardly. But it’s . . . over.”

  She looked at me, trying to muster up a look of disbelief, but she knew I was right. Fewer students showed up for classes every day, and those that were still around were all planning some kind of escape from the city. Ellen Bromowitz had called it exactly right: one week ago, the senior orchestra had been officially put on hold for the rest of the year. The infrastructure was already failing.

  “Plus,” I said, “this is my lifelong dream and everything.”

  “Lifelong? You’re only seventeen, darling.”

  I looked up at her, about to reply with some snark, but her eyes had turned shiny in the sunlight. Suddenly I saw something I’d never even imagined before: my indestructible mother looking fragile, as if she really was worried about the future.

  I wondered if her friends were all doing the same as mine—heading to Switzerland, leaving the city behind. What if no one bothered anymore to raise money for museums and dance companies and orchestras? What if all the parties she lived for had no more reason to exist and simply stopped happening, leaving all her diamonds and black cocktail dresses useless?

  Mom needed her infrastructure too, I suddenly realized, and she was watching it crumble away.

  So all I said was, “Seventeen years is a long time, Mom. I just hope this isn’t too late.”

  I called Moz’s house right away to tell him to come along. The two of us had started the band, after all. This was our moment of success.

  His mother hadn’t seen him that morning. She wasn’t sure if he’d come home the night before and didn’t sound very happy about it. Maybe sometimes in the past Moz hadn’t made it home on Friday nights, she kept saying, but the way things were these days, he really should know better. . . .

  I hung up a little worried, hoping Moz wasn’t going to go all lateral on me. Except for Alana Ray and almost-eighteen Min, all our parents had to countersign the Red Rat contracts. With our first gig only six days away, now was not the time to pick a fight.

  I called Zahler’s house next, but there was no answer, and my brain started to spin with every imaginable reason the two of them might have gone missing. The police were investigating a lot of disappearances lately, especially underground; there was talk of shutting the trains down altogether. But Moz and Zahler wouldn’t be stupid enough to go down into the subway, would they?

  Not now, when we were this close . . .

  Astor Michaels had given me the address of a huge block of apartments on Thirteenth Street. I got there right on time and found him waiting in the lobby, an alligator-skin briefcase clutched under one arm.

  “Shall we go on up?” he said.

  “You live here?” I frowned. The lobby carpet was a bit threadbare in spots, and two security guards sat in reclining chairs behind the doorman, eyeing us carefully, shotguns across their laps.

  “Heavens, no. Red Rat owns a few apartments here. I thought you might want to see one.”

  I didn’t know what he meant by that, but I looked at his briefcase. “Whatever.”

  The elevators were the old-fashioned kind, zoo cages on cables. An ancient guy in uniform slid the door closed after we stepped in, then wrenched a huge lever to one side. The machine began to rise, the floors passing just through the bars. My hangover started to grumble about the three cups of coffee I’d had.

  Astor Michaels turned to me, clutching his briefcase a little tighter. “Pearl, I’ve been doing this since the New Sound was really new.”

  “That’s why I tracked you down.”

  “And I’ve signed fifteen bands in that time. But yours has something special. You know that, right?”

  As I watched the floors slide past, I let myself smile, remembering how thrilled I’d been to find Moz and Zahler. “We’ve got heart, I guess.”

  “That heart is Minerva, Pearl. She is what makes you special.”

  We came to a stomach-jerking halt. I swallowed, my heart beating harder, wondering where Astor Michaels was going with this. Did he not want to sign the rest of us? Was he trying to make me jealous of Min?

  The elevator man was nudging his lever one way and then the other, bouncing us up and down to align our feet with the red-carpeted floor on the other side of the bars. I tried to remember how many glasses of champagne Astor Michaels had bought me last night.

  “I know Minerva is special,” I said carefully. “I grew up with her.”

  “Indeed.”

  Finally the elevator lurched and bumped its way to a halt, and we stepped off into a long hallway. The cage rattled shut and slipped away.

 
Astor Michaels just stood there. “Of my fifteen bands, Pearl, eleven have self-destructed so far.”

  I nodded. That was pretty famous, how Red Rat bands tended to explode. “All part of the New Sound, I guess.”