Whatever minute grasp I had on composure dissolved, and my vision blurred with tears. “Then come home with me. I don’t want you to get it.”
“I can’t leave all of these people, Sophie. I’m taking precautions, I promise. I need you to be safe in the house, though, so that I don’t worry about you.” Her gaze bored through me, willing me to understand, and she pointed toward the elevator.
I nodded because her tone commanded me to, but I couldn’t make my feet move to turn around as she headed out the door. I’d never seen her so scared and unkempt. “Mom—”
“Sophie, now!” she said, raising her voice. “Before the police see you. They are quarantining everyone down here into the gymnasium with the people off the ship, do you understand? Nearly everyone on the first five floors is already sick. I don’t want them to see you down here—I do not want you to be locked in there with them until they can get things under control.”
It wasn’t as bad as I thought. It was worse. “What if they can’t?” I blurted. “What if none of this is going to get better?” My thoughts spun as the horror seeped in, pulling me to the brink of hysteria. “I don’t want to—”
“They’re sending help,” she told me, and grabbed my arm. “I promise. I’ll be up soon, but this conversation is pointless if you get caught down here, okay?” The doors to the elevator opened again, and she tugged me inside. “Come on now, we have to be smart—we have to protect ourselves.” Her words sounded rehearsed and empty, like she’d said them a million times or didn’t believe them all at—I wasn’t sure which.
“But Mom,” I tugged away from her. “I’m already sick.” I could barely force the words out.
“No,” she said in a rush. “No, you’re not.” She pressed the elevator button so the doors would close. “Lock yourself in the apartment—don’t open the door for anyone but me.”
“Mom.” My voice was barely audible. It was all too horrifying to be real. “Mom—I’m scared.”
“Good, then listen—it’s the only way.” Her nostrils flared, and she pulled me into her arms, the elevator doors bumping against us before they opened again. “I love you, Sophie. I need you to do this for me, please.” It was a plea, a desperate request, and even though I wanted to stay with her, I didn’t want to disappoint her either.
“I don’t want to leave you,” I cried, tears dripping down my cheeks.
I could feel her body trembling as much as mine, the heat of her enveloping me as she squeezed her arms tighter. “I know, but it’s only for a little while. I need to know what they’re doing down here, so I can keep us safe.” With a final squeeze, she slowly pulled away.
Her watery gaze was imploring and her chest heaved. She waited for me to understand.
Unable to, I nodded. I didn’t want to be a burden when she was in the middle of so much danger.
“Now, please go. Keep warm and stay safe until I can get there—it’s only until help comes,” she promised again, with a smile. “And try to reach your father, and tell him we’re safe.” She wiped the moisture from beneath her eyes. “I love you.”
“I love—”
“There is a mandatory quarantine. Everyone is to remain in their own apartment . . .” Someone’s nasally voice came over the intercom.
Eyes wide, my mom mouthed, “Go,” and then the doors shut between us, and she was gone.
I didn’t care about the blood on the floor around me. Fear and despondency gutted me as I rode the elevator to the tenth floor. Sobs ripped through me as I realized my mom’s hug felt more like a goodbye, and as the doors opened, I reached for the first-floor button to go back down to her then I tumbled to my knees.
Whatever was happening to me, it was too late.
DECEMBER 9
12
Sophie
December 9
Fleetingly, my consciousness returned with the bright light of the bathroom boring into my brain. I forced my eyes open against their will. I was shaking and cold, despite my clothes, and suffocating in the stench of vomit. It was a smell I’d become so familiar with that I hadn’t noticed at first.
A scream pierced the air and my heavy eyelids pulled themselves open again. Was it the TV? Another scream echoed from somewhere, more distant this time.
Beyond the haze, in the back of my mind some place, I knew I should be afraid, but it was all I could do to keep my eyes open amidst the fever. It was finally here, right in the base of my throat, and alive and coiling in my stomach.
I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten here, and I had no idea how long I’d been curled up on the floor with my insides sour and burning—like lemon juice on a fresh wound.
With a groan, I flushed the toilet, uncertain how anything could still be coming out of me, and searched for the strength to climb to my feet. It felt nearly impossible, but somehow I managed as the world spun around me. I clutched the edge of the counter, then leaned into the doorframe to steady myself.
Bed. I needed my soft bed for my aching bones.
I stumbled out of the bathroom, bracing myself against the wall as I staggered into my bedroom—it was blissfully dark and welcoming. I could hear voices somewhere in the distance, down the hall, in the apartment next door. They seemed to be nowhere and everywhere all at once, but I couldn’t be bothered to care. My clothes hurt my skin. The imperfections in the carpet cut into the bottoms of my feet. My head felt like a splitting rock.
I lingered in my bedroom doorway to catch my breath. I’d never been so tired in my life; I could barely think. I had been worried about something, something important, but I couldn’t remember what it was.
Resting my head against the cool doorframe, I pried my eyes open. The sight of my bed brought tears to my eyes. I wanted to sleep forever and never wake up.
Forcing myself to keep moving, I took a step forward and stumbled, my knees hitting the floor with an explosive pain that shot its way through my legs.
With a weak cry, I grabbed at my comforter and strained to pull my upper body high enough to fall onto the mattress so I could rest. I heard a crash in the apartment below me, but I only got so far as peeling off my vomit-covered pants before everything faded to darkness once again.
TWO DAYS LATER
13
Alex
December 11
My grandmother lay weak and permanently attached to an oxygen machine in a hospital bed as her milky, green eyes blinked slowly up at me. They’d always been my comfort—my reassurance that everything would be okay.
“Did you eat the casserole I left you?” she rasped, worrying about me, even with her final few breaths. “It’s potato and bacon—your favorite.”
Tears welled in my eyes, but I forced a wavering smile and nodded. “Yeah, I did.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her that had been weeks ago, she just didn’t realize it.
She tried to reach for my face, but her hand trembled in mid-air and she dropped it onto her chest. She was the only good thing left in my life, and I could see the life force she clung to fading before my eyes. What was I going to do without her?
I took her soft, wrinkly fingers in mine, waiting for the warmth in her body to return. Willing her to stay with me just a little bit longer. “Don’t go, Abuela,” I pleaded. “Please.” Since my mother’s death, and Kayla being taken away to live with a different family, my grandma was all I had left. All composure I’d held onto for the past week was gone the moment the doctor told me it was time to say goodbye.
Even if I’d known this moment would come—and knew she could never take me in because her health was so bad—I prayed she would stay with me until I could become the man she always said I would be, until she could see it for herself. “Please . . .” I lowered my forehead to her arm and cried. “I need you.”
“No, mijo. You are strong.” She paused to draw in a strangled breath. “And you are good—”
I shook my head with a sob, knowing that wasn’t true. I’d killed my mother by killing my stepfather, even if he was a m
onster. I’d gotten my half sister taken away—I didn’t even know where she was. What if her foster family was as mean as mine?
Without my grandma I had no one left, and I didn’t want to go back to the cage the Smiths kept me in—a corral, but for kids. I’d already run away from them once, from the small room that felt like a prison I was only released from for chores and school. I didn’t want to be locked away. I didn’t want to live with strange people anymore. I wanted to be here, with her, forever.
“Alejandro,” my grandma said more brusquely. “Look at me.” Her oxygen machine beeped, and she had to clear her throat. Her voice was a phlegmy veil of goodbyes, and I couldn’t bear to listen. “Look at me,” she said more slowly, commanding me to listen.
Forcing myself to meet her gaze, I lifted my head, staring at the blurry outline of her face.
She smiled. “You are so strong, mijo,” she said, drawing in another arduous breath. “You, of all people, will be fine without me.”
“No,” I whispered, sniffling back tears. Why did no one ever stay?
“Mijo,” she said softly, her eyebrows lifting in a plea of their own. “You are almost thirteen. You will be old enough to make your own decisions soon, but you must be good. Be kind. Be strong. One day you will have a good life and people who love you. I know you will.”
I shook my head, my chin quivering. She said that all the time, but everyone always left. My mom. My real father. Kayla was gone and it was all my fault. Now my abuela was leaving me too.
Metal clanked on metal, and the distant ding of buoys on the harbor filled the crisp air around me. Sea birds called, and power lines hummed somewhere close by as I peeled my eyes open.
The dull, steely-gray sky cast swaying shadows in the whistling breeze, and two-by-fours lined the ceiling above me. Life jackets hung from hooks on the cement walls, and a sharp pain shot through my ears and temples as I lifted my head. My eyes were wet, my mouth dry, and my throat felt like sandpaper as I tried to swallow. I was pretty sure a seabird had crawled into my mouth while I was sleeping and died.
When my grandma’s face flashed to mind, I glanced at the skylights trying to remember where I was, and how I’d gotten there. All I could recall was being cold in the flames of a fire.
Sitting up on a pile of blankets, I gazed down from a rickety boat carcass that shimmied each time I moved and onto a grease-stained floor in the empty warehouse. There were three bays with vehicle lifts—maybe for boats, and exhaust puffed from a truck’s tailpipe, rumbling just outside the roll-up door.
I wasn’t the only one here.
I licked my lips—trying to determine if I was apprehensive, caught in a place I didn’t belong or recognize, or if I was indifferent—because water was all that mattered. I was dehydrated, and the person who owned the truck idling outside might be able to help me.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d been unconscious, only that the incandescent sun was now rising just above the cloud-dusted mountains in the south.
I peered down at my sullied jacket and mud-crusted gloves, confused. Only vaguely did I remember crawling. Where and for how long I couldn’t recall, but I’d wanted to die—that part I remembered clearly.
I pulled off my tattered beanie and rubbed my hand over my head.
I’d had dreams of my stepfather, lying dead on the floor at the foot of the stairs. I saw my mother hovering over him, and recalled her crumpled body on the kitchen floor only days after—the stench of vomit, the pool of blood surrounding her. I remembered the guilt and confusion I’d felt. Now I felt anger as the memories flourished from a faint flicker, previously pushed to the back of my mind, to resentment. I thought I’d died somewhere between my dreams and now, and still the past was there, breathing down my neck like a hungry dragon.
Rubbing my face, I forced my eyes to stay open—to wake up and get out of the warehouse. All that mattered was water.
I clung to the ledge of the boat and winced as I pulled myself to my feet, trying to stay as quiet as I could so I wouldn’t alarm anyone who might be around. My body didn’t want to move, it protested with every infinitesimal movement, but I had no choice.
The instant I jumped out of the boat and my feet touched the cold cement, I regretted it. A biting chill and sharp pain shot through my heel and up my leg. “Sweet Mary . . .”
One footstep at a time, I made it to the roll-up door. I probably should’ve cared more that someone would see me, but I hadn’t done anything wrong, at least not that I knew of.
Hesitating at the door, I squinted into the cab of the Dodge, trying to make out any people inside. Through the soft glow of the muted morning reflected on the glass, it looked empty. I stepped around the truck and took a few eager steps into the wind. My feet dragged a little, but that was fine with me. Snow surrounded me, the closest thing to water I was going to get, and I lowered to my knees beside a mound of freshly fallen snow. It was pristine and white, and I shoved a handful of snow into my mouth. The moisture seeped into every dry crevice, instantly reviving my tongue. My throat felt frozen as I swallowed it down, but at least it was wet. Snow had never tasted so good, and I bit into another handful, ignoring the numbness that followed and the cold burn in my nose. I reveled in every blissful moment.
The morning was glacially cold, like the harbor itself had frozen over—not just the mountains around Whitely—and the wind was harsher than I anticipated, though I wasn’t certain why. Alaska was a bitch when she wanted to be, no matter where you were. In the dirty city streets, in the open wild—even out here in a cove of picturesque perfection—everything was always a test.
Enjoying the last of the melting snow in my mouth, I grounded myself to the familiar brine in the air, inherent in these seaside towns. I was by the pier, across the street from the Heston Building—the barracks toward the edge of the town. Whitely wasn’t a big city, but after the night I’d had and the missing hours of who knew what, I didn’t feel like walking the mile or so back to the apartment complex. Plus, a storm was coming in.
I stared out at the impending gray and wondered where the Dodge’s driver was. I had half a mind to use their truck if they weren’t going to, but I imagined that wouldn’t go over well. A faraway voice in my head reminded me that I didn’t care.
I climbed back up to my feet and squinted into the bright sheen of snow a few yards away. Just beyond the Dodge’s front bumper was a mound with a familiar outline.
Taking a few hesitant steps closer, I told myself my luck was not this bad. I was not going to stumble upon a dead body here, in Whitely of all places.
But I was wrong.
Eyes wide, I glanced furtively around. I would’ve guessed frostbite or maybe a heart attack by the look of the man’s age, but he had a handgun gripped in his blue fingers. Why was he holding a gun? I didn’t see any blood-stained snow, and it didn’t look like there had been a struggle, but I wasn’t a CSI, and I had no idea what the hell had happened.
No one was out here, save for a dead man and me. No one to tell the authorities what had happened or that I hadn’t done anything wrong. Even if I knew they couldn’t pin this on me, I worried they’d try. Not that I’d ever been tagged a murderer, but I knew how things worked in places like this. When shit happened in inconsequential towns like Whitely, the authorities started looking for strange coincidences, and a new kid with a laundry list of petty crimes would be enough for them to dive deeper and question everything about me. And whether I liked it or not—accidental or not—I’d been associated with both of my parents’ deaths, and I began to spiral.
“Shit!” I grabbed my head and I nearly stumbled back as my eyes shifted around the white expanse. There were abandoned cars and shipping containers further down the shore, but there were no other close vehicles, no people, or other bodies that I could see. There were no bear tracks in the snow. What the hell was he protecting himself from?
The truck engine began to peter out, and I realized the old man must’ve been there for hours, maybe longer
—the truck running for just as long.
He’d been running from something or someone, but there was no way in hell I was sticking around to find out the rest. With wide, determined steps, I headed for the apartment complex. I’d tell them what I found, even if I wasn’t sure how I would answer when they asked me what I was doing out here. I can’t remember was not an option. Getting away from Jimmy, that was close enough to the truth.
I hadn’t taken a dozen steps, imagining an anonymous call to the police might be an alternative solution, when I heard a moaning cry drift toward me in the wind. My body stilled and the hair on the back of my neck stood up—I could practically feel it reaching for safety. The cry came again, and it sounded small but was penetrating, much like a seagull’s cry pierced the sea air. It was more human than that though.
I gazed up at the rundown barracks across the street. It was a lonely, godforsaken place. You would have to hold me at gunpoint to get me to go in, but the cry emanating from inside was almost like a ghost, luring me closer. I glanced back at the old man, his outline barely visible. Maybe he hadn’t been alone.
The hair rose on the back of my arms this time. I thought it might be a trick—why, I wasn’t sure—but some delinquent teens could’ve been playing inside, fucking with me. But I’m in Whitely. I was sure I’d met just about all of the teens in this place, and I couldn’t imagine Jeannie inside, playing a prank like that on me. And there was still the old man’s body to consider.
The cry met my ears again, and sounded so small and so scared, I thought it might be a child or a frightened girl.
Fleetingly, I thought of Sophie.
There was another despondent moan, and my heart raced faster. I had to think fast, someone could be injured or dying inside.
The Longest Night Page 7
