Storm

by D. J. MacHale

  “Unless civilization no longer exists,” Jon cautioned.

  “That’s just crazy,” Kent scoffed and stormed away from us.

  “What do you think, Luna?” I asked. “Do you want to go to Boston or Nevada?”

  “Neither,” she replied quickly. “My place is right here.”

  “Portland is dead,” Tori said. “You can’t hide here.”

  “I’m not hiding,” Luna said. “And Portland is not dead. You all are proof of that. There are other survivors. Eventually they’ll find their way here, and when they do, they may need a doctor. I’m needed right here.”

  “What about your family?” Tori asked. “Do they live here?”

  “In Portland I live alone. My family is in Osaka, Japan, and California. I have not heard from any of them since the attack, but that’s no surprise. There is no way to communicate. But when they do make contact, I want to be where I am expected. So for many reasons, I am expected to be here and this is where I will stay. But, Jon, you should go with them.”

  “To where?” he asked. “Boston or Nevada?”

  Luna sighed. “What you’re looking for is life, but I can’t say which is the better choice. I have no idea. My only concern is that you are all so young. I hate to think of you out on the road. Any road.”

  “You get no argument from me,” Kent said. “I’d rather stay close to home.”

  “We’ll vote,” Tori declared. “Do we head west to Nevada? Or waste time by going south all the way to Boston? There are five of us, so there won’t be a tie.”

  “How does he get a vote?” Kent said, pointing to Jon. “He hasn’t been through what we have.”

  “This isn’t about the past,” Jon said with confidence. “You can’t change the past. It’s about what’s going to happen next.”

  “This is absolutely about the past,” Kent snarled. “We’re trying to find out what really happened.”

  “And we’ll learn that by going forward,” Jon argued, undaunted.

  “Forget it,” Kent barked. “I’m going to Boston, with or without you guys.”

  “Okay, that’s your vote,” Tori said. “What about you, Olivia?”

  Olivia looked to Kent and then to me.

  “I want to go to Boston,” she finally said. “If only because it gets me closer to New York. I want to believe that my mom is there.”

  Kent put his arm around her and kissed her on top of the head as if he owned her.

  “Good girl,” he said. “So I guess that means we split up.”

  “How do you figure that?” Tori asked.

  “Obviously the rookie is going to vote with his girlfriend, so let’s just call it now.”

  “All right,” Tori said. “I guess that means we split up.”

  “Wait,” I called out.

  All eyes went to me.

  I chose my words carefully because what I was about to say would set us on a course that would determine our futures and our friendships, for better or worse.

  “I don’t want to believe that the United States is in ruins,” I began. “What we’ve seen here is bad enough. But the whole point of escaping from Pemberwick was to learn the truth and tell the world about what happened at home. That hasn’t changed. We’ve come a long way, and we’re still alive because we stuck together. Like it or not, we’re all we’ve got.”

  Nobody took their eyes from me. Not even Kent.

  “The worst thing we could do is split up.”

  “I agree,” Tori interrupted. “Kent, it would be stupid for you and Olivia not to come with us and—”

  “I think we should go to Boston,” I declared.

  “What?” Tori shouted, snapping a stunned look my way. “You’re giving in to him just to keep us together?”

  “No, because I think it would be a mistake to go to Nevada. At least right now. The longer we’re on the road, out in the open, the better chance there is of being seen by one of those planes. I want to go to Boston because it’s closer and I think we’ll find out what we need to know there.”

  “What about fighting back?” Tori asked.

  “If Boston is normal, we won’t have to go to Nevada. If Boston looks like Portland, we’ll rethink. It’s not like it’s that far out of the way. Let’s hope we won’t have to rethink.”

  Tori was angry. She had expected me to side with her.

  “So what do you say, Lobster-Girl?” Kent said smugly. “You still going west with Chadwick?”

  I took a threatening step toward Kent and said, “Her name is Tori. His name is Jon and my name is Tucker. Not Rook. Tucker.”

  Tori grabbed me by the shoulder and spun me around to face her.

  “I don’t need you to fight my battles,” she snapped, livid. She turned on Kent and said, “This isn’t a contest. You didn’t win anything, so stop acting like it.”

  Kent held up his hands, pretending to show fear.

  “Yes, ma’am. Wouldn’t want to show you up.”

  He chuckled and took Olivia’s arm to lead her away.

  Olivia gave me an embarrassed smile and a shrug as if to say, “I know, he’s a jerk.”

  Tori stuck a finger in my chest.

  “This is on you,” she said, barely able to control her anger. “If the people broadcasting that message are the only people left who can help us and we don’t connect with them because we wasted time in the wrong city, Quinn died for nothing. He’s gone, Tucker. So is my father, and I’ll do anything to find out why they’re dead. Can you say the same thing?”

  She stormed off without waiting for an answer, leaving me standing there, rocked. Of all the hurtful things she could have said, that was the most devastating. Quinn’s death was never far from my thoughts. I relived the moment again and again. It killed me that Tori would think I had forgotten about him. Though I truly believed it was critical that we stayed together, my decision meant that I was both part of a group . . . and very alone, for I had lost my closest ally.

  What I didn’t share with Tori, or anybody else, was that something else was driving me. Yes, I wanted to learn the truth about the war and tell the world about Pemberwick. I desperately held on to the hope that life would eventually return to normal so we could go home. But there was something else I needed. Something even more powerful.

  I wanted revenge. Revenge for the destruction of my life, for Quinn’s death, and for my family being torn apart. I wanted someone to suffer. But who? Who was to blame? Granger? He was dead. The enemy no longer had a face, but that didn’t stop me from craving retribution against SYLO and everyone Granger had commanded.

  I wanted to tell Tori that she was wrong and that I desperately wanted to know why we had lost our friends and family. I didn’t, though, because I knew that wouldn’t be enough. I needed someone to pay for what had happened. That was a dangerous road to travel, but it was a road I needed to be on. What I didn’t want was for my vendetta to put anybody else at risk, which meant that at some point I would be on my own.

  Until that time came, I would stay with the group, and I would do what I could to keep us together and safe, but I also had my own agenda.

  I was going to get revenge.

  Alone.

  FIVE

  We were about to step into the unknown.

  When we escaped from Pemberwick Island, our destination had been Portland, a town that most of us were familiar with. Now we were faced with the reality of hitting the road to seek out places that would be strange and different even under normal circumstances.

  We began with a clear mission but were now flying blind, reacting to events as they happened. I had the disturbing sense of being adrift. It was like our pasts had been erased. I had expected that my future would be spent on Pemberwick Island, working with my dad and one day taking over his landscaping business. That was now somebody else’s life, somebody who no longer existed.

  With that solemn thought in mind, we did the only thing that made sense to prepare for such a journey.

  We w
ent shopping.

  Or maybe it should be called looting because we weren’t going to pay for anything.

  Jon knocked the first item off our list by choosing a car from the doctors’ parking garage. Most were expensive and big. More importantly, the keys were in the ignition. There were five of us now, so we needed another row of seating as well as cargo space. Jon picked a big old Ford Explorer.

  Once we had wheels, there was no reason to hang around the hospital, so we had to say our goodbyes to Luna. Her last medical treatment was to change Tori’s dressing.

  “Are you sure you won’t come?” Tori asked.

  “Positive,” Luna replied with confidence. “Besides, I’m thinking you’ll eventually be back this way. This is your home.”

  I didn’t point out to her that we no longer had a home.

  Luna removed the bandage and the cotton packing, then cleaned the wound and replaced it all with fresh bandages.

  “It’s healing nicely,” Luna said. “Keep it clean, change the bandages as often as you can, and you’ll be okay before you know it.”

  Tori leaned forward and hugged the doctor. For her, that was a dramatic statement. I’d only seen her show that kind of emotion with her father. It reminded me that Tori had now lost both of her parents. Her mother abandoned the family when she was young, and her father was killed by the SYLO attack on the rebel compound on Pemberwick. Tori was now an orphan.

  Though my parents were still alive, I felt like an orphan myself. They had betrayed me and the people of Pemberwick by helping the SYLO invaders. I would never wish that they were dead, but in some ways that might have been easier to deal with.

  “Keep listening to the broadcasts,” Jon said. “You might get some new info.”

  “I will,” Luna assured him. “You’re a good friend, Jon. I’ll miss you.”

  Jon wiped his eyes so we wouldn’t see that he was tearing up.

  “We gotta go,” Kent said. “Who knows how long it’ll take to get to Boston, and I don’t want to roll in after dark.”

  We all shared hugs and hopeful words that we would meet again, then left Dr. Kayamori to man her lonely outpost.

  The Explorer was parked outside of the emergency room. Jon went for the wheel, but Kent clamped a firm hand on his shoulder.

  “I’m driving, Chadwick,” he declared.

  Jon pulled away from him angrily.

  “I’m the one who found it,” he argued.

  “And that matters because . . . ?” Kent asked snottily.

  Kent towered over him threateningly. Jon may have been older than Kent, but Kent must have outweighed him by fifty pounds.

  “Fine,” Jon said with reluctant resignation.

  He went for the passenger side, but Olivia was already riding shotgun. He looked into the backseat, but Tori and I were already there. He had no choice but to squeeze past us into the third row.

  “I hate riding back here,” he complained. “Don’t blame me if I puke.”

  Kent turned around and glared at him. “You do and I’ll make you eat it.”

  “Just drive, Kent,” I scolded.

  “Sure. Where to?”

  “Anywhere I can get some decent clothes,” Olivia complained. “We look like we just escaped from prison.”

  She wasn’t far from wrong. We were wearing the dark red scrubs that Luna had given us the night before.

  “Target,” I said. “We can find everything we need there.”

  Olivia sat bolt upright. “I will NOT wear clothes from Target!”

  Kent squeezed her knee and said, “It won’t matter. You’d look good in anything.”

  Tori rolled her eyes and said, “Okay, Jon, you can puke now.”

  “Just go with it, Olivia, okay?” I said. “We can’t go driving around looking for clothes.”

  Olivia bit her lip and pouted. “Fine.”

  With that rocky start, we were under way.

  Tori didn’t say a word to me. She didn’t even look my way. I wanted to think it was because she was as nervous as I was. (I kept looking to the sky in case a dark plane decided to swoop in.) But I knew the real reason. She was pissed. At me. She expected me to back her up in her decision to head straight for Nevada, and it burned her that I didn’t. It took a lot to earn Tori’s trust. My fear was that with one decision I had lost it and would have to start from scratch to get it back.

  The shopping malls were a few miles from downtown. At first there didn’t seem to be anything unusual happening there. The parking lots were full of cars, shopping carts were scattered everywhere, and colorful flags whipped in the wind, promising big savings on back-to-school supplies. Everything was normal . . .

  . . . except there were no people.

  “It’s just so eerie,” Olivia said in awe.

  Kent parked directly in front of the big Target store. There was no reason to look for an official space.

  “Everybody get something to wear,” I said. “Remember, it’s warm now but that won’t last. Think of it like going camping.”

  Olivia gave me a stern look. “I have never, not once, gone camping.”

  “What about food?” Jon asked.

  “No room,” I said. “We’ll pick it up on the road as we go.”

  “I guess you thought this through,” Kent said.

  “Just using common sense,” I replied and got out of the car.

  Tori got out and strode for the store without a word. Olivia was right behind her. She actually had a little skip in her step as if excited about going shopping, even if it had to be at, God forbid, Target. She may not have been a camper, but I’d lay money on the fact that she was a shopper.

  “Was Tori serious about going to Nevada?” Kent asked.

  “I am,” Jon answered.

  “I don’t care about you,” Kent snapped.

  “Yeah, she was serious,” I said.

  “Then she’s going on her own,” Kent said with a sneer.

  “Look,” I said, “if Boston looks like Portland, we’ve got to do whatever we can to find other people.”

  Kent actually looked as though he was giving that some thought.

  “Is it possible?” he asked. “I mean, could other cities really have been hit?”

  “Yes,” Jon said.

  “I’m not asking you!” Kent barked.

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “But it’s possible. How could you think it isn’t?”

  Kent shook his head sadly. “I don’t. I just don’t want to believe it.”

  “If we decide to go to Nevada,” I added, “you’re coming. Olivia too. We have to stay together.”

  “I told you, you’re not in charge,” Kent said, looking me square in the eye with defiance.

  I held his gaze and said, “If you want to go off on your own, that’s your call. But Olivia needs all the friends she can get. Do what you want, but she stays with us.”

  We sat there staring at one another as if it were a test of wills. Kent may have been two years older than me, but after what we’d been through, that no longer mattered.

  “She can do whatever she wants,” he said abruptly.

  “Good answer,” I said and got out of the car to head for the store.

  The manual doors were open, and the store was ours. The lights were out, but it was midday and there was enough light coming in through the big windows up front to provide low, gray light throughout the store.

  I grabbed a shopping cart and went straight for the men’s clothes area, where I grabbed underwear and socks. I also found a pair of jeans and two T-shirts, one short sleeved and one long. There wouldn’t be room for a whole bunch of heavy clothes, so I decided to go with thin layers. I also grabbed a zippered hoodie to replace my old dirty model. The first one I picked up was bright blue, but I thought better of it and grabbed a black one. I didn’t want to be any more of a target than I already was.

  Next stop was the shoe section, where I picked out a pair of light cross-trainers. I started for the changing room to
try everything on, but stopped. What was the point? Nobody was around. I took off my scrubs right there in the aisle and put on the new clothes.

  From there I went to the luggage area and picked out five identical soft gym bags, one for each of us. I tried to imagine what they would look like full and picked a size that I figured would fit into the back of the Explorer. I took one for myself and put in an extra pair of socks and underwear.

  The pharmacy was next. I grabbed Tylenol, a toothbrush, toothpaste, hand sanitizer, disposable shaving razors, and deodorant. In the camping department I grabbed a small flashlight, a camp lantern, and batteries for both. I also picked out a headlamp, a couple of solar blankets, waterproof matches, and a rain poncho. I glanced at all the cooking gear but figured that food would have to be eaten raw or out of a can. I grabbed a pocketknife and made sure that it had a can opener built in. Finally, I picked out a heavy-duty sport watch. Normally I used my cell phone to check the time, but the battery had long since died. It had become a useless piece of junk that I reluctantly had to trash.

  I packed all of the gear into one of the gym bags and found that I had plenty of room left over. With my shopping done, I wheeled my cart to the cash registers at the front of the store.

  Kent and Jon were already there. Kent had on a red short-sleeved shirt, khakis, and a light green sweater, looking every bit like the preppie that he was with his bleached-blond hair and deep tan.

  Jon, on the other hand, still had on his scrubs.

  “Don’t you want new clothes?” I asked.

  “I like these,” he replied with a shrug. “Who cares what I look like?”

  Certainly not him.

  I tossed them each a duffel bag and watched as they filled them with the items from their carts. They had grabbed pretty much the same things that I had, except that Kent also had aftershave and mouthwash. Jon had pads of writing paper and a box of pens. I guess you can tell a lot about somebody by the stuff they think is essential for survival.

  Tori arrived next, wheeling a cart with more clothes than I would have liked to see, but I figured they’d fit in the bag. She wore new jeans as well, and an oversized dark green sweater. It looked big on her, but it must have been more comfortable with her injury. I had to smile when I saw that she was wearing a new, clean University of Southern Maine baseball cap. She had pulled back her long, dark, wavy hair and tied it into a ponytail that she put through the back of the cap. It’s how I remembered her from home. It made me feel as though we had gotten back to normal, at least in some small way.