The Scattering

by Kimberly McCreight

  “I guess.” My episode with the baby is too much to explain at this moment. “Listen, something here is seriously messed up.”

  She keeps her eyes on her book. “What was your first clue? The guards or the doctors or the Ebola hospital?”

  “I think we should go,” I say. “Like get out right now. All of us.”

  “Sure. No problem.” Kelsey’s voice is deadpan. Then she hooks a thumb toward the guards without looking their way. “Running out the doors worked so well for you last time.”

  “My dad is a scientist and he’s discovered this thing. The thing both you and I can do, feeling other people’s feelings. Your book? 1984?”

  “I have zero idea what you’re talking about,” Kelsey says, and when she finally stares right at me, her wall is pulled high and tight. “I can’t feel anything.”

  Okay, she obviously doesn’t want to talk about any of it outright. There are other things I can say.

  “Listen, I’ve been in a situation like this before. We shouldn’t wait. It can turn really bad, all of a sudden. We should make some sort of plan. Get the other girls out, too. We need to convince them they’re in danger. Because we are.” I lean in closer to Kelsey. It’s not the most subtle thing with the guards still eyeballing me. But I don’t have a choice. “I think we should create a distraction. Like the fire alarm. And then we should run.”

  “Assuming I did have any idea what you were talking about”—Kelsey makes a big point of looking over her shoulder toward the fire alarm, then glances once in the direction of the fire stairs—“your little plan sounds totally doomed to fail. Besides, I can tell you for sure that those girls”—she motions toward the back of the room, toward Becca and Ramona, who are still staring at us and whispering—“aren’t going anywhere with you. They think you’ve lost it.”

  “Yeah, I realize that,” I say. “But they’ll listen to you.”

  “And why would I tell them anything?” She shakes her head. “You know what your problem is?” This time when she looks at me, she isn’t blocking anymore. She wants me to know that she means this thing she is about to say. Her fingers trace her infinity tattoo, then point at me. “You worry too much about other people. You and I should leave together, on our own. We can send help back for them. That would be better for us. And better for them.”

  Back up goes Kelsey’s wall. Just like that. Like she wants to show me how good she is at turning it off and on. Like she wants to remind me that there is still an us—her and me—and a them—the rest of the girls. We might all be Outliers, sure. But that does not mean we are all created equal.

  “Listen,” Kelsey goes on, more softly. “I just want to be careful. And I think you and I could—I think we could help each other and help everyone else.” She pushes herself up from the couch.

  “Where are you going?” I ask, sounding—and feeling—panicky.

  “Um, to the bathroom,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Listen, just relax. I’ll be right back. And we can figure out a plan.”

  AFTER KELSEY IS gone, I look over at Becca and Ramona, but they immediately look away. It’s kind of hard to blame them. We have only known one another for twenty-four hours. Loyalty born out of fucked-up necessity only goes so far.

  I should have told them sooner about my dad and his research, the camp and Cassie, about being Outliers, all of us. Piled on top of all the other weird crap that I have done, the Outlier thing is going to sound like something I made up.

  Still, I have no choice but to try. And while Kelsey is away. She wants me to keep it quiet and I don’t want to piss her off, but there is no way I am leaving without telling the others. It’s all fine and well to say we’ll send people back for them. I won’t make that choice for the other girls. I won’t leave them here to wait. No matter what Kelsey thinks.

  “HI,” I SAY once I am standing in front of Becca and Ramona. I hold up an awkward hand in a half wave.

  “Hey,” Ramona says, glancing my way, then back down at the floor. Becca doesn’t say a word. She’s staring out over the room, like she’s surveying the edge of a battlefield.

  I am in a hole that I am going to have to climb out of. The truth is always a good place to start.

  “We used to get those babies at our house,” I begin. “The dolls like the one in the towel. Somebody left them on our doorstep. We thought it was somebody harassing my mom because she was this news photographer and people were always sending her hate mail.” Ramona has looked up at me. But Becca has not. “I think that they were actually for my dad; he’s a scientist and there were some people who didn’t like his research.”

  “What kind of research?” Becca asks with a suspicious edge.

  “Wait, I know.” Ramona snaps her fingers like it’s just come to her. “Stem cells!”

  “No, he was looking into—”

  A loud shriek blasts through the common room, making us all jump. Silence for a second, then it comes again. My heart races as I look around. People have their hands over their ears to block the shrieking sound. Even the guards look confused. It isn’t until I see the flashing light in the corner that I realize it’s the fire alarm.

  Did Kelsey decide to go ahead and pull it? Maybe something happened, maybe she realized there wasn’t time to wait after all? I have no choice but to tell Becca and Ramona about the plan now, and quickly.

  “I think maybe—”

  But when I turn, they’ve already hurried over—like everybody else—toward the guards and the emergency exit doors. This wasn’t how our escape was supposed to go. We haven’t even worked out the details. And this is the opposite of subtle. The Wolf is standing in front of the exit door already, stopping the girls from heading down. There will be no way to sneak past him in the confusion. No possibility of slipping away.

  “We have to go out!” one of the girls near the door shouts. “We can’t stay here.”

  Do I actually smell smoke? I could be imagining it, haunted as I am by fire.

  “Calm down! It’s just a drill!” the Wolf shouts right back at her, then calls to his partner. “No way I am letting any of them outside unless someone tells me I have to.”

  We are rats. Trapped in a cage. Get out now. Kendall was right. We need to go.

  Dr. Haddox strides into the common room back from where our rooms are and with him a wave of actual smoke, unmistakable now. Not a false alarm. Not my imagination. Somewhere, something is definitely on fire. Was this what Kelsey went to do when she said she was going to use the bathroom? Did she send a trash can up in flames? But why didn’t she warn me? Unless there wasn’t time. Maybe something happened.

  “We have a situation.” Dr. Haddox waves at the guards. “Take them out until the fire department gets here.”

  “Outside?” the Wolf snaps. “They’ll be much harder to contain. We can’t be held responsible if—”

  “Then don’t go all the way outside!” Dr. Haddox shouts back, then rubs his forehead, trying to calm down. “They can’t stay in here. It’s not safe. Go down to the bottom of the stairs, but not all the way out then. That way at least they won’t be stuck up here with the smoke. I’ll be back.”

  Dr. Haddox disappears then, back the way he came. Back toward our rooms and the emergency.

  “Come on!” the Wolf shouts at us like this is all our fault. “Let’s go, let’s go. This way. We’ll hold inside the stairwell, couple flights down. Should be fireproofed.”

  “I’ll bring up the rear!” his partner shouts.

  And still on and on goes that ear-piercing alarm. It has my nerves jangling. It’s hard to think, much less to come up with a plan.

  “Okay, come on! Follow me down!” the Wolf barks like a drill sergeant. But he is nervous now, too. Even with all the other people around, I can make out the hint of it. He’d be okay doing whatever it took to stop us from getting out of line, but he’s not interested in consequences. “No one leaves the building. Stay behind me!”

  We move in an orderly single-file line, Be
cca and Ramona way up near the front. Much too far away to tell them that this was part of a plan. And what does it matter anyway? It’s not like we can get past the Wolf. I am pretty sure he would kill any one of us, just to prove that point. Not to mention: Where the hell is Kelsey? And Teresa? It’s a risk to draw attention to Kelsey being missing if she’s the one who started the fire, but what if she started it, only to get overwhelmed by the smoke? I need to make sure she’s okay.

  I turn back to the other guard, the one bringing up the rear. The less asshole-ish one.

  “I think there could be people still back there,” I tell him. I don’t want to mention Kelsey—in case she’s responsible. But it’s not practical, not if she truly needs help. “Maybe two girls. Teresa and Kelsey. Somebody has to check.”

  “What?” he asks, still encouraging me ahead, waiting for me to move through the door and on down the stairs.

  “There are at least two girls missing!” I shout. “They could still be trapped back there.”

  “Okay, okay,” the guard says, glancing back over his shoulder. “Follow everyone else down. I’ll go back.”

  I STARE AFTER him, breathless, as he leaves me there alone. There is no one watching me as he disappears through the doors. All the other girls are on their way down. I keep following them, inching slowly until I am through the doors and into the cool, concrete stairwell. And then, suddenly, the answer is clear. Up.

  The déjà vu makes me shudder. All those weeks ago when Agent Klute showed up at our door, I did exactly that: ran up. It didn’t work then. Maybe because it was supposed to work now.

  Fast though, too. And quiet. Before anyone turns. Before any of the girls notice me or think to ask—however innocently—“what?” Or “why?” Or “where are you going?” While the sound of stomping feet in the stairway is still deafening. While no one will be able to hear my feet headed the opposite way. My breath comes hard as I sprint up the steps, two at a time, not looking back. And then I hear the Wolf’s voice echo up.

  “You got them in the back there?” he calls to his partner.

  I freeze, heart thumping.

  “I think he had to go check for missing people,” one of the girls mercifully shouts back. I brace for commotion, for the Wolf to investigate. For something that leads him right to me, one flight up, heaving. But it never comes.

  “Okay, come on! Keep moving!” is all he says. “Keep together and in line.”

  And so I race on, farther up. As I duck around the wall to the floor above, I am still waiting for the guard below to call after me. For one of the other girls to notice me missing and to say something, even just offhand. But no one does. It’s only me and the stairs and my breath—up and up and up.

  But the doors on the floor above are locked. And I begin to doubt this plan of mine. If I can’t get out of the stairway and into one of the upper floors, they will find me eventually. And I’m pretty sure there will be very bad consequences, especially if it’s the Wolf that lays his hands on me first.

  Which means that this has to work. This way up has to be a way out.

  I run up three more floors, past three more locked doors. But at least there are no voices coming after me, no thick smoke gathered up there at the ceiling. Nothing to stop me from continuing until finally I reach the very last door. The top of the stairs, the door to the roof. I hold my breath as I push on the metal bar. Dread it being locked, too, like all the others.

  But then, there is the door, giving way. And with a gasp I am there. I am outside in the sun and the fresh air. I am free.

  Or I feel that way for a second. Because being trapped six floors up even outside on a roof isn’t exactly the same thing as being in the clear.

  Realizing that suddenly makes how pleasant it is on that roof—warm and sunny with big, puffy white clouds floating slowly above the tops of the bushy, bright-green trees—seem creepy. Makes the hum of the big air-conditioning units threatening. Still, I am so grateful to be away from the shrill scream of that fire alarm, from the heart-twisting smell of that smoke. At least up here there is space to breathe. Even if the freedom is mostly an illusion. And I still believe that there must be some way out. That I came up here for a reason. That I was right to trust my instincts.

  I’m still standing with my back pressed against the door when I hear the fire trucks arrive. Even so, not necessarily a real fire, I remind myself. Could be something small that Kelsey started in a trash can. Just smoldering enough to trip the alarm as she bolted down another set of fire stairs.

  I inch my way closer to watch them arrive. First one truck, then two more, followed by a red-and-white fire department SUV, and a fire department ambulance, which seems kind of like overkill given that we’re already in a hospital. But the firefighters certainly do seem to be taking things seriously. They leap fast from their trucks, gear on, tools in hand at a full-on jog.

  What if I really am trapped on the roof of a burning building, high above the flames? I am pretty sure that is the opposite of the place you are supposed to be in a fire. After Cassie, my mom, what if this is just my turn?

  I shudder and push the thought away as I back away from the edge of the building. I try to focus instead on the much more likely thing: me getting caught. I need a good place to hide. Finally, I see a spot that looks promising and tuck myself out of sight between two ventilation units on the far side. Enough of a view to see someone coming, enough space to slip out and run if they do. I’m also a distance from the worst of the air conditioner roar. I’m not sure how much I could take of that sound gnawing away at the inside of my brain.

  Waiting on the roof is my plan. Not because it is necessarily the best plan, but because it is the only one that I can think of. The firefighters will need to make sure that the fire is out first. At some point, all the girls will be brought back up the steps and into the common room and there will be a check to see if everyone is accounted for. Only then will they notice me missing. In there is a window, a narrow one. I will have a few minutes probably, five or maybe ten, to get from the roof, down and out the door.

  I have to hope that Kelsey got out some other way. And if she did not, I will be coming back anyway for all the girls I did not warn. When I do, I will get her out, too.

  I will know it is time to go down once the firefighters start to leave—between now and then all I can do is wait. And that would be fine if the black tar rooftop wasn’t a giant sucking magnet for the sun’s rays. Within minutes, it goes from a little warm to burning hot in my hiding spot. I am so thirsty, too. I can no longer remember the last time I had something to drink.

  Time grinds down. Minutes ooze into what could be awful, uncomfortable hours. Or maybe only more minutes. Everything feels muddled and confused. I try to think cooling thoughts. Cool, happy thoughts.

  And, so, I think of the first cold, happy place that jumps to mind: Crater Lake.

  THE LAST BIG trip my mom and I took before she died was our farthest ever, to Crater Lake in Oregon.

  It was the third week of August—a week before the start of junior year. By then, Cassie had been back from her fitness camp for two weeks with her brand-new body, more stylish clothes, and notable disinterest in everything I had to say. I didn’t realize the change in Cassie’s feelings right away, but my mom wasn’t nearly as slow on the uptake. She could see the writing on the wall, which is why she suggested the long trip for just the two of us.

  “I think we should do a full-on blowout this time,” my mom had said. “Northwest coast. We can hike up near Mount Rainier, then drive down to the Oregon coast. I have a whole extra week now that my trip was canceled.” Though she was also somewhat disappointed about this, I knew. The trip had been for one of her personal freelance projects. An anonymous source had said they were willing to give her a tour of some off-limits research facility (which sounded super sketchy to me) so she could take pictures that would reveal who knows what. And I guess she did take some. But then her source had disappeared—couldn’t be reac
hed, wouldn’t return calls. Leaving her with time on her hands. “Come on, just you and me. It’ll be fun.”

  Crater Lake was our last stop before heading home. And it was as beautiful as my mom had promised: fir trees lush and tall, and with a sharp blue sky endless off the water. It was hard to tell what was real and what was a reflection.

  It wasn’t until we’d hiked most of the slippery distance down to the water’s edge that my mom even mentioned the whole idea of swimming.

  “Swim?” I asked, because I was sure she had to be joking. It was the deepest lake in the United States, with something like six species of fish that had been “introduced” over time. By whom? That’s what I wanted to know. Plus, the lake could be as cold as thirty-eight degrees. I’d read all about that in the guidebook. “You can’t swim in it.”

  And by can’t, I mostly meant no sane person ever would. Besides, I wasn’t a strong swimmer even under the best of circumstances. Like a warm pool.

  “Of course swim,” my mom said as she marched on toward a short dock that extended out some distance into the lake. A dock she had clearly been aiming for all along. “You can’t come all the way to a place like this and not at least swim a little.”

  And from the way she said it, I already knew that “a little” actually meant a lot. She looked so excited, too. And there actually were a handful of totally insane people already in there. Remarking loudly: “phew, it’s chilly!” or “refreshing!” Nothing unbearable or dangerous. But also nothing that sounded the least bit appealing.

  “I’m not swimming,” I said, quiet but firm as I marched on behind her. And I meant it, too. I had been following my mom on these adventures for years now. And for years I had done everything that she wanted. I had climbed the mountains. I had camped—cold and terrified. I had rappelled. And yeah, all of that had given me something to hold on to at times when I badly needed a lifeline. I was grateful, but it also hadn’t changed anything about me. I wasn’t all better. I also wasn’t a little kid anymore. I was entitled to make my own choices.