by R. T. Martin
Chapter 6
“There’s an emergency shelter,” Steph was saying to everyone in the choir. “Run by the military. It’s twenty to thirty miles from here, but we can make it. It’s even in the same direction as home. And if anyone can get us the rest of the way home, it’s got to be the military. I think we should go.”
Kayla, Luke, and Maddie were standing at the edge of the crowd with Orlando behind them. A few others had stopped to listen too.
Kayla folded her arms and scowled at Steph. She realized it seemed silly—first Kayla wanted to go outside and Steph wanted to stay inside, and now Steph wanted to leave and Kayla wanted to stay put.
But that was just it: Kayla had gone outside. She’d experienced firsthand how dangerous it could be. Her instincts told her it was safer for everyone to remain at the airport. Most of them had contacted their families before the power had gone out, so this is where all their families thought they would be.
“Where’d you hear this?” Ms. Pollack asked.
“From some of the people here who are actually from McKenzie. Apparently there’s an official military base about a hundred miles away—”
“Yeah, Fort Janson,” Orlando said loudly enough for everyone to hear.
“Right,” Steph said, nodding at Orlando. “And the military also set aside a site for an emergency shelter near McKenzie, in case of something like this.” She paused. “Well, maybe not this exactly, but you know what I mean. The fort’s probably going to send people to staff the shelter site and take care of anyone who needs help. So,” she concluded, turning back to Ms. Pollack, “we should go there.”
A man from the small crowd standing with them snorted. “I served in the National Guard and I can tell you, the folks at Fort Janson aren’t gonna be bothering to staff that shelter site—they didn’t set it up after the flood of ’08.”
Several others nodded. Steph glared at them. The man walked away, and the rest of the crowd followed until it was just the choir members left.
“Say we do decide to head for this military shelter,” Luke spoke up. “How are we gonna find it?”
“I heard that if we follow the highway north, through McKenzie, we should run right into the shelter.”
“Hang on,” Kayla asked. “What happened to ‘Everyone should stay inside, and you’re a grandstanding idiot if you want to try something else’?”
“You said it yourself—we need to do something,” Steph said. “Getting the food out of the planes was putting a bandage on a broken limb. We’re going to run out again, and there won’t be anything to go get next time.” She sniffed. “You’re not the only one with good ideas.”
Ms. Pollack stood up. “Well, we’re not splitting up. We’ll put it to a vote. The majority wins. Who wants to stay in the airport?”
Kayla’s hand shot up. Ms. Pollack waved her finger in the air as she counted. “Nine,” she said.
Kayla felt her heart sink. There were nineteen students in their choir. That’s when she noticed that Maddie’s hand wasn’t raised.
“What?” Maddie said quietly. “We can’t stay here. She’s right.”
“Who wants to go for the military shelter?” Once again, she counted. “Ten. We go for the shelter,” the teacher announced. “Gather your things and pack as much food as you can. We’ll leave first thing tomorrow morning.”
She walked up to Steph, and Kayla heard her say, “Take me to the people who told you about this.” They left with Steph leading the way.
The choir kids separated into groups, murmuring to one another. Kayla, Maddie, and Luke settled into some chairs nearby.
“I can’t believe you sided with Steph,” Kayla said to Maddie.
“I didn’t side with Steph,” she said defensively. “I sided with leaving the airport. We are going to run out of food again. It’s just a matter of time, and unless you’ve got another bright idea that you’re not telling us, leaving is the smart decision.”
Kayla looked down at the carpet. “I don’t want to go outside again. When that ship flew over us, I just . . .” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the thought. “I don’t want to go outside again,” she repeated in a mumble.
She wasn’t looking at them, but she knew Luke and Maddie were sharing a glance.
“Hey,” Maddie said. “We know you’re scared. We’re scared too. Everyone is.”
“But we need to do whatever it takes to stay safe and get home,” Luke added.
“We have everything we need here. What if the power comes back tomorrow?”
“I think we’re past that,” Luke said. “It sounds like no one knows when it will come back—we don’t even know if it ever will come back. We have to hope for the best but prepare for the worst.”
Before Kayla could come up with a response, Orlando walked over to them. “Think I might be able to tag along with you guys?” said he asked. “My brother lives a few towns over—that shelter site is on the way actually.”
“We’ll ask Ms. Pollack,” Maddie said. “I can’t imagine she’d say no. Having a mechanic around who knows the area can’t be a bad thing. We are a choir, though. How’s your singing voice?”
Orlando chuckled. “Bad.”
“We’ll work on that. Walk with me, Orlando. I’ll teach you how to hit a high C.”
Luke looked at his watch. It had stopped with all the other electronics, but Kayla noticed that force of habit made him look at it every so often. “We should probably start gathering supplies. I’ll see what they’re willing to give out for food.” He walked off toward the food court.
Kayla sat in a chair, sulking. The thought of having to go outside again was making her more nervous by the minute. Maddie was right—they would eventually run out of food again. And the longer the power stayed out, the less likely it seemed that it was going to turn back on anytime soon, especially if the Visitors were still flying around outside. Leaving the airport was the smart plan, but Kayla still didn’t like it. Those things were still flying around outside.
And she hated that Steph had been the one to come up with this plan.
They’d been in school together for as long as Kayla could remember, and they’d never gotten along. Things only got worse when they both became interested in choir in the ninth grade. By the time they were juniors, it seemed as if they were competitors in everything. They were both sopranos, so naturally they were both constantly trying to prove who could hit the higher note. Whenever there were tryouts for a solo, they both went after it. And when Ms. Pollack asked for someone to hand out sheet music and one of them volunteered, the other had to find a way to one-up her. Kayla didn’t know if their rivalry would ever go away.
Chapter 7
Leaving the airport the next morning felt like being part of some kind of gloomy parade. Word had gotten around that a group was heading for the emergency shelter. As they marched toward the security gate at the entrance, people sitting by the gates silently watched them leave.
The moment she took a step outside the building, Kayla scanned the horizon for any sign of the Visitors’ lights. The farther the group got, the more paranoid she felt.
“It feels super weird being outside now,” Maddie whispered to Luke and Kayla when they were only a few steps beyond the parking lot. “I used to like being outdoors, but this. Is. The. Worst.”
“No one’s around,” Luke said. “It’s like everyone’s . . . gone.”
They walked to the highway that led away from the airport, weaving their way around abandoned cars. Everyone watched the sky and kept mostly quiet, afraid too much noise might alert something above.
After a few hours of walking down the highway, they reached a hill. On the other side, they saw McKenzie, the town. They stopped in a line to look at it.
“Spooky,” Maddie said. Kayla couldn’t help but agree.
McKenzie wasn’t a large town, but it wasn’t exactly small either. They could see the whole thing sprawled out in front of them covering a valley between two hills, little
buildings at even intervals in a grid marked by roads. Even from this far away, it looked deserted. No cars moved down the streets. No one walked down the sidewalks. There was no city noise, no hum of voices or distant construction, or any noise at all—not even birds chirping.
“If we want to turn back,” Ms. Pollack said, “now’s the time.”
There was a moment of hesitation. No one wanted to make the choice at first. Even Kayla felt torn.
“I vote we keep going,” Steph said.
“Anyone else?” Ms. Pollack asked.
A few other students nodded in agreement.
“All right, we keep going,” the teacher announced. “If I shout hide, you hide. No questions—just find cover as quickly as you can.” She took a deep breath. “Let’s move.”
They started down the hill and into town, with Ms. Pollack walking in front.
McKenzie had been eerie from on top of the hill, but up close, it was downright frightening. The few cars that were on the street were parked at odd angles, crossing the middle of the road into where oncoming traffic should be. Their windows were smashed out, and some had doors still ajar. A few had blown-out tires as well. Some businesses were boarded up, and the ones that weren’t only had edges of glass shards where the windows used to be. Convenience stores, gas stations, even the hardware store had all been broken into and looted, their shelves completely bare.
Although the choir members called out, Kayla only caught glimpses of McKenzie’s residents. She saw some people peeking from the sides of windows or doors, but as soon as she looked their way, they dodged out of sight. It’s like being in the old west just before a shootout, she thought.
“I had no idea it would be this bad,” Maddie said.
Luke gestured around him. “Meet humanity without its precious electronics.”
“We didn’t always have electricity, and things weren’t like this,” Maddie said.
“Well, what’s worse?” Luke shot back. “Never having something to begin with, or having something and losing it?” Kayla noticed that Luke’s voice was wavering. She could tell he was more upset than he wanted to let on.
“People are just panicked,” Kayla said. “It’s not just the loss of electricity. It’s the fact that the Visitors might show up at any moment. Everyone’s scared out of their minds. You saying you’re not?”
“I’m terrified,” Luke said. “But it’s hard not to be cynical about this. Nothing’s even broken. It’s all just turned off, and look what happened. The Visitors didn’t loot these places. That was humans.” He looked around like he was making sure no one else was listening. “People will do whatever they have to in order to survive.”
“Will you stop complaining?” Steph, a few steps ahead of them, turned around. “We’ll be at that shelter in no time, and everything will go back to normal.”
Kayla couldn’t help herself from scoffing. “In what universe is it normal for us to be at a military camp?”
“They’ll take us home.”
“Maybe, but we don’t know what we’ll find when we get home. You’re making a pretty big assumption that everything will be fine. If a town like this,” Kayla gestured around them, “is so broken, what makes you think ours will be any different?”
Steph glared at her and picked up her pace again, stomping ahead of them.
Kayla gritted her teeth. “Can you believe her?” she hissed to Luke and Maddie.
They gave each other a look, as if to say who they couldn’t believe was Kayla.
“Oh, what now?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Maddie said. “It’s just . . . do you ever think you might disagree with Steph just for the sake of disagreeing with her?”
“No,” Kayla snapped. “She’s just the worst.”
“I actually don’t think she’s that bad,” Luke said. “You’ve just randomly decided that she has to be your enemy. Like, remember when Steph had spent the summer before sophomore year at a singing camp and you were convinced she did it to annoy you?”
“She only talked about it when I was around!” Kayla insisted.
“How could you possibly know whether she talked about it when you weren’t around?” Luke pointed out.
Kayla groaned and moved to walk next to Orlando. They maneuvered around a couple of cars that looked like they’d been on the verge of a fender bender when the power went out.
“Normally,” he said, “this street would be totally jammed up with traffic.” He pointed up and down the road. “It’s pretty much the route everyone takes to get anywhere. Seeing it deserted like this . . .” he shook his head and looked down. “It’s like my hometown’s dead.”
“I hope your brother’s okay,” Kayla said.
“Me too,” Orlando replied sadly. “The town where he lives now is smaller than McKenzie, so I’m trying not to think about how desperate the people there might feel.” The look on his face made Kayla regret bringing it up.
They gave up calling out to the people of McKenzie. It was obvious no one was going to help them.
“Whoa!” one of the boys shouted, pointing between some buildings.
A fireball—huge but very far away—was rising into the sky. Just as Kayla noticed it, the sound of the explosion reached them. She could feel the ground rumble where they stood. The group ducked and covered their heads. Some gravel shifted and a few shards of glass fell from windows. As quickly as it came, the noise faded.
Slowly, Kayla lowered her hands and looked at where the explosion had come from. Tons of black smoke was rising from the area, billowing into the air and forming its own clouds.
“Was that the Visitors?” someone asked.
“We should find cover!” another shouted. “The Visitors could be—”
“There’s no ship,” Orlando cut him off. “We’d be able to see the lights. It seemed more like something on the ground—maybe a gas leak caused an explosion.”
“They could have landed,” someone said.
“We should keep moving,” Ms. Pollack said. “We’re not going that way, and it looked like it was miles from here.”
“I’d suggest we pick up the pace a little,” Orlando added.
It took them all afternoon to get across town and up the hill on the other side. By then, dusk seemed only an hour or two away, and the choir was moving more slowly, fatigue starting to take its toll.
After a few more miles of walking, they came across an abandoned gas station along the side of the road. Ms. Pollack and Orlando checked it out, found it empty, and agreed that the group should camp there for the night. She and Orlando would take turns keeping watch.
The choir members settled in, leaning up against backpacks and luggage. They ate an unsatisfying dinner of the packaged snacks they’d packed with them. A few students searched the building for any food that may have been left behind, but they came up empty handed. The place had been cleaned out long before they got there.
Everyone was quiet after eating. Kayla could practically feel the tension in the air.
Then a girl sighed and looked at everyone in the group. “What do we do if the shelter isn’t there?”
Chapter 8
“It is there,” Steph said defensively.
“The people we spoke with in the airport seemed pretty certain about it,” Ms. Pollack said.
Orlando nodded. “Everyone who lives around here knows about it.”
“Have you ever been there?” a girl asked. “Even seen it before?”
“Well, no,” Orlando said. “It’s only for emergencies. If you go by the site on a normal day you’re not going to see anything out of the ordinary. But it was specifically created to be a place for people to gather if a disaster happens. I’m sure the military has set up there by now.”
“Then why didn’t anyone else come with us?” Luke asked.
Kayla snapped her head toward him. She hadn’t expected normally quiet Luke to question the plan. Usually he stayed out of debates and conflicts, but since they’d left the a
irport, he’d been different.
“Has it occurred to you,” Luke continued, “that they may have wanted us to leave so there would be more food and space for them at the airport?”
“We took food anyway,” Kayla said.
“Only a couple days’ worth.” Luke’s hands were trembling. “We just left a safe shelter based on the word of complete strangers who think there might be a shelter somewhere. Who knows how long we’ll be out here . . . or if we’ll be able to find the shelter . . . or if it even exists in the first place!”
Other students started chiming in, asking nervous questions about what they were going to do. Ms. Pollack was trying to calm everyone down, but anxiety, paranoia, and an entire day of walking had gotten to them. They weren’t listening to her.
Several of their classmates looked to Steph for answers, asking her what to do. But Steph didn’t say anything. She seemed to be stunned into silence as questions kept coming at her. The voices in the gas station rose until Kayla could barely think.
“Stop!” She surprised herself at her own outburst. Everyone else looked at her in surprise too. Kayla licked her lips nervously, then straightened up where she was sitting. “Everyone just calm down. Back at the airport, there was no right decision to make, but we couldn’t afford to not make any decision at all. Staying put and just waiting to run out of food wasn’t a good option. We knew this trip was risky, but we agreed it was worth it, and nothing’s changed except our attitude. We need to keep going.”
Everyone stared at her for another moment. Then the tension in the air broke. People began whispering in small groups, but at least no one sounded panicked anymore. Kayla locked eyes with Ms. Pollack, who looked relieved. She smiled proudly and nodded at Kayla. She gave a quick nod in return.
Luke looked at her a little sheepishly. “Good pep talk.”
She gave him a weak smile. “You feeling okay, Luke?”
He shrugged. “I’ll be fine. Sorry. I kind of lost it there for a sec.”