by Sean Platt
She was a murderer. For better or worse, justified or not, Piper was a killer. If she had to stay in the bunker as a useless murderer (and she’d thought this in a logical, calculating way, not in despair), she might just kill herself.
Better to go with Cameron, who — due to his playacting with Morgan and the journey he’d made — was maybe a murderer too. Piper lifted right out.
After breakfast, before climbing the stairs, Cameron came up behind her with a long-sleeved T-shirt, dirty ripped jeans, and a baseball cap.
“Wear this.”
Piper looked at the clothing then up at Cameron.
“They’re mine. I don’t mean this as that male thing where I’m implying you’ll fit into man clothes, and I’ll ask you to please not comment on the fact that I can provide clothes to a lady.”
Piper looked at Cameron. He had a young face with longish hair parted in the middle. She’d never thought of him as small because his personality was so bold and confident, but he was barely bigger than she was, and slight of bones. He really would be able to vanish. Like a wily rodent hiding in debris rather than a clunky fat cat, like Vincent.
“Please.” He held the clothes out to Piper.
“Why?”
“You need to look like a boy.”
“I need to — ” But she stopped, understanding.
“We both look young. With any luck, we can come off like a couple of gutter punks.” He pointed to his filthy face. She’d assumed that packing made him dirty — scavenging in the burned generator room, perhaps — but his grime was apparently intentional. “But it won’t work unless you tie up your hair and wear something loose and unflattering.”
“‘Unflattering,’” she repeated.
He shrugged. “You’re too pretty. Do you think you can be uglier?”
The question was disarming, sarcastic, just the tension breaker she needed. “I’ll try. But … you know.” And she batted her long lashes.
“Do you have sunglasses?”
“I hear Terrence has a pair or two.”
“Yes, but they all look like he’s about to accept his Grammy.”
“I have a pair that have been rolling around in my purse without a case. They’re so scratched, they’re useless.”
“Perfect.”
Piper carried the clothes into her bedroom to change. On the way, Trevor — up early like the rest of them, to say goodbye — followed her with his eyes. Like he hated her and was glad she was leaving.
Piper emerged, and Cameron declared her transformed. She’d pinned her hair back, managing to squeeze the cap atop it in a way that didn’t look odd, though she did have to pin the hat in place, too. She’d put on her tightest sports bra then donned the shirt. The clothing was loose with a masculine cut that hid her gender. She had the sunglasses to bury her big, blue eyes and a pair of Meyer’s reading glasses for use when the sun wasn’t shining. When they were outside, she could roll in the dirt. And Cameron promised to give her a few “man tips,” because she still had a feminine gait.
But still, he smiled through his assessment, and for the first time in a long while Piper felt purpose. Uglying herself had been like a makeover in reverse, and it pleased Cameron plenty. Soon she might be able to help the cause against the aliens … if it turned out there was a reason to oppose their silent, still-mostly quiet presence around the planet.
And as thin as the hope felt, Piper might see her Meyer again.
They said their farewells, keeping them brief and choosing “see you soon” over “goodbye.” Cameron said it was about 250 miles to Moab. He joked that once they found a Corvette as their chariot, they could be there in three hours.
After the door had closed behind them and they’d made it to the trees without attracting undue notice, Piper told Cameron that she needed to pee. He made a joke about learning to pee like a man then gave her privacy. He told Piper to keep the gun in her hand, safety off.
Out of sight, she leaned against a tree and let herself cry.
Just for a few minutes.
Because Piper was a man now, and real men don’t cry.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
They ran into the roadblock an hour after sunset, and the dead cop sixty seconds later.
The roadblock had the look of something official — orange-and-white crowd-control barriers alongside a few big orange-and-white rain barrels. Stacked sandbags created a semipermanent blockage. There was a pair of cop cars behind them, parked opposite so the drivers’ windows would line up. But there were no cops in the cars. The officers, it turned out, were all in the ditch.
Cameron saw the first body a few seconds before Piper but didn’t try to hide it. He held hands up to stop her then put a finger in front of his lips and pointed. It was a disturbing/kind gesture that covered both disturbing and kind at once, like how a cat will bring its owners mouse organs as a gift. He was showing her bodies, yes — but he hadn’t insulted Piper by implying she couldn’t handle it. They were out in the real world now. No need to play coy.
Despite that, her first instinct was to gape. Not to scream, but gape. She held her lips shut. She’d seen this before. She’d even done this before, right down to dealing death.
Cameron patted the air, squatting in the ditch. Piper mimicked him, lowering her body and keeping her eyes on his. He pointed toward the barricade, now above their line of sight.
Piper shrugged, not understanding.
“There’s someone behind the car,” he whispered.
“I didn’t see anyone,” she whispered back.
“Just one person. Go ahead and look. Do it slowly.”
She looked at him for confirmation. Did he really want her to raise her head and look? Did he think she might not trust him? Meyer would never say such a thing if it were him with her instead of Cameron. Meyer loved and trusted Piper and wanted her to feel empowered, but in times of crisis he was in charge, and she — along with anyone else who came for the ride — needed to do as they were told, no questions asked.
After a moment, she rose slightly, very aware of her hat, thinking it might give her away before her eyes were high enough to see what was coming. Still, she saw nothing.
“Look at the wheels,” Cameron whispered.
Piper did. Under the car’s body, visible past exhaust pipes and struts and springs, she saw someone’s lower half, sitting on the road, back to the car. She squatted again.
“Did you see him?”
“How do you know it’s a man?” Piper asked.
“Okay, I don’t. Did you see her?”
In spite of the situation, Piper smiled. “I saw her.”
“I don’t think it’s really a woman,” Cameron said.
“You don’t, huh?”
“No. I know this is an unfair and sexist generalization, but women don’t kill cops nearly as often as men do.” He pointed at the first corpse. There were another two farther down. How had she missed them?
“How do you know that person killed them?”
“There’s blood all over his pants.”
Piper would have to take Cameron’s word for it. She hadn’t noticed. How had he? They’d barely seen a flash, and the car was a good fifty feet away. His eyes were sharp, and he had, apparently, been paying greater attention.
Piper made to stand again, wanting to see what else she’d missed, lollygagging along while he’d been watching for snakes in the grass. “Are there … ” She paused, curiosity pressing. “Are there more?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see any. And maybe I’m wrong on my read. Maybe that person didn’t kill these guys. Maybe they were already dead when he showed up. But I’d bet he dragged them away, at least. And now he’s camping up there. Hanging out.” He made his voice lower than it already was. “Best to assume guilty until proved innocent.”
Piper touched her gun, pre-congratulating herself on having what it took to survive in this cruel new world. Cameron shook his head and pointed back the way they’d come.
Staying low, they hea
ded past the roadblock, staying in the trees until Piper could see the full side of the person who either killed at least three policemen or feng shui’d their arrangement. She turned every few seconds, wondering when they might make their move.
“What do you keep looking at?”
“Just seeing if our cop killer is far enough back yet.”
“Far enough back for what?”
“To sneak up on him.”
“Why would we sneak up on him?” Cameron asked.
Piper realized they weren’t walking around the roadblock to get a better angle. They just needed to get around the roadblock.
Cameron gave her a smile that was just short of patronizing. Pitying maybe. Piper didn’t like it. Not because of anything Cameron was doing, but because it made her feel like a liability. He’d said he wanted to travel alone because he could move quickly and stay out of sight. That was already becoming easy to believe. It would be a lot harder if he was dragging a klutz behind him.
“What’s the first rule of survival?” Cameron said.
“‘Trust no one’? ‘Don’t do your business too near where you eat’?”
Cameron shook his head. “‘Survive.’ That’s it. That’s all you need to keep in mind. Don’t think about specific survival tactics. Always see if you can step back and veer right to the big questions: ‘How do I survive this situation?’ ‘How do I get to where I need to be without getting harmed?’ ‘How do I find enough food?’” He pointed at the roadblock. “‘How do I get past something that might be dangerous?’ Did you assume we’d fight?”
Piper nodded sheepishly. It was stupid. The road was wide open, and the culvert and woods were seemingly empty. The idea that she’d seen that single person as someone they’d need to “go through” was idiotic, but she’d thought it, all right. She’d been so focused on doing what was necessary (fighting as needed) that she’d missed the obvious way out (simply going around). That kind of thinking would get them killed.
“We need to get from here to Moab. Any way works.” Cameron looked around: up at the sky, at the open mountain road to the woods’ side, and at the mountains all around them. “It’s hard to believe there’s anything threatening out here. But Vincent, Terrence, Dan, and I ran into some sticky situations on our way to your place. Nobody seems to know what to do. It’s worse because nobody knows what’s been done.”
He tapped the small radio fixed to his belt. “Even if we believe everything we hear on the open frequencies, which we shouldn’t, we have to assume it’s being monitored and that people might be talking in code or doublespeak. Best treat it all as rumor. The people who have returned after being abducted?” He looked a bit uncomfortable, as if just remembering why Piper was here. “They’re … strange, some of them. They come back spouting warnings. Really cuckoo stuff, about the ships being on some sort of countdown to the end of the world. Others are vacant, like they’ve lost something. There are a few, I guess, who are coherent, and I’ve heard one or two spouting off on what passes for drive time radio shows these days.”
He laughed. Apparently, it was hardly an apt comparison.
“Those people describe almost a kind of summit with the aliens, saying they’re here to urge us forward as a species. They go gray on specifics, and some people think they’re hiding a plan that they think most people won’t be okay with, but that they’re somehow ‘high minded’ enough to understand. But everyone seems to know about a few ‘incidents,’ say, where fringe nut groups have shot at the shuttles or motherships or tried to approach them in helicopters or small planes. The ships don’t refuse. They just incinerate. And sometimes, they’ll decimate the land below. Then the confusion brings out all the crazies — maybe crazies; there’s no way to tell if their reports are accurate or the same old bullshit — and you’ll hear about classic stuff: bright lights zooming around in people’s houses like ghosts or probes; beams of light in the night; all sorts of close encounters; cattle mutilations and things like that.”
Piper felt cold. It was bright out, and the air was barely chill, but Cameron’s story made her feel like a little girl cowering in bed, waiting for the boogeyman to come out of the closet.
“People are scared,” Cameron said. “Maybe they’re scared of real things, like someone being taken from their house or fearing being taken themselves — unlike those nuts around your place, who want to be taken and think shuttles will return just because they’ve gone there a few times before.”
Piper almost interrupted him. A few times before? She’d thought there had just been the one shuttle, come to take Meyer. The idea that there had been other alien visitations during their time underground was unsettling, as if the very ground might not hold her.
“And maybe,” Cameron continued, “the things they’re scared of aren’t real at all. But it doesn’t matter. Fear is fear, and it’s contagious. No matter how peaceful things may seem out here sometimes, no one’s our friend. It would probably be better for everyone if the alien ships went ahead and attacked us if they’re going to, rather than waiting and hovering first. Everyone’s afraid, but nobody knows what they’re afraid of. Which means they’re scared of everything, just to be safe. Afraid of us, for instance. Like bees. My dad used to say, when I was terrified of being stung, that the bee was more scared of me than I was of it. But see, that didn’t mean it wouldn’t sting me, even if it didn’t want to. Because it was afraid.”
Cameron nodded toward the man leaning against the police car, still visible behind them. “It’s always better to run than to confront. It’s always better to avoid people than engage them.”
“What if someone we see might be able to help us?”
“Always better to avoid people than engage them. The more we’re alone, the safer we are. And there’s no such thing as cowardice or fighting dirty. If we get into a bad situation, we run. We turn our yellow tails and haul ass, courage be damned. You need to kick someone in the balls, you do it. Eye jabbing, hair pulling, backstabbing? All fine. The goal is only to survive, nothing fancier than that. I learned that all the hard way growing up.”
It was a curious statement. She’d learned nothing substantive about Cameron’s past in the previous week other than that his father had hauled him around the planet on an alien scavenger hunt. Had he lived on the street during one of their stops? Had he been in a gang back home? Piper knew he was worldly and that he’d seen much more of the globe than he had at the foot of his father. Nothing more, though she was curious.
“How did you — ?” she began.
That’s when the screaming started.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Lila gripped her abdomen, clenched her teeth, and held her breath for a long, frightening moment. Then the pain in her gut finally subsided for long enough to exhale. She did then sat where she’d plunked down: on the toilet, its lid closed. She didn’t have any business in here now, but with the shared bedrooms, the can was literally the only private place.
Her pain had mostly receded, but still she waited through cycles of breath, her hands still almost superstitiously over her stomach. She lifted her shirt a few inches and looked down at her belly, as if her unborn fetus might tell her all was well. Everything down there was still pretty flat. She’d been told she had a good body, and for now it still was.
Lila stood, moving slowly as if she might re-upset whatever had just gone (temporarily) wrong. But there was nothing, same as before. Except for what felt like an intense gas pain. Maybe it had been a gas pain. It wasn’t like she’d done this pregnancy thing before. And it wasn’t like she’d thought to download a copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting. Her mother would have, had Lila confessed before the Internet fizzled. Or rather, Piper would have. Her mother probably would have downloaded 101 Jokes About Pregnant Women’s Vaginas or something.
Lila crossed to the sink and splashed water on her face.
She wished Piper hadn’t left.
Lila was seventeen, and Piper was twenty-nine. The age diff
erence was enough to make them a perfect hybrid of mother/daughter and sister/sister. Piper hadn’t ever been pregnant, but she’d lived enough life to have adult perspective (and the perspective of a really cool adult, too; Piper’s clothing line had been a hit before Dad announced their engagement, and Lila had been over the moon to inherit such a hip stepmom), yet not so much life that she’d forgotten what it was like to be a kid. She’d helped Lila and Trevor with schoolwork when they’d asked, but always with rolled eyes as if to say, Yeah, school sucks.
If the world hadn’t gone wacky, Lila had always imagined Piper would have been the first person she’d tell about the baby. She’d have told Piper before Raj if it wouldn’t have been so wrong to do so. Piper would have seen the joy and downplayed the rough times ahead because that’s how Piper was. How Piper is, Lila corrected.
Maybe she should tell her mother about the pains she’d been having.
The idea felt awful. Her mother loved her, but her mother was also (and there was no easy way to put this, lovingly though she’d say it) an asshole. If Mom found the pains troublesome, she’d fret and demand that everyone lay down their lives to head out and summon a doctor or at least some books that Meyer hadn’t thought to stock. Or if, on the other hand, Mom found the pains to be nothing, Lila would have to endure jokes for weeks.
Ordinarily, Lila and Trevor only spent a few weeks a year with their mother. Right around the time in each visit when Heather’s quirkiness soured toward obnoxious, it was time to hop on a plane. But since they’d been in the bunker, everyone was approaching an overdose. It was like getting an X-ray. One or two were fine, but nobody set up an X-ray machine in the corner of their living room and left it on.
Lila, is that sausage giving you gas?
And then she’d point to Raj’s crotch.
Lila, you look uncomfortable. Is your stomach still bothering you? Did you swallow something spicy and ethnic that disagreed with you?
And then she’d point to Raj’s crotch.