by Israel Keats
“They said you would be on the school bus,” his mother said. “What happened?”
“I wiped out on my bike. I was late to school and by the time I got there . . .”
“Never mind. You’re here now!” His mom hugged him again. “You must have had quite an adventure getting here?”
“Yeah, you could say that,” Leo said. “How are things here?”
“There’s not enough to eat and they won’t tell us anything,” his dad grumbled.
“They won’t even tell us when we can go home,” his mother said.
Leo frowned. “So what, people are stuck here? We shouldn’t need permission to leave. It’s not like we’re prisoners.”
“No, we’re not prisoners,” his mother said. “But we saw a man try to leave. He said he wanted to go get his mother. The guards said he should stay for his own safety.”
“Did he leave?”
His dad shook his head. “No, they talked him into staying.”
“That’s weird,” Leo said. He didn’t know how he felt about being trapped in here. What would happen if he tried to leave?
His mom seemed to sense his worry. “It might just be temporary,” she said. “Until they know more about what’s going on with the Visitors.”
“Besides,” his dad said, “leaving wouldn’t be smart. We’re protected here, and they’re giving us food and a place to sleep. They’ve even managed to get some generators going.”
“Dad, you said yourself, there’s not enough food here. And no information.”
“You wouldn’t get any food or info out there,” his dad reasoned.
“It’s not too bad here,” his mom said. “They said they’re bringing in books and board games.”
“I guess that’s good.” Maybe it was weird to play games while they were waiting for the Visitors to make their next move. But what else were they going to do?
“We saved you a cot,” his mom said. She moved a couple of bags so he could lay down. One of the bags was his own, with fresh clothes.
A fresh change of clothes would feel great, Leo thought. He would just lie here for a moment, then get up. He stretched out on the cot and let his feet dangle off the end.
His thoughts swirled into darkness.
Chapter 13
“Good morning, sweetie,” his mother said, shaking him gently. Leo opened his eyes and saw the sagging canvas ceiling above him. Where was he? He sat up quickly. Then he remembered. So much had happened in two days. Or was it three days? He’d lost track.
“Morning mess ends in fifteen minutes,” his mom said. “Thought you might want a chance to eat.”
“I do,” he said.
His mother walked with him to the tables. There was a table lined with cereal, breakfast bars, and fruit. Nothing that needed to be cooked. He grabbed some dry cereal and a banana, wondering how much longer they’d have access to tropical fruit. The whole supply chain was broken. So many things he used to take for granted were gone or about to go away.
He returned to his tent to eat.
“Told you about the food,” his father grumbled.
“It’s not too bad,” he said as he ate. “So, after breakfast I’m going to meet up with my friends.”
“Steve and Joe?” his mom asked.
Leo blinked, wondering for a moment who she was talking about. Then he realized she meant his friends from school. It had only been a few days since he’d seen them, but already he felt less connected to them, as if they were part of a past life. “Uh, no,” he said. Maybe he would look for them after he talked to Sigrid and James. “A couple of other kids who came here with me.”
“All right. Be home for lunch.”
“Home?” he said, raising his eyebrows.
“You know what I mean. Meet us back here.”
Leo wondered how long it would take before he thought of a cot as home. He didn’t really want to find out.
Sigrid was already waiting near the spot the guard had dropped them off the day before. She’d left Sandy back at the tent so the dog could keep resting.
“Are your grandparents all right?” he asked her.
“For now,” she said. “I guess. They’re annoyed because nobody tells them anything.”
“Same with my folks.”
“Everybody’s waiting for the Visitors to do something,” she said.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “There’s nothing else to do but wait and worry.”
James appeared a few minutes later.
“So what do we do today?” he asked. “I don’t suppose anyone has rigged up a video game system anywhere?”
Leo and Sigrid laughed, but the truth settled in. There was nothing to do but sit around and wait. The three of them explored the grounds. There wasn’t much to see. Tents and other hastily made shelters, vacated airplane hangars. Buildings locked up tight or shut off to civilians.
“You know, it wasn’t easy, but I had fun the last couple of days,” James said after they’d been walking around for nearly an hour.
“I was thinking that earlier,” Leo said. “I felt alive. It’s hard to go from that to this.”
“It’s like being on hold,” Sigrid said.
“Waiting for an alien to pick up the phone,” James joked.
The three of them laughed together, but then Leo felt their conversation take a more serious tone. “I . . . I almost wonder if it would be better out there,” Sigrid said quietly.
“I’ve been thinking the same thing,” Leo said.
“Me too,” James added.
Leo nodded at them. He felt relieved to know he wasn’t the only one thinking about leaving this place, that surely there were other options.
“So . . .” James scratched at the back of his head, looking from Sigrid to Leo. “What do we do about it?”
“I’m gonna talk to my parents tonight,” Leo said. “About leaving.”
“Yeah. Let’s all talk to our families tonight,” Sigrid said. “We can meet up again tomorrow.”
Sigrid and James decided to head back to their own tents. Leo stopped by to see his friends from school, but he felt restless as they played cards and chattered about everything but the Visitors. He left them and walked around some more, continuing to look around the grounds. He pretended he was just passing the time, but he was also looking for the easiest way out.
Just in case, he thought.
Dinner was strips of canned ham and bread. Apparently the army hadn’t figured out how to feed this many people a hot meal yet. He ate it, wondering if he’d ever eat a hamburger and fries again. Or a piping hot pizza.
After dinner he retreated to his tent with his parents. His mother read a thick paperback, and his father fiddled with a game cube.
“What do you want to do?” his mother asked. “I have another book. It’s a mystery.”
Leo felt his knee rocking and his hands twitching with anxious energy. “I want to leave this place,” he admitted.
“We all do, honey. I’m sure we’ll go home soon.”
“No, I mean now. I don’t think they can force us to stay here.”
“Leo, we’ve been over this. It’s not safe to go home yet.”
“Well, what if we don’t go home, then? What if we go somewhere else?”
He told his parents about Wendell. “We could stay there tonight. But after that, I was thinking we could go deeper into the woods. Where no Visitors will find us.”
“You wouldn’t know what to do!”
“I’ll learn,” he told her. “We’ll learn.”
“Leo . . .” Her voice sounded so tired. “You’ve always been a big dreamer. Remember when you were seven and tried to start a farm in our backyard?”
His dad grabbed him by the wrist.
“Listen, Leo. This place may not be a five-star hotel, but it’s safer than anywhere else. And everybody else is here.”
“I know, but I can’t sit still, just waiting for somebody else to tell me my fate. And if these are our last days on Earth,
it seems like the worst way to spend them is being bored out of our minds. Dad, I’m going to get out of here.”
“Leo, you’re still a kid,” his dad said, blinking in disbelief.
“But I’m not a baby.”
“At least sleep on it,” his mother said.
He could tell his parents weren’t going to budge with this. Leo tried not to show his disappointment. “Of course.”
Frustrated, he lay down on his cot, rolling away from his parents. He wished he could text his friends about his plan.
The next morning, Leo woke up early and met James and Sigrid where they had parted yesterday.
“I tried to talk my parents into leaving,” Leo told them. “They didn’t want to.”
“My grandparents won’t leave either,” Sigrid said.
“My mom wants to go too, but she says she’s needed here,” said James.
“So what do we do?” Leo asked in a whisper.
They all looked at each other. James’s eyes looked scared. Sigrid’s looked determined. Leo wondered how his own looked.
“I want to go,” said Leo. “At least for today. I’m going nuts.”
“Me too,” said Sigrid. “I’ll want to come back to check on Sandy though.”
“I mostly want to see if they’ll let us leave,” said James with a deep breath. They started marching toward the gate.
“What if they don’t let us through?” Sigrid asked.
“I don’t know,” Leo whispered. “They’re just doing their job. Keeping us safe. Like a lockdown, you know? I get it, but I don’t know what they’ll do if we insist on leaving.”
The guard stepped out as they approached. He held up both hands like a traffic guard. “For your own safety, we ask that you stay on the compound,” he said.
Leo gestured to the sky beyond the fence, beyond the trees.
“We’ll be right back,” he said. “Just want to get a better look at that alien ship.”
The guard whirled around in surprise, shielding his eyes against the sun and scanning the tops of the trees.
“Where?”
“Between the trees. Over there.”
The guard squinted, scanning the sky. The other guard came and stood next to him.
“See anything? Are they here?”
They had a split second to act. Leo remembered the Death Dive—how he’d simply plunged down the hill without a second thought. If he could do that, he could do this.
“Go,” he mouthed to James and Sigrid, making a shooing sign with his hand. The three of them started running.
Chapter 14
There were shouts behind them, but a moment later they were in the trees, ducking under branches and leaping over roots. The three of them fanned out but kept within sight of each other. After about ten minutes they came back together and stopped, heaving for air. Their heavy breaths were mixed with relieved laughter.
“I don’t think they’re chasing us,” Leo said after he caught his breath. He searched the trees and listened carefully for noises.
“Or they haven’t caught up yet,” Sigrid suggested.
“You could have told us what you were going to do,” James said.
“It was spur of the moment,” Leo admitted. “Good thing, too. If I’d spent any time thinking about it, I would have thought of a thousand reasons it wouldn’t work.”
They spent the rest of the morning outside, climbing trees and exploring the woods. They found a small creek and washed their faces in the water.
“Here,” Sigrid said, pulling out three granola bars from her pocket. “I swiped these at breakfast.”
They sat down beside the creek as they ate the bars. Leo had to admit this felt better than being crammed into a tiny tent with everyone else.
“What now?” Sigrid asked.
“I guess we should go back to the base,” said James.
“We might be in a lot of trouble,” said Sigrid. “With our families and with those guards.”
“I don’t want to go back,” Leo admitted.
“What?”
“I have this crazy idea.” He took a deep and breath told them what he’d told his parents, about going deep into the wilderness and learning how to survive.
“I know it sounds really dangerous . . .” He started.
“Actually,” Sigrid said quietly, “it sounds like the best idea I’ve heard yet.”
“At least out here we get to choose for ourselves,” James said. “But what about our families?”
“That’s the hard part,” Leo said, nodding. “Obviously I don’t want to leave my parents behind. But maybe if the three of us spend a little time outside the base and then come back—if we prove we can survive out here—maybe then we can convince them that staying at the base is a bad idea.”
“But we don’t have any gear,” said Sigrid.
“Or really know how to live in the wild,” said James.
“Wendell’s store has stuff,” Leo explained. “Sleeping bags, camp stoves. Maybe he’d even come with us. I bet he knows all about living outdoors. We can do this.”
As he talked a shadow fell over them. It was too quick to be a cloud and too big to be an airplane. Not that airplanes were flying anymore.
“Don’t look up,” he whispered. The shadow passed. A shiver went through his body.
“It’s heading toward the base,” Sigrid said. Her eyes were on the grass. She didn’t dare look up either. But her voice was strained with fear. Leo’s thoughts flashed to his parents—his other friends—even Sandy the dog. In the same instant, he realized there was probably no way to help them. And that more than anything, their families would want them to find safety.
“What’s gonna happen?” James asked.
“I don’t know,” Leo said. “But I guess now there’s no going back.”
About the Author
Israel Keats was born and raised in North Dakota and now lives in Minneapolis. He is fond of dogs and national parks.