Monument 14

by Emmy Laybourne

I walked slowly, quietly. I didn’t want to scare her off.

  But she didn’t hear me. She was with Jake.

  She and Jake were sitting together near the iced tea. She was eating the plate of food I had left out for her. Barbecued chicken and corn salad with buttermilk dressing—thank you, Chef Batiste.

  Jake kept snatching little bits of food off the plate.

  “Quit it,” Astrid said. “You already ate.”

  Jake put his hand on her knee. She let it stay there and continued to eat.

  “I know, but it’s good.”

  “It’s delicious,” Astrid said.

  I felt proud, which was kind of stupid, since it was mostly Batiste’s cooking, anyway.

  “You should come back,” Jake said. “The little kids are always asking about you.”

  This wasn’t true, actually. Now that motherly Josie had stepped in as mama duck, they actually seemed to have forgotten about rough-and-tumble Astrid.

  I don’t think it had anything to do with Astrid’s personality. I just think it served them well to have a very short memory at this stage in their trauma.

  “I don’t want to,” she sort of growled. “I told you.”

  “We miss you,” Jake said. “Well, Brayden doesn’t miss you, but Dean does.”

  I felt my face burn in the dark.

  He knew I had a crush on Astrid and Astrid did, too.

  “Please,” she said. “He’s harmless.”

  Harmless. Okay.

  I tried to quiet my breathing. Now I really, really didn’t want them to know I was there.

  Astrid finished the food. She put her finger to the sauce on the plate and licked her finger clean.

  She put her finger in the sauce again, but this time, before she could get it to her mouth, Jake licked it.

  Kneeling in front of her, he took the plate from her.

  She let him.

  He put his hand on her neck and drew her toward him.

  She let him.

  He kissed her.

  She started to cry.

  “I miss my mom,” she said. “I miss my brothers. And Alicia. And Jaden. And Rini.”

  “I know,” Jake murmured, rubbing her neck.

  “I’m scared. I’m scared sick.”

  “Baby, we’re all scared,” Jake said. “Brayden and Josie made a really nice bed for you. You have your own little room. You should come and see it.”

  “I told you I can’t! I shake all the time. I’m too scared. I’m so scared I start to choke and I can’t breathe and I throw up! I don’t want to have to be around them!”

  He took her into his arms. She clung to him, like he was a life raft and she was drowning.

  “It’s gonna be okay,” Jake said.

  “Aren’t you scared?” she asked him.

  “We’re gonna be okay, Astrid.”

  “You’re not scared?”

  Jake responded by kissing her harder. Suddenly, they were all over each other.

  I knew I should back away but I didn’t.

  Astrid pushed him off her for a moment and sat up.

  Slowly, with Jake watching, and me watching, too, she unbuttoned her shirt.

  It was so wrong of me to watch, but I couldn’t, couldn’t stop.

  She brushed the tears away with her forearm as she unbuttoned. Astrid slid her shirt off her shoulders and unclasped her bra behind her back. She let the bra fall away and then she was naked from the waist up.

  Astrid’s body was so beautiful my throat closed up.

  So smooth and wonderful and soft. She looked so soft. A sculpture of some Greek goddess awoken from cold stone into warm pulsing life.

  Jake reached up and touched her breasts. He cupped them both.

  “Which one’s Cinderella again?” he asked her.

  “Neither of my breasts is named Cinderella.” She laughed, sort of unwillingly.

  Obviously, this was some old joke between them.

  “Hello, Cinderella,” Jake said to one of her beautiful, perfect breasts.

  He kissed it.

  He nuzzled the other one. “Now, don’t get jealous, Snow White. There’s enough of me for both of you.”

  Somehow, hearing him say this—watching this weird, private joke—was even worse than seeing them make out.

  Astrid just bent down and kissed him hard.

  “Make me feel better,” she told him. “Make me feel something.”

  He rolled her under him and I couldn’t see anymore, which was good because I already knew I was going to feel absolutely terrible about what I’d witnessed.

  I backed away and I was almost out of earshot when I heard Jake say, “Just forget it.”

  And I stopped to listen.

  “Here,” Astrid said.

  “Forget it,” Jake mumbled. “It’s no good.”

  “Wait, Jake, come on.”

  “Leave me alone.”

  “It’s just stress,” Astrid said. “It’s not like this has happened before.”

  “Just leave me alone, I said,” he growled.

  I heard the sounds of him pulling his pants on.

  “Jake … please,” Astrid said. “Don’t go.”

  “There’s a nice bed for you over at the Train. We’re all waiting for you. If you’re so scared, come back to us.”

  “I told you, I can’t.”

  “See you, Astrid,” he said.

  I crouched down as Jake passed by. I held my breath.

  After a moment, I went closer to Astrid.

  She was sitting up, looking in the direction Jake had gone. She absentmindedly twirled her hair in her fingers, trying to get a knot out. Then she sniffed her armpit and made a face.

  As I watched, Astrid slid the straps of her bra onto her shoulders and fitted the lacy cups around her breasts.

  My whole body was on fire for Astrid.

  I must have moved because suddenly she stopped.

  “Jake?” she whispered. Then she listened.

  She looked right my way and I was sure she couldn’t see me, but I froze.

  Each heartbeat pounding like a drum.

  Finally she decided no one was there. She dressed quickly and then, much to my surprise, she climbed right up the iced tea shelves, using them as a ladder.

  About halfway up, she reached up and moved aside one of the ceiling panels. I got a glimpse of a sleeping bag and some paperback books up there.

  She balanced on the top support of the shelving unit and then crawled into her hiding space.

  The ceiling tiles gave just the slightest bit.

  Astrid was hiding in one of my food aisles. And I had seen her topless. I hated myself for it, but I had.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  A LADY

  The next morning, I could hardly look Jake in the eye. Caroline and Henry were my helpers for the day, and their chirpy good cheer was an excellent distraction.

  Scrambled eggs sandwiched between chocolate chip waffles. Wow.

  * * *

  Niko had a change in plans for us. He rapped on his tray, to get our attention.

  “You all did an excellent job of restocking the shelves and taking inventory of our assets and I want to thank you,” Niko said. “I know that you’re not all completely finished with your assignments, but we’re going to shift our routine a bit now.

  “The big kids will work together on projects that we need to attend to and the little kids will be attending school.”

  A rising chorus of awwwws and no ways drowned out Niko’s voice for a moment.

  School. That was what the card tables and folding chairs in our new “living room” were about.

  “Josie will tell you all about it.” He gestured for Josie to rise and address us.

  “Now, listen, you guys,” she said. “It’s not going to be a drag, like real school. We’re going to learn fun things and do lots of art projects. Maybe Jake will even teach us some football, right, Jake?”

  “Most probably, maybe,” he said, toasting her with a hal
f-eaten waffle sandwich.

  Josie sat down and Brayden put his arm around her. He tried to nuzzle her neck, but she shook her head slightly. A not-in-front-of-the-kids shake.

  Niko took back the floor. He seemed steely now. Cold and efficient.

  “Another thing that’s going to change is the way we are using electricity. Alex has worked hard to make an energy plan that conserves our resources as much as possible, and we need to put it into action right away.”

  Alex stood up.

  “Yeah, um, so during the day, we’ll have the lights on here in the kitchen and also in Living Room area—”

  “The school,” Josie corrected.

  “And besides that,” Alex continued, “the other parts of the store will be dark.”

  “Dark?” asked Caroline.

  “Like how dark?” said Henry.

  “It will be pretty dark, I think. But don’t be scared because, remember, this store is completely sealed off from the outside. So nothing can get in here. Everything in the store is a known quantity,” Alex said.

  He was half talking to himself, I knew. Telling himself not to be scared.

  “Plus we can each have a flashlight,” Josie added.

  Batiste, Ulysses, and Max seemed excited about having flashlights, but Henry and Caroline looked scared.

  Chloe was just scratching her head. Scratching hard and with purpose.

  Niko laid out the work plan for the day.

  The big kids would be helping to consolidate the frozen food in the kitchen freezers, to save on power.

  I could see the planning behind the big change in routine. We couldn’t waste the energy to have the kids scattered all around the store working. Niko wanted them in one place so we’d only have to light a certain area of the store.

  It made sense. But the whole thing made me irritated and what I realized was that I was pissed that Alex hadn’t told me about it.

  He knew the power was giving out and he didn’t tell me. He told Niko instead.

  Niko had him off and running the store while I was stuck in the Kitchen. He and Niko were becoming best buddies while I was stuck hanging out with the kindergarteners.

  I didn’t like Niko spending more time with Alex than I did. It didn’t feel right to me. We were brothers. I should know everything he knew and vice versa.

  * * *

  Now that I was aware of not hanging around with my brother, it was all I could think about. At afternoon free period I tried to get him to play Monopoly. He had a game of Stratego going with Niko. And at dinner Alex asked Niko to go with him off to look at a set of video walkie-talkies he had found and was working on in our Living Room area. So I cleaned the Kitchen.

  * * *

  I went to my hammock in a huff, determined to talk to Alex the next day.

  It felt like I’d only been asleep for a moment when I was shaken awake.

  It was Jake.

  “Get up!” he whispered. “There’s a woman outside at the loading docks. She wants us to let her in.”

  * * *

  Niko, Josie, Brayden, Jake, and I all stumbled into the common hallway of the Train. Jake motioned for us to be quiet and to follow him.

  Once we were out of earshot of the kids, Niko turned to Josie.

  “Josie, please stay here and make sure the kids stay safe.”

  “I want to come,” she whispered. “They’re asleep. They’ll be fine.”

  “We need you here,” Niko said.

  “Come on, dude, she wants to come,” Brayden argued.

  Trying to win points with his new girlfriend.

  “The answer is no. I need to know that the kids are safe and here,” Niko said. “The rest of you come on.”

  Niko took off toward the storeroom, I followed with the other boys and Josie crossed her arms and stayed behind.

  Niko had authority, there’s no denying.

  “You’re so sexist,” Josie hissed after him. He sort of was, I guess.

  * * *

  In the storeroom we heard an electronically transmitted voice. A woman.

  “Hello? Are you back? Please! You have to hurry.”

  Jake pointed and we saw something we’d not seen before—there was a video intercom, right on the wall.

  A woman’s face, head wrapped in a shawl, face covered by layers of material, took up the frame.

  “I was doing my rounds and I saw her,” Jake said. “I didn’t even know there was an intercom.”

  “Please let me in,” she begged.

  Niko pressed a button on the intercom.

  “Hello. We see you. How many of you are there?”

  “Just me! Just me!” she whispered. You could see she was craning her neck to look behind her.

  Niko took his finger off the button. He turned to us.

  “Listen,” he said. “I want to let her in, but we can’t. We physically can’t. We don’t know how to retract the security gate and we don’t have keys to the door.”

  “I don’t trust her anyway,” Brayden said. “See how she’s looking behind her all the time? She’s got people with her. No question. It could be a trap.”

  “I think she’s alone,” Jake said. “But Niko’s right. We couldn’t get the door open if we wanted.”

  “Please!” she said, pleading. “Please hurry!”

  She removed the material from around her face, maybe so we could see she was honest. There were dark circles under her eyes and they were rimmed red. She looked like someone’s mom.

  “Please! I am begging you!”

  Niko grabbed his hair and pulled. He was in agony.

  “What about the hatch?” I said. “We open the hatch and throw a ladder down!”

  “Yes!” Niko said. “Yes!”

  But then the woman screamed. And her face disappeared from the monitor.

  And we heard a voice that was low and menacing. A voice that was familiar.

  “You. Get. Away. From. My. Store.”

  He was talking to the woman and his speech was interrupted by heavy sounds. The sounds, I think, of him hitting her.

  “This. Is. MY. STORE.”

  It was the monster from the front gate.

  He was “guarding” our store.

  Which explained why we hadn’t had more people trying to get in, to get food and water.

  I looked at the screen in shock, expecting at any moment to see the face of the monster, but it did not appear.

  I guess he was too deranged to notice the camera.

  We could hear what was going on outside, the last sounds of a scuffle, and then it was quiet. Then we heard what I imagined to be the sound of the man dragging the woman’s body away.

  After a few moments of inactivity, the intercom shut off automatically.

  We were frozen in a moment of horror, I think is the best way to describe it.

  There had been a woman there. Right outside the door. And now she was dead.

  * * *

  And then Niko roared.

  He balled his hands into fists and started striking his own head. Bam, bam, bam!

  “Niko, stop!” I shouted.

  He turned to the nearest shelving unit and started pummeling the boxes.

  I stepped forward to try to help him. To restrain him, somehow, so he wouldn’t hurt himself.

  “Let him be,” Jake said. “He’s just working stuff out.”

  Niko destroyed the aisle, ripping, punching, tearing, throwing, cursing, spitting, shouting. Crying.

  Slowly, he started winding down.

  “All right, man,” came Jake’s drawl. “It’s gonna be okay.”

  “It’s not okay,” Niko shouted. “She’s dead and if I’d just thought faster, I could have saved her!”

  He drove his head into a heavy, wooden crate.

  “You’re pissed!” I shouted. “You’re so angry you want to burst!”

  My volume and intensity surprised him (and me), and he stopped what he was doing.

  “We could’ve saved her and we fail
ed! You could have saved her and you failed!” I shouted.

  It seemed like he needed me to push back at him with the same weight of his own anger and despair.

  “She’d dead! They’re all dead and we can do nothing to save them!”

  Niko crumpled to his knees and rested his forehead on the linoleum. Now I could stop yelling. He could hear me.

  “It’s not your fault, Niko,” I said.

  “But I could have helped her.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I repeated.

  “You didn’t cause the tsunami, man,” Jake said quietly.

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “It’s nobody’s fault,” Brayden said.

  Niko’s body relaxed.

  Jake, Brayden, and I just watched him for a while as his chest heaved and he regained his usual composure.

  Niko drew his sleeve across his face.

  He sat up and looked around.

  “Shoot,” he said. “Look at this mess.”

  We laughed a little when he said that.

  “Come on, man,” Jake said. “Let’s go get a drink.”

  Jake hauled Niko to his feet and we left the storeroom.

  But I gave a backward glance at the monitor.

  It was black and silent.

  One more lady was dead. Add her to the millions dead outside and she figured pretty small. But to us, she was big.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  RUM

  We gathered in the kitchen. Jake had a bottle of rum and was pouring liberal shots into Dixie cups.

  Jake held his cup aloft. “To Niko, a really good guy, even if he is a Boy Scout.”

  “Here, here,” I said, tapping my cup with them.

  I took a sip. Straight rum. It burned. But it felt good to feel something strong besides failure.

  Brayden knocked his down without a grimace.

  “You know,” Jake said, after he drained his cup. “I love Boy Scouts. You know why?”

  “Why?” Niko asked.

  “They give a real good hand job.”

  We cracked up.

  “No, really. All that time up in the mountains with nothing to do. They always come prepared, too, with little lotion bottles.”

  “Ha-ha,” Niko said. But he didn’t seem mad at all. “We get a lot of those jokes. But back in Buffalo—”

  “You’re from Buffalo? New York?” Brayden interrupted him. “I have an aunt from there.”