by Sarah Cannon
How could the searchers not have found them? But maybe the trees grew up quickly, to hide them. Stranger things have happened around here. There they are, pressed perfectly into the rock. I remember a movie we watched in class once, about erosion and the Grand Canyon, and it talked about the “Living Rock,” like it was capitalized. People shouldn’t be allowed to say things like that to little kids, because we were all watching out for rock monsters for weeks, until we found out it was a metaphor. But now, I forgive that stuck-up narrator because I’m staring one of the Sunset Six in the eye and expecting him to blink.
Oh, they don’t stick out. And it’s not like they’re inside a case made of rock, either. Picture the best, most real drawing you’ve ever seen. Now picture it not done on top of the rock, where you could rub it off, but soaked into the rock, part of it. Except there’s no way this is a painting. No one can paint on rock so that you can see the frayed edges on the little gap-toothed girl’s shorts, or the shine in the eyes of the boy in front of me. One boy has his hands behind his head, and there’s a scab on his elbow. All six of them are staring up at something in the sky, and the thing that stands out most is their happiness, like they won the Greeley’s Sweepstakes.
No one found their bodies because there weren’t any to find. No one should’ve found a murderer, either. These kids aren’t dead, they’re … changed.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” I say. “I don’t believe for one second that some grocery store owner did this.”
Raymond nods.
It doesn’t seem quite right to take a picture of the Sunset Six. Their smiles make me think of Pearl, which makes me think about their families. I don’t guess they’d want to find out what happened from a bunch of kids who are treating this like a game. I let go of my branch, and it about takes Cayden’s ear off. He yelps.
“What did you do that for?” he asks.
I start to explain that I don’t want to take their picture, ready for a fight after I dragged my friends all the way out here, when Raymond lets go of his branch, too. It takes Mason right down.
“Hey!” he says.
“Shhh!”
I turn to look where Raymond’s looking, and listen, not too worried because I figure it’s other kids. But I’m really, really wrong.
You know that writing on American cheese packages that says PROCESSED CHEESE FOOD? Let’s face it, we all know there’s probably no actual cheese in there. This thing coming at us is like that.
We call it the Blurmonster, and it might really be a monster, but it’s hard to be sure. It’s only visible as a sort of blur, like a big, meat loaf–shaped heat haze, so none of us knows exactly what it is, only that it’s big and unwieldy, like a parade float wearing an invisibility cloak. It’s incredibly strong, but never caused any real trouble. Then, one day, it started smashing up any part of Oddity it could get to. Oddiputians know how to roll with a lot of strange things, but the Blurmonster turning on us was a shock. It was the first thing the puppets ever protected us from, and why they were such a welcome addition to our town.
None of us are supposed to be anywhere near the Blurmonster. Which is a problem, because once it finds someone to follow, it doesn’t stop. The only way to track it is by the way it scruffs up the ground as it passes, and by the way things seen through it are all blurry and distorted. It’s not very fast, but Mrs. O’Halloran would probably take a pay cut to have a student with its attention span.
“Let’s go.” I’m already grabbing at Mason. This is why I’m not supposed to bring him places like this. The Protection Committee’s citizen patrols keep the Blurmonster from coming into the middle of town, but out here, I’m all the protection my cousin has got.
“We can outrun it, I think.” Raymond is shouldering his pack. “It’s big, you know? If we go straight down the hillside, through the brush, I don’t think it can follow us.”
Cayden’s not coming.
“What are you doing?” I ask him. “Come on!” Boy jumps at his own shadow, then totally fails to run from the capital-D Danger.
“Help me!” He’s shoving the branches out of the way, trying to hold down the ones we had with his foot.
“What are you doing?” The Blurmonster’s still down the path a ways, but not as far as I’d like.
“Getting a picture!”
I shake my head. “It’s not right.”
“You say that now, but if we don’t, you’ll be sorry later.”
“What kind of girl do you think I am?”
“We can argue about it tomorrow. This is our last chance.”
There’s sense in that. So even though I feel bad about it, I help Raymond and Mason move branches. Cayden takes out his phone, and as soon as we’ve got the Six mostly clear, he shoots one photo. He tries to upload it to Nopes right away, but there’s no signal. Figures. That’s all there’s time for. I reach for Mason’s hand and we run, farther away from the Sunset Ridge development at first, because it’s that or run back toward the thing. Then I see a piece of slope we could get down without breaking all our legs, and I cut right. Pebbles rush past me as Cayden and Raymond come sliding down behind me.
It’s getting dark fast. I don’t know if the streetlights turn on out here anymore. How are we going to get away from this thing if we can’t see it?
“So,” Cayden wheezes, as we blast out of the brush into the open and race for the garage where our bikes are heeled over, “we’re going to outrun the Blurmonster on roads, on our bikes. You know that thing does roads, right?”
“Yeah, but slow,” says Raymond, shoving his backpack into one of the saddlebags that hang down on either side of our rear wheels. Always be prepared, that’s our motto. Storms, Blurmonsters. You know. Whatever.
“Mason’s not that fast.” I chest pass him his bike helmet. “Mase, put this on.”
He’s already on his bike, using his feet to push it backward out from between ours. “I’m fast enough.”
“You got your light switched on?” I ask. His helmet bobs, so I think he’s nodding. Good. We’re going to need them. I just hope they work. The Oddity Children’s Safety Council handed them out last year. They’re manufactured locally by Osmosis Co.
POWERED BY INSPIRATION! it said on the boxes.
What that means is that they’re lit by human thought, which sounds great in concept. In reality, if you’re doing something really boneheaded in the dark, they shut off. I hope this doesn’t count.
I look over my shoulder for the Blurmonster. I didn’t think it could manage the brushy slope we came down, but it did, just slow, like Raymond said. It’s reaching the bottom now. It’s very hard to see in the dark, but the rattle of pebbles tells me where it is.
“Go!” I yell, and we stand on our pedals.
As usual, our biggest challenge isn’t what’s chasing us. One word: sand. Riding our bikes on sandy roads and sandy paths and sandy everything is how I imagine surfing must be. What I’m moving through is also moving, and I’ve got to manage the skids without falling over. Sometimes I lean the other way to counterbalance, and sometimes I ride them out. If I pick the wrong option I slow down too much, or tip sideways, and I have to stop and waddle through the big groove I made until I can get going again.
We all know what we’re doing, but we’re in a rush in the dark. My light’s on, though. As the wind begins to sing in my ears and my tires grit on the pavement, I steal a quick glance over my shoulder to see that Mason’s is lit up, too. Hopefully that means he’s thinking.
The blurry behemoth is still coming. Seems to me we should have lost it by now. I’ve never heard of it hanging around at night, so I don’t think it’s tracking us by sight. Bike tires aren’t that noisy. That leaves … smell.
Uh-oh.
Cayden’s bringing up the rear, as he tends to do, so I slow way down and drop behind him. I hear feet or paws or treads or whatever the Blurmonster has gritting on the sand. Like I said, it’s not fast, but it’s definitely still coming. I draw a deep breath, th
en drop back even farther, giving it a chance to notice me. Then, taking my life in my hands, I work my way to the wrong side of the street, listening for it to follow me.
It doesn’t. It crunches right past me, following Cayden.
He forgot to wash off the BASH!
I zoom back past the boys, running a stop sign and spinning onto the main road leading out of Sunset Ridge. We’re back in the land of finished houses with no shredded tar paper blowing in the wind, and I stand on the pedals some more. Up here on the right, I can shoot up a driveway to avoid the curb, and get onto a trail that’ll cut the corner and put us a good piece farther down the main road back into town. The trail goes along it, through the brush. With a little luck, we’ll keep ahead of the Blurmonster. Maybe it’ll still be slower on the road than we are on the path.
Then I see an armaduino on the driveway, and because only a bonehead would ride straight at one, my bike light cuts out.
Armadillos exist to be hit by vehicles. It’s like they wait around for wheels to throw themselves under. But armaduinos are the worst. I don’t know who thinks it’s funny to use armaduino kits to strap flamethrowers, surveillance cameras, and really noisy, motion-activated musical instruments to armadillos, but the results need labels that say: NOW WITH ADDED DANGER! This one makes a popping noise, and I know we’re about to get scorched.
“Hard right!” I shout, and hope its head is still pointed the way I think it is. It isn’t. Fire erupts in a long stream, and it’s arcing toward us, because instead of running away like sensible roadkill, the armaduino is turning to look at us. It’s awfully fast considering how heavy that flamethrower must be. Behind me, everyone screams as they skid to avoid it, but when I have space to look, though there are big tire arcs in the sand, everybody has managed to stay up. That thing is as good as a beacon for the Blurmonster if it’s still following us, though, so I push forward as fast as I can go, and as soon as I’m clear, my light kicks back on.
Behind us, the brush crackles as it catches fire. See? This is why flame-throwing armadillos in the desert are a bad idea.
“Ada!” cries Mason. He sounds freaked out. You know I’m the worst cousin ever when our bike ride is scarier than spiders hatching out of his friend’s face.
“Keep up with me, Mase!” I holler. “There’s the road!”
I stay alongside it, not in it, just to be safe. The path is packed nice and hard here. For a minute, we make up some ground, and I’m exhilarated. It’s a straight shot into town, and the Blurmonster won’t follow us there. We’re almost there when, out of the corner of my eye, I see motion up ahead on the right. It’s low and rounded, coming fast, with a blinking light on top. Another armaduino. It’s headed right onto the path. Before there’s time to react, I’m past it, and behind me Mason yells, “Aaaah!” I steer off the path so he won’t hit me if he keeps coming, and squeeze my brakes as hard as I can, as white light washes across me from behind. I turn in horror, to see headlights coming up the road as the silhouette of Mason, still on his bike, jumps the curb and wobbles into their path. Brakes scream, and so do I.
Chapter 5
Crash
Silence. Silence and, when I dare to look, Mason, still upright in the glare of the headlights, his eyes squinched shut, and the armaduino that caused this disaster scuttling by. As it passes, the red light mounted on its back traces a path across Mason’s jeans, and as he realizes he’s not dead and moves his leg, he trips its sensor and loud salsa music begins to play.
The door of the truck that almost hit Mason creaks open, and a tall, dark figure steps out. My bike light switches back on, and right away I know who we’re dealing with.
The man’s name is Badri Hassan Khalid, and he claims to be a Somali pirate, though what a pirate’s doing in Oddity, New Mexico, I could not say. He’s new, but not Cayden’s family’s kind of new, where you can almost hear the crinkle of the wrapping. He’s the kind of person who wanders into town like he’s coming home, even though no one’s ever seen him before. He tells people he decided to get as far from the Atlantic Ocean as he possibly could.
I like him. As pirates go, he is highly perfect. He’s even got a scar, though if Pearl were here, she’d say it’s not ugly enough. I only notice it because it’s pale pink against his black, black skin. It traces his cheek like the trail of a curious finger.
“What do you kids think you are doing out here? According to the radio, half the emergency vehicles in town are on their way out here to hose down Sunset Ridge before it burns to the ground; this is Blurmonster territory, and here you are in the middle of the road!”
I’ve never been accosted by a pirate before. In spite of his strong, lilting accent, he sounds like a dad. Even shaking from what almost happened to Mason, I’m a little bit disappointed, but I rally.
“What are you doing out here, then?” I ask. (He’s not OUR dad.)
He blinks. I bet he doesn’t want us to know. I figure he’s cooking up a cover story to tell us, but then he surprises me.
“Put your bikes in the back of the truck and get in,” he says.
Mason, on grown-up autopilot, moves to obey, but I stick my hand out to stop him.
“We aren’t going anywhere with you. We don’t know you.”
“You spend a lot of time staring at me for kids who do not know me. I’m Badri Hassan Khalid.”
In the distance, I detect the wail of sirens.
“Your dad, he works for animal control? I have done work for him before. You can call him on your phones and see. Get in the truck.”
That’s enough for Raymond, and I guess for me, too. Nobody who’s worked for Daddy is likely to mess with us, and no one who knows who he is would lie about it, either. There’s something to be said for having a father who’s as big as a Porta-Potty and wrangles escaped science experiments. Besides, in the dark there’s no way of knowing whether the Blurmonster’s still coming. We move. After I lift my bike up over the tailgate, I take a quick peek under the tarp at the heap of stuff already in the bed. Sure enough: pipes and gutters, and what appears to be garage door track. He was out the other end of Sunset Ridge, ripping off empty houses. No wonder he wants to get out of here. And no way he’ll rat us out even if he figures out the fire was our fault … sort of.
We finish stowing the bikes and cram into the cab, and by the time the first fire truck roars by, we’re rolling.
Raymond borrows my phone and calls home right away, because of course now we have full bars for no reason. Lucky for him it sounds like he gets his mom-mom and not his jefa-mom, who takes the job of being “the chief” pretty seriously, and expects him to be home on the dot. But his mom-mom’s all focused on being thankful he called, and not tearing his ear off at all. Then I call home, and bad luck me. I get Aunt Bets.
“Do you know,” she says, before I even say hello, “what it does to me when I come home to an empty house, call the family that is supposed to have my young, beloved son, and find out that they brought him home hours and hours ago? Are you aware that if I were not already missing both my feet, I would be using them on your deserving backside right now? Do you understand that I can access your bedroom at any time, without warning? Can you imagine what it would be like to wake up bald?”
I am rendered momentarily speechless. I think she’d actually do it. The good news is that, at this point, I don’t think things could get worse. So I brazen my way through it.
“Hi, Aunt Bets. Sorry we missed dinner.”
There is a long and deadly pause.
“You seem to be missing my point.”
“No,” I say, “I don’t think so.” Mason is looking at me like I’ve lost my mind, which I clearly have.
“We were out biking,” I say blithely, “and it got late. Mr. Khalid is bringing us home, but I’m sure he’ll understand if we don’t offer him anything to eat.” We’re pulling into town, and if I’m going to die of hysterical baldness, my last meal is going to be epic.
“Mr. WHO? Little girl, you g
et back here before I—”
“Okay, we’ll see about getting something on the way.” In a last and utterly suicidal flourish, I add, “We love you. Say ‘I love you,’ Mase!” He stares at me wide-eyed as an owl. I smile winningly.
“I love you, Mama!” he sings out, drowning the sound of her shouting.
I hang up and mute the ringer, then point off to the right. “We haven’t eaten. Have you? Is it okay if we stop there?”
“Oh YES!” says Mason, finally figuring out my plan. He pumps his fist as Badri, giving me a dark, suspicious look, turns into the parking lot of Crash Diner.
Cayden hasn’t called his folks.
“It doesn’t matter,” he says, when I ask him. “They’re probably still at work.”
Cayden’s parents are here to sort out why cell signals in Oddity are so unreliable. It must be a tough job, because they generally work late and look frustrated. Probably they won’t even notice he’s gone.
Our shoes hit the ground before the tires have stopped gritting on the sandy asphalt. Pearl would remember this place as Patsy’s, but the flying saucer that embedded itself in the chrome roof and now sticks halfway through the sizzling, sparking sign is too funny to ignore … at least for everyone who wasn’t eating here when it happened. We call it what we want, and I guess Patsy can like it or not. We swing open the chrome-handled doors and breathe in the scent of french fries and chili. “Jailhouse Rock” is playing on the jukebox, and right away I know that Song is here.
Song’s my friend, if a grown-up can be your friend. She took over Bob’s Cut-Rate Emporium a few years back, and renamed it For a Song. Me and Pearl started bringing our scavenging finds to her right away, though Song did eventually refuse to sell Pearl hat pins anymore. She said nobody needed that many, and it was getting creepy. She gives me store credit or cash, though last time she paid me with a seven-dollar bill that had Princess Leia–looking ladies on it, and they wouldn’t take it at Bodega Bodega when I tried to buy candy.
Song’s got a really strong accent, but different from Badri’s. She’s obviously from Asia somewhere, but I can’t get a straight answer out of her about where. If I ask about any specific country, she says “Yes” and smiles her sparkly, beauty-pageant smile. If that doesn’t work, she pretends not to understand me—which is a bunch of bull, of course. She gets me fine the rest of the time. I guess it is rude to keep asking, but it’s like a game for me now. I figure if I surprise her at the right time, she’ll slip up.