Six-year-old Dee’s head would have exploded from joy at the prospect of eating dessert in the morning, but today she wasn’t hungry. On the monitor, the rescue video had just reset, showing Dee, Mara, and Ethan running down Ninth Street toward the old brig. The spikes had doubled since they had been in the gym. Two hundred million? That was like two-thirds of the entire United States. What kind of a messed-up world were they living in where everyone watched in rapt attention while some sicko serial killers attempted to murder teenagers?
The comments scrolled nonstop, a steady stream of critique and observation. But as Dee watched with unseeing eyes, her brain began to pick out words that didn’t usually show up from the Postmantics. Things like “unfair” and “I thought there were rules” and “diplomatic immunity.”
She smiled at the last one and was about to point it out to Nyles, when the comment beneath it sent chills down her spine.
“DO YOU WANT TO be my sister?”
Dee’s eyes flew open. The question was so familiar by now, but this time it sounded different. Kimmi’s voice was closer. Not drifting down from the air vent, but right behind her.
Kimmi was in the white room.
She must have come in while Dee was sleeping, though Dee had no idea how. She’d felt every inch of the walls, looking for a door, but had never found so much as a crack in the tiles, let alone the seam of a door. Had Kimmi come down from the vent? Was that the only way out?
“Do you want to be my sister?” she repeated. Dee heard the faint exhale of Kimmi’s breath, the soft swoosh of fabric as she shifted position.
Dee didn’t move. Maybe if Kimmi thought she was still asleep, she’d leave.
“I know you’re not sleeping, Dolores. Do you not want to be my sister?” There was a nastiness in her tone that made Dee’s breath catch in her chest. “Do you want me to think you don’t like me?”
“No!” Dee said. She pushed herself into a sitting position and spun around to face Kimmi.
Dee’s tormentor sat cross-legged on the smooth, glossy floor. She wore jeans and a gray long-sleeve shirt, and her blond hair hung on either side of her face, which was sharp and hawkish.
“So?” Kimmi prompted.
Dee swallowed. Her tongue was parched and swollen from lack of water, and her stomach ached with hunger. What did Kimmi want her to say? What was the right answer?
“I…I want to be your sister,” Dee said, stumbling over the words.
“More than anything?”
Dee nodded, choking down a sob.
“Play with me.”
Dee glanced around the room, empty except for the two of them and a couple of crumpled fast-food bags.
“Play?”
Kimmi rolled her eyes dramatically, and the blue irises all but disappeared into the top of her skull. “Pretend, silly. Tell me what we’ll play.”
Dee couldn’t even remember what kind of toys she’d played with when she was younger. It was as if nothing else existed—no memories, no past—beyond the walls of the white room. “Dolls?”
“No!”
“Video games?”
Kimmi had clicked her tongue. “I can do that with my brother.”
“You have a brother?”
“I ASK THE QUESTIONS!”
Dee’s heart raced. If she didn’t come up with an acceptable answer, Kimmi might get violent. Okay, okay. Think. What did teenage girls like to do?
“We can go shopping.”
Kimmi sucked in a breath. “Oooooh!”
“And…and try on clothes.”
“And?”
“And you can pick stuff out for me.”
Kimmi squealed. “Oh my God, we’ll have so much fun. Do you really want to be my sister?”
“Yes.”
A sly smile crept up the left side of Kimmi’s face. “Do you want to braid my hair?”
Dee was light-headed, exhausted, and beginning to lose hope that she’d ever escape, but she braided Kimmi’s long tresses with trembling hands. The plaits were wonky and uneven, but Kimmi either couldn’t tell or didn’t care. When Dee finished, Kimmi spun her around so that they could trade places.
Kimmi’s technique was brutal. She pulled Dee’s hair mercilessly, creating braids so tight Dee’s entire scalp ached. When she finished, Kimmi roughly unwound the braids, causing Dee’s eyes to well up with tears from the pain.
“Again,” Kimmi said, and started another twist.
Dee never said a word. Never yelped out in pain or asked a question. She sat and endured while Kimmi prattled on and on about all the fun they were going to have together. Games and shopping, jump rope and classroom gossip, adventures and secrets. Forever and ever and ever.
Just when Dee was sure all of her hair must have been ripped out by the roots, Kimmi suddenly stood up.
“That was a fun game,” she said. Then her tone shifted. “Go stand in the corner. Face the wall.”
Dee’s knees were wobbly as she pushed herself to her feet and stumbled to the far corner of the room. She couldn’t see what Kimmi was doing, but she heard a soft beep followed by a click.
“We’ll play games together forever, Dolores.” Kimmi sighed as if sorry to leave the white room. “Sisters and best friends. I’ll never let you go.”
Dee continued to face the wall until she heard a second click. When she turned around, Kimmi had vanished.
“Thank you, user Justice 4Me,” Nyles said, slapping his hand on the table. “I do have diplomatic immunity.” He turned to Dee. “I mean, really. There are supposed to be rules about this thing, and…” His voice trailed off. “Dee, are you okay?”
Dee shook herself, emerging from a nightmare.
Ethan pulled out the chair beside her. “Seriously, dude. You look like you saw a ghost.”
I did.
“What is it?” Mara’s voice sounded anxious. “What did you see?”
“My sister…” It was all Dee could muster. A sob took her voice.
Her dad was trying to warn her. Trying to help her. Dee had wished rather than believed that he thought she was innocent, but now here was proof. She wasn’t alone. Somewhere back in the real world, someone still cared.
Nyles slipped his arm around Dee’s shoulders. “Gris,” he began, “I rather feel like—”
“Yeah, yeah,” she said. “Milk shake. On it.”
Nyles waited until the blender started crunching ice cubes before he spoke again. By that time, Dee had managed to calm down.
“It’s okay.” His rounded British vowels were strangely soothing. “We know you didn’t kill her, and we’re going to find out who did, okay?”
Dee pressed the palms of her hands against her eyes. “Her screen name was in the comments.”
Ethan’s eyes widened. “I saw that shirtless tattooed magician guy text from inside a coffin buried beneath twenty feet of concrete. Do you think maybe she’s alive in her grave?”
Dee pictured the cold, lifeless body, a mass of stiff limbs and pale skin that had once been Monica, and seriously doubted it.
“Someone’s using her account,” Mara suggested. “Trying to get a message to you.”
“My dad. He said…” Shit. The last thing Dee wanted to do was tell them about Kimmi. Not only were they on camera, but also would learning about Dee’s traumatic past really make them any more likely to believe her? No. The opposite.
“He said they’re trying to appeal my case,” she lied. None of them had seen the comment as it scrolled by on the screen, so no one could contradict her. “He thinks he knows who actually killed Monica.”
“Ah!” Nyles smiled. “Now two of us will have immunity.”
Mara shook her head. “What if it’s really The Postman pretending to be your dad?”
“No.” Dee was positive that the message had came from her dad. He’d even signed it with a p for Papa, the same way he’d signed the little notes he used to leave in her lunch box when she was a kid.
“Even if it is your dad,” Mara pressed,
“how are you going to stay alive long enough for him to get you out of here?”
Dee let out a long breath. Mara had a point. She was the number-one target on Alcatraz 2.0, now more than ever. Would she even survive the night, let alone a week or more, until her dad could facilitate her release? If that was even a possibility?
Gris switched the blender off, and the room fell silent.
“More ice, Gris,” Nyles called over his shoulder. “Nice and slushy.”
“There isn’t any more ice.” Griselda returned to the table with a pitcher of slush. “No delivery, remember?”
“I don’t like this,” Mara said, staring at the pitcher.
Ethan took a spoonful of icy chunks. “What do you mean?”
“Doesn’t it feel kind of empty around here?”
Dee gazed through the front window. Mara was right. Usually there were people moving about, going to and from their jobs, but today Main Street felt deserted.
“It’s early,” Nyles said, dismissing her fears. “The shop doesn’t get busy until the afternoon.”
“But it’s almost eleven,” Dee countered. “Yesterday we’d served half the island by then.”
“Dude,” Ethan said, dipping his spoon into the pitcher. “When you say ‘shop,’ do you spell it in your head like ‘shopp-ie’? Isn’t that a Brit thing?”
“No.” Nyles turned his back on Ethan. “I do not.”
“Maybe they assumed we wouldn’t open today,” Griselda said, backtracking. “Since I almost died and shit.”
“The library looks closed.” Dee craned her neck to see down the street. “And the hair salon.”
Ethan’s face lit up. “Alcatroliday! Like Christmas. Or Arnold Schwarzenegger’s birthday.”
But Dee wasn’t as excited by the prospect of a prison holiday. Mara was right: something weird was happening. “That’s not normal, is it? For Main Street to be closed?”
“Decidedly not,” Nyles said.
The hair stood up on Dee’s arms. “Where is everyone?”
“Maybe they’re hiding,” Mara suggested.
“Staycations aren’t really part of The Postman’s model,” Griselda countered.
“We need to search the Barracks,” Dee said. “Go door to door and find out what’s going on.”
Griselda threw her arms up. “Why bother? If they’re home, yay. If they’re not, yay. If they’re dead, yay.”
“Dead?” Mara squeaked. “Who said anything about everyone being dead?”
“And what if he sends the guards in, huh?” Griselda continued. “What if they decide to just liquidate us and start over with new inventory?”
“Gris has a point,” Nyles said.
“I’d rather be shot while I’m fighting,” Dee said, “than drowned like a rat.”
“Losers always whine about their best,” Ethan said, nodding sagely. “Winners go home and fuck the prom queen. That’s from The Rock, which is like totally appropriate to our sitch because it’s set on the original Alcatraz.”
“Oh my God!” Griselda cried. “Enough with the action-movie bullshit. This is not a movie. There’s no script.”
Arguing wasn’t going to get them anywhere. “There’s only one way to find out where everybody is,” Dee said, “and that’s to search the island. Agreed?”
Ethan punched his fist into the air. “Agreed!”
“Fine!” Griselda said, turning toward Ninth Street. “Let’s get this over with.”
THE TRIP ACROSS THE island to the Barracks reminded Dee of her first night, when the fear and isolation of Alcatraz 2.0 had been overwhelming. That night, Dee had followed Blair and the others, dogged by cameras that seemed to follow her every move.
But today, as they hurried down Ninth Street past the sports fields, Dee noticed that the crow cameras were oddly stationary. Instead of shadowing them, they just stared straight ahead, only picking up what crossed directly in front of their lenses.
When they reached the Barracks, Dee took the initiative and marched straight up to the first set of houses. It wasn’t so much bravery as martyrdom: her friends had suffered enough because of her.
Dee took a deep breath and rang the doorbell.
All she got in response was silence.
Although that was to be expected. It wasn’t as if the Avon lady did her rounds on Alcatraz 2.0. A ringing doorbell might mean a visit from one of The Postman’s killers, and if it had been Dee, there was no way in hell she’d have answered.
“Anyone know who lives here?” she asked.
“Dude at the library,” Ethan replied. “Tall, silver fox. I think his name’s Steve? Steven? Steve-O?”
“Because Steve-O is such a common name,” Griselda said. She stood back on the sidewalk, arms folded across her chest, refusing to participate.
Dee tried again, knocking this time. “Hello, Steve?” She tried to sound neighborly. “This is Dee from down the street. Are you home?”
Griselda sighed. “I’m sure that’ll work.”
“I’ll do recon,” Ethan said. He leaped off the edge of the porch like he was launching himself off the side of a cliff, hit the grass in a crouch, and immediately somersaulted around the side of the house.
“Try the handle?” Nyles suggested. He stood at Dee’s shoulder with Mara tucked in behind him, peeking out around his narrow shoulders. “Maybe it’s unlocked?”
Dee glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes. “In your seven months, one week, and six days on Alcatraz two-point-oh, have you known anyone to leave their front door unlocked?”
Nyles pursed his lips. “No, but everything else seems to be unlocked today. Why not the Barracks?”
“Good point.” Dee gripped the handle and twisted.
It turned, and the door swung inward.
“Blinds are drawn,” Ethan said, jogging back to the porch. “Can’t see shit. Want me to bust down the—” He saw that Dee had already opened it, and his face fell. “Aw, man! I never get to have any fun.”
“You can go first,” Dee suggested. “Won’t that be a blast?”
He winked at her. “You know me so well.”
“Yes, yes,” Nyles said, irritably. “You two are soul mates. Let’s just get on with this, shall we?” Then he pushed past Ethan straight into the living room.
“My name is Nyles,” he called out in a strong, steady voice. “Just checking to see if you’re all right.”
As with the doorbell, there was no response.
“This is a bad idea,” Mara said, tiptoeing behind Dee as she stepped inside.
Dee agreed. The emptiness of the island, the silence of the house, had her on edge. “It’ll be fine,” she lied.
The house smelled musty. Like a crypt that had been closed for centuries. She inched her way in, scanning the living room as she went. It was dark inside, lit only by the bluish glow from the ever-present TV screen, which filled the living room with the Hardy Girls’ screams as it replayed their battle in the foam-filled hallway.
“I look good,” Ethan said from behind Dee. “I should go with that look more often.”
“You look like a ’roided-up dickwad,” Griselda said. She clearly hadn’t wanted to stay outside by herself, despite her dislike of Dee’s plan. “So yeah, run with it.”
Nyles led them through the dining room to the kitchen. He opened the fridge, jumping aside in the process as if there might be someone hiding inside. Ethan whipped open the utility closet, striking a martial-arts pose. But instead of discovering a masked Gassy Al with a canister of sarin gas, they discovered that the closet, like everything else on the ground floor, was empty.
“That leaves upstairs,” Dee said, staring up the darkened staircase.
Griselda swept her hand across her body, gesturing for Dee to go first. “After you.”
Dee knew the moment she set foot on the stairs that she was in the presence of death. She couldn’t have explained exactly how, though. Was it a smell? A heaviness? A premonition? Authors frequently used phrases s
uch as “death hung in the air” to describe the discovery of a murder scene, and Dee had always thumbed her nose at those clichés. Right up until she’d experienced it for herself.
Dee had known there was something wrong in Monica’s room. When you cohabitate with a person long enough, you internalize the sounds and rhythms of their everyday life, and that afternoon had been off. Weird. Different. Dee hadn’t realized when she knocked at her sister’s door, quietly calling her name, that what she’d find on the inside were lips that couldn’t speak and ears that couldn’t hear. Hell, she’d seen the body on the floor and hadn’t immediately comprehended that Monica was dead.
Afterward, Dee understood what those authors had been talking about. There was a scent Dee couldn’t shake. It clung to her clothes, to her hair, to the inside of her nostrils, and no number of showers, no amount of scented body wash or perfume, could get rid of it. It was nondescript, neither sweet nor spicy nor sour. Just heavy. Dark.
The smell of death.
And Dee caught its whiff at the top of the stairs.
“Steve’s dead.”
“What?” Mara cried.
Nyles grabbed Dee by the shoulders, pulling her away. “Where is he? What happened? Don’t look, okay?”
Dee fought the urge to laugh. She’d probably seen more death up close than Nyles had, even with his premed classes.
They found Steve in bed, on his left side facing the door, the covers pulled up over his shoulders. His body was curled into a loose fetal position as if he were sleeping, but his skin was tinged purplish gray, his chest was unmoving, and his eyes were open but unseeing.
Dee knew he wasn’t going to wake up. Ever.
It only took half an hour to check all the Barracks on Alcatraz 2.0. At first Dee and her friends went as a group, but after three or four houses they split up, searching two duplexes at a time.
The story was the same at each house, with very little variation: corpse in bed, corpse on the sofa, corpse slumped over the dining room table. All without marks on their bodies, or any clue as to how they had died. It was as if death had taken them by surprise. One guy had been in the middle of playing solitaire, another reading a library book in the easy chair by the bricked-up fireplace. Rodrigo looked as if he’d collapsed on the bathroom floor, his pants around his ankles.
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