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The soldiers made a final sweep of the area—in and out of the barn, up into the brush, down through the river—and returned with a few more terrified kids.
And then they left, the buses in a tight convoy surrounded by Humvees.
And Jack was all by himself.
He stumbled to his knees and puked over the edge of the truck’s bed, his whole body shaking.
What had he just seen? That was the homecoming dance—that was everybody he knew, all gone. When did teenagers at a dance become criminals?
No, not criminals. Police handle criminals. The army fights enemies.
A bunch of boys in hand-me-down suits and girls in skimpy dresses were enemies of America?
What was that thing, that monster? That must have been why the army was there. But then why did they take all the others away? Was the army protecting them or arresting them?
Jack didn’t dare drive his truck to the barn—he didn’t want any lights to make him a target—but he made the decision to hike down the grassy hill.
He moved slowly, instinctively using the slow, toe-to-heel footsteps he’d been taught over a lifetime of hunting deer and elk. The dark felt claustrophobic and heavy, like the night air was wrapping around him, crushing his chest. His breathing was rapid, even though he was hardly moving a mile per hour, and his heart raced.
When he got to the end of the brush, he stopped. The barn was wide open, the lights still on and crepe paper and balloons still adorning the doors.
A paper sign with the painted words “Hawks Forever” hung just inside the barn.
There were bullet holes in the sign.
Now that he was looking for them, he could see the holes everywhere, tiny dots of light punched through the wooden walls of the barn.
No one was here. The teachers were gone, and the DJ, and the local cops. Everyone had been taken.
It was a good thing he didn’t have a date, Jack thought, and then began laughing until his laughs turned to sobs and he fell to his knees. What had happened here? What was happening to the world?
What would happen tomorrow?
He wiped his face, ashamed of himself even though there was no one to see him cry, and stood. Quietly, he crossed the lawn and entered the parking lot.
The asphalt was littered with shell casings. Dozens. Hundreds.
He kept moving out to the street, to the two craters blown into the roadbed. They looked like large potholes, only more violent, with grapefruit-sized hunks of asphalt scattered in all directions.
There was blood. In the darkness he might have mistaken it for spilled motor oil, but he’d seen where the gorilla kid had lain—where he’d died.
Jack turned away, feeling the nausea welling up inside of him again.
And then he saw her. A flash of blue and brown—a dress—entering the building.
He paused, frozen for a moment, frozen because everything felt dangerous. But it was just a girl. Someone the army had missed.
Jack hurried to the barn, his eyes darting back and forth between the door and the ground—he didn’t want to step on any shells and scare her. He wanted answers, and maybe this girl would have some.
He stopped at the entrance, his stomach in his throat.
He peeked inside.
The girl sat at one of the round tables near the door, facing away from him. Her dress, blue and long, was covered in a layer of dark brown mud, and scratches up the back had torn and frayed the material. Her hair and neck were just as filthy. A long red scrape ran up her shoulder and under her dripping brunette hair.
She wasn’t wearing any shoes.
She looked exhausted, her forearms resting on the table and her head hanging down. Jack guessed she must be in shock—one of the few who’d seen what happened but managed to stay hidden.
He wondered if he should say something, but was afraid she’d panic. Instead, he stepped inside the barn and began walking in a wide circle around her, staying far enough away to be non-threatening until he was in her view.
Her eyes were closed.
Aubrey.
He wondered how he hadn’t recognized her before, but he wasn’t used to seeing her in anything approaching a dress like this. The only times she ever wore a dress were to church, and for years those had just been the same floral prints she’d bought at his parents’ thrift shop.
“Hey,” Jack said, trying to sound as calm as possible.
Her head popped up, eyes open and terrified. They settled on Jack. She stared for just a few seconds and then bent over again.
Even now, after all that had happened, she didn’t want to see him. What had he ever done to her?
“You okay?” he asked, a slight harshness to his voice.
Aubrey lifted her head, but didn’t really make eye contact. Instead she gestured around the room at the destroyed decorations and spilled food. She pulled out the chair beside her, and Jack thought she was offering it to him until he saw the two bullet holes punched through the back.
“Do I look okay?” she said. “Is any of this okay?”
Jack came over anyway, staring at the sharp, torn metal edges of the folding chair.
“How did you get away?”
She pointed to her dress and then shook her head, plainly upset with herself. “I ran and fell in the river, like an idiot. ”
“Better than being out here,” he said, sticking a finger through one of the jagged bullet holes.
He tried to imagine what she would have looked like if she hadn’t been filthy with mud, if her makeup and hair weren’t soaked.
She probably would have looked like one of Nicole’s Barbie-doll clones, he thought. This wasn’t the same Aubrey Parsons he used to know and—well, it wasn’t the same Aubrey Parsons he used to know.
Jack sat down across from her. “Do you know what happened?”
She shook her head. “I know what I saw, but I have no idea what it was. ”
“What did you see?”
“I saw Nate Butler turn into some kind of monster—like he was made out of rock, like in a movie. ”
“That was Nate?”
“You saw it?” She looked surprised.
“Yeah,” Jack said. He held up keys to the barn—keys he didn’t need, since it was left wide open. “I was waiting for the dance to be over so I could clean the place up. ”
“Then you know what happened. ”
“I guess. ”
She looked so different. Even filthy, she was a different person than the one he’d known. Aubrey Parsons should have been wearing a T-shirt and jeans, not a strapless dress.
He stood, then walked to a small alcove by the front entrance. Rows of hangers held jackets and shawls—no one had been able to gather their belongings before being forced outside. He pulled out one of the boys’ coats—thick, sheepskin, exactly like one Jack had always wanted. He then rooted around in the bags left on the floor below, digging through leftover decorations and extra boxes of cookies before he found a pair of girls’ sneakers. Finally, he grabbed one of the shawls.
Jack took the clothes to Aubrey. “Here. ”
She picked up the shawl and wrapped it around her shoulders.
“No,” he said. “Use that as a towel. Wear the coat. ”
Aubrey paused, then did as he’d instructed, whispering, “Thank you. ”
SIX
AUBREY WAS FREEZING. THE SHAWL wasn’t much of a towel—it hardly absorbed anything—but she was glad to wipe the mud from her face. As embarrassing as it was to be seen like this, she was glad it was only Jack, not one of her new friends. Jack had grown up with her in the hills around Mount Pleasant—he’d seen her much messier.
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