by C. G. Watson
“Ready,” Bruise says.
Everybody’s green.
Then, quiet as can be, Bruise whispers, “Let’s do this.”
As I hit Tunnel 6, the mobs shout and pounce.
Everybody starts yelling.
“Where am I supposed to get seven hundred dollars from?”
I tune him out as mobs, both bug and human, charge me. One pops me pretty bad, but Militiababe’s on it, healing me as I aim for the next few tunnels, only goddamn it—I just can’t get past this one!
Stupid computer. Jesus, why am I so slow?
Oh, right, cuz the old man’s a cheap bastard who only springs for the slowest possible Internet connection, then sucks up all the bandwidth himself watching 24-7 crap on our one-and-only TV.
“You’re struggling, man,” Cam says.
I click like fury. Bars are evaporating to nothing as people crash under the weight of the mobs.
Chinook helicopters roar into view, each bearing the mark of the roach on the side. They fire at the troops below.
“Out of time, T,” Bruise yells. “Get it done. Get it effing done, man!”
But I can’t. T-Man’s losing green like he’s bleeding it straight out. Damn!
Outside my room, the old man pushes the volume dial, pierces straight through the chaos of the game.
“What do you mean, he gave you a raise? When did that happen?”
Jesus. I’m dying here. Someone needs to throw some heals, fast.
“What’d you have to do, sleep with the guy?”
“At least I’m doing something.”
We all stop breathing for a beat, turn toward the door.
Her words nearly flay the skin off my bones. Not her words. Her voice. Out loud, in this house, aimed at him.
Fifteen hundred and eighty-six days now of listening to him rant, and she’s never talked back to him.
“T-Man!”
I shock-drift back to the screen. Militia’s sinking to her knees. She fires one last oh-shit heal at me. I grab the mouse, hulk back up, and bash my way through a cluster of mobs to the last tunnel. Last one!
Only, at that exact moment, the stink of truck exhaust drags my attention out the open bedroom window.
I pull down the headset, lean forward, watch in confusion as Stan the Bug Man painstakingly backs his small utility truck down the drive, opens the door, steps out. What the fresh hell? It’s Saturday. Stan never works on Saturdays.
The crunch of gravel echoes under Stan’s steel-toed boots and the screaming, shattering, twisting whir of full-on cataclysmic assault comes at me right through the headset draped around my neck as I watch Stan approach the house, as I notice there are no canisters or equipment in the back of his truck, as his boots fall flat and hollow on the two wooden steps up to the front door, where he now stands in his gray Dickies even though it’s fucking Saturday and I know for sure he’s not here to spray.
My face goes numb as flames dot the mini-map on-screen, and battle cries rain down through the headset.
“T-Man!” shouts Militiababe.
Then Bruise. “Where the hell’d you go? We’re gonna wipe, man!”
Somebody’s swearing in French, and German, too.
I stare through the window at Stan’s piss-yellow truck with the four-foot-long fiberglass cockroach perched on top. The stink of my own sweat snaps me out of my daze.
“Stay the hell away from her!” Stan calls out.
Haze gets up off the bed, lifts the tattered curtain aside. “Tosh, man . . . your folks . . .”
The dull throb of ongoing warfare pulses against my chest.
I turn, focus in on the monitor, tighten my gaze on the map. Mortars and machine-gun fire are still exploding up and down the empty highway, the words “The end is near!” keep popping up on-screen all around the dying raiders. No heals or rezzes left. I’m a jump from the tunnel with no green left to give, and there’s massive mobs waiting for me.
I have nothing left.
The old man’s threats have brought the neighbors to their windows, and my mom . . . my mom screams back this time, for real.
Cam’s yelling too, yelling at me to stay in the raid, and I want to, but I keep checking out the window because Stan is loading a bunch of our stuff into his truck: table, chairs, mantel clock, all back where his canisters of poison should be.
“T-Man!” Militiababe calls out. “Get in there. Come on!”
I quick cut my gaze to the Boneyard, the map filling up with a fog so dense, it congeals inside my head.
“Tosh!” Cam barks, reaching for the mouse.
I wave him off, but the shouting out in the front yard rages to new volumes. I lean toward the window, watch as the old man ramrods into Stan, sending him ass over teakettle down the steps. The lamp in his hand shatters into a burgundy mosaic across the walkway, and as he hits the ground, a piece of it jams into the flat of his palm. Blood pumps out fast and wet onto the gravel.
Cam’s in front of the computer, freaking out. “Tosh, you can still get to the tunnel, man!”
I turn back just in time to see Bruise die, taken out by a hairy-legged roach mob firing mortar rounds from a truck.
Militiababe’s quiet now. She tried to save my stupid ass with good heals, and now I’ve totally let her down.
“Shit . . .”
“You got her killed,” Cam says. “You got them all killed. It’s a wipe. Total fail, man.”
I throw the headset at Cam without looking, press in next to Haze at the window. Through the sickening yellow tint of the goggles, I watch my mom help Stan to his feet. She’s soft with him. Soft in a way she hasn’t been with any of us, at least not since the accident.
I catch her eye through the window. The pain on her face hits me like a backhanded blow from the old man.
“What the hell is his problem?” someone shouts over the headset in Cam’s hand. “Why isn’t he moving?”
Cam lunges at the computer, grabs the mouse. “Tosh! You’re still standing. How do I launch? How do I tag the tunnel?”
My mom follows Stan to the truck.
The numbness spreads from my face into my whole entire body.
Something’s off. This isn’t her typical reboot, like when she gets in her old junker for an hour-long drive around.
Cam’s clicking the mouse like crazy. “Jesus, Tosh, this raid isn’t over, man.”
I drag my gaze from the window to the computer screen, where minion soldiers come spilling out of the tunnels, flooding the abandoned highway. They’re everywhere.
Everywhere.
Two truck doors slam shut, one right after the other.
I rip the earbud out of my ear, tear down the hallway, out the door, down the steps. Haze and Cam are on my heels.
“Tosh, wait!”
“Tosh . . . the game!”
I run. Fast. Faster than I’ve ever run before in my entire life. I smell the chemicals leaching out of Stan’s truck, the exhaust fumes, four years of dust blowing off our furniture as they drive away.
I can’t breathe.
Haze catches up to me first but doesn’t say anything. Just stands there watching me watch the truck get smaller and farther away.
Cam is panting by the time he hits my side.
“The Boneyard,” he huffs.
I spin around, the street echoing frame by frame through those yellow lenses as I turn.
“Everyone’s dead,” Cam says, breathless. “The raid’s down in flames. Total fucking wipe, man. They’ll never take you with them again, Tosh. Never.”
He’s right.
It’s over.
I’m an absolute fail.
1.5
In the past few weeks alone, I’ve logged over three hundred hours in the Boneyard.
The goggles really do help.
2
“Caleb!”
Everything the old man says these days has an exclamation point attached.
He shoves his sweaty, unshaved face into my bedroom.
> “I’m goin’ down to Goodwill, get us a couch. Watch your brother for me.”
Watch my brother for him. Right. Must be a day ending in Y.
He starts to leave, then doubles back.
“There’s some boxes in the living room I want you to go through. Keep what you want. Put the rest on the curb.”
He leaves my door open, pivoting on the worn-down heel of his boot. I turn back to the game, go back to looking for Militiababe. She’s so badass, I want her in my platoon.
“Caleb!”
I jump at the cut of his voice.
“What?”
He’s back in my room. Has that dark fog across his face that says he’s got rage lurking.
“Get off your ass, get rid of those ridiculous glasses, and go do what I said!”
I wait till I hear the front door slam shut before coming out of my room. The old man’s got Devin parked in front of a TV show about hot chicks addicted to venomous snakes.
“He shouldn’t be letting you watch that,” I say, grabbing the remote. “That’s the stupidest premise for a show ever.”
Devin rocks back and forth, and I smooth the front of his hair real quick. That always settles him down.
I look around for the boxes the old man mentioned, and through the yellow tint of Cam’s gamer specs, I spot them. Three cardboard boxes, stuck halfway behind the TV, all marked TOSS.
My gut tightens. Anything my mom didn’t take, the old man’s fixing to get rid of. For all I know, he brought some of it with him to Goodwill so he could trade it in on a couch. I slide the boxes toward me as a nervous sweat fogs up the inside of the lenses.
Whatever’s in here is all there is.
I push the glasses up since I can’t see through the fog anyway, rip the top open on the first one, and start digging my way through the chaos of hair clips; an old apron; a cookbook that once belonged to my grandmother; unopened pack of shoelaces; tubes of half-used lipstick even though I’ve never seen my mom wear any since the old man thinks it’s too fancy; bunch of old rubber bands that are mostly cracked or broken; massive collection of pens and pencils, most dried out and unusable.
And there. At the bottom. A pack of chewing gum.
Except that Amy Tosh doesn’t chew gum.
She says the mint makes her stomach sour.
My hands sweat-shake as I lift the flap, as I squeeze the sides to get them to pop out a little, as I pull out the scrap of paper, folded into a small triangle, just like the notes she used to slip into my lunch when I was a kid. Good luck on your spelling test today, Caleb!
I turn it over, look at both sides to make sure I’m not missing something on the short, cryptic list.
learn to fly
fly away
Around the edges are a bunch of scrawled, random phrases: big city, get lucky, regret, somewhere spiritual, sneak in, turn back clock, take me away.
That’s it. No header, no title, no explanation.
I stare at it, wondering what question these words are the answer to. My heart’s hitting the side of my rib cage so hard, it feels like something’s about to shatter inside me.
Devin starts banging on the tray part of his chair. I look over at him, watch a thread of drool stretch from the corner of his mouth toward his curled-up hand. A hand that used to sock me in the arm just for walking by. That used to muss up my shaggy hair, then smooth down his own perfectly executed side-sweep. That used to fish all the cheese curls out of my bag of snack mix, even knowing how bad it would piss me off.
I crawl over to his chair. Collapse next to it. Wrap my arms around the wheel as my gaze drifts unanchored through the room.
My phone buzzes at me from my back pocket. I run my dirty fingernails through my matted hair, pull the phone out, open the app.
The sky will fall and death will beat its wings against the ground.
I’m still tripping over the bizarre text when a gruesome close-up picture of a cockroach comes through.
Shit! I pop it off as hard as I can, watch as it slo-mo fumbles to the ground.
How the hell did a cockroach get into my phone—how does that even happen? Is Commandant Turk menacing me, trying to throw me off the game? Pretty effective strategy, if that’s the case.
I try to shake the image out of my head, only now that I’ve seen it, I can’t unsee it. Not the words, not the cockroach picture that came attached—it’s all burned into my brain.
I pick up the phone, mash the buttons looking for the photo so I can at least freakin’ delete it.
But it’s already gone. The cockroach is gone.
Devin bangs harder and louder for his sippy cup. I try to stand, but my legs wobble underneath me, and I can’t use my hands because I’ve got a viselike grip on my phone in one and a viselike grip on my mom’s list in the other. I’m crazy-shaking as I cram everything into my pockets, as I stagger to my feet, as I stumble out of the living room.
Only, there in the entryway, I spot Devin’s skateboard propped against the wall by the door where it’s been leaning, untouched, for the last four years. The breath vapor locks inside me. If I hadn’t been such a dick to him that day, he’d be out skating right now, and I’d be giving him shit for his crappy taste in music.
Everything would still be normal.
No wheelchair.
No fifteen hundred and eighty-seven fights.
No bug truck, hauling her out of here like a piece of used furniture.
My whole life, reset back to default mode.
By the time I reach the kitchen, the tears are shudder-sobbing through every hollow inch of my body.
I fumble in the dark for the light switch, hit it.
The wallpaper goes supernova.
Cockroaches.
Everywhere.
They’re shooting out of the cracks in the walls, out of holes in the windowsills, out of rips in the wallpaper. I try to rake them out of my hair, scratch them out from under my skin, but they keep coming and coming, amassing along the empty highway, blockading the entrance to the tunnels. Every single one of them is scatting out the words “the end is here,” just like that day in the Boneyard. Only this time, it’s my survival bar that’s depleting.
The chirr of trillions of roaches floods my ears, and I throw my arms over my head to block out the sound as I sink to the floor.
2.5
Militiababe wore an odd kind of mask that covered the lower half of her face but not her eyes. You’d think that would make it easier to find her. Not in reality, of course. In reality, Militiababe could look like pretty much anything.
But I’m still hoping to come across her again in-game.
A girl in a half mask can’t just disappear. Can she?
3
A shard of blistering sunlight hits me straight through my closed eyelids.
I wake up groggy, all crust and confusion, with no memory of what happened last night. Did the old man put me to bed? I’m usually the one who takes care of him at night. That’s the ritual: brush my teeth, put on my least-dirty T-shirt, scoop up the dozen or so empties from around the couch, and leave a light on in the kitchen so he doesn’t break his fucking neck in case he decides at some point to get up and go to his room.
I roll over, still hazy, pick some of the junk out of my eyes, get them to focus just in time to see the cockroach scurry across my pillow.
I hit the wall in a flash.
My gaze ricochets uncontrollably around the room until I spot the computer on. The Boneyard’s up and running even though I always make sure the Relic gets shut down at night. I squint at the screen, at the highway map teeming with UnderWorld mobs, turn back to the cockroach on my pillow that’s waving its antennae at me like a middle finger.
I don’t know how he found me, or how he got into my room from the Boneyard. But I have to kill him. I have to get him and kill him before he brings the rest of Turk’s army back here and all hell breaks loose.
I scramble back to the bed, flick the little bastard onto the floor.
Its hairy legs flail in the air for a second or two before it flips over and beelines up the wall. I quick grab a sneaker and start smashing the holy hell out of it for two full minutes. The crunching exoskeleton makes my stomach roil, but I ignore it. You have to go full tilt to kill a cockroach. They’re virtually indestructible, and I want this one ten kinds of dead.
I grunt and swing and finally my arm falls limp at my sides while I stand there panting. The roach is nothing more than a splotch of brown pigment and yellow gut paint now, and I sink to my knees, fighting to catch my breath. I use a dirty sock off the floor to wipe sweat and tears and snot from my face.
My red-rimmed gaze drifts over to the door, and suddenly it hits me.
All that pounding.
All that smashing against the foam-board walls of this trailer . . . and the old man hasn’t come in to yell at me for it.
• • •
I stumble out of my bedroom in a daze, down the hall, into the living room, where the TV’s on but no one’s watching it. I stop, blink in disbelief around the empty room, at the spot on the couch where the old man should be parked in front of the TV but isn’t.
Waves of blue-gray light pulse at me from the mute screen, and I take one guarded step after another toward it, kneel gape-mouthed on the floor. The events unfolding on-screen slowly register in my head, and before I know it, the trailer feels like it’s missing a wheel, like everything’s slanting to one side.
I grab the remote off the TV table, unmute it, change the channel again and again, but every station it’s the same thing. Even the sports and cooking shows have crawlers across the bottom.
MASSIVE BIRD DIE-OFF IN OHIO. EXPERTS BAFFLED.
I tumble backward, sink onto the floor, keep watching, listening.
“Scientists are baffled by a massive bird die-off discovered early this morning at an amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio.” The anchorwoman smiles as she says it. There’s something absolutely skeletal about her toothy grin.
The shot cuts over to video footage taken down at Goofy Golf. The mini-golf course, the go-kart track, even the bumper-boat pool, all littered with bird carcasses.