The Loudness

by Nick Courage

  “Okay!” Tom calls. “We’re doing this thing, right?”

  Rachel and I both nod enthusiastically, feeding off of Tom’s energy as he gives us a double thumbs up, but when we start walking to the truck, I notice that she’s blinking back tears.

  “It’s . . . it’s a ghost town,” Rachel whispers, her voice soft and hollow, like she’s been running from these ghosts for so long she’s almost one of them. I turn to look at her, to make sure she’s okay, but her reddening face is already wet with tears. Like that, the mood of the morning tilts again, jarring me into full-fledged anxiety.

  “Hey,” I say, my voice high-pitched and conciliatory. “Hey . . .” Rachel’s tears cut paths of golden brown through her dirt-streaked cheeks as she stares blankly into the Other Side. Following her gaze, I see a thousand drying flags hanging limply throughout the mostly deserted zone; the flyers and posters lining the street pulped and unreadable from last night’s rain. In Tom and Rachel’s front yard, a handful of pinwheels spin lackadaisically in a sluggish breeze. When we leave—Carel and Freckles and I—it’s just going to be Tom and Rachel in this puddle of a town. Tom, Rachel, Grammy, and a bunch of Green Zone castaways hiding from the federales.

  I drape my arm around Rachel’s shoulders and pull her into a tight squeeze.

  “I just . . . we . . .” Rachel whispers, talking more to herself than to me. “We tried so hard to make this work.” I squeeze her again, so tight that she laughs despite herself. “I guess it still could. Maybe I’m just being cynical.”

  It is a ghost town, though—like the Grey. Rachel slumps against my arm. We both know it’s not just pessimism; the Other Side is dead. “Come with us,” I say, smiling hopefully and wondering why it hadn’t occurred to me earlier. “There’s room in the truck, we’ll just squeeze togeth—”

  Rachel shakes her head no, but she’s smiling again, wiping the tears from her big almond eyes with paint-flecked thumbs. “We have to try,” she says, shaky but determined. “Even if it . . . we have to fight against it—otherwise it’s just going to follow us everywhere we go.”

  I think of Mouse and my parents, of how vibrant and happy the Other Side was before the federales showed up, and know that she’s right. If Tom and Rachel can trick Grammy into joining forces by getting me out of the picture, and if Carel can somehow help free my parents and Mouse . . .

  “Just, come back, okay?” Rachel says, knuckling my chin up and kissing me dryly on the cheek. Freckles’s eyes narrow, and I pretend to need to tie my shoe so I can gracefully extricate myself from Rachel’s grasp. As I kneel down, a black jeep cruises in front of us, slowly enough for me to make uncomfortable eye contact with the blonde driver. Her face is startlingly expressionless except for her full, pale pink lips, which are twisted in a nasty sneer. Time seems to stop as we stare at each other, surprised, until she raises a two-way radio.

  “Go! Go, go!” Tom shouts, picking Freckles up beneath her arms and tossing her unceremoniously into the truck. “Rach, run!”

  Even though the blonde federale has cruised right past us and is almost a block away, we break apart like an exploding bomb. I pull myself into the cab as quickly as possible, wedging in next to Freckles on the wide front seat while Tom and Rachel sprint toward the main strip. Carel struggles with Julia-the-dog, whose massive neck flexes terrifyingly in anticipation of a chase, but he finally wrestles her into the truck as well. She scrambles across our laps until she’s crammed, drooling, against the window.

  As expected, it’s a tight fit. And Carel is a bear of a man, so when he heaves himself into the front seat—which is just one big bench upholstered in a ripped, hot plastic—we all squish that much closer together . . . except for Julia, who stretches across our laps.

  “Everyone buckled?” Carel asks, slowly—infuriatingly—strapping himself in. Freckles wrests her hands free from beneath Julia and yanks her seat belt down across her chest, but has trouble finding the matching catch in the tangle of the front seat. I feel so panicked that I don’t even try. “No driving without belt,” Carel says, snapping his own across his chest as the black jeep rounds the corner again.

  “Go!” I whisper, nudging him with my shoulder, eyes locked on the jeep and the two black cars now trailing it. “Please, go!” Carel shrugs and turns the key in the ignition . . . but nothing happens. “Old truck,” he explains, gesturing with his chin at the sun-blistered dashboard and the panel of antique dials and gauges below it. The needle for the speedometer has fallen off its pin and settled in a pile of dust, and the other indicators are similarly blasted. Carel cranks the engine again, and when it turns and then chugs to life he thumps the steering wheel and shouts, “But good!”

  As we reverse, skidding into the street, we’re confronted with three more federale jeeps idling halfway down the block in an ominous V-formation. I stop breathing for a long second, then the adrenaline kicks in. Julia, barking viciously into the window, feels it too—but Carel’s oblivious. For a big man, Carel’s short, and he has to scoot forward in the seat to see over the steering wheel. While my eyes are locked on the federales, my heart pounding in my ears, Carel takes his time getting situated, double checking his seatbelt and then casually cracking his knuckles. “Oak-ay,” he finally mumbles, shuffling his bottom forward one last inch and stomping on the gas. “Allons-y!”

  We jolt backward into a cloud of grey smoke, our heads dully thumping Tom’s boxes behind us. I look over at Freckles, who’s grinning anxiously, and wonder what face I’m making. The truck doesn’t have rearview or side mirrors, but we’re surrounded by so much oily smoke that I can clearly see my reflection in the slobber-streaked window.

  I look terrified.

  Carel, completely calm, makes some adjustments and stomps on the gas again, propelling us forward through the exhaust. Despite everything, the truck seems to have some power behind it, and I cross my fingers that it’s going to be enough for us to outrun the federales. I crane my neck, trying to glimpse them through the smoke—and see that they’re still idling in position, which makes me nervous for some reason. More nervous than if they had immediately given chase.

  I almost say something, but the truck is loud—rattling with exertion—and it doesn’t seem like Carel even cares that we’re being followed. Instead, I look anxiously at Freckles, who stares back at me with wide, expectant eyes. We’re both shaking with the effort of the truck while Julia continues to attack the window.

  “What is it, girl?” I ask, scratching her bristling haunches, careful to keep my hand well away from her slavering jaws. She either doesn’t hear me above the racket or she chooses to ignore me, because she just keeps barking, pausing occasionally to reposition her face against the glass. We’re out of the smoke now, and picking up speed—but the labored hacking of the engine is getting louder, and I peer nervously at the dashboard to see if everything’s okay . . . remembering, too late, that most of the gauges are broken.

  “Hank,” Freckles yells, grasping my hand mid-stroke and yanking me over her lap so I’m squished up against Julia, my cheek pressed wetly against the drool-streaked window. “Look!”

  Past the sparkling red hood of the truck, there are six or seven federales in black suits just milling around their cars, which are still idling in V-formation in the middle of the road. They’re all staring at us, transfixed by the stuttering truck. Carel spins the wheel and my forehead strikes the glass as the truck executes a fumbling U-turn, my eyes locking on the blonde woman from before. She sees me make note of her and waves choppily before disappearing behind our swerve. It’s a short and sinister salute—like she’s just letting me know that she knows where I am, and where I’m going.

  That she doesn’t even have to chase us.

  I fumble for the window crank on the inside of the door, but have trouble turning it with Freckles and Julia mashed against me. After some uncomfortable twisting, I’m finally able to get it open, and, craning my head out into the wind, look behind us at the shrinking federeles. Most of
them have already dispersed into the remains of the Other Side, but the blonde woman hasn’t moved.

  “They’re not going to chase us,” I say, slumping back down into the overcrowded cab. I’m basically sitting on Freckles’ lap, so she hears me over the engine and the wind, but Carel inclines his red, freshly shaved face toward me inquisitively. “They’re not following us,” I yell as Carel nods encouragingly. “They’re . . . they’re going after the ones who stayed!” Not waiting to hear his response, I lean back over Freckles and Julia and stick my head out the window again.

  As we putter away amidst Julia’s manic barks and occasional clouds of oily exhaust, more black cars screech onto Tom and Rachel’s front lawn, skidding purposefully in the wet grass as federales on foot surround the house. Despite the noise inside the truck and the rush of federales, the Other Side seems quiet—almost devoid of life. Even Tom and Rachel’s house looks dead, its wood sun-bleached and warped by rain.

  The road ahead of us is flat and straight, but I train my eyes on their house until it shrinks into the distance. First it blends into the Other Side, and then the Other Side blends into the Grey Zone. I tell myself that I’d see if the federales got anyone, that I’d at least know—but after a few minutes the entire Zone is just an ashy smudge on the horizon, and I haven’t seen anything.

  As quickly as that, we’re on our own in the middle of nowhere, jangling down an empty two-lane highway lined with tall grass and stunted pines. Every so often, a quicksilver burst catches my eye, the noonday sun reflecting off the river through the trees. I count quietly to myself between these sightings, trying to discern a rhythm, but there’s none—only the occasional heron taking harassed flight at our noisy approach and a sky so blue you’d think nothing was wrong.

  Maybe the last sky Tom and Rachel will see for a while.

  And Conor and his mom, Mrs. Wallace. Even mean Mr. Malgré, and Scott. Everyone on the Other Side—the pinwheel lady, and Greg the drummer. There were so many people packed into the party, dancing, at The Corner the other night . . . it’s hard to imagine them all hiding in hot, dusty attics, waiting for the federales to drag them to some cold northern jail.

  And all the families still hunkered down in the Green Zone, living off of stale nutraloaf behind barricaded doors and shuttered windows.

  Something tells me the construction workers are a hundred miles away by now, leaving the Zone to sink in on itself like before, beneath the river and all the unmixed concrete they left behind, with only Mr. Moonie—with his poems and secret sword—to guard it.

  Why can’t they leave us alone?

  The fresh bruise on Grammy’s arm flashes hotly through my head, and I shiver before I even realize what it is I’m seeing. No matter what she was planning, she was . . . she is my family, and my not choosing her over the Other Siders seems suddenly . . .

  Unforgivable.

  The truck abruptly stops rattling and lurches forward, picking up speed, and I feel Carel’s thick hand on my shoulder, pulling me protectively back into my seat by the nape of my hooded neck. Julia, thankfully, has stopped barking, either because the truck has quieted down or because Freckles is rubbing her thumb methodically between her big, wide-set eyes. Freckles—looking noticeably less content than Julia-the-dog—squints questioningly.

  “No one’s following us,” I say, squeezing Julia out of my seat. “They’re all . . .”

  I let the sentence hang, not wanting to think about the federales closing in on the Other Siders anymore.

  On Tom and Rachel.

  On Grammy.

  “We were wrong gear,” Carel says, breaking the silence again and smiling broadly at a shift stick hiding behind the oversized steering wheel. “Also, emergency brake!”

  He thumps the dashboard with his short, thick palms, his broad chest shaking with silent laughter. “Friends will be all right, I think. Always, our friends are all right. But now,” Carel pulls his shoulder strap away from his body and then lets it slap resoundingly against his generous stomach. “Buckles.”

  I settle back into my narrow wedge of seat and fasten my belt.

  “No belt for dog,” Carel says with noticeable regret.

  Feeling my legs start to sweat beneath all my borrowed clothes—the oversized black hoodie and the matching black jeans—I finger the address in my pocket, wondering how we’re going to make it all the way to the City like this. Outside, the river stretches ahead of us, wild and muddy and free, running unrelentingly toward the dam—the dam that was supposed to save us but brought federales instead. I hope the river crushes it, destroys it like everything else it’s destroyed in the Green Zone. It was bad enough when the dam was just messing with my heart, but now . . .

  The adrenalin rush from the escape has run out, replaced by a full-body ache and a dull apprehension of the days to come. It’s just me and Carel and Freckles from here on out—I know that. I look over my left shoulder at Carel, who’s rubbing the stubble on his upper lip where his mustache used to live, and then at Freckles, who’s wrapped around Julia, who’s sleeping heavily in her lap.

  If my parents are going to escape, it’s going to have to be us who get them out.

  There’s no one else left.

  It’s still light when I wake up, but barely; the sun’s hovering noncommittally in a way that could mean either dusk or dawn. Rubbing a crick out of my neck, I try to piece together how long I’ve been out, if I slept through a night of driving or just for a few minutes. The scenery doesn’t hold any clues; it’s just more wet pines, more glimpses of the river.

  One thing’s certain: I slept with my head mashed awkwardly against my own bony shoulder, and now the left side of my neck is so sore that I can barely turn to look at Freckles.

  The fading light and shade of tree branches overhead play across her face so quickly that it almost makes me dizzy to look at her, anyway. It’s funny—I’m so used to being around Freckles now that I don’t even really notice her freckles. I have to refocus my eyes to see them: a light dusting of cinnamon across her nose and glistening, heat-pink cheeks.

  The air is warm and stale in the car, and despite the passenger window being open, I find it suddenly difficult to breathe. After a few stifling moments I reach a breaking point and—whispering, so as not to wake Freckles—ask Carel if he’d mind rolling down his side as well. I shouldn’t have bothered with whispering: if the high-pitched squeal of his ancient window crank miraculously didn’t wake her, the hot and ripping cross-breeze from both sides of the truck would.

  Julia-the-dog twitches in Freckles’s black-sweatshirted arms, her muscular legs kicking sleepily against my thighs as Freckles reluctantly stretches awake. She yawns widely, her eyes still squeezed shut, as I instinctively scratch Julia’s taut white belly.

  “Where are we?”

  “What?” Carel shouts, unable to hear her over the wind. I start to repeat the question, but the squeal of the crank drowns me out as Freckles rolls her window almost all the way up. I feel Carel looking inquisitively at me, but my neck spasms when I turn my head to meet his gaze, so I just keep my eyes forward, on the road, and wish he’d do the same.

  “Good,” Carel says, noisily rolling up his window again. The cab of the truck is instantly sweltering. “Everyone awake, everything quiet. Time for to talk.” A bead of hot sweat rolls down my neck into my shirt. The black asphalt road stretches hotly in front of us, oil-slick mirages melting into the quickly darkening sky.

  It’s going to be an uncomfortable night.

  Carel shifts beside me, and I brace myself as the truck slows down and swerves, bumping carelessly onto the shoulder of the highway and back. Freckles stares past me with an expression of mute horror: Carel’s twisting on his seat, rifling through the boxes in the back of the cab.

  “First,” he says, falling heavily back into the driver’s seat and taking control of the drifting truck. “Dinner.”

  Carel rustles around in what sounds like a paper sack, and my mouth waters in anticipation, h
unger from the missed pancake breakfast trumping my fear of his hands-free driving. Even as the truck changes lanes of its own accord—driverless again—I fantasize about what he’s going to pull out: thick slices of white cheese on hunks of freshly baked bread, spicy mustard and heirloom tomatoes. Or, even better . . . fist-sized, flaking biscuits slathered in apple butter, warm black coffee in a thermos to wash them down.

  I wipe the sweat from my brow with the back of my hand as my stomach turns on itself, thanking fate for giving me Carel instead of Mr. Malgré, or Guv, or anyone else from the Zone. He might not be the hero I had hoped for—he’s barely keeping the truck on this empty road—but if this had to happen, I think, looking at Freckle’s expectant face, I’m glad I’m with someone who can cook, and someone . . .

  Someone I kissed.

  With everything moving so fast, I haven’t had time to really think about what happened with Freckles on the back porch of Tom and Rachel’s house before the federales came. She’s staring at me like she’s been thinking about it, though—like she’s been waiting to catch my eye. When she does, she squeezes my knee and smiles. My heart starts beating double time and my face goes red, but it suddenly feels like everything’s all right again; like everyone’s going to make it out of this, after all.

  “Radish,” Carel says gruffly, saving me from any possible awkwardness with Freckles by smacking my chest with a heavy bunch of wet greens. They fall into my lap—leafy stems connected to oversized red radishes still muddy from the ground they grew in. “You three share,” he adds. “No time to cook, but Julia prefers raw.”

  I squint at Freckles, too shocked by our unexpectedly meager supper to be disappointed, but she’s still in middle of the moment I thought Carel had wrecked, and we resume staring at each other. Her waving hair parts perfectly, despite the sweat and the heat, as her surprisingly long, delicate fingers scratch dust out of Julia-the-dog’s bristly chest. Transfixed, I can’t believe that someone as graceful as Freckles would want to kiss someone like me. That she might want to again.