I could hardly get my vocal cords to work, and when they did, I forced out one croaky word: “Pressure.”
All the symbols flew away except for a circular icon blinking a few feet off the middle of the face mask like the tip of a rhino horn. Sucking for breath, I smacked the virtual icon with the heel of my hand. It must’ve looked like I was giving a high five to an invisible friend.
Air hissed out vents in the sides of the helmet, thin jets of steam slicing my peripheral vision. The pressure relented. I yanked on the helmet with both hands, but still it wouldn’t give. The hissing kept on, and a moment later I could finally snatch in my first breath.
I fought the helmet off and barfed on the tile.
Eve rubbed her head. Alex untangled herself from a chair. Sprawled on the floor, Dr. Chatterjee readjusted his leg braces.
Patrick sat up. “Okay,” he said. “That went well.”
ENTRY 15
That night I slept like I’d never slept. No dreams, no nightmares, just a twelve-hour block of dense darkness. When I came to on my cot, the gym was lit up with full daylight and the others were busy with their tasks. I couldn’t believe that all that light and noise hadn’t woken me.
Patrick’s and Alex’s cots were empty. Alex’s sheets were strewn and rumpled, but Patrick’s bed was made as tight as a marine’s.
I stretched, inventorying my aches and pains. The good thing about getting up late was that there wouldn’t be a line for the bathroom. I stumbled to the boys’ locker room and peeled off the oatmeal bandage. It had done the trick—the swelling was pretty much gone. Only the faintest outline of the Hatchling’s hand remained. I tossed the sticky strips of fabric into the trash and took a two-minute ice-cold shower. The water pipes still worked fine for now, but we often kept the generator off, saving the power for emergencies. Which meant no hot water.
I dried off, dressed, and headed to the cafeteria, passing a few lookouts in various classroom windows. Others on cleaning duty mopped the floors. It was comforting to see the kids working in shifts, minding a schedule. The Hatchlings might be beserking through Stark Peak right now, but at least we still had our little survival routines here at Creek’s Cause High. Despite the perimeter fence, we kept lookouts posted 24/7. So far the Hosts had made no effort to penetrate the school, but after seeing a few of them map the interiors of houses yesterday, I was nervous that they’d change whatever passed for their minds.
The cafeteria offered slim pickings. I had a brown apple, an energy bar, a scoop of crunchy spaghetti, and a glass of water. While I chewed a mushy bite of apple, Leonora Rose smiled at me sympathetically from the next table.
Even though she was closer to Patrick in age, she and I had always been better friends. One of my first memories was of her at four years old pushing me in a stroller, wearing her mom’s shoes, the high heels clopping up the sidewalk. How eager we’d been to grow up. Now the kids counted every new morning with dread; each day brought them twenty-four hours closer to their eighteenth birthday. In the meantime we did our best to ignore the trickling hourglass and get by.
Leonora said, “We’re running low on food. Ben says we’re gonna have to do a supply run to the Piggly Wiggly soon.”
“What does Chatterjee say?” I asked.
She shrugged. One side of her straw-colored hair had been braided into a neat pigtail, but the other was loose and wild. I wondered if she’d been unable to find another hair tie or if she’d just given up. One of her front teeth was now inexplicably gray.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t ask him.”
The implications of that were troubling.
She picked mold from a piece of bread. “Not that it matters anyway,” she said. “At least to me.”
And I remembered: Her eighteenth birthday was the next one up. A familiar sinking feeling took hold inside me, the sensation of falling and falling.
“When?”
She gave a wan smile. “Tonight. At 10:03.”
I felt my cheeks get hot, emotion rushing into my face. No matter how often we confronted it, it was impossible to get used to.
“It’s okay, Chance,” she said, getting up abruptly to clear her tray. “Really. It’s just how it is now.”
Though I’d lost my appetite, I forced myself to chew the rest of the apple. Then I went back to the gym. Alex was there now, her hair taken up in the back. She was practicing swings with her hockey stick. She didn’t use a puck—that would make too much noise. She wound up and sliced the blade of her stick an inch above the polished floorboards again and again. Her jaw was set in a firm line, her eyes focused—the don’t-bother-me-I’m-practicing face.
Except now she wasn’t practicing for hockey.
Patrick was on the bleachers. I walked over and sat down next to him.
He knocked my knee with his.
I knocked his with mine.
We watched Alex swing and swing.
“I’d hate to make her mad,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. “I don’t recommend it.”
I smiled.
“Leonora’s up next.” I nodded toward the dry-erase board that Dr. Chatterjee had positioned at the edge of the basketball court. It had all of our birthdays and times of birth listed in order.
“I’d noticed that,” Patrick said.
My eyes found Alex’s birthday there, a couple up from the bottom. Less than two months away. She’d been a New Year’s baby. That had once been something cool about her, something to celebrate. It was as if fate had reserved the start of the New Year for her to make her even more special.
Now it was something to dread.
I glanced over at Patrick and saw him looking at the board also, and I knew he was focused on Alex’s name up there, too. His eyes were shadowed beneath the brim of his cowboy hat, his mouth a firm line. He was someone who liked solving problems, but right now there was nothing that could be solved.
I changed the subject. “You got my notebook?”
“I slid it under your mattress this morning,” he said. “You were out cold. So I drew a flower on your cheek with Magic Marker.”
My hand flew to my face. “Really?”
He tapped my spread hand so my palm smacked into my cheek. “No.”
I punched his arm. It was like punching a steel pipe. I didn’t shake my throbbing knuckles, though, no matter how bad I wanted to.
“Dr. Chatterjee and I hid the Rebel helmet in my backpack and locked it in his classroom,” Patrick said, all business again. “The last thing we need is anyone else finding that thing.”
“I think I can figure out the controls. I’ll try it again tonight after everyone goes to sleep.”
“We’ll see,” Patrick said.
“I’m not asking permission,” I said.
He looked out at me from beneath the Stetson. The brim gave the faintest dip. I took it as a nod.
Down below, Alex had finally set aside her hockey stick and headed for the TV she kept on the lowest bleacher. Ben was in his usual spot on a folding chair over by the double doors. He was watching Alex, too, with this flat, expressionless stare that made me think of what he’d look like with twin tunnels through his head instead of eyes.
Alex noticed him as well. “Did you check the TV when we were gone?” she asked.
“No one checks the TV,” Ben said. “Except you.”
If his grin could talk, it would’ve said, Silly girl.
Early on, Alex had scrounged up the crappy little TV with rabbit ears from the teachers’ lounge and plugged it into a twelve-volt battery with an outlet. Even after all the channels had gone dark, she still checked them religiously.
She turned it on now and flipped the dials. Her usual ritual.
She did it often enough that everyone pretty much ignored it.
The screen buzzed with nothingness.
“It breaks my heart when she does that,” Patrick said quietly. “But then I think it would break my heart if she stopped doing it.”
As far as I know, it’s the only active historical record left on Earth.
If you think about it, that’s pretty cool. But if you think about it longer, it’s terrifying.
I read to where I left off. Closed my eyes. Put myself back there.
And then I wrote.
I wake up in the perfect darkness of Uncle Jim and Aunt Sue-Anne’s ranch house, and there’s a split second where everything is fine. I’m six years old, and life is good. And then I remember.
My parents are dead.
ENTRY 16
After a lookout shift and something resembling dinner, I found JoJo and Rocky on the bleachers, and we played twenty questions.
“Is it bigger than a hippo?” JoJo asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Is it bigger than a lizard?” she asked.
Rocky groaned. “If it’s bigger than a hippo, it’s bigger than a lizard.”
“Not if it’s Godzilla,” she said.
“Godzilla is a fictional lizard.”
“Who said we weren’t including fictional animals?”
“Because you just don’t.” Rocky shook his head, his dark, curly bangs swaying. “Right, Chance?”
“Is that one of your questions?” I asked.
“No,” he said at the same time JoJo said, “Yes.”
“No,” I said.
Rocky said, “‘No’ you don’t include fictional animals or ‘No’ you do include them?”
“Is that another of your questions?”
Rocky smacked his forehead in mock despair. JoJo giggled.
“No!” Rocky said just as JoJo said, “Yes!”
“I do include fictional animals,” I said. “And you’re down to your last question.”
“But that’s stupid,” Rocky said. “If fictional animals count, then you could include anything. It could be a flying elephant.”
“Dumbo!” JoJo said.
“That’s correct,” I said. “I was thinking of Dumbo.”
“No way,” Rocky said.
“Yes way. I swear.”
JoJo said to Rocky, “I told you I know what I’m doing. There’s a technique.”
“It’s not technique.” Rocky glared at his younger sister. “It’s the luckiest guess in the history of the known universe.”
“You’re just mad that I’m indrewitive.”
“You are indrewitive, Junebug,” I said, mussing her already mussed hair. My palm came away sticky. “When’s the last time you showered?”
Before she could answer, I heard a throat clear behind me. When I turned, Leonora was standing there. I stood up quickly.
Everyone was watching her.
That’s what happens when you get close to your time.
She plucked at her fingers with her other hand. “Look, Chance. I only have a couple of hours.” A nervous laugh escaped her, a high-pitched twitter that held no humor. “And I … I want it to be you.”
We had the attention of everyone in the gym. Patrick’s cot creaked as he stood up. Ben sidled over from the doors.
“Um, why do you want…? Are you sure you…?” I realized I was stammering, so I closed my mouth.
Ben rested his hand on the butt of the stun gun he’d used many a time at his dad’s slaughterhouse and many a time since then. “I can handle it,” he said. “I know what I’m doing. It’ll be the easiest. The most humane.”
“No,” Leonora said. “I want it to be Chance.” She took a step forward. That one crazy pigtail still stuck out at the side. “You were like a little cousin to me growing up. You know me better than anyone … left.” A tear clung to her bottom eyelid. “So I guess that makes me closest to you.”
I couldn’t talk, so I just nodded. She gave me a businesslike nod in return and walked away.
Dread gathered in my gut, building itself up over the next few hours. I paced around the gym with my head lowered, counting the floorboards. Eve asked me if I wanted to talk, but I just shook my head. As the time drew near, I walked over to Patrick on his cot.
“You know where Leonora is?” I asked.
“She wanted it to happen in the art studio. Alex is with her.”
“Okay.” I nodded several times too many. “Okay.”
Patrick stood up. “Want me to go with you?”
“Yes,” I said quickly.
We walked over to Ben, who was sitting in his chair by the gym doors.
“Can I borrow your stun gun?” I asked.
For once Ben didn’t make a crack. “Of course,” he said, handing it over. He touched my arm as I walked past. “Good luck.”
Patrick and I headed through the dark halls toward the art studio. I was breathing too fast, my chest jerking. My hand was sweating on the stun gun.
Patrick glanced over at me. “You got this?”
“What if I can’t do it?” I said.
“You can,” Patrick said.
“I don’t want to mess this up for her,” I said. “I don’t want her to feel not taken care of in her last minutes.”
“She won’t,” Patrick said. “I promise you that.”
We turned the corner into the art room. Leonora was sitting in a chair, and Alex was behind her with a brush, working out the tangles in her hair.
Leonora managed to produce a smile. “Hi, guys. Thanks for coming.”
Like it was a birthday party.
I guess in one sense it was.
My eyes jerked to the clock, which showed 9:59. Four more minutes.
A sloppily made cupcake impaled by a too-big pillar candle sat on the floor at Leonora’s feet. I’d heard that Eve had scraped together some ingredients for it and given it to her at dinner. The cupcake had only a single bite missing. Couldn’t blame her for not having much of an appetite just now.
Alex popped out the hair tie and brushed through the pigtail. Leonora’s hair looked really pretty now, falling about her shoulders. Alex had done a great job. It must have taken forever.
“You look beautiful,” Alex told her.
Leonora crossed to the mirror over the paint sink, and her hand flew up to cover her mouth. “I can’t remember the last time I looked this normal.”
“Not just normal,” Alex said. “Beautiful.”
“But beautiful is normal for you,” Patrick said.
Even here, now, under these circumstances, Leonora blushed a bit. She dabbed at her eyes, took a deep breath, held it. Then she said, “I think I want to lie down.”
Her legs got weak, so Alex and I helped her onto a canvas tarp that Ms. Dumone used to use as a drop cloth beneath her easel. The color had left Leonora’s face except for circles of red on her cheeks. She looked much younger than her seventeen years and 364 days.
“Let’s wait and make sure, yeah?” she said. “In case I have some miracle immunity like Patrick.”
We all knew that wouldn’t be the case.
“Of course,” I said.
The stun gun was wobbling in my grip. Leonora reached out and placed a cool hand on my wrist. “Okay, Chance. Maybe get it in position?” She tapped her left temple. “Let’s do it here.” Another nervous laugh, like an escaping bird. “Don’t want to mess up my good side.”
I lifted the stun gun, but now it was shaking even worse, my whole arm trembling. I could feel a lump rising in my throat, and I thought, Don’t you dare cry. Don’t you dare make this about you.
“C’mon now, Chance,” she said. “It’s almost time.”
I stared at the smooth, pale skin of her temple.
—four-year-old Leonora shoving me in the stroller up the uneven sidewalk—
Sweat stung my eyes.
&nbs
p; —and I’m giggling as I bounce over the tree-root bumps in the pavement—
Behind me the second hand ticked on the art room’s wall.
—I hear her clip-clopping behind me in her mom’s high heels—
Leonora’s shiny hair pooled around her head. Blinking through tears, she looked up at me. “It’s okay, Chance. Really it is.”
—and she’s singing to me: “‘He went to bed and bumped his head and he couldn’t get up in the morning.’”
I felt like I was stuck inside my own body, peering out through a concrete mask. I couldn’t stop my arm from shaking, but I couldn’t move the stun gun either. I thought I might throw up or run out of the room or start crying. It was an awful, awesome responsibility. And I wasn’t up to it.
“I have a suggestion,” Patrick said, crouching next to me and sliding the gun from my grip. “Why don’t I do this part and Chance can hold your hand. I mean, that’s the part that matters, right?”
Leonora nodded, her head rustling on the tarp.
The relief was so intense that my vision spotted for a second. I blinked it clear and focused on Leonora.
Tears slid sideways off her face. She reached for me with her hand, and I took it.
Patrick moved himself to the side, holding the stun gun to Leonora’s temple. Alex rested a hand on her leg. They kept their bodies cleared out of the way so it felt like it was just me and Leonora. I fought off my shame at needing my big brother to cover for me and concentrated on her. I petted the back of her hand.
The clock ticked and ticked, practically echoing off the walls and the tile floor. It sounded like a bomb counting down.
“I’m glad I got to know you,” I told her.
She squeezed my hand hard enough to crush my fingers, and I let her.
Then she shuddered. Darkness crept across her eyes until they looked like giant pupils—like the eyes of Hatchlings. Then came a quiet crackling sound, like termites chewing. Her eyeballs turned to dried bits of ash and fell away, leaving two tunnels through her head.
I looked away.
Patrick’s arm firmed, and then there came a hiss of compressed air and the wet smack of the steel rod firing.
Patrick rolled her gently in the tarp. Still I kept turned away.
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