Dad wipes down the counter. He does this lovingly, as though it’s a cherished pet he’s putting down after twelve loyal years. I consider telling him I know about his midnight cleaning sessions, but why bother? That would be pointless. It’s all so freaking pointless.
He folds and refolds the towel, hangs it on the hook. I stand by the sink, waiting for him to bring up the subject that’s been swinging over our heads like a toxic piñata. Finally he runs out of stupid tasks to do.
“All right, then,” he says, turning to me. “What’s your position on option number three?”
I close my eyes and here’s what I see: One can of beans. A dog leash without a dog. Keys to a car I’ll never drive. Smoldering ashes across the street. A twisted bicycle in the cul-de-sac. I try to imagine myself gnawing on raw squirrel, but that image doesn’t work. I open my eyes.
“My position on option number three,” I say in a voice that’s more definite than I feel, “is two thumbs up.”
“Where would you like to do it?”
This question surprises me. It’s a little unfair, actually. I mean, he’s probably been obsessing about this important decision for days, and this is my first crack at it. I panic a little, thinking that the decision is too big. How could I possibly pick the place where I’ll draw my last breath? What I need is a metaphor, something that makes a statement. And then it comes to me—the perfect spot. If Mom is alive, it’s where I’d like her to find me.
“The Camry,” I say.
While he’s counting out the pills, I ask him what happened to his survival spirit. Why the change of heart?
“I couldn’t bear to see you starve to death,” he says. “And I don’t trust the PODs. There might be something we don’t understand about zapping, something sinister, and that possibility troubles me.”
“Define ‘troubles.’”
“I don’t know—it’s … it’s … basically, I don’t think those people are dead, and I don’t think the PODs are taking them to heaven. The process is too clean. It reminds me of catching fish with a gill net.”
“Where do you think they go?”
“I don’t know. The feedlot idea sticks in my mind.”
He waits for me to say something, but what can I say? Who wants to spend eternity in an alien feedlot? I think maybe I should tell him about the episodes, but decide now isn’t the time.
He says, “And since you won’t eat me, well, here we are.”
“You got that right. A month ago when you had some meat on your butt, maybe. But now you’re all scrawny and probably chewier than your two-dollar steaks.”
“Mom always said I had terrible taste.”
“Have you changed your mind?” I say. “Are you opting for death by jokes instead?”
He smiles, shakes the pills into his hand, then divides the pile evenly between the two of us. His hand is shaking, and mine isn’t exactly steady. I stare at them in my palm. Sixteen red-and-white capsules. Sixteen tickets to an eternity I suddenly don’t want to think about.
“This isn’t easy for me,” he says.
“I know, Dad.”
Looking me dead in the eyes, he says, “You don’t have to do this.”
I stare at the rusty water on the dash. “I know, Dad.”
“You have a choice.”
“I know. I know. Really, it’s all good. It’s the right thing to do.” My words sound confident, but my throat is tight and dry and my brain is spinning. It’s like I’m riding my bike down a hill that’s too steep and I can’t jump off and I can’t stop. At the bottom is an infinite black pit. I want to throw the pills out the window. I want to scream, How the hell did we get here? To grab Dad and shake him and say, I’m afraid. Don’t make me do this! But he’s not making me do this. It’s all me. So here’s the broken-dish moment all over again. I stare out the windshield, choosing to keep those thoughts and words inside.
Dad draws in a deep breath, lets it out. “All right, then. Let’s do it.”
“You first? Me first? Together? What’s the game plan here?”
“How about I count to three and then we swallow them at the same time?”
“That works.” I smile, but it’s not easy.
He says, “I love you, Josh.”
“I love you, too.”
“You’re a great son.”
“And you’re the best dad ever.”
A trickle of sweat rolls down his forehead. His eyes are brimming and wet. So are mine.
I love you, Mom, wherever you are.
“One … two … three.”
We swallow the pills.
At first I’m afraid there’s too many, that I’ll choke on them. There’s a strange aftertaste, sweet like candy and bitter at the same time. He hands me the water. I take a sip, enough to do the job, and hand it back to him. He drains the glass, puts it on the dash.
Dad sits back in his seat, eyes closed. He starts talking about how he’s sorry this is happening, that he and Mom are very proud of me, that he should have rationed the food better, that he’s sorry about Dutch and he’s sorry about punching me in the eye.
I tell him that it’s all okay, that none of this is his fault. It’s all the PODs. One hundred percent.
He says that being a father is the only significant thing he’s ever done. That being a father is what defines him. It’s really pouring out of him now. I’d like to listen, but my head is filling with helium. Pink Floyd is starting to sing. I’m a balloon and I’m starting to float.
Dad reaches out. I see that he’s touching my hand, but I don’t feel it.
“I’m so sorry,” is all he says.
I’d like to say Me too, but my lips won’t move.
That’s my last thought before everything goes comfortably numb.
DAY 27: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
Taco Seasoning
I wake up in total darkness. That’s no biggie. I’ve been doing this for so long I’m sort of used to it. My brain clock says I was sleeping for one hour twenty-two minutes. Definitely not good. Not when you’re on a mission. I listen for sounds. The kitchen is quiet, and so is the hall behind the doors.
I crawl backwards out of the wormhole. Once I hit the floor I flick the lighter and look around. The box that held Cassie is gone. There are no pots boiling on the stove. I fight the urge to keep looking. It would take up minutes I don’t have.
It’s time to get the party started.
Aunt Janet told me what to expect on the other side of the swinging doors. There’s a restaurant with tables and chairs, and some boxes of food in a corner by the windows facing the street, but the boxes are probably empty by now. On the other side of the restaurant is the door that opens into the lobby. And on the other side of that door: Black Beard. Aunt Janet said that the guards sometimes come into the restaurant for snacks and naps, so I need to be extra careful.
After five minutes of waiting next to the swinging doors and hearing nothing but my heart pounding against my ribs, I figure it’s time to take a chance. I slip through the doors and ease them closed behind me. One quick peek with the lighter. Table, chairs, boxes. Nobody taking a nap. I see the shadowy shape of Black Beard through the smoky glass door. He’s at his post, sitting in a chair reading a magazine.
Part 1, check. Now for Part 2.
Mom used to say that Zack made the best “liar’s sandwich” she’d ever heard. That means he’d take a big fat juicy lie and slap it between two thick pieces of moldy truth, then feed it to anyone stupid enough to listen. That’s how I told Aunt Janet I would get past Black Beard—I’d feed him a liar’s sandwich. I take a deep breath, turn the handle, and walk right out the door.
Black Beard stands up, his magazine flying to the floor. He always looked big from a distance, but up close and personal he’s huge. Almost as tall as the door and nearly as wide. Add in the beard, the long hair, and the fat, crooked nose, and he’s just about the scariest, ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. His hand goes to the gun sticking out of his pants, bu
t when he sees it’s only a skinny little girl, he growls, “Who the hell’re you?”
“I’m Megs.”
“How’d you get in there?”
A wall of stink hits me in the face like a shovel. Ripe roadkill is the best way to describe it.
“I snuck in when you went to the bathroom awhile back.”
Black Beard frowns for a second, his thug-sized brain chewing on that bite of the sandwich. I look around the lobby. Most people, if they’re not sleeping, are at the windows watching the floaters. The parking-garage entrance is guarded by a guy I don’t recognize. Where’s Hacker? I look across the lobby and my stomach tightens. Richie is at his spot: the door leading down to the dark hallway. He’s got the knife out, flicking it open and closed, doing that spinning trick. I feel his dark eyes under the hood aimed right at me. I don’t see Mary. This means, according to Aunt Janet, that she and baby Lewis are probably on the tenth floor with her husband. Aunt Janet’s words fill my head: She’d better be in the lobby, Megs, because you absolutely don’t want to go up to the tenth.
Black Beard says, “What were you doing in there?” His eyes find my bulging pockets. “Stealing food, eh? Let’s see what Señor Hendricks thinks—”
“I didn’t touch the food. I was looking for the kitty. Then … then I got tired and took a nap.”
“The kitty?” He laughs, his thick lips folding back to show brown teeth as big as piano keys. “The kitty is taking a nap, too. A real long nap.” He laughs again, then steps in close, puts one of his cigar-sized fingers under my chin, and lifts. “Why haven’t I seen you before, Chiquita, hmm?” Under the stench I smell … taco seasoning?
“You’ve seen me,” I say, pulling back. “You just don’t remember.”
“Oh, I never forget faces—especially one like yours.”
“I spend most of the time on the tenth floor with my father.”
“Your father, eh? Which one is he?”
I picture the round man I watched Richie beat up in the parking lot on the second day. “He’s short and bald and used to be fat. That jerk punched him in the stomach.” I point to Richie. “He almost killed him.”
Black Beard nods. “I remember that punch.” His thick eyebrows bunch together. “What happened to your eye?”
“I bumped it on a chair when I was hiding from him.”
“Señor Badass, eh? You’re not the only one,” he says. His eyes soften. They slide down, focus on my pockets again. I hold my breath. How will I explain the knife, the tape, the pepper spray? I have to do something, and fast.
“Can I go now?” I say. “I need to get back to my father. He’s sick and I’m not feeling very good.” I cough and make sure to aim it at him and not cover my mouth.
“Sí. Sí. Go away. Stop bothering me.” Black Beard picks up his magazine. A woman in a very small bikini is on the cover. She’s wearing an army helmet and firing a machine gun. “But,” he says, his voice dropping to a low rumble, “I wouldn’t let Señor Badass see what’s in your pockets.” The big man turns a page and smiles. I head for the lobby, not wanting another look at those teeth.
Aunt Janet said the only way to the tenth floor is the emergency stairway located around the corner from the elevator doors. To get there I have to go right in front of Richie. As I cross the room I walk past the freckle-faced boy. He’s sitting on a couch next to his twin sisters. They’re playing cards. He watches me the whole time. To everyone else I’m just a ghost.
Everyone else, that is, except Richie.
I’m just about past him, my eyes aimed at the tiled floor, when he says, “The big man show you some pretty pictures?”
I know I should keep walking, but I don’t. I stop, turn around, and force myself to look at him. He flips the knife open, spins it one way, then the other.
“He said you killed … you killed the kitten.” I almost said “Cassie.” Don’t blow it, Megs.
Working on a fingernail with the knife, he says, “There is that rumor going around.” Then he looks up. His eyes find mine. From in the shadows I see them, small and coffee-black and empty—almost. A spot of something is in there, deep, like the stuff that lurks at the bottom of a bad-luck well. It’s a place I don’t want to go, so I turn away.
“Look at me,” he says. “Is this the face of a kitty killer?”
I focus on a scrap of paper on the floor.
“I said look at me!”
My head snaps up, our eyes lock. He smiles slow, like the devil getting his way.
“I said, do I look like someone who would kill a helpless kitten? A kitten that was left all alone on a stinky old sleeping bag? Who would do such a thing?”
I see that spot again in his eyes. But this time I feel it, like bugs crawling down my throat. He’s watching me a little too closely.
“I know you’re awful and evil,” I say, “if that’s what you mean.” I walk toward the stairway. My whole body is shaking.
“I’ll take that as a yes. Be sure to say hi to the crazy Russian,” he calls. Then, as I open the door: “Wanna know my secret taco recipe?”
The hike up ten flights of stairs takes just about every ounce of energy I have. Aunt Janet said there wouldn’t be a guard on the door on the sixth floor because it’s always locked and only Mr. Hendricks has the keys. She’s right. When I reach the eighth floor the smell hits me—and it gets worse with every step. By the time I get to the tenth floor I’m holding my sleeve over my nose and panting like a raced-out greyhound.
I walk through the doors and into a nightmare.
Men shuffle down the halls, skeleton-thin with sunken eyes and long, stringy hair. Clothes hang loose like curtains draped over bones. Most are sitting or lying down. It smells like a sewer and, above it all like a cloud, death. Watching it all are two men with guns, both weapons out and ready. They are staring at me with dark, suspicious eyes. One of them is Hacker. He was thin before. Now he’s a stick with legs. The other guy is young, maybe eighteen, with a patchy beard and a backwards Sox baseball cap. He has a tattoo of barbed wire around his neck. They’re both wearing white filters over their mouths. Hacker’s has a big brownish pink stain on it.
I walk up to Hacker and say, “I’m supposed to find Mary.”
“Says who?”
“Mr. Hendricks.”
Hacker looks at the young guy. “You check it out, Vladi. I’m not hiking down those stairs. Not until I get some damn food.”
Vladi says, “Is your turn, old man. I’m not doing stairs again.”
He has an accent. I’m guessing he’s the Crazy Russian.
Back to me, Hacker says, “Which one is she?”
“She has a sick baby.”
“We got lotsa those—well, not as many as we used to—but I think I know who you’re talking about. Down the hall …” He bursts into a powerful coughing fit. It almost knocks off his filter. Vladi shakes his head. The pink stain on Hacker’s filter turns a dark red. He settles down and says, “It’s on your right. She’s in the room with the closed door. Ten-oh-eight, I think. But you gotta wear one a these,” he says, handing me a filter, “or you don’t leave this floor—ever.”
All the doors down the hall are wide open. There are four to five people in each room: men, women, kids, all crammed in together. It reminds me of the time I went to the animal shelter. The same bad smell, the same sad eyes.
I come to the room with the closed door. Someone wrote Sick People and drew a skull and crossbones in big black marking pen under the room number, 1008. I open the door and step inside.
The air is hot and wet, almost smothering. I resist a strong urge to turn around and leave. There must be twenty people in here of all ages, but mostly kids on the two beds. Adults are in chairs or on the floor. Coughing and wheezing and the occasional whisper are the only sounds I hear. I spot the two kids I saw on the first day. They are asleep on a blanket in the corner. Next to them is a man, eyes closed, skin the color of a dirty sheet, slumped against a wall. I’m not sure if he’s aliv
e or dead, but I have a pretty good guess. I should know a bloater when I see one.
I recognize Mary the second I see her. She’s the one I saw though the vent—tall, with red hair. She’s sitting in a chair, legs straight out in front of her, staring at the open window. Baby Lewis is wrapped in a yellow blanket and sleeping on her lap.
I walk to her, stepping over and around the people as I go. Some stare at me. Most don’t care. I look out the window. The view is insane. The streets of Los Angeles, lit up under a warm morning sun, look like a pulsing black river of floaters flowing in all directions. Straight ahead, in the distance, the street ends in a boiling mountain of smudgy whites and grays with flashes of light inside. It’s beautiful in a freakish sort of way, like a storm cloud fell from the sky. If I were in a car headed toward that thing, I’d be screaming at the driver to turn around.
“What is it?” I ask, pointing at the mystery cloud. I hear a throaty rattling sound. Baby Lewis moves, then stops.
Without turning her head, Mary says, “It’s supposed to be a view of the ocean. They took that away, too.”
“How long has it been there?”
This time she does look at me. Her eyes, sunken deep in shadowy pockets, narrow in suspicion. “Since day two. Where have you been?”
Someone whispers behind me. I lean toward her, my mask close to her ear. “This is from Carrie.” I hand her the napkin with the azith pills inside. “It’s an antibiotic. Aunt Janet—I mean Carrie—says to dissolve a quarter pill in a cup of water. Three times a day until they’re gone.”
She quickly stashes the package in the folds of the blanket. “Carrie’s alive? I thought she—”
I bring my finger to the mask. “Shh.” I nod, Yes.
“We won’t get water until tomorrow afternoon.”
A voice from behind says, “I’ve never seen her before.”
I slide the half bag of marijuana into Mary’s lap, using my hand to keep it hidden from prying eyes. She looks at the package, not sure what to think. Then, figuring it out, she asks, “Where’d you get this?”
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