Sky on Fire Read online

  “Well, I’m not a savage!” he shouted. “Of course I’ll help you. There’s a ladder right here, for heaven’s sake.”

  There was a ladder up there? Right there?

  “I’ll help you out. But that’s all. Now you all shut up and give me a moment,” the man said. “We don’t want to be attracting attention these days. Could be any number of nutballs out here.”

  We huddled together, excited and relieved and still terrified of everything. The only sound was Max moaning and crying. And Ulysses and Batiste sniffling, I guess.

  Then we heard a wet, sliding sound. It was the man sliding the ladder across the ground.

  “That’s it,” Niko called softly.

  “I know!” the man grouched.

  Inch by inch, we watched the ladder poke farther into our air space.

  “It’s taking so long because I’m old,” the man said. “I’m too old for this nonsense.”

  The ladder started to tip.

  “It’s going to fall, now. Watch out.”

  “We’re clear,” Niko called.

  The ladder wobbled for a moment and then came crashing down.

  * * *

  The man was tiny. He was maybe the same height as Ulysses.

  I couldn’t see his face because he had a red-and-black-checkered scarf wrapped around it. By the way he moved, you could tell he was very old.

  He helped Sahalia out first and then she turned and helped us one by one.

  Niko came up last, carrying Max.

  He slung Max onto the wet, muddy ground.

  There was the body of the dad. He was lying on top of a rock. He’d fallen on it during his fight with Josie and he must have broken his neck, because his head was cocked to the side and he was looking up at the sky with an open mouth, like he was stargazing.

  But, no, he was not looking at the sky. He was dead.

  The earth was torn up in places, mishmashed with footprints and some dark brown-black slicks that were most likely blood.

  “All right,” the man said. “Good luck to you then.”

  And he started to shuffle away.

  “Please,” Niko said. “We need to get somewhere safe so we can take care of our friend. And we need somewhere safe to rest.”

  “Well, I can’t help you!” he spat.

  “But we’re so thirsty,” whined Batiste.

  “And Max is so sick,” Sahalia added. “Please, mister. Please.”

  And we all started in, begging him. “Please, please, please.”

  “I knew I shouldn’t have come over!” he growled. “I just came up to take out the trash, see? And then I saw the flares and I thought to myself, ‘Ignore it, Mario. You’re gonna get sucked into helping someone and it will be a strain on your resources.’ But here I am.”

  We must have looked a pitiful sight to him. All of us wearing filthy, matted layers of grimy sweatsuits. Me, Sahalia, and Batiste with our faces uncovered, coated with mud, the only clean parts being the trails made by crying. Niko standing with his head hung. Max lying, moaning, on the ground, wearing a bloody air mask. Ulysses clutching Max in the mud.

  “I’ll give you a day and a night. That’s it!” he snarled. “Some basic medical to fix you up the best I can. 3 meals and 1 night’s sleep. But that’s it. You have to swear you’ll go after that.”

  Niko stuck out his hand and said, “We swear.” They shook.

  Everyone started thanking him and Sahalia hugged him.

  “Follow me then, and keep quiet about it,” he grouched.

  He led us across the street, toward a smaller development we had already passed.

  “What’s he got now? Burns?” the man asked Niko, who was carrying Max.

  Max was whimpering with Niko’s every jostle.

  “Blisters,” Niko answered.

  The old man was hurrying as fast as he could. But old people walk slow. He led us toward a house. It was that pretend-English style, with the wooden beams. Trying to look like a Shakespearean house.

  I thought we were going inside, but instead, he kept on going.

  He went across his back lawn to a little building. It looked like a garden shed. A little too big for a garden shed, but that’s what it looked like.

  We went in and there were tools hanging all along the walls.

  “Come in,” he crabbed at us. “Shut the door behind you, for God’s sake. This is a secret place.”

  I couldn’t read Niko’s expression through his air mask, but I was worried. Did the old guy think we would be safe in a garden shed?

  Then Mario bent over and picked at the edge of a rubber mat on the floor. It looked like a welcome mat, sort of, but old and scuffed up.

  He lifted it and there, underneath it, was a metal handle sunk into the floor and a seam.

  He pulled up on it but he was winded.

  Sahalia and I stepped in to help.

  “Hold on, hold on a minute,” he said. He addressed us. “When the door opens, go right on down the stairs. They’re steep, so mind you don’t fall. Keep going so you’re out of the way for the next person. All right. Go,” he told Sahalia and me.

  We pulled up on the handle.

  It was really heavy for the first moment, then a hydraulic lift kicked in and it rose up by itself. Up above, everything was grimy and dirty and dark, but pure white poured up from below that door.

  It was blinding, so used to the dark were our eyes.

  “Go on now!” Mario ordered. “Get below.”

  We did not worry for a second that he might be tricking us or trapping us. He had so clearly not wanted to help us. Why would he be tricking us now?

  As crabby and crotchety as he was, I trusted him right away. Everyone did.

  And we were right to.

  He saved our lives and his name was Mario Scietto.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  DEAN

  DAY 14

  “I got a pharmacy full of Robitussin,” Jake bragged to Payton. “We had some whiskey, but I drank it.”

  “I like you more and more, Jake. I am glad you’re considering entering the academy. You should do it,” Payton asked. “I’ll get you in my squadron. Would you like that?”

  “Sir, yes, sir!” Jake responded.

  Payton turned to the cadets, who were still awaiting his orders.

  “Well, you heard me. Fan out! Use your lights and be thorough.”

  So how much respect did I have for Jake? Before this … meh. Not very much. I liked him. You had to like Jake, because he was an affable, charming guy. Everyone liked Jake. Even when I hated his guts and wanted to kill him, I liked him.

  But with the drugs and the way he just got so lost and depressed and the fact that he’d left us? Well, he’d fallen really far in my eyes.

  Now, seeing him play this game with Payton and watching him carefully bluff and negotiate his way through this nightmare—he was kind of my hero.

  My shoulder was out. Every step was agony for me. I wasn’t going to be able to fight these guys. If we were going to make it through this alive, Jake would be the one saving us.

  “Too bad you have no lights,” Payton said. “Kind of grim in here, all dark like this.”

  “Yeah,” Jake said. “But we got a lot of flashlights. And, hey, you should see our campfire!”

  Jake led Payton to the Kitchen.

  I got his strategy. With the fire going, it looked right. It looked cozy and cheerful. You could believe that it was our campsite. As long as they didn’t look for our beds.

  The cadets started coming back, listing what they’d found. Greasy found the chainsaws and the patched hole in the wall. A thin, twitchy guy they called “Jimmy Doll Hands” reported in on the water and remaining drinks near the Food aisle (and, yeah, his hands were weirdly small). They were fairly thorough. Zarember even found and reported on the oil stain on the linoleum and the tire marks from where the bus had stood before it left.

  But somehow, they didn’t see the House.

  The last cadet
came back to report, a strong, burly black kid named Kildow. He looked like the most menacing of the cadets and carried a semiautomatic. At least, I think it was a semiautomatic. I’d only ever seen them in adventure movies.

  Was he going to say he’d found the House? If he did, Jake could still play it off—like he was going to tell Payton, but hadn’t gotten around to it.

  Were Astrid and the kids hiding there?

  I hoped they were up in the roof tiles by now.…

  “Anything to report?” Payton asked Kildow.

  “Nope,” he said. “Except a lot of crap in Tupperware in the back corner. I mean crap. Literally.”

  “Aw, sorry about that,” Jake said. “That’s the Dump.”

  “You sure you don’t have a girl or two around here?” Payton asked.

  “You saw our girls,” Jake said sadly. “They went and left us.”

  “Well, all right.” Payton sighed, throwing himself down in a berth. “Let’s party, I guess.”

  * * *

  How do you throw a party for five crazy air force cadets and their mascot little girl in a superstore with no electricity?

  Rekindle the fire in the fire pit.

  Cook up some Jiffy Pop on the flames.

  Crack open a couple dozen bottles of Robitussin.

  That is what we did.

  * * *

  “Your arm’s all wrong,” Payton observed, examining me across the fire.

  “I hurt my shoulder when I fell,” I said.

  “Let me see that,” Payton said. He got up and came over to me. I was sitting in a booth, my back to the wall. “I can set it for you.”

  “No, no, please. I’m okay,” I said.

  I tried to catch Jake’s eye. He was off telling Greasy and Zarember about what the earthquake was like in the store.

  “Don’t be a sissy,” Payton said. “It’ll only take a second.”

  “It’s fine,” I lied.

  Dear God, I prayed, please keep this thug off me.

  I was scared he’d make it worse and it already hurt more than anything I’d ever experienced.

  “Come on, it’s just a little pop. Zarember, Kildow, get over here.”

  “Please, please, please no!” I shrieked.

  Payton grabbed my hair and brought his forehead up to mine.

  “Look, Dean. I know you’re scared. I respect that. And you think I’m going to hurt you. But I’m not. I’m going to help you. And once your shoulder’s back in the socket, you’re gonna be grateful. And that’s how I’m gonna get you on my side,” Payton murmured to me.

  “See? It’s not even about you, really. It’s about this gang. My little gang of cadets. See, we’re recruiting!” He threw his arms out wide, like he’d announced a new national holiday. The cadets cheered.

  “I’m gonna recruit you by setting your shoulder, Deano. I’m going to take care of you and Jake. You’re my doolies now! Get him up,” he commanded Kildow and Zarember. They hauled me to my feet.

  “Please, don’t,” I begged. “You don’t need to set my shoulder! I’m recruited! Please.”

  But he pulled my arm so that my elbow bent and it was at a ninety-degree angle. He pushed my hand toward my other arm, across my body, then away, then toward it again while I screamed and my vision went electric and then God had mercy on me and everything went black just as I heard a POP.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ALEX

  17 MILES

  The stairs were white, with black scratch pads on each step to keep you from slipping. Sahalia went first, then me behind her. At the base of the stairs was a series of plastic sheets hanging from the ceiling. The long plastic pieces hung down like a fringe. We stepped through them. Lights automatically went on as we entered.

  We were in an underground bomb shelter.

  It was a long, skinny space, like a train car. We were standing at one end of it, in a sort of living room area, with two couches on either side, and a coffee table in between them. An old, ratty easy chair sat off to the far side of the couch. Lining the far wall completely was a bookshelf crammed with novels, reference books, and board games.

  Beyond the living room was a kitchenette. It had a sink and a single electric burner and closed wood cabinets.

  It was hard to see beyond that but I was pretty sure there were bunks back there for sleeping.

  I put my hand on the wall—cold metal. The whole bunker was made out of steel, though some of the furniture was wood.

  Batiste and then Ulysses stepped in behind us.

  “Praise the Lord,” Batiste whispered and I fully agreed.

  * * *

  Suddenly a machine came roaring to life and there was a strong sucking sound near our feet. Everyone jumped.

  “What is it?” Batiste asked me.

  I sniffed. The air tasted weird. Like ozone.

  I reached down and felt a long, thin vent at ground level. It was sucking in the air.

  “It’s an air-filtration system,” I guessed. “It must come on automatically when it senses impurities in the air.”

  Batiste and Ulysses lay down on the two couches. Niko struggled down with Max in his arms.

  “You two get off the couches,” Mario ordered. Batiste and Ulysses slunk onto the floor.

  “Put the hurt boy there,” Mario ordered Niko.

  Mario unzipped his coveralls, removed them, and bundled them into a rubberized stuff sack. He did it pretty quickly, for an old guy.

  “Gotta think here. Gotta think about what to do first,” he muttered.

  He went past the kitchen to a closet set in the wall.

  “What can I do?” Niko said. He was standing, hunched over, near the couches, and looked about a million years old.

  “Get his boots off if you can.”

  Niko started to tug at Max’s boots and Max let out a shrieking howl.

  “All right, all right, just let him be for a moment,” Mario said, tottering in with two of those plastic caddies people sometimes use to carry around cleaning stuff. You know the kind I mean. These two were filled with medical supplies. Mario put his hand on the couch and lowered himself down to sitting so he was perched next to Max.

  “Okay, should be okay now. You kids take off your layers. They’re loaded with compounds.”

  “You.” He pointed to Sahalia. “There are trash bags under the counter. Get one and collect all the clothing.”

  Sahalia groaned, but got onto her hands and knees and crawled over to the kitchen.

  The rest of us, I guess we didn’t move fast enough for him.

  “Get on there! Take off your layers! You can’t be that tired, now!”

  He was wrong. We were more tired than it’s possible even to be. We were completely wrung out, each one of us.

  We started to peel off the layers, moving as slow as zombies.

  “You kids need to hurry! The air filter’s automatic. It’ll keep sucking until you guys are clean. And that’s not going to happen with those filthy outfits on.”

  Mario went over to Ulysses and started pulling his sweatshirt off.

  “I don’t think you understand. The air filter’s automatic. It’ll keep running until all our solar is used up. Then it’ll start in on the gas generator. I only have a couple days’ worth of gas. So you kids gotta hop to and get these layers off and closed up in a bag.”

  Ulysses started to cry. Mario was scaring him.

  Ulysses had the outline of his face mask etched in red around his face. His tears spilled down his dirty face.

  “Oh, for God’s sake. Don’t cry,” Mario said, his voice softening a little. He let go of Ulysses’s sleeve. “We’ll get you cleaned up, son. Just get these clothes off.”

  As the layers came off, we became the shape of little kids again.

  There was Batiste, his straight black hair matted to his head.

  Ulysses’s pot belly hanging out from under his monster truck T-shirt. The T-shirt had something dribbled down the front. Vomit, I think.

  Nik
o took off his layers and got thinner and thinner. Was he so thin before? He looked like a skeleton. He looked tiny. I had remembered him as being so big and grown-up. Now he looked just like a sick teenage boy.

  It was weird, taking off the layers. They felt like a part of me. I felt sort of naked without them.

  But in the end I was just wearing the navy-blue long johns that were my base layer.

  I remembered picking them out back at Greenway. I’d felt so hopeful then.

  Dean, if you ever read this, you were right. If I’d known what would happen, how horrible and difficult it would turn out to be, and that Brayden would die anyway, and that Josie would go wild and run away and leave us, I never would have supported Niko’s decision to go.

  Was it so stupid to think we could get to Denver? I guess so.

  What do we know? We’re just stupid kids.

  Sahalia took off her last sweatshirt and the whole T-shirt came off, like sometimes happens. I saw her boobs in her lacy bra. Big whoop.

  We threw the clothes on the floor and Sahalia gathered them up. She put them in the garbage bag. Then she got out another one for our boots and masks.

  Mario had Max’s mask off and was opening a little foil pack of pills.

  I didn’t like what I saw. Max’s face was mottled with blisters. Around his mouth they were the worst. It looked like he’d had some kind of bike accident. Like he’d skidded across the pavement on his face. His eyes were screwed shut and he was stifling his cries.

  Mario carefully opened up Max’s lips and teeth and placed a pill in his mouth.

  Almost instantly, Max’s expression softened and his body went limp.

  “Gave him some powerful stuff. But should be enough for us to get him cleaned up.”

  “Do you have Benadryl?” Niko asked. “It’s worked for us in the past.”

  Then Niko staggered backward and just caught himself before he fell. He struggled to stand. He was on his feet, but barely.

  “Sit down,” Mario snapped. “You fall on me and you’ll crush me.”

  Niko collapsed onto the easy chair.

  “That’s my chair,” Mario growled. Then he took a second look at Niko and changed his tone. “But you can stay there for a bit.”

  Mario fished a pack of pills out of his caddy and tossed it in Niko’s lap.