Sky on Fire Read online

  Stupid idea, I know, but I was in a panic.

  * * *

  Back at the gate, Astrid was poking putty into one of the holes in the gate.

  “Are you okay?” I asked as I ran toward her.

  I carried a case of lighter fluid and a couple of those long-neck fireplace lighters.

  “They’re gone,” she said quietly. “At least for now.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I haven’t heard a sound.”

  “Okay, okay, good,” I said.

  “Were you going to barbecue them to death?” Astrid asked, her hands on her hips.

  I was mad, for a second, then I saw her eyes twinkle in the glow from my headlamp.

  And I started to laugh.

  Her laughter joined mine and it totally got away from us until I had tears coming down my face.

  “Shoot,” I said. “You’re funny.”

  “Sometimes,” Astrid answered. “I got some wood putty. Want to help me plug up these bullet holes?”

  “Sure,” I answered.

  As we worked, I told her about an idea. “I saw some chainsaws in Home Improvement. They’re mostly kerosene, but there are a couple of battery-powered ones.”

  I knew a little about chainsaws, because I’d helped my uncle clear some land down near Placerville during the summer. Uncle Dave had two chainsaws, one gas and one battery. The battery one was a lot less powerful than the gas one, but it cut scrub oak okay. I shuddered with the thought of what it would do as a weapon against a person.

  “Can’t you use the lighter fluid?” Astrid nodded toward my can of Kingsford.

  I grabbed the bottle.

  “No, it’s not kerosene. It’s … aliphatic petroleum solvent. Whatever that is.”

  “Well, how are you going to charge the batteries?” she asked.

  “Maybe a car battery?” I suggested.

  “Yeah, that could work,” she said.

  We were a good team. I was glad we had decided to work on being friends. She was holding up her end of the bargain and I was trying my best not to worship her.

  * * *

  “Where have you been? Do I have to do everything around here?” Chloe chided when we returned from hooking up the chainsaws. They were playing hospital, and Caroline, appropriately enough, was the patient.

  “Bad guys were trying to get in,” Astrid told her.

  “Bad guys?” Henry repeated.

  He and Caroline looked up at us with an identical expression of fear in their two sets of eyes.

  Every once in a while, taking care of the twins, I’d feel a sort of a lurch in my heart. They were so, erm, beautiful. I know that’s a dorky word to use, but they were. Their smallness and warmth. Their wide-open smiles and abundance of freckles. It made my chest ache to think of how Mrs. McKinley, if she were still alive, must be missing them. Whether it was in her honor or in her memory, I had to keep them safe.

  “How bad?” Chloe asked.

  “What?” I said.

  “On a scale of one to ten, how bad were the bad guys?”

  “I don’t know,” I told her. “Bad enough.”

  “They couldn’t get through the gate, though,” Astrid said. She ruffled Henry’s hair. “Too bad for them.”

  Astrid had a pretty good approach with the kids. Josie would have withheld the truth, probably, and spun some story. But they seemed happier just knowing the facts: Bad guys had tried to get in and couldn’t.

  “Caroline, it’s time for a sip of ginger ale,” Chloe directed.

  Caroline sipped dutifully.

  “Okay, now Henry’s going to take your pulse,” Chloe said. Henry knelt by the futon and pressed his fingers somewhere in the vicinity of Caroline’s elbow.

  Henry and Caroline looked at each other with big, serious eyes.

  “It’s better!” he announced. “One hundred nine and four eighty pressure.”

  “Excellent,” Chloe nodded. “Now the patient must eat more crackers.”

  Henry fed his twin crackers a bite at a time, and Chloe looked on, content and the very model of efficiency.

  “Dean, I had an idea,” Astrid said. “I saw a brass fire pit in Home Improvement. I thought maybe I’d drag it over to the Kitchen. I don’t want to light it in here, in case it gets too smoky, but I thought it might be kind of cheery to have a fire at night.”

  “Yeah, sounds cool.” Exhaling, I ran a hand through my hair. So far, the morning had been pretty … intense. “I’m going to eat some breakfast,” I told Astrid. “And then I’m going to do a security check on the store.”

  “Good idea,” she answered.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ALEX

  26 MILES

  Niko had Josie in his arms. Her head lolled back, bobbing loose. Sahalia was sobbing, clinging to Ulysses, who was also crying.

  Me and the others were just standing there gaping. It was hard to grasp. Our bus had been taken and we were out in the dark.

  “We have to get it back!” Sahalia shrieked. “We have to attack them and get Brayden and kick them out!”

  “Guys…,” Max tried to butt in.

  “How?” Niko said from behind his air mask. “They have guns. There are five of them!”

  “Guys!” Max yelled.

  “We need to find somewhere safe until Josie wakes up. Then we’ll figure out what to do.”

  “They’ll be far gone by then!” Sahalia protested.

  “Guys!” Max shouted.

  “What?” Niko yelled.

  “I know where we can stay,” he said. Then he pointed over to a clump of dead trees. There was a military floodlight near there and in the glow you could make out a sign: “Meadow Flowers Mobile Home Community.”

  “What is it?” Batiste asked.

  “It’s a trailer park,” Max said loudly through his mask. “My auntie Jean lives here.”

  * * *

  Niko was right; we had no choice. We couldn’t catch up to the bus on foot. And if we somehow did, there was no way we could kick the cadets out of our bus. We had to go and seek shelter.

  It didn’t keep Sahalia from crying and cursing the whole way.

  Niko had to carry Josie. It did not look as easy as it looks in the movies. He had to stop and rest a lot and I was afraid his mask would come off.

  The little kids were all clustered around me and I did not blame them; it was really scary.

  Sometimes a fuse would blow at our house. I used to be scared to go into the basement to flip the switches. I was scared because the basement was so dark and there were things there in the darkness. You couldn’t see them but you could feel them. Flattened boxes, Dad’s old tools, the lawn mower—none of it scary with the lights on, but the thought of it all just lurking there made me scared. I would always be afraid that a murderer was hiding in the shadows, waiting to grab me, even though I knew that was totally illogical.

  Walking down the road was like going into the dark basement, except that there really could be a murderer lurking in the shadows.

  There was likely a murderer lurking in the shadows. It was statistically probable.

  Maybe you are wondering if we didn’t have flashlights. We did.

  But Niko wouldn’t let us use them. He said he was afraid we might call attention to ourselves.

  (And call an O monster, I assume.)

  So we had to see by the light from the military lights. Which was not very much.

  * * *

  We came to the Meadow Flowers entrance and walked through the trailer graveyard.

  There was blood on one of the trailers and a lot of clothes out on the ground in between two others, all of them trampled into the mud. Purposely trampled, it seemed to me.

  There were empty food cans and bottles from all kinds of drinks scattered everywhere.

  Some of the trailers had furniture pulled halfway out the windows and doors. Like people had tried to take their easy chairs or mattresses and then given up.

  A dead lady sat in a doorway in
a housedress stuck to her body with blood.

  Ulysses started to cry again and Max took his hand.

  “We’re almost there!” Max shouted through the mask, encouraging his friend.

  There were lights on in a trailer we passed. I could hear an old man singing a country song my grandma used to sing called, “Let’s Give Them Something to Talk About,” by Bonnie Raitt.

  We didn’t knock.

  Niko was having a hard time with Josie so I carried his backpack. I should have thought of it before and offered but I was too scared, I guess.

  Finally Max pointed to a baby-blue trailer on the fringe of the other trailers.

  It was dark but there wasn’t any blood and the windows weren’t broken. I could see plastic over the windows inside. Another good sign.

  Max stepped up on the step and knocked on the door.

  “Auntie Jean!” he yelled. “Auntie Jean?”

  At first nothing.

  And then he pounded on the door. “Auntie Jean, it’s me!”

  Right at the corner of the window, the drape pulled away and a lady’s hairline and eye and eyebrow appeared.

  “Go away! I don’t got nothing,” she yelled.

  “Let us in!” he shouted.

  “What do you want?” she yelled.

  “It’s me! It’s me, Max! Max Skolnik! Jimmy’s kid!”

  The door opened.

  I am not exaggerating, a cloud of cigarette smoke came out.

  “Maxie?” she said, putting her face through the crack.

  At that moment, I did not notice much about her beyond the fact that she had a gold tooth.

  “It’s me, Auntie Jean!” Max said.

  And she threw open the door.

  And we got inside somewhere safe, thank God.

  * * *

  This Jean lady cried for a real long time, hugging Max to her and sobbing into his white-blond hair until it looked kind of tan.

  I am pretty sure she was drunk.

  It was crowded in there, and smoky.

  She told us that she’d been smoking nonstop because the smoke kills the compounds.

  I didn’t believe her but she was right! Cautiously, we took off our protective gear and everyone was okay.

  This was very good information—prime information to have.

  There were cigarettes everywhere, flowing out of ashtrays and jars and stacked up on paper plates and old issues of Star News magazine. There were also a bunch of smelly candles. Scented candles, I mean. And all the scents together, with the smoke, made it smell pretty dense in there. Flowers and vanilla and cranberry and dive-bar drunks.

  I helped Niko and Jean get Josie up onto the bed in the back.

  After we got Josie on the bed, Niko just slumped down to the floor and I saw he was crying.

  “It’s okay,” I said to him. “There’s nothing you could have done.”

  “I blew it,” he said. “We had a shot. I know we could have made it. But I blew it.”

  He just turned his face to the side of the bed and cried.

  I patted his back. I didn’t know what to do. I’m not good when people cry. I do not know what to say and I just stand there flapping my arms like a stupid magpie.

  I went into the front room where I saw that Sahalia was sitting in the banquette, facing away from the others and smoking a cigarette.

  I shouldn’t have been shocked, but I sort of was.

  She rolled her eyes at me.

  Max’s auntie Jean was now helping the kids out of their layers. She was tugging a sweatshirt off Ulysses.

  “Lord, you got some chunk on you, don’t you, doll?” she asked Ulysses.

  He smiled tentatively at her.

  “Are you sure it’s a good idea to take off their layers?” I asked her.

  “The poison’s in the cloth,” she answered me, her gold tooth glinting. “Y’all got to take them off so I can get the air poison out.”

  Batiste, Max, and Ulysses looked helpless. They were each standing in their underwear, fidgeting.

  Sahalia, as you can only imagine, was having nothing to do with this. She took a long drag on her cigarette and shrugged at me.

  Jean was wearing skinny jeans, high-heeled slippers, and one of those ladies’ Christmas sweaters with the tall shoulders and the sparkly designs. It had a snowman on it with a pointy orange nose and fake gems for buttons on his snow stomach.

  She took all the clothes she’d taken off Max, Batiste, and Ulysses and put them in a big garbage bag.

  “Come on,” she said to me, snapping her fingers. “Get down to your undies, pal, so I can do it all at once.”

  “No way! Not in front of you two.” I indicated her and Sahalia.

  “For Lord’s sake, honey, I’m trying to keep us all safe here.”

  She put her hands on her hips, a cigarette stuck in the corner of her mouth.

  “I’m fine,” I insisted.

  Jean went over to a coatrack on the wall and handed me a worn white robe that said “Marriott” on it.

  “Go on in the toilet and put this on and throw out your clothes,” she said. “You can keep your drawers on.”

  I should have left my long johns on. Sahalia snorted when I came back in the room wearing nothing but my tighty-whities under the robe. I wanted to punch her right in the cigarette.

  Jean had pulled her straggly hair back and something was different from when we’d come in, just a few minutes ago. At first I couldn’t place it. Then she took her cigarette out of her mouth and I realized what it was—there was now a lipstick stain on her cigarette.

  But in all the butts on the table and near the door and all around the place, there wasn’t lipstick.

  She had put on lipstick at some point since we’d gotten there, maybe fifteen minutes before. She had put on lipstick for a bunch of kids.

  Isn’t that weird? I thought it was weird. And I do not know why I remembered it but I did.

  “All right, now, I’ll show you,” she said. “This is how you clean your clothes nowadays.”

  She took a huge drag off her cigarette and blew it into the bag with our clothes in it.

  “You wanna help?” she said to Sahalia.

  “I’ll help!” Max offered.

  “Are you drunk?” Jean said. “Jimmy would kill me, I let his kid smoke.”

  And then Jean started crying again, and Sahalia had to do all the smoke blowing by herself.

  CHAPTER NINE

  DEAN

  DAY 13

  First I checked on the chainsaws. I detached the chainsaw battery from the car battery and inserted it into the chainsaw.

  I pushed the button and VROOOOOM, the thing came to life. I shut it off quickly—didn’t want to make Astrid worry or the kids come running.

  But I was relieved. Now we had weapons of some kind. Not so good against bullets, but close up they’d be … horrific. Hopefully just holding one would be threat enough to make any intruders leave us be.

  My next stop was the storeroom.

  I wanted to make sure the hatch was properly locked and I also knew I should do something about the bodies.

  I brought two chainsaws with me so I could bring them over to the House, when I was done in the storeroom. I decided I should teach Astrid how to use one, just in case.

  I was right—the bodies were beginning to smell.

  I needed to seal them off somehow. My first idea was to put them in giant plastic bins. But none of the bins were big enough. Not by a long shot.

  So then I turned to plastic sheeting, but we’d used all the plastic drop cloths when we sealed the gates.

  I headed for the shower curtains. We had used some of those, but maybe not all.

  And that’s how Mr. Appleton and Robbie came to be shrouded in floral nylon shower curtains.

  Maybe it sounds funny. But it wasn’t funny to me. It was a nightmare to roll them up in those curtains. Mr. Appleton’s body was heavy and rank and stiff, as if someone’d siphoned out his blood and replaced it wi
th cement.

  Robbie was grisly, with the blood, but the sheet we’d thrown on him stuck to his face, so at least I didn’t have to look at him.

  I got them wrapped up and I laid them side by side on the floor. The next step was to drag them over to the wall. Then I thought I might get some boxes or maybe decorative rocks or something and cover the bodies, so the kids wouldn’t see them if they came into the storeroom.

  And I needed to wipe down.

  I smelled like something dead. Dead men, to be specific.

  That’s when I felt the hit.

  There was a sound, like a big THUNK, but more than the sound, I felt the impact. The floor shook.

  I grabbed a chainsaw and rushed back into the store.

  “Dean?” I heard Astrid shout.

  “I’m back here!” I yelled.

  THUNK.

  The impact came again. I was close to it.

  I scanned around with my headlamp, trying to find what could be making that noise.

  THUNK. And now a heavy chunking noise—the sound of cinder blocks caving in.

  I scanned the wall, running from aisle to aisle. The sound was coming from the corner of the store near the storeroom, near the Dump.

  “Someone’s trying to break through!”

  I saw Astrid’s light come jagging toward me.

  Then I saw the attack site. The cement bricks were caving in at the floor. Then they moved and we saw the reason.

  Two metal prongs had crashed through the wall.

  “It’s a tractor or something,” I yelled.

  The prongs retracted.

  “They’re trying to get in!” Astrid screamed.

  Behind Astrid, Chloe and the twins appeared with Luna at their heels, barking her head off.

  “Go back to the Train!” I yelled at them.

  “You always say that!” Chloe shouted back.

  More bricks crashed inside.

  There was an opening maybe two feet across now, down at knee height.

  “Get back!” I shouted.

  I pulled the starter on my chainsaw and it roared to life.

  “Dean,” Astrid yelled. “Dean! We need our masks!”

  The tractor came back, puncturing higher this time. The hole was getting bigger. Blocks rolled inward, toward us.

  Astrid pulled the kids away from the site.

  “GET TO THE TRAIN! LOCK YOURSELVES IN, OR YOU’RE DEAD!” she hollered, dragging them back, back, back.