A Matter of Days (19 page)

She saw me and couldn’t hold back the squeal.

Shit!

He spun around. “What’s out there? Billy, you there?”

There wasn’t a way to get any closer and stay under cover.

“What’s going on?”

I knew the others would soon return. I unfolded and marched forward. “Let her go.”

My fingers cramped as I held the gun tightly in my fist.
Be the cockroach. Breathe
.

“Oh goody, you’re real purty.” He tossed his cigarette on the ground and stamped it out. He wore a tool belt stocked with bottles of water, cigarettes, and rolls of duct tape.

“Come here, Patty,” I said, but didn’t take my eyes off the man. She didn’t move.

“I can’t let you leave.” He started sauntering toward me.

“Patty! Hurry!” I tried to use the you’re-in-trouble-now voice my mother had perfected. I didn’t know if the man simply didn’t see my gun or ignored it. If he assumed I’d never use it, he assumed wrong.

I would use it. I had to.

But I was afraid to shoot and hit Patty. I needed to be as
close as possible.
Hold down the trigger. Don’t jerk, there’ll be a kick
.

I took a few steps in her direction and, as if a switch was thrown, she skittered across to stand behind me. Her little hand twisted around my ripped back pocket.

The man shook his head. “You’re not going to get out of here. Jonah wants all the girls.”

Who the hell is Jonah?
“Jonah doesn’t get everything he wants.” I hid the fear I knew might crack my voice. I pretended like I had the power and the means to pull this off. I knew without thinking too much that I was going to have to shoot him. We’d have to run because the others would hear all the shots and come to investigate.

I wouldn’t have a second chance.

“Don’t move,” I said, lifting the gun so it was clearly visible in the beam of light he aimed in my direction. As night stole all the ambient light, his body became an outline behind the LED blaze pointed directly at me.
Aim for the light and lower. His trunk. Hit his trunk
.

He stopped moving, but started talking loudly, almost to the point of yelling.
He’s calling them back to help him
.

Patty huddled behind me, crying. Her sniffles were muffled as if she was trying to stay as quiet as possible. “Get ready to run,” I said as quietly as I could, without taking my eyes off the man. “I’ll be right behind you.”

“Okay,” she whispered.

“Can you run? Go toward the doll city you showed us?”

“Uh-huh.”

I’d take that as a yes.
A very scared yes
. My heart thumped so crazily against my ribs, it felt as though it was trying to push
its way out of my chest. The gun wavered, shaking with my nerves.

The man inched toward me again.

“Please just let us go. Don’t make me shoot you.”

“You ain’t going to shoot me.”

“I will.”
Breathe in, exhale with the trigger
.

“No, you won’t.” He lunged.

“Run!” I screamed, and then pulled the trigger. I felt the air move and Patty’s hand disappear.

I held down the trigger and used both hands to steady the weapon. I flinched with each quick boom. The scent of hot metal and the tang of gunpowder made me want to sneeze. But thanks to the games Bean had sent us I knew how to aim. The light fell sideways; the sound of the man’s girth crashing into potted palm trees and his moans of pain, of surprise, cut through the air even as the gun quieted.

I’m out of bullets
. For a moment, I stood there, paralyzed, my fingers frozen on the trigger.
Cockroach, Nadia
.

Then I ran. Keeping my flashlight off, I couldn’t go as fast as I wanted to. I heard shouts and roaring around me, but I kept moving. With quick leaps I took the escalator steps two at a time. Up ahead I saw the pink flashes of lights come from Patty’s sneaker soles.

Chaos erupted as the gang found the man dead. They shouted demands and curses. Fired weapons in rapid fits. But I didn’t stop.

One hand on the wall, I pushed on until I touched a giant teddy bear and knew I’d made it to the toy store. I slithered under the grate, my breathing labored, adrenaline singing through my blood.

Crawling deeper into the shadows, I whispered, “Patty?’

“Here.” She shook a glow ball and it lit up with the faintest soft pink. My eyes were so adjusted to the darkness that it felt as though she held the sun in her hands. I grabbed a T-shirt from the rack and tossed it over the ball.

“We have to get outside. Can you get us to an exit away from those men?” We hid behind a counter. They wouldn’t leave until they found us. That I knew. We needed the vast outdoors to disappear into, or we’d find out who Jonah was and why he wanted girls.

She nodded. “There’s an exit at the end of the hall, back there.” She pointed.

That’s not too far. We might make it
. “Let’s go. We have to be quiet, okay?”

We crawled and made it from the back stockroom to the warren of hallways behind the stores. I saw the fire door as we turned the corner. Ordinarily lights and sirens would sound if it was opened. Not anymore.

We exited on the opposite side of the mall from where Zack said the trucks came. Maybe luck was on our side.
Maybe
.

“Where are we going?” Patty asked.

“Do you know where the dinosaur park is? That’s where Zack and Rabbit are meeting us.”

“Mm-hmm, it’s that way.”

That lined up with the direction I thought they were too.

Please let them have gotten away
. I knew Rabbit. I trusted Zack. Twawki wouldn’t let anyone hurt them. But I feared Rabbit, or even Zack, might come back inside the mall to rescue us if they didn’t see us soon.

Zack won’t let anyone hurt Rabbit. I know that
.

Staying behind abandoned vehicles and motorhomes, I kept my flashlight pointed at the ground. Patty’s shoes lit the
pavement with each step. We crossed the parking lots at a jog. Once we made it to the road we climbed into an army truck to catch our breath. Patty was hanging in, but she drooped with each moment that passed.

Finally in the hush I heard her ask, “Why did they want to hurt me?”

“I don’t know, Patty. Did your mom ever tell you about bad people in the world?”

I felt her enthusiastic nod. “She told me to talk only to people in uniforms. Policemen.”

“That was a good plan.” The insides of my nose and throat were still coated with the stink of Mommy’s decomposition.

“Where are the police?”

“I don’t know. We just have to be super careful from here on out. And rely on ourselves.”

“Where are we going?”

I repeated, “Do you know the dinosaur park around here?”

“Mommy takes me there to hunt for fossils.”

“That’s where we’re meeting Rabbit and Zack.”

“Okay, but where after that?”

“To my uncle’s house—the one who’s a soldier?”

“Oh, right. Okay.” She nodded as if this was normal.

I felt the urgency drain out of my body like a receding tsunami. All I wanted to do was close my eyes and sleep. Fear of discovery and fear for the boys had me climbing back down to the road sooner than I wanted.

One step became two, then one hundred, then one thousand. We slogged on. I saw no lights behind us and heard no sounds of activity other than owls and dogs howling.

We trudged along the road, but I stayed in the ditch and
along fence lines—as close to cover as possible while keeping on the right path.

Patty slowed until she almost dragged each foot. Until she was almost going backward. “I’m hungry.”

“Me too.” I sighed.

“I’m thirsty,” she whined.

“Me too.”

Eventually, I lifted her onto my back, piggyback-style. I needed her to keep going, no matter what.

The moonlight came and went behind a light layer of clouds. Not so much natural light I worried about being seen, but enough I saw the outline of my feet. The last thing I needed was a sprained ankle.

I felt Patty relax against my back.
She fell asleep? Kids sleep anywhere
. I remember thinking that about Rabbit when he was little—one moment he’d be playing and the next drooling on the carpet, his Star Wars toy clutched in his fist.

I hoped Rabbit and Zack made it out. Wouldn’t we have seen them if they’d been caught at the mall too? Or what if they gave up and decided to move on without us? What if they’d already left? Already decided that we were lost?

A throbbing behind my eyes reminded me that I hadn’t drunk anything for a while and what I’d put in my body came out long ago. My growling stomach heaved at its hollowness and my tongue, fuzzy like slippers, stuck to the roof of my mouth.

We rested under a sign declaring that the dinosaur park was another two miles away.

Patty snuggled into my arms and I hugged her close. If I closed my eyes, I heard the gunshots ring in my ears. The spray
as bullets exited his body. I remembered his expression as the light slipped from his forehead and spotlighted his face.

“I had no choice,” I whispered.
I had no choice. I had no choice
. I scratched at my itchy scalp. I wanted a hot shower, clean clothes.
I want to hug my brother. I want to take back killing a man
.

I staggered to my feet and lifted Patty until she clung to my front, her frail arms locked around my neck and her legs wrapped around my waist.

I kept slogging, shuffling, and as I turned a twisty corner road we were so completely sheltered from view that I took the pavement to ease the energy I used. My tongue felt swollen and stiff against my teeth. Dizziness made the trees sway without a breeze.

Finally, a brontosaurus head rose out of the darkness, and for a moment, I thought it looked at me before breaking off a tree branch to gnaw.

“Here, I’ve got her.”

I tightened my hold.

“Nadia, it’s Zack. You made it. You’re safe. Let me take Patty.”

“What’s wrong with her? Nadia, what’s wrong?” Rabbit’s voice sounded far away and underwater. I wanted to tell him nothing was wrong, but the words wouldn’t come out.…

Mom was too sick and tired to notice when I crept into her bedroom to check on her. I held the syringe that Bean brought, to give her the same shot he injected into us. Can I do it? What happens when I give her the shot and she’s already sick? Will it kill her? Will it make her better? Dad? If you’re out there, I need your help. Tell me what to do. Please.

“Nadia?”

“Mom?” I leaned down. “What do you need? Are you thirsty?”

“Tell me again, what did Bean say?”

“He wants us to go to Pappi’s.”

“You should.” She passed out. Her fever had reached 104 degrees. I didn’t know if the shot was still good. I didn’t know anything. Not really.

I rubbed her arm with an alcohol wipe and she shivered. Before I could change my mind I stabbed the needle into her arm and depressed the plunger, slowly, carefully. She didn’t even move.

“You gave her the shot?” Rab said from behind me.

“Yeah.”

“Will it work?”

“I don’t know, Rabbit.”

“D
rink this.” Zack leaned over me.

I lay on my side in one of the little dinosaur caves, someone’s coat draped over my torso. I swallowed the cool liquid as quickly as I could, but a stream of it dripped down my chin and soaked the collar of my shirt.

I blinked, trying to focus under the glaring beam of the camp lantern. Patty gripped Twawki’s neck while Rabbit unpacked the backpacks from the gear store.

“We need to leave. They might find us here.” My throat sounded raspy and ached.

Zack and Rabbit shared a look I couldn’t interpret.

“What?” I asked, too sick to brace myself for their answer.

“The Jeep is gone.”

“Gone? All of it? Everything?” I struggled to sit up, closing my eyes against the dizziness that rushed toward me.

“Yeah. Even Al is gone.” Rabbit frowned.

“We have nothing?” I swallowed quickly against my reflexes.

Zack leaned down and gripped my face until I opened my eyes. “No, we have the backpacks of supplies from the mall. Frog and I made it back with those.”

Rabbit nodded. “We have enough for a few days. You’re sick.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You feel like you’re running a fever.”

“They took everything? Why would they take Al?” My brain couldn’t make sense of any of this news.

Rabbit scooted around to my other side. “They left the cage. Maybe they didn’t want him to starve and opened the door.”

Zack’s quick shake of his head told me he’d tried to spin it for Rabbit. For all we knew, someone ate African gray for dinner.

“We’re so far away from Pappi’s.” I sighed.

“We’re over halfway there, Dia.”

I shook my head, despair cracking my ribs and stabbing my neck. “We’ll never make it.”

Zack pressed his face against mine and, into my ear, scolded, “You cannot talk like that.”

I leaned away, wanting to slide down into a puddle. “You’re right, I’m sorry.”

“What do we do now?” Rabbit asked.

“We start walking and we investigate every house, and
every car, we find until we gather new,” Zack answered with conviction.

“What about the bad men?” Patty asked.

“Or the Jeep stealers? Will they come after us?” Rabbit added.

“Nah, they were headed in the other direction. We’ll be okay. Right, Nadia?” Zack asked, but all I could think was that our supplies, all the work to hoard and find them—all of those were gone.

“Right,” I agreed as my eyelids slid closed and the world faded to black.…

By the third day Mom’s fever broke, soaking the sheets. She was weak, shaky. The circles under her eyes bags of bruises. Her lips were chapped and bleeding. Her skin felt like cooked chicken, but scaly and dry, shedding like snakeskin.

“How long was I out?”

“It’s been a week.”