Monument 14 (29 page)

“Finally!” he said when he saw us.

Niko had just finished making Chloe take a sleeping pill. He had ground it up in a teaspoon of jelly.

“I gave her the full dose,” he said. “Hopefully she’ll sleep the whole way. I’m gonna dose you now, but first I want you to help me get Brayden on board.”

Josie and Sahalia were helping the kids get into their layers of clothing.

“Okay,” Niko said as we walked toward the Automotive aisle where Brayden was.

He took out a piece of paper from his pocket.

It was a checklist.

“We have food, water, first aid, extra clothes, valuables to trade—”

We heard Luna barking.

“Shoot,” he said. “We need dog food.”

“Max,” I called back. “Food for Luna!”

He nodded and ran for the Pet Department.

Niko kept reading: “Air masks, layers of clothing, rope, matches, tarps, backpacks, oil, knives, one gun, bullets.”

He looked up at me.

“What else?”

It was an impressive list.

“I can’t think of anything,” I said.

*   *   *

Sahalia was with Brayden. She had taken over his care and now seemed somewhat territorial about him.

She was wearing her own layers of clothing and was struggling to get Brayden into his.

“We’ll help,” I told her.

Niko was right, Brayden looked green.

As carefully as we could, we put zip-front hoodies onto him. Niko dealt with the sweatpants.

“Brayden,” Niko said softly. “We’re going to move you onto the bus.”

Brayden didn’t acknowledge he’d heard Niko. He was limp and clammy.

“Let’s slide the mattress over, then we’ll lift him in.”

So the three of us slid the air mattress to the bus.

All the while I was thinking about what the hell I was going to do.

Josie lay down blankets for Brayden on the second seat of the bus.

Niko and Josie and Sahalia and Alex and I lifted Brayden awkwardly and got him onto the bus. He was able to walk, a little, when we got him up, but then he collapsed into his seat.

“We’re going to get you help, Brayden,” Sahalia said. “You’re going to feel better soon.”

As Niko and I left the bus she asked Niko, “We have pain meds, right? And antibiotics.”

“A whole bin full,” Niko assured her.

Sahalia had grown up a lot in the last couple days.

*   *   *

I wish I was the strong and silent type who never cries and never shows emotion.

But I saw my brother standing there, working with Astrid to take down the plywood wall over the gate, and tears welled up, making everything blurry and shiny.

My dear, serious, smart brother.

How could I do this to him?

“Don’t start taking down that plywood until we are all in our clothes and have our face masks on!” Niko said to them.

“Jeez, what about the gate?” I said, turning to Niko.

“I figured out how to retract it,” Alex said.

I nodded and looked away from him, turning my head so he wouldn’t see the anguish building up in me.

All the others were already in their many layers of clothes. They all had their masks in their hands. Sahalia came off the bus to get her mask.

They were ready.

“Where’s Chloe?” Niko said.

“She got very, very sleepy, so I put her in the bus to have a rest,” Josie said.

I guess a sleeping pill works pretty fast on an eight-year-old.

“Alex, can I talk to you?” I said.

“Here are your layers, Dean,” Josie said, handing me a stack of sweatpants. “And I have your ‘vitamins,’ too.”

“I want vitamins!” Caroline said.

“Me too!” said Henry.

Josie shushed them.

“Alex, I need to talk to you,” I said.

“You can talk on the bus,” Niko said, pulling on his clothes. “Put your layers on.”

I looked to Astrid. Josie was dressing her, pulling sweatshirts over Astrid’s head and helping her to stick her arms through the sleeves.

“Come on, Astrid,” Josie said. “Help me out here.”

Astrid was crying. She caught my eye, pleading with me over the heads of our busy friends. Our best friends. Our family.

“No,” I said. “I’m not going.”

Heads turned.

“Astrid and I are staying.”

Josie looked at Astrid’s face.

“What is he talking about?” she asked.

Astrid nodded, miserable.

“That’s not funny, Dean,” Alex said. He took the sweatshirt Josie was still holding and pushed it into my hands.

“Put it on!”

“We’re staying,” I said.

“No, you’re not!” he shouted.

“We have to stay.”

“You have to
come
!” Alex yelled. Tears were springing to his eyes. His lips were drawn in a straight line.

“It’s not safe for us to be on the bus,” I said.

“Niko, tell them they have to come! Make them come!”

Niko continued to dress himself.

“Niko!” Alex yelled. “Tell them!”

“No,” Niko said. “They’re right. It’s safer for them and safer for us if they stay.”

Alex screamed and hit Niko. Then turned and attacked me.

I grabbed him and hugged him tight to me.

“Alex, listen to me,” I begged him. “You are going to find our parents.”

“No.”

“And you will know exactly where I am. And you’ll all come get me.”

“Please, Dean. Please!”

“It’s safer for us and safer for you if we stay,” I repeated what Niko had said.

“You’re staying…” He struggled for a breath. “You’re staying…”

He pushed away from me and wiped the snot off his face.

“You’re staying for a girl!” he spat at me. “You’re choosing her over me! Over our mom and dad!”

He walked away from me.

“You love her so much you’re never going to see your family again! I hate you!”

And he turned and boarded the bus.

“Alex,” I said, tears streaming down my face.

Niko put his hand on my arm. He had all his layers on by that point.

“If you guys are staying we need to rethink how we deal with the gate,” he said. “Also, I think you should keep Chloe.”

I looked at Astrid and she nodded.

“She’s not going to like it,” Josie said. “Being left behind.”

She would be furious, when she woke up.

But, really, she would be safe with us and the others would be safe from her.

I carried her warm, heavy body off the bus and laid her on Brayden’s dirty air mattress.

“Is there anyone else who doesn’t want to go?” Niko asked the little kids.

They all were silent.

They looked terrified, clutching their gas masks.

But none of them came forward.

*   *   *

We only took down the center panels. The side panels could stay up because the bus only needed to go through the center doors.

And after refusing to put on the layers so dramatically, Astrid and I did end up putting them on, along with the face masks, because the compounds were going to come into our space.

We’d have to put the wall back up as soon as we could.

“Come on, guys, hurry. Say good-byes and get on board now,” Niko said. “We’re wasting time.”

Max and Batiste and Henry and Caroline all surged over to us and we hugged them. I felt a tug on my hand and Ulysses tugged on my fat, padded arm.

He pressed Luna’s leash into my hand.

“Keep Luna,” he said. “And you memember me.”

He hugged me hard and then got on the bus.

Saying good-bye to them hurt like I was getting stabbed in the heart.

Little Caroline and Henry were weeping. They clung to me until Josie pried them off and sent them up the stairs.

“Dean,” Caroline called. “You have to come. You’re our favorite!”

“I’m sorry, Caroline. I have to stay here and keep Astrid and Chloe safe.”

“Tell Chloe we said ‘bye’, okay?” she said.

Tears rolled down her freckled cheeks. This was agony.

Alex was sitting near Brayden at the front of the bus. He wouldn’t look at me. Niko had gone and tried to talk him out, but Alex wouldn’t come. Not even to put up the gate. He’d given instructions to Niko to give to Astrid.

“So when you hear the air horn,” Niko told her now. “That means press the retract sign, but only for the center gate. Then when you hear it a second time, that means put it back up.”

Astrid nodded.

“I’m sorry, Niko,” she said. “I’m sorry we can’t go with you.”

“I know,” he said.

“You were a great leader,” she told him.

I hated hearing this conversation. Everything had this terribly final feel to it.

“Good luck,” he said.

“You, too.”

And Astrid went to wait for the air horn.

*   *   *

The bus was running now.

Josie and Sahalia were standing by with their air masks on.

All we had to do was take down the last panels and then blow the horn for Astrid to retract the center gate.

“Wait!” I said.

I had an idea. I turned from Niko and I ran.

“Dean! We have to go!!!” Niko shouted.

I hurdled through the store.

Searching for what I needed.

I was breathless when I got back.

I saw Josie and Sahalia were on the bus. I had forfeited my chance to say good-bye to them. It didn’t matter.

I took the stairs to the bus in two steps.

There he was. Front row.

“Alex,” I said. “Take this.”

I held out a blank journal, just like mine, and a box of pens.

“You take this and you write down everything that happens. You write it all and you write it to
me
. Tell it to me.”

He was sobbing and he reached his many-layered arms to me and we hugged.

“That way I’ll know what happens to you,” I said.

“I will,” he said. “I promise.”

*   *   *

Niko and I unscrewed the last of the screws.

Luna was tied to a four-top in the kitchen. Chloe lay on the air mattress.

All the children were seat-belted into their seats.

I stood at one corner of the final section and Niko at the other.

We pulled and the four remaining plywood sheets came crashing down. I dragged two out of the way. Niko dragged the other two.

Josie stood on the steps of the bus. She has been waiting for the wood to come down. That was her cue.

BWRAAAM!
She hit the air horn and tossed it aside.

But under the wood, we had covered the gate in thick woolen blankets and layers of plastic. I had forgotten that.

I reached up, wondering if we should pull down the blankets.

But then the gate started up with a loud mechanical drone. Too late.

The gate went up, chucking and whining with the added padding of the blankets and plastic, but still retracting.

And there was the dark parking lot. The broken asphalt. The ruined cars. The dots of light, far in the distance, that were the emergency lights on the highway.

There was the world.

We had blocked it out for so long.

The engine of the bus roared as Niko put it into reverse and backed out into the lot.

It worked! It rolled! The bus could drive.

Niko honked the horn.

I knew inside they were shouting good-bye, probably crying, but I couldn’t hear them …

They were leaving now. Without us.

I hit the air horn:
BWRAAAM!

The bus drove forward into the lot.

But then it stopped. The doors opened.

What was happening?!

Two bundled-up children got off the bus and started running clumsily back to me.

My heart was in my gut. My stomach was in my throat. My nerves were jangling and I rushed forward, outside, my arms out to them, whoever they were.

*   *   *

Then, behind me, the gate started to lower.

*   *   *

I ran to them and slid on the slimy, sticky pavement. I darted past the cracked sections, trying not to fall.

I picked the two children up and ran for the store. The gate was coming down, shutting out the light of the Greenway. It was slicing down, cutting off the view of the Kitchen, the cash registers, the empty carts waiting in their corral.

*   *   *

I threw the children onto the ground, pushing first one and then the other under the gate.

I squeezed under it. My coat—my stupid layers—made it harder. The gate was crushing my chest. The two kids pulling at me, trying to get me in.

I pushed up and to the side, and somehow, I got in.

It had my sneaker but I pulled my foot out of it. The sneaker got left outside, but my foot made it in.

*   *   *

We were inside. Back to our blessed home. Our bright commercial sanctuary from the dark, grisly, true world. Our Greenway.

*   *   *

The two children took off their balaclavas and removed their masks. They were Caroline and Henry.

“We want to stay with you,” Caroline said.

“You’ll keep us safe,” Henry added.

“Can we stay?” Caroline asked. She looked up at me, her face streaked with grime and tears.

“Of course,” I said. “Of course you can stay.”

*   *   *

Astrid came out from the storeroom.

“Oh!” she cried when she saw them.

They ran to her.

She sank to her knees and covered their faces with kisses. Just took their little, grimy, stained faces in her hands and kissed them all over.

Then she hugged them.

And Astrid had them in her arms, she looked up at me, welcoming me with her eyes and I joined them.

Alex was gone.

And Niko and Josie and Brayden and the rest.

Jake was gone, too.

But we had Caroline and Henry and Chloe.

And we had each other.

We were five.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Heartfelt thanks go to my agent, Susanna Einstein, who supported
Monument 14
from the moment I told her the first glimmer of the idea, to this very draft you’ve just read. Jean Feiwel, my editor and publisher, thank you for your vision and dedication to making
M14
the best book it could be. I feel tremendously fortunate to work with you. Holly West, thanks for loving the book so much and taking such great care of it.