This World We Live In (The Last Survivors, Book 3) (22 page)

I said. "Or Matt. Or Jon. You have to fight for happiness, Mom. Maybe it didn't used to be that way, but it is now. I'm

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not going to settle for sadness. That's not what you want for me, not real y."

"I want to protect you," Mom said. "I want to know you're safe, that you'l be al right."

"Just love me," I said. "Love me and let me go."

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***

Chapter 17 July 10

I thought I knew what fear was. I thought, For the past year I've lived every day afraid; I must understand fear. I understood nothing.

Last night was horrible. Matt yel ed at me, told me that Alex wasn't good enough for me, that I was disloyal and stupid. Then he and Syl got into a screaming match in their room, so loud we could al hear it downstairs.

Jon didn't yel , at least not at me. He and Mom had a huge fight. He wanted to go with us and Mom wouldn't let him. It was so bad she sent me over to Dad's to bring him back to tel Jon he'd be better off staying home.

Even Charlie got in the act. He came over to talk things out with me.

"I'm glad you're going with us," he said. "It makes Hal so happy, and Hal's the best friend I've ever had.

But don't count too much on Alex. He's a great boy, Miranda, a wonderful boy, but that's what he is, a boy. A boy who's been given so much responsibility, he thinks he must be a man."

That was last night. And awful as it was, I'd give up everything to go back to it.

Matt and Dad went out this morning to chop wood 218

and spend their last day together. Syl hid in her room; Jon, in his. Mom and I cleaned downstairs, careful y staying in different rooms as we dusted and scrubbed.

Alex and Julie came over around ten. "Julie would like to make the food run with Jon," Alex said. "Is that al right with you, Mrs. Evans?"

Mom nodded. She went to the staircase and hol ered to Jon to come down. He did, each step taking longer than the step before.

"Julie wants to go to town with you," Mom said.

"For the food run. Al right?" Jon shrugged.

Julie took that for a yes. "Let's go," she said. Jon fol owed as she left the house.

"I'd like to go out with Miranda if you don't mind, Mrs. Evans," Alex said. "I'd like to look for bikes or maybe even a car."

"It looks like it might rain," Mom said.

"She'l be fine," Alex said. "I'l look out for her."

"I'l get my jacket," I said. I ran to the closet and got it, giving Mom a peck on the cheek when I returned.

"Mom, don't worry. I won't melt."

"Al right," Mom said. "I won't worry."

When we got outside, I realized I wouldn't need my jacket. It was very muggy and close to 70 degrees.

There was the smel of thunderstorms in the air. I hoped tomorrow would be better. It would be easier for Mom if I didn't leave under stormy skies.

"We need more bikes," Alex said. "You and I can share one to start out with, and one for Julie and Lisa and Gabriel to share, and one each for Charlie and Hal. I figure we can take one bike from your family, so we'l need three more."

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"We only have four bikes," I said. "Those are for Mom and Matt and Syl and Jon."

"Your mother won't need one," Alex said. "She never leaves the house."

"She wil someday," I said. "When she has to."

"She'l get a bike then," Alex said. "In the meantime you'l need a bike a lot more than she does."

I wanted to ask Alex if we were doing the right thing, but I knew asking him meant I thought we weren't. He must have sensed what I was feeling because he grabbed me and we kissed.

"I want you so much," he said, and then he laughed. "I used to think I wanted things, school, success, food. That was nothing compared to how much I want you."

"You have me," I said.

"I don't believe it," he said, so I kissed him to prove it. And when I did, my mil ion doubts flew away.

"Come on," he said, taking my hand. "Let's see what we can find."

We hiked over to the Seven Pines development, a mile or so away. We stopped more often than I could count, to kiss, to hold each other, to marvel that we real y existed. I had lied to Mom. I did melt, over and over again.

It took an hour of searching and hugging and kissing before we found two bikes. "Let's ride them back," I suggested. "And go out again to look some more."

"Good idea," Alex said, kissing me again. "We'l look for two bikes so your mother can keep yours."

We began the short ride back to my house. We rode side by side, but even so Alex felt too far away from me. I thought, I'm choosing to spend the rest of my life with this boy and I hardly know him. But I wasn't scared anymore,

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just excited and impatient for the next part of my life to begin.

We'd gotten back to Howel Bridge Road, maybe a quarter mile from home, when the wind picked up, howling so hard it knocked me off my bike. Alex got off his bike to help me up, but I pul ed him down instead, and we kissed.

What a dumb word that is, "kiss." I've kissed my grandparents, my brothers, my friends, my teddy bears. I've kissed other boys.

This kiss wasn't that. This kiss was two bodies desperately wanting to become one.

"Do you stil want to marry me?" I asked him. "In the eyes of God and the Church?"

"Does that mean you wil ?" he asked.

I nodded. We held on to each other, loved each other, for what should have been the rest of our lives.

But then hail started to fal , little pel ets of ice at first, more and more of them, growing in size and danger.

"We've got to get home," Alex said as he pul ed me up from the road and helped me get on my bike.

It's been a year since I've seen blue sky, and I thought I knew every different gradation of gray, but the sky had a new and terrifying tone, almost a greenish tint. We rode frantical y down the hil , both of us fal ing as our wheels hit ice. Thunder was growing louder and closer to flashes of lightning.

And then I saw the twister. I couldn't tel how far away it was, just that it was moving fast toward us, toward our home.

I yel ed to Alex, who looked as I gestured. We rode even faster then, trying to outrace death. But as we reached my house, he didn't turn off onto the driveway. Instead he

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yel ed something at me and kept on biking, faster than I knew he could, faster than I knew anybody could.

In a flash I understood everything. He was biking toward Julie and Jon, to warn them, to save them.

And he'd shouted to me to get his missal.

I had only seconds to decide. Do I go back home, warn Mom and Syl, and ride out the tornado in the cel ar with them, or do I go to Dad's, warn Lisa and Charlie, and do the one thing Alex had asked of me?

I turned away from home, rode to Dad's, jumped off my bike, and pounded frantical y on their back door.

Charlie opened it.

"Tornado!" I screamed. "Go to the cel ar!"

I didn't stay in the kitchen long enough to make sure he understood, that he warned Lisa and led her and the baby to safety. I trusted him to do that, as Alex trusted me.

Instead I ran to the parlor and looked frantical y for the missal. I went through a pile of textbooks, but it wasn't there. I felt al the furniture, to see if it was stuffed under cushions, but it didn't seem to be. I got on the floor, searching under the chairs and sofas. I have no idea how long I looked, maybe a minute, maybe more. But then I caught a glimpse of something in his neatly folded pile of clothes. I flung the clothes until I found the missal.

I raced back toward the kitchen, but I could tel from the terrifying sound, the way the house was beginning to shake, that there wasn't enough time to get to the cel ar. Instead I ran into the little storage closet under the stairwel , clutching the missal tightly, as though it could keep me from harm.

When we were kids, we were forbidden to go in that closet. It was the perfect size to hide in, and we'd always

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been tempted. But now I was grown up, and the closet was too smal for me to stand. I curled up in a bal , making myself as smal as possible, so the tornado couldn't find me.

Al around me I could sense the house col apsing, and I felt like a sparrow being sucked into an airplane engine. The sound was ungodly. But the stairwel held, and the tornado passed, and I was stil alive.

I pushed against the stairwel door, but it wouldn't open. I pushed harder, shoving my shoulder against it, but nothing happened. I twisted my torso so my entire chest faced the door, and I rammed my body into the door, pushing, pushing, pushing, but the door stayed shut. There was too much debris piled against it.

I was stuck in the closet, in a tiny space under the staircase. I'd survived the tornado, but now I was buried alive. If no one found me, I'd suffocate.

"Help!" I screamed. "Help!"

"Miranda? Where are you? Are you al right?"

The voice was muffled, as though it was a long way away. Then I realized it was Charlie, cal ing to me from the cel ar.

"I'm in the stairwel closet," I yel ed. "I can't get the door open. Are you al right? Lisa? The baby?"

"We're fine," Charlie shouted. "Keep stil , Miranda. Don't talk anymore. I'l be there in a minute."

I shook from relief. Charlie would save me. Death would be cheated, one more time.

But Charlie didn't come. I heard thuds from the cel ar and a noise I couldn't identify, and then Lisa screamed.

I knew yel ing would use up needed air, but I couldn't help myself. "What happened?" I shouted.

"Lisa?"

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Lisa didn't answer. She just screamed, "No!

Charlie, no!"

"Charlie!" I shouted. "Charlie, answer me!"

But there was no answer, just the sound of Lisa and Gabriel wailing as though they'd lost their best friend.

I was too stunned to cry. Something had happened. I couldn't be sure what, but whatever it was, Charlie hadn't been able to get the cel ar door open. He and Lisa and Gabriel were as trapped as I was. They had more room, so they wouldn't suffocate, but unless someone came and got us out, they would die, just as I would, only their deaths would take longer.

Assuming Charlie hadn't already died.

It was then, only then, that I realized everybody might have died. I hadn't warned Mom or Syl. Mom could have been in the sunroom, Syl in her bedroom, when the tornado struck. Matt and Dad were outside chopping wood. And there was no way of knowing where Jon and Julie were, if Alex had gotten to them in time, and if it would have made any difference if he had.

Before I'd shook from relief. Now my body spasmed in terror and grief.

"Lisa! Lisa, are you al right?"

"Daddy!" I screamed. "Daddy, help me!"

"Miranda?" Dad cal ed. "I can hear you, but I don't know where you are."

"In the stairwel closet," I said. "Daddy, get me out.

Lisa and Charlie are in the cel ar. Something happened to Charlie."

"Miranda, it'l be al right," Dad said. "I'm in the hal way. There's a pile of rubble blocking the door. I'l get Matt. We'l dig you out. Lisa, can you hear me?"

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"Hal!" Lisa yel ed. "Hal! It's Charlie. I think he's dead!"

"Lisa, I can't get to you," Dad said. "There's too much debris. I'm going to get Matt and we'l dig Miranda out first, and then we'l get you. Al right, darling? Is Gabriel al right?"

"Please." Lisa sobbed. "Get us out, Hal, please."

"We wil , darling," Dad said. "You'l be out before you know it. But first we'l get Miranda so she can help us. Miranda, relax if you can. You'l be out in no time."

"Is Mom al right?" I cried. "Daddy?"

"She's fine," Dad said. "So's Syl. We'l be back in a minute. Hold on, Miranda. Just a few more minutes."

I hadn't heard him come in, because of Lisa and Gabriel crying. But I could hear him leave, and the sound of his moving away from me left me even more shaken.

I told myself to calm down. Dad and Matt would get me out and I'd be fine. Mom and Syl had survived. Lisa might be wrong about Charlie. Alex and Jon and Julie had to be al right. They just had to be. We al did. We'd survived worse, I told myself.

We'd get through this together.

I realized then how tightly I was grasping Alex's missal, and I thought, I can't let Matt see this. If Matt knew I'd gone for the missal instead of warning Mom and Syl, he would never forgive me.

I knew there could only be one reason why Alex had told me to get it. The passes to the safe town had to be there.

I was in complete darkness, and I didn't have one of my flashlight pens with me. I held the missal upside down, and an envelope fel out.

upside down, and an envelope fel out.

I felt it. There were certainly papers in it, and something else, something like tiny buttons.

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They were pil s, I realized. The sleeping pil s Alex had told me about. Pil s to al ow Julie to sleep through her death.

I slid the envelope under my shirt and tucked the missal into the corner of the closet. Matt would never know. I'd give the envelope to Alex, and we'd go off together just as we'd planned. Dad and Lisa and the baby were fine. Julie would be secure in the safe town, and when she was, Alex could throw the pil s away. He and I would make our life together.

We'd have our tomorrows.

I could hear them then, Dad and Matt and Syl.

When I heard Syl's voice, I knew Mom real y was al right and I would be also.

"There's a lot of debris here," Dad said. "Miranda, we'l get you out, but it's going to take a few minutes.

Just let us know you're okay, and then don't worry about it."

"I'm fine, Dad," I said, crying and laughing. "Take your time."

Dad made a sound I decided was laughter. I listened as he, Matt, and Syl worked together, clearing a pathway to the door. In the background I could hear Lisa crying and Dad cal ing out to her, tel ing her everything would be al right.

I felt the envelope against my chest. I told myself Alex was alive, that I'd give him the envelope, and if he had ever needed proof of my love, he never would again.

I don't know how long it took before I could hear Dad pul the door open. A few minutes maybe, or forever. I felt him before I could see him. Dark as it was in the hal way, my eyes stil had to adjust to the dim light. But it didn't matter. Dad grasped me and pul ed me out.