Authors: Emmy Laybourne
“Get them a message?” The voice started to laugh. “Sure. That’s a great idea. I’ll get them a message. Open the gate, so we can make a message!”
There was something very, very off in this voice. I exchanged a glance with Alex. He knew it, too.
“Like I told you, we can’t!” Jake yelled again.
“Open it, you little twits! Come on, I’m hungry! Just open it. Open it.”
“We can’t—”
“OPEN THE F
___
GATE! OPEN IT!!! OPEN, OPEN, OPEN!”
And the man outside started rattling the gate again.
Chinka-chinka-chink
.
I could see the fear wash over the little kids. Their faces, one moment ago bright with hope, went cold and pale.
Caroline and Henry, standing behind me, each clutched on to one of my legs at the exact same moment. I pried them off and crouched down, hugging them to me.
When the man outside shook the gate, our wall of plastic and blankets bobbed with the air pressure.
“Our wall,” I said to Niko. “Is it going to let the air in?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so,” he answered.
“Go away,” Jake shouted, his voice gruff.
“
LET ME IN!
” the man shouted. “
BY THE HAIR OF MY F
___
CHIN, LET ME IN OR I’LL HUFF AND I’LL BLOW YOUR EFFIN’ GREENWAY DOWN!
”
He was shaking the gate now.
Chinka-chinka-chink
.
CHINKA-CHINKA-CHINK. CHINKA-CHINKA-CHINK
.
Wobble-wobble-wobble
went the sheeting.
Astrid stepped in front of the little kids.
“Come on, guys,” she said. “Who likes puppet shows? I’m going to do a puppet show for you guys.”
No one moved.
Obviously their failure to move had nothing to do with their feelings about puppet shows. They were rooted to the spot in utter horror and shock.
“
OPEN THE DOOR, YOU LITTLE SONS A BITCHES
!”
“Go away!” Jake yelled. “Go away and leave us alone!”
CHINKA-CHINKA-CHINKA-CHINKA-CHINK
.
“Guys!” Astrid yelled. “Free candy! Come on. Whatever toys you want! Let’s party! Come on.”
She was working so hard.
“
OPEN THE GATE OR I WILL KILL YOU. I WILL TEAR YOUR LITTLE KIDDO HEADS OFF AND I WILL MAKE A SOUP OUT OF YOUR LITTLE SMART-ASS KIDDO BRAINS AND—
”
I started to sing.
Yes, sing.
“I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy. Yankee Doodle Do or die.”
I let go of Henry and Caroline and started marching, like I was the leader of a parade.
“An old old something something la la la, born on the Fourth of July.”
So maybe I didn’t know the words, exactly.
Alex joined in. Astrid, too. All three of us marching like idiots.
“You’re my Yankee Doodle sweetheart, Yankee Doodle do or die.”
I led the three of us, making up the words somewhat and we walked in front of the gate, getting between the eyes of the little kids and the plywood, just trying to break the terror spell of the monster outside.
Who now started to yell, “YOU SINGING ‘YANKEE DOODLE’? ‘YANKEE DOODLE DANDY’? I’LL F
___
KILL YOU!”
Niko joined in and that guy, I am here to tell you, is entirely tone deaf.
But the little kids kind of snapped to. We caught their attention.
“Yankee Doodle went to town a riding on a pony. I am a Yankee Doodle guy.”
And the kids started marching and I led the parade, the saddest parade in the history of the world, away from the front of the store, away from the monster outside, and right to the stupid cookie and cracker aisle. We ate fudge-covered graham crackers for a good long while.
CHAPTER SEVEN
BLOOD TYPES
The kids fell asleep, after a while. It was maybe three in the afternoon—hard to tell inside because the lighting was the same all day long. I don’t know what time it was, but Astrid had told them it was time for a nap and the kids dropped into their sleeping bags like the walking dead.
The twins slept together, and Max and Ulysses moved their bags next to each other. Chloe and Batiste were sort of the odd men out. Batiste tried to snuggle up to Chloe, but she wouldn’t have it.
“Quit it, Batiste,” she said. “You smell.”
She pushed him away.
“It’s a sin to push,” Batiste mumbled.
“Yeah, well. It’s also a sin to try to hug someone who doesn’t want to be hugged!”
“No, it’s not!” Batiste protested.
“Yes, it is!”
“No!”
“Yes!”
“No.”
“Yes!”
“Come on, you guys,” I said, trying to be sane.
“Hugging is not a sin!” Batiste yelled.
“It is too, if the girl getting hugged doesn’t want it!” Chloe countered.
“Hey!” Astrid hollered. “Shut up!”
Then Chloe hit Batiste in the stomach, which I admit was not entirely displeasing to me, because that Batiste was an aggravating kid.
Then Batiste said it was a sin to punch someone in the stomach.
He cried for a while, and gradually his cries gave way to the shallow rhythm of sleep breath.
It was a relief to have them asleep. Astrid and I sort of looked at each other and smiled. The moment had a weird feeling of middle-aged family life, with the two of us cast just where I’d like us to be, in about twenty years, but, of course, with about five too many kids.
“You’re good with kids,” she said to me.
“Not really,” I said. “You’re good with them.”
Good conversation, right? I was really connecting with her.
“Counselor of the year, Indian Brook Day Camp. Three years running,” she said, brushing a loose tendril of blond hair behind her ear.
“That’s really something,” I said. Again, with the skills.
She shrugged and walked away, over to the broken television, where the rest of the big kids were sitting and listening.
Everyone looked up when we came over, except for Josie. She was sitting with everyone, but was just staring ahead. There but not entirely “there.”
“He’s talking about the compounds,” Alex told me in a whisper.
Whoever the anchor was, he had a very deep, reassuring voice. Nevertheless, what he told us was terrifying.
“Residents of the southwestern region of the United States,” he told us. “Please be advised: There has been a breach of the chemical-weapons storage units located at NORAD in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
“The compounds attack based on blood type. People with blood type A will develop severe blisters on all exposed skin. After prolonged exposure, the internal organs will begin to hemorrhage, leading to organ failure and death.”
I looked at Niko. He was type A. Personality and blood type, apparently.
“People who have type AB blood suffer from paranoid delusions and possible hallucinations.”
Brayden buried his head in his hands.
“There is confusion as to the effects on people with type B blood. It is possible they will suffer from long-term reproductive difficulties and sterility. But there is hope that people with type B blood suffer no consequences from exposure.”
Alex and Sahalia had been on the roof and showed no symptoms at all. They were type B. Jake, too, as he had been exposed in the storeroom and showed no signs.
My brother would be okay. That was some comfort to me.
“People with type O blood, which is the most common blood type, will become deranged and violent. Avoid these people at all costs. Containing them in a closet or basement is advised, if possible.”
I felt everyone look at me.
My face went hot.
I was type O. Me and the gate rattler.
Awesome.
“Fortunately, the compounds wear off very quickly. If you are exposed, get to a safe place and flush your skin and mucus membranes with clean water. The effects subside within ten to twenty minutes. Prolonged exposure will lead to irreparable damage to all blood types except for type B.”
The voice went on to advise us to stay indoors and await help.
“Like we have a choice,” Brayden scoffed.
And then for the good news. Ha.
The anchor told us it was thought that the chemicals would disperse in between three to six months.
“Six
months
!” Astrid exclaimed.
He then reassured us that government operatives were hard at work deactivating the blackout cloud that now enveloped the area within an eight-hundred-mile radius of Colorado Springs. It was a magnetic cloud and would hover above the detonation site unaffected by rain or wind.
And then the anchor said this: “Good citizens of the United States of America, we are in the midst of the greatest crisis our country has ever known. But if we have courage and patience, if we persevere despite the great odds against us, we will come through this calamity. Good night, stay safe, and God bless you.”
Then the whole report started again on a loop.
* * *
Somebody (probably Niko) had dragged beanbag chairs into the Media Department, so that’s what we were sitting on. It was me, Jake, Brayden, Astrid, Niko, Alex, and Sahalia. Niko, who, I was beginning to realize, had a hard time sitting still, was starting to clean some of the earthquake mess up, but only in our area.
We were all just kind of sitting there together, taking in all we had heard. Everything that had happened.
I was wondering what blood type my parents were.
Praying for B.
Reproductive failure and sterility. Yes, let them both be type B.
“Hey, Niko,” Jake drawled. “What do you think about the air in here? You think it’s safe enough?”
“Yeah, we don’t even know what type the little kids are. It’d suck to wake up in the middle of the night surrounded by blood-thirsty kindergarteners,” Brayden said.
“We definitely need to keep our air supply shut off from the outside,” Niko said.
“Hey,” Sahalia said, “are we going to, like, suffocate if we’re cut off from the outside?”
“Not with this quantity of air,” Alex said. “The volume of air in a space this size is substantial.”
“Maybe we could like set some air filters,” Jake said. “In case some of that outside air is coming in…”
“I wonder if there are any plants inside,” I said. “Or maybe some seeds. If we had plants, they would filter the air and give us oxygen.”
“I’m more worried about power,” Niko said. “I’m worried the blackout cloud is going to affect the solar harvest system on the roof.”
“Great,” moaned Brayden. “That’s all we need. To be shut up here in the dark!”
“I’ve been thinking about it,” Alex said, standing up. “The blackout cloud is what will determine how the power goes. Right before my brother attacked me up on the roof, did you see how the light went green?”
How screwed up is it that; me trying to kill Alex had now become a common reference point in all of our lives.
“If the light really did go green,” Alex continued, “or even yellowish, then the blackout cloud is designed to block blue and red spectrums, which are the ones that allow for plant life. The solar panels will take any spectrum. So if only yellow gets through, that’s okay. They can still run.”
He was pacing now. Something he does when he gets really excited.
“God, you’re a geek—” Sahalia moaned.
She looked so much older than my brother. It was hard to believe they were both thirteen.
“I’ve been thinking about food,” I said, cutting her off. “There’s a lot of fresh stuff we should eat before it goes bad.”
“What we really need to do is clean up,” Niko added. “We need to put everything back on the shelves and throw away the broken things, so we can fully take stock and prepare our—”
“Nobody’s thinking about getting out of here?” Astrid interrupted. “We’re just going to live here now? All one big happy family, like for the rest of our lives?”
We stopped talking.
Astrid was slung on a beanbag chair, one foot rhythmically tapping an overturned display case.
“Not for the rest of our lives. Just until things kind of get somewhat normal out there,” Jake answered.
“What about our parents?” Astrid asked.
There was a long quiet. I studied my hands. The skin was dry and I had some cuts I hadn’t even noticed. My hands looked rough.
“They’re dead? We just assume they’re dead, now?” There was an edge in Astrid’s voice. An unhinged feeling.
“We’ll just hide in here and eat candy when they could be dying outside. My mom could be getting attacked by a monster like the guy out front. Or my dad is paranoid and hiding comfortably under our kitchen sink.
“Or maybe my dad has my mom locked in the basement, because maybe she’s type O and she went after him with her favorite chef’s knife. Or maybe she’s got him locked in the basement. No, wait. We don’t have a basement. I guess they’re dead. I guess they’ve clawed each other to death by now. And my brothers…”
Her voice caught in a sob.
“Eric’s only two and a half. Probably don’t need to worry about him. He’s probably dead already…”
Jake stood up and walked over to her. He put a hand on her shoulder.
“It’s okay, Astrid,” he said.
She melted into his arms.
“Don’t you care?” she choked out. “Isn’t it driving you crazy to think of what is going on out there?!”
He held her in his big football-player arms and she wept.
I was up on my feet. I had propelled myself to my feet and I started walking to the Home Improvement aisle, without even knowing where I was going.
Alex followed me.
I stormed off into the Pet aisle, kicking some fallen doggie treat boxes out of my way.
“Dean?” Alex asked. “Do you know what type Mom and Dad are, by chance?”
I shook my head.
“I’m sorry that I have B and you got O,” he said.
“That’s stupid,” I said. “I’m glad you are type B. It’s the least scary of them all.”
“Sterility is definitely the best one,” he replied. “Because it’s highly unlikely that I would be a father, anyway. It’s highly unlikely I would ever want to, even if I could, after all of this.”
I looked at him. Sometimes the way his brain worked just amazed me. He could deal with anything, as long as he could look at it scientifically.