Pod (8 page)

I stuff the water, the candy, and the pen into my pockets. Already I’m feeling good about my trade. I leave the book. Then I wonder, how will she finish the puzzles without her pen? It’s stupid, I know, but I put it back.

A voice tells me I should close her eyes. I’ve seen it done on television, so I reach out—but I just can’t do it. My brain won’t let me touch her cold skin one more
time. I leave her eyes open to stare at the spot of blood on the back of the beige headrest.

“Thanks for the water,” I say, and crawl out of the car.

I should move on to the next car, but my whole body is shaking. I feel like that smell is clinging to my skin. I need to get away. It’s time to go back to my sleeping bag on Level 1. Maybe Mom is waiting for me.

Or maybe someone else. Someone with a knife.

I check on Cassie. She’s curled up on the seat, sleeping. I know I have to do it, so I might as well do it now. I quietly squeeze another tube of ketchup on the seat and leave the door open a crack so she’s able to get out.

I start walking. It feels good to be moving away from those glassy eyes, that smell. But I only get to Level 2 before I have to stop. My eyes are leaking so bad I can hardly see. I can’t afford to lose this much water. That same voice, the one from the car, is telling me Cassie will wake up and she’ll be alone. She’s too small and scared to take care of herself. And what if Hoodie finds her? I’ll let her go when she gets a little older. So I turn around. There’s enough food and water in this garage for both of us.

I just have to go out and find it.

Full Tank of Gas

Dinner is done.

The smell of canned chili, burned as usual, hovers in the air. The dishes are clean and stacked. The counter is wiped down with antibacterial soap, not a crumb or germ to be seen. Dad is in the kitchen doing food inventory, checking off each item on his three-page list. It’s something he does twice a day now that he knows his son is a graham-cracker felon. Between this and charting spaceships and folding laundry, I’m amazed he has time to sleep.

I lift the keys to the Camry off the hook in the hall and sneak into the garage. I sit in the car, slide the seat back about six inches, put the keys in the ignition. I turn the ignition to the point where the accessories turn on. The dashboard lights up, red and white. The gauges settle into the appropriate positions. I smile. There’s a full tank of
gas. I reach up to press the button for the garage door opener, but then I realize that would make too much noise. Dad would hear it for sure. I slip out of the car, pull a lever that disengages the opener, and slowly lift the door until there’s enough clearance to back out the car. It’s dark outside, so I can’t see the local POD, but I know it’s there. That’s good enough for me.

I get back into the Camry, put on the seatbelt to keep it from beeping, check the rearview mirror, slide the gear- shift into reverse, push in the clutch. This is the point where Dad should come running. He should have heard me by now and be yelling at me to get out of the car. But he’s too busy counting cans of tomato paste and jars of pickled artichoke hearts. I put my hand on the key, ready to twist—and I sit there.

The car smells like Mom. I breathe her in, the unmistakable scent of flowers that trails behind her when she walks past me in the hall. Her yoga mat is rolled up in the backseat. There’s a Starbucks gift card and a Target gift certificate in the storage bin, both gifts I gave her for Mother’s Day. There’s a yellow sticky note she put on the visor reminding herself to make reservations for the pizza party. I close my eyes. It would take all of five seconds for me to disappear. It would take Dad hours, maybe days, to figure out that I’m gone.

Then the details hit me. Like, what would Dad do? Would he walk out the door or stay in the house and starve? What would happen to Dutch? What if this, what if that? All these details are making me tired. I’m not in
the mood for this train of thought. I lift my foot off the clutch, pull the keys out of the ignition. I close the garage door, sneak back into the house, and put the keys on the hook.

Dad must have heard something because he calls me to come see what he found. He’s sitting on the kitchen floor with a pile of red-and-white packages piled up at his feet.

“Good news, Josh,” he says, holding up a prize. “-Twenty-four envelopes of dried milk.”

“That’s amazing, Dad,” I say. I turn around and head for my room. He says something about pancakes in the morning, but I’m not listening. I’m thinking that it isn’t the PODs and their death rays. It isn’t the empty refrigerator, or the soon-to-be-starving dog, or the baggies full of water on the kitchen counter.

It’s knowing that today is my birthday, Mom isn’t here, and I can’t check my freaking e-mail.

That’s what’s killing me.

Hacker

A slamming sound wakes me.

I peer out. Two men are in the garage. My heart skips a beat. One is Hoodie, his face still dark as usual in the shadow of his hood. The other is the tall thin man with the tattoos and shiny head. He helped Hoodie get rid of Speed-Bump Guy. I saw him again the third day smashing windows with a big hammer. He wasn’t even searching the cars, just smashing windows. Back then he was wearing a tank top that showed off the tattoos on his arms. Now he’s wearing a collared blue shirt with long sleeves. It could be a uniform.

They’re standing under the light by the green exit door. Hoodie has a flashlight in one hand and a big hammer in the other. He shines the beam slowly around the garage. It moves to this end and stops. He points with the hammer.
The tall guy nods and coughs. It’s rough and throaty, like he’s going to hack up a lung. When he’s done he reaches into his shirt pocket, pulls out a cigarette, and lights it.

They weave through the maze of cars, talking and laughing. Hoodie swings the hammer, slamming it into taillights as he goes. The noise echoes around me, waking Cassie. She lets out a soft mew. I press her against my shirt. One more peep from her and in the sleeping bag she goes.

They’re close enough now for me to hear every word.

The bald man stops, hacks up something, and spits it out. Hoodie shakes his head and frowns. They start walking again. It’s hard to tell where they’re headed. I figure it’s one of the cars closer to the exit. They aren’t as banged up as the SUV.

Hacker says, “So, Richie, you gonna tell me what we’re lookin’ for?”

Hoodie has a name. Richie.

Richie says, “Guess.”

“It’s not money.”

A short laugh. “You got that right.”

“Drugs?”

Richie pounds another taillight. The next car is the Nova.

He says, “Drugs would be sweet, but no. Think about it. With the guests being so restless and all, what’s the most valuable commodity given our current
sit
-u-ation?”

“You ask me it’s smokes, man. A carton of Lucky Strikes would make my week.”

Richie’s at the Nova. He smashes one taillight, then the other. I feel each blow as if the hammer is hitting me.

He kicks at the broken glass. “I hate Novas. Knew a guy that had one. Sucked oil like a Slurpee. Couldn’t sell it so he set it on fire and walked away.”

Hacker says, “So it’s not money or drugs. Why did Mr. Hendricks send us out here at dark-thirty when we should be sleeping?”

Richie stops and looks at him. For a second I think he’s going to club Hacker with the hammer. Then he says, “Guns, you bald-headed dumb-ass. The Holy Grail!”

Hacker says, “But we found ’em all. Three pistols and a shotgun. That’s it.”

Richie says, “This is America, my friend. A garage this size—we should’ve filled a U-haul by now.”

A flashlight beam stabs through the window. Shadows chase each other across the door and roof. Quiet, like an otter into a river, I slide down to the floor space behind the backseat and curl into a ball. Cassie mews in protest. Her tiny claws rake against my ankles. I resist the urge to bury my head in the sleeping bag. I need to hear what they’re saying.

Hacker says, “I done the Navigator already. I’m positive there ain’t no gun.”

Richie says, “And I’ve got information
con
-tradicting that statement.”

The Navigator! A gun! My brain races—where?

Hacker says, “Like what?”

Richie says, “The lady that owns the Navigator needed asthma spray for her boy. She compensated Mr. Hendricks by telling him about a gun her husband stashes in the car.”

“Where’s it at?”

“In a safe under the driver’s seat.”

I picture the black metal box just two rows away from my head.

“A safe, huh? She give you the combination?”

“It needs a key. Says he hides a spare somewhere up front.”

“What if her information is wrong?”

“There’s gonna be an instant shortage of asthma medication.”

They laugh. Hacker goes into another coughing spasm. He’s so close I smell the smoke from his cigarette. He spits—it thuds like a meatball hitting the car. A flashlight beam scans the inside of the SUV. I duck my head into the sleeping bag but leave enough of a hole so I can hear. I’m hoping all they see is a pile of rags. The handle lifts on the front passenger door. It opens.

Richie says, “You broke this window, right?”

“Third day. Gotta love bustin’ up a Navigator.”

“You wipe the glass off the seat?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Well, it’s all on the floor now.”

The door slams closed.

I nudge Cassie with my foot. She moves, just barely.

Footsteps crunching toward the back. The rear passenger door opens.

Richie says, “You see all this crap? Comic books, a pile of clothes, looks like a sleeping bag on the floor?”

“Man, I boosted so many cars I don’t remember.”

“What do you remember?”

“A kitten in a cage.”

“A what?”

“A kitten in back. Scrawny little thing. Smelled like pee.”

“You left it?”

“I’m allergic to cats.”

Richie says, “That’s gen-u-ine sick, my friend. And you say I’m the mean one?”

The door slams shut. More footsteps. Now Richie says, “There’s a cage but no kitten. If I didn’t know better I’d say someone has built a little nest.”

Richie grunts. I figure he’s squeezing through the space between the SUV and the car it smashed into. Footsteps on my side of the car now. They move all the way to the driver’s door and stop.

There’s another sound. A voice yelling in the distance.

Richie says, “What’s he want?”

“He says the water’s off.”

“How’s that my problem?”

“Don’t know. But he wants us
now
.”

Richie says, “Yeah, well, I’m busy.”

The driver’s door opens. The SUV drops an inch. My heart pounds so hard my head hurts. My lungs are screaming for air, which makes me wonder about Cassie. If I can
barely breathe, what about her? I want to poke her with my toe, but I don’t. Richie, his voice at floor level, says, “Bingo!” The SUV shakes. Shakes again, harder. Richie swears. He yells, “It’s locked!”

“Can you take the safe?”

“No. It’s welded to the floor.” A pause. I hear the click of his knife. Just that one sound makes my stomach clench like a fist. He says, “You going to stand there like an idiot, or help me find a key?”

The passenger door opens. They start tossing things around. The noise is like a hurricane. CD cases snapping, carpet ripping, coins dumped to the floor.

Then Hacker says, “Hey! What the—”

There’s a thud. He groans. I think he hit ground.

A new voice, deep, like rumbling thunder, says, “Go back to the hotel.”

That can be only one person.

Black Beard.

The SUV rises. Richie says, “What’s got your panties all in a bunch?”

Black Beard says, “Mr. Hendricks wants the men and women separated.”

“That a fact? Who goes where?”

“Men go to the tenth floor.”

Richie says, “Divide and conquer. So much for one big happy family.”

Silence.

“Do I get to super-vise the ladies?”