Ascending the Boneyard (3 page)

Cam's yelling too, yelling at me to stay in the raid, and I want to, but I keep checking out the window because Stan is loading a bunch of our stuff into his truck: table, chairs, mantel clock, all back where his canisters of poison should be.

“T-Man!” Militiababe calls out. “Get in there. Come on!”

I quick cut my gaze to the Boneyard, the map filling up with a fog so dense, it congeals inside my head.

“Tosh!” Cam barks, reaching for the mouse.

I wave him off, but the shouting out in the front yard rages to new volumes. I lean toward the window, watch as the old man ramrods into Stan, sending him ass over teakettle down the steps. The lamp in his hand shatters into a burgundy mosaic across the walkway, and as he hits the ground, a piece of it jams into the flat of his palm. Blood pumps out fast and wet onto the gravel.

Cam's in front of the computer, freaking out. “Tosh, you can still get to the tunnel, man!”

I turn back just in time to see Bruise die, taken out by a hairy-legged roach mob firing mortar rounds from a truck.

Militiababe's quiet now. She tried to save my stupid ass with good heals, and now I've totally let her down.

“Shit . . .”

“You got her killed,” Cam says. “You got them all killed. It's a wipe. Total fail, man.”

I throw the headset at Cam without looking, press in next to Haze at the window. Through the sickening yellow tint of the goggles, I watch my mom help Stan to his feet. She's soft with him. Soft in a way she hasn't been with any of us, at least not since the accident.

I catch her eye through the window. The pain on her face hits me like a backhanded blow from the old man.

“What the hell is his problem?” someone shouts over the headset in Cam's hand. “Why isn't he moving?”

Cam lunges at the computer, grabs the mouse. “Tosh! You're still standing. How do I launch? How do I tag the tunnel?”

My mom follows Stan to the truck.

The numbness spreads from my face into my whole entire body.

Something's off. This isn't her typical reboot, like when she gets in her old junker for an hour-long drive around.

Cam's clicking the mouse like crazy. “Jesus, Tosh, this raid isn't over, man.”

I drag my gaze from the window to the computer screen, where minion soldiers come spilling out of the tunnels, flooding the abandoned highway. They're everywhere.

Everywhere.

Two truck doors slam shut, one right after the other.

I rip the earbud out of my ear, tear down the hallway, out the door, down the steps. Haze and Cam are on my heels.

“Tosh, wait!”

“Tosh . . .
the game
!”

I run. Fast. Faster than I've ever run before in my entire life. I smell the chemicals leaching out of Stan's truck, the exhaust fumes, four years of dust blowing off our furniture as they drive away.

I can't breathe.

Haze catches up to me first but doesn't say anything. Just stands there watching me watch the truck get smaller and farther away.

Cam is panting by the time he hits my side.

“The Boneyard,” he huffs.

I spin around, the street echoing frame by frame through those yellow lenses as I turn.

“Everyone's dead,” Cam says, breathless. “The raid's down in flames. Total fucking wipe, man. They'll never take you with them again, Tosh. Never.”

He's right.

It's over.

I'm an absolute fail.

1.5

In the past few weeks
alone, I've logged over three hundred hours in the Boneyard.

The goggles really do help.

2

“Caleb!”

Everything the old man says these days has an exclamation point attached.

He shoves his sweaty, unshaved face into my bedroom.

“I'm goin' down to Goodwill, get us a couch. Watch your brother for me.”

Watch my brother for him. Right. Must be a day ending in
Y
.

He starts to leave, then doubles back.

“There's some boxes in the living room I want you to go through. Keep what you want. Put the rest on the curb.”

He leaves my door open, pivoting on the worn-down heel of his boot. I turn back to the game, go back to looking for Militiababe. She's so badass, I want her in my platoon.

“Caleb!”

I jump at the cut of his voice.

“What?”

He's back in my room. Has that dark fog across his face that says he's got rage lurking.

“Get off your ass, get rid of those ridiculous glasses, and go do what I said!”

I wait till I hear the front door slam shut before coming out of my room. The old man's got Devin parked in front of a TV show about hot chicks addicted to venomous snakes.

“He shouldn't be letting you watch that,” I say, grabbing the remote. “That's the stupidest premise for a show ever.”

Devin rocks back and forth, and I smooth the front of his hair real quick. That always settles him down.

I look around for the boxes the old man mentioned, and through the yellow tint of Cam's gamer specs, I spot them. Three cardboard boxes, stuck halfway behind the TV, all marked
TOSS
.

My gut tightens. Anything my mom didn't take, the old man's fixing to get rid of. For all I know, he brought some of it with him to Goodwill so he could trade it in on a couch. I slide the boxes toward me as a nervous sweat fogs up the inside of the lenses.

Whatever's in here is all there is.

I push the glasses up since I can't see through the fog anyway, rip the top open on the first one, and start digging my way through the chaos of hair clips; an old apron; a cookbook that once belonged to my grandmother; unopened pack of shoelaces; tubes of half-used lipstick even though I've never seen my mom wear any since the old man thinks it's too fancy; bunch of old rubber bands that are mostly cracked or broken; massive collection of pens and pencils, most dried out and unusable.

And there. At the bottom. A pack of chewing gum.

Except that Amy Tosh doesn't chew gum.

She says the mint makes her stomach sour.

My hands sweat-shake as I lift the flap, as I squeeze the sides to get them to pop out a little, as I pull out the scrap of paper, folded into a small triangle, just like the notes she used to slip into my lunch when I was a kid.
Good luck on your spelling test today, Caleb!

I turn it over, look at both sides to make sure I'm not missing something on the short, cryptic list.

learn to fly

fly away

Around the edges are a bunch of scrawled, random phrases:
big city, get lucky, regret, somewhere spiritual, sneak in, turn back clock, take me away.

That's it. No header, no title, no explanation.

I stare at it, wondering what question these words are the answer to. My heart's hitting the side of my rib cage so hard, it feels like something's about to shatter inside me.

Devin starts banging on the tray part of his chair. I look over at him, watch a thread of drool stretch from the corner of his mouth toward his curled-up hand. A hand that used to sock me in the arm just for walking by. That used to muss up my shaggy hair, then smooth down his own perfectly executed side-sweep. That used to fish all the cheese curls out of
my
bag of snack mix, even knowing how bad it would piss me off.

I crawl over to his chair. Collapse next to it. Wrap my arms around the wheel as my gaze drifts unanchored through the room.

My phone buzzes at me from my back pocket. I run my dirty fingernails through my matted hair, pull the phone out, open the app.

The sky will fall and death will beat its wings against the ground
.

I'm still tripping over the bizarre text when a gruesome close-up picture of a cockroach comes through.

Shit! I pop it off as hard as I can, watch as it slo-mo fumbles to the ground.

How the hell did a cockroach get into my phone—how does that even happen? Is Commandant Turk menacing me, trying to throw me off the game? Pretty effective strategy, if that's the case.

I try to shake the image out of my head, only now that I've seen it, I can't unsee it. Not the words, not the cockroach picture that came attached—it's all burned into my brain.

I pick up the phone, mash the buttons looking for the photo so I can at least freakin' delete it.

But it's already gone. The cockroach is gone.

Devin bangs harder and louder for his sippy cup. I try to stand, but my legs wobble underneath me, and I can't use my hands because I've got a viselike grip on my phone in one and a viselike grip on my mom's list in the other. I'm crazy-shaking as I cram everything into my pockets, as I stagger to my feet, as I stumble out of the living room.

Only, there in the entryway, I spot Devin's skateboard propped against the wall by the door where it's been leaning, untouched, for the last four years. The breath vapor locks inside me. If I hadn't been such a dick to him that day, he'd be out skating right now, and I'd be giving him shit for his crappy taste in music.

Everything would still be normal.

No wheelchair.

No fifteen hundred and eighty-seven fights.

No bug truck, hauling her out of here like a piece of used furniture.

My whole life, reset back to default mode.

By the time I reach the kitchen, the tears are shudder-sobbing through every hollow inch of my body.

I fumble in the dark for the light switch, hit it.

The wallpaper goes supernova.

Cockroaches.

Everywhere.

They're shooting out of the cracks in the walls, out of holes in the windowsills, out of rips in the wallpaper. I try to rake them out of my hair, scratch them out from under my skin, but they keep coming and coming, amassing along the empty highway, blockading the entrance to the tunnels. Every single one of them is scatting out the words “the end is here,” just like that day in the Boneyard. Only this time, it's
my
survival bar that's depleting.