Colony East (5 page)

Mandy wrapped her arms around Abby and drew her close, and suddenly Abby started to cry. Only then did Jordan let go.

The front door opened. Adrenaline flooded through his body. Mandy craned her neck, eyes wild with panic. “Where’s Timmy?” she cried. The boy was gone. She pulled out her knife and ran to the door.

Looking through the window, Jordan saw Timmy skip down the steps. When Timmy was halfway to the sidewalk, he launched into the air and landed in a crouched position. Scampering over to the dying boy, he removed the water bottle from around his neck. Then, with no waste of time, he raced back to the stairs with his bounty, where Mandy met him, knife drawn.

Jordan watched in horror as others swooped in and stripped the dying boy of his valuables. Two different kids pulled off his boots, and each headed off with a single boot.

Jordan took a deep breath, fighting back tears. It didn’t help that Abby was weeping beside him. Had his decision to hold her wrist led to the gruesome scene outside? No, the boy was too far gone. He would keep telling himself that until he believed it. Then he surrendered to his tears and sobbed openly.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Abby rifled through the kitchen cabinets in search of containers with lids. They needed to store water for the trip home, and she had suggested they could get water from the kiddie pool down the street where Mandy had filled her bottle. Nobody had argued with her, but then again, nobody had said it was a good idea either.

Jordan was staring out the front door, Mel was slumped on the couch, Mandy sat at the kitchen table with a deeply furrowed brow, and Timmy was playing Jenga.

The busier Abby kept her hands, the less time she spent thinking. She couldn’t shake the image of the dying boy. If they had moved him inside and given him a pill, he might have been recovering now. On the other hand, he might have died anyway. They would never know.

She understood why Jordan and Mandy had stopped her from going outside. Help one kid, turn around, and there’s another kid just as desperate, and another… The boy was a grain of sand in the desert, and if she had saved that single grain, they would have had one less pill for their friends on the island.

She didn’t blame Timmy for what he had done, either. He was living by the rules of the mainland, the same rules which he had been following since the night of the purple moon. Survival of the fittest. Or was it survival of the cruelest? Abby’s mind could make sense of these things, but not her heart.

She reached deeper into the cabinet until her shoulder bumped against the frame. Patting her hand along the shelf, she felt a spaghetti strainer, then a waffle maker. Memories of family dinners and her mom cooking breakfast exploded in her mind like dazzling fireworks. Her mouth watered, reminding her of how badly they needed more than bugs to eat.

She swept aside mouse droppings, and her fingers followed an electric cord to a blender. Her pulse quickened when she brushed a metal clasp. In the far corner of the shelf, behind a curtain of sticky cobwebs, she felt a lunch box and another one beside it.

In the second grade, she had proudly carried her peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to school in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lunch box. Jordan had lugged a Power Rangers lunch box, believing that it gave him superpowers. How they could use those superpowers now!

She flipped open the clasp of her lunch box and removed the thermos. She did the same for Jordan’s. If they filled both thermoses and Mandy’s bottle, the five of them would have enough water to survive three days at sea.

She stood before the others. Timmy was the only one not moping or lost in thought, he was having too much fun adding blocks to his teetering tower.

“Mandy, you and Jordan can get water,” Abby said. “We’ll stay here and catch more bugs for the trip home.”

She couldn’t make Jordan and Mandy be friends, but if they worked together, she hoped they would start to forge a bond of trust.

“I’ll go and take Timmy,” Mandy said.

Jordan sprang to life. “Timmy should stay here.”

“Why?” Mandy asked. “He can come with me.”

“He’s better at catching crickets,” Jordan replied.

“We’ll ask Timmy.” Mandy got down on one knee. “Want to come with me?”

“Sure,” Timmy said.

Abby muttered in agitation. A simple suggestion had turned into a major dispute.

Jordan moved closer to Timmy. “You want some candy?”

Timmy’s face lit up. “What kind?”

“All kinds!”

“Twizzlers?” Timmy cried.

“Yeah, lots of Twizzlers,” Jordan said.

Mandy furrowed her brow, and Abby felt just as confused. What was her brother talking about?

Jordan told them about the candy he had hidden in the basement two Halloweens ago. Abby thought it sounded like something he would do.

Mandy put her hands on her hips. “Go get it.”

“Sorry,” he replied with a shrug. “Timmy and I have to hunt for it.”

Muttering under her breath, Mandy grabbed the thermoses and headed for the door.

“Wait,” Abby jumped up. “I’ll go with you.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Convinced he had found a way to secure the pills, Jordan watched Mandy and Abby step out of the house. Timmy was the answer. He’d watched how Mandy treated the boy and figured that Abby was right. Mandy saw herself as Timmy’s protector. He didn’t care why she felt that way. All that mattered was that Mandy would not leave without Timmy. Jordan knew that he or Abby had to stay with the boy at all times.

He handed the paring knife to Mel. “Timmy and I are going to the basement. Shout if you need us.”

She gripped the handle. “I hope they come back.”

He knew she meant Brad’s gang. “Mel, just shout if anyone comes, okay?”

He waited until she nodded, which took more than a few seconds.

In the dining room, Jordan found Timmy playing with a deck of cards. That annoyed him. He had asked him to search for a butane lighter or a book of matches in the drawers of the sideboard. “Did you find matches?”

Timmy shook his head and gathered up the cards. “Can I have these?”

“Yes. Let’s keep looking.”

Timmy crammed the deck into his pocket, where it probably shared space with bug parts and who knew what else.

A moment later, Timmy lifted a photo from a drawer. “Who’s that?”

A lump formed in Jordan’s throat. “My mom and dad.” He held the photo. His parents had been in Paris on their honeymoon, the Eifel Tower in the background. He guessed they were in their mid-twenties, and they looked so happy. It was strange to think they would go on to raise a family and then their lives would end abruptly just because a stupid comet passed by the Earth.

“My dad’s in the army.”

Timmy’s voice startled Jordan.

“The army, huh?”

Timmy saluted. “The U.S. Army. He’s a sergeant. He’s coming home after he wins the war.”

Many survivors spoke about their parents as if they were traveling or working in a different city or visiting a relative; they’d be home any day now. Jordan had known kids to even make up what their parents did. Timmy’s father might have been a stockbroker. Jordan certainly didn’t fault him for making up stories. He had his own fantasies to cope with the loss of loved ones.

“The army has special tents that keep the germs out,” Timmy added. “Soldiers sleep in tents.”

“Guess we’re going to have to find the candy in the dark,” Jordan said, steering the conversation back to the main topic.

They stood before the pitch-black opening to the basement.

Jordan’s heart raced. “When did you eat your last candy bar?” He wasn’t quite ready to go down the steps. When he was five or six years old, Abby had told him that monsters lurked in the basement. Now his mind was cooking up some pretty terrible things.

“December second.”

Jordan squinted with a smile. “You remember the date?”

“That’s my birthday. I turned nine.”

Jordan held out his hand. “Ready?”

“I’m not afraid,” Timmy cried.

“I am.” He winked and grabbed Timmy’s hand. Clearing away spider webs with his free hand, Jordan led the way. He found the webs comforting. Their presence meant that nobody else had been down the stairs, at least not recently.

When they were halfway down the steps, the last of the light from above dimmed and disappeared, and they continued downward, one slow, careful step at a time. The familiar smell of mold and mildew stirred his imagination, and he trembled. “So what else do you eat besides grasshoppers?”

“Pigeons.” Timmy’s voice was rock steady.

“For real?”

“Yeah, they’re easy to catch.”

“Castine Island doesn’t have any pigeons, but there are lots of seagulls.”

“Do you eat ’em?”

Jordan planted his right foot on the concrete floor. “We eat fish. Careful.” They stood next to each other in the darkness. Jordan took a step and kicked something. He tried another direction and bumped into something else. He moved Timmy’s hand to the back of his shirt. “Hold on to me.”

Jordan kept both hands in front of him for protection as he explored slowly. He bumped into a bicycle. He wondered if he could ride the bike to the Charlestown Yacht Club and avoid going with Mandy on her motorcycle. His hand followed the handlebar stem to the tire, which was flat. So was the back tire. Stuck with Mandy, he thought. After he took several more steps, his fingertips skittered over the smooth cover of a magazine. A pile of magazines rose to his waist. They were National Geographics, his landmark. Buried treasure was nearby.

“Can you smell the chocolate?” he asked Timmy.

“Nope. Can you?”

“I can taste it.” Jordan smacked his lips loudly.

Taking sidesteps to the right and towing Timmy through the dark, he patted his hands on three more magazine piles and then reached behind the fourth pile. His heart sped up when he felt the top of the shoebox.

“Got it!” Jordan picked up the box. His stomach dropped. Something was wrong. It weighed hardly anything.

He removed the cover. The confetti of candy wrappers inside crinkled as he swished his hand back and forth. He felt the rough cardboard edges of the hole gnawed at one end. Mice had eaten everything. He brought the box to his nose. Even the odor of chocolate had disappeared.

CHAPTER NINE

Wading through tall grass, Abby cut across the O’Brien and Pydah backyards and then onto the Sherock property. Every step sent a spray of grasshoppers exploding upward like shrapnel from a land mine.

She’d convinced Mandy this route was safer. “We won’t run into Brad’s gang,” she’d said. That was true, but she mostly wanted to avoid seeing the kids on Pearl Street, an endless parade of faces, empty of hope.

Poking through the clouds, the sun lit up yellow dandelions in the tall grass. The scents of cherry and dogwood blossoms mingled with the fading smoke from the airport inferno.

Abby pointed to a stucco house ahead. “You know what those people kept in their bathtub? A boa constrictor. The rumor was that Mr. and Mrs. Sherock owned a traveling zoo.”

Eyes forward, Mandy continued her ice queen impersonation, and vaulted over a waist-high, chain-link fence.

“They had a lion, too,” Abby lied, hoping for some reaction. Getting none, she hopped the fence. “How much further?”

Mandy gestured. “The green house.”

Abby nodded to herself. Three words. It was a start. As she was trying to remember who used to live in the green house, she stumbled and pitched forward. She broke her fall in the tall grass with her hands. The ground smelled sweet, and she was tempted to stay in this other world a while longer. She rolled onto her side to get up and screamed when a withered hand pressed against her cheek.

Mandy reached for her knife and assumed a crouched position.

Abby saw the rest of the corpse. It was well hidden in the forest of grass. “No, no,” she croaked. “It’s…” She sat down, buried her hands in her face, and wept.

She shouldn’t have been surprised to find a body here. The comet had appeared at midnight, and what better place to watch the heavens turn purple than your backyard. The deadly bacteria had penetrated the atmosphere as the stargazers marveled at the beauty.

Mandy helped her up. Arm in arm, they continued on their way, albeit stepping more carefully. Even though Mandy had yet to utter a fourth word since they had left the house, something about her was different. Abby sensed Mandy was taking the first baby steps to trusting her and wanting her as a friend.

When they climbed over the next fence, they were in the backyard of the green house. Abby saw Mandy’s motorcycle stowed next to the porch, concealed behind three trashcans.

Mandy pointed out the kid’s pool, which had seen better days. The air had bled from the circular bladders of blue plastic. The flat, crinkled bottom held rainwater covered with a skim of green pine pollen and brown oak leaves. Abby unscrewed the Power Rangers thermos and placed it on its side; the muddy water sluiced in. Mandy lifted the edge of the pool to make the water run into the bottle faster. Then Abby filled the Mutant Ninja Turtles thermos. Finally, she cleared away the debris on the surface with her hand and drank like a horse.

“I’m sorry I didn’t give you a pill,” Mandy said.

“I understand.”

“I’m not going to lie. I think it would have been wrong to waste a pill on a stranger. I know you don’t feel that way.”

“I don’t know how I feel anymore.”

Mandy started to continue, but then she stopped and looked away from Abby. Almost a minute passed with neither of them saying anything. Then Mandy took a deep breath. “I don’t blame Jordan for the way he feels about me. I can’t change what I did.”

Abby bit her lip. She wanted to give Mandy time to speak her mind.

Mandy shook her head, looked away, and cursed under her breath. “I hate myself,” she said finally.

Abby gave Mandy a hug. “Things are different on Castine Island. It’s not like the mainland. I don’t mean to say it’s perfect. Kids are kids, you know. We have disagreements and everything, but at least we try to work together.”

Mandy furrowed her brow. “Jordan doesn’t want me to go.”