The Eighth Day (2 page)

In the days after his father's death, Jax had been taken in by his mother's cousin, Naomi, and her husband. He hadn't known them really well before the accident, but they were family, willing to give him a good home. Then Riley had appeared at Naomi's with an affidavit, claiming to be Jax's guardian. “Rayne Aubrey signed the guardianship of his son over to me,” he'd told them, crossing his tattooed arms across his chest. “This document says so. In the event of his death, I'm supposed to take custody of Jaxon Lee Aubrey.”

Naomi called on a friend of the family for help, a lawyer who came to the house and hammered Riley with questions and received little satisfaction from his answers.

Who was Riley Pendare to Rayne Aubrey? Son of an old friend.

Why had Rayne Aubrey chosen Riley Pendare, eighteen years old and a stranger, as a guardian over his late wife's cousin?

Riley had been particularly uninformative here. “It was his wish.”

But one answer had been more upsetting than any other.

“When?” Naomi had demanded. “When did Rayne make this arrangement?”

“Three weeks before he died” had been Riley's reply.

The lawyer thought the whole thing was ridiculous—Riley was too young and the situation too strange—and suggested they call Child Services to schedule a court hearing. Jax hadn't liked the sound of that, but it was better than letting this tattooed stranger take him away. Then Riley had a private word with the lawyer, gripping his arm and pulling him aside, out of everyone's earshot. The lawyer called Naomi over, and Riley spoke quietly to her, too, putting his hand on her shoulder.

The next thing Jax knew, everyone had changed their minds. The lawyer said Jax would have to live with Riley while waiting for the hearing, and Naomi agreed it was necessary. “It's just for a little while,” she'd promised him. Jax watched in horror as his belongings were piled into the truck Riley arrived in—which didn't even belong to him. Turned out he'd borrowed it from A.J. to pick up Jax for the five-hour drive to this little town in western Pennsylvania.

It was during that long, silent drive that Jax's knot of anger began to grow larger. He found there was plenty to spare for Riley Pendare—and his own father.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

ON JAX'S THIRTEENTH BIRTHDAY,
Billy Ramirez tossed him an apple in first period. “Don't say I didn't give you anything.”

Jax caught the apple. “Thanks.” It was probably the only birthday present he would get.

“We should throw a party. Do you think Riley will let us have one at your house?”

“I don't know who would come.” Jax hadn't made many friends, partly because he kept telling himself he wasn't staying and partly because this school was so much bigger than he was used to. Jax had come from a small neighborhood school where he'd known all his classmates since kindergarten. Now he was bused from Riley's town to a consolidated mega-school servicing five different townships. In seventh grade alone, there were more than four hundred students. They included kids like Giana Leone, who came from wealthy, McMansion neighborhoods, and
wannabe thugs like Thomas Donovan, who was at that moment eyeing Jax's apple as if he wanted to swipe it.

“I don't know if Giana would come,” Billy said cheerfully, “but I'm not afraid to ask her.”

“Who said I'd want you to?” Jax had smiled at the girl
one
time and Billy wouldn't leave it alone. He hoped Giana, sitting across the aisle, hadn't heard. He was pretty sure the snort behind him meant that Thomas's sister, Tegan,
had
heard. Jax glanced over his shoulder, but Tegan had her head bent over last night's homework, trying to finish it before the teacher passed by. She looked just like her twin brother, with a freckled face and carroty-orange hair. Jax didn't even think Tegan had her own wardrobe. She always wore the same oversized hoodies and baggy jeans as Thomas.

“Ask Riley tonight,” Billy whispered.

Jax sighed. He didn't believe Riley would let them have a party. Riley liked his privacy. When Jax moved in, there hadn't even been internet.

“How can you
not
have internet?” Jax had demanded on his second day in the house.

“Don't want it.”

“What, are you like from the Middle Ages?”

Riley barked out a laugh. “Ha! Funny.”

“You have cable.”

“I like TV. What I don't like is giving anyone with an internet connection the ability to hack my computer.”

That was the most paranoid thing Jax had ever heard. He'd stood there, his mouth opening and closing like a fish, holding the ethernet cable to his computer. There was nowhere to plug it in. “I need it for school.”

“Use the public library.”

Jax was surprised Riley even knew what a library was. “I hate this place, and I hate you!” He'd flung the cable down, and since that wasn't satisfying, he shoved a box of books off the desk he'd been given in an alcove off the kitchen. “Why couldn't you leave me where I was?”

Riley said nothing.

Jax kicked a chair over, stormed upstairs to his ugly room, and slammed the door.

The following day, when Jax came home from school, he'd found Riley underneath the desk with a toolbox. “Hey! What're you doing to my computer?”

“Hooking up your internet,” Riley had replied, screwing a jack plate into the wall.

Jax hadn't thanked him, and Riley hadn't stuck around to be thanked. They'd never spoken of the incident again, although Jax overheard A.J. mention it once.

“I can't believe you got him internet. Living dangerously, aren't you?”

“Yeah, probably. But I know how he feels.”

After school on his thirteenth birthday, that internet connection brought Jax a single one-line email from his cousin, Naomi:

Happy Birthday Jaxon. Wishing you the best from

Naomi, Ted, and the kids.

In spite of the promise she'd made on the day Riley took him away, Naomi hadn't fought for Jax very hard. The court hearing had been canceled with no explanation, and he heard from Naomi less and less frequently. Jax opened a chat box:

Jaxattax: hi naomi can we chat?

He heated some canned chili for dinner while waiting for a reply. Eventually a new message appeared.

Naomi: hi jax. been meaning to call you.

Jax threw himself into the chair and typed:

Jaxattax: do you have news for me?

Naomi: sorry it's been hard since ted lost his job.

lawyers are expensive.

Jax ran his fingers over the keyboard, trying to think of a tactful way to remind her she'd get money from his father's estate if she won his custody from Riley.

Naomi: the case worker who met you last month

reports you're settling in and happy so i thought

things were better.

Jaxattax: she said what?!?!

What Jax had told the case worker was that Riley had forgotten to pay the electric bill and almost missed the gas bill; that he only bought as many groceries as he could carry home on his motorcycle; that he could barely take care of himself and was in no way capable of taking care of Jax. Jax had
thought
, from the case worker's thin-lipped expression, that she was ready to put Jax in her car and drive him back to Delaware herself. How had that turned into “settling in and happy”?

Jaxattax: i told her what i told u. its awful here!

Naomi: she doesnt think its a good idea to move u again so soon

Jaxattax: no it IS. asap

Naomi: honey you know i want whats best for you but i kind of agree with her

Jax swallowed hard, his fingers hovering uselessly over the keyboard.

Naomi: gotta make dinner for the kids. happy birthday jax.

Before he could respond, Naomi left the chat.

Jax slept poorly and woke up before his alarm the next morning. Flailing out an arm, he flipped the switch before the buzzer could go off and rolled out of bed without looking at the clock. He pulled on jeans and a T-shirt, glanced in a mirror long enough to run fingers through his tangled brown hair . . . and that was good enough.

Once again, there was nothing in the house for breakfast. The refrigerator didn't hum when Jax opened the door, and the lightbulb didn't light. Had it finally died, or—? He reached out and flipped a switch on the wall. No lights, no electricity. Again. Heaving a sigh, Jax took cash out of the kitty and picked up his backpack. He'd have to buy a breakfast burrito from the corner convenience store before the bus came.

The morning sky was strangely pink and purple when he left the house, like it might storm. Jax ran down the sidewalk, looked both ways before crossing the intersection . . . and then stopped and looked again.

There were no cars on the road in either direction. Although this was the usual time for people to be driving to work, the street was empty, and there was only one car at the corner store, parked in the back by the Dumpster.

Was the place closed? It never closed. He pushed open the door, and the lights were on, if a bit dim, but nobody
was in sight. “Hello?” Jax hollered. He helped himself to a breakfast burrito and popped it into the microwave, but couldn't get the oven to turn on.
It figures. My life is a cold burrito
.

He took his unheated burrito to the counter and fished two dollars out of his back pocket. “Anyone here?” he yelled. Maybe the clerk was on the toilet. As for everybody else . . .

Jax looked out the windows. There were still no cars passing by. No kids were gathered at the corner bus stop. At the Blum house, nobody was watering the precious sod. His eyes wandered up toward the bizarrely pink and purple sky.

Oh, crap
.

It could be tornadoes. Had he missed a siren? Was everyone hunkered down in their basements waiting out the danger while Jax Aubrey bought a breakfast burrito in a store with walls of glass?

He flung the money and the burrito down and pelted for home. Maybe he should have run for the nearest house and begged to be let inside, but he felt a weird responsibility for the one person dumber than himself. “Riley!” he hollered, bursting in the front door. “Riley, are you up there?” He took the stairs two at a time and threw open the door to his guardian's room, only to find the bed empty.
Dude, I ran back here for you, and if you went to the cellar without me . .
.

Jax pounded downstairs, grabbed his phone from his backpack, and ran outside to the wooden cellar door against the side of the house. It was heavy, and he had to hold it over his head with one hand while he clambered down the stairs. When he let go, it felt like the door missed his head by inches. “Riley, are you down here?” Jax called, trying to light up his phone screen. It wouldn't turn on. Resigning himself to darkness, he sat on the dirt floor, faced a wall, and covered his head, just like he'd been taught in school.

He waited more than an hour, he thought. But he heard no wind. No sirens. When he couldn't stand it anymore, he climbed the cellar steps and pushed up on the door. Outside, the sky still looked weird, but it was more pink than purple. Jax heaved up the door, latched it open, and climbed into the yard. This time he
really
looked around.

The neighbors' cars were parked on the street and in their driveways, just as they normally were in the evenings. Jax checked the shed at the back of their yard, where Riley kept his motorcycle, and found the Honda 350 missing. Of all the people in the neighborhood, it looked like only Riley had gone to work this morning.

Jax crossed the yard and banged on Mrs. Unger's door. “Mrs. Unger, are you there?” He made his way around her house, peering in every window and through the kitchen door. When he backed away and looked up, he thought he saw a curtain rustle on the second floor, as if someone
had just let go of it. “Mrs. Unger!” he hollered. He stared at the window, but there was no further movement and no answer, so he gave up and ran across the street to another house.

He pounded on every door up and down the block, shouting for help and growing more frantic by the minute. He looked in his neighbors' windows shamelessly, and at every house, it was the same. There were no signs of struggle, hurried packing, or anything out of the ordinary.

But he didn't see a single soul.

Billy Ramirez lived a block down the street, and no one answered his desperate knocking there, either. Jax knew they kept a spare key shoved up the nose of a ceramic tiki head on the back porch, and he used it to let himself in. The house was eerily silent. Calling out again and receiving no answer, Jax tried to turn on the TV, but like his phone, it wouldn't come on. The clocks on the microwave and the DVD player displayed 12:00, as if there'd been a power failure and they'd reset—except they didn't blink.

He almost didn't go up to the second floor, afraid of what he might find there, but after two false starts and a long time standing by the front door with his hand on the knob, ready to chicken out, Jax heaved a deep breath and ran upstairs. He flinched every time he threw open a bedroom door, but there was nothing to see—no bloody horror scene out of a movie. The beds looked slept in, but Billy and his parents were missing.

After leaving the Ramirez house, Jax retrieved his bike and rode into the center of town. The streets were empty. The traffic lights were on, but frozen green, red, or yellow.

He thought about zombies.

He thought about alien abduction.

He thought about
Spongebob Squarepants
and the episode where everybody took a bus out of town to get away from Spongebob for a day.

He thought about the old movie where Will Smith and his dog were the last creatures left on earth.

“Oh, crap!” Jax yelled, braking.

Will Smith and his dog had
not
been alone in that movie. There'd been other creatures that lurked in dark places and came out at night to kill.