Gregg Hurwitz - The Rains

After I’d caught my breath, I inched back up to take another look. They were still there, maybe forty of them, their heads rocking robotically. At once they stopped. They turned and walked in single file down the length of the fence, then turned once more to face the building and started moving their heads again. Their eyeholes scanned the front lawn, scouring the contours of the building. Then I understood.

“They’re mapping the grounds,” I said, addressing the gym in a loud whisper. “Through the fence.”

“Why don’t they just break in?” Chet asked. “They’ve used jackhammers and stuff.”

“Maybe they want to leave as much of the infrastructure standing as possible,” Dr. Chatterjee said.

“For what?” Ben asked.

I thought of that squirming virtual eye rolling into place in Ezekiel’s head. “The question isn’t ‘For what?’” I said. “It’s, ‘For who?’”

Patrick, Alex, and I rose again, bringing our noses level with the sill. The Hosts finished wagging their heads and then broke apart, branching off into the neighboring streets, their faces lowered as usual.

I exhaled, and everyone else, reading our expressions, seemed to as well.

“Well,” Dr. Chatterjee said, “let’s get to the day, then.”

Logistics consumed the morning. The lookouts rotated, reporting back to Ben. A few of the kids took a shift in the cafeteria. Dr. Chatterjee told them to burn through the perishables first, so they served up runny eggs, cartons of milk, and OJ. I fed Cassius and took him out to the flower bed by the sheltered picnic area so he could go to the bathroom. In the gym Patrick cranked open the casement windows, letting the stale air out. The fresh breeze was a relief, what with the hundred or so bodies in close proximity. Alex turned on the TV, which still showed business as usual elsewhere in the world. Dr. Chatterjee continued to check the carbon monoxide detector at intervals, jotting the “unidentified particulate” readings on the dry-erase board.

Patrick walked over and stared at the board. I came up behind him and looked at the readings over his shoulder. They hadn’t dropped at all. In fact, they hadn’t even varied, the percentage remaining dead steady since Chatterjee had first started gathering data yesterday. My stomach roiled.

“You okay?” I asked.

“It’s only been a day,” Patrick said. “The spores have to dissipate at some point.”

Finally he turned, tried for a casual smile. He didn’t say what we were both thinking: Yeah, but will they be gone six days from now?

By the edge of the bleachers, JoJo gave a cry of delight. She crawled under the risers and retrieved-of all things-a Frisbee. She called out to her brother, and they started tossing the disk back and forth. Even here, even now, kids were kids.

A movement at my side broke me from my thoughts, and I glanced over. Alex had drawn level with me. Eyeing the readings, she took in a shaky breath.

She looked over at me, her expression changing. Then she started jogging toward the bleachers.

“Alexandra,” Patrick said. “Hang on.”

But she hopped up on the first bench. “Hey!” she called out, careful not to yell too loud, mindful of the open windows. “Everyone listen up.”

She waited a moment as the others stopped what they were doing.

“I don’t know about you guys,” she said, “but I don’t want to just wait around here and do nothing.”

“What do you propose, then?” Dr. Chatterjee asked.

Alex gestured at the TV, showing a fake-tanned weather reporter gesturing at a map. “We have to get outside the infection zone.”

“You won’t make it a block.” Ben’s voice carried over to us from the base of the bleachers. He was sitting on the floor in a fall of light from the windows, turned away so only his profile was visible. His legs were kicked wide, his shoulders drooping. His hands were doing something on the floor, but from this angle I couldn’t tell what.

“Even if you could, where you gonna go?” Eve asked.

Alex tilted her head, indicating the SPTV logo beneath the still-yammering weather reporter. “Stark Peak is closest.”

Ben gave a nasty laugh. “You’re gonna risk escaping town, getting all the way across the valley and up over Ponderosa Pass?”

He had a point. Ponderosa Pass was nearly fifty miles away.

“Hell, yeah,” Alex said. “It’s a different weather system over the mountain range. Let’s hope that the spores stay here in the valley, socked in like fog.”

“It beats waiting holed up here anyways,” Patrick said. “The Hosts are doing two things: Mapping the terrain. And collecting all the kids. We still don’t know why. But we know they’re doing it for someone.”

“For whoever that eye belongs to,” Chet said, his voice wrenched high with fear.

“Which means,” Patrick said, talking over the muffled outcry caused by Chet’s comment, “that someone needs to go get help. Because whatever’s coming hasn’t even gotten started yet.”

“We’re safer here,” Ben said.

“They were at the gate this morning,” Patrick said. “At some point one of them will catch wind that we’re in here. They’ll get in eventually.”

Ben shifted, the floor between his legs coming visible, and I saw at last what he’d been up to. He’d been pulling the wings off dying flies. They wiggled against the floorboards like little beans. He plucked up another one lazing across the seam between floor and wall. “If they do,” he said, pinching off one translucent wing, then the other, “I’ll take care of it.”

“How about the other kids out there?” Alex said. “Shouldn’t we get help for them?”

“It’s too late for them already,” Ben said. “We gotta protect what we have.”

“Until what?”

“The other cities’ll catch word soon enough. Send the army and scientists or whatever. Until then we just have to stay alive.” Ben looked at Patrick. “Course, some of us have more time than others.”

Over on the bleachers, Chet stifled a sob.

“That could be weeks,” Alex said. “Remember last July? The tornado? How long did it take for Stark Peak to send two lousy fire engines?”

Ben let the fly’s body drop among the others. He walked over, turned off the TV, and shoved it under the bleachers. “We need to conserve electricity. Turn off anything that uses energy we don’t absolutely need for survival. Buy time. Like I said, most of us can afford to wait.”

“We don’t make decisions solely based on what’s best for most of us,” Dr. Chatterjee said.

“You’re right,” Ben said. “I can’t tell you what to do.” He pointed his shiny face over at us. “You wanna get caught like Dick and Jaydon or kill yourself, be my guest.”

“And what’s your plan?” Patrick said. “If help doesn’t magically arrive soon?”

“The cafeteria freezers are stocked with food. We live with crops and cattle all around us if it gets to that. One nighttime sneak to bring back a few cows could feed us for months. We got everything we need right here in Creek’s Cause.” Ben stood up, grinding his boot on the wriggling fly parts. “So let’s call it like it is, Patrick. You’re just freaking out because you’ve got less time than everyone else. Aside from Chet, that is.”

“We’re all on a clock here,” Patrick said. “You’ve got what? Six more months than me?”

“That’s a lot of months for those spores to go away. Or for help to get here.”

“Or for something else to get here first,” Patrick said.

At this the kids bristled.

Patrick looked out across all those faces. “Is anyone willing to go with us?”

A low pulse of fear started up in my stomach. That “us” included me for sure, and I knew that if Patrick asked, no matter how scared I was, I had his back. The kids looked away, one after another. I couldn’t really blame them.