Austin Aslan - The Islands at the End of the World

“Dad.” I tug him away. “Over here.”

Five feet to the right, the fence ends at a pole. The links are hastily lassoed onto the pole with five wire clips. I point to the clips and he smiles. “Excellent.”

He snaps the five loops and the entire fence curls back like wallpaper. We squeeze through the gap without removing our packs, ducking beneath the intact Slinky of barbed wire, and we’re free.

We cross a road and creep over to the side of the nearest building, the warehouse where our bags were stored. It’s so dark that we have to go slowly to stay surefooted. I still feel exposed. Anyone with night-vision goggles could look from any direction and see us brazenly darting away from the camp. This must be what rats feel like as they scurry across a field .

An old Humvee in the near distance turns onto the road we just crossed. We duck behind a bus parked parallel to the warehouse.

Behind the bus hides a door to the warehouse. I try to open it. Locked tight. Our bags are in there somewhere—with all our food .

I look up and study the open windows that run along the wall, about eighteen feet off the ground. All of the wooden shutters, hinged from the top, are open, tied to a sprinkler system suspended beneath the high awning. Without air-conditioning it must be the only way to ventilate the building.

My mind races. We have to find our bags. I can get up there. I can get in and out. We have the time. It’s either get food now or fight for it later .

“Dad, wait,” I whisper, pulling him back as he marches onward.

“What?”

I don’t tell him what I’m planning. He’ll say no. “Just give me a second, okay?”

He watches, dumbstruck, as I remove my bag and scale the side of the bus, searching out hand- and footholds among the partially open windows and specialized armor plates.

“Leilani. Stop!”

“I’ll be right back.” On top, I pause, resting. The climb shouldn’t have been that tiring, but my shaky weakness only reinforces what I need to do.

Okay, hurry up .

There’s just enough light from the Emerald Orchid for me to see my target. From atop the bus, I leap for the sprinkler bar. A piece of cake after throwing myself from the hotel lanai. My hands grasp the bar and hold tight. I let my body swing, dissipating the energy of my jump. I heft my hands on the bar, catching a tighter grip, and a bolt somewhere yanks loose. I grunt but don’t lose concentration.

“Lei!” Dad shout-whispers. “Dammit! Get down here.”

“Aren’t you hungry?” I call down in a low voice.

I start a controlled swing and catch my foot on the lip of the open window. Ignoring Dad’s panicky pleas, I walk my hands up the wooden shutter and finally put all my weight on the windowsill. Now I can rest for a second.

“Dad. Quiet.”

He grunts. I turn and inspect the interior of the warehouse. It’s very dark inside. The ground seems awfully far away. But there’s no activity in there—and I can smell food, like in a musty convenience store. It smells like a dragon’s lair stuffed with endless treasure.

“Does your cell still have any charge?” I whisper.

Dad nods.

“Toss it up.”

He complies. I almost feel guilty for bossing him around, but … whatevah. I catch his phone and turn it on. The old thing still runs. “Wait at the door.” I stuff the phone in my pocket, and then I slip inside the warehouse.

“Hurry, Lei. Someone’s going to see the hole in the fence.”

Good point . I patiently dangle from the tips of my fingers, taking a deep breath. My feet are only going to be about twelve or thirteen feet off the ground.

You can do this .

I let go of the sill and slide, kind of controlled, down the inside of the wall. Luckily, I land on a box with a muffled thud.

I pull out the cell phone and shine its light. I’m sitting on a suitcase. Surrounded by luggage. Our bags are in here somewhere .

But the warehouse is chock-full of baggage. Piles of it. I’ll never find our duffels. I begin to rifle through the nearest bags, looking for food that I can quickly haul away.

The suitcases are all empty. Other bags are empty.

They’ve taken the food out. We were never going to get our stuff back .

I creep forward, amazed at the limp bags stacked in high piles. Each has a numbered tag, just like the one that Lance Corporal Billings handed us when we arrived.

All lies .

Shelves materialize with the help of Dad’s phone. Crackers. Jars of peanut butter. Boxes of cookies. Powdered-drink packets. Fruit leathers and dried fruit. Granola bars—maybe the ones we bought at Costco. Every bit of nonperishable food that anyone brought with them is here. I follow the shelves toward the front of the warehouse. The food becomes higher in protein as I advance. Bags of jerky. Waxed cheese. Salami sticks. Mixed nuts. Canned food. Towers of Spam and Vienna sausages.

I race back to the luggage, snag two large suitcases with rollers, and run back to the shelves, dumping in lots of fruit and granola bars, preserved meats, canned goods, cheeses, shrink-wrapped bags of jerky …

My hand stops on the shelf closest to the front of the warehouse. Hundreds of boxes line these shelves. The labels say: POTASSIUM IODIDE (KI).

The medicine the soldiers are secretly taking. I swipe dozens of boxes. I don’t know why Aukina gave me his, but I know a lucky strike when I see one.

The suitcases fill quickly. Go back for a third suitcase? A fourth? Dad and I can each drag two. My thoughts spring back to the camp. That dead old man. His frail-looking wife, who’s going to wake up in the morning alone. Hungry keikis asking around for food, nursing mothers with screaming babies, fights in the food line and at the water coolers. I see myself returning to camp, a superheroine hoisting bags of food, shouting the truth.

A grinding screech echoes through the warehouse, and light floods the aisles. I freeze.

A large garage door is rising at the front of the building. The headlights of at least two rumbling trucks pour in. I bolt with my suitcases and crouch behind a pile of luggage.

Voices echo. Flashlight beams whip along the rafters as people jog forward. I slow my breathing, fending off faintness. Keeping low, I poke one eye around the luggage. Soldiers load the trucks with pallets of stacked food. Guards are stationed along either side of the garage doors. Have they been here the whole time? Sleeping? The thought makes me tremble.

I keep my eyes on them. One soldier pauses, so close. I could reach out and touch his leg.

Stay calm .

Dad must be jumping out of his skin. Don’t try anything , I mentally warn him. The door where I told him to wait remains quiet.

Finally, the soldiers get back into the vehicles, and the rolling steel doors begin to lower. I watch the guards closely while I still have light. They’re standing outside the warehouse, but they don’t move as the door slams shut.

They would have seen us leaving here for the bay . I shudder. The echoes of the rolling doors still reverberate as I wheel my two suitcases over to the side door. I wait for the lights of the trucks to glide by before opening it.

As the rumble of the vehicles drifts out of earshot, I press on the door latch, then freeze. An alarm? With the light of the phone, I inspect the doorframe for wires or anything that would indicate a trigger. I don’t see anything.

Wincing, I press the door open. Slowly. Pause. Nothing. I open it farther. Pause. Finally, I poke my head out.

Dad stands behind the door with a two-by-four raised in his hands. He sets it down. “Are you out of your mind? What—”