Austin Aslan - The Islands at the End of the World

“Dad!” I crawl out and grab the gun.

He looks up as if in a daze. His eyes seem to clear. He shifts his position and puts one of his knees on the man’s chest.

I’m just realizing that Mom and Kai and Grandpa aren’t here. The house has been empty long enough for a squatter to show up.

My worst fears from the past month are stirring awake.

They’re gone. You’ll never see them again .

Dad’s voice is strained. “How long have you been in my house?”

“Your …? I’m … I’m sorry. No one was here. I was just—”

“HOW LONG?”

“Just today. Today.”

“What do you mean, no one was here?”

“Nothing. Just … it was empty when I showed up.”

“And all three cars were in the driveway?”

“I guess so. Yeah.” He doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t know jack. We’re going to have to piece it together some other way. They were supposed to stay here, wait for us.

“What have you touched?” I hover over him. “What have you taken? Did you find any notes?”

The man shakes his head. God, does he smell. Do I smell that bad, too? “Nothing. I swear. Just some fresh eggs. In the fridge. Power’s out. Some tomatoes. I’m sorry. I’m just hungry. I’m from New Jersey. I’m just trying to—”

“Shut up.” Dad takes his knee off his chest and rises, takes the gun from me. Mr. New Jersey sits up and scoots against the cabinets.

“They’re around. They have to be,” I say to Dad.

“They haven’t been gone long. Fresh eggs in the dead fridge. And they would have taken some chickens or left a note if they were planning to go far.”

Did they flee for some reason? Did they leave with someone? Are they at a neighbor’s up the road? Out hunting pigs with Grandpa? Mom would have left a note—unless … unless …

Stop it, Lei. Don’t go there .

“Get out,” Dad says to Mr. New Jersey. He scrambles to his feet and runs out the back door.

Dad holds the pistol tightly. “Look for a note—anything that might suggest where they went.”

We both search. No note. But Mom’s and Kai’s hiking boots and rain jackets are missing from their rooms. I relax a little.

“They’re hunting with Grandpa,” Dad says, running a hand through his hair. “I’d bet the farm on it. Probably nearby. They wouldn’t leave the house unguarded for very long. Maybe we should try to look for them.”

“No,” I say. “Our turn to stay put. No leapfrog.”

Dad clenches his jaw. “Okay. You’re right. Now we wait.”

“How about a bath? Some clean clothes? And some food—I’m so hungry I’ll eat raw eggs like a lizard.”

“Yeah. Go get cleaned up. I’ll put something together.” The water comes out of the faucets just fine. Gotta love our private tank upslope. Dad’s right: maybe life hasn’t been as bad around here as on the other islands.

Even if that’s true, it’ll get worse. After all, if it took us this long to get to the Big Island from O`ahu, then it’ll take others even longer. But the hordes are still coming, I bet.

It gets me thinking: What if the sheriff has been keeping the flood of arrivals to a trickle? What if that blockade has kept this house, this area, safer?

“Remember: we only do what it takes …”

I shake the thought away as I stand beneath my cold shower. Don’t dare be grateful. Not even secretly. Remember the woman floating facedown in the river. He would have murdered Dad .

I haven’t had any medicine since the morning of the chase, and I left my pills on Maui. I rummage through my sink drawer and find two more bottles, each containing a dozen or so.

I’ll run out in a few weeks. So that’s it? Wear a helmet for the rest of my life? I swallow one and then head downstairs.

Dad and I chomp on fresh lettuce and tomatoes and scrape fresh, fried eggs off our plates.

“How much propane is left? Do you know?” I scoop up another bite of hot egg.

“About half. It’s down from when we left. More evidence that they’ve been around until recently.”

Another hour goes by. The worry gnaws at me. Dad’s doing what he can to keep busy.

“Should we try the Millers?” I ask.

“Maybe tomorrow. Their gate’s locked. I just want to stay here in case they come home. I don’t have the energy to trudge up to the house. If I see one of the Millers coming, I’ll flag them down.”

“Okay.” Our nearest neighbors live more than two miles up a private drive.

Evening comes. The coqui frogs start:

Coqui? Coqui?

We sit on the lanai through the evening, willing headlights, flashlights—anything!—to come winding up the driveway. I use a candle to page through my book until my eyes grow strained. Aside from my clothes, this is my only possession that made it home. It feels too valuable to read anymore. I’ll put it away somewhere safe—a trophy.

If we live through this, I’ll read it once a year, gently. Add my own story to it. Then I’ll pass it on when I’m old and gray, full of mo`olelo for a new generation.

Dad guards his new pistol in his hands and constantly scans the perimeter of the property. Nothing. It grows dark as we wait.

The stars are brilliant, brighter than they’ve been since the hotel in Waikīkī. It only takes me a second to figure out why: the Emerald Orchids look just a little bit smaller in their corner of the sky, casting less of a green glow through the haze of the atmosphere. The haze itself has improved steadily over the days. The Orchids are still aligned in a way that would fool most eyes: one of them is directly in front of the other, so that you might think they were a single object.

“Well, isn’t that something?” Dad marvels. “A cloudless night in Hilo. Great view. They’re even smaller tonight. That’s the third night in a row.”

“Wait. What?”

“I wonder if they’re actually going away now. Could you imagine?”

“No,” I say, standing up. Once again memories from my blackout come flooding back. “They can’t!”

“What is it?”

“They can’t go away! They can’t!”

“Sure they can. Why not?” Dad places his gun on the railing and rises to meet me. “I’m not—”

“Dad! I heard the Orchid again. The mother. I heard it when I was out. Twice. I tried to talk to it, but it was useless.”

“Sweetheart—”

“No! Don’t sweetheart me! They are going away. It said they were going to. Beyond the dark. Another … another galaxy .”

Dad sits down.

“Dad! That sheriff took our stuff. He kept the iodide.” Dad nods slowly.

“The Orchid and the newborn are feeding on the radiation. If they go, won’t our atmosphere be filled with it?”

“Hon,” Dad begins softly. I bristle. His tone suggests that I need to be gently reasoned with. “Akoni was wrong about his alien-invasion theory. Why should we take his ‘radiation mop’ talk to heart?”

“Please. The meltdowns are everywhere. They’re still happening, right? One after another for months, yeah? But these creatures are somehow sponging up the radiation. This isn’t a theory . It’s true.”

“But how can you know that?”

“BECAUSE I CAN HEAR THE ORCHID’S THOUGHTS!”

Dad leans forward on his porch chair, rubbing his forehead. “Okay. Just … just give me a second.” He holds his head in his hands. Finally, he looks back up at me in the soft, green darkness. “So you’re telling me those things really were preventing nuclear fallout? All over the globe?”

“I—I really think so.”

“What if … I mean, how can you be sure how much fallout there is?”

“Enough that it’s taken notice. It likes it. It’ll come back for it. But not for a long time.”