James Patterson - Maximum Ride Forever

Total chose Akila’s burial site at an abandoned cottage way out in the middle of nowhere. We had no clue if the soil was full of nuclear radiation or if the air was breeding deadly viruses by the second, but there was no ash cloud in sight right now, and that was good enough for us.

The cottage was run-down and looked like it hadn’t been lived in in years, but we found a shovel and a hoe in a lean-to, and Fang kicked in the front door in the hopes there would be stuff inside we could use.

We started digging in the hard, parched earth. From the corner of my eye I saw Akila’s swaddled form, and something in me felt like it had split open.

“You okay?” Fang asked. He lifted my hand and ran his thumb over my dirt-caked fingertips. “I can take over.”

His touch felt solid. Reassuring. But I just couldn’t handle it right now. I just wanted to feel my body working. I wanted to dig. Or scream.

“I’m good.” I stepped back stiffly, and Fang let his hand fall.

When the hole was ready, Fang gently placed Akila in it. Total’s soft sobs made my heart feel like it was wrapped in barbed wire, but as leader, I knew I had to step up and say a few words.

I cleared my throat. “Here lies our brave friend Akila,” I said. “She deserves better than this unmarked grave, and to tell you the truth, she deserved better than us. I wish we’d taken better care of her. But even so, she was a true and loyal friend to us, a loving wife to Total, and a fierce fighter under the worst circumstances.”

I had to clear my throat again. My eyes were burning from the hot, dry dust, and I brushed my sleeve over them. Nudge had started crying and was trying to keep the stinging tears out of her injury, which had barely started to scab over.

“I don’t know about heaven or anything,” I said gruffly. “Though God knows we’ve seen a thousand kinds of hell. But I know that somewhere, Akila is running free, the sun on her face and the wind in her fur, and she’s got plenty to eat and isn’t in pain.”

That was when I started crying. I barely got out my last words: “Good-bye, Akila.” Then I took a handful of gritty dirt and sprinkled it on her cloth. One by one, we each threw a handful of dirt on her, and then Total backed up to the pile of dirt and kicked furiously, filling in the hole faster than we could have with the shovel.

“Good-bye, my love, my princess, my beautiful bride,” he sobbed. “Our love will never die.”

We were all quiet for a couple of minutes.

“I wish we had flowers to put here,” said Angel, wiping her face and leaving a smeared streak.

“Maybe there’s something inside we could use as a marker,” Fang said, turning to the house. “Like a statue or vase or something. Be right back.” He headed inside.

We stood in awkward silence until a distant, bone-chilling howl made us all jump... and set the Gasman off.

“What else is alive out there? Max?”

“I don’t know, okay?” I said, suddenly exhausted and frustrated and so, so sad about Akila. “I don’t have all the answers. The world looks like it’s been completely obliterated. So whatever possibly survived is going to be... pretty... yucky.”

“I’m sure rats and cockroaches made it,” Iggy muttered.

“And us,” said Angel.

Dropping the shovel, I covered my face with my hands.

Breathe. Just breathe.

This was it: I had finally hit my breaking point.

“Guys?” Fang called from inside the house, oblivious. “Nudge, c’mere, I need you.”

“Akila won’t mind about the stupid fake headstone!” Nudge answered miserably.

“I think you’ll all want to see this.” Fang stuck his arm out the window, and I stared dumbly at the object he was holding.

Somehow, in the middle of this torched wasteland, Fang had found a laptop.

We gawked at Fang like he was holding an extra-large double-cheese stuffed-crust pizza.

“It’s a laptop,” I said, frowning in disappointment. “So what? With no Internet, all we could do is play solitaire. We need either actual food or a marker for Akila’s grave.”

“It’s a tablet, actually,” Fang corrected as we came nearer. “It’s smaller, see? And it has a touch screen!”

I rolled my eyes at his mocking tone. “Can we eat it?” I flicked the hard casing. “Can we use it to fend off the psycho hounds?” I gestured toward Nudge’s bandaged cheek.

“Let me see that.” Nudge took the tablet, turning it over in her hands. “I can sense the owner’s fingerprints. He was anxious, searching for something.”

“I knew it!” Gazzy punched the air victoriously. “I knew there were still other people alive out there. It’s not just us and the Cryenas!”

Fang’s eyes flicked to mine, challenging. Nudge did have the power to feel leftover energy, but since we didn’t know how old the energy was, it didn’t necessarily mean anything. And when you’ve had the kind of epically bad luck I’ve had, you learn not to get your hopes up.

Still, it could mean something — a record of what happened, or a connection to the rest of the world...?

“It means answers.” Angel sat on the cracked kitchen counter, swinging her legs. The way she said it — with that weird authority she had — made it seem real, and there was a collective inhale, a quickening pulse, a feeling that maybe, possibly, we might just have a shot.

I bit my lip and then asked the only question that really mattered: “Does it even work ?”

Nudge held down the power button for a few moments and then looked up with a frown, like she’d been betrayed. Nothing.

“There’s no electricity to charge it, either,” Fang said, flicking a dead light switch.

I sighed. “Like I said, just another useless piece of junk some poor sap left behind.” Seeing some plastic flowers on the table, I grabbed them and turned to head out to Akila’s grave.

“Max, be careful out there,” Gazzy said. “We definitely heard some kind of wild animal.”

“What if we could charge it another way?” Iggy called after me. A high-pitched squeal made me cover my ears, and I turned to see him standing in the doorway to the next room, holding up a dusty radio.

“Where did you get that?”

Ig grinned. “Oh, just another useless piece of junk I found lying around.” He fidgeted with the dial, but all we heard was the crackle of static. “Looks like the antenna’s shot, but it has a charging panel — solar powered.”

“Doesn’t that mean you need sun?” I squinted out the window doubtfully. The sky was dark with ash.

“She still might have some juice in her.” Iggy shrugged. “Worth a shot.”

Somehow, of course, Iggy found some doohickey thingamabob, fiddled with it, and managed to plug the tablet into the radio. We crowded around, seeing our anxious expressions reflected on the touch screen. The tiny red light on the power cord blinked on, and we waited.

And waited.

“It’s not working,” I huffed, tapping the screen.

“Patience, Max.” Total licked away the smudge from my grimy finger. “Just give it a minute.”

But after five minutes, the radio started to hum with the effort, and the light was still red.

“It’s not going to be enough.” I started to pace.

Then, just as the radio took its last, groaning breath, a welcoming note chirped from the speakers, and our reflections faded as the screen glowed to life.

Nudge’s hands hovered over the keyboard, and the rest of the flock huddled around her. “What should I look up?”

“Whoa, you actually have Internet?” Iggy asked. “I’m guessing this guy probably hasn’t paid his wireless bill in a while.”