Emmy Laybourne: Savage Drift

To the Editor:

I’ve read some amazing stories in your paper about survivors of the Megatsunami. Up here in the Quilchena refugee camp in Vancouver, Canada, they sometimes read the letters aloud after lunch. Sometimes people cheer. But I’ve noticed that almost all the letters you run are from people on the East Coast.

Maybe that is because your readers are more interested in people from their own area. Or maybe it is because the mail is messed up and you are not receiving the letters from out here. Nevertheless, I am sending you our story, in the hopes that after you print it our parents will be able to find us.

On the morning of September 28, 2024, I was on the bus to school when a monster hailstorm came up. Our driver, Mrs. Wooly, drove the bus through the front doors of our local Greenway superstore, to get us out of harm’s way. All together, there were 14 of us.

Mrs. Wooly went to get help, and while we were waiting, the riot gates came down, trapping us inside. It was only then that we found an old-fashioned TV set in the store and found out about the Megatsunami. When the earthquake hit the next morning, and the chemicals spilled out into the air, we sealed off the door and holed up in the store.

We stayed in the store for two weeks, and would have stayed there longer, only to die in the air strikes, but one kid in our group, Brayden, was shot. We had fixed up the school bus, so some of us decided to leave to try to make it to Denver International Airport.

My brother, Dean Grieder, stayed behind along with a pregnant girl named Astrid Heyman and three of the little kids, Chloe Frasier and the twins, Caroline and Henry McKinley. Dean and Astrid are both O and were scared they would be exposed again and attack us, as they had done before.

We set out into the pitch black and it was terrifying. Niko Mills, our leader, was driving. There were eight of us on board, ranging in age from 17 to 8 years old. [See complete list below.] We saw bodies on the road and terrible things. We were more than halfway there when our bus was ambushed by Air Force cadets. They threw us off the bus and didn’t let us take any of our supplies, except for one backpack Niko was wearing.

On the way, we lost one of our group. Josie Miller took off her air mask and went O on purpose, when we were being chased by a deranged soldier. She gave her life to protect us.

Another man helped us, Mario Scietto. We fell into a pit trap that a father and son had arranged. They were trying to steal our air masks and water. Mario helped us get out and let us rest in his bomb shelter.

We walked until we came to the DIA collection point. At the airport, we found Mrs. Wooly, who is in the National Guard and had been called to serve. Niko and I told Mrs. Wooly about my brother and the rest of the kids back at the Greenway. When we learned about Operation Phoenix (the Air Force strike that destroyed the MORS compound and the RAVEN blackout cloud and also leveled the Four Corners area), we tried to help Mrs. Wooly find a pilot willing to go on a rescue mission. We were begging one pilot to help us when another one came up and said he’d take us. He was the father of the twins who had stayed behind with Dean and Astrid.

We went racing back to Monument in Captain McKinley’s Wildcat helicopter. As we were landing on the roof, we saw the first bombs drop over NORAD. At first, we panicked. Dean and the rest weren’t in the store! They had left to try to make it to DIA just before we’d landed. But Dean, my brother, saw us up on the roof. He came running back and we rescued all of them.

Scorching hot winds from the air strike almost blew us down and we could see bombs punching holes in the black sky on all sides of us, but we made it out.

Of the fourteen of us, twelve made it out alive. Eleven are here at Quilchena, but out of all of us, only five have found our parents, or have had any news about them at all.

We are:

Alex and Dean Grieder, ages 13 and 16

Jake Simonsen, age 18

Astrid Heyman, age 17

Niko Mills, age 16

Sahalia Wenner, age 13

Chloe Frasier, age 10

Batiste Harrison, age 9

Max Skolnik, age 8

Ulysses Dominguez, age 8

Caroline and Henry McKinley, age 5

and

Josie Miller, age 15, presumed dead.

Brayden Cutlass, age 17, deceased.

Please, if you have any information about our parents or family members, call the Quilchena Refugee Camp Relocation Coordinator.

Sincerely,

Alex Grieder

Niko’s eyes flashed to our faces, one by one.

“Josie’s alive!” he repeated. “She’s being held against her will in Missouri!”

We all boggled at the newspaper he was holding out. It was Josie. He was right.

“I’m going to get her. Who’s coming with me?”

I didn’t know what to say. I’m sure my mouth was gaping open like a beached fish.

“Let us see the thing, Niko. Are you sure?” Jake said. Ever the politician, he stepped forward and took the paper from Niko.

“Is it really Josie? Are you sure?” Caroline asked. All the kids swarmed to Jake.

“Hold on, hold on. Let me set it down.”

Jake put the paper down on the bedsheet that Mrs. McKinley had laid down as a picnic blanket. We were out on the green, celebrating the twins’ sixth birthday.

“It’s Josie! It’s Josie, it really is!” Max crowed. “I thought for sure she got blowed up!”

“Careful with the paper!” Niko said. The kids were pushing and jostling for a better look. Luna, our fluffy white mascot, was up in Chloe’s arms, yipping and licking anyone’s face she could reach. She was just as excited as the rest of us.

“Somebody read it out loud, already!” Chloe complained.

“Now, Chloe. How would you ask in a polite way?” Mrs. McKinley reprimanded her.

“Somebody read it out loud already, PLEASE!”

Good luck, Mrs. McKinley.

Mrs. McKinley started to read the article. It said that the conditions at the type O containment camp were negligent and prisoners were being abused. It said that there was limited medical aid reaching the refugees inside. It said that if Booker hadn’t given the power to govern these containment camps to individual states, none of this would have happened.

But I was just watching Niko.

He was bouncing on the soles of his feet.

Action. That’s what he’d been missing, I realized.

Niko was a kid who thrived on structure and being productive. Here at the Quilchena luxury golf club turned refugee containment camp, there was plenty of structure, but almost nothing to do besides watch the twenty-four-hour cycle of depressing news from around the country and wait in lines.

Niko’d been wasting away—consumed with grief and guilt about losing Josie on the road from Monument to the Denver International Airport evacuation site. And he’d been starving for something to do.

And now he thought he was going to rescue Josie.

Which, of course, was completely absurd.

Niko started to pace as Mrs. McKinley finished the article.

The kids had a lot of questions. Where is Missouri? Why is Josie being hit by that guard? Can they see her soon? Can they see her today?