Emmy Laybourne - Sky on Fire

‘It’s a suicide mission. The answer’s no!’

‘Please, mister.’ I went close and grabbed his arm. ‘It’s my brother, Dean. My big brother and he’s a great big brother and he’s counting on us!’

‘Alex, Niko! What are you doing here? For Christ’s sake, you should be halfway to Vancouver!’ Mrs Wooly looked mad as hell.

‘We can’t go without the others,’ Niko argued. ‘We just can’t!’

‘You kids go get on a godforsaken plane. I’ll take care of this.’

‘Good luck, Wooly,’ said Caldwell, and he turned and left.

‘They’re little kids,’ I screamed after him. ‘Two teenagers and an eight year old and five-year-old twins! Five-year-old twins! And we came all the way from Monument! Can’t you help us?’

Then there was a pilot coming at me wearing an air mask, all suited up to go. He grabbed me hard, I mean really hard, and he said, his voice all electronic, ‘What twins in Monument?’

And I opened my mouth to tell him but he ripped off his air mask and I saw his face.

It was Mr McKinley. Our neighbour.

It was Mr McKinley, Dean.

Henry and Caroline’s dad.

‘Where are they?’ Mr McKinley asked.

‘They’re at the Greenway, in Monument,’ Niko said. ‘We left them three days ago.’

We hurried along with him.

‘What’s the best way in?’ he asked us.

‘We should land on the roof,’ Niko told him. ‘There’s a hatch and it’s easy to open from the inside.’

‘There’s no “we”,’ Mr McKinley said. Captain, I mean. ‘I’m going alone.’

‘What?’ I screeched. ‘We’re going, too.’

‘Yeah!’ Niko shouted.

‘You kids cannot go,’ Mrs Wooly yelled. ‘No way!’

‘You need us!’ Niko insisted. ‘We know how to get into the store.’

‘We’re probably going to die,’ Captain McKinley growled at us.

‘No,’ I told him. ‘We’re going to make it. We’re going to save them!’

I knew it, in my gut.

Captain McKinley nodded and wiped his eyes and gave me a clap on the shoulder.

‘Grab masks,’ he said, nodding to some canvas bins near the gate. ‘Get good ones.’

‘All right, Jesus,’ Mrs Wooly said. ‘I’ll suit up.’

‘We don’t need you,’ Captain McKinley said. ‘Stay here. Help with the evac.’

‘I should come,’ she said.

‘That’s an order!’

‘But—’

Captain McKinley grabbed her by the front of her uniform.

‘You want to help, try to get up to the control tower and get us cleared for takeoff so they don’t shoot us out of the sky for deserting!’

‘Okay,’ Mrs Wooly said, shaken. ‘Will do.’

She hugged me and Niko, and took off at a run.

Niko and I rummaged through the bin, looking for good masks. Captain McKinley came back with flight jumpers for me and Niko.

‘Airtight,’ he said. ‘Get these on. They’re dropping bombs over NORAD in 20 minutes. We’ll have another 5 to 7 minutes after that before they level Monument. If we’re going, we’re going now.’

‘How long will it take us to get there?’ I asked as Niko struggled into his suit.

‘In a Wildcat, at full throttle – 16 minutes.’

‘We’re going to make it!’ I said.

Captain McKinley’s helicopter looked fast. I got to sit up front with him. Niko had to sit in the back.

Captain McKinley plugged a cord into his face mask and pointed for me to do the same. It was a jack into the communication system. I could hear the dispatchers going crazy giving directions to the planes and helicopters.

Captain McKinley reached over and across me, flipping switches all over the place. The engine roared to life and the propellers started. I was glad for the noise-cancellation headphones built into the air mask – it was loud!

‘Wildcat 185, you are not cleared for takeoff! Repeat, you are not cleared!’

Mrs Wooly had not made it! She hadn’t made it in time!

‘Tower, this is Captain McKinley, going on a rescue mission.’

‘McKinley,’ shouted the voice on the headset, ‘what the hell are you doing? You are not cleared!’

‘Sorry, Tower, it can’t be helped.’

‘Stand down, Wildcat 185, we will open fire—’

‘It’s my kids, Tower. They’re alive. They’re in the Phoenix zone and I’m going for them.’

‘Jesus, McKinley…’

In the background, other voices were shouting directions to all the other planes, clearing coordinates and assigning them for takeoff.

‘Go get ’em, Hank,’ the tower man said. ‘God bless you. Wildcat 185, you are cleared.’

Then another voice added, ‘Good luck, McKinley!’

And another, ‘Go get your kids!’

Takeoff was bumpy.

‘Visibility is limited,’ Captain McKinley said to me. ‘It’s one hell of a weapon, the inkbomb. Lucky for us, though, we’re flying one hell of an aircraft.’

He wheeled toward Monument and I held on and even though I am agnostic, I prayed.

JAKE HAD A DIFFERENT opinion about what we should do.

‘Look,’ he argued. ‘The bus is right outside and we know it runs! We should get out of here and go to Denver.’

‘But the others could be coming here to rescue us!’ I protested. ‘Someone could be on the way.’

‘Dean,’ Jake said solemnly, ‘Payton kicked them out of the bus. They were on foot. There’s no way they made it.’

I didn’t want him to be right. Maybe they were still out there. Maybe they had made it.

‘But that doesn’t mean we can’t get to Denver,’ Jake continued. ‘We won’t stop for anyone. And we have guns. Lots of guns!’

‘I think Jake’s right,’ Astrid announced. ‘We should try the bus.’

‘What?’ I asked, dumbfounded. ‘Why? You were the one who made me stay!’

‘I know it’s a long shot but… maybe we could find the others. I mean, they’re on foot…’

That made me think.

‘At least, let’s go look at the bus,’ Jake pleaded. ‘Just to see if it works!’

I was sick of hiding in that dark, cold store. A part of me wanted to get out in the air, even if the air killed me. But it was what Astrid said about my brother that put me over the edge.

Maybe we could find them.

We layered up.

‘But we don’t want to go outside!’ Henry protested as I handed him his layers.

‘It’s scary out there,’ Caroline continued.

‘But you’ll be with me this time,’ I told them. ‘And you know I would never let anything bad happen to you.’

They looked at each other, clearly unhappy about this plan.

‘Are you two crazy? This is what we’ve been waiting for!’ Chloe gushed. ‘We’re finally going to Denver! We’re going to see our parents there and we’ll all get rescued to Alaska. And Alaska is awesome! Get your stuff on! Hurry!’

‘Okay.’ Caroline gave in. ‘We’ll go.’

I left them and crossed to Astrid.

‘We should take supplies,’ I said. ‘Food, water, lights, a tarp. If we’re really going to try to make it.’

And then I remembered the backpacks I’d packed for Mr Appleton and Robbie.

I strode away from the group, into the storeroom. I looked around with my flashlight and there they were, behind a stack of packing crates.

I had thrown them back there after Robbie was shot. We had wanted it to look, to the little kids, like he had left so I’d hidden the backpacks there.

Astrid, Jake, and the kids came in, their headlamps bobbing all over the place. I prayed they wouldn’t see the bodies. Or that if they did, they wouldn’t understand what they were seeing.

‘These are ready to go,’ I said.

‘Right on!’ Jake replied.

Jake shouldered the heavier backpack. My shoulder still hurt plenty.