Emmy Laybourne - Monument 14

“We gotta seal off the vent,” Niko said. He turned to Sahalia. “Go get a sledgehammer. If it’s too heavy to carry, get Jake to bring it up.”

“I can carry a stupid sledgehammer,” she sassed.

“Well, go get it then!” Niko yelled.

She hurried to the hatch.

Niko stepped over to the giant duct, about four feet away from where it went into the roof. He shimmied up on top and jumped up and down. BOOM . The metal echoed. BOOM . And it gave, just a little.

“Help me,” he said to me and Alex.

My brother and I got up there and we started jumping on that duct together. It might have been fun, if we weren’t watching a black cloud spread like an oil spill over the sky.

We jumped and together the three of us started to make a dent in it. (Pun unintentional, I promise.)

Sahalia came dragging the sledgehammer. We got off the duct.

Niko took it and WHAM . He started beating down the metal. The sledgehammer was much more effective than our jumping. The muscles in his back were straining and I really had to respect the guy. Niko was strong and tough.

The light went very, very green. Everything looked alien and underwater.

BAM. BAM. BAM , went the sledgehammer, denting down the air vent.

The chemical cloud was sweeping the air along in front of it like a summer rainstorm. Only this air was bitter and my eyes began to sting.

“You guys, go,” Niko shouted. “I’ll be right there.”

“No!” I said. “You need our help—”

Suddenly I realized I’d left the masks by the hatch.

I ran to get them.

I guess Alex and Sahalia thought I was making a run for it. They followed me.

I grabbed the masks, and Alex and Sahalia slipped past me and into the hatch. They started down the stairs, coughing and cursing.

“I’ll be right there,” I shouted.

I turned to start back to Niko…

When I felt sick.

Sick in my throat and body and mind. I felt like my blood was on fire. I was so scratchy and irritated I wanted to kill someone. I really did. I wanted to kill somebody and the somebody I wanted to kill was Niko.

I saw him there, hitting the vent with that sledgehammer and I wanted to throttle him. End his whole noble, heroic no-sense-of-humor thing.

I lurched at him with the mask.

I roared at him.

Then I fell over, facedown in the hail. I’d been tripped.

Someone had me by the foot and I was furious. It was my brother. He had an air mask on and he was pulling me into the hatch.

I swung at him. I’d kill him. Tripping me like that. I’d rip his head off.

I grabbed handfuls of hail and I threw them at him.

He dragged me toward the hatch and pulled me in.

I started beating him with the mask I was still holding. He wouldn’t let go of my leg and was dragging me down the stairs.

I swung at him, wanting him to lose his balance. I tried to get his mask off. I grabbed his hair and pulled. I bit my brother on the arm and drew blood.

I saw red, like people say they do. A sheet of blood red was over my eyes and I couldn’t think. Just pummel. Pound, tear, destroy.

We reached the bottom of the staircase and Alex tried to squirm away from me. I launched myself at him.

Jake tackled me.

I hit the cold cement and I cursed him and raked at his face.

“Jesus Christ!” Jake cursed. “What happened up there?”

I roared at him. I had no words.

“What happened to your brother?” Jake demanded of Alex.

Alex was crying. I had made him cry.

“He’s an animal!” Jake said, pinning me to the ground with his knee in my stomach. My arms were behind my back, somehow. In addition to football, Jake had also been on the wrestling team. And he had maybe fifty pounds on me—I was pinned.

We didn’t hear Niko until he was standing right beside us.

“I sealed it,” he said. “It’s done. But we’re gonna need to cover the hatch with plastic sheeting and the loading-bay doors back here, too. I’ll get the staple guns if you guys get the—”

I must have growled or barked or something.

He gestured to me.

“What’s wrong with Dean?”

I swear to God, I wanted to rip his throat out.

Jake strained to keep me pinned. Rage hammered in my heart. I wanted up!

I heard this weird whine. A panicky whine.

It was coming from Brayden.

“What is he?” Brayden said. His upper lip was curled back in an expression of disgust. “What is he? What is he made of?”

“What are you talking about?” Jake said, still struggling to keep me pinned.

Jake must have weighed two hundred pounds. I was flattened against the cold cement floor.

“Look at him!” Brayden cried. “There’s smoke coming off him. He’s straight from hell!”

“What are you talking about?” Alex said. He sounded scared. He sounded like he was crying but I couldn’t see him from where I was pinned.

Brayden was pulling at his hair, looking all around.

“It’s everywhere!” he cried. “Smoke from hell.”

He backed away from us and huddled against a stack of giant boxes.

“Brayden, there’s no smoke,” Niko said. “Everything’s okay.”

“There is evil everywhere!” Brayden wailed.

“Dude, you’re flipping out,” Jake said.

Niko went over to Brayden.

“Don’t touch me!” Brayden screamed.

“Look,” Niko said to Jake. “His pupils are completely dilated.”

“Get away from me,” Brayden said.

“It must be the air.” Niko came over to look at me. “The air went all green. We must have been breathing in the chemicals. Some kind of psychotic agent in the air.”

Niko looked funny, too, though I wasn’t quite up to saying so.

He had blisters around his eyes, like a raccoon mask. And his hands, when he touched me, were covered with tiny blood blisters, like he was wearing red lace gloves.

He started to cough. It sounded wet in there.

He coughed into his hand and came up with a blob of red phlegm. Then he caught sight of his hands and he looked at them with this expression of puzzlement so exaggerated I started to laugh.

Not a cool, ironic laugh but kind of a mad cackle.

I’m telling it like it happened, okay?

Brayden was seated on the floor, curled in a little ball, sobbing hard, jagged sobs.

Good.

I closed my eyes and listened to my heart beating. It was loud, like I had the heart of a gorilla.

All I could say was “Agghrr…”

I was trying to say Alex. But it didn’t come out.

“We’ve got to get cleaned up,” Niko said. He had his shirt off and was examining his skin. A tapestry of blisters was developing over his skin. It followed the underlying veins. He was starting to look like a biology class illustration of the circulatory system.

I tried again. “Agghhrr…” I wanted to say I was sorry.

“We need soap and water,” Niko said. “And I think I should take some Benadryl.”

“I’ll get it,” Alex offered.

“Sahalia, you should change, too,” Niko said. Sahalia looked freaked out. Her makeup was running down her cheeks. She headed toward the doors back into the store, giving Brayden a wide berth.

“Hey, would you mind getting us some clothes, too?” Niko asked.

She looked back at all of us.

“Sure,” she said. “Whatever.”

I tried to say, Let me up, I’m fine. But what came out was grrrrag . I strained against Jake’s bulk.

“Chill out, Dean!” Jake shouted in my face.

Alex skirted by. He glanced at me, then looked away. He had welts across his face where I had clawed him and there was blood caked near his nose. His eyes were red.