Emmy Laybourne - Monument 14

As if in a daze, we wandered over to it. Like the engine’s roar was casting a spell on us.

The engine shut off, just as we drew near.

It was sitting there by the front doors, where it had always waited. Niko came to the door of the bus.

“You all have ten minutes to get a bag packed. It should be mostly clothes. You can bring one special toy,” Niko said to us.

“Wait!” Astrid said. “What are we doing?”

“Brayden needs a doctor. So we’re going to take him to one.”

“To where?” asked Max.

“We’re going to Denver.”

The screaming, the hoorays, the giddy laughing were all deafening.

I felt sick to my stomach.

“Are you sure?” I asked. “Can’t we talk about it?”

Niko walked over to me as the little kids skittered away to pack. Alex came to stand at his side.

“Brayden’s worse. The wound is infected. He looks green!” Niko said.

“But the roads!” I said. “They could be damaged or blocked—”

“He’s going to die if we stay here.”

“But, Niko—”

“You have ten minutes to put together a bag. You know the bus is stocked. We’ll be fine.”

“Dean,” Alex said. “It could be our only way to see Mom and Dad again!”

“You want to see your parents?” Niko asked.

“Of course I do,” I shouted. “But I don’t want to turn into a blood-drinking, bone-chewing monster on a bus with a bunch of eight-year-olds!”

“We’re going to sedate you,” Niko said. “Alex and I discussed it.”

He nodded to Alex.

“What?” I asked.

“We’re going to sedate the three of you with O-type blood, and also tie you up, as a precaution,” Alex said.

“Thanks for having my back,” I said.

It was logical, but it still felt like a betrayal, especially with the two of them trying to convince me together.

“Plus, maybe the compounds have dissipated a bit by now,” Alex said. “Your reaction could be less severe.”

“I don’t have time to argue about this anymore,” Niko said. “It’s my decision and if it’s wrong, I’ll live with it. But I can’t let him die and not do anything about it.”

“Niko, you’re supposed to be the smart one,” I said. “Cautious and smart and thinking everything through.”

“This bus is a tank,” he said to me. “It will get us there, I know it.”

“We have to go,” Alex said. “It’s our only chance to see them.”

“And if we’re going, we have to go now. The next evacuation is in two days.”

I turned and walked away.

“Where are you going?” Alex called.

“To pack my bag, of course,” I spat out. “What choice do I have?”

“Hurry,” Niko called after me. “I need your help to load Brayden onto the bus.”

I went and grabbed a backpack from Sporting Goods and then I went to Men’s Clothing.

Inside, I was ranting.

It was stupid. It was a big mistake. They didn’t understand what the compounds would make me do.

And what about the roads? What about the bandits?

“It’s a bad idea,” came a soft voice behind me.

It was Astrid. She looked small and scared under the bright fluorescent lights of the store.

“I know,” I said.

“We shouldn’t go,” she said.

“I know. Niko is so scared Brayden will die that he’s risking everyone.”

Astrid stepped close to me and embraced me.

She pressed her face to my chest and held me tight.

It felt so good. Like we were magnets, meant to be fitted together. I put my arms around her and held her to me.

“Stay,” she said. “Stay with me, Dean.”

“What?”

“I’m not going,” she said, pulling away to look up at me. “And I want you to stay with me.”

My heart was in my throat. My vision was swimming.

She was going to stay and she wanted me to stay with her?

“You want me to stay with you?” I said. “Me?”

She pulled out of my arms and drew back a step, putting her hands in the pockets of her vest.

“I mean…” She blushed. She was blushing.

“I’m not going,” she said, not meeting my eyes. “I can’t. And neither should you. The compounds will make us into monsters. They don’t know what it’s like. We do. You and me and Chloe, we need to stay.”

So… what? Huh? That’s what I felt like saying: huh?

She was asking me to stay because I had the same blood type? She was advising me to stay because of the compounds?

What had the hug meant?

It felt like it meant everything.

I guess she was hugging me because… I was a nice guy. I was her friend.

I stuffed a couple sweatshirts into my backpack.

“Well?” she said.

“I don’t know what to say, Astrid. I have to go with my brother. We have to stick together.”

“Then get him to stay, too. He’s logical. Alex will know it’s the right thing to stay.”

“No, he wants to go. He thinks this is our only chance to find our parents. He’d never stay.”

“We can’t go! We’ll kill somebody!”

I turned to her.

Tears were streaming down her face. She wiped at them with the back of her hand.

“Please, Dean.” Every time she said my name it was like a warm knife, slicing my heart right through.

“Astrid,” I said. “We’ll wear gas masks the whole way. They’re going to sedate us and tie us up. We won’t be able to help them, but we won’t kill them either.”

I shoved some jeans in my bag.

“Who knows? Maybe Niko is right. Maybe we’ll make it just fine.”

“No,” she said, near hysterics. “I can’t go. I can’t go. I can’t go!”

“You’ll be fine—”

“I’m gonna have a baby.”

“What?” I said.

She crossed her arms over her chest.

“I’m pregnant.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded. “Been sure for a while now. I’m four months. Maybe more.”

“Four months ?”

She lifted up her sweater and undershirt.

I saw the creamy skin of her beautiful diver’s body. And yes, there was a bump there. A swelling. Right under the navel, a rise. How had I not noticed it before?

She dropped her shirt and put her hands up to cover her face. She was crying softly.

“Oh, Astrid,” I said. And I stepped to her. Took her in my arms and held her.

“But don’t you think it means we have to go?” I said quietly. “We should go so we can find a doctor. Don’t you think?”

“I thought about that,” she said. “But what will happen to the, you know, the fetus, if he’s exposed to the compounds? What if he’s like us, Dean?”

And then she lowered her voice. “Or what if he blisters?”

I will not share the grisly images that came into my mind.

“What the heck, you guys?” Chloe said, charging into the aisle. “We’re almost ready to go.”

It was mayhem, everybody scrambling and putting things on the bus and then Josie taking some of the things off (“No, Caroline, you can’t bring wind chimes for your mom!” “But Dean said we could!” “Okay, fine!”), and Niko trying to get everything into some kind of order.

“Finally!” he said when he saw us.

Niko had just finished making Chloe take a sleeping pill. He had ground it up in a teaspoon of jelly.

“I gave her the full dose,” he said. “Hopefully she’ll sleep the whole way. I’m gonna dose you now, but first I want you to help me get Brayden on board.”

Josie and Sahalia were helping the kids get into their layers of clothing.

“Okay,” Niko said as we walked toward the Automotive aisle where Brayden was.

He took out a piece of paper from his pocket.

It was a checklist.

“We have food, water, first aid, extra clothes, valuables to trade—”