I jump on the last bike and stare down at all the levers and switches, trying to remember how it all works. If my old life has to come back to me, now would be a good time.
Closing my eyes, I kick the starter. I twist the throttle and release the clutch. The bike leaps forward and crashes into a stack of fuel cans, then lurches to a stop that throws me into the handlebars, but I manage to keep the engine going. Behind me, M and Nora are descending the stairs, yelling at me, but I’m barely aware of them. I hit the throttle again and the bike lunges beneath me. I fishtail out of the garage and skid onto the street, barely clinging to balance. Julie’s trail of smoke leads down the street and around a corner like a line on a map. I follow it.
EVEN WHILE FIGHTING to control a lurching steel monster, my brain can’t stop nagging. It reminds me that Abram and Julie are experienced riders with normal human reflexes and I will never catch up with them. It reminds me that we won’t fare well stranded in the Montana wilderness with only three vintage motorcycles and a bag of Carbtein. It reminds me, with obvious self-interest, that I’m not wearing a helmet.
Julie’s smoke trail thins as her bike’s engine wakes up and clears its throat, but by the time the trail is gone, I’ve deduced her destination. I burst out of the confines of the suburbs and into the open plains that lead to the airport. I find her bike parked near the 747, faint puffs of smoke chugging from its muffler. I hear her voice inside the plane, hoarse with desperation.
“Abram! God damn it, Abram!”
She storms down the cargo ramp and returns to her bike, fists clenched at her sides. “He’s not here. That blind, stupid son of a bitch, that motherfucking coward, I thought he’d be here, I thought he was taking the plane.”
“Julie.” I put my hand on her shoulder to stop her wild pacing but she shrugs it off.
“We’re fucked if he leaves us. We’re fucked. No Canada, no Iceland, we’re stuck in this fucking desert and it’ll take us months to even—”
“Julie!”
She snaps out of her rage and finally looks at me.
I take a breath to come down from that necessary raising of my voice. “I know where he’s going.”
“How?”
I’m not going to say it. I’ve already poked that scar once and felt the jolt of pain. I look at her, and she understands.
She gets back on her bike. I walk mine through a U-turn like a kid on training wheels, then I hit the gas and launch forward, my legs flailing in the air for a moment before I catch my balance and find the pegs. I glance back at her, hoping my clownish riding might pull a smile out of the tension, but her face is locked in a grim stare. Julie can find humor in almost anything. Hungry zombies, armies of skeletons, her own imprisonment and torture. Her dream of a better world is the one thing she’ll never joke about, and I fear for anyone who threatens it.
? ? ?
Big brother is happy.
I like it when big brother is happy because that means everything’s okay. Big brother worries more than anyone else; he thinks no one else worries enough, not even Dad, so if big brother is happy, I know we’re safe.
“Perry, bring your squirt guns! We can have a battle in the woods!”
Big brother is stuffing his backpack full of clothes and fun stuff. A football. A Frisbee. A drawing pad and color pencils. I’m going to ask him to draw me a monster. Mom said the monsters you make up with your imagination are always worse than the real ones. I’ll stick big brother’s monster on my bedroom door to scare away the real ones.
“Let’s go, kids!” Dad yells. He’s outside in the truck with Mom and the motor is on and it’s time to go. I grab all my squirt guns and run outside and dump them in the back of the truck. Big brother climbs in and reaches down and lifts me up by my armpits like Mom and Dad used to do when I was a baby. We sit on the rusty metal and I feel my bottom getting wet from the dirty water that’s pooled in all the dents but I’m smiling and big brother is smiling. We bang the back of our heads against the window because that means we’re ready to go and Dad drives out into the town and onto the fast road and then the road with the old barns and then the gravel road and then the dirt road and the bumps make me and big brother bounce all over like popcorn in the pan the way Mom cooks it and I start laughing. Big brother laughs too, even though he’s so old he’s almost a grown-up, because he’s happy, and if he’s happy that means everything’s okay.
? ? ?