“Which means,” Patrick said, talking over the muffled outcry caused by Chet’s comment, “that someone needs to go get help. Because whatever’s coming hasn’t even gotten started yet.”
“We’re safer here,” Ben said.
“They were at the gate this morning,” Patrick said. “At some point one of them will catch wind that we’re in here. They’ll get in eventually.”
Ben shifted, the floor between his legs coming visible, and I saw at last what he’d been up to. He’d been pulling the wings off dying flies. They wiggled against the floorboards like little beans. He plucked up another one lazing across the seam between floor and wall. “If they do,” he said, pinching off one translucent wing, then the other, “I’ll take care of it.”
“How about the other kids out there?” Alex said. “Shouldn’t we get help for them?”
“It’s too late for them already,” Ben said. “We gotta protect what we have.”
“Until what?”
“The other cities’ll catch word soon enough. Send the army and scientists or whatever. Until then we just have to stay alive.” Ben looked at Patrick. “Course, some of us have more time than others.”
Over on the bleachers, Chet stifled a sob.
“That could be weeks,” Alex said. “Remember last July? The tornado? How long did it take for Stark Peak to send two lousy fire engines?”
Ben let the fly’s body drop among the others. He walked over, turned off the TV, and shoved it under the bleachers. “We need to conserve electricity. Turn off anything that uses energy we don’t absolutely need for survival. Buy time. Like I said, most of us can afford to wait.”
“We don’t make decisions solely based on what’s best for most of us,” Dr. Chatterjee said.
“You’re right,” Ben said. “I can’t tell you what to do.” He pointed his shiny face over at us. “You wanna get caught like Dick and Jaydon or kill yourself, be my guest.”
“And what’s your plan?” Patrick said. “If help doesn’t magically arrive soon?”
“The cafeteria freezers are stocked with food. We live with crops and cattle all around us if it gets to that. One nighttime sneak to bring back a few cows could feed us for months. We got everything we need right here in Creek’s Cause.” Ben stood up, grinding his boot on the wriggling fly parts. “So let’s call it like it is, Patrick. You’re just freaking out because you’ve got less time than everyone else. Aside from Chet, that is.”
“We’re all on a clock here,” Patrick said. “You’ve got what? Six more months than me?”
“That’s a lot of months for those spores to go away. Or for help to get here.”
“Or for something else to get here first,” Patrick said.
At this the kids bristled.
Patrick looked out across all those faces. “Is anyone willing to go with us?”
A low pulse of fear started up in my stomach. That “us” included me for sure, and I knew that if Patrick asked, no matter how scared I was, I had his back. The kids looked away, one after another. I couldn’t really blame them.
“How ’bout you, Chet?” Patrick asked.
“No way,” Chet said. “No way I’m going out there.”
“You have even less time than I do.”
“I know. But if you saw what my dad did to my little brother…” He started wheezing a bit and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Patrick. Not with them out there. I just can’t do it. I’ll take my chances that the air’ll get better.”
“No one else?” Patrick’s voice echoed around the hard walls of the gym.
He turned and looked at Alex and me. I felt my stomach lurch as if I’d walked off a ledge and was endlessly plummeting.
His eyes met mine. He said, “We leave at nightfall.”
*
The day passed in a crawl, sunlight inching across the gym floor until it hit the far wall and started to climb. At last dusk textured the air, and Dr. Chatterjee ordered the high casement windows cinched shut against the cold.
Alex sat on her cot wearing Patrick’s black cowboy hat, her face tilted down. Her hair fell like a curtain across her cheek, blocking her eyes from view. She was taping her fingers carefully, like she did before hockey games, neat protective strips between the knuckles, biting each piece off the roll. Her hockey stick lay across her thighs.
She looked pretty bad-ass.
I was watching her while pretending not to watch her at the same time, so when Patrick spoke right behind me, I nearly jumped off my cot. I set down my composition notebook and said, “What?”
He laid his shotgun across one shoulder. “I said, ‘Get what you need from the supply station.’”
I headed over to where Eve Jenkins sat at a desk she’d pulled over in front of the open door to the storage room. She’d done a great job organizing everything inside, bats and crowbars lining one wall, knives stashed against the others. Bins held flashlights and compasses and pocketknives. Most of the food remained in the cafeteria, but she kept energy bars, granola mix, and apples in a crate for the lookouts.