Pod (22 page)

Dad shows up in my room an hour ago with the Scrabble game. He shakes the box and points downstairs, like
Do you want to play?
I shrug, like
Why the hell not
, and follow him down to the table.

We pick our chips, decide who goes first, and start to play, all in complete and total silence. He doesn’t whine
about his letters; he doesn’t call me a cheater when my third word, TURDIEST, scores eighty-seven points. It’s the weirdest freaking thing ever. Weirder than the rows and columns in the pantry and even his obsession with keeping the counters spotless and germ free.

So I’m killing him by at least a hundred points when my arm starts tingling. He puts down LISP to score twelve. I wait for the blackness, then the flash. I smile and put down my word, QUIVERS, for so many points I have trouble adding them in my head. I’m thinking this will do it—he’s going to crack and say something—when someone yells “Help!” outside our window. That has to be Mr. Conrad.

We run to the living room. There’s a plastic sheet covering the hole where the big picture window used to be. I don’t spend much time in here anymore. The view sucks.

Dad is cranking open the window on the side facing Mr. Conrad’s house.

I’m looking out the front door.

He’s calling to Mr. Conrad, asking him what’s wrong.

I’m wondering where the hell the POD went.

Mr. Conrad yells, “Elaine—she’s in trouble.”

Dad yells, “What kind of trouble?”

I want to tell him that something is up with the PODs, but he’s too involved in his conversation. For a second I think about walking outside. That would get his attention.

Mr. Conrad yells back, “She has a terrible headache. It’s so bad she threw up. Can you spare some ibuprofen? We’re completely out.”

I locate the POD, off to the left and up a lot higher.

Dad says, “How will we get it to you?”

While they work that out—Mr. Conrad says something about giving us crackers in exchange—I run to the patio door for a view of the backyard PODs. They’re there, all the way to the horizon, but definitely not as many. And the ones that are left are moving to higher positions. It’s amazing to watch, these huge black balls floating upward silent and slow, like bubbles rising in shampoo. Some disappear in the clouds; most stay just below them. This process must have started while we were playing Scrabble. If it weren’t for Mr. Conrad, I would have missed the big event. The POD commander keeps ’em flashing, though, just in case the inmates have crazy thoughts about leaving the prison.

Dad is calling me back to the living room. The game of who can go the longest without talking to the other person is officially over—and I’m the champ. Mr. Conrad is looking at us through his open bedroom window. His gray hair, thin and wispy like smoke, hangs in loose strands over his face, which is startlingly cadaver-like. He’s wearing a blue denim shirt with dark stains and missing buttons. Definitely not the robust, meticulously dressed, ready-for-church-on-Sunday look I’m used to. He offers a feeble wave and I wave back.

Dad pulls me away from the window and whispers, “He wants us to send Dutch over with some pills.”

It seems like a reasonable idea. Dutch likes the Conrads and they like him. They take care of him when we go out of town, and Mr. and Mrs. Conrad take him for walks in
the summer, or used to, before they got sick and Dutch’s hip went bad.

I say, “Great. Let’s do it.”

I call for Dutch. He limps in from the kitchen and sits down.

“How about it, Dutch?” I say. His tail thumps the floor at the sound of his name. “You want to be a hero?”

Dutch licks his nose, his dog brain sensing a walk and the possibility of a treat.

Dad says, “This doesn’t concern you?”

“Should it?”

“What if they keep him?”

“For a pet?”

“For a meal.”

“The Conrads? You’re kidding, right?”

He says nothing. But his eyes say it all.

I remember the apartment fire, Jamie behind the car, my feeling of helplessness. I don’t want Mrs. Conrad dying because I’m too selfish to lend the services of our dog.

“This is our chance to help someone,” I say. “They won’t keep Dutch.”

“What if they do?”

“They won’t.”

I return his stare. After a long second Dad says, “Fine. He’s your dog.”

Dad counts out twenty ibuprofens and puts them in a baggie. I duct-tape the baggie to Dutch’s front left leg. We tie a rope, a hundred feet long, to his collar, to keep him
from wandering off. The POD commander is spinning in his new location, no doubt keeping an eye on things. My eyes drift to the bike and I think:
It would be so easy just to walk out the door. End it all in a flash of light
. But I want to see how this little drama plays out. Be the hero. Save Mrs. Conrad.

I open the door and send Dutch outside. Mr. Conrad calls to him. He trots over, tail wagging in anticipation of a treat, just like in the old, pre-POD days. Their front door opens. He walks into their house.

After about thirty seconds Dad says, “This isn’t right. Pull the rope.”

“Just relax,” I say. “He’s giving him a treat.”

“Josh, just pull the rope.”

“Why are you always so paranoid when all—”

Dutch starts to walk outside. A hand grabs his collar and yanks him back. He yelps.

I stand there, frozen, not sure what to do or think.

Dad screams, “Pull the
freaking
rope!”

I react, but it’s too late. The door slams shut. I pull twice on the rope and it finally jerks free. We reel it in and examine the end. There are no frayed or ragged threads. It is sliced cleanly at an angle.

Dad says, “I knew it. I knew this was going to happen.”

At that instant I have this bizarre thought:
Now he’s talking to me and I wish he weren’t
.

My heart is pounding. The living room spins. I feel dizzy and angry and I can’t breathe. I lunge for the door
but Dad holds me from behind. I don’t care anymore. All I want is for this to be over. I long for the light, for that microsecond of instant release.

I jerk my head backwards. It connects with a dull thud. Then I’m lifted off the floor and on my back, Dad’s on top of me saying it’s all right, it wasn’t my fault. Blood is gushing from his nose. I can’t hear him because my arms are swinging and my brain is screaming for a freedom I can’t have.

Like a blanket over a fire, the room goes black.

Voices in the Dark

Richie found me. He’s breaking into the cave. I try to slide away from the opening, but it’s hard to move. Everything is so heavy, even the blanket. I can hardly lift my arms. A beam of light shoots down, burning my eyes. A blurry hand appears. It’s holding something. A knife?

I scream.

The voice whispers, “Shhh!”

I scream again.

“Megs, it’s me! It’s okay.”

Another arm, a shoulder …

I drag myself backwards. My shoulder bumps against something hard. I can’t go any farther. I pull the blanket over my head, close my eyes, and curl into a shivering ball.

He’s moving toward me. There’s nowhere to hide.

He peels the blanket away. His hand touches my forehead.

The voice says, “You’re still too hot.” Then, “God, I wish I had a thermometer.” Then, “I couldn’t read it anyway.”

I’m starting to understand.

Not Richie. Someone else. Someone else—Aunt Janet.

I say between shivers, “I thought … I thought you were him. You had a knife.”

She says, “I’m sorry I scared you.”

“Where did you go?”

“To find more water. You’re sweating so much. You need fluids to fight this infection.”

“I’m sorry I screamed.”

“No more talking, Pirate. You need to rest. Here, open your mouth. Take this pill.” She puts something small in my mouth. “Now drink this.”

She puts a bottle to my lips. I drink. It’s water. “Where did you—”

“Shhh. We can talk later. Right now you need to sleep.”

She wraps me in the blanket, puts her arms around me.

My shivering slows, then stops.

I close my eyes.

Back to Normal

My eye is swollen shut where Dad hauled off and slugged me. But that’s okay. I think I broke his nose when I gave him the headbutt. It looks like a bruised banana. And his right eye is so puffed up his glasses don’t fit right. He says the swelling would go down faster if we had ice or even a wet rag to put on it. But those items are ancient history, artifacts from some long-dead civilization. After the bathtub incident we are now in severe water-rationing mode. We need what’s left of the water, the little we could drain from the hot-water tank, for drinking. I swallow the remaining ibuprofen dry. After this I’ll just have to deal with the headaches. Dad says my eye will be back to normal in a week or two.

A week or two—now there’s a thought. What will life be like? Hmm … actually it’s not that hard to predict. It’s
like I’m reading a book with exactly the same words in every chapter. Turn the page, same damn thing. Might as well skip to the end and get it over with.

And “normal”—there’s an interesting word. I look around the house. Most of the furniture is in pieces, but after the apartments burned down Dad was afraid to use the fireplace. So the pieces sit in a useless pile. We’re using cut-up sheets for toilet paper. When that’s gone we’ll use the towels. Dad has already cut some of them into perfect four-inch squares. The refrigerator door hangs open, a silent reminder of how screwed up things really are. The pantry—I wouldn’t even call what’s left a snack. Outside our house the garbage is piling up. We toss all the empty cans out the back door, and the side yard has a respectable mound of toilet paper, cut-up sheets, and, to quote Dad, defecation.

At night we burn candles, but eventually they’ll be gone, too. When that happens, we will be swallowed up by the darkness that has consumed our neighborhood, our towns, our cities, our planet. And the PODs hang over it all. Sometimes they’re all I can see. Sometimes I forget they’re there.

The good news is that I can walk by a light switch without feeling the urge to turn it on.

And the bad news?

At night, when I should be sleeping, I still hear Dutch licking his balls.

Saved by the Pill

It’s light outside, but just barely. I’m naked in the backseat of the Suburban, the horse blanket wrapped tight around me. I have no idea how many days I’ve been sleeping. One, two, five? For once, my brain clock is confused. Aunt Janet watches me from the front seat. The windshield behind her is a huge spiderweb of broken glass.

I don’t like being out of the cave like this.

“Good morning, Pirate,” she says.

“Good morning.” I rub my eyes, then stop. There’s a fresh bandage with fresh, hair-pulling tape.

“You can probably take that off,” she says.

I peel away the bandage, grateful to have both eyes open. “Why don’t I have my clothes on?”