Project Aquarius (The Sensitives Series Book 1) (10 page)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Darnell

“You used to live here? I can’t even imagine,” his teacher complained.

     Darnell gave Ms. Harding a hard look, one that told her to shut up. But she didn’t get his message.

   “This place is a flop house,” she said with disgust in her voice.

“A wha—?” Darnell remained unconcerned as he rooted through the pockets of the deceased. The nearest corpse had on some slammin’ jeans. Big emblems on the back. Studded pockets. They were knockoffs–– Darnell could tell by the stitching–– but still. He reached into the right pants pocket and pulled out a comb and some breath mints.

“Is this a… crack den?” Ms. Harding asked.

“Yeah, this is the spot,” Darnell agreed matter-of-factly continuing on his treasure hunt.

Ms. Harding interrupted again, “These people are dead. Please don’t touch their bodies. They could be diseased or something.”

Her protests went unnoticed. He found a bill clip and a cell phone. No service. Darnell tossed them to the side.

“I gotta find my Dad,” he said, his tone serious and determined. Darnell had to find evidence of what happened, where everyone had gone after that night three years ago.

“Your Dad is in prison.”

Darnell rolled his eyes. “No, he ain’t. I heard he got out.”

“I’m pretty sure your father will be incarcerated for a long time. Who did you hear that from?” said Ms. Know-It-All.

“From my Dad!” Darnell said firmly. “He told me last year he was gettin’ out soon. You know better than him?”

“Your file says he’s doing twenty years on federal drug charges.”

Darnell sniggered. “You read my file? Big whoop. You gotta file? What kinda shit’s in there on you?” He raised his eyebrows in a pointed arch.

Over the last three years, Darnell had seen his father only a few times, through a prison divider, on social worker supervised visits.

Blink. It was his first visit upstate, and Darnell loved jail. It was big and loud and full of important men. His father looked so tough behind the Plexiglas in his jumpsuit. Even in jail he was Darnell’s hero. “Time to be a man.” That’s what his Dad said as he touched the divider with his newly tatted hand, “Be a man.”

Blink. Ms. Harding stood with the same blank face Darnell had seen many social workers wear. “Your file says your Dad signed his rights away because he wasn’t fit to be a parent anymore.”

“My file is full of lies that adults tell themselves to feel better. Don’t mean he’s still in jail.”

Blink. His Dad had gained weight. He looked older than the last time. Worn out. The prison smelled overwhelmingly like piss and hamburger. Darnell refused to eat lunch. He stopped eating burgers altogether. He didn’t say much at the visits.

Blink. Darnell was in the back seat of his social worker’s crappy little car. It was missing the interior door handles.

They idled in a fast food restaurant parking lot, waiting. Seemed like they were always waiting. Darnell slurped on a chocolate shake and stared at the initials carved in the seat back.
S.G.
He wondered if S.G. ever got to see their Dad.

“We can’t go on a visit today,”
the social worker lady announced abruptly without turning around. “Your Dad signed some papers and your goal has changed… You can’t stay with your Auntie anymore. You’ll be going into foster care.”

That was the day the visits stopped for good.

Blink. Ms. Harding shifted her weight uncomfortably. “Your father’s in prison… or he’s… He’s not here. Three years is a long time… on the streets,” she said.

The word triggered something deep inside Darnell.

“Don’t you tell me about the streets. Whataya know about the streets lady? Whataya know about my family? What’s my file say about my Mama? Does it say she was a loser who got high and took off?” Darnell puffed out his chest and leaned toward her, taking an intimidating stance. “You don’t know nothin’ about me! Nothin’!”

He ended his sentence a few inches from her face.

“Darnell, please… stop.”

He didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. Nobody talked to him like that.

“Don’t you talk about me. I can do what I want.”

He reared back as if to spit. His teacher stood remarkably still, eyes open, staring him down.

“At least you ain’t a coward,” he growled in her face.

“Doesn’t it freak you out, even a little bit? The cold clammy skin? The vacant eyes?” Ms. Harding asked as she stared him down, daring him to answer, daring him to punch.

She continued, “I, for one, had never touched a dead body before today.”

“I touched a dead body in this room before!” He backed down, rolling back on his heels as he nodded toward the corner full of beanbags.

“Someone died here?”

“Yup. Helped my Dad cover him in a blanket. I was the lookout when they put him in the truck. It took three jacked dudes to lift the body.”

Blink. The fat guy’s feet made a scraping noise on the floor as they dragged him out the back. He was too heavy so they dropped him once, by accident, in the kitchen. His dead skin looked like worn out putty.

Blink. “How old were you?” his teacher asked.

“Six.”

“Six?”

“Yup. That’s why I’m in the system. You done asking questions now?” Darnell didn’t have time for her questions.

“I see,” she muttered.

Thankfully, Darnell’s teacher gave up and walked over to the old dinosaur tube TV in the living room, the kind with rabbit ears and everything. She tried to click it on. No response.

“The electricity is off here too,” she puzzled.

No surprise. Darnell was used to the electric company shutting it off from time to time.

“I wonder how widespread the damage is… How much of the city is gone?”

Ms. Harding sat gingerly on the edge of a leather chair that was covered in cigarette burns. She looked ridiculous. Out of place. Weak.

Darnell didn’t have time to sit around and think about her questions. It was time to man up.

One look out the front window confirmed that the world was one big drive-by scene, bodies scattered on the ground. There had to be an explanation for the carnage. And he was going to find it.

He was already halfway down the block when she got outside.

“Darnell!”

Some things never changed.

“Where are you going?” the clueless grown up called after him.

“This place is beat. Gotta bounce,” he replied without turning around, doubling his pace.

“I’m coming with you… I won’t leave you alone!”

“Do whatever you want!” Darnell yelled and meant it.

“Where are we going?” she asked tirelessly.

“I ain’t tellin’ you.”

He ran and she followed.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Drea

Drea stared up at the popcorn ceiling in her bedroom, mentally tracing the long crack that ran from above her closet to the window casement. It was a path she travelled often while relaxing in her room. She imagined walking or driving on the ceiling, the crack becoming a path on top of bluffs by the ocean or a dirt road that wound its way through the desert.

    She had been lost in thought for the better part of an hour, alternating between worrying about her next move and trying not to worry about anything other than breathing.

     A part of her wished she were alone. Finding Sammy alive was a big surprise, but it also meant big responsibility. How was she going to explain it to him––that things would never be the same? He thought everyone was napping… Drea loved her brother, but she didn’t understand him. Sometimes he acted more like a mutant robot than a human.

The light outside the bedroom window had faded to late afternoon orange. She forced herself to go to the basement in search of supplies before the darkness set in. She grabbed the lanterns, the fire starters, the travel cookware, and the backpacks from the camping shelf.

Drea relaxed once she saw the food stash in the pantry. There were plenty of nonperishables. They could hole up for a while and be okay.

She hauled the first load up the steep basement stairs. Step together. Step together. She focused on the rhythm of the task. Step together. Step together.

Drea figured time was what she needed most before making her next move–– time to figure things out, time to wait for rescue, time to see if her parents came back. Keeping the routine the same would be good for Sammy, but it would also be good for her.

Drea’s parents had always criticized her for being a worrywart because her mind had a habit of catastrophizing in stressful situations. Her parents had called her overly sensitive. But what if she was right and there was something to worry about all along? What if her anxiety had a purpose?

A compulsive check out the front window revealed nothing had changed. She kept hoping Matt would stop by. The fact that he never came back to the Academy still disturbed the corners of her mind. Drea had a gut feeling that something bad had happened to him…

She still wasn’t sure who or what the danger was outside. But she had seen enough zombie flicks to know it was important to board up the windows and reinforce the doors. That’s what you did in the apocalypse.

There was a plethora of discarded cardboard in the recycling bin and some 2x4’s in the detached garage. So Drea got nails and a hammer and began to pound away, covering the front door. Her work wasn’t very precise, but it was good enough. She felt powerful and strong wielding the hammer and nails as she turned her childhood home into a fortress. Bang. Bang. Bang. She was in charge of her own life now. Bang. Bang.

The fortification process went quickly. Twenty minutes later, Drea had moved on to covering the sliding glass door that led out to the back patio.

Sammy appeared. He stood on the stairs with his hands over his ears.

“It’s too loud,” he whined.

Drea knew that face, a meltdown was approaching. She gingerly dropped her tools.

“It’s okay. I’ll stop. Calm down, okay? Where’s your mushroom book?” she prompted.

“Upstairs.”

“Okay, go upstairs and read your mushroom book. I won’t make anymore noise down here,” Drea conceded.

He froze. He appeared to be thinking it over.

“What are you doing?” he asked finally.

Drea searched for the right words. “I’m… making it safe.”

Sammy looked puzzled. He pointed at the barricaded front door. “But we won’t be able to go to school tomorrow.”

“We’re not going to be going anywhere for a while, bud. We’re going to stay here where it’s safe.”

“But there’s school tomorrow. I have to go to school.” The change of plans made his vocal cords tense.

Oh, no. What should she tell him? He was dangling over the precipice of a tantrum. Drea closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Suddenly, the image of a calendar flashed before her. She had a stroke of genius.

“No school! It’s cancelled. Early April vacation!”

“No. April vacation doesn’t start until next week,” Sammy corrected. He furrowed his brow in disapproval.

The kid had an insanely accurate memory and an obsession with the calendar. Drea had to come up with a really good lie, fast.

“The school called. They had to change it… due to… all the snow days!”

Sammy stood expressionless. That was usually a good thing.

“Remember the long winter? That always messes up the school calendar. So we get vacation, early!” Drea hoped her enthusiasm would outweigh the illogical lie.

After a moment, he asked, “Vacation’s tomorrow?”

“Yup. So I need you to go into Weekend Routine. Okay?”

Drea crossed her fingers, hoping he would buy it.

He mulled it over and said, “Okay,” as he skipped up the stairs.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Darnell

“
Seriously, how much further is it?” Darnell whined.

     “We’re almost there,” his teacher replied, leading the way down the middle of the street.

    Darnell sighed begrudgingly and followed the teacher lady, kicking at the road sand that lined the curb.

    He didn’t like the role reversal, but he had exhausted all his other options. His home was gone. His foster home was gone. He was alone in the world. Truly.

“You okay?” she checked. “That was a tough thing to go through back there.”

“I told you, I’m a’ight,” he lied.

Blink. Darnell’s back scraped against the top of the kitchen window as he entered his foster home through the fire escape. His foster mother was splayed out on the kitchen floor, legs at odd angles. Foam dripped from her mouth. The infant was crushed underneath her, still clutching a full bottle.

A terrifying screech came from Darnell’s core.

Blink. “You don’t seem okay. The way you screamed back there—” Ms. Harding said as though reading his mind.

“—Shut up. I’m fine,” Darnell insisted.

The sight of the sweet old woman’s body had somehow made it all real–– all the pointless loss in his life. And the baby’s powerless corpse had dredged up lifelong grief from the depths of his psyche. The pain choked him. Every adult Darnell had ever known had let him down, even the ones that had meant well. He had been left behind. For good. His latest foster family was merely the freshest loss. And it stung.

Darnell wanted to punch people, to destroy others as much as he felt destroyed inside. As they walked the streets of Cambridge, he kicked everything he saw, stomped on trash, and dented car hoods with his fists. He didn’t care if they locked him up; he wanted to hurt every person who had ever taken something from him. Darnell wanted revenge.

He picked up the first heavy thing he saw, a parking meter that had been uprooted by a car in the moment of destruction. The weight pulled his back muscles taut and strained his forearms. It was heavier than he thought. Solid metal. But he swung it with all his might.

“Raaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!” Darnell yelled as he threw the loose parking meter through the windshield of a small Hyundai. He felt delightfully out of control. The glass shattered with a satisfying noise, tiny fragments separating into fractals of destruction.

“No!” Ms. Harding screamed helplessly.

A piece of glass grazed Darnell’s face. A small bead of blood formed on his lip. It tasted like he deserved it.

“Are you okay?” Ms. Harding clamored as though an unfortunate accident had just happened.

Okay? Darnell felt great. He felt released. Justified.

He thumbed at the cut on his lip. His finger came away with streaks of blood.

“You’re hurt,” Ms. Harding said, leaning in to check the wound. Darnell could see the concern in her eyes. He avoided her gaze. He couldn’t afford to connect with another surrogate mother figure that would abandon him someday. Or up and die.

Ms. Harding pulled on his lip, checking for shards of glass. The slight sting of pain reminded Darnell of the promise he had made in the freezer mere hours before. When he thought he might die, he had promised to follow the rules and to listen to adults. He had promised to make an effort to control his impulses. For once in his life, Darnell decided to make good on that promise.

“I have a Band-Aid in my bag. Can I put it on for you?”

“Sure,” Darnell agreed as he let his teacher poke at his face.

His word was all he had left.

***

They had been walking for what felt like days. Darnell’s feet ached and he was thirsty.

“This crap only takes twenty minutes by bus you know,” he joked in an effort to lighten the mood.

“You see a running bus, you flag it down,” his teacher retorted.

“Just sayin’,” Darnell snickered. He appreciated Ms. Harding’s sarcasm. She was a’ight after all.

Yet another overturned MBTA bus sprawled across the street, the passengers squished like bugs against the windows. Darnell arched his neck to read the number on the back and grimaced. He used to take the Number 60 all the time. Now, Mr. Forty-Ounce and Ms. Crazy-Eyeliner-Lady were likely dead like everyone else.

Suddenly, Darnell’s toe snagged on something squishy and he stumbled.

“Whoa!” he exclaimed as he caught his balance.

There was a gruesome bloated body under his foot. Lost in thought, he had almost tripped over the bus driver, whose corpse was contorted under the front of the vehicle. It was Grumpy Greg.

“Gross.”

“Get away from there,” his teacher instructed.

Darnell didn’t have to be told twice. The whole scene looked extra creepy in the waning light of dusk. He didn’t want to be out walking after the sun went down. As an urban kid, he had never been in total darkness without street lights. And he might get scared, though he wouldn’t admit it.

“Are we there yet?” Darnell checked, while scraping residual slime off of his shoe.

“Almost.”

“You gonna tell me who we goin’ to visit?” he pressed.

Ms. Harding hesitated, “He’s… an old friend.”

“He? Oh, I see… HE your boyfriend?”

“NO!” Ms. Harding vehemently attested, though her cheeks flushed red.

“No? Your face says he your boyfriend.” Darnell’s eyes were trained on her expression. “Just sayin’.”

Ten minutes later, they arrived at a paint-peeling triple-decker on the north side of town. It was nondescript, sandwiched in a row of identically decaying buildings. The blue had long faded to a pallid grey. The building was a perfect example of how landlords controlled the Boston real estate market. There were always college students and young families in need of apartments, so apartment buildings didn’t have to be painted or particularly well maintained. Exterior lights and basement laundry machines didn’t even have to function. Doors were often busted, windowpanes partially shattered. Darnell knew the type of situation. He had seen a lot of crummy apartments in his time.

Ms. Harding reached out to ring the doorbell for number two, but there was a problem. Where the doorbell was supposed to be, there was a gaping hole covered over by weathered duct tape.

Darnell laughed heartily at the irony. “No way to ring these mothers at all. No electricity. No bell.”

“Jim!” Ms. Harding shouted up at the second floor windows undeterred, “Jim, are you home?”

As with every other recent attempt to find living human beings, there was no reply. The teacher found a piece of gravel on the sidewalk and pitched it up. It pinged perfectly off the living room window on the second floor.

Again. Rock and ping. Again. Rock and ping.

“Jim!” she shouted desperately.

Darnell could see her plan was a waste of time. He knew exactly what to do. Most triple-deckers in the city had two entrances. This was a back door situation.

He slipped quietly down the alleyway, careful not to let the sandy pavement give away his location. Predictably, the alley led to trashcans and a backyard covered in more pavement. And, as he suspected, there was a small back porch with a door hanging open on its hinges. Bingo.

Right as Darnell put one foot on the rotted back stairs, he heard a heavy human sigh, followed by the click of a gun’s safety coming undone. Darnell swiveled his head to discover an enormous hulking dude brandishing a shotgun. The barrel was sawed off and pointed directly at Darnell’s mug.

Slowly, the third grader raised his hands in surrender. His father hadn’t raised a fool. Darnell knew when he was outgunned.

The man didn’t say anything at first, which increased the intimidation factor.

“Ms. Har… Harding, I think I found him!” Darnell half-yelled.

The man’s huge tree-trunk arm seized Darnell and held him on his tiptoes. The nine year old dangled by his shirt collar in the man’s left hand while a shotgun remained in the right.

As Ms. Harding came around the corner into view, Darnell snarked, “Always try the back door.”

“This yours?” said the hulking man with a deep voice. Then the man laughed and released his grip on Darnell’s shirt as he moved swiftly toward Ms. Harding, embracing her completely against his bulky chest. She melted into the hug.

“Laura… it’s been so long. It’s so good to see you,” the urban lumberjack’s voice boomed.

“You have no idea,” she replied.

The jacked dude broke the hug abruptly, but kept his arm around Ms. Harding. “What’s it like out there?”

“Beyond awful. There are bodies in the street… overturned buses—”

“—So who’s this?” he asked cutting her off.

“Big Jim. Darnell. Darnell. Big Jim.”

Six foot two; two hundred and ninety pounds with a ruddy backwoods style beard, Big Jim was a guy you didn’t mess with.

“Sup?” said Darnell with a slight nod of approval. He was in defense mode.

“THE Darnell?” Jim asked, eyes wide.

“What’s that supposed to mean fat man?” Darnell was ready for a fight.

“Laura, the LAST person in the world I expected you to show up with is… your most challenging student.” Jim directed the comment at Darnell with a bit of venom.

“You know about me smart man? Then you know I’ll mess you up if you say one more word. Big people ain’t a threat when they asleep.”

“Easy killer,” Jim said with his arms outstretched in an appeasing gesture. Then to Ms. Harding he added, “You weren’t kidding,” through gritted teeth.

Ms. Harding placed a mediating hand on both of their shoulders, which made Darnell jump. He side-eyed Big Jim’s shotgun, which was leaning against the wall, still in reach. Darnell’s Dad had taught him to always keep an eye on all the guns in the room.

“C’mon,” Big Jim said as he gestured them through the back door into a mudroom. He grabbed the shotgun and slung it over his shoulder.

Darnell followed reluctantly.

Once inside, the large man abruptly turned the corner that led downstairs to the basement.

Darnell froze. “I ain’t going down there with you.” He had seen enough horror movies to know you never follow the big dude to the basement.

“Yeah Jim, where are we going?” Ms. Harding asked. “Your apartment is on the second floor.”

“But my bunker is down there.”

Ms. Harding patted Darnell on the back to comfort him. “C’mon. It’s okay,” she assured.

He wanted to run so badly, but then he remembered his promise to tough it out. Regretfully, Darnell trudged down the stairs.

The basement smelled like a layer cake of mold. The concrete floor was dusty and unkempt, crumbles and divots giving it a crater-like effect. Bicycles, pieces of broken gym equipment, and a mustard yellow washer and dryer from the 1970’s decorated the space. Stacks of boxes adorned the far corner.

“This is your crib?” Darnell questioned.

“Back this way.”

Apart from the expanse of basement junk, there was a room the size of a backyard storage shed or an ice-fishing shack. Concrete on six sides, it seemed unnecessarily reinforced. Inside there was a lawn chair, a stool, a bunch of flashlights, a hurricane lamp, and a pile of oversized papers. A gallon jug of water sat in a spill.

“Did you build all this?” Ms. Harding asked.

“Heck no. This is leftover Cold War era. It’s actually why I took this apartment,” Big Jim confirmed.

“You always were a little paranoid,” Ms. Harding said smiling a bit too big.

Gross. She had the hots for this guy.

“This is your plan dude? A bunch of water and some flashlights? No offense, but it’s busted.”

“You got a better plan kid?” Big Jim growled. The big man let his temper show through his breathy words.

“Nah. Just sayin’.”

Out of nowhere, Big Jim produced a handheld video game system and handed it to Darnell. “A peace offering. There’s still some juice left in it, why don’t you be quiet and play this for a while?”

Darnell looked at the glowing title screen. “Battle titans?” A huge smile crossed his face, “I’m down!”

He found a large box to sit on and was content for the first time in hours. Though his mouth was quiet, his ears were very alert. He knew when he was being bribed.

“Laura, I’m surprised to see you,” Big Jim admitted.

“Ye of little faith.”

“You know what I mean, considering the situation.”

“I’ve always been a fighter.”

“That’s true.” Big Jim softened his tone. “What’s your take on what’s happened?”

“I don’t know exactly. But since this whole nightmare started, I haven’t been able to get you out of my mind. This is the exact kind of scenario we imagined up in college, when we talked about the reorganization of society, the downfall of the government… And now it’s real.”

“How did you survive the initial blast?” Big Jim inquired.

“Luck, I guess… and just doing my job,” she said nodding in Darnell’s direction. “How did you survive? Somehow, I don’t think it was luck on your part.”