Theaella

78

I looked over at Vincent and saw him swallow. Alex reached across and gripped his hand.

Chatterjee said, “I’d hoped that there would be a period where the air was fertile—infected, that is—and then it would pass. But no. It seems that the air composition itself has been altered.”

“Maybe it’s permanent,” Rocky piped up from the back. “Like when a supervolcano erupts and changes the air for like a million years.”

“One great Dusting,” Chatterjee said.

A strangled sound rose out of the bleachers. “I’m dead, then.” Chet lowered himself to one of the benches and let his face droop into his hands. His voice came out muffled through his fingers. “I’m dead.” His shoulders shook, but aside from a few wet gasps he was silent.

No one knew what to say.

Ben finally spoke up. “You’re right. We gotta call it like it is. Come tomorrow, it’s over for you.”

“Do you remember what time you were born?” Dezi Siegler asked.

Chet lifted his face, smeared with tears. “A minute after noon. Since I was so … big, the delivery took a long time. My mom used to joke that my birth was a high-noon showdown.”

“So you have till midday tomorrow,” Ben said. “Then I’ll put you down. I’m sorry, Chet, but it’s gotta be done.”

Chet looked around from kid to kid, appealing for some kind of help, but there was none to give. I’d never felt so helpless in my life. And that wasn’t even the worst part. Scratching at the back of my skull was an even more terrifying thought: Four more days till we’ll have to do the same to Vincent.

Dr. Chatterjee made his unsteady way to Chet and sat beside him. Chet tilted into him, sobbing into his shoulder. “I’m sorry, son,” Chatterjee said. “I’m sorry I can’t protect you. If there was any way it could be me instead of you, I would make that trade.”

Chet cried for a long time. When he started to wheeze, Dr. Chatterjee told him to slow his breathing down, to take deep, measured inhales. Finally Chet looked up.

“Is there anything you want?” Vincent said. “For tonight? Tomorrow morning?”

“Like a last meal?” Chet’s laugh turned into a stifled sob. “No. I think I just want to look at the view, maybe. Breathe some fresh air.”

Vincent nodded. “How ’bout the roof? You could go up there.”

Chet rose and made his way down the bleachers, pausing on his sturdy legs. “Will you come with me, Vincent?”

“Of course I will.”

As they headed out, Ben called after them, “Careful you don’t get spotted.”

Vincent and Chet were gone for a long time. The two oldest kids in our party. The two closest to death. I don’t know what they did, but I imagined Chet sitting up there staring at Ponderosa Pass in the distance, trying not to count the ticking seconds. Our air was crisp, the view clear, and I hoped every breath was a reminder of the good things his life had held.

They came back in for dinner, and all the kids went out of their way to be extra nice to Chet, offering him their dessert, making sure he had the most comfortable cot, the best pillows.

But even after night fell, he didn’t sleep.

If I had only a few hours to live, I wouldn’t be able to sleep either.

He sat on his cot, rocking, his arms wrapped around himself.

Everyone tried not to look at him, but he was the center of attention—even the air seemed to pull toward him there in the middle of the cots.

I lay in my own bed scribbling in my notebook, doing my best not to stare. But I couldn’t help shooting looks over at him now and then.

Morning passed in a crawl. Now kids kept their distance from Chet, who moved through the breakfast line sluggishly, his face heavy with dread. He sat at a table alone in the corner of the cafeteria, chewing his food, his eyes lowered.

I picked up my tray and went to join him. We didn’t speak. There was no point. Nothing could make him feel better. I just didn’t want him eating his last breakfast alone.

Back at the gym, Chet sat in the bleachers, his head hanging low.

The clock crept to ten, then eleven. Finally the minute hand inched its way up toward noon.

Ben stood, tugging the stun gun from his belt. “It’s time,” he said.

The Mendez twins burst out crying and ran to hide behind the bleachers.

“Where do you want it done?” Ben asked. “Want me to take you somewhere private?”

“No,” Chet said. “I don’t want to be alone. I want to be here with all of you. If that’s okay.”

“Of course it’s okay,” Vincent said. “You get whatever you want.”

Alex said, “You’re surrounded by friends here.”

Ben strode over and said, “I’ll wait for you to start to turn. Then I’ll do it. You won’t feel a thing.”

Chet nodded, his cheeks wobbling.

Ben raised the stun gun and pressed it to Chet’s forehead. “Ready, Chet?”

Chet closed his eyes.

It felt like there was no air in the gym. We watched stiffly, our bodies tensed, waiting for the clack of the stun gun firing through Chet’s skull into his brain.

Ben’s fist tightened around the handle.

Chet’s eyes flew open. “Wait!” he said, stepping back. “Wait. I don’t want to. I can’t. I don’t want to be dead.”

“Sorry, Chet.” Ben glanced at the clock. “You’re down to a few minutes. We have to do this.”

“Just … just let me go. Please. I’ll go out there.”

“You want to turn into one of them?” Alex asked.

“What if there’s a cure someday?”

“There are holes bored straight through their skulls,” Ben said, stepping forward again with the stun gun. “There ain’t gonna be no cure.”

Chet held up his hands defensively.

Vincent grabbed Ben from behind. “It’s his choice,” Vincent said.

Ben shoved him off, whirling around.

“If he wants to turn instead of die, it’s up to him.” Vincent looked across at Dr. Chatterjee. “Right?”

Chatterjee nodded.

Ben’s jaw shifted left, then right, redness creeping along the lines of his scar. “You got a minute and a half to get him off school grounds,” he said.

Vincent took Chet’s arm, and they bolted. Alex and I ran after them. We made it to the front and crouched behind a row of bushes as a Chaser flashed by in the street, sprinting after something. She vanished around the corner. For a moment the coast looked clear. We sprang out from cover, running for the gate. Vincent’s hands fumbled at the combination lock.

Moans escaped Chet’s mouth. “I’m scared,” he said. “I’m so scared.”

The chain fell away, and the gate creaked open. “I’m sorry,” Vincent said. “But you have to go.”

Chet took a shaky step forward, then another. He was moving too slowly, and Vincent had to give him a little push. The gate closed behind him. Vincent looped the lock through the chain.

“Wait.” Chet’s chest was heaving, each breath coming with a rasp. “Please can you just … just wait?”

Alex’s eyes were wet. “I’m sorry,” she said. “We have to go before you turn and see us here. We have to hide from who you’re gonna be.”

“I don’t want to be out here alone. I don’t want it to happen to me.”

I couldn’t make my legs move. Vincent grabbed me. “We have to go, Chance. We have to leave him.”

“Wait, please,” Chet said. “I’m just a kid. I’m a kid like you.”

I stumbled after Vincent and Alex. We ran through the open doors, Chet’s cries carrying behind us.

When we got back to the gym, a lot of the kids were crammed on top of the bleachers at the windows. They parted as we climbed up and took our place at the sill.

Twining his fingers in the chain-link, Chet looked up at us, his face lit with terror.

I pressed my palm to the window. I would’ve done anything for him not to feel so alone. Next to me Alex wiped her cheeks and said, “Damn it. Damn it.”

Chet’s face suddenly went blank, as if something had washed through his features beneath the skin. His hands dropped to his sides.

Then he shuddered.

A current of emotion passed through the kids around us. Many turned from the window; some leaned closer.

Chet’s eyes blackened, and then the ash blew away. We ducked further beneath the sill, barely peering over.

He turned and began walking a straight line, his head lowered to the ground. Then he turned again, walking past JoJo’s Frisbee. As he continued his pattern, the kids drifted away from the casement windows, one by one, until only me, Vincent, and Alex remained.

Chet’s legs carried him across a front lawn and into an alley between houses. We watched until he disappeared from view.

*

Late that night I was awakened by a wet slurping on the side of my face. I turned my head into a gust of dog breath. Wrinkling my nose, I sat up as Matthew whined.

“Okay, okay,” I said. “I’ll take you out.”

I crept from the gym and down the dark corridor, nodding at the lookouts. Matthew hustled along with me. We veered toward the humanities wing, stepping out into the sheltered picnic area, which I’d designated as his bathroom spot. Since the wings of the building folded around the benches, it was the outside zone most hidden from the surrounding streets.

As Matthew did his business in the flower bed, I leaned against one of the trees, blinking sleepily.

That’s when I sensed movement beyond.

My hands clutched instinctively at my sides, but my baling hooks were back at the supply station. I was defenseless. And yet Matthew wasn’t growling.

I leaned around the trunk, Alex and Vincent coming slowly into view. She was sitting up on one of the picnic tables and he was standing, leaning into her, holding her face.

His voice carried to me. “—not sure exactly when, but Dr. Chatterjee said it was one A.M. Or a little after. He didn’t deliver me, but he was there with my dad.”

It took me a moment to understand that he was talking about when he’d been born.

Alex’s voice came sharp and angry. “So we only have one hour of the last day. It’s not a day at all.”

“Hey,” he said softly. He tried to tilt her chin up so she’d look at him, but she fought it, blinking back tears. “Hey,” he said again.

She shook her head. “There has to be something. There has to be some way to … to…”

“I could stop breathing,” he said, “but that probably wouldn’t help me much either.”

She didn’t laugh. “Forty-eight hours,” she said, still not meeting his eyes. “That’s what we have. That’s all we have.”

Finally she let him turn her face upward. He said, “Then let’s spend it the best we can.”

She nodded. “Okay. You’re right. I’m sorry.”

They embraced.

I knew I was watching something I wasn’t supposed to see, and yet I couldn’t stop.

“You have to take care of Chance,” he said. “He’s tough, but he’s still just a kid.”

The words felt like a slap.

Alex nodded, rolling her lips over her teeth and biting down, trying to fight off tears. They hugged again, squeezing each other tight.

Matthew finished, and I pulled back quietly from the flower bed and headed inside, filled with more feelings than I could make sense of.

Lying on my cot in the darkness, I realized what the worst part was.

It was that Vincent was right.

I was just a kid.

Sometime later my brother crept between the cots and stood over me. His face looked hard, even angry. “When I start to change, you take me out right away. Understand? I want it to be you.”

“Vincent, I—”

“You don’t hesitate. You do it.”

“You won’t change.” I could hear the desperation in my voice, and I hated myself for it, hated him for being right about what he’d said out there. “You can’t turn into one of them.”