The Treemakers (A YA Dystopian Scifi Romance Adventure) Page 18

  “This really isn’t the time,” I tell them both.

  We reach the counter, and something springs from the darkness and flutters off through the air. I jump, and a girl screams. Chloe cries, buries her face in my side.

  “What the hell is that?” Johnny aims his crossbow at the thing flying away in a semi-hovering manner, thick reddish-brown wings held high above a fat, ribbed body. It disappears inside the pillar’s thick leafy covering that rises up to the sky dome.

  “That’s one of those giant cockroaches,” Jax says. “They’re probably all around here.”

  Chloe claws to climb up into my arms, screaming like she’s covered in them. Baby Lou cries along with her, though it might be partially because her diaper’s completely soaked through, and I’m sure she’s uncomfortable. She’s long overdue for a changing.

  “I can’t carry you, Chloe,” I say.

  “I’ll take her.” I’m surprised by Aby’s weak voice behind me.

  Sobbing, Chloe jumps into her arms, and Aby fights the urge to cry with her. Tears caught in her eyes reflect her misery from inside.

  You have to stay strong. . . . I hear my daddy’s voice so clearly, like he’s standing next to me. It’s what he’d say if he were here. There’s a time and a place for weakness, and now’s not the time. Everything he told me as we watched my mother die, everything I tried for so long not to think about, all floods back. It’s been there always, waiting for the perfect time. As if he knew. . . .

  He did know. He always told me I’d be free, and fed me full of blue skies, green leaves, and clean air, while preparing me to journey through Hell to get there. So this can’t be the end. I have to talk to Jax, convince him to give Smudge a chance. Maybe after some rest . . . time to reset his thoughts . . . he’ll be more receptive. Hopefully he’ll agree to meet Raffai, once he sees this place is nothing but a dead end.

  “What does that say?” Johnny asks, pointing to the space behind the counter.

  Squinting, I take a step closer to a wall sign with worn printed letters. “Nightly Rate, fifty Blue Notes. Then, there’s a list of items you can buy from the kitchen.”

  “So, the kitchen must be back there, then.” He motions an elbow toward the door with the circular window.

  “Must be,” I say. “That might be a good place to rest and find things we could use. I doubt there’s anything edible, though there might be knives or something else useful. Let’s make sure there aren’t any creatures in it, then we can rest and plan our next move.”

  Jax obviously doesn’t want to give in to my being leader, but he knows I’m right. With a heavy sigh, he motions to Johnny and an older boy. “Let’s go check it out.”

  The light above the counter blinks, then glows brighter to illuminate the area. I glance at Smudge and see a glimmer of magic. “Did you—?”

  “Yes. It’s safer with the light on.”

  Jax moves hastily through the kitchen door with Johnny and the other boy at his heels, and they return a quick moment later. “Come on,” he says.

  “Yeah, seems like a good place to rest,” Johnny agrees. “Just some greenery on one side of the room. We poked, but nothing scurried out.”

  “Be careful what you touch,” says Smudge. “Some of it is highly poisonous. We’ll have to make sure it’s safe enough before we bring in the children.” She looks at Jax. “May I?”

  “Be my guest.”

  She slips around the counter, disappears into the back room, and she’s back a second later. “Common jungle ivy. It isn’t poisonous.”

  “Come on, everyone.” I motion them forward, and we file into a kitchen three times larger than the one at the Tree Factory.

  “Stay away from the vines.” I won’t say it aloud, but I’m still not sure what might be living in them. Halfway across the room near the wall, I choose a spot to set down my bag, as well as Chloe’s and Baby Lou’s. The new kid decides to be rebellious and lie down by himself, next to the ivy. I doubt telling him to move would do any good. I’d be wasting my breath.

  Chloe yawns beside me. “Momma Joy?”

  “Yes?”

  “What happened to Miguel?”

  “He . . . got hurt.”

  She glances up at me, her youth knowing more than it should. “He died?”

  I take her hand, tears in my eyes. “Yes, sweetheart. He died.”

  She scratches her nose with a tiny hand and stares at the floor. After a few seconds, she looks up at me again. “Momma Joy?”

  “Yes?”

  “Are we gonna die, too?”

  I crouch, knees aching from exhaustion and Baby Lou’s weight in my arms. “No,” I say. “I will not let that happen. Okay?”

  She nods. “Momma Joy?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m hungry. Can we eat now?”

  At this, Baby Lou cries louder. She definitely knows that word—eat—and obviously agrees. Time for a changing, a meal, and a nice long rest.

  “Is anyone else hungry?” I ask. Mostly “yeses” come in reply. Johnny and I, as well as Aby and Jax, may very well go the rest of our short lives without eating.

  “Those with cans of food and water in your bags, take out five of each,” I instruct. “Two bites, then pass.”

  “Hey!” Johnny yells from the front corner of the room. He props a small door open with his foot. “Washrooms, and they look decent. Nothing alive in here, at least.”

  Soon, a group of children line up to use the washrooms. I lay Baby Lou down on a blanket and take a bottle of water from my bag, along with a few pieces of the T-shirt from the warehouse. I fill her own bottle and hand it to her, but she kicks her legs and screams, swatting and fighting me, because she’s so tired and cranky. After some wrangling, I get her cleaned up and re-wrapped snugly in a fresh cloth diaper, when Aby brings me a can of something called “mashed potatoes.”

  “Looks like stuff she can eat,” she mutters, handing me the can and walking away before I can thank her.

  I lift the spoon out and inspect the sticky white fluff. Smudge grins at me. When I catch her, she turns away. What a strange girl. Strange, yet intriguing. Kind of like this cloud-in-a-can. I spoon some out and taste it.

  “Oh my God,” I say. “This stuff is delicious.” Of course, anything would be. I offer a small portion to Baby Lou, and she takes a careful bite. As soon as she tastes it, though, she grabs the spoon. She’s never wanted to feed herself before. With Tree Factory slop, that’s not so hard to understand.

  I manage to get in a few bites before Baby Lou, Chloe, and another girl finish off the can. With food this delicious, I might be happy to eat again. And it may have the power to heal a broken heart—may. I’m not ruling out the possibility.

  After mealtime’s over, I roll Baby Lou up in a blanket. In my arms, she gulps on her water, eyes growing heavy, and I hum in her ear as Johnny digs through a couple of cabinets. The rest of the children get comfortable on the rotted tile floor.

  “Jackpot!” Johnny calls out, startling Baby Lou and a few others. “Ooh, sorry. Jackpot,” he says again, quietly. A cabinet he’s opened in the back corner by the ovens and the refrigerator is full of folded blankets. Dust flies as he beats one with his fist. “They’ll work.” He passes them around while I tuck Millie into Baby Lou’s blanket with her. I lay her down next to Chloe, who hugs her new doll tightly, and cover them both with another blanket. In seconds, they surrender to sleep. Two minutes, and they’re snoring.

  Three more little girls lie on Chloe’s other side, snuggling with their dolls, while another line of girls are on the far side of Aby, who’s chosen, strangely, to lie down right beside me, facing the opposite direction. At our feet, the boys make themselves comfortable, creating a wall between us and the rest of the room. Except for the new kid, of course, who’s sprawled out in the open.

  Jax stands before us all. “Listen up, older boys. We’re going to take shifts. Everyone needs rest, but someone also needs to keep watch. Groups of two.” He peers around th
e room. “No clock in here, so . . . when you can’t hold your eyes open any longer, wake up the next pair. We’ll start at that end”—he points to our left—“and work our way down.”

  I consider talking to Aby, but it’s probably best to leave her alone, let her rest. Doesn’t seem like she wants to talk to me anyway, seeing as how I knocked her unconscious minutes after her boyfriend died. An “I’m sorry” might be good. But maybe it’s too soon for that.

  Smudge sits near the door, back against the wall, not looking the slightest bit tired. The lights dim—thanks to her, I’m sure—just enough to see by, though dark enough to sleep. If I wasn’t so tired, I’d sit next to her for hours, asking a million questions, probably faster than she could ever answer them.

  Johnny timidly walks over to Smudge and crouches to offer her a piece of cloth and a bottle of water to wash with. She stares at him curiously for a few seconds, then takes them and says “Thank you.” Johnny tips Old Jonesy’s hat and grins, then heads toward me. “Here you go.” He gives me a half-bottle of water with hastily cleaned hands.

  “Thanks, Johnny.” I pour the water into my own hands, and use a square of cloth to wash off Miguel’s blood. The remnants in the grooves of my fingernails will have to stay for now. I can’t waste any more of our drinking water. I’ll just try not to look at my hands. Shouldn’t be too hard; I have so many other ones to focus on.

  “Is Jax taking the first shift?” I ask quietly.

  “Yeah, him and two other guys. Would you feel better if I took the first shift?”

  “No, it’s fine. Thanks, though.”

  And here, for the longest time, I thought Johnny was the unstable one. We all did. Now, I’m seeing a whole different side of him. Different sides to everyone I thought I knew. Johnny’s become a confidant, a leader; someone I can trust and depend on. The others, Jax and Aby . . . their masks have crumbled, dropping pieces here and there for us to trip over as we try to navigate the storm. You really don’t know someone until they’ve been pushed to the edge. Will they fall . . . or fly? Or maybe, sometimes, it takes falling to learn how to fly.

  Johnny clears his throat. “Okay, well . . . I’ll be right over there if you need me.” He points a few people down.

  “Okay,” I say. “Get some rest.”

  “You, too, Joy.” And he walks back to his blanket to lie down, with a split-second glance at Smudge before he does.

  I dig through my daddy’s magic bag to find the pants and shirt my mother slept in every night. I’ve never worn them, but I guess now’s the time. Taking them from the bag, I cross to the washroom when one becomes available, and before I close myself up inside the stale-smelling space, Johnny gives me a reassuring nod.

  Inside, it’s apparent the washroom was once a luxury. Gold peeks out from underneath grime on all of the knobs and handles. The once pristine white-with-gold-swirl countertops are now dingy, fractures crawling along the surface. In the blurry mirror, I briefly take in my reflection, then look away. Bruised, scratched, and scabbed. Filthy. A wretched mess.

  I shed my daddy’s work shirt, plastered hard with Miguel’s dried blood, then my mother’s jeans, which aren’t as bad. Maybe once we’re on the Other Side, I can wash most of it out with good soap. Can’t bear the thought of discarding them.

  Quickly, I wash my face with the rest of the water in the bottle, then change into my mother’s night clothes, surprised to find they fit me perfectly. Perhaps too perfectly. A tiny pink bow dots the V-neck that swoops down to show more of me than I’m used to. The soft, pink-and-white fabric brings back so many memories . . . lying in bed next to her; listening to her labored breathing; feeling the cloth, hot with fever from her skin; praying for her pain to go away, though at the same time, praying for another day with her. I know how it is to be conflicted. I suppose that’s my connection with Smudge.

  When I come out of the washroom, Johnny’s eyebrows arch, and he grins at me. He gives me a thumbs-up, and my face flushes hot. It’s a nice gesture, though I’m not concerned with how I look, other than being free of blood and dirt. Quietly, I lie down on my blanket next to Baby Lou and Chloe, and Aby again turns her back to me. Jax’s eyes dart between the two of us, and I shift my back to them both. I can’t think anymore right now. So I drape my arm across Baby Lou and a snoring Chloe, and I, too, give myself to sleep.

  NINETEEN

  It seems like seconds after I close my eyes, screaming jolts them open again. I sit up to find Chloe flailing by the wall. Inches from her and Baby Lou crawls another mammoth cockroach. Immediately, I yank up Baby Lou, and Johnny plants the thing to the floor with a crossbow bolt.

  “It was on me, Momma Joy!” Chloe cries, swatting at her head. “It was on me, again!”

  “Look!” Someone to my left points across the room at another cockroach perched on top of the new kid’s head.

  “Hey, new kid!” Johnny calls over. “Wake up!” He aims his crossbow and cautiously moves toward the boy, whose stillness beneath the heavy insect makes my blood run cold.

  With one swift kick, Johnny sends the disgusting bug flying across the room, though a part of its ripped-off head remains attached to the kid’s scalp. The headless body stills its squiggling, and Johnny crouches to take the boy’s wrist in hand. He drops it, shakes his head. “Jax, where are you?”

  I leave Baby Lou and Chloe with Serna and rush over to Johnny, glancing around on my way. Jax, Aby, and Smudge are all missing.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “That thing sucked out his brains or something, look. . . .” And he points to the piece of insect still attached through what appears to be a tube inserted into a bloody hole in the top of his head. His sunken eyes and cheeks show something’s obviously missing behind them.

  “Oh my God. . . .” A wave of nausea hits me. I turn away. “Where are Jax and Aby, and—?”

  The door opens, and I’m relieved to see Smudge. I repeat my question to her.

  “They left a couple of hours ago,” she replies. “He left two boys to watch, and told me not to follow, so I . . . respected his wish. But then, two hours passed, and I was . . . worried and went to search for them. I came back when I heard the screaming. What happened?”

  I address the group. “Who did Jax leave in charge? Come here, please.”

  Johnny joins us at the door and tells Smudge what happened. “So I’m thinking the quicker we can find Jax and Aby and get to your Rabbi friend, the better,” he says.

  “Raffai,” she corrects. “And I agree.”

  Two boys approach, staring guiltily at the ground.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  One boy shrugs. “He left us in charge. Said they’d be back soon.”

  “Okay . . . so weren’t you supposed to be watching?”

  “We fell asleep,” the other says.

  Irritated, I wave them away, though I might’ve done the same thing, too. In fact, guilt bubbles up to the surface, and now I’m thinking it’s my fault. I should’ve stayed awake; I should’ve been watching.

  “So, they just . . . left?” I ask Smudge. “No explanation?”

  “Not directly. I heard them discussing finding a way out through the aboveground tunnel, and . . .” She bows her head.

  “And, what?”

  “I think they . . . wanted privacy.”

  An ember of jealousy sparks inside, hotter than before. The thought of them alone together angers me for so many reasons. Is now really the time for that? They must be losing their minds.

  “We have to go find them,” Johnny says.

  “What about the children?” I ask. “Did Jax take the spear?”

  “Yes,” says Smudge.

  Johnny motions to the far end of the room. “Look at all those drawers.” The dusty ovens and refrigerators sit nestled among a ton of cabinets, like the one he found the blankets in, and rows of drawers beneath them. “This is a kitchen. There have to be knives somewhere.” He retrieves his bolt from the insect, slinging guts from it
, and clicks it back into place while the three of us cross the room to the drawers. But after digging through every one of them twice, plus all of the cabinets, we don’t find a single knife.

  “Someone’s already cleared them out,” says Johnny. “They had to. Nothing useful anywhere.” He removes a thick sheet of paper from a drawer and arches an eyebrow, whistles softly. “Here, check this out. This is what this place used to look like.” He holds it up, worn around the edges, with a picture and words on the front. “What does it say?”

  I take it and trace the fancy lettering below the most stunningly elegant structure I’ve ever seen. Words that are nearly impossible to conceive.

  “Read it out loud,” Johnny says.

  I take a breath. “Gomorrah Grande: Give Your Ultimate Sacrifice today, in luxury, and live forever the life of your dreams.”

  “What does that mean?” he asks.

  “I’ll explain everything once we are out of this place,” Smudge says. “We need to find your friends, and quickly. Leave the weapon with someone here. The three of us can go.”

  “Without a weapon?” Johnny scratches his head. “I don’t think that’s such a great idea, do you?”

  “Please,” says Smudge. “I never use weapons. You have to trust me.”

  Johnny looks at me, but I’m remembering the monster flying back into the air, moments before Smudge slung Miguel over her shoulder and jumped onto the boat. “We have to trust her,” I say. “She knows more about this place than we do. And she’s survived down here alone, without weapons.”

  For a moment, he stands in frozen contemplation, before shrugging and trotting off to a group of older boys, one of which he chooses and gives a quick crossbow lesson to.

  “Are you sure they’ll be safe down here?” I ask.

  “No. As your friend said, we are not entirely safe anywhere. But if you give them metal cooking pans and utensils, they could either fight off more insects or get our attention if they need help.”

  “Good idea.”

  Johnny returns after he and the other boy move the new kid’s body to the farthest corner of the room. He’s uneasy without his crossbow, stuffing his hands into his pockets, shrugging. “What now?”