Do Not Become Alarmed(64)

“No tengo nada más,” the woman said. She passed back a water bottle that had probably been sitting in the car a long time, getting cancer toxins from the plastic. Their mother never let them drink from a plastic bottle that had been in the car.

Penny unscrewed the lid and Sebastian drank. She stuck one of the sugar-free candies in her own mouth, feeling the tingling mint. She hadn’t brushed her teeth in a long time. It had gotten dark very fast, like a shade pulled down over the world. Penny had barely noticed, but now the headlights lit up the gray asphalt.

“My stomach hurts,” Sebastian said.

The woman looked at them in the rearview mirror. “Hay una recompensa, verdad?” she asked.

“I don’t know what that means,” Penny said.

“Dinero?” the woman said.

“Sí,” Penny said. “Mis padres pagar.” Of course her parents would give the woman money. They’d already been over that.

“Pagan,” the woman corrected.

“Pagan.”

The woman’s eyes in the mirror looked thoughtful.

Penny wished she would watch where she was going, and drive faster. “You’re taking us to the doctor, right?” she said.

The woman nodded. “Claro,” she said, and her eyes shifted back to the road.





43.



OSCAR COULD BARELY see anything as he stumbled for the trees. His glasses were fogged, and fear had reduced the visible world to a tunnel. The pain in his knee shocked him with every step. In front of him, the strange man, Chuy, carried the little girl, Noemi. Oscar expected to hear shouts behind them, but everything was distant, muffled.

They reached the woods and stopped, in a place that was sheltered and obscured from the view of the train. Oscar, panting, just wanted to be still, to keep the blinding bolts of pain from shooting up his leg.

In the distance he could see the dim forms of people running. Others had fled the train, too, and were here in the woods, afraid. Pollos. Oscar heard a scream.

“Can you keep moving?” Chuy whispered.

He shook his head. “Not yet.”

“Stay here,” Chuy said, and he ran off, staying low.

Oscar could tell by the kids’ breathing that they were terrified. What was he going to tell his mother? He’d done everything wrong.

“Are people coming to hurt us?” June whispered, huddled against her brother.

“Yes,” Isabel said.

“Shh,” Oscar said. “No.”

“I won’t let them hurt you,” Marcus said.

Noemi was silent.

They waited, trying to interpret the sounds coming from the night. There were more shouts, then three gunshots, and they all flinched. Then the car must have rolled off the tracks, because the idling train started moving again. A moan of protest went up from the trees. People had hoped to get back on the train. Now they would be stranded.

Oscar heard footsteps running toward them. “Shit,” he said. He cowered and shrank into the undergrowth. June whimpered.

A dark figure grabbed Isabel, then Noemi. Oscar braced for someone to grab him, too, but instead he heard a terrible noise. A high grunt of effort and then a kind of choking. He could just make out the shape of the intruder, who had fallen to his knees in the dark clearing. Isabel faced the man. She looked feral, half-crouched. In her hand she held Oscar’s folding knife, with its sharp four-inch blade.

The intruder let Noemi go. From his knees, he slumped sideways to the ground.

Oscar crawled toward him, his mind blank with horror. The wounded man was Chuy, and there was dark blood beneath his chin. His throat had been opened from side to side, an extra mouth. He made a gurgling noise that might have been a command. Oscar could still hear people moving through the trees. When he grabbed Chuy’s wrist to look for a pulse, his own blood was pounding too loudly in his ears for him to feel anything.

“He wanted us to run,” Marcus said.

Chuy’s throat was slashed wide open. You couldn’t press on a wound like that.

“We have to go!” Marcus said.

The kid was right.

Oscar staggered to his feet and took Noemi’s hand. He felt dizzy and sick. The bright pain shot up his leg with every step.

Marcus darted through the woods ahead of them, his sister in tow, as if he knew where he was going. Oscar managed to limp after him, pulling Noemi, who seemed strangely listless. Had she seen? Did she understand? Isabel followed, an ominous presence. Oscar half feared she would leap on him and cut his throat, too. He was more deserving of it than Chuy was. Chuy had tried to help them, and Oscar had only made mistakes. He limped on, dragging Noemi by the hand.





44.



PENNY WATCHED THE road in the yellow car’s headlights as they came into a town. Sebastian had fallen asleep, his head heavy against her arm. There were streetlights and other cars. They passed businesses that looked like shops and restaurants, closed up with metal shutters. Then she saw a little store with a glass door and a light on.

“There!” she said. “Candy. Phone. Stop!”

The woman slowed the car and parked beside the store.

Penny jostled Sebastian. “We have to get you something to eat.”

Sebastian rubbed his eyes and mumbled a protest. His hair was damp. They climbed out onto the sidewalk and Penny’s legs felt stiff. Sebastian stumbled like he was still asleep. Penny took his hand so he wouldn’t walk right off the curb into the street.