The Rains (Untitled #1)(38)

A commotion jarred me out of the dream memory.

Hushed whispers and quiet footfalls. But it wasn’t the noise that was alarming so much as the panic running through the room. I opened my eyes, disoriented by the tall ceiling, the bright light streaming through the high windows, the movement all around me. On a slight delay, reality flooded in.

The gym. With the survivors. Uncle Jim and Sue-Anne dead. Kids snatched. Hosts everywhere. Our town overrun.

I sat up and followed the current of hushed anxiety. It had direction to it, pointing at Patrick in the lookout post atop the bleachers. With Alex at his side, he was ducked beneath the windowsill, his eyes wide.

His stare found me among the kids, and he gestured for me to get up there. I didn’t like the expression on his face.

Keeping hunched over, I crept across the floor, then up the bleachers, wincing every time they creaked. At last I reached him. Beside him, Alex was breathing hard, her chest rising and falling as if trying to tamp something down.

“What’s going on?” I whispered.

Patrick pointed above his head. As slowly as I could, I raised myself up and peered over the sill.

Mappers lined the front fence. They stood shoulder to shoulder, blank faces peering through the chain-link. Their heads were nodding up and down in unison.

I dropped from sight, putting my back to the wall, and blew out a breath.

“Your mouth’s bleeding,” Patrick said.

I’d bitten down on my lip hard enough to draw blood.

Below, the other kids looked up at us expectantly. Chet Rogers chewed on the collar of his shirt nervously, his breaths starting to get that asthma rasp. Dr. Chatterjee leaned on the dry-erase board, light glinting off his eyeglasses. Ben Braaten cracked the double doors to peer out into the corridor, his shoulders raised. For once, even he looked nervous.

“What are they doing?” Patrick whispered.

I shook my head with bewilderment.

After I’d caught my breath, I inched back up to take another look. They were still there, maybe forty of them, their heads rocking robotically. At once they stopped. They turned and walked in single file down the length of the fence, then turned once more to face the building and started moving their heads again. Their eyeholes scanned the front lawn, scouring the contours of the building. Then I understood.

“They’re mapping the grounds,” I said, addressing the gym in a loud whisper. “Through the fence.”

“Why don’t they just break in?” Chet asked. “They’ve used jackhammers and stuff.”

“Maybe they want to leave as much of the infrastructure standing as possible,” Dr. Chatterjee said.

“For what?” Ben asked.

I thought of that squirming virtual eye rolling into place in Ezekiel’s head. “The question isn’t ‘For what?’” I said. “It’s, ‘For who?’”

Patrick, Alex, and I rose again, bringing our noses level with the sill. The Hosts finished wagging their heads and then broke apart, branching off into the neighboring streets, their faces lowered as usual.

I exhaled, and everyone else, reading our expressions, seemed to as well.

“Well,” Dr. Chatterjee said, “let’s get to the day, then.”

Logistics consumed the morning. The lookouts rotated, reporting back to Ben. A few of the kids took a shift in the cafeteria. Dr. Chatterjee told them to burn through the perishables first, so they served up runny eggs, cartons of milk, and OJ. I fed Cassius and took him out to the flower bed by the sheltered picnic area so he could go to the bathroom. In the gym Patrick cranked open the casement windows, letting the stale air out. The fresh breeze was a relief, what with the hundred or so bodies in close proximity. Alex turned on the TV, which still showed business as usual elsewhere in the world. Dr. Chatterjee continued to check the carbon monoxide detector at intervals, jotting the “unidentified particulate” readings on the dry-erase board.

Patrick walked over and stared at the board. I came up behind him and looked at the readings over his shoulder. They hadn’t dropped at all. In fact, they hadn’t even varied, the percentage remaining dead steady since Chatterjee had first started gathering data yesterday. My stomach roiled.

“You okay?” I asked.

“It’s only been a day,” Patrick said. “The spores have to dissipate at some point.”

Finally he turned, tried for a casual smile. He didn’t say what we were both thinking: Yeah, but will they be gone six days from now?

By the edge of the bleachers, JoJo gave a cry of delight. She crawled under the risers and retrieved—of all things—a Frisbee. She called out to her brother, and they started tossing the disk back and forth. Even here, even now, kids were kids.

A movement at my side broke me from my thoughts, and I glanced over. Alex had drawn level with me. Eyeing the readings, she took in a shaky breath.

She looked over at me, her expression changing. Then she started jogging toward the bleachers.

“Alexandra,” Patrick said. “Hang on.”

But she hopped up on the first bench. “Hey!” she called out, careful not to yell too loud, mindful of the open windows. “Everyone listen up.”

She waited a moment as the others stopped what they were doing.

“I don’t know about you guys,” she said, “but I don’t want to just wait around here and do nothing.”