The Rains (Untitled #1)(39)

“What do you propose, then?” Dr. Chatterjee asked.

Alex gestured at the TV, showing a fake-tanned weather reporter gesturing at a map. “We have to get outside the infection zone.”

“You won’t make it a block.” Ben’s voice carried over to us from the base of the bleachers. He was sitting on the floor in a fall of light from the windows, turned away so only his profile was visible. His legs were kicked wide, his shoulders drooping. His hands were doing something on the floor, but from this angle I couldn’t tell what.

“Even if you could, where you gonna go?” Eve asked.

Alex tilted her head, indicating the SPTV logo beneath the still-yammering weather reporter. “Stark Peak is closest.”

Ben gave a nasty laugh. “You’re gonna risk escaping town, getting all the way across the valley and up over Ponderosa Pass?”

He had a point. Ponderosa Pass was nearly fifty miles away.

“Hell, yeah,” Alex said. “It’s a different weather system over the mountain range. Let’s hope that the spores stay here in the valley, socked in like fog.”

“It beats waiting holed up here anyways,” Patrick said. “The Hosts are doing two things: Mapping the terrain. And collecting all the kids. We still don’t know why. But we know they’re doing it for someone.”

“For whoever that eye belongs to,” Chet said, his voice wrenched high with fear.

“Which means,” Patrick said, talking over the muffled outcry caused by Chet’s comment, “that someone needs to go get help. Because whatever’s coming hasn’t even gotten started yet.”

“We’re safer here,” Ben said.

“They were at the gate this morning,” Patrick said. “At some point one of them will catch wind that we’re in here. They’ll get in eventually.”

Ben shifted, the floor between his legs coming visible, and I saw at last what he’d been up to. He’d been pulling the wings off dying flies. They wiggled against the floorboards like little beans. He plucked up another one lazing across the seam between floor and wall. “If they do,” he said, pinching off one translucent wing, then the other, “I’ll take care of it.”

“How about the other kids out there?” Alex said. “Shouldn’t we get help for them?”

“It’s too late for them already,” Ben said. “We gotta protect what we have.”

“Until what?”

“The other cities’ll catch word soon enough. Send the army and scientists or whatever. Until then we just have to stay alive.” Ben looked at Patrick. “Course, some of us have more time than others.”

Over on the bleachers, Chet stifled a sob.

“That could be weeks,” Alex said. “Remember last July? The tornado? How long did it take for Stark Peak to send two lousy fire engines?”

Ben let the fly’s body drop among the others. He walked over, turned off the TV, and shoved it under the bleachers. “We need to conserve electricity. Turn off anything that uses energy we don’t absolutely need for survival. Buy time. Like I said, most of us can afford to wait.”

“We don’t make decisions solely based on what’s best for most of us,” Dr. Chatterjee said.

“You’re right,” Ben said. “I can’t tell you what to do.” He pointed his shiny face over at us. “You wanna get caught like Dick and Jaydon or kill yourself, be my guest.”

“And what’s your plan?” Patrick said. “If help doesn’t magically arrive soon?”

“The cafeteria freezers are stocked with food. We live with crops and cattle all around us if it gets to that. One nighttime sneak to bring back a few cows could feed us for months. We got everything we need right here in Creek’s Cause.” Ben stood up, grinding his boot on the wriggling fly parts. “So let’s call it like it is, Patrick. You’re just freaking out because you’ve got less time than everyone else. Aside from Chet, that is.”

“We’re all on a clock here,” Patrick said. “You’ve got what? Six more months than me?”

“That’s a lot of months for those spores to go away. Or for help to get here.”

“Or for something else to get here first,” Patrick said.

At this the kids bristled.

Patrick looked out across all those faces. “Is anyone willing to go with us?”

A low pulse of fear started up in my stomach. That “us” included me for sure, and I knew that if Patrick asked, no matter how scared I was, I had his back. The kids looked away, one after another. I couldn’t really blame them.

“How ’bout you, Chet?” Patrick asked.

“No way,” Chet said. “No way I’m going out there.”

“You have even less time than I do.”

“I know. But if you saw what my dad did to my little brother…” He started wheezing a bit and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Patrick. Not with them out there. I just can’t do it. I’ll take my chances that the air’ll get better.”

“No one else?” Patrick’s voice echoed around the hard walls of the gym.

He turned and looked at Alex and me. I felt my stomach lurch as if I’d walked off a ledge and was endlessly plummeting.