Aurora(63)

But things were going to get better now. They would move, the four of them, into the tighter, safer quarters in their burrow underground. There were to be no more missing days, no more loosey-goosey stuff, no more mixing at will with whoever they damn well pleased.

They were all in grave danger, and they would come together, coalescing behind the one person who’d seen it all coming, who had planned for and was now executing their future.

They would love him. And if they couldn’t do that, they would at least respect him. And if they couldn’t manage even that, they were welcome to be afraid of him.

There was nothing, he decided, that he wouldn’t do to keep them safe.



Ten miles outside Iowa City, Perry St. John’s parents were surprised and delighted to see their only child and welcomed him tearfully. Like everyone, they’d been terrified by the events of the past few days, both by the reality they understood and, more so, by the near-total lack of information about what lay ahead. Perry’s radio and the larger, more extensive setup he’d left behind in their basement when he moved out were now vital. What had once been a quirky hobby was suddenly an indispensable resource.

After settling in that first day, Perry ventured out to have a look at the night skies from the West Overlook, high above the Iowa River. It had been a favorite spot of his as a kid, unpopulated and far from the light pollution of the city. But that night, as he sat on the roof of his car and tried to appreciate the heavenly glory, he couldn’t help but look down instead.

Black smoke and small blazes dotted the landscape below, some controlled, some not. The occasional gunshot echoed in the cool night air. He could see a faint glow coming from Cedar Rapids, twenty-some miles in the distance. It wasn’t the halogen glow of man-made light but, instead, the orange-and-yellow tongues of fires, big enough to be seen here.

Perry tried hard to look up at the wonders above him. But, for the first time in his memory, he was unable to lift his gaze.

The cosmos would always be there. Humanity might be another story.





Part III

Before





24.





Listen:

The morning after Brady was killed, in the brief moment that Aubrey had held Scott’s eyes as they sat in the living room of the house, in the fleeting instant in which she’d contemplated telling him what she’d never told anyone before, this was what she’d thought about saying:



“Kyle Luedtke was Thom’s best friend in high school and the most beautiful person I’d ever seen in my life. When I was fifteen and a half—I remember it distinctly, because I had taken the written test for my learner’s permit a few days before—I took every opportunity I could to hang around with him and Thom. Kyle was seventeen, Thom had just turned eighteen, and they were both graduating seniors, but I was a lowly sophomore. Still, I was pretty cute, if I do say so, and older guys liked me. I’d developed a bit early and always got a lot of attention, so I was used to it and knew how to handle it. It made middle school a drag, because the boys were older than me and it took me a while to catch on to what their looks meant, but it also made me smarter, and better-equipped to deal with that stuff when I got to high school. Some girls don’t survive that, but I did.

“I forgot where I was. Oh, right, Kyle Luedtke was beautiful. Oh, my God, he sure was. He was just sort of this perfectly put-together human being, he was maybe five foot ten, had skin that darkened and tanned beautifully, a full head of wavy hair, and the most brilliant white teeth I’d ever seen. For some reason, I was obsessed with his teeth. I don’t know, I like teeth, what can I say?

“The thing that everyone knew about him, of course, was that he was a shit. My parents and most other adults loathed him, because he was such an obvious liar and two-faced, and the only times Thom ever got in trouble were when he was with Kyle. But in Thom’s case the good-looking smarmy boy wasn’t just one of those bad-influence types that you wait for your kid to outgrow; he was an active menace, and a threat to our family’s master plan.

“Because Thom was a genius. Everyone knew that. From as far back as I have memories, I remember sitting on the couch, between my parents, while Thom gave ‘lectures’ to us about meteorology, chemistry, bagpiping, you know, whatever happened to be his fascination that particular week. And he had a lot of fascinations, every single one of which my parents allowed and encouraged him to pursue, even if it meant pulling him out of school and taking him somewhere expensive and inconvenient. The Galapagos? No problem. Stanford, for a spring-break program? Absolutely. Looking back, I’m sure it was an incredible drain on their finances and energy, but they never seemed to think twice about it. The schools would get on board with it, too, because it was so obvious to everyone that Thom was this incredibly brilliant kid, and one day we would all be able to bask in the reflected glow of his genius.

“I know this should have made me incredibly jealous and resentful, and I guess maybe at times it did, but since I was younger and it was such a dominant theme in our family life, I just sort of accepted it. There are things you just know as a kid, things that can never be disputed: we love this sports team, Grandpa is a drunk, and Tommy is a genius. None of that can be questioned, and nothing but nothing can get in the way of it.

“Which was why Kyle Luedtke was a huge problem and, looking back, probably goes a long way toward explaining my violent, uncontrollable crush on him. He was beautiful and he was a danger to Thom’s predetermined path to greatness? Sign me up!