When the Sky Fell on Splendor(86)

He’d be able to leave Splendor without leaving her.

“Feel that?” Levi said, voice cracking anxiously.

I blinked clear of my daze. His eyes were on the sky. The twenty-four-hour glow emanating from the CINEMA sign mixed with the moonlight beyond the swirling black clouds to cast the night sky in an eerie gray-green.

A wave of warm wind hit me, wheezing and whistling, rattling the metal door of the trailer. The throaty rip-rip-rip of helicopter blades sliced through the quiet.

“They must be doing another sweep,” Levi said. He grabbed Droog, and we climbed into the claustrophobically packed trailer as quickly as we could. Arthur looked up from the tangle of Christmas lights he was wrapping around his arm.

“The helicopters are looking again,” I said. “They’re all the way out here.”

Arthur looped an extension cord around his neck like a scarf. “Then we’d better hurry and give them a show. Levi, grab what you can. As soon as the sound stops we’ve got to move.”

Levi and Sofía took a load of stuff across the street to Walmart, while Nick, Arthur, and I worked furiously in the movie theater parking lot, starting with the Christmas lights. Fifty-eight strands, plugged back to back, zigzagging through the lot with the final plug ending near an outlet we’d found behind the hedges on the side of the building. We’d hooked one power strip into it, and then plugged six more power strips into that and a few more into each of those. The plan was to plug the lights, and everything else we’d brought, into the power strips, then turn them on all at once.

We moved as fast as we could, working up a lather of sweat as we jogged between the trailer and the outlets, lining up vacuums and coffee makers and TVs in the mulch surrounding the hedges. Droog trotted back and forth, watching or herding or a little of both.

If I thought about our stupidly vague plan too long, I wouldn’t be able to ignore how stupid and vague it was. Instead, my mind would wander to Remy—where he was, what they might be doing to him—and then my chest would buzz and ache, and my anger would grow in me, and—

I hacked the thought off and jumped up onto the truck bed, feeling through the dark until I found an old metal fan with dust caught in its blades, alongside a radio. I grabbed both and hurried back to the hedges just as Nick and Arthur were setting down a microwave.

“Seriously?” Arthur said, wiping sweat from his top lip. “Your mom hasn’t missed her microwave?”

“Didn’t you know?” Nick hunched over his knees as he caught his breath. “Microwaves cause cancer, or syphilis or something. Plus she’s got four others. Think she plans to weaponize them if Earth’s last stand turns out to be zombies.”

Arthur straightened, dusting his hands off on his jeans, and coughed out a laugh. He shook his head and laughed again, louder this time. Nick started to laugh too, and for some reason, in my complete and utter exhaustion, my days’ worth of fear, the sound was contagious. I started to laugh too, tears squeezing out of my eyes.

“Zombies,” Arthur barely got out. “If only it had been fucking zombies, we’d be ready.”

Nick giggled and scratched at his jaw. “Ma didn’t think of aliens.”

A guffaw burst from Arthur, and he leaned against the side of the building, chin bobbing at his clavicle as he cackled.

It was the fatigue, but it didn’t matter. I couldn’t have made it stop if I wanted to. The laughter bubbled through me, breaking any last vestige of control I had over myself. My legs felt like jelly. My hands felt like jelly.

I slumped against the wall beside Arthur, who reached down and gripped the top of my head like it was an armrest as a giddy shriek rose out of him.

Nick squatted, one tattooed hand palm-down on the asphalt to keep his balance, as he laughed.

Gradually, the mania settled. The three of us fell silent, staring at one another.

“I love you guys,” Nick said after a minute.

It caught me off guard. He had never said it.

My throat felt tight as I opened my mouth a couple of times. Finally I got it out. “I love you too.”

Arthur put his palm over his eyes, and his shoulders hitched. I thought maybe he’d started laughing again, but he wasn’t making any sound, and soon, I realized he was crying. For once, I didn’t pretend not to notice.

Nick and I stood and circled up around him, wrapped our arms around each other, around him. We were all afraid, and there was nothing any of us could say to change that.

Overhead, the clouds had thickened, black, writhing masses that billowed in the wind, diffusing the moonlight into a soft, slippery thing.

Across the road, Levi waved his arms, signaling he and Sofía were ready.

It was time.

We pulled apart. Nick climbed into the truck and started it up, then patted the seat to call Droog up. She perched on his lap, front paws propped on the open window, and Arthur and I got into position at the hedges while Sofía and Levi did the same on the far side of the street, all four of us waiting for Nick’s signal.

We crouched, waiting, eyes locked on Nick in the truck’s cab.

It all came down to this.

“I do,” Arthur said, without looking up from the plugs. “Love you.”

“I know.”

Arthur smiled faintly. “You’re like a brother to me, Franny.”

I rolled my eyes and shoved him, tried to hide the spasm of pain that passed through me, but Arthur didn’t miss the hiss of air between my teeth. His smile faded and he faced Nick again. “Let’s save the world.”