The Survival Code Read online

  All the soda is in large coolers that line one of the walls of the market. They keep the strange stuff in the corner. Expensive root beers. Ramune imported from Japan. And! Extra! Jolt! I put a few bottles of strawberry in my basket. I snag some grape too. For a second, I consider buying a couple of bottles of doughnut flavor. But that sounds like too much, even for me. The chips are in the next aisle. I load up on cheese puffs and spicy nacho crisps.

  MacKenna and Charles are still at the rack near the door, and I try to squeeze by them without attracting any notice. I usually don’t buy unhealthy snacks when I’m with my brother. I smuggle them in my backpack and have a special hiding space in my desk.

  My brother has type 1 diabetes, and he’s supposed to check his blood sugar after meals. He can have starchy or sugary snacks only when his glucose level is good or on special occasions.

  MacKenna grimaces at a packet of seeds in her hands. “I still don’t like this one. It’s pretty. But still. It’s...carnivorous.”

  I have to hand it to her. She really does have a look. She’s pale and white, like me, but she manages to seem like she’s doing it on purpose and not because she’s some kind of vampire-movie reject. Her glossy black hair always rests in perfect waves, and if the journalism thing doesn’t work out, she could definitely have a career in fashion design.

  Charles smiles at her. “It’s a new kind of pitcher plant. Like the Cobra Lily.” He points to the picture on the front of the seed packet. “Look at the blue flowers. That’s new.”

  “It eats other plants,” MacKenna says.

  “You eat plants.”

  “But I don’t eat people,” MacKenna says. “There’s got to be some kind of natural law that says you shouldn’t eat your own kind.”

  Charles giggles.

  So far so good. Until.

  My brother trots up behind me and dumps a few packs of seeds in my basket. His gaze lands on my selection of soda and chips. “Can I get some snacks too?”

  Crap.

  I freeze. “What’s your number?”

  Charles pretends he can’t hear me. That’s not a good sign.

  “Charles, what’s your number?”

  He still doesn’t look at me. “I forgot my monitor today.”

  “Well, I have mine.” I kneel down and dig around for the spare glucometer I keep in the front pocket of my backpack. By the time I get it out, MacKenna has already pulled Charles out of his blazer and rolled up the sleeve of his blue dress shirt. I wave the device over the small white sensor disk attached to my brother’s upper arm.

  After a few seconds, the glucometer beeps and a number displays on the screen.

  221

  Crap. Crap. Crap.

  “Charles! What did you eat today?”

  My brother’s face turns red. “They were having breakfast-for-lunch day at school. Everyone else was having pancakes. Why can’t I have pancakes?”

  I sigh. Something about his puckered up little face keeps me from reminding him that if he eats too much sugar he could die. “You know what Mom said. If you eat something you’re not supposed to, you have to get a pass and go to the nurse for your meds.”

  My brother’s shoulders slump. “I couldn’t go to the nurse. Hummingbirds were visiting the Chuparosa and...”

  Charles is on the verge of tears and frowns even more deeply at the sight of my basket full of junk food.

  “Look,” I say. “There are plenty of healthy snacks we can eat. I’ll put this stuff back.”

  “That’s right,” MacKenna says, giving Charles’s hand a squeeze. “We can get some popcorn. Yogurt. Um, I saw some really delicious-looking fresh pears back there.”

  “And they have the cheese cubes you like,” I add.

  We go around the store replacing the cheese puffs and soda with healthy stuff. I hesitate when I have to put back the Extra Jolt, but I really don’t want to make my brother feel bad because I can drink sugary stuff and he can’t.

  We pay for the healthy snacks and the seed packets.

  I grab the bags and move toward the market’s sliding doors.

  I end up ahead of them, waiting outside by the car and facing the store. The shopping center behind Halliwell’s is mostly empty. The shoe store went out of business last year. Strauss Stationers, where everyone used to buy their fancy wedding invitations, closed two years before that. The fish ’n’ chips drive-through is doing okay and has a little crowd in front of the take-out window. Way off in the distance, Saba’s is still open, because in Arizona, cowboy boots and hats aren’t considered optional.

  I watch MacKenna and Charles step out of the double doors and into the parking lot. Two little dimples appear on MacKenna’s cheeks when she smiles. Charles has a looseness to his walk. His arms dangle.

  There’s a low rumble, like thunder from a storm that couldn’t possibly exist on this perfectly sunny day.

  Something’s wrong.

  In the reflection of the market’s high, shiny windows, I see something happening in the bank building next door. Some kind of fire burning in the lower levels. A pain builds in my chest and I force air into my lungs. My vision blurs at the edges. It’s panic, and there isn’t much time before it overtakes me.

  The muscles in my legs tense and I take off at a sprint, grabbing MacKenna and Charles as I pass. I haul them along with me twenty feet or so into the store. We clear the door and run past a man and a woman frozen at the sight of what’s going on across the street.

  I desperately want to look back.

  But I don’t.

  A scream.

  A low, loud boom.

  My ears ring.

  The lights in the store go off.

  I’ve got MacKenna by the strap of her maxidress and Charles by the neck. We feel our way in the dim light. The three of us crouch and huddle together behind a cash counter. A few feet in front of us, the cashier who checked us out two minutes ago is sitting on the floor hugging her knees.

  We’re going to die.

  Charles’s mouth is wide-open. His lips move. He pulls at the sleeve of my T-shirt.

  I can’t hear anything.

  It takes everything I’ve got to force myself to move.

  Slowly.

  Slowly.

  Leaning forward. Pressing my face into the plywood of the store counter, I peek around the corner using one eye to see out the glass door. My eyelashes brush against the rough wood, and I grip the edge to steady myself. I take in the smell of wood glue with each breath.

  Hail falls in the parking lot. I realize it’s glass.

  My stomach twists into a hard knot.

  It’s raining glass.

  That’s the last thing I see before a wave of dust rolls over the building.

  Leaving us in darkness.

  DR. DOOMSDAY SAYS:

  THOSE WHO PANIC DON’T SURVIVE.

  A handful of lights flicker on.

  The first proof that my ears still work is MacKenna’s voice. “Oh God. What the hell. Jesus.” She’s crouched next to me, breathing heavy, her toes curled over the edges of her wedge sandals.

  On the counter in front of where we’re hunkered down, the cash register’s computer screen reboots with a large timer counting down from twenty minutes. This, and the scattered fluorescent lights, must be the store’s backup power system. Next to the register, a stack of plastic dancing turkey figurines shake in unison from side to side. This is going to be the last thing I see. My last moments on earth will be spent thinking Gobble till you wobble.

  I put an arm around Charles and hug him tight as I fight off waves of panic. Flashes of cold chill my blood. Hot acid rises in my throat. My stomach lurches like it’s been kicked. I’m not sure whether to let myself throw up or to do everything I can not to throw up.

  “Susan. What’s happening?” Charles asks.
Loud. Right in my still-ringing ear. He must really be scared, because he never ever calls me by my real name.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I say.

  MacKenna doesn’t look at me and starts to rock on her heels.

  We all jolt as another round of thunder booms outside.

  From somewhere in the store, a woman screams, “We’re gonna die!”

  That does it.

  Deep breath.

  I can almost hear my dad’s voice. It’s not the smartest or the strongest who survive. It’s the people who stay calm, who stay rational.

  Always remember this one, simple thing.

  Don’t stand around waiting to die.

  I tap Charles on the arm. “I think there was some kind of an explosion at the bank next door. You have to treat this like one of Dad’s bomb drills. We’ve done it a thousand times. We need to do it again now. Just like we practiced.”

  Charles and I stand, but MacKenna stays huddled on the white tile floor. I reach out my hand to help her up. “We have to go.” When she doesn’t move, I add, “Now.”

  “What the everlasting hell are you talking about?” she asks, still not moving. “Go? Go where? We need to wait here until someone in a Kevlar suit shows up to wave us out. Going is the worst damn idea I’ve heard in all my life.”

  I check the view from the store’s glass doors. A red-orange glow flickers through a dark fog. My blood runs cold again. “Something’s going on with that building. And when big buildings fall down, they tend to fall on the things around them.” For a second, I freeze. “Wait. You don’t think...that Jay is in there? Do you?”

  MacKenna’s dad is the head of security at the bank. On most days, he works in the skyscraper that’s currently on fire.

  She shakes her head. “No. He took the day off. To fix the pool motor.”

  “Okay. Good.” Deep breath. “We have to get going, then.”

  MacKenna still doesn’t get up. She pokes her head around the counter to get a view of First Federal. “Someone was probably in there though.”

  I put my hand over my mouth to keep from throwing up the burrito I had for lunch.

  “Get going. It’s the first step in the drill,” Charles says. His eyes are wide and he’s got his hands balled into tiny fists. Dad taught him to recite the Latin names of different kinds of roses to avoid a panic. But he hasn’t resorted to that yet.

  “The drills?” MacKenna repeats and stares at me. “You actually want to follow the instructions in that ridiculous book?”

  But Charles puts out one of his hands and MacKenna takes it. I don’t have time to consider what it means for our relationship that she would rather take advice from an eight-year-old.

  At least we’re up and moving.

  “Okay. Okay.” Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. “Step two. Supplies. Like we practiced.” I grab a couple of the reusable bags from a stand near the cash register and toss one at Charles. “You do first aid and I’ll take sundries.”

  “It’s gonna be okay, right?” he asks.

  “Yeah. Yes. Of course,” I say as I run my sweaty hands down the front of my jeans. “As long as we stick to the plan.”

  He takes the bag and jogs down aisle two.

  “Hey, Charles. I love you,” I call after him.

  He stops and panic fills his face. “No, Jinx. No. That’s not part of the drill.”

  My mushiness has managed to terrify my brother more than the explosion. I have to keep him calm. “Show MacKenna what to do, okay?”

  MacKenna bites her lip and takes off after him. She hasn’t said anything since Charles helped her off the floor. I see the tail of the chevron-printed skirt of her dress whip around the corner as I’m stuffing sunglasses from a kiosk into my bag.

  It helps that we’re at Halliwell’s, where we’ve done most of our drills. I already know that face masks are on aisle four. On my way, I snag a lighter, a few light scarves, three baseball caps, several bottles of water, a flashlight that already has batteries in it and a small toolkit.

  I meet MacKenna and Charles at the back of the store.

  “Okay, let’s go over it. First-aid kit.”

  “Check,” Charles says.

  “Rubbing alcohol?”

  “Check. Jinx. I swear. I got everything. I promise.”

  “All right. Let’s move.”

  Keep calm. The calm survive.

  Walking fast, we pass a few people who are sitting on the floor, crying and tapping their cell phones over and over. The woman in the front is wailing uncontrollably and from somewhere else in the store a man yells, “Shut up, lady!”

  The store manager runs out of a break room and blocks our path to the back door. He braces himself in the hallway between the restrooms and the exit doors.

  “We have to get out of here,” I tell him.

  I see this guy every time we stop at the store, and it’s like he’s gotten older and frailer in the last three minutes. “We can’t... No... We can’t go out there. The power. The phones. They don’t work.”

  “‘Don’t stand around waiting to die,’” Charles whispers.

  Listening to my brother quote Dr. Doomsday terrifies me even more.

  “If the manager thinks we should stay, maybe, maybe, maybe we should stay,” MacKenna stammers.

  Keep calm. The calm survive.

  I need the manager to move out of the way. This building is a billion years old and there’s no telling how long it will withstand the chaos outside. My pulse keeps pace with the tick of the large clock on the wall. Our chance of survival is slipping away.

  “You’d expect that. Cell towers only have a certain amount of bandwidth.” I try to step around him. “Everyone within a ten-mile radius is probably trying to use their phone. You get signal collision and tower overload. We need to get out of here.”

  A couple paces in front of me, a woman kneels in front of a crying toddler. A boy in a blue shirt with a train on the front. A tiny version of my brother.

  I pull the manager’s sleeve. “We need to get everyone out of here.”

  We share a look. My brown eyes into his blue. It lasts less than a second. But I can tell.

  He’s afraid too.

  Afraid that this is the start of something.

  The manager takes light steps, like he thinks the ground will give way beneath his feet, and moves in the direction of the mother and her son. He helps the woman up and says, “We should be ready in case we need to leave.”

  I dole out the face masks, hats, scarves and sunglasses to the three of us. Charles and I put ours on. MacKenna wears the hat but doesn’t put the face mask on and does not wrap the scarf around her mouth and neck.

  MacKenna is barely functional. “I don’t... I can’t...” she keeps repeating.

  Okay. Okay. We can do this.

  A siren blares in the distance. There’s another crash.

  An expression of horror crosses MacKenna’s face. “You still want to go out there? We can’t go out there.”

  “You need to put on your mask,” I tell her. “For the dust.”

  It’s getting even darker inside the building as the dust and smoke grow thicker outside. Help won’t be here anytime soon. “Okay. We’ll go out the back. We probably won’t be able to see. But it’s a straight shot across the parking lot to Saba’s. We should be able to go through and into the alley behind the shopping center.” To Charles, I add, “Like we practiced.”

  MacKenna snaps the strap of the face mask. She’s regained a bit of color in her face. “Oh, you have lost it. If we’re going outside, let’s at least get to the car.”

  The wails of the sirens grow louder. I’m getting that hot, panicky feeling in my throat again. “I’m taking my brother out the back. If you want to stay here, fine. If you want to get in the car and try to drive it around a flaming build
ing, also fine.”

  Charles parrots our father. “‘Never get in a vehicle unless you have a clear exit path.’”

  We take a few steps while MacKenna stays frozen, staring at the keys.

  Tires screech.

  Glass shatters and tinkles.

  Another scream, this one cut off.

  Metal scrapes the tile floor, and the sound is far worse than fingernails scratching a chalkboard. Our white Prius is on its side and being shoved through the storefront by a large pickup truck. It rolls and skids across the store, pushing over several cosmetic counters. Dozens of tubes of lipsticks fly into the air.

  Breathe.

  Because the calm survive.

  A shelf in aisle one teeters back and forth. It falls over, knocking down the shelves next to it. They fall like dominoes.

  With a series of clicks, the last of the lipsticks roll to a stop.

  There’s a hiss, probably from damaged two-liter soda bottles.

  And then silence.

  Even through my mask, I can smell the isopropyl alcohol and iodine that’s spilling onto the floor from a nearby rack. I instinctively reach out to adjust my brother’s mask.

  MacKenna’s eyes are so wide that her eyeballs might fall out of their sockets. She must be thinking the same thing I am.

  The woman at the front of the store is dead.

  MacKenna’s voice shakes. “Okay. Okay. I...uh...guess the car’s not a good idea after all.”

  Smoke and dust pour into the market through the gaping hole created by our car.

  I grab my brother’s hand and pull him toward the employees-only exit door.

  The situation is finally becoming clear to everyone else in the store too. People scramble off the ground, and we find ourselves in a mass movement toward the rear door. I’m relieved to see the manager crowding up behind me.

  MacKenna struggles to put her mask on as we move. The man next to her snatches the scarf from her other hand. There’s no time to object as we’re jostled outside.

  It’s a war zone.

  I can see less than a couple feet in front of my face.

  Sirens, screaming, thuds, crashing, cracking glass.

  Burned plastic. Rotten garlic. Even through the mask and scarf, the stench makes me gag.