The Survival Code Read online

  The taste of ash fills my mouth.

  I grab on to my brother’s jacket, but I need to keep my other hand in front of me to feel my way. MacKenna’s decided to stick with us, and I feel her hand next to mine on Charles’s collar.

  We walk as fast as we can. With my arm extended, I manage to keep from smacking into light posts. There’s nothing we can do about the parking blocks. I hear MacKenna grunt a few times. I’m wearing Cons but she’s got sandals.

  The dust has cleared a little by the time we get close to Saba’s. We’ve gotten separated from the other customers at the market and ended up alone at the boot warehouse where my dad gets most of his shoes. Luckily, no one has thought to lock the door.

  The three of us hurry inside.

  We’re one step closer to safety.

  Some of the tension in my shoulders falls away.

  The instant I shut the door behind us, there’s a series of loud pops and a tone like an off-key oboe.

  A silhouette, a ragged chunk, of what could only be the First Federal Building lands on Halliwell’s, releasing another storm of smoke and dust.

  A numbness spreads over me, but I shake it off.

  Because I know one thing.

  We are getting out of here.

  DR. DOOMSDAY’S GUIDE TO ULTIMATE SURVIVAL

  RULE TWO: DON’T WAIT FOR HELP. THERE’S NO GUARANTEE ANYONE’S COMING.

  Saba’s is devoid of human life.

  There’s only one emergency light positioned above the expensive boots. The rows of Fryes and Luccheses and Tony Lamas cast long gloomy shadows. Pendleton shirts hang from half-empty racks, but we’re alone. The store’s employees must’ve had the same idea as us.

  Get away from here as fast as possible.

  MacKenna breaks into a fit of coughs. It totally sucks that her scarf got stolen. Only the fact that I’ve been wearing my mask and kept my scarf wrapped around my face has kept me from choking on a mouthful of dust.

  It’s got to be about five thirty.

  Hot panic returns as I realize.

  The sun sets early in January.

  It’ll be dark soon.

  Completely dark.

  We have to hurry.

  I feel my jean pockets and realize that I don’t have my cell. “Do you have your phone?” I ask MacKenna.

  She coughs again. “It’s in my purse. I dropped it...back there at Halliwell’s.”

  We share a tense glance, and I try to push the thought of the car and the woman who died out of my mind. I have to focus. The store has an antique wooden phone attached to the wall behind the cashier counter.

  When I pick up the receiver, the line is dead.

  We’ll have to go for help.

  It’s barely any quieter in the store than it was outside. I follow a narrow hallway past a small office and a tiny break room. When I reach the back of the store, I find a door flapping open that leads to an alley, letting sounds of pandemonium inside. Poking my head out, I look around. The dust has settled a bit, and it’s possible to see ten feet or so ahead. Even though I can’t see all the way to the street, I’m reassured. The Saba’s employees must have been able to use the alley to get away.

  I wipe my sweaty hands on my jeans, but that only makes things worse as the dust from my pants sticks to my palms. My fingertips become gooey and grimy.

  I kneel in front of Charles. “Okay. We’re going to take the alley to the main street. There’s a minimart on the corner of Eighth Avenue and Powell. We’ll go that way. Hopefully, they’ll have a working phone.”

  “We can call Mom?” Charles asks.

  “Sure,” I say in a terrible, fake-cheerful voice.

  “I’m calling 911,” MacKenna says.

  Moving into the dusty alley, MacKenna and I hang on to Charles as if our lives depend on it. We bump into each other a few times. Charles keeps whacking me with his Halliwell’s bag. The smack of the heavy bottle of alcohol against my thigh doesn’t feel the way it should, doesn’t hurt the way it should.

  “How much farther?” Charles asks. He actually kind of yells it out, and that’s when it occurs to me that the blaring sirens are getting louder and louder the farther that we walk toward the main street.

  A bit of sensation returns into my fingertips.

  We’re walking toward help.

  My step lightens and my breathing slows to a normal pace.

  “It’s about a mile,” I yell back. “We’re halfway there.”

  The alley runs behind one of the older suburban neighborhoods where overgrown oleander bushes cover chain-link fences, shielding the houses from view.

  MacKenna pulls on my sleeve. “We could try going to one of the houses.”

  I shake my head. Dr. Doomsday would never approve of that plan. “We have to stick to the drill.” It has gotten us this far.

  By the time the alley dumps us onto Eighth Avenue, the dust has cleared into a haze that reminds me of the light fog that sometimes rolled over Point Loma when my parents would take us there on our annual San Diego vacation. A long line of black-and-white police cars and ambulances blocks off the street to prevent traffic from moving toward what’s left of the bank. Red and blue lights flash in every direction.

  As we approach the cars, I loosen my scarf and take off my mask, then drop the mask into one of the Halliwell’s bags. MacKenna and Charles do the same. Two police officers run in our direction.

  “You from the bank?” one of them yells. A thick layer of dust covers his blue uniform.

  I shake my head. “From the market.”

  We all instinctively turn in that direction. In the distance, there’s a new skyscraper—a pillar of thick smoke that rises to meet the darkening sky. A swarm of fire trucks is positioned halfway between us and what’s left of the bank.

  He nods and ushers the three of us behind the blockade, toward a group of ambulances where paramedics are waiting. We’re the first to arrive. We sit together on a stretcher as med techs swirl around us.

  As they check us out, small groups of people I recognize from Halliwell’s filter in. I see the market manager. For a second, I wonder if I should offer to pay for the stuff I took. In addition to everything else that’s happened, I’ve become a shoplifter.

  Next to me, Charles is murmuring, “Rosa persica, Rosa phoenicia, Rosa pimpinellifolia...”

  I reach for his hand and squeeze.

  They take the manager away in an ambulance before I can say anything.

  The paramedics want to send MacKenna to the hospital as well. Charles and I are both wearing our Cons, but she’s been in sandals. Cuts cover her feet, and the heels of her cork wedges are soaked in blood.

  A paramedic bandages up her feet. As he hands her a pair of hospital slippers, he says, “We’d like to take you to Rancho Mercy Medical to run some—”

  “I’m fine,” MacKenna says.

  “...Rosa pinetorum, Rosa pisocarpa...”

  “An X-ray would help us determine if there’s any glass we haven’t—”

  “I. Am. Fine.”

  She doesn’t seem fine. She clenches Charles’s hand as if she’ll be sucked into a black hole if she lets go. Soot falls from her dark hair each time she moves her head. White ash frosts her eyelashes, and dirt is smeared all over the part of her face that wasn’t covered by the mask.

  The paramedics ignore MacKenna’s words and talk among themselves. I can make out only part of the conversation over all the noise. “We should probably...all of them...monitor...smoke inhalation...the parents.”

  I lean around Charles and yell, “Your dad would want you to go to the hospital.”

  A bit of red flushes MacKenna’s cheeks and she glares at me.

  The conversation between the medics goes on. “...the boy especially...”

  My brother doesn’t look so good. I g
et one of the paramedics’ attention. “Charles has type 1 diabetes. His blood sugar was high when I checked it earlier.”

  There’s more murmuring between the adults. “He doesn’t have a SNAP?” one of the medics asks.

  Diabetes could be cured with a mini pancreas implant, but since The Spark nationalized the medical industry ten years ago, there were long lines for expensive procedures.

  I cough. “He’s waitlisted.”

  The second medic leans closer to Charles and mutters, “The Spark,” under his breath.

  My brother stops reciting rose species and bursts into tears. “I want my mom.”

  I do too. “Do you have a phone? Can we call our parents?”

  Mom does always carry my brother’s meds.

  MacKenna takes Charles’s other hand. “We’re okay. We’re gonna be okay.”

  It’s the police who call our house, and then we’re loaded into a patrol car and driven a few miles to the parking lot of the Appliance Warehouse. It’s crammed with cars parked every which way and news trucks and more ambulances. We’re driven through the crowd to the side near the store entrance where authorities have set up a series of white tents that look like the ones used for special events. Like when the warehouse sells refrigerators for half price on the day after Thanksgiving.

  We’re ushered into one of the tents. On one side, a short, balding man is showing his phone to a cop. He’s describing his wife. “She just went out for a bottle of cough syrup,” he says.

  I pray to God that he isn’t talking about the woman who got run over by our car.

  A little while later, Mom and Jay break into the tent. As always, they look like a pair of vacationing celebrities. Or like they just came home from brunch and golf. Mom’s wearing a tweed jacket over her cashmere sweater and has pulled her thick brown hair into a glossy ponytail. Jay’s wearing a designer striped rugby shirt and a pair of perfectly pressed khakis. Like Toby, he’s tall and pale with almost black wavy hair.

  “Thank God. Thank God,” Mom says as she rushes forward. “When we got the news, I thought... I told you to go straight home...but...but nevermind that...”

  Jay follows right behind her and pulls all of us into a tight hug. It’s equal parts reassuring and awkward. I want the world to think I’ve got it all together, but relief is surging through me.

  We’ll be okay. Mom will take care of everything.

  Even though I’m using all my willpower to hold them in, a couple of tears squirt from my eyes. I dab them away before anyone can see. Except MacKenna. I know she sees me but she isn’t crying, and she pushes herself off the stretcher without saying anything.

  Charles clings to Mom, and there’s more hugging, and Jay asking over and over again if everyone is okay. I glance behind him. It’s stupid, but I’m hoping to see Dad. My rational brain knows that Dad is probably in the middle of the desert somewhere trying to build a shelter out of a poncho and a pile of river rocks, but part of me was hoping he’d show up.

  Of course, he doesn’t.

  Instead, on the open side of the tent, reporters are craning their necks to get a look at us, and everyone seems to be filming us with their phones. I guess surviving a disaster has suddenly made us interesting. The sun has gone down and it’s dark. Camera flashes go off. A crew sets up large floodlights in front of the tents. A bunch of the cars in the parking lot have their headlights on. Those people are lucky the great Maxwell Marshall isn’t their father. Dr. Doomsday doesn’t let you drain your car battery during an emergency.

  One of the paramedics brings us some snacks and a few bottles of water.

  I take out a small bag of pretzels and give them to my brother. “You have to eat.”

  Charles doesn’t touch the pretzels. “I’m not hungry.”

  “You have to eat,” I say with a frown. “Stressful situations can cause changes in—”

  He rustles the bag open, making as much noise as he can with the wrapper, and makes a show of putting a single pretzel on his tongue.

  Mom takes the empty seat on the stretcher next to Charles and fishes an insulin pen from her purse. She checks his blood sugar, gives him a dose of his meds and then finds a tissue and busies herself trying to dab dust off his face. It’s a total waste of time, because Charles looks like he’s made of dirt.

  “Jinx is right,” she says. “You need to eat.”

  Charles takes another pretzel from the bag.

  A few feet in front of me, MacKenna has inserted herself into a four-way debate. There’s a doctor and Jay trying to get us to go to the hospital. A cop who wants to ask us questions. And MacKenna, who keeps saying things like, “We’re fine,” and, “We want to go home.”

  As usual, she hasn’t asked us what we want.

  Also, as usual, she’s right. Because right now, all I want is to curl up under my quilt with my laptop, binge-watch Popeye the Foodie and never come out. Next to me, Charles yawns.

  Mom gets up and joins Jay. “I think she’s right, Jay. Their injuries seem minor. We can keep an eye on them and call for help if we need it. The kids should get some rest.”

  You’d think MacKenna would be glad to have the backup, but her lips press into a thin line.

  Jay nods. “All right. But everyone is going to have a full checkup tomorrow.”

  They give us an extra first-aid kit and take us around the back of the store, letting us dodge the news crews and crowds that have been getting larger and larger in the appliance store parking lot. The police have put up tall lights on stands here and there, creating pockets of darkness and light. Jay carries Charles, and MacKenna and Mom walk fast.

  I end up behind and I stumble, dropping one of the Halliwell’s bags.

  Because I’m so tired and generally so damn clumsy, I kick the bag with my next step, sending it skipping along the concrete before it smacks against the Appliance Warehouse wall.

  A guy steps out from the long, deep shadows created by the store’s tall stucco wall. Most of his face is shrouded by a baseball cap, but he looks like he’s about my age. The hat has an odd logo on it—a golden medallion—and dark, crisply cut hair pokes out from underneath it. He’s wearing some kind of black or blue uniform, but I can’t place it. He leans out of the shadows long enough for me to get a glimpse of gingerbread-colored eyes.

  It’s the guy from school. The one MacKenna called Navarro.

  “You dropped this,” he says. He picks up the bag and holds it out to me.

  “How are... Why are... What are you doing here?” I stammer.

  He hesitates with our hands inches apart on the bag handle. I’m frozen. Waiting. For him to come closer or maybe for him to say something else. My fingertips heat up.

  MacKenna breaks into another round of coughs.

  “Jinx,” Mom calls. “We need to get home.”

  As I realize that my family and the two cops kept walking and are now standing about ten feet away, staring at me, my arm falls. Navarro has released the bag into my grip.

  And he’s gone.

  I realize my mouth is hanging open.

  Jay loads us all into his black Suburban. We’re given a police escort out of the immediate area past the roadblocks and barricades. Once we come to Powell, the officer waves us off and we continue alone.

  The Suburban’s clock says it’s 9:04 p.m.

  After a few blocks, things start to seem pretty normal. The power is on. We pass house after beige house until we get to our subdivision, Copper Point. Our family is pretty lucky. Jay makes good money at the bank, and we live in a nice, new subdivision where the houses all have copper roofs and the community has a gate. Our house is easy to spot. It’s been two months since the election, and we’re the only people in our neighborhood who haven’t taken down our blue Everyone’s for Rosenthal signs. They’re all lit up at night by the expensive lawn lights Jay installed. MacKenna even sti
ll has glittery letters that spell THE SPARK in her bedroom window.

  As soon as I walk through the door, the smell of Mom’s famous chicken chili hits me and makes my mouth water. Bowls and bags of chips are stacked on the counter. It feels like it’s been a million years since Mom was in the kitchen this morning, chopping peppers and onions.

  Jay makes sure we’re okay and then disappears into his study. I doubt that the city is letting anyone go near the disaster area, but he probably has a lot of calls to make.

  “I’ll help Charles into the bath. Why don’t you girls get cleaned up and we’ll grab a quick bite,” Mom says.

  “I’m not hungry,” MacKenna says.

  “Me either,” Charles says.

  Honestly, I’m more tired than hungry, but I know Charles needs to eat.

  I glance around the kitchen. “Where’s Toby?”

  MacKenna gives me a look.

  Mom ushers us down the hall. “Once we heard about the explosion, I told him to stay put at the dorms. Go clean up and we’ll have a bit of dinner. We’ll keep it brief. I know you are all tired.”

  Bookcases line the hallway, and my gaze settles on a row of bright orange copies of Dr. Doomsday’s Guide to Ultimate Survival. I don’t know why Mom hangs on to copies of Dad’s book or why she keeps them right here for us all to see every day.

  MacKenna makes a beeline for the bathroom that we share, and I hear the water turn on a second later. It kind of sucks, because the fact that I’m absolutely covered with disgusting grime is getting more gross by the second. I smell like I’ve been chain-smoking for thirty years. I take off my filthy clothes, stuff them in a tote and temporarily put on my Code Camp T-shirt.

  I slide behind my desk and open a couple of drawers. I’ve got some old devices, but without the data card from my phone, they’re useless. Not having a phone is going to be a real problem.

  And.

  I just saw someone die. And here I am in my same blue room.

  Through the open closet door, a pile of discarded teddy bears stare at me. Despite their cheerful expressions, they’re strangely sinister. I get up and close the door.