Astray (31 page)

The only way they’re gonna feel something, the only way they’re gonna get the message, is quote: “with a body count.”

—Timothy McVeigh, Oklahoma City bomber and protester of the Waco siege

“Where are we going?” Every word is a knife in my throat. I wince.

“Town,” Jonathan says. He turns down the music and I maneuver so that I’m kneeling behind him again, my head on the mesh screen and my hip resting on Mrs. Rosen’s shoulder. I try not to think about it.

I look out at the road. A car appears, coming from the opposite direction. I watch it speed past, a blob of pea green that’s gone so fast I barely have time to register that it’s Cody.
If Mr. Brown and Brian are still back there on the road …
 I shake my head.
They won’t be. He’ll be okay. He has to be okay
. But I can’t make myself believe it when my jeans are wet around the knees from Mrs. Rosen’s blood.

“What are you going to do?” I ask Jonathan.

“Prove myself worthy, make a statement that’s so loud and clear it can’t be ignored,” he says. “You don’t need to know the details. Not yet. Let’s just say that most of my life has led up to this day.”

We’re in town a few minutes later. It’s early still, but there are cars everywhere. Hanging above the street is a sign with the words
WINTER FESTIVAL
written in red and green letters. My stomach somersaults. The van slows down as we approach the traffic light near the diner, and Jonathan looks back at me. “Try to scream or attract any attention and I will shoot you.” He holds a small black handgun up and presses it to the screen to show me that he’s serious. He keeps it low enough that people outside won’t see it, but high enough that I can.

I watch as a trio of men walk in front of the van toting a Christmas tree, followed by a mom struggling with a double stroller. Jonathan waves at them and the mom gives him a harried smile; she doesn’t see me behind the screen. He’s going to do something at the festival. Hurt all these people. He doesn’t have to come right out and say it for me to know. I yank at the rope around my wrists, but I can’t get loose and even if I could I’m locked in the back of the van. There’s nothing I can do.

When the light turns green, we make our way closer to the park where the festival is. Cody’s mom had a map tacked up in her dining room that showed where all the game and craft booths will be. The festival spans the whole park and the parking lot beyond it that belongs to the grocery store. There are supposed to be groups from Culver Creek High School and both the middle and elementary schools performing there this morning. The whole town will be in this one spot for the next four or five hours.

Jonathan steers the van into the parking lot now. There are a few spots left open, but most of the lot is blocked off for the ice-skating rink. There are already racks of skates waiting. Cody and I were supposed to work there today. Toward the grocery store itself are several sets of risers. No one’s on them yet, it’s too early. The program won’t officially start for another hour, but the parking lot is still full of people heading into the festival. We take one of the last parking spaces that face the risers and not the road.

“Now what?” I ask.

“Now we wait.” Jonathan turns the van off. He pulls out a phone and sits it on the dash before fishing a first-aid kit from the pile of books on the seat and setting it on his lap. I read the titles, looking for something, anything that might clue me in to why we’re here.
The Anarchist’s Cookbook
. I’ve never heard of it or the half-dozen other books strewn across the seat. I blow out a frustrated breath.

Jonathan undoes his bloody bandage while I watch, transfixed. I’m finally going to see what’s underneath. I’m not prepared for how badly injured his hand is. The skin is puckered and, even after all these days, an angry pink. In some places the skin is actually peeling off.

“Chemical burns,” he says. “Not from the owl like you thought, though that stupid bird did try to take a chunk out of me. Hard to avoid them, given what I’ve been building. Hurts like crap, but it was worth it. I did better than most guys doing this for the first time. I could’ve been burned worse, or blown my fingers off.”

I can’t follow what he’s saying.
How does a fire blow off your fingers?

Jonathan rebandages his hand and then picks up his phone again, stares at the screen before he puts it back down. “Soon,” he mutters to himself as he peers out the front window.

Phone. I still have Cody’s phone
. I move away from the screen and sit back on my heels. My hands are tied behind me, which makes it hard to get to my pocket, but I manage after nearly twenty minutes of contorting my body to make it easier to reach. I am sweating and sore, and the parking lot is getting loud with people by the time I manage to finally fish the phone out and let it drop on the floor beside me. It makes a small thud and I freeze.

Jonathan turns around. “What are you doing?”

Can he see the phone? My heart hammers in my chest. “Nothing.”

Suddenly there’s a ringing and I shriek, sure that it’s Cody’s phone going off, but it’s not, it’s Jonathan’s. He swivels away from me and I pick Cody’s phone back up. Its screen is shattered. Bits of it are missing. It must have happened when he tackled me in the woods. I swipe my finger across it anyway and a sliver of glass cuts into my skin but the phone lights up.

Jonathan’s phone stops ringing. “Hello?”

I don’t have much time. I press my finger to the screen, but I can’t get it to work. I think maybe it’s too far gone. I slip the phone back into my pocket.

“Lyla, I think you should hear this too,” Jonathan says from up front. He holds his phone up to the wire mesh screen.

“Little Owl.”

It’s Pioneer.

“I’m disappointed in you, Little Owl. I thought you’d come around.” He makes a tsking sound into the phone. “After all the hard work I’ve done to bring you home, you still aren’t obedient. Tell me, what’s a good shepherd to do if his sheep refuses to come home? How many times does he save her from the wolves? I’ve tried my best to keep you out of harm’s way, but there’s a limit to my patience, child.” He sighs. “You’ve left me no other choice. I’m going to have to give you over to the Brethren and let them sort you out.”

There’s a beat of silence while he lets this sink in.

“Jonathan?”

“Sir?”

“Is everything prepared?”

“Yes.”

“And your heart’s right, brother?”

“It is. I’m ready to play my part.” Jonathan’s face is bright, excited.

“There’s a seat of honor for you among my people. All you have to do is claim it now. You will have a special place in history after today.”

Jonathan’s eyes well up with tears. He’s so choked up that he can’t speak.

“Give Little Owl a front-row seat today.” Pioneer’s voice manages to sound sweet and ominous at the same time. “For me.”

“Sir, yes.” Jonathan stares at the phone and then at me. “I promise I will.”

“Then let the end finally come.”

The line goes dead.

Jonathan wipes at his eyes and puts the phone back on the dash.

“What is he making you do?” I ask.

Jonathan whirls around. “He isn’t making me do anything. I want to do this. For so long I didn’t understand my purpose. I used to think it was the Rangers, but it wasn’t, it wasn’t even close. They were just a way to get me here. I mean, I didn’t know, I didn’t see it until I met Pioneer … I could feel the rightness of what he was saying about this world in my gut.”

“
What are you going to do?
” I say as loudly as my throat will allow me.

He grins. “What I’ve always been meant to do. Start the apocalypse.”

I look back at the big blue barrels beside me and the yellow tubing striping the van walls. This is what a bomb looks like? The only thing I picture when I say the word is a black ball with a string coming out of it—something cartoon-like and almost comical. This looks like stuff out of a hardware store. Utilitarian. And somehow this is what makes it feel real to me.

“Don’t do this. Pioneer’s wrong. The sheriff was right to raid us. Pioneer’s not a prophet, he’s just a man. If there were any Brethren at all and they were powerful enough to save us from the end, why aren’t they powerful enough to start it themselves?”

Jonathan hits the screen with the flat part of his hand. “Shut up! You may have turned your back on your family, but I won’t. You can’t corrupt my destiny. I won’t allow it.” He opens his door and gets out. He slams it closed and then he’s at the back of the van. I open my mouth and scream, but my voice is still so weak that it’s not loud enough to be heard outside the van. He hops into the back and shuts the doors and I turn and kick at him with my feet. I land a heel into his chin and the skin splits along his jaw. His eyes go wild and he throws himself at me, punches me in the stomach and the head. I feel my bottom lip swell up. My vision, already red around the edges, doubles.

I’m afraid he’s going to shoot me, but then I realize that he can’t. If he does, he could blow us both up. Instead he ties my feet too. Then he grabs a black military-style vest from behind one of the barrels and what looks like a clock from the far corner of the van. The clock’s connected by wires to something I can’t see. He lays it down beside him and very carefully puts the vest on, then takes a rectangular box out of one of the pockets and puts it into his pants pocket instead. Outside somewhere a band begins to play. The program is getting ready to start.

“What’s that for?” I say just to keep him talking, to stall for time.

He looks up at me and grins. “It’s an insurance policy.”

It’s a bomb too, only he’s wearing it. Which means …

“You’re going to blow yourself up?”

“If I’m brave enough to make this sacrifice, Pioneer said that the Brethren will spare me too.” When he says it, I can see that familiar glassy, faraway expression in his eyes. He said in the barn that he didn’t believe in the Brethren, but here, now, it seems like maybe he’s changed his mind.

He picks up the clock thing and presses a button. The numbers start to scroll backward. He set it for ten minutes. That’s all the time I have left to get out of here, and my hands and feet are tied. I’m going to die.

“I’m going to lock you in now.” He turns and slips out of the van. “This is it,” he says more to himself than to me, and his face lights up. Then the doors shut and he’s gone.

The clock keeps ticking down. 9:30, 9:29, 9:28 …

Think, Lyla, think!
There has to be some way to get out. I wriggle down onto the floor and put my feet up to the van wall. I pull them back and then slam them against the wall.
Boom! Boom! Boom!

Outside, the band has started playing “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” so loud that I’m sure no one can hear my kicks. Still I wriggle against the floor and pull my legs back to go again.
Boom! Boom! Boom!

I kick again and again, but when the clock goes under five minutes I realize that it’s no use, that I have to figure
out a way to get out or I’m going to die and so are a lot of other innocent people. I need to get my hands free.
Now
. I lie flat on my back, panting.
Think, Lyla!

Something sharp is sticking me in the back.

The shears. I’ve had them this whole time. I turn on my side and use my fingers to inch my shirt up so I can grab them. My fingers slip a little, but then grab hold.

4:00, 3:59, 3:58, 3:57 …

I inch the shears out and they drop to the floor, and I have to wriggle backward a bit to reach them. It takes more time than I’d like because I can’t see them. I can only feel around on the floor. Finally my fingers touch the steel and I almost cry out in relief.

3:25, 3:24, 3:23 …

I get a hand around each handle and then lie on my side, lifting my legs as close to my hands as I can. My thighs threaten to cramp as I try to open the shears—one handle in each hand—and get them positioned around the rope binding my legs together.

2:52, 2:51, 2:50 …

It takes two tries to position the blades around the rope and not my skin. There is a thin line of blood running down my left leg, but I bring the handles together and then apart, very slowly, each opening and closing of the shears an ordeal. My thighs cramp, but I can’t rub it out or stop, so I keep cutting even though my leg muscles are screaming.

2:00, 1:59, 1:58, 1:57 …

The rope breaks and I drop the shears, stretch my legs out, and uncramp.

1:20, 1:19, 1:18, 1:17 …

I have to do my hands now, which will be harder. I am almost out of time, and the knowledge just about derails me, but somehow I pick up the shears again and bring my legs under me until I’m kneeling. I look over my shoulder at the barrels and find a place to wedge the shears tightly. Once they’re in place, the blades spread and facing out, I run the rope around my wrists over one of them. It’s sharp and nicks my wrists and forearms every time I don’t aim exactly right. The rope is loosening, but slowly.

1:00, 0:59, 0:58, 0:57 …

I’m talking to myself. “
Come on, come on
, COME ON!”

Outside I can hear people singing. The van reeks of gasoline. The ropes around my wrist are thin—one of them should have given way by now. I’m not going to make it. I don’t want to die like this. Not like this.

All at once a piece of rope gives and I’m able to slip out of them. I’m free! The van doors have a latch on the inside. It opens easily and I scooch out of the van without stopping to check the clock again.

RUN!

I don’t say this word. It’s more like my whole body screams it. I push off of the ground and sprint away from the van, toward the grocery store, where at least a hundred people are gathered. There are kids on the risers ahead of me, preparing to sing. I recognize a familiar set
of glittery braids in the second row. Jack. Down below her in the crowd, I see more familiar faces. Principal Geddy, Mrs. Ward.

“Bomb! There’s a bomb! Get away. Get away!” I yell as loud as I’m able. It’s a real yell this time, ragged and hoarse, but loud. Mrs. Ward turns toward me, and when she sees my face and how I’m hurtling at her, her eyes go wide and she begins to yell too.