Project Aquarius (The Sensitives Series Book 1) (8 page)

In the next row of cars, Drea spotted the silhouette of Ms. Greene, her English teacher, in an SUV with the windows rolled down, fingers posed with a long extinct cigarette. Her teacher must have snuck away on her prep period to steal a few drags. Probably never knew it would be her last.

Matt stuck the key in the door and it opened easily, but when he slid it in the ignition there was a thick silence. He turned the key over and over and over again. There wasn’t even a click.

“Did you think you were going to just drive away?” Drea questioned.

Matt banged his hands on the steering wheel in frustration. “It doesn’t make any sense. This has to be more than just a power outage. Why would my car be dead? It should still be able to run on gasoline. I have a full tank.”

Drea worked through the implications. “Well, if cars don’t work, then they died at the same time all the people died...”

“If cars died too, then it can’t be a virus, or a bioterrorism thing,” she reasoned.

“Yeah,” Matt agreed. “If the power is off. If no electronics are working… then that means no security systems are working either, right?” He had the glow of someone hatching a plan.

“Spit it out. What are you thinking?”

“We can go take whatever we want from anywhere…”

Drea giggled at Matt’s stupid shallow logic.

“Seriously! We can go get anything we need. Food. Clothing. Alcohol. Whatever we want. We can go take it right out of the store!” he exclaimed.

“We don’t even know what’s out there, dude. We can’t be the only ones left on the planet. Somewhere out there are people who knew about this, anticipated this, or will benefit from it. And we need to be able to defend ourselves. Our first order of business is survival and safety, not going to the mall.”

When Drea finished speaking, she felt strangely clear and powerful. Where had that even come from?

“Okay. You make a point. We’re going to need weapons.”

“Weapons?”

He had totally missed the point.

“Well, yeah. How else are we going to defend ourselves from dangerous people? I’m going to go get weapons.”

Matt exited his car, not bothering to shut the door. He unzipped his backpack and dumped his notebooks and textbooks on the ground in a chaotic clatter. He caught the brown paper bag lunch as it fell and shoved it back in. Then he went in the backseat and emerged with a large black mesh bag designed to carry sports gear.

“This should be plenty of room. I’m going to grab as many guns as I can carry.”

With purpose, Matt trudged over to the school bike rack. There were only a few bikes to choose from, but pretty quickly he found one with the chain loosely draped over the top. He wheeled it back toward his parking spot, shoulders held high.

“Bingo. Someone got here late and didn’t have time to lock it up properly,” he said as he adjusted the height of the seat.

Drea chimed in, “What about me? What am I supposed to do?” Her stomach felt acidic and tight.

“You should stay here and wait to see if anyone’s parents show up to find them. Or if anyone shows up period.”

“I’m supposed to wait here… Alone? At the end of the world?”

“Yeah, I’ll be right back,” Matt affirmed as he fiddled with the handlebars.

“You want to split up? During the apocalypse? I’m not comfortable with that.”

“And you are comfortable charging into the open world with no way to defend yourself?”

“Well, no…”

“Didn’t think so. Here.” Matt leaned in his car and opened the glove box. He handed Drea a red-handled classic Swiss army knife. “My Dad gave it to me for emergencies. I think this counts.”

Drea was in shock. Matt had just promised to take care of her, now he was abandoning her. It had to be some kind of world record for broken promises.

“You’re going to leave me here alone, with nothing but a knife?”

“The sporting goods store is less than a mile. On a bike, that will only take me a few minutes. I’ll be in and out real fast. Might grab a bottle of vodka too, on the way. Whole thing shouldn’t take me more than forty.”

Instinctively, Drea looked down at her watch. She was prepared to see 9:09 frozen on the face, like every other clock she had seen. She was pleasantly surprised to see that her watch had survived along with her. It was now a little after 11 a.m.

She had few options. In resignation, she parked herself on the small strip of grass by the bike rack, low enough to blend in but high enough above the street to see anyone coming.

“I’ll be right here. Please come back,” Drea said, as she looked deep into Matt’s eyes, hungry for a response.

“I told you, I’ll take care of you. Everything is going to be fine,” he said with a final flip of his hair. Then he hoisted himself on the bike and pushed off.

Drea watched him pedal forcefully to the edge of the school property. He turned left and he was gone.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Darnell

Darnell didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. He was in autopilot survival mode. The rhythmic slap of his rubber soles against the pavement was the only sound. For the first time in his life, he felt truly free. He was certain that he was in control of his own destiny. He knew exactly where he was headed and no one could stop him.

Three blocks west and as many blocks south as he could tolerate. That was the plan. The first three blocks were easy. But when he turned the corner onto Mass Ave, things got ugly. Cars were piled two high, flipped over, resting on curbs and in storefronts. The destruction was straight out of an action movie.

Darnell paused for exactly five breaths. He knew he couldn’t have done this kind of damage alone. Gang Wars? Aliens? Zombies? Iraqis? He didn’t have time to figure out what might have happened out here.

Time for Plan B. He would take the back way. Darnell ran straight into the street, where the traffic should have been, continuing east across four lanes to the other side, straight past the Convenience Plus Station and Marco’s Pizza.

“Darnell!”

He cocked his head to the side and let the sound register. That crazy teacher lady was still following him? Didn’t she get it? He didn’t want to be found. He was dangerous.

“I said leave me alone!” he shouted as his feet pumped against the blacktop.

That was the problem with adults. They never listened to you. His toes propelled him forward faster and faster.

“Darnell, it isn’t safe out here!” Ms. Harding called.

No kidding.

That’s why he was headed to the only safe place he had ever known. He was headed home. And his momentum was unrelenting. He could not get there fast enough. He tore away from the sound of his teacher’s voice.

Darnell zigzagged through side streets, past corner stores and asphalt playgrounds, cutting through yards when he had to. He had learned long ago that there was no sacred space in the city. You went where you had to go. Using his neighborhood shortcuts and streetwise sense of direction, Darnell cut the two-mile city drive in half. Up and over the cut, three more blocks up Hampshire Street and he was home.

He arrived in his East Cambridge hood completely out of breath and exhausted. Darnell climbed on the crumbling front stoop and collapsed on the concrete. He banged on the plate glass with his fist.

Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.

No response. He was not giving up.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

He let up for a second. If he banged too hard, they might think he was the po-po. Darnell continued knocking, but more softly this time. Bang… Bang.

Just being in his old hood, Darnell knew he could afford to breathe for a moment. He slumped down, resting his back on the poorly constructed front door of the tenement building. He stopped knocking and let his eyes scan the horizon.

No movement. Time for a new plan.

“Dad!” he gasped, his lungs still burning from the run. “Daaaaaad!” No response. “Robert!!! Robert Powell!” Painful silence. “It’s Little Man! I’m home!” he called.

Saying his old street name made him smile. And so did the recognition that he did have a place he belonged, even though he hadn’t been back for three years. His breathing calmed at the thought. He was finally home.

“Dad?”

It was easy to find the remnants of where the SWAT team had kicked the door in all those years ago, little wooden shards of the past. The lazy landlord hadn’t even replaced the whole thing. It was a bad patch job. Darnell thumbed at the broken doorframe.

Blink. It was the day after Christmas. Wrapping paper and cardboard still covered the living room floor. Darnell peered out from behind the wool blanket that covered the front window. Dozens of men in riot gear were running toward the house.

Blink. He picked at the beat up doorframe and watched the blinking red light at the end of the street. The way the vivid red reflected off the convenience store windows reminded him of that night.

Blink. Red and blue police lights beat into his eye sockets. The po-po pulled out the big guns to take his father down. Matte black finish. Five men, five big semi-automatic guns. How proud Darnell had been with his arms in the air, knees on the ground, blood pumping hard in his veins.

“We’ve got a kid over here. I repeat a child,” the dark-skinned SWAT guy puffed into his radio. “Make that two children and a baby.”

“Copy.”

Blink. How naive he had been. That night was an ending. Though he hadn’t known at the time, that night had changed his life forever. That was the night Darnell and his siblings went ‘into the system’.

“Ow.” A large one-inch splinter stuck out of his palm. He pulled it out without wincing. Show no weakness. His Dad used to say that.

Blink. Darnell was standing in the toy aisle of a big department store with his Dad and siblings, hair freshly done up in dreads. He was barely tall enough to push the cart. His Dad unfurled a huge bankroll of Benjamins and said, “Fill the cart to the top with whatever you want.”

Darnell ran through the aisles filling the thing with action figures and scooters and video games. He threw candy bars and a frozen pizza on top.

“I want pepperoni pizza for dinner,” he told his Dad.

“Have ten, Little Man,” his Dad laughed, tossing more in the cart. “I don’t care as long as you make it yourself. I’m goin’ out tonight. Important business. You know how it is.”

His Dad was the bomb.

Blink. “I’m so glad to see you,” said the teacher lady between heaving breaths.

Darnell was lying on the concrete, staring up at her, still lost in memory.

“Well, I ain’t glad to see you,” he snapped back. He found that a direct insult was the easiest way to shut up the adults who tried to help.

“I followed you all the way from school,” she rasped.

“You want an award?”

That one seemed to stick. She shut up for two seconds.

“It isn’t safe out here,” she said yet again.

Darnell gave her a hot-tempered stare.

“This neighborhood isn’t so good and… and we don’t know what the danger is… or what happened to people… It isn’t safe,” she repeated with heavy breath.

Clearly, she was out of shape.

“Well, you better leave then. Don’t want somethin’ unsafe to happen to you.” Darnell crossed his arms, but didn’t budge.

Ms. Harding looked the porch up and down. “What is this place?” Her eyes fell on the sheets covering the windows and the makeshift plywood front steps.

“Home,” he answered proudly.

She looked confused for a moment and then said, “This isn’t in JFK district. I know this isn’t your foster home.”

“Foster homes don’t count. This my real home. My Dad’s here.” His voice perked up at the end of the sentence.

“You lived here?” Ms. Harding looked around in absolute disgust. She made a guttural noise and tried to cover it up.

“Yup. Pretty much looks the same… But nobody’s answerin’ the door.”

“Darnell… they are probably… gone.”

“Nah.”

He sat upright. Nothing could stop him from the hope of reuniting with his father. His teacher was wrong. He had to prove it to her.

“You’ll see. I’m goin’ inside. You can follow me if you wanna, but I ain’t responsible for you in the ‘hood. If you know what’s good for you, shut up.”

She nodded reluctantly.

Darnell led his teacher around back. He peered in a window and saw no movement. He picked up a familiar fist-sized rock off the stoop, a poor man’s doorstop. With no hesitation, Darnell smashed the glass panel of the back window. The high-pitched sound echoed down the alleyway.

He began to perfectly imitate the routine he had seen a hundred times. He expertly poked out the glass shards with his elbow until the window was safe to climb through. Then he pushed a trashcan up against the building and hopped through where the glass used to be. In less than thirty seconds, he had the back door popped open and was standing in the kitchen; hands on his hips, smug look on his face.