The Survivors Page 2

Just beyond the woodpile, a gray squirrel hops from to branch to branch, chattering, kicking up small puffs of smoke as it searches for pinecones. Far off, a woodpecker hammers: tumma-tumma-tumma. Close by, everything is quiet.

  Too quiet.

  Miles puts down a board and slowly straightens up. Chickadees nearby are frozen in place: none peck, none flutter, none peep. One of them has flattened its little gray-and–white-and-black body against a small tree trunk. Miles’s eyeballs turn toward the woods, and his left hand reaches toward his shotgun that leans against the stack of boards; his fingers close around its cool, smooth, steel barrel.

  His gaze stops on a bandit mask—not a real robber, but a bird sitting twenty feet away on a branch. Gray and white, with a black band across the eyes, it’s about twice the size of a robin. Songbird with hook-tipped bill and hawk-like behavior. Perches watchfully on treetops, wires. Impales prey on thorns and barbed wire. Northern shrike. He has read about it in Mr. Kurz’s bird book—it was checked on his list of birds observed: number 131 of 152 species.

  The shrike fixes its beady black eyes upon a chickadee, one that has not flown away or hidden itself. The little bird is pecking at something on the ground.

  Miles could change what is about to happen. He could shout, or toss a piece of wood to frighten off the shrike. But he doesn’t intervene. This is nature. Nature has its own rules. If you want to learn about the woods, you have to keep your eyes peeled and leave things alone.

  The shrike launches itself in a silent glide toward the ground, where it nails the little bird. There’s a brief flurry of tiny chirping noises, but it’s over in a second. The kill, that is. A moment later, the shrike lifts off carrying the limp little bundle of feathers. It’s a bird-eat-bird world.

  Before Miles returns the stubby .410 gauge shotgun to its leaning position, he quick-aims at a tree, then swings the gun 360 degrees around the clearing. Danny the squatter gave him the shotgun. Sometimes he thinks he should have swung the gun on Danny and shot him—or at least held it on him and driven the squatter families away at gunpoint. But he didn’t. There were children watching, and he didn’t really know guns then. But in truth he was chicken. Weak. His whole family was weak, and so they moved on—rode away from their own summer place. He spins and aims one more time at an imaginary bad guy in the woods, then sets the gun down within reach. One thing for sure: Nobody is going to drive them away from this place.

  CHAPTER THREE

  SARAH

  FOR THE FIRST TIME IN her life, Sarah waits for a school bus. Back home in Wayzata, her mother drove her everywhere, as did all the mothers in the families she knew. Waiting to be picked up from the mall or the movie theater was annoying, but at least her mother drove a black BMW. Now, standing beside the dusty highway, she feels like a stupid hitchhiker. Like a homeless person.

  Miles waits with her. Gun over his shoulder, dusty bandana around his neck, he bends down to inspect the fine layer of ash on the highway. To Sarah, the white dust looks like thin silk draped over everything. A weird kind of shrink-wrap. She wonders how the trees can breathe.

  “Hasn’t been a car along here in at least two hours,” Miles says. He has yellow sawdust in the dark hair on his forearms.

  “So?” Sarah replies.

  “So maybe the bus won’t come,” Miles says. He glances toward the woods. “I should be out hunting, not standing around.”

  Sarah checks her watch. “It will come.”

  Miles pitches a stone across the ditch and into the trees. “You ever read that Jack London story about cabin fever?” he asks. “Two guys stuck in a little shack over the winter in Alaska?”

  Just when she gives up on Miles, he always surprises her. “No, haven’t read that one,” Sarah says.

  “Anyway, they get really crazy,” he says, widening his eyes. “It’s sort of like that movie The Shining but in a cabin just like ours!”

  “Stop it!” Sarah’s lower lip trembles out; she turns away so Miles won’t see her cry.

  “Sorry, Little Sis,” Miles says, putting an arm briefly around her. “Just kidding. I promise I won’t go crazy.”

  “It’s not you. It’s Mom and Dad that I worry about.”

  “Hey, we’ll get through this. Next spring maybe we can go home. Back to the suburbs.” He makes a face.

  “Do you think our house will be all right?” Sarah asks suddenly. “I mean, just sitting there empty?” Her voice turns weepy at the end.

  Miles pauses. He looks off down the road. “If the scavengers don’t find it,” he says.

  Just then comes an engine sound.

  “Last chance to skip school!” Miles says. It’s like he’s glad not to talk about their real house back home.

  “I’m going to school—I told you,” she says, straightening up.

  But it’s not the school bus. It’s a blue minivan, dusty, with tinted windows. As it slows, Miles steps forward so that Sarah is behind him.

  “Travelers,” Miles says, barely moving his lips. “Run into the woods if I say.” In an easy motion, he shrugs the shotgun off his shoulder and drops the butt of its stock onto his boot; he holds the barrel loosely in his right hand.

  The rider’s side window powers down. “Hi there!” a woman says cheerfully; her gaze flickers to Miles’s gun, then to Sarah.

  Miles nods every so slightly.

  The driver, a man, has tired, pinkish eyes and dark beard stubble. Their children, two little girls, have their hair in cornrows with bright beads woven in.

  “Are we there yet?” the smaller girl chirps to her mother.

  “Shhh!” the mother says quickly.

  “Mommy—that man has a gun!” the other little girl says suddenly.

  “It’s okay,” Sarah says quickly. “He’s a hunter—and my brother, too. He’s just waiting with me for the school bus.”

  The little girls’ white eyeballs peer just over the edge of the car window.

  “You wouldn’t know where we could get some gas?” the man asks.

  Miles looks inside the dusty van; Sarah follows his gaze. The girls are squeezed in alongside clothes and luggage; the rear is jammed with stuff. “You could try Bemidji,” Miles says.

  “Not at a gas station,” the man says, mustering a hopeful wink. “If you know what I mean.”

  His wife flashes a tired smile.

  There’s a moment of silence. Miles looks again at the little girls. “About five miles ahead there’s a place called Old But Gold,” he says. “Looks like a junkyard, but it’s more than that. Ask for antifreeze. And mention my name: Miles.”

  “Praise Jesus!” the wife murmurs.

  “No—praise you, brother,” the man says.

  The woman turns away, her tinted window closes, and the van accelerates very slowly down the road.

  “Travelers for sure,” Miles says, staring at the rear of the van.

  “How do you know?” Sarah asks. “Travelers” are normal people trying to get somewhere safer. But normal travel—freedom of movement—is now against the law. People are supposed to remain in their own communities: the Stay Put, Stay Calm government posters are everywhere.

  “They had Minnesota license plates, but the dealer decal said South Chicago Dodge. The plates were probably stolen.”

  “If you had kids, you’d steal plates, too,” Sarah says.

  Miles says nothing.

  As they watch the van disappear into the dust, she leans against Miles for a second—and he actually puts an arm around her. He seems taller every day, and she’s getting used to his smell—which is not a good sign.

  “Be sure to feed Emily,” she says, stepping away.

  “I will. But I ain’t milking her.”

  “She wouldn’t let you anyway,” Sarah says. “You have to know what you’re doing.”

  “Whatever you say, Goat Girl,” Miles says with a smirk.

  “Don’t let her get loose!”

  “I’ll watch her like a hawk.”

  “She needs fresh grass
at noon, and make sure you fill her water pail.”

  “Okay, okay!” Miles says with annoyance.

  “And I saw a dog,” she blurts.

  “Huh?” Miles said. He straightens up.

  She hurriedly tells him about the old dog in the brush. “But don’t shoot him, okay?”

  “If he’s a wild dog, he might be after Emily—or attack one of us,” Miles says. “You should have told me right away.”

  “He has a collar—or what’s left of one.”

  “When house pets get lost or dumped, they turn back into wild animals,” Miles says. “That’s how they survive.”

  “Like us,” Sarah answers.

  Miles is silent for a moment. “It’s called adaptation,” he says. “It’s a Darwin thing. Or as Mr. Kurz would say, ‘Root hog or die.’”

  “Huh?” Sarah says, but at that moment another, louder engine sounds; down the highway the top of an orange school bus rises like a dandelion growing up from the dust.

  “Remember,” Miles said, “you’re from—”

  “I know, I know!” Sarah says. “Do I look all right?” she asks—as if her gun-toting, vagrant-looking brother knows anything about style. She is dressed in jeans, black tennis shoes (dusty already), and a white T-shirt. Miles stares at her for a long moment. “You look really, really, really … normal,” he says, finally arriving at the word. He squints and looks closer. “I kinda miss your purple hair.” He tugs her blond ponytail.

  “Stop it!” Her punky-Goth hair has grown out over the summer; it’s become full and soft from the river water, and streaked blond from being outside. She had thought about chopping it all off just before school but couldn’t do it. She likes its weight on her shoulders, likes the feel of its soft rope on her neck. But more importantly, a ponytail is a key part of her disguise. She calls the look “Minnesota EveryGirl.” It’s designed to help her blend in at a new school. The goal is to be invisible.

  The bus arrives in a cloud of fine brown dust. Sarah covers her face and closes her eyes until the brakes hiss to a stop. The door squeaks and goes ca-chunk!

  “I didn’t know anybody lived on this mile,” the bus driver calls out. She checks her clipboard. She is a sturdy, gray-haired woman not as old as she looks; she has man-sized hands that have seen some work.

  “We live across the road and down a ways,” Miles says vaguely, pointing in the wrong direction from where they really live.

  “Name?” the driver asks, scanning her list.

  “Sarah Newell,” Sarah answers. Her mom has set everything up by phone. It’s one of her skill sets; her mother makes a living, even now, as a literary agent. Once a week they go to town to the library, where she reads online submissions. The publishing industry is stronger than ever; since people aren’t supposed to travel more than fifty miles from home, they read more plus watch way more television and movies.

  “What grade you in?”

  “Eighth,” Sarah replies.

  “Yup, here you are,” the driver says. There’s a gap between her front teeth; Sarah imagines that she can whistle like crazy. “Hop on—I don’t have all day.”

  “Bye, kid. I’ll meet you tonight,” Miles says.

  Sarah climbs aboard.

  “Aren’t you going to school?” the driver asks Miles.

  “Been there, done that,” Miles answers.

  “You don’t look that old,” the driver says.

  “He does alternative school,” Sarah says, not sure why she feels the need to explain her brother. Other kids look out the bus windows. She is suddenly embarrassed by Miles’s unwashed, shaggy hair and his stained, ragged Carhartts.

  The driver gives Miles a twice-over look. “Regular school ain’t that bad. Keeps you connected to the human race; know what I mean?”

  Miles nods. “Maybe next year.”

  “Well, I’ll take good care of your sister.”

  Sarah is hardly onto the top step when the door clanks shut behind her and the bus lurches forward. She grabs a shiny seat back to keep her balance and almost swings onto the lap of a bigger girl, who pushes her sharply away. “Gawd, watch where you’re going!” She pops her gum with annoyance. She is wearing DKNY jeans and a Guess T-shirt and carries a gaudy Louis Vuitton bag, obviously fake. Sarah wonders if it’s all for show or if she just refuses to get out of their time-warp bubble and acknowledge that the world has changed.

  “Sorry,” Sarah says, and flops into a chewed-up seat of her own about halfway back. She immediately looks through the window as if no one here is of interest, as if this is all very boring and she has ridden a school bus a thousand times. She swivels her neck around and sees Miles, the most paranoid person in the world, walking up the road in the wrong direction—the direction he told the bus driver they lived.

  The bus is half full but very loud as kids call to each other across empty seats. Everybody knows everybody. Two gum-snapping girls in Calvin Klein T-shirts stare. “So, where you live?”

  “Who, me?”

  “Yeah, you,” they say together.

  “Back there,” Sarah mumbles, jerking her chin over her shoulder toward the road behind.

  “House or trailer?”

  “Trailer,” Sarah says.

  “Double-wide or single?”

  “Single.”

  The girls turn to each other and giggle wildly.

  “What?” Sarah says.

  “Sounds really cool.” They giggle again and fall against each other.

  You’d know, Sarah wants to say; but she turns away, pretends to see something out her window.

  “Trailer trash,” one of them says.

  Sarah watches them, reflected in the smudged glass, fluff their hair and check their lipstick.

  Bemidji Middle School looks like a good-sized shopping mall. It’s a big regional school, all the better for her to blend into. A giant American flag hangs limp on its pole. A “DARE” police car is parked so that everybody has to walk by it. Kids, laughing and bumping into each other, stream toward the front entrance. Parents drive away in cars, each with a small Blue Star decal on the windshield: The little blue star means permission to buy gasoline. Across the way, on one of the athletic fields, a tractor with a large, pull-behind vacuum cart hum along, turning gray grass green.

  Inside the school the air is humid and close, as if the building has been closed all summer. There is no air-conditioning anywhere anymore; she hopes the classroom windows are open. Lockers clang, and kids jostle her as they stream by.

  She heads to the main office, where there is supposed to be some sort of “new-student” packet waiting for her.

  “May I help you?” the secretary asks from behind a small window. She has short, gray hair and unsmiling eyes.

  “I’m Sarah Newell.”

  “And?”

  “And this is my first day,” Sarah says cheerfully. She glances around. There are more desks, and offices just behind them of the principal and vice principal.

  “Where are you from again?” the secretary asks. She makes no move to look for Sarah’s packet.

  “From Park Rapids,” Sarah says, faking a smile. “I’m here on the open enrollment option.”

  The secretary gives Sarah a long look, then turns to a box full of green folders.

  “Hello, young lady,” says a short, stocky woman as she passes behind the desks and comes to the window. She wears a loose purple dress and has a wide smile. “I’m Sally Wallner, vice principal.”

  Sarah nods and clumsily puts out a hand.

  “Nice to have you here,” she says. “Where in Park Rapids do you live? I grew up near there.”

  Sarah remembers not to swallow or blink. She has played a lot of card games with Miles, who taught her about keeping a poker face so as not to give away her hand.

  “East of town,” Sarah says. “Out by Dorset.”

  “Do you know the Handlemeyer family?” the secretary asks, still not smiling.

  Sarah freezes. Remembers to keep her face blank.
She has gone through the Park Rapids phone book with Miles and looked at the township plat map and the names of people—all to get her story straight—but does not remember that name. She needs a lifeline—Miles, who remembers everything (his family nickname is Memory Boy)—but she has to take a chance.

  “No, I don’t know them,” she says.

  “Neither do I,” the secretary says. “I made them up.”

  The vice principal shrugs apologetically and smiles. “Janet’s our office watchdog,” she explains to Sarah.

  “Just following the rules,” Janet says, handing Sarah her packet. “Communities have to take care of their own. We can’t be too careful these days.”

  “Actually, we can be,” the vice principal says cheerfully. She keeps her smile on Sarah, though her comment is clearly for the secretary. “It’s so important to remain optimistic and not let the dust get inside our heads. Don’t you agree?” she asks Sarah.

  “Sure,” Sarah says. Anything to get this over with.

  “Good,” Ms. Wallner replies brightly. “Here’s your new-student packet. If you have any questions, don’t be shy.”

  “Thanks!” Sarah says in her perkiest voice and then lets out a silent breath as she goes through the door and back into the crowds.

  Inside the folder is her locker number, and she heads toward the eighth-grade hallway. Also among the materials is a round, green, smiley-face sticker that reads HI! I’M _________. She looks furtively around, then lets the sticker drop. It disappears under the trampling herd of sneakers.

  “Hey!” a boy’s voice from behind her calls out.

  She resists the urge to look around, but the voice calls again.

  “Hey, you—you dropped something.”

  She still doesn’t turn, but then someone taps her shoulder. She turns to see an impossibly attractive boy: tall, skinny, spiky black hair, brown eyes, a dark I HATE ORGANIZED SPORTS T-shirt, and a wool plaid skirt—a kilt—like men wear in Scotland. It has some kind of large medallion as a buckle and a leather pouch hanging just below the waist. He’s also carrying a large sketch pad in one hand; he bends down to pick up her new-kid sticker with the other hand.

  “Me? I don’t think so.”