Doomed (17 page)

It’s all the warning I get before he liberally douses my heel with peroxide. Razor blades of agony slice along my nerve endings, and I have to bite my lip to keep from screeching.

“I’m sorry,” he tells me, as he carefully blots the blisters dry with gauze and then applies some Neosporin and a couple of large Band-Aids. He repeats the process with the second foot, wiping the last of the blood away with a couple of Handi Wipes before pulling a pair of black flip-flops from another bag. He slips them on my feet and then walks to the back of the car, where he stows the first-aid stuff.

Eli is already asleep—I can hear the deep, even rhythm of his breath—as I wait for Theo to come around to the driver’s side. And then he’s there. Turning on the car, buckling his seat belt, pulling out onto the nearly deserted road.

Within minutes, we’re back on the highway, driving fast, going nowhere even faster, into a real-world Pandora’s Box.

We’ve been on the road half an hour or so when Theo says, “Make yourself useful. Reach behind you and get that bag.”

He’s smiling when he says it, so I flip him off before turning around to do what he says.

“This is a CB radio,” I tell him. “What do you expect me to do with it?”

“Figure out how it works.”

“You’re the tech genius. Isn’t that supposed to be your job?”

He cracks up, and as I watch him, I realize it’s the first time I’ve ever really heard him laugh. It’s a good sound—happy, like the opening chords of Third Eye Blind’s “Semi-Charmed Life.” When he turns to me, his eyes are the brightest blue I’ve ever seen, clear and laser focused.

“Pandora, a CB radio is about as low-tech as you can get. If the girl who unleashed ‘cyber-Armageddon’”—he puts
air quotes around the words—“can’t figure out how to work that, then I don’t know what to tell her.”

“Whatever.” It’s a lame comeback, but the best I can do under the circumstances.

Opening the carton the radio comes in, I fiddle with it for a little while. Nothing happens, so I give up trying to look cool and go straight for the directions. Theo’s right. It is pretty low-tech, and it only takes a couple of minutes to get the thing up and running.

Of course, there’s nothing out there when I scan the channels. After all, no one uses CB radios anymore, except maybe truckers. And I’m not even sure about that.

I say as much to Theo, but he just shakes his head and says, “Give it a little while. In a few hours, that thing is going to light up. It’s pretty much the only means of communication out there right now. We got the second-to-last one on the shelf.”

I snort. “Did it ever occur to you there were only two to begin with? It’s not like it’s a high-demand item, after all.”

“The world just changed overnight, Pandora. You haven’t got a clue what are high-demand items and what aren’t.”

I think of the extra first-aid kits I glimpsed in the bags Theo shoveled into the back of the car. The medicine and batteries. The three sets of walkie-talkies. Stuff I never would have thought to buy.

“How did you know what to get?” I finally ask. “You’re so prepared, so calm, like you’ve done this a million times before.”

“I watch the History Channel a lot,” he says. “You’d be surprised how many shows they have about the end of the
world. Though usually it’s because of some weird viral pandemic sweeping through and taking over, not something like this. The rest is just common sense. Either way, it’s not going to be long before civilization starts breaking down—forty-eight to seventy-two hours. We’ve already seen some of the cracks.”

How long will it be before everything goes to hell? Not nearly as long as it should be, I think. Not nearly as long as I want it to be.

“Why did you come back for me?” The question is out before I know I’m going to ask it. But it’s one I’ve wanted the answer to since the adrenaline wore off and I was able to think clearly again.

“You don’t actually think I would leave you in that mess, do you?” he demands, obviously insulted. “When I helped put you in the middle of it?”

“You didn’t do anything! I’m the one who was stupid enough to pull down those pictures from the Internet. My father …” My voice catches and I stop, swallow. Try not to show how humiliated I am. “My father did this to me, to all of us. You had nothing to do with it.”

“I’m the one who told you to open that present. Besides, I thought we were starting to be …
friends.
” The word comes awkwardly to him. “I couldn’t just let Homeland Security get their hands on you.”

“How did you know they’d be there?” It’s another one of the questions that’s been bothering me. “How did you even know that I’d
need
help?”

“From the second I saw how things were going at Little Nicky’s, I started to get worried. Then with the car accident,
no 911, I don’t know. I just knew. If I’d planned this all out and then shown up at your house last night and you’d been fine, I would have felt stupid. But Eli and I figured it was better to be wrong than risk letting something bad happen to you.”

My own
mother
doesn’t have time to wish me happy birthday. My father turned me into a destroyer, gave me a technological Pandora’s box to open. And Theo and Eli didn’t want to risk leaving me behind.

It’s a lot to wrap my head around. I swallow once, twice, try to get rid of the lump in my throat. It doesn’t work, and my voice is husky, barely audible, when I say, “Thank you.”

Eli stirs in the backseat, sits up, and when he reaches for my hand I realize he’s been listening for a while. “It’s going to be okay, Pandora. We’re in this together now.”

It’s a ridiculous line, completely corny, and any other time I would have called him on it. But right now, it’s exactly what I need to hear. I glance down to where our hands are joined, his so much bigger and broader that it all but envelopes mine. It makes me feel sheltered, protected, something I’ve never felt before. And something I never knew I was missing until this moment. I can do things on my own if I have to—I’ve learned that in the last few years—but it’s nice to have a partner.

Two partners
, I think, glancing back at Theo. He’s staring straight ahead, face once again blank and fingers clamped tightly on the wheel. I want to say something to him that will bring back the camaraderie of the last few minutes, but he’s already a million miles away.

Ignoring Theo, Eli scoots forward until he’s sitting
cross-legged on the floor of the car, right behind our seats. His green eyes are still a little foggy, the last remnants of his nap not yet gone from them. He looks adorable. “Where are we?”

“Way North Texas.”

Eli nods. “Where are we going?”

“I’m thinking Kansas, maybe,” Theo answers.

“What’s in Kansas?” I demand.

“Not much. Which is exactly the point. It’s easier to hide you if we stick to rural areas.”

“We’re going to need gas soon,” Eli says, nodding at the gas gauge.

I hadn’t noticed, but it’s on empty, the red light already blinking. “I know,” Theo says. “We’ll stop at the next place we see that’s open—or we’ll crack into the gallons we have in the back.”

We drive past three more gas stations, all closed, before we find one that is operating. Theo coasts into it—we’re literally running on fumes at this point—and pulls up to the last open gas pump.

“You should dye your hair here,” Eli says, handing the box to me. “We can hang out for a few extra minutes while you do it.”

“It takes longer than a few minutes,” I answer.

“Still, it needs to be done ASAP,” Theo tells me. “If a cop sees you …”

I take the box with a nod, and try not to think about what I’m going to do. Becoming upset won’t change things—better to just get it done.

I hop out of the van and walk around to Theo, who is
counting out a hundred and eighty dollars in cash. “So much?” I ask, shocked.

“Look at the price of gas,” he tells me. I do, and I am astounded that it’s three dollars more a gallon than it was when I filled up two days ago. Creepy.

Eli starts to come with us, but Theo says, “Stay here, outside the van. And stand up straight.”

“I’ve got to take a leak,” Eli complains.

“When I get back,” Theo growls. “Pay attention!”

We do, and it takes only a few seconds for his meaning to sink in. Almost everyone standing around is looking at us, sizing us up. I can practically see the wheels spinning in their heads as they try to figure out what, if anything, we’ve got in our van.

Forty-eight to seventy-two hours before civilization breaks down, Theo told me, but it’s barely been fifteen, and already things are starting to change. These people all look normal, like the same kind of people I would see at a gas station any number of times. Except there’s a palpable aura of panic around them now, as if they know that things are only going to get worse and they’ll have to protect themselves—their families—any way they can.

My stomach ties itself into knots, and I know Eli must feel the same way. All he says is, “Dude,” but then he straightens up until every one of his seventy-eight inches is on full display. He towers over the van, and the blank look on his face as he glances around the station is completely intimidating. More than one man drops his eyes.

Convinced that Eli and the van are safe—or as safe as
they can be, Theo grabs my elbow and starts propelling me toward the front door of the convenience store. “Should we tell him to get the knife out?” I whisper hoarsely. “To protect himself?”

Theo shakes his head as he pulls the door open for me. “If he does that, they’ll know there’s something in the van we want to hold on to.”

“But he’s alone out there!”

“And we’re alone in here,” Theo snarls, stopping dead. I crane my head around his massive body to see a man guarding the inside of the door, a huge shotgun slung over his shoulder. I freeze in place, don’t even dare to breathe as he shifts the gun down to rest on the palms of his hands.

“The store is closed, except to paying customers,” he says, the twang of his North Texas accent sounding absurdly threatening.

“We have money.” Theo reaches into his pocket, pulls out the cash he’d put there a little while before. “I need to buy gas and some water.”

The man eyes the money greedily. “How much gas you need?”

“Enough to fill up my van out there, and a few extra containers.”

The man nods. “The water’s down at the end of the first aisle.”

Theo nods back. “Where’s your restroom?”

“At the back of the store. It’s an extra five bucks if you want to use it.”

I gape at him, but Theo doesn’t say anything. Just puts
his hand on the small of my back and walks me in the right direction. “Go in there and get it done,” he says. “Quickly.” He hands me his watch so I can time how long the dye’s on my hair.

“It’s going to take twenty minutes at least.”

“Then get started. I’ll be right out here if you need me.” There’s an underlying urgency in his voice that I’ve never heard before, not even when we were running toward the dock, the threat of discovery a spark in the very air we breathed.

The future doesn’t look good.

I rush into the women’s bathroom, which is one of those single-use kinds with no stalls, just a toilet and a sink. At least it’s clean, which is more than I had dared hope for. I tear into the box and mix the two containers quickly. Pop on the pair of gloves, rip off my hat, and start squirting the dye onto my hair. Some drops sprinkle onto my T-shirt as I’m rushing like a crazy person, but I barely notice.

My mind is on Theo, who is outside the door with a gun-toting man. And Eli, who’s alone at the car. Defenseless.

After I get the dye on, I glance impatiently at Theo’s watch. The countdown begins now. I clean up, toss everything in the trash can, then wash my face.

Go to the bathroom.

Wash my hands.

Count the cracks in the ceiling.

Glance at Theo’s watch again. Only five minutes have passed and I’m losing my mind. What’s going on out there? Is Theo okay? Eli? I feel like I’m going to jump out of my skin.

The next fifteen minutes are probably the worst of my whole life. I imagine Eli being jumped, beaten. Theo getting shot. The two of them having to fight everyone outside the station, and I curse my father again and again.

How could he do this? How could the man I remember, the man from those pictures, voluntarily throw the world into such incredible chaos? What did he hope to gain? And how could he think whatever it was was worth it?

The twenty minutes are finally up, and I bend down into an excruciating position and begin to wash the dye from my hair. There’s a lot of it, and the water flow is not great, so it takes a lot longer than I want it to.

I’m almost done when there’s a loud banging at the door. “Girl, what are you doing in there? Other people need to use the bathroom, you know.”

It’s the old man with the gun. “I’m coming!” I shout. “One more minute. Please.”

I scrub my head hard, trying to wash out the last of the dye as quickly as possible. It’s only after I’m done that I realize I’ve screwed up again. My hair is soaking wet, dripping all over my face, my shirt, the floor, and I have no towel.

Way to think ahead, Pandora.

The knock comes again, so I grab a few paper towels from the dispenser on the wall and squeeze them over my hair. It’s not great, but it will have to do. I jam the cap back on my head and open the door. The old man is there, looking furious, and behind him are three women who seem just as pissed.

“Sorry,” I say, and then I run. Eli is waiting for me at the end of the aisle. “Theo’s with the car,” he says in response
to my look of surprise. “Let’s go.” He wraps an arm around my shoulder as he hustles me to the front of the store.

“You got it done?” he asks as we all but run up the aisles.

“Yeah.”

“Good. Now let’s get the hell out of here.”

I’m in total agreement, as the suspicion I felt leveled at us when we first got out of the car has cemented into crackling resentment in the half hour I’ve been inside the store. I wonder if my hogging the bathroom is what set them off, and I feel awful. I knew this was a bad idea.