The Summer the World Ended (28 page)

“That doesn’t make me feel better.” She slid in under his arm, sitting with her legs tucked to one side.

He started off by talking about scorpions, but wound up telling her about his meeting with a jaguar when he was ten. Riley couldn’t quite imagine Kieran as terrified as he explained himself to be, and tried to ignore her suspicion this was another Robbie Zimmer situation. Kieran seemed happy to be with her. She got no sense he wanted to lure her into some embarrassing prank. More surprising, not one of these kids had yet said a word about her figure. An hour later, she’d mostly forgotten about a scorpion coming within inches of her foot.

“Ready,” yelled Luis.

Riley glanced over, where all four members of Black Chakra, plus Lyle, had lined up with their backs turned.

“Aim,” yelled Luis.

Five zippers opened.

“Oh, my…” Riley hid her face against Kieran’s arm. “Are they?”

“Fire,” yelled Luis.

“Yeah. Come to think of it… that’s not a bad idea.” Kieran got up with a grunt, and went over to join the firing line.

Three bottles of water had also created an issue for her, but she was not about to join the guys. Camila noticed her urgent look and walked over. Riley twisted around and spotted a crumbling building by the entrance. The front face had the appearance of a concession stand, though a sign of a stick figure in a dress adorned a door on the far right side. She set off for it, but the other girl caught her by the arm.

“Oh, no. You don’t want to go in there.”

Riley glanced at the boys. “I’m not just going to…”

“No one has cleaned that bathroom since 1971. I don’t even want to think about what’s growing in the toilet.”

“But… but…” Riley whined.

Camila smiled. “Now you know why I’m wearing a skirt.”

“I can’t believe you and Lyle―”

“Hah.” Camila laughed. “We were just making out. He’d never do
that
in public.”

“I’ve never… you know…”

“Pissed outside? That just means you’ve never been to a real party.” Camila took her hand and pulled her upright. “There’s a little ravine over there for cover. I’ll go with you.”

Riley shrank in on herself. “I don’t want you to watch either.”

“I’ll stand guard, and then you can do the same for me.”

“Okay.”

Riley followed her to where a cut in the ground deepened to a ledge running around the right side of the old drive-in theater. Innumerable bottles, cans, and cigarette butts accumulated at the bottom, as well as some rusted car parts. Terrified of finding more creepy-crawlies, Riley took her sweet time going down the hill until she could no longer see any of the people up top. Desert stretched off in three directions, open for miles. The boys horsing around above and behind still sounded way too close.

Maybe I’ll just hold it.
She cringed, bouncing on the balls of her feet. Off in the distance, several tiny specks appeared in the sky, emitting a heavy, thudding drone. They were far away, but had the look of something military―and drove right toward Las Cerezas.

Or not.

Riley flailed, waving her arms in an effort not to lose her balance while climbing a steep embankment in flip-flops. She snagged a handful of rough roots, and pulled herself up enough to see Camila with her back turned. At the sound of her grunting, the other girl whirled around.

Camila grasped her hand to help her up the last of the ridge. “You okay? I was about to come down after you with a search party.”

“Uh… yeah. Fine.” Riley swatted dirt and green leafy crumbles off her legs.

“Okay, my turn.”

Riley rotated away while Camila descended.
Shooting guns, peeing in the wild, almost getting bit by a scorpion. What’s happening to you, Riley McCullough?

“Hey, Riley, check this out,” yelled Camila.

“Gross. No thanks.”

“No, not that. Look.”

Against her better instincts, she did. A cloud of dust out in the sands trailed behind what appeared to be a military convoy. She watched the vehicles approach, until they turned onto the dirt road leading past the front of the old drive-in, heading toward Las Cerezas. Five semis covered in fluttering camouflage tarps, surrounded by Humvees with machine guns, crept in a single file. Soldiers manning the guns glowered as if annoyed she dared look in their direction. Through a gap in one tarp, she made out what appeared to be large, green missiles with angular contours and little wings.

The thudding of helicopters going overhead a second time made her shiver.

Camila climbed the hill, tugging at her gypsy skirt until it sat right. “Wow. Looks like they’re on their way to Holloman. Never saw a caravan like that before.”

That counts as weird.

Riley lost one flip-flop as she sprinted over to Kieran, and grabbed him. “I need to go.”

“You’re trembling.” He let her cling. “Relax, it’s only the Air Force.”

“Whoa,” said Lyle. “They kinda look like AGM-129s… but those were supposed to all be decommissioned in 2012.”

“What’s that?” Riley dug her fingers into Kieran’s shirt.

“Nuclear cruise missiles.” Lyle shielded his eyes for a moment, and shook his head. “Nah. They’re probably some kinda UAV we haven’t seen yet. ‘Course, maybe some idiot from Texas forgot a storage unit. Oops, sir, found some more old nukes.”

“Weird,” said Luis.

“Fuck you, Lyle.” Wayne raised a middle finger.

“He’s from Texas,” whispered Kieran.

“Yeah.” Jaime took a long swig from his Corona. “I’ve never seen them ride like that in the middle of the day. Must be important. Especially with an aerial escort.”

Dad’s pallid face leapt to mind, followed by the overflight of bombers days ago. She glanced up at Kieran. “Please take me home.”

Kieran looked disappointed by her decision, but offered no protest. She ran over to her errant flip-flop, grabbed it, and carried them with her to his car. Her mind raced, drawing connections between the Korea thing on the news, Dad talking about the Ukraine, bombers, now nuclear missiles transported out in the open.

No, no, no. This is bad. Dad’s gonna shit his pants.

“Hey…” Kieran said, as soothing as he could get his voice to sound. “You’re acting like you’ve seen a ghost. What’s wrong?”

“I’m scared.” She dropped her flip-flops and stepped on them.

“Obviously.” He looked her in the eye. “What of?”

“World War Three,” she muttered, reaching out to take his hand.

Kieran held in a chuckle. “You’ve been watching too many movies. It’s not going to get to that point. No one is crazy enough to hit ‘the button.’ The idiots want to control the world, not melt it. If someone does something, they’ll all do something, and then there’ll be nothing left. Even the craziest dictators know that.”

Okay, that makes sense.
She stood up on tiptoe and kissed him.

Kieran seemed surprised. “Random. Not that I mind… I could stare into those deep green eyes of yours forever.”

She blushed, grinned, and looked down. “I couldn’t do that at the house. Dad will shoot you. He’s got a problem with
them
.”

Kieran glared. “Native Americans?”

“No.” She held on to his shirt. “Oh, God, no. He’s not a racist. I mean the people in town. He thinks everyone in Las Cerezas hates him.”

“He’s so reclusive. Anti-social behavior gets people suspicious. I hear people at the restaurant talk. They say he’s up to something.”

Riley leaned up as if to kiss him again, whispering. “I shouldn’t say this, but he works for the government.”
Shit. That’s exactly what Dad’s afraid of.
“Uh, he―”

Kieran silenced her with a kiss. A bit different from the childish peck she’d opened with. She moved with him as he twisted and pressed her back against the car. Riley closed her eyes and followed his lead, not wanting the moment to end.
This
was her first kiss.

Robbie Zimmer can go to hell.

She lowered her weight off her toes, gazing up at him with a giddy half-grin.

“He probably has good reason to keep his secrets. I don’t need to know.”

Wow. He didn’t paw me at all.
“Yeah,” she whispered.

“S’pose we should get you home.”

Riley forced her fingers into the tight pocket of her jean shorts, adding a little shimmy to help slip the watch out. Sun glinted off the display as she tilted it over to check the time: 4:49. She stuffed it most of the way back in before threading her arms up around his head, grasping her wrist behind his neck. He set his hands on her hips. Riley’s heart skipped about, getting into a boxing match with the butterflies in her stomach.

“I got a couple minutes.”

n uneasy feeling sat like a stone in Riley’s stomach, agitated by the deep, throaty rumble of the Trans Am engine vibrating through the seat. She kept her eyes pointed down as they passed through Las Cerezas, twirling a strand of loose denim between her fingers.

Farther east, a cloud of dust whorled across the desert. With the intimacy of the once-in-a-lifetime moment of her first real kiss gone, she couldn’t help but dwell on the convoy full of missiles.

“You okay?” Kieran reached over.

She took his hand and clung. “Yeah. It’s nothing.”

His touch doused her fear under a wash of warmth that spread over her face and chest. She tried to think of what to say; talking about something would stop her from worrying about what the military was doing or what Dad might be dealing with. Before anything came to mind, she caught sight of the speedometer at fifty on the nose. He didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry.

“Maybe this town doesn’t suck all that much.”

“Oh?”

You’re here.
Her brain kicked in before the words slipped out―too sappy. “I guess I could get used to it. Jersey was so loud and busy.”
And didn’t have you.

He pulled up to the house and stopped. “Oh hey, I got you something.” He reached behind her seat and came back holding a plastic bag, which he handed to her.

“Mrr?” She peeked in at a DVD case with an Xbox version of
The Last Outpost.
“Oh, that was expensive.”

“It wasn’t that bad.” He winked. “It’s like three years old now. Like I said, the story mode is much cooler. We could co-op between platforms.”