In The Afterlight

“A few years, but most of this stuff is nonperishable. Meant to last. I just forgot it was here until I saw an inventory list in the office.” Cole pulled a small knife out of his back pocket and flicked the blade out. He gutted the box, letting the red, individually wrapped packages of food spill out at our feet. There was a simple image of a man bringing food to his mouth and a Chinese flag. “We heard rumors that the government was trying to hide humanitarian aid other countries were air-dropping—that whole ‘we’re America, we can do it ourselves, everyone else has abandoned us’ bullshit. This load was left somewhere in Nevada.”

“You never used them?” I asked.

“Never had to,” Cole said. “We had food suppliers. Alban wanted it as evidence of how Gray was working against the public, but nothing ever came from it. This building is filled with half-baked ideas, lost trains of thought.”

He shut his eyes, rubbing his forehead with the back of his hand. I saw the way his grim expression seemed to twist with pain in the second before he turned to Liam. “If you get this place in order, then, fine, consider yourself quartermaster. You can figure out a way to bring in supplies.”

“Supplies meaning food, cleaning supplies, sundries,” Liam said. “If you’re thinking that I have a way of getting you guns—”

“No shit, kid,” Cole interrupted. “We’re going to have to work Senator Cruz’s connections for gas, weapons, and the mountain of ammunition we’ll need.”

“Exactly how much do you think that’ll be?” Liam asked, alarmed. “We’re fighting, what? One or two key battles? Not a whole damn war.”

“You worry your pretty little head about breakfast, lunch, and dinner,” Cole fired back. “Let the big kids do the hard thinking.”

I sent him a withering look he ignored, and he stooped to pick up one of the daily ration packs from the ground. He tossed it from hand to hand, his forehead creased in thought. “But it doesn’t solve the bigger issue we have now. Based on the plans that are coming out of that room, we’re going to need a lot more bodies working with us. Another two dozen kids at least for a camp hit. If you have any bright ideas on how to find ’em, I’m all ears.”

A tired kind of resignation wove in and out of my thoughts, overriding the worst of my reservations. I must have sighed, because both of the Stewarts turned to me, mirror images of interest.

“Actually,” I said, my voice betraying the unsettling certainty working its way through me, “I think I do.”

9

WITH THE KIDS OCCUPIED WITH their planning, it wasn’t difficult to slip downstairs unnoticed. I didn’t need to look over my shoulder again and again to ensure that no one was watching as I unlocked the door of the old file storage room and stepped inside.

It was how quickly my hand shot up to find the light fixture’s cord dangling overhead, the way the darkness seemed to settle over my skin, that made me stop myself. My breathing sounded harsh to my ears, and it was the strangest sensation—feeling my body slip into panic while my mind sat far back, at a cool, reserved distance. My heart galloped, pounding out a beat that was too fast, too hard. Sounds that weren’t there filled my ears, the world rolled up under me. Wasn’t it just the way of the dark that with one sense gone, the others were amplified? The dark made small prickles of anxiety stretch and reshape to suit its needs, to trap you there, paralyzed. No wonder Jude had been so terrified of shadows.

In a space this small, it was easy to imagine there was no escape. The rational part of me knew that there was nothing to be afraid of. There were two doors, two outs, but the only way through the darkness was to lean into it and just move. I could tell myself a thousand times, but each time my whole self would feel the shock of it all over again—because the dark was where things were lost. It devoured everything good.

This is not Los Angeles. I pressed back against the memory of dust and smoke.

This is not the tunnel. I pressed back against Jude’s face, his pleading voice.

This is now. I pressed and pressed and pressed.

I stayed there as long as I could physically stand it before tugging on the cord. The pale yellow light flooded the air around me, revealing the clouds of loose dust kicked up from the barren shelves. Rising, falling, spinning. I focused on that, until my breathing evened back out, and there was nothing to be afraid of besides the monster on the other side of the door.

It didn’t matter how long I needed to refocus and steel myself; it was time well spent. Going in with scattered, distracted thoughts would be like walking into the room and handing Clancy Gray a loaded gun. And this time, I hadn’t brought Cole back up with me.

He was flat on his back on the cot again, throwing something—a plastic sandwich bag crumpled into a ball—up into the air; catching it, throwing, catching, throwing, catching, all while whistling the cheeriest little tune. At the sound of the door’s lock clicking back into place, he caught it one last time and craned his neck to look at me.

“I have a theory I’d like to have confirmed,” he said. “The agents who were here left, didn’t they?”

“They’re around,” I lied.

“Strange, then, that I haven’t heard them. Just the kids.” He pointed to the air vent above him by way of explanation. “They must have been gone before you even arrived. And the others—what, they abandoned you? Just didn’t show up?”