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“What was that about?” I say, blinking back the image that was there just seconds ago.

Dad stares at the empty sidewalk. He waits, then says in a voice I barely hear, “So dawn goes down to day, nothing gold can stay.”

I know the line. It’s from a poem he read to me after my third-grade teacher died in a car accident. I’m not much into poetry, but that one stayed with me.

There’s some shouting going on in the apartments. It’s too far to make out what they’re saying, but I turn my back to the window. It’s time to leave. I’m afraid I’ll hear that
pop
again.

And even more afraid the door will open.

Moving Day

The soup is gone. So’re the soggy buns. Two pieces of stinky cheese, one slice of bologna, and three glugs of water—that’s all I’ve got left. Oh, and one can of beer. I’ve been sipping it slow to make it last. So far that isn’t a problem. It tastes awful, which makes me wonder how Zack could drink so much. Sometimes when Mom was out working he’d suck down a whole six-pack in the time it took me to finish a soda and a Slim Jim. But anything is better than the soup. I think the soup gave me a bad case of the runs. There’s a place behind a little green Toyota that I hope to never see again. But I’m thirsty and the beer makes me want to pee. That means getting out of the car. And that’s something I hate to do.

Hoodie keeps coming out here.

Sometimes he’s alone, but most times he’s not. Day or
night, it doesn’t matter. They laugh and swear over who gets what. Ever since he punched Round Man I haven’t seen anyone else but him and his friends. I figure they’re looking for food or maybe drugs or both. There’s so many wrecked cars down here that I’ve been left alone—so far. It’s only a matter of time. I want to stay in this car, but if I stay too long Hoodie will find me. That could be a good thing, but I doubt it. Judging by how things are going up to this point, I figure it’s best to keep hiding.

And hiding is something I do better than anyone.

The secret is to hide in a place that has already been searched. That’s how I always hid from Zack when he was drunk. I’d be in the closet while he was looking under the bed. Then when he turned his back I’d slip under the bed. He never figured it out. I tried telling this to Mom, that we could hide from him in town, but she wouldn’t listen. She said we needed to get as far away as possible. We drove from Erie, Pennsylvania, to Los Angeles in three days. We were headed for a friend’s house in San Diego, but the radiator blew in Bakersfield, so that wiped out our cash. We made it to LA with no money and the tank on “E.” That’s why I’m in a parking garage and Mom is interviewing for a job. A job that would last an hour, tops.

It’s time to move. I’ve been watching that SUV, the one I noticed on the first day. The mom with the two kids never came back. The girl’s stuffed rabbit is still on the ground where she dropped it. I’m afraid to pick it up because someone might figure out that I’m here. So it just lies on the cold cement and reminds me of that awful day when
Mom left with the whispering man. The bald guy with the tattoos already broke into the SUV, so I doubt he’ll bother with it. There’s a security light close, but not too close, and lots of shadows all around. It looks big, so there should be plenty of room for my sleeping bag and clothes and places to hide if I need them. It’s still kind of sideways from when it got rammed, which is good for me. That means I have a perfect view to watch this car.

For when Mom comes back.

My backpack is loaded. It’s dark outside and no one has been in the garage for three hours. Sticking to the shadows, I make my way to the SUV. It’s a Lincoln Navigator. The big rear window is broken but not smashed. The window on the front passenger side is completely gone. My hand shakes as I reach for the door handle. I’ve never busted into a car before. It feels like I’m doing something illegal. But that’s crazy thinking—nobody is going to yell at me now. The door is unlocked. I slip inside, promising myself that if I take something, even if it’s just a crumb, I’ll leave a note.

The first thing that hits me is the smell of leather. It reminds me of shopping with Mom one day. We stopped at a furniture store and sat on all the expensive couches—“Just for kicks and giggles,” she said. My shirt smelled like leather the rest of the day. I didn’t want to wash it.

There’s barely enough light from outside to see what I’m doing. The front passenger seat is covered with small
diamonds of broken glass. I wrap my hand in my shirtsleeve and sweep them onto the floor. The glove compartment is hanging open, its contents tossed around. I find folded-up maps of California, Nevada, and Oregon, a small notebook with two pages of neat handwritten information about miles traveled and gallons of gas. While I’m flipping through the pages I think I hear something, like a small squeak. I stop and listen. It doesn’t happen again, so I keep searching.

The ashtray holds some change and half a stick of gum. I start chewing on the gum but leave the money. The storage bin between the front seats has a stack of four CDs, all country, which I hate, and a power cord for something, probably a cell phone. There is one treasure the looters missed. A pen with a small flashlight that works. I stuff it into my pack.

The compartments in the doors are just as worthless— a hairbrush, some greasy food wrappers, and a remote for a garage door opener. Zack always hides stuff under the seats, so I check there. Nothing under the passenger side except pieces of glass and one pencil that could be useful. But under the driver’s seat—that’s where I find something interesting.

It’s a black metal box a little bigger than Zack’s briefcase. There’s a drawer on the front with a silver keyhole. The drawer is locked. I yank on the box. It doesn’t budge. I try to pry the drawer open with my pencil, but all I do is break the lead. Whatever is in the box must be important,
probably tools and maybe some cash. But that will have to wait until later. I need to get moved in.

I search the rest of the SUV. It’s huge compared to Mom’s Nova. There are two seats in back, one with a booster that has smears of something dark on the cushion and seatbelt. It’s either chocolate or dried blood. I remember the girl’s head was bleeding after the crash so I’m pretty sure it’s not chocolate. The family must have been on a road trip because there are coloring books full of pictures of unicorns, three
Spider-Man
comics, and a shoebox crammed with baseball cards. I roll up the comics—they go in the pack. The storage compartment between the seats is full of crayons. I stick my fingers in the cracks between the armrests and get lucky—twenty Skittles, my favorite candy.

This car is so gimongous there’s even a row of seats behind the backseats. It’s comfy, like my favorite couch in the expensive furniture store, with plenty of room to stretch out. Perfect for a sleeping bag and my backpack. There’s a rear compartment that I can get into by folding down the seats, but I decide to explore that in the morning when the light is better. I could use the flashlight pen, but why waste the batteries? I roll out my sleeping bag, crawl inside, and use the backpack for a pillow. There’s a kind of nasty smell back here—I’m not sure what the problem is, but it can’t be much worse than the shirt I’m wearing.

I close my eyes and wait for sleep. Hopefully it will come without bringing pictures of Speed-Bump Guy
bouncing under the cars. I hate it when that happens. My stomach growls, which reminds me I didn’t have dinner. That’s easy to fix. One bite of bologna. One nibble of cheese. A sip of beer. There, dinner is done. I close my eyes again. The silence and the dark surround me.

But not for long. There it is again—that squeak.

It’s definitely coming from inside the car, and close. I hold my breath and wait. I hear it—the back compartment. I scramble out of my sleeping bag and fold down one of the seats. The smell is so bad my eyes water. But the sound is louder. I know what it has to be. My heart pounds as I fumble in my pack for the flashlight pen. I find it, switch it on, aim the small beam into the shadows.

It’s a kitten in a small wire cage.

The cage is on its side with a pink towel covering the bottom edge. I open the door and lift her out. She’s the size of a fuzzy softball, big gray eyes ringed with dried goop, yellow hair the same color as mine. She smells like cat pee. There are two empty dishes in her cage. One has
Cassie
written with red crayon on the side. I think back to the first day, when the boy tried to run to the SUV but his mother wouldn’t let him. He screamed like he forgot something important. Now I know what that something was.

“Hello, Cassie,” I say.

The sound startles me. It’s the first words I’ve spoken since Mom left. It must have startled Cassie too because she starts mewing like crazy. An alarm goes off in my brain, but I don’t care. I hold her close to my chest and stroke her fur. She settles down.

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” I whisper. “You stink worse than me.”

I carry her back to my couch bed, spill a few drops of water on the towel, and wipe her down. Then I give her a couple of sips of my beer. She laps it up and looks around for more.

I say, “Guess that means you’re hungry, too.”

I tear off a sliver of bologna. She gobbles it down like it was a piece of steak.

The alarm goes off in my head again. As much as I’d like to keep her, I have to be smart. Like Mom would say, who needs another mouth to feed? I give her one more sip of beer. I promise to let her go first thing tomorrow. Right now she needs some company.

“You’re a very lucky kitty,” I whisper.

We burrow into the warmth of my sleeping bag. Beneath it all I hear the buzz of the security light. For a moment I wonder how dark it would be without the lights. No darker than my closet at home, that’s for sure.

Then Cassie starts to purr. For once I’m not thinking about Hoodie with his knife, the aliens, or the long, dark smear. Or even Mom. Cassie feels good against my skin.

That’s what I’m thinking when I fall asleep.

Click

It’s official. The man is crazy.

First the laundry, now this. We’re filling containers with water. Jugs, mugs, bottles, and cans are lined up in neat rows on the kitchen counter. He’s upstairs filling the bathtub. I’m in the kitchen, filling—I can’t believe this—Ziploc freezer bags. They look like supersized versions of those cheesy prizes you win on the midways at county fairs, only without the goldfish that die three days later.

This storm of insanity was triggered this morning when the power went off. It stayed off for about fifteen minutes, then came back on. By that time Dad had already mobilized the water brigade. I tried reasoning with him, that it was total overkill, but he didn’t buy my argument.

I said, “Haven’t you been listening? It’s the End of Days.”

He said, “It’s the end of us wasting our resources.”

I said, “But Megaphone Man says we should embrace the Lord and go to the light.”

He said, “Embrace this,” and handed me the box of Ziplocs. “If you think of anything else to fill, fill it.” I thought of something, but decided not to say it.

So here I am, sealing little plastic bags. Fortunately the box had only ten left. I’m thinking they’d make excellent ammunition for when the alien storm troopers knock down the door. Actually, they’d probably melt the door—but anyway, we can peg them with these water balloons! Then Dutch will gnaw on their tentacles while Dad finishes them off with his Sphere of Influence speech. Bada-boom, invasion over. End of story.

The box is empty and there’s no more room on the counter. That means there’s no point in thinking of things to fill. I hear the water running upstairs, which means Dad is still occupied. Now is a good time to snag a snack. I go to the pantry. The only choice is an opened box of graham crackers. Not my first choice, but it’ll do. I crash on the slouch couch in front of the unplugged television, pick up the remote, and pretend I’m surfing channels.

CNN: Death and destruction.
Click.