“Well, what should we do?”
“I guess just hang out for a while, you know?”
“Hang out here, you mean?”
“Or else go to your house. Sleep in your own bed. Whatever feels right.”
“We’re not scared or anything.”
“You’re not?” Sam asked dubiously. “I’m so scared, I wet myself.”
One kid grinned. “No, you didn’t.”
“Nah. You’re right. But it’s okay to be scared, man. Every single person here is scared.”
It was happening a lot. Kids coming to Sam, asking him questions for which he had no answers.
He wished they would stop.
Orc and his friends dragged lawn chairs out of the hardware store and set themselves up right in the middle of what had once been Perdido Beach’s busiest intersection. They were just beneath the stoplight, which continued changing from green to yellow to red.
Howard was berating some lower-ranking toady who had lit a Prest-O log and was trying to get it to grow into a bonfire. Orc’s crew brought a couple of wood axe handles and wooden baseball bats out of the hardware store and tried unsuccessfully to burn them.
They also carried metal bats and small sledgehammers from the hardware store. Those they kept.
Sam didn’t bring up the little girl, the way she was just lying there. If he brought it up, then it would become his job to do something. To dig a grave and bury her. To read the Bible or say words. He didn’t even know her name. No one seemed to.
“I can’t find him.” It was Astrid, reappearing after an absence of at least an hour. She had gone to hunt for her little brother. “Petey’s not here. Nobody has seen him.”
Sam handed her a soda. “Here. I paid for it. Tried to, anyway.”
“I don’t usually drink this stuff.”
“You see any ‘usually’ around here?” Quinn snapped.
Quinn didn’t look at her. His eyes were restless, going from person to person, thing to thing, like a nervous bird, never making direct eye contact. He looked strangely naked without his shades and fedora.
Sam was worried about him. Of the two of them, it was Sam who was usually too serious.
Astrid let Quinn’s rudeness slide and said, “Thanks, Sam.” She drank half the can but didn’t sit down. “Kids are saying it’s some military thing gone wrong. Or else terrorists. Or aliens. Or God. Lots of theories. No answers.”
“Do you even believe in God?” Quinn demanded. He was looking for an argument.
“Yes, I do,” Astrid said. “I just don’t believe in the kind of God who disappears people for no reason. God is supposed to be love. This doesn’t look like love.”
“It looks like the world’s worst picnic,” Sam said.
“I believe that’s what’s called gallows humor,” Astrid said. Noticing Sam and Quinn’s blank looks, she said, “Sorry. I have this annoying tendency to analyze what people say. You’ll either get used to it or decide you can’t stand me.”
“I’m leaning toward the second choice,” Quinn muttered.
Sam said, “What’s gallows humor?”
“Gallows, as in, what they hang people from. Sometimes when people are nervous or afraid, they make jokes.” Then she added, a bit ruefully, “Of course, some people, when they’re nervous or afraid, turn pedantic. And if you don’t know what pedantic means, here’s a clue: in the dictionary, I’m the illustration they use.”
Sam laughed.
A little boy no more than five years old and carrying a sad-eyed gray teddy bear came over. “Do you know where my mom is?”
“No, little man, I’m sorry,” Sam said.
“Can you call her on the telephone?” His voice trembled.
“The phones don’t work,” Sam said.
“Nothing works,” Quinn snapped. “Nothing works and we’re all alone here.”
“You know what I bet?” Sam asked the boy. “I’ll bet they have cookies at the day care. It’s right across the street. See?”
“I’m not supposed to cross the street.”
“It’s okay. I’ll watch while you do, okay?”
The little boy stifled a sob, then walked off toward the day care, clutching his bear.
Astrid said, “Kids come to you, Sam. They’re looking to you to do something.”
“Do what? All I can do is suggest they eat a cookie,” Sam said, with too much heat in his tone.
“Save them, Sam,” Quinn said bitterly. “Save them all.”
“They’re all scared, like us,” Astrid said. “There’s no one in charge, no one telling people what to do. They sense you’re a leader, Sam. They look to you.”
“I’m not a leader of anything. I’m as scared as they are. I’m as lost as they are.”
“You knew what to do when the apartment was burning,” Astrid said.
Sam jumped to his feet. It was just nervous energy, but the movement drew the gaze of dozens of kids nearby. All looking at him like he was going to do something. Sam felt a knot in his stomach. Even Quinn was looking at him expectantly.
Sam cursed under his breath. Then, in a voice just loud enough to carry a few feet, he said, “Look, all we have to do is hang tight. Someone is going to figure out what’s happened and come find us, okay? So everyone just chill, don’t do anything crazy, help each other out and try to be brave.”