“Is there anyone else who doesn’t want to go?” Niko asked the little kids.
They all were silent.
They looked terrified, clutching their gas masks.
But none of them came forward.
We only took down the center panels. The side panels could stay up because the bus only needed to go through the center doors.
And after refusing to put on the layers so dramatically, Astrid and I did end up putting them on, along with the face masks, because the compounds were going to come into our space.
We’d have to put the wall back up as soon as we could.
“Come on, guys, hurry. Say good-byes and get on board now,” Niko said. “We’re wasting time.”
Max and Batiste and Henry and Caroline all surged over to us and we hugged them. I felt a tug on my hand and Ulysses tugged on my fat, padded arm.
He pressed Luna’s leash into my hand.
“Keep Luna,” he said. “And you memember me.”
He hugged me hard and then got on the bus.
Saying good-bye to them hurt like I was getting stabbed in the heart.
Little Caroline and Henry were weeping. They clung to me until Josie pried them off and sent them up the stairs.
“Dean,” Caroline called. “You have to come. You’re our favorite!”
“I’m sorry, Caroline. I have to stay here and keep Astrid and Chloe safe.”
“Tell Chloe we said ‘bye’, okay?” she said.
Tears rolled down her freckled cheeks. This was agony.
Alex was sitting near Brayden at the front of the bus. He wouldn’t look at me. Niko had gone and tried to talk him out, but Alex wouldn’t come. Not even to put up the gate. He’d given instructions to Niko to give to Astrid.
“So when you hear the air horn,” Niko told her now. “That means press the retract sign, but only for the center gate. Then when you hear it a second time, that means put it back up.”
Astrid nodded.
“I’m sorry, Niko,” she said. “I’m sorry we can’t go with you.”
“I know,” he said.
“You were a great leader,” she told him.
I hated hearing this conversation. Everything had this terribly final feel to it.
“Good luck,” he said.
“You, too.”
And Astrid went to wait for the air horn.
The bus was running now.
Josie and Sahalia were standing by with their air masks on.
All we had to do was take down the last panels and then blow the horn for Astrid to retract the center gate.
“Wait!” I said.
I had an idea. I turned from Niko and I ran.
“Dean! We have to go!!!” Niko shouted.
I hurdled through the store.
Searching for what I needed.
I was breathless when I got back.
I saw Josie and Sahalia were on the bus. I had forfeited my chance to say good-bye to them. It didn’t matter.
I took the stairs to the bus in two steps.
There he was. Front row.
“Alex,” I said. “Take this.”
I held out a blank journal, just like mine, and a box of pens.
“You take this and you write down everything that happens. You write it all and you write it to me. Tell it to me.”
He was sobbing and he reached his many-layered arms to me and we hugged.
“That way I’ll know what happens to you,” I said.
“I will,” he said. “I promise.”
Niko and I unscrewed the last of the screws.
Luna was tied to a four-top in the kitchen. Chloe lay on the air mattress.
All the children were seat-belted into their seats.
I stood at one corner of the final section and Niko at the other.
We pulled and the four remaining plywood sheets came crashing down. I dragged two out of the way. Niko dragged the other two.
Josie stood on the steps of the bus. She has been waiting for the wood to come down. That was her cue.
BWRAAAM! She hit the air horn and tossed it aside.
But under the wood, we had covered the gate in thick woolen blankets and layers of plastic. I had forgotten that.
I reached up, wondering if we should pull down the blankets.
But then the gate started up with a loud mechanical drone. Too late.
The gate went up, chucking and whining with the added padding of the blankets and plastic, but still retracting.
And there was the dark parking lot. The broken asphalt. The ruined cars. The dots of light, far in the distance, that were the emergency lights on the highway.
There was the world.
We had blocked it out for so long.
The engine of the bus roared as Niko put it into reverse and backed out into the lot.
It worked! It rolled! The bus could drive.
Niko honked the horn.
I knew inside they were shouting good-bye, probably crying, but I couldn’t hear them …
They were leaving now. Without us.
I hit the air horn: BWRAAAM!
The bus drove forward into the lot.
But then it stopped. The doors opened.
What was happening?!
Two bundled-up children got off the bus and started running clumsily back to me.
My heart was in my gut. My stomach was in my throat. My nerves were jangling and I rushed forward, outside, my arms out to them, whoever they were.
Then, behind me, the gate started to lower.
I ran to them and slid on the slimy, sticky pavement. I darted past the cracked sections, trying not to fall.
I picked the two children up and ran for the store. The gate was coming down, shutting out the light of the Greenway. It was slicing down, cutting off the view of the Kitchen, the cash registers, the empty carts waiting in their corral.
I threw the children onto the ground, pushing first one and then the other under the gate.
I squeezed under it. My coat—my stupid layers—made it harder. The gate was crushing my chest. The two kids pulling at me, trying to get me in.
I pushed up and to the side, and somehow, I got in.
It had my sneaker but I pulled my foot out of it. The sneaker got left outside, but my foot made it in.
We were inside. Back to our blessed home. Our bright commercial sanctuary from the dark, grisly, true world. Our Greenway.
The two children took off their balaclavas and removed their masks. They were Caroline and Henry.
“We want to stay with you,” Caroline said.
“You’ll keep us safe,” Henry added.
“Can we stay?” Caroline asked. She looked up at me, her face streaked with grime and tears.
“Of course,” I said. “Of course you can stay.”
Astrid came out from the storeroom.
“Oh!” she cried when she saw them.
They ran to her.
She sank to her knees and covered their faces with kisses. Just took their little, grimy, stained faces in her hands and kissed them all over.
Then she hugged them.
And Astrid had them in her arms, she looked up at me, welcoming me with her eyes and I joined them.
Alex was gone.
And Niko and Josie and Brayden and the rest.
Jake was gone, too.
But we had Caroline and Henry and Chloe.
And we had each other.
We were five.