only the Mercer and Dawes wings were on fire, and that the Hutchley wing, where the administrative offices, Palliative Care Department, and underground parking lot were, had yet to be touched.
She slowed the car as she came to the front gate. The smell of smoke scraped the inside of her nostrils.
She saw a boy of ten or eleven run out from behind the security kiosk, his face smeared with dirt, his clothes caked with filth, so skinny and underfed that Glenda wondered how he had the strength to run.
But run he did, along the front of the Hutchley wing and the Dawes wing, finally disappearing around the hulk of the burning Mercer wing.
Glenda glanced at Hanna, who sat in the front seat beside her, then over her shoulder at Jake, who was in the back with the handgun held loosely on his knee. “Stay alert.”
“I know that guy,” said Jake as he peered after the boy. “He goes to Talbot Public.”
Not trusting her own eyes because she was forty now, she asked Jake, “Did he have a gun?”
“He had something in his belt,” said Jake. “I couldn’t see what it was. It looked like a stick.”
“But you’re sure it wasn’t a gun.”
“It looked like a stick.”
She nodded. “We go in, we go out.”
“I think his name is Buck,” said Jake.
“Buck?” said Hanna.
“That’s what I’ve heard other kids call him.”
Glenda eased her foot off the brake and rolled into the complex. “I don’t like this. Maybe we should come back later.”
“Mom, let’s keep going,” said Hanna. “Let’s get it over with.”
“Buck, or whatever his name is, maybe ran off to alert the rest of those kids I was telling you about. The ones Whit was so worried about.”
“So let’s be fast,” said Hanna. “In and out, like you said. And Jake, for Christ’s sake, don’t be afraid to shoot someone for a change.”
“Mom, she’s bugging me again.”
“Hanna, please stop bugging your brother.”
“I’m not bugging him. I’m just stating facts.”
“Okay, I’ll shoot someone. I guarantee it. And it just might be you.”
“Let’s calm down,” said Glenda. “We go in, we get our charge, and we leave.”
She eased past the security kiosk, veered left around the sign that said UNDERGROUND PARKING GARAGE—STAFF AND RESIDENT PARKING ONLY, and drove down the ramp, feeling the heat of the night even though the air conditioner was on full tilt. She ventured into the underground parking lot and followed the big white arrows. The place was dark. She was worried that the charger might be off-line, even though it operated independently from the main grid, but as she got to the second level she saw that, miracle of miracles, its indicator light was still flashing green, a welcome beacon, and that she could recharge her car after all.
“This place is spooky,” said Hanna.
“Won’t it be nice to go for a swim in Uncle Neil’s pool?” Glenda said, trying to reassure her daughter. “I sure would like a good cooldown.”
She pulled up to the generator.
Jake shifted in the back. “Mom, I’m going to stand over by that pillar to cover you.”
“Jake, never shoot that thing if Hanna or I are in your way.”
“Mom, I’ve thought a lot about using this gun. Just trust me.”
The three Thorndikes got out of the car.
Jake took up his position behind the pillar.
Hanna coughed and wheezed in the close, thick air of the underground parking lot.
Glenda keyed in the sequence to the charging port, then went to the generator and entered her user name and password. The machine identified her, and itemized for her the output available—more than enough to fill her car. She took the generator’s male hookup and inserted it into her car’s female port, selected recharge, then hit enter. The generator hummed softly. Its computer linked up with her car’s onboard software and, glancing at the dash, she saw the little blue bar move slowly forward.
The bar was halfway across when she heard a slow and steady whistle from behind Jake’s pillar. She looked up. She saw the flicker of firelight at the other end of the garage, and in a moment several figures emerged, all carrying homemade torches. Those kids again. It finally dawned on her why these kids had set the Mercer and Dawes wings on fire—they wanted light. They couldn’t live in the dark anymore.
She counted five altogether. They didn’t walk. They swaggered the way kids swagger when they are acting tough. And in their toughness they neglected caution, and failed to consider that Jake might be standing behind the pillar with a gun.
When the boys finally reached Glenda and Hanna, a tall one in a denim jacket looked at them as if he had lifted a rock and found bugs underneath. Then he turned to another boy, the one they had seen run from behind the security kiosk. “Buck, check the car.”
Buck came forward.
Glenda reached into the front seat and lifted her rifle. She didn’t point it at Buck. She pointed it at Denim Jacket, the leader, instead. She watched the three flanking boys lose their absurd expressions of toughness and grow suddenly concerned that the lady with the car should have such a big, mean-looking rifle.
“Yeah? And so?” said Denim Jacket, pulling the bottom of his jacket away to reveal a pistol shoved into his pants. “Go ahead and shoot me, lady. We’ll see who’s faster.”
She looked more closely at Denim Jacket. Was he high? In the light coming from the torches, his pupils certainly looked small, and she wondered if, before burning down the Mercer and Dawes wings, he had gotten into the dispensary.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she said.
“Buck, check the car.”
This time it didn’t come to her in a blinding flash, like it had with Fulton, that Denim Jacket was the evil one. This time she found she couldn’t pull the trigger, no matter what, because Denim Jacket was just a kid, and his parents were probably dead, and starvation was bound to kill him by Thanksgiving. She let Buck come ahead, and Buck inspected the car, then backed away and looked at Denim Jacket with wide eyes. He said, in a voice that hadn’t yet changed, “They got food.”
Denim Jacket pulled out his pistol and pointed it at Glenda’s head. He said, with a crooked smile, “What now, lady?”
She knew he was acting tough because he understood the new politics well, and that he couldn’t act weak, not in front of his friends, or they would tear him to pieces. She was afraid of Denim Jacket, yet felt motherly toward him as well. His brown hair was a mess, matted with the grease hair develops after it hasn’t been washed in a while. He was pale. His eyes, she saw, were blue, like the surf at Nag’s Head, and the freckles spattered across his nose were like specks of chocolate. He had a green armband that looked as if it were made of ripped surgical scrubs, and she saw that the other boys wore arm-bands as well—they were wearing colors as though they were in a gang.
Denim Jacket looked like he was in grade nine, a year or so younger than Hanna, and he spoke with the accent of the hills. He was old North Carolina, as tough as they come, but scared… frantically scared, despite his show of callous indifference to the whole situation.
“Where’s your mama?” asked Glenda.
A small paroxysm of emotion quivered over his face, and she likened him to a broken pot that had been glued back together, only the glue hadn’t set yet.
“Where’s yours?” As smart-ass remarks went, this was fairly lame, and she could see that he was having a difficult time holding it together.
“Dead,” she said.
“Dead how?”
“Diabetes.”
Denim Jacket shrugged. “Big deal.”
