He lit and threw a red, another red, and a white.
We waited and the rain started seeping in through our layers.
A little while later, Max threw up.
He threw up inside his air mask and there was a lot of blood.
‘Help us!’ Sahalia started to scream. ‘Somebody help us!’
We still had his old air mask and so now we had to try to switch it out.
Niko didn’t need to call me over. I knelt next to Max and prepared to help.
Sahalia was still screaming her head off and her voice was going raw and hoarse.
‘Hold your breath, buddy,’ Niko told Max, but he was gasping and choking.
Niko took the air mask off. Max’s face was a mess. Red, splotchy blisters all over the area around his mouth and nose and eyes and blood dripping from his chin.
I pressed the new air mask over his face and he gasped in.
The sound was muffled.
It was a horrible sound.
Max was going to die.
Niko gave an anguished, frustrated cry. Then he jumped up, like he’d been stung into action.
He turned to me.
‘Here’s what we’re going to do. I am going to throw you up and you’ll grab on to the edge and scramble out.’
‘Okay.’ I shrugged. I was crying.
Max was going to die.
Niko made that cradle with his hands and I put my foot in and he tried to heave me up. It took a couple tries to get the angle right.
I got up pretty far on the fifth or sixth try.
Grabbed some grass out over the edge, but it was so slick.
I wanted to keep trying, but a root scratched me in the face and I was bleeding.
Niko started to pray.
I didn’t want to see that.
‘Oh God,’ he said. ‘Please, God, please send us some help because I can’t do it alone!’
Sahalia leaned forward and hugged Niko, her body pressing down on his, and I went too and there were two groups then: Sahalia, Niko, and I; and Batiste, Ulysses, and Max.
And then… then came a tiny ‘Hey!’
An old voice. But mad.
‘Who set off these flares? Hello?’
Then we were clamouring. I jumped up.
We all hollered and yelled but Niko yelled at us, ‘Be quiet! BE QUIET! IF YOU WANT TO LIVE, SHUT UP!’
Then, Niko shouted up. ‘We’ve fallen in a pit. Don’t come too close or you might fall in!’
‘I won’t fall in! I’m not stupid,’ came the voice.
Then a blinding light flashed down on us, going from one kid to the next.
‘Jesus Christ,’ the voice cursed. ‘You went and fell in the foundation?’
‘This family made it into a trap!’ Sahalia snarled. ‘They laid a cloth over it and trapped us!’
Niko shushed her.
‘Please, if you could just help us out. We’re a bunch of kids and one of us is really hurt.’
‘The Mandrys. That’s who set the trap. Looks like one of them got the tar beat out of him, too, by the look of it up here.’
‘Yes, a girl named Josie did that,’ Niko said.
‘She’s O,’ I shouted.
‘Looks like Tad Mandry’s dead, here.’
‘Please, mister, can you help us out?’ Niko called.
‘Well, I’m not a savage!’ he shouted. ‘Of course I’ll help you. There’s a ladder right here, for heaven’s sake.’
There was a ladder up there? Right there?
‘I’ll help you out. But that’s all. Now you all shut up and give me a moment,’ the man said. ‘We don’t want to be attracting attention these days. Could be any number of nutballs out here.’
We huddled together, excited and relieved and still terrified of everything. The only sound was Max moaning and crying. And Ulysses and Batiste sniffling, I guess.
Then we heard a wet, sliding sound. It was the man sliding the ladder across the ground.
‘That’s it,’ Niko called softly.
‘I know!’ the man grouched.
Inch by inch, we watched the ladder poke farther and farther into our air space.
‘It’s taking long because I’m old,’ the man said. ‘I’m too damn old for this nonsense.’
The ladder started to tip.
‘It’s going to fall, now. Watch out.’
‘We’re clear,’ Niko called.
The ladder wobbled for a moment and then came crashing down.
The man was tiny. He was maybe the same height as Ulysses.
I couldn’t see his face because he had a red-and-black-checkered scarf wrapped around it. By the way he moved, you could tell he was very old.
He helped Sahalia out first and then she turned and helped us one by one.
Niko came up last, carrying Max.
He slung Max onto the wet, muddy ground.
There was the body of the dad. He was lying on top of a rock. He’d fallen on it during his fight with Josie and he must have broken his neck, because his head was cocked to the side and he was looking up at the sky with an open mouth, like he was stargazing.
But, no, he was not looking at the sky. He was dead.
The earth was torn up in places, mishmashed with footprints and some dark brown-black slicks that were most likely blood.
‘All right,’ the man said. ‘Good luck to you then.’
And he started to shuffle away.
‘Please,’ Niko said. ‘We need to get somewhere safe so we can take care of our friend. And we need somewhere safe to rest.’
‘Well, I can’t help you!’ he spat.
‘But we’re so thirsty,’ whined Batiste.
‘And Max is so sick,’ Sahalia added. ‘Please, mister. Please.’
And we all started in, begging him. ‘Please, please, please.’
‘I knew I shouldn’t have come over!’ he growled. ‘I just came up to take out the trash, see? And then I saw the flares and I thought to myself, “Ignore it, Mario. You’re gonna get sucked into helping someone and it will be a strain on your resources.” But here I am.’
We must have looked a pitiful sight to him. All of us wearing filthy, matted layers of grimy sweatsuits. Me, Sahalia, and Batiste with our faces uncovered, coated with mud, the only clean parts being the trails made by crying. Niko standing with his head hung. Max lying, moaning, on the ground, wearing a bloody air mask. Ulysses clutching Max in the mud.
‘I’ll give you a day and a night. That’s it!’ he snarled. ‘Some basic medical to fix you up the best I can. 3 meals and 1 night’s sleep. But that’s it. You have to swear you go after that.’
Niko stuck out his hand and said, ‘We swear.’ They shook.
Everyone started thanking him and Sahalia hugged him.
‘Follow me then, and keep quiet about it,’ he grouched.
He led us across the street, toward a smaller development we had already passed.
