Kodie shivered, from cold or illness or fear.
“Well, we need to pack up for Utopia if we’re going to go.”
She shook her head at me. “We can’t leave here,” she deadpanned. “They’ll kill us out there. Now that we’ve killed one of them.”
“Goddamned gremlins,” Bass said under his breath. “At some point we are going to have to get more water.”
“They’re kids,” I said.
“They’re more than that and you know it. They’re a swarm,” said Kodie.
“Kevin,” Bass said. “You’re not getting it. Me and Kodie… we have to protect you now. We are both alive because of you. It’s our duty.”
“What?! Duty?” The weird feelings and dreams of doom and some important inscrutable role I was to have in it all I’d had since summer were coming true. Still, I wanted to delay, pretend it was, is, all a dream. So, backed into this corner, I got surly. “Assuming I saved you, Bass, which I do not, how did I save you, Kodie?”
Her retort came quick like she was ready to give it, a debating politician jumping on a question about a topic she’s been dying to discuss. “I think I’ve had the white stuff, Kevin.”
I stood immobilized. My jaw fell open.
“Now I don’t. I’ve spent two nights with you at my side caring for me. It went away.”
“Well, this is just horseshit,” I said. “You were sick sick. What? You felt the white stuff?”
Kodie paused, then nodded. “You were gone, chasing the train. I was in bed and it… bubbled up my windpipe. Burpy. A slow creep, but it came. I was dreaming of drowning in green mossy dead water. Something swam, lurked in that water and was there with me.” A roll of thunder with the rain now. “I felt it coming up. You drove up in the driveway. It receded.”
“Psychosomatic. You are both full of it.”
They both shook their heads with their eyes closed, solemn faces. Bass said, “Why would we make this up? What’s to gain? We don’t have time for games. You need to know, man. I mean, you think I’m particularly jazzed about it? In the parlance of our times: it is what it is.” He lifted his arms and dropped them to his sides, exasperated. “I don’t love it.”
Good. A little levity at least. “You mean the parlance of those times a few days ago,” I said.
Kodie continued. “I ran outside to the swings to collect myself. You saw the blood in the grass.”
I stammer-asked, “Was it… from the… stomach or… lungs?”
“Lungs. Definitely.”
“A trombone player in the high school band who just got busted with a baggie of weed in my locker. A leader of many.”
Lifted eyebrows, nodding and shrugging.
“Leaders emerge from all sorts of backgrounds. They evolve into the role. One way or the other, they do rise. Gandhi was thrown off a train and got pissed.” I don’t remember which one said that. Something Kodie would say, though. I was so flummoxed with them standing there confirming my belief that I was meant for something that my memory isn’t so good on who said what.
“You’re crazy, both of you.” Even though I knew they weren’t. “Why’d you wait until now to tell me?”
Bass said, “We didn’t think you’d believe us and—”
“I don’t.”
“—and now that they’ve backed us into this arid corner, now that we have to start taking chances, we had to tell you.”
Kodie sighed. “I’m not saying you have all the answers. At some point, you’re going to be important. To them and to us, too. In how we continue on. Right now you need to stay safe.”
“We’re going to run out of water fast. We can’t just stay here,” I said. “We have to risk to survive.”
Bass said, “We have enough for now. In this rain, it’ll be dark by seven. Too late, again. I’ll get the power going with the generators, keep pinging Utopia.”
“We’re okay. Tomorrow.” Kodie was cool. They’d formed a united front. Staying on message.
“C’mon, Kevin. We can’t risk a rash move tonight.”
“We said that last night.”
“Well, things changed today. Bass, and the dead kid. The tubs. They’re pushing us. Let’s go on our own terms, calmly, with a plan.”
Then it hit me. They got to them. The kids, the new world. Something’s happened. A switch has been flipped. These two are not who they once were. Bodysnatched. When did this happen? How did I miss it? Have they been pretending all this time? Have they been with the kids all along?
Have I been blind? Paranoid as hell?
“Yes,” says Kodie.
I jumped. It was as if Kodie had read my mind and answered my internal questions.
“Keeping you safe, ‘let’s not be rash’… I know it’s hard to process. Me too. I couldn’t believe it at first either. I mean, the morning of, the Osterman kids standing in my yard staring at me, and the first thing I thought of was you, to try to contact you so you’d meet me at the store. Only after I texted you did I wonder about my parents.”
“Same here. I tried contacting you first thing, Kevin. Heard the sounds at dawn and watched TV for a few minutes, the whole time there’s this overwhelming need to contact you. Couldn’t call so I texted to meet at the station. Just after that, literally the second I pressed send, my parents…”
Bass, sounding exasperated with his perception of my being dense. “The Fleming/Jespers connection. You’re the late bloomer across the street. We’re your closest friends, also bloomers. It fits. Forget chosen, if you want, forget special. It just fits. The right person at the right time. Happened in the old world all the time.”
The dog down the street started up again. We all looked up in that direction.
“So, if I drive off you’ll…?”
Bass said, nodding with his eyes closed, “I’ll stop you.”
“I’m armed.” I displayed two loaded handguns I wore, one being Martin’s glock. I held up the crossbow, arched a brow.
“So am I.” Bass cocked his head and smiled, took a pistol from his rear waistband all gangsta.
I looked at his gun. “I’m so needed in this new world, and you’re to protect me or whatever, you’ll shoot me if I were to run. That makes sense how?”
“When you look at it that way.”
I feint toward the Hummer. “You’d, what? Shoot me in the leg?”
“Ah, an incapacitating flesh wound. Good idea.”
“Yeah. Gandhi had a limp,” Kodie added, needling. “Kevin, enough… okay? Listen.” She took in a deep breath, held it, shot a glance at Bass. Exhaling, she said, “I’ve seen the dark smiling teeth, too. The night before it went down.”
Bass raised his hand, sheepish and nodding. “Me too. That night. Didn’t know what it was but knew it was something to do with you. Thought it a vivid nightmare.”
I hadn’t talked about that. Those were my dreams and visions, me and Professor Fleming. But I thought of the strange and scary conversation Mr. English and I had in his office. We’d shared dreams. Why I wouldn’t I also with Kodie and Bass?
Their faces softened. They knew I believed them.
They had a point about not going across Texas right now, I’d even argued that last night, but now I felt like this was too much waiting, and if you’re waiting, you’re waiting for something to happen.
Kodie and Bass fell asleep. It was dusk and I snuck out, taking Martin’s bolt cutters hanging from a peg board in the garage and went four doors down to get that dog. It was quiet for now. One of the neighbors on this street I didn’t know at all. They had plastic playscapes for toddlers in their yard and sometimes I saw a woman, a nanny or a mom, I never knew which, sitting on the porch steps watching them play. She never waved when I rode by on my bike. She’d look up but never wave. I waved at first but, over time, stopped. You tire of waving at people who don’t wave back.