The Nightworld - Jack Blaine [15]
He’s sitting by the side of the bed, slumped forward. I pull him up and see the three stains on his shirt, still spreading. He’s not breathing, and it’s so clear that he won’t, ever again. I’ve never seen a dead person before, but all the things I’ve read about how you can tell right away are true. My dad isn’t here anymore. There’s no life in him, no rise and fall of his chest, no light in his eyes. There’s just a body. I settle him against the side of the mattress and close his eyes.
I don’t know what else to do.
It doesn’t feel like I thought it would either. After my mom died, I was terrified that I’d somehow lose my dad, too. I’d lie in bed imagining a million different nightmares: Dad getting in a car accident, Dad getting in a plane crash, Dad getting cancer, Dad falling out an open window. I know it’s sick, but I was testing myself, trying to see how I would feel if it really happened.
And now it’s happened and I realize I never imagined him getting murdered.
When I reach up and rub my eyes, I realize that my face is wet. I’ve been crying this whole time and I didn’t even feel it. Because it feels like nothing.
There’s no time to dwell on saying good-bye. I have to get out of here. If I’m lucky, nobody heard the gunshot, but I don’t feel very lucky right now. And even if the neighbors didn’t hear, who knows if those men are coming back.
Think.
The cord around my dad’s neck catches my eye. The key to the lab cabinet, the one Dad labeled OPTIMUS PRIME. Whatever’s in there is important, so I better grab it. I reach out and touch the cord, and the act of taking it off his neck breaks me. The sobs catch me by surprise, hard, retching heaves that double me over. I can’t look at Dad. I can’t, because if I do this will all be real. I force myself to move, to get the key and his gun. A quick peek out the window reveals only darkness at the Johanssons’, and no other signs of life on the street. I go to my dresser, grab some underwear and shirts, a pair of jeans, and shove them all in my backpack. I pull on another pair of jeans and lace up my tennis shoes. I can’t bring myself to look back when I leave the room.
I know I have to go to Dad’s room—he keeps the key to the basement in a magnetic key hider under his bed. I wonder if he knew that I know that. I cross the hall and push the door, already ajar, open wider. His room has been tossed—the mattress is upended and the drawers in his dresser are all pulled out. When I grope under the bed, I find his magnetic key holder still stuck to the bed frame—they must not have had time to look under there. I grab it and get up to go, and hear a crunch. I look down, and see that I’ve stepped on a picture frame. It’s the framed print of Dad and Mom on their honeymoon. They went to Hawaii, and they’re standing on a beach, the sun shining down on them, big smiles on their faces, their arms around each other. They look young and happy. I shake off the broken glass and slide the photo out of the frame. I want it. I stick it in my back pocket for now.
I practically fall down the stairs to the lab and head straight for the cabinet Dad showed me earlier. I jam the key into the padlock, but it sticks. Forcing myself to take slow, deep breaths, I remove the key and reinsert it carefully. This time it turns. The cabinet door opens smoothly. Inside, it’s empty—save for a small box. It’s made of some sort of metal with a complicated latch on the side of it. I try to figure it out, but I can’t get it open and I don’t feel like I have time to waste right now. I shut the cabinet back up and lock the padlock. If someone comes looking, maybe it will buy me some time if they think something is still in there.
The closet full of supplies is calling my name. I eye the water, wondering how many cases I can get upstairs fast. There’s a duffel bag hanging on a hook inside the door, and I fill it with as many packs of dried meat and fruit as I can fit. I shove one of the sleeping bags on