The Book of Apex: Volume 1 of Apex Magazine Read Online Free Page B

artery blood from a deep wound.
    We play another song, and
another. It feels like every kid left in the entire city gathers around us. I
see someone smile. I see a couple of people dance together. I focus on the
music and what we are saying with every word and chord.
    Survive this. Wake up. Wake up.
    We are playing better than we
ever have. I feel reality changing around us, just a little. Then it comes time
for us to sing their song—the one we wrote today. My hand cramps. I feel thirsty
and a little dizzy, but none of that matters. I let the music use me.
    Their song is big, brash, and
violent. It starts hard and it keeps on going. We play it like the numb doesn’t
exist. We play it to break them apart. As I play, I imagine we could start
something here. We could grow food and keep everything bad out. We could have
parties, make clothes, and maybe one day make babies. We could become a tribe.
    “Nobody remembers who you are.
Everyone remembers what you want to be,” Miranda wails, twice as loud as any of
our instruments.
    I see them changing just like I
did, like we’d been trying to make people change from the beginning. Even if it
wakes them up to an awful world, I want them here. I want them with me.
    The song hits the guitar solo
and I start rocking. The princess takes a step forward and away from the band.
I think she is going to swirl around again, but instead she starts singing.
    “To the roof, to the roof,” she
yells. I look at Miranda and Zaki One. They shrug. I play louder to drown her
out. Miranda starts ululating, but it’s too late.
    The princess bolts toward the
hospital and, like lemmings, the kids follow in her wake.
    Miranda sings louder, but there
are only a couple dozen kids left. They’re numb and stare at us dumbly.
    I play the wrong chord. Miranda
forgets the lyrics, and Zaki Two isn’t playing his harp at all.
    We hear yells from the roof.
Zaki One plays a fierce flute melody that should have, maybe, been able to
reach them up there. I play with him. Miranda too. We aren’t playing a song
anymore; we’re just making noise.
    I see a flash of long golden
princess hair. She stands on the edge of the roof, and then throws herself
over. She flies like a bird, like a triumph, and I ache to be up there with
her. Only my guitar keeps me on the ground.
    Rivers of kids follow behind.
Dark shapes drop off the roof. Down and down, and I would have thought they
would hit silently, but they don’t. They scream. Their bodies thump and crunch.
    One scream is louder than the
others. It’s nearby. Zaki One screams and flails and throws his flute down.
    I pull my gaze away from the
flying, falling, dying kids and see that it’s only Zaki One screaming. Zaki Two
is gone. My head whips back to the kids falling, and I think I see Zaki Two,
but I’m not sure. Miranda moans and kneels beside Zaki One. I go to them, to my
real tribe, and wonder how we are going to survive this.
    Zaki One scratches his cheeks
deep enough to make scars. Miranda tears off her shirt, and I see the rough
edge of her collarbone jutting out. I hold them both. I push up my sleeves to
show them that I hurt, too. Behind us, the kids keep falling.
     
    After they blew up our
neighborhood—after the rig and the axe, the deranged housewives, and the
suicide party, we hop a train heading south. We talk about reaching avocado and
salsa land, but our voices are brittle and fragile. It’s better not to talk at
all. The train veers east and north, and it gets a lot colder.
    We watch each other and hold
each other when one of us wants to jump off. The train moves faster and faster
every hour. We see soldiers marching through wheat fields toward small towns.
We see mountain lions running alongside the train. I tell a story about never
getting off and riding until we become the wind. Or I tell a story about riding
until we get so far north, up to the ice caps, that people can’t get sick
because the air is too clean. Maybe there is a place like