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  After what seemed an eternity, Jamie stirred. She rubbed her eyes and looked confused at the crowd in front of her. “What…who?”

  Kylee stepped toward her. “Jamie, it’s Kylee. Michelle’s here.”

  Jamie’s eyes opened wide and began to fill with tears. Kylee and Michelle embraced their friend. Theo felt a pang of jealousy as his friend was still unconscious, and immediately hated himself for it.

  “Oh my God,” Jamie was saying over and over. “I thought you were all dead!”

  “We’re fine,” said Kylee, taking Jamie’s hand. “We’ve been so worried about you.”

  “We’ve been here for a long time,” said Jamie, “and Mark’s been like that for a while so it’s just been me and…” she broke into sobs again and her friends held her silently for a while.

  When Jamie had composed herself, she looked up at the boys standing by Mark’s bed. “He’d really be so happy you guys are here.”

  Theo walked over to her. “Can you tell us what happened to you? I mean it’s okay if you aren’t ready to talk about it.”

  “No, no,” said Jamie, “I’m so ready. Just to be able to talk to people other than the nurses and doctors is amazing. Just give me a second to organize my thoughts.”

  The teens found places to sit or lean around the room. Bill stayed by Mark’s side. Jamie sat for a minute resting her head on her hand as she recollected her experiences. Finally she spoke.

  “I guess the last time we saw most of you guys was when we were back at the motel. We were in the back room and the rest of you were in the front…well, Kylee, I know you and Theo were outside, right?”

  Kylee nodded. “That’s right.”

  “Okay, so then the Event happened. Did you guys know that’s what they’re calling it around here? The Event?”

  “Yes,” said Michelle. “It’s the official term for it now.”

  “So the Event started. The building was shaking and that noise… well, you all know that part of it. We sat in the corner behind the bed and waited. After a while, Bill came in and said that Michelle and Ryan had left to try something with cell phones. He really wanted us to leave but Mark was determined to stay put. I thought he was right.”

  Theo’s eyes betrayed him and he stole a glance at Mark, motionless on the bed. He felt anger at his friend’s stubbornness and again punished himself internally for his runaway emotions. He looked at Bill and Ryan, and he could tell he was not alone in feeling these conflicted sentiments.

  “So we stayed,” Jamie continued. “I don’t really know how long we were there, but it was long enough that the windows along the back wall started to crack from the building shaking. Some of the glass was falling into the room and Mark said we’d better knock the windows outside while we could before they really exploded on us.”

  She showed them fading scars on her hand. “He was right, you know. There was already enough glass in the room that I cut myself. I didn’t even see it there.” She paused again, thinking. “Anyhow, Mark tossed a lamp through the window and was pushing the remaining glass outside when we heard a scream through the opening.”

  She looked around at the other teens. They were all listening intently. “A woman was screaming. She was in a room down the hall from us and she had a baby. She was scared to death and didn’t think she could leave the room. ” She pointed to Mark. “Mark was so brave. He didn’t hesitate a second. He took my hand and said ‘We need to help her.’ So we did.”

  “The woman had yelled to us what room she was in. We left our room and ran down the hall. This was the first time I could really see those lights and the waves and everything.” She trembled as the vivid memory came back to her. “As we reached the room we heard things falling and breaking. Mark was sure that pieces of the concrete were breaking off the motel. Anyway, we reached the woman’s room. She was so scared and her baby was crying. We led her to the stairs and helped make sure she didn’t fall as we all came down.”

  “The stairs on the first floor were all messed up. We decided to run around the building and maybe take the stairs on the other side. The poor baby was crying the whole time. It was such a nightmare.” Jamie started to cry again.

  “You can take a break now if you want,” said Kylee. “There will be more time later.”

  “It’s okay,” Jamie said. “I want to get this all out.” She took another deep breath and continued. “We were right. The stairs on the other side were fine. So we went down and made it to the ground. The woman thanked us and took off running away from the ocean.”

  “Did you follow her?” asked Theo.

  “No, Mark wanted to sweep around once more and see if anybody else needed help. We called as loud as we could, but didn’t hear anything from anyone. It was so hard to hear anything with all the booming in the sky and the buildings all creaking and groaning. We gave up and walked out into the street. A big…shockwave, I guess, knocked us over and then we saw this insane tidal wave coming toward us. We ran back under the motel into the garage. The wave hit the motel. At first it was just water rushing by on all sides. Then this horrible noise and the walls started to crack and then things were falling.”

  Jamie showed them her damaged arm. “That’s when this happened. It’s also how Mark broke his leg…really bad. We got a bunch of other bumps and bruises, and Mark got hit in the head pretty hard. It knocked him out for a few minutes but then he was back.”

  At this she stopped speaking. They all remained in silence for a minute while the machines beeped. As much as Theo wanted to know what had led to Mark lying in bed clinging to life, he wanted to give Jamie time to get out what was clearly a painful recollection.

  Jamie looked around the room and spoke again. “For a long time we were in the dark. I don’t know how long. I was scared. Mark was too, I think, but he was so brave for me. He kept telling me that everything would be okay. That night was the longest of my life. Mark didn’t move and neither did I; we could barely see anything. Then the daylight came.”

  “Mark was… he was stuck under a beam or something. He had been there all night, with his leg crushed under, and he hadn’t even told me. We were in this pocket of what was left of the garage, and there was so much dust and sand and water. It was hard to see but there was definitely light outside.”

  “As brave as Mark had been… well as time passed he got sicker and sicker and before I knew it I was the one talking to him, on and on, telling him it would be okay and we would get out of there and go home.” She looked up. “I didn’t think we would.”

  “By the time it got dark again Mark was sleeping a lot of the time. I was so hungry and weak and hurting and I just stayed with him. I guess I must have drifted off to sleep, cause this voice called out to me and when I looked around it was light. A bunch of police officers were making their way in. After that everything was a big blur. They got Mark out from under the beam and they took us out of the garage and brought us to the hospital.”

  “They separated us then and I didn’t see Mark for a few days. No patients could leave their rooms at first, I think cause everything was still so out of control. Finally I was told I could go see him. The doctors said his leg had gotten infected. They treated it so he wouldn’t have to get it amputated but he had slipped into a coma and he doesn’t seem to be waking up. I’ve stayed with him as much as I can.”

  Jamie looked around the room again and smiled uneasily. “I know that I barely got to know him at all, but he was there for me. I didn’t know that any of you were still alive and I was all he had…” She broke down crying again and Kylee held her.

  “We’re all here now,” Kylee said. “You aren’t alone.”

  They all took turns telling Jamie their story of the past few weeks. She had a fairly good idea of what had been going on around the island from the gossip that had passed among the nurses in the ICU. She seemed relieved overall just to be around so many people. Theo wanted to be happy for her, and for Kylee and Michelle as well, but he couldn’t stop thin
king about Mark. Was he going to die? Theo didn’t know much about medicine but he had enough common sense to know that when someone had been in a coma for a couple weeks the odds were not great.

  They stayed and talked for hours. When it came time to leave for the night, Jamie didn’t want to leave. “You can stay with us in our apartment,” said Kylee, ” It’s ours for a little while longer.”

  “Thanks,” said Jamie, “but I made a promise that I wouldn’t abandon Mark and, well, I’m just not ready to leave yet.”

  “I’d like to stay too, if that’s okay with you,” said Bill. “Just for one night.”

  Theo wasn’t sure this was the best idea. Bill had looked gloomy as ever the entire time they had sat in Mark’s room. He decided to keep his mouth shut this once and hope for the best.

  Reluctantly, the other teens said goodbye to their friends and returned to their apartment. Theo stayed awake a long time that night, staring into the darkness and picturing care-free, wild, ladies’ man Mark, now struggling to survive.

  Chapter 7

  The next few weeks went by quickly. Routine visits to Mark’s hospital room had replaced much of the teens’ aimless wandering. Mark’s health remained the same, which Theo reckoned was better than getting worse. He was determined to cling to that notion, and he held it especially close when sitting in Mark’s room listening to the regular noises of the life-support equipment.

  Bill’s moods had improved since discovering that Mark and Jamie were alive. Theo noticed that this was a combination of a confidence that Mark would get better, which Theo worried was bordering on delusion, and a profound connection that was developing between Bill and Jamie as their shared care and concern for Mark drew them to each other. Theo doubted Bill even realized it was happening, but that blossoming of feelings in the gloom of the ICU was very apparent, and very positive to Theo and Kylee.

  There was no shortage of love in the air as July turned to August. Ryan and Michelle went off on quiet walks every day and sat on the beach every night, wrapped around each other in the moonlight. Theo and Kylee had begun spending evenings on the roof of the condominium. They had taken chairs and a small table from one of the lower balconies (Kylee called it “liberating” the furniture) and set them on the roof where they ate dinner every night that it wasn’t raining.

  The rains, which fell at least twice a week, often more, were violent and pounding, with driving winds that howled for hours. These torrents usually arrived without warning, and Theo and his friends had been caught in them many times and forced to run for shelter. Theo, though not a fan of being caught in one of these downpours, found that huddling in the penthouse or under a pavilion off the boardwalk was refreshingly peaceful. He especially enjoyed spending those periods of forced shelter with Kylee.

  He remained wary of his emotions toward Kylee, still refusing to commit with one hundred percent confidence to the idea that his feelings were natural and not tied to the extreme circumstances of the past few months. Even so, he had no doubt that he wanted her- her body, her hair, and all her mannerisms, even the toss of her hair had grown on him. Theo joked that given enough time his bangs would be long like hers and he promised to imitate her habit of tossing them back. This usually earned him a playful punch in the arm.

  He knew, too, that he cherished his time with her. Kylee was funny, smart, and a curious mix of serious concern and a devil-may-care attitude. Their conversations went on for hours and he could trust that she could brighten his mood and set him to fits of hysterical laughter when he least expected it. He couldn’t figure out what she possibly saw in him, and the doubting voice in the back of his mind assured him that their relationship could only exist in this situation where there weren’t many other options.

  There were other teenagers around Atlantic Island, but the monotony of post-Event life had served to shrink the groups (as evidenced by how much time Theo’s group spent as couples) rather than combine them. They met others their own age occasionally, but had yet to spend any significant time with any of them.

  There was one cluster of teenagers that Theo had noticed several times. Three boys and a girl all covered in tattoos. Every time he saw them from a distance, they seemed to be doing something obnoxious. Sometimes they pushed past others in line, sometimes one would distract a stranger while his buddy would steal some of the stranger’s rations. Theo marked these incidents in the back of his mind. He knew trouble when he saw it and the same part of him that felt compelled to assume responsibility for the well being of his friends continued to bark “warning!” at him every time he saw the thuggish teens even from a distance.

  Flyers distributed at ration stations explained the various jobs available for signup. Theo and his friends were surprised to learn that barring any improvement in their present situation a school would be opening in the fall. “I guess teachers were visiting the shore too,” said Kylee.

  Theo was disappointed. Not because he didn’t want to go back to school, though he certainly couldn’t say the thought excited him, but because he found the job signups refreshing. He liked the idea that he could sign up for whatever seemed like a good job and then switch to a different path if he wasn’t happy. Fortunately, those of school age were still going to be able to contribute to the various jobs for the remainder of the summer and then on weekends once school began.

  On the day of the signups, Theo and the other teens fell into various lines in accordance with the work they wanted to try. Theo noticed that many people seemed to be in pleasant, positive spirits. He guessed that people were happy to have something purposeful to do.

  Theo and Bill got in line for the construction squad. Theo thought at the very least he’d have a chance to spend some of his time with his friend. Bill wasn’t happy about having to spend less time at the hospital with Mark. Theo thought Bill also wasn’t happy to be away from Jamie.

  Ryan signed up for the science committee; a group that Theo thought had a vague description. It seemed a good fit for Ryan, who was excited at the chance to sit in front of a computer again. Part of the job was to do some kind of secretive work concerned with making contact with the outside world. That was an admirable goal, Theo thought.

  Kylee did indeed sign up for the Security Force. Theo felt relieved to see at least a few other women joining the ranks, but he just could not get comfortable with Kylee putting herself in a risky situation, not to mention that the Security Force was under control of Deputy Mayor Tiberius. Theo still couldn’t explain why he didn’t like Tiberius. The man was responsible for restoring order on the island, after all. Still… something just didn’t sit right.

  Michelle and Jamie signed up for “Records.” Theo wasn’t entirely sure what that department was all about. He hoped that all his friends would be happy with their new positions. Still, though he understood the necessity of this effort, it was an acceptance of their predicament that Theo couldn’t completely support. There was not one day or night where he didn’t think about his family, his home, and the possibility of a return to the life through which he had once muddled, this time with Kylee.

  Work began the next day. Theo and Bill received the same job assignment and after breakfast with their friends they walked down to what had once been the Margate town line. The foreman, a gruff, short man, set them to work dismantling a house. The work was slow and risky. Very little construction equipment was available, so most of the demolition was done by hand. The department bosses wanted to preserve, recycle and reuse as much material as possible. Theo and Bill spent the first half of their first day on the job emptying the house of its former owner’s belongings, and then stripping the drywall while carefully preserving the wooden studs that had not started to rot from water damage.

  It didn’t take long for Theo to wish he had been assigned to dismantle a store or a restaurant. As he removed summer clothes from a pink room belonging to a little girl named Sarah, he imagined having to explain to Sarah and her parents why their beloved shore house no longer
existed. Would they understand that the Atlantic Islanders needed the land to grow food? Would they know that it was only for survival that Theo was tearing apart their memories?

  He had been excited to work with Bill but the two friends worked mostly in silence. Bill had his own demons, but surely he was also haunted by the same thoughts as Theo. The work became a little easier once the personal items were out of the house and it began to look more like a construction site and less like a home.

  During lunch break the second day of work, Theo heard shouting from down the street. He, Bill and several other workers ran out to the street to eavesdrop on the commotion. A man was pleading with the foreman of a different crew. “This is my home! You can’t take away my home! I have rights!”

  The man continued to shout. Theo couldn’t hear the counter-argument, though he could venture a guess what it might be. Before long the crowd of workers around the streets had grown. A small band of police moved in and seemed to resolve the conflict. The angry man shook his fist at the gathered crew as he stormed off. Theo turned to Bill. As he expected, Bill was looking frustrated again. He simply had not accepted the strict reality of life on Atlantic Island. Theo worried that, with the stress Bill was under, the time was coming when he would reach his breaking point. And then what? Theo didn’t want to think about it.

  Two weeks of August passed without much incident. The house belonging to the angry man was reduced to spare parts, as was the house to which Theo and Bill were assigned. Crews dug up the side streets and foundations and turned the soil, preparing the land for the farming department that would take over the job before long. Theo assumed that many of the construction workers would transition to the farming department when the Margate demolition was complete.

  During breaks, Theo and Bill often walked to the edge of the island, where Atlantic Avenue broke in the middle and the ocean began. Theo enjoyed the chance to sit with Bill, reminiscing about the days before the Event and the good times they had shared.