Monument 14: Savage Drift (Monument 14 Series) Read Online Free PDF Page A

room.
    Heather screams and the man laughs.
    He’s smelly and skinny with just a few wisps of hair.
    “Back off,” I growl.
    He sticks his tongue out at me and I can smell his stanky breath. God-awful.
    “All right, all right,” Mario says. “Out we go.”
    We step out into the cold, clean morning air and cross the courtyard.
    Autumn’s in effect and it’s getting cold. I feel it as we walk across the deadland stretch of dried grass and cement that is the courtyard.
    None of us have real winter clothes. I gave my jacket to Freddy, in a moment of softheartedness, so I now wear the two shirts I have at all times. Along with my dirty jeans and the EZ-on mules that used to belong to Mario’s wife. They fit me, almost.
    Mario gave his sweater to Lori, perhaps more for safety than for warmth. She’s chesty and had only her one paperweight thermal top. She was a little nipply.
    I think of all the clothes we used to donate through our church. Where are the cast-off clothes of the free citizens of America? Do they feel no pity for us?
    We’d wear anything—doesn’t have to fit. Doesn’t have to be clean. People would kill, truly kill, for a change of underwear.
    The guards give clothing to their favorites. We are nobody’s favorites.
    So now Mario and I feel the cold, as we head to Plaza 900 for breakfast.
    The sky is the color of silt, with a creamy peach band at the horizon. It’s the prettiest thing we’ll see today, no doubt.
    I breathe it in, but the beauty catches in my lungs, like I inhaled a bit of gravel.
    “The drifts come in the night, I heard,” Heather whispers to Aidan and Freddy, with her lisp on the s .
    “Wrong,” Freddy blurts out. “They LOOK like night. They’re black clouds that zoom in.”
    He darts ahead, arms raised like a vampire’s closing in on prey. “And then BOOM , they hit a town and everyone’s dead.”
    Lori scoffs, “That’s not how the compounds work, Freddy.”
    “Says you,” he snorts. “I was out there, too, you know.”
    “Shut it, you two,” Mario says. “Those drifts are rumors, nothing more. Josie and I saw the bombs go off. They blasted those compounds out of the air. Right, Josie?”
    The kids look to me.
    I shrug.
    Mario keeps trying to get me to talk to them, to take interest.
    I think he thinks it would be good for me.
    I stuff my hands in my pockets.
    “Can I go ahead?” I ask. “It’s cold.”
    “Nope,” Mario says. “We stick together. That’s what we do.”
    As if. As if this little band of kids could ever matter in the face of this hellish prison. As if this little group of kids is any kind of group at all.
    *   *   *
    We go in together.
    “Find a table, kids. Lori, take Heather by the hand,” Mario says. “Josie and I will bring the eats.”
    He has to talk loud over the bedlam.
    (Because Mario is officially the sponsor to all of us, he works the system a bit. According to the rules, the little kids should stand in line with us. But he waves their passes and they don’t have to brave the lines, which can get rough. Also the ladies serving the food have a soft spot for Mario. No surprise there—he’s the only nice person in the whole camp, salty as he can be.)
    Even without the fights and the brawls that inevitably break out (we’re all type O, after all), the sound of six hundred–plus people eating and talking and clattering their silverware always gives me a headache and an anxious knot in my stomach.
    The kids go off to find a table in the corner and Mario and I get on line.
    I keep my eyes on the floor. That’s the best way not to engage.
    Before the disaster, Plaza 900 was probably a very cool place to be. Luxurious, even with different food stations scattered in the giant hall. From the signage, you can see that before it was Pizza Time! Or diners could have Zen Gen Sushi, or Tío’s Burritos or Omelets Your Way!
    They all serve the same dishes now: Everyone Eats Oatmeal! And for lunch, Always Soup! And for dinner,