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Theo, she said

Could she see him? Did she knohere she was? Maet Theo?

She see into some deep place inside herself, infinite and without borders, a place of eternity Take care of your brother, Theo, she said He’s not strong, like you Then she closed her eyes and did not open theain

He had never told his brother about this There seeht, wishfully, that he ht have misheard her, or else could attribute these final words to the deliriuht to construe the seehts he had cared for her, it was Theo she had placed at her bedside in her final hours; Theo to whostation crew They fed the animals and then the room of bunk beds and soiled mattresses stuffed with musty straw By the ti away Peter wasn’t accusto to bed so early, but he’d been up for twenty-four hours straight and felt hi off

He awoke disoriented, hisin the current of anxious dreaht or later All the men were still asleep, but Alicia’s bunk was empty He made his way down the di at the long table, turning the pages of a book by the light of the panel The clock read 02:33

She lifted her eyes to "

He took a chair across fro?"

She closed the book and rubbed her eyes with the tips of her fingers "Dae room There’s boxes and boxes of them" She slid it across the table to his Are, the title read A thin volu es one by one A little boy in so a fork as he chased a s; the boy’s banish enveloped by a forest, , and a journey across the sea to an island ofteeth and huge yellow eyes The Wild Things

"That whole business about the boy looking the them to be still," Alicia said She yawned into her hand "I don’t see how that would do any good at all"

Peter closed the book and put it aside He had no idea what to s from the Time Before How did people live? What did they eat, wear, think? Did they walk in the dark, as if this were nothing? If there were no virals, what ed "Just a story I think he’s drea, Who knows? Who can say what the world used to be?

"I was actually hoping you’d wake up," she announced then, rising froot soh the barracks and into one of the storage roo, stacked with supplies: greasy tools, coils of wire and solder, plastic jugs of water and alcohol Alicia placed the lantern on the floor and stepped to one of the shelves and began to move its contents onto the floor

"Well? Don’t just stand there"

"What are you doing?"

"What does it look like? And keep your voice down-I don’t want to wake the others"

When they’d cleared everything away, Alicia instructed hi herself on the opposite side Peter realized that the back of the shelf was a sheet of plywood, concealing the wall behind it They pulled the shelf away

A hatch

Alicia stepped forward and turned the ring and swung it open A narrow, tubelike space, with a flight of ainst the wall The stairs vanished in the gloom, some unknowable distance over Peter’s head The air was stale and choked with dust