Falling From the Sky (10 page)

“These things are my favorite,” Micah says, waving the package at me.

I half-shrug. “Never shot ‘em.”

“You’re probably more of the bottle rocket type. Let me guess. You like the loud pop, right?” he assumes.

I never was the bottle rocket type. My dad was but never me. The loud snap scared me as a kid, and they sucked because they just popped and sparked – no cool effects. My dad would light it and run across the yard like it was going to explode in his face. What a twist of fate – my dad crashing down in his own version of a rocket…falling from the sky, snapping and sparking into a fire that did explode in his face.

“Nah, never did bottle rockets either,” I tell him, trying to shake away the image of my dad’s crash. “What’s up with you labeling me like that again?”

Micah smiles at me over his armload of Roman Candles. “Sorry. Let’s reword it. Favorite firework?”

“I don’t have one,” I admit.

When we went to the park for the town’s firework show, my mom made me sit in the car so the fireworks couldn’t come down and burn me. I was like a damn bug trapped under the glass of a science class insect collection. This holiday was never a high point in my childhood.

“My mom was pretty overprotective. All I ever did was sparklers,” I say.

I glance around the table in front of me to avoid Micah’s eyes. The packaging of the fireworks remind me of comic books, with their “snap!” and “pow!” speech bubbles. Sparklers were a miracle in themselves. I’d wait for Mom or Dad to light one, and then I’d take off across the yard slinging embers and stars into the night, like I held a massive stick of fire and was a Spartan warrior. I feel lame thinking back on it, but Jordan isn’t even allowed to hold sparklers, so it could’ve been worse for me.

“Well, that sucks,” Micah says.

He grabs a few more small packs of assorted fireworks and drops his armload on the checkout counter. I’m tempted to tell him everything in this warehouse will be more than half price after tomorrow, but he’s too excited and already slinging cash onto the countertop. I refuse to be the one who burns out his sparkler right now.

Micah leads me directly to the carousel when we get to the mall. He says he’s planned our entire weekend, and if all goes as planned, we’ll knock out three horses over the course of three days. My heart sinks a little when he tells me this. I’ve actually been enjoying these horses non-dates with him. It’s been the perfect escape from camp, home, and my own brain. The thought of rushing through three more horses this quickly makes my insides knot up. We’ll be halfway done with his horses by Sunday night. If he plans any more three-horse weekends, we won’t even have a reason to hang out anymore.

A sign hangs over the token slots, stating that the worker will be back in fifteen minutes. Micah unlocks the gate with his own key and walks around to the obvious U.S.A. Horse. Two American flags hang on the saddle, and yellow jewels decorate the blue bridle.

“This is Saturday night’s horse,” Micah says. “Fourth of July. It’ll be fun, I promise. Zoey’s boyfriend is coming over, so you won’t have to feel weird being the only white guy this time.”

I’m so thankful he smiles when he tells me this. Even more so, I’m thankful Zoey likes white guys. I had planned on being there regardless, but I can breathe a bit easier knowing I won’t be the lone white kid on the reservation after his ancestors stole America.

“Over here, we have Saturday afternoon’s horse, before the cookout,” he says.

We stop in front of the Fish Horse. Its tan hair is somewhat standing up on its head, sort of like the mohawk horse, but more like it changed its mind halfway through the styling. The saddle is lavender and pale green with two grayish-green fish hanging from the back. A fish with a long frog tongue sprouts from the front of the saddle.

“Are we going fishing?” I ask him.

I know he’s told me that his adventures aren’t as literal as the horses, but the U.S.A. Horse is pretty literal, and I feel like this one has to be too.

“Not really but we are going to the river,” he says. “Don’t ask so many questions. I might feel sorry for you and answer them. I like hearing your crazy theories too much to be honest with you.”

My crazy theories. He doesn’t seem to realize that every crazy theory leads to my death, and my death is usually due to something he’s done. Maybe he’s just waiting until the tenth horse to write me off for good.

“And this is Sunday’s,” he says, pointing to the Angel Horse.

The horse has a mini mohawk, cut in short round stubs rather than wild spikes. Pink roses hang around its neck like a necklace. The flowers remind me of the big icing flowers on birthday cakes that look pretty but taste like chalk. A winged sphinx is painted onto the saddle, surrounded by pink jewels. The back of the saddle is encrusted with a cherub’s face and a pair of silver wings below it. It has “girl” written all over it, but I seriously doubt Micah plans on scoping out chicks all day Sunday. I don’t even want to ask about it, and that’s a first.

We pull back up in front of Micah’s house after spending the last fifteen minutes behind a mom with three kids arguing at the candy stand. I hope Micah’s blue rock candy is worth it.

Zoey’s car is here, parked next to a white van that screams ‘serial killer!’ The words Krazy Korn are painted in black scratchy letters down the side, the Ks painted backward. A giant piece of upside down candy corn is painted behind the logo.

Micah reads my face. “It’s Kyle’s van, Zoey’s boyfriend,” he clues me in.

“Is he…Krazy Korn?” I ask.

Micah’s laughter echoes under the tin roof that hovers over his front porch.

“No, he’s just Kyle,” he says. “Krazy Korn was a rip off of candy corn, and once the guy was found out, he had all kind of lawsuits against him and had to shut down his business.”

“People around here must take their candy seriously,” I say.

Micah holds up his white paper sack of rock candy.

“We do, thank you very much,” he says.

He reaches for the doorknob but still doesn’t lead us inside.

“Kyle needed a van for his equipment, and Mr. Krazy Korn needed any money he could get his hands on, so he sold it for cheap. Kyle just never bothered to cover up the logo,” Micah says.

He pushes the door open. The high-pitched shrieks of five-year-olds flood my ears. Abby and Jade bounce with that kind of energy only little kids have, and Micah hasn’t even given them candy yet. They spot the sack in his hand and rush over to him, trying to out-squeal the other.

Zoey hollers from the couch, but whatever order she barked at her daughters falls deaf to their shrieks. Micah hands them each a stick of pink crystallized sugar, and they rush away from him as quickly as they’d attacked him.

“Kyle, this is Ridge. Ridge, Kyle,” Micah introduces us.

Kyle leans off the couch and holds his arm out for the obligatory handshake. He looks nothing like I’d imagined one of Zoey’s boyfriends to look. He’s pale with sandy brown hair, and he really needs to shave. He’s too skinny. I always pictured Zoey with a physical trainer or pro athlete. Not that I could pass for her boyfriend either but I could do better than Kyle.

Micah exchanges a few words with his sister and then motions me along with him. I give a half-wave to Zoey’s pack and follow Micah into his bedroom.

“He seems kind of weird,” I say, keeping my voice low.

Micah points at the wall and lips ‘Kyle?’ at me. I nod.

“He’s one of those quirky computer guys,” Micah tells me. “He works at a computer store in town, and he rips off a bunch of high school kids on the side. He films all the eighteen-plus concerts and sells the footage to kids who want to fit in and pretend they were there. It’s rumored he bootlegs movies and stuff too.”

“Kyle the Ripper,” I say under my breath.

Micah hears me despite my attempt to keep the comment to myself.

“Oh my God, that’d be the best logo to replace Kandy Korn with,” he says. “Kyle the Ripper – ripping you off one concert at a time.” He motions his hands through the air, like he’s already envisioning a newly painted van.

“So what’s the van for?” I ask, lying back on Micah’s bed.

“Sound equipment, recording equipment, video stuff. It’s basically his workshop. And he can travel around in it, so it’s great for business, or so he says. He has a laptop in the back so people can sample his stuff before buying,” Micah says.

He tosses me an Xbox controller. “You up for another level or two?”

Until Micah, I never thought I’d play Xbox again, but I’m honing my zombie skills a little more each day.

CHAPTER NINE

The
Zombie Sanctuary 3
logo is frozen on Micah’s TV screen. Even the logo is different on the zombie side. Instead of a slimy zombie running from a group of men in lab coats, it’s one lab tech cornered in his own laboratory with four zombies gliding toward him.

“Morning, Jump Shot,” Micah says as he towel-dries his hair.

I reach over and grab my cell phone off of the nightstand. It’s already noon. “Damn. Why’d you let me sleep so late?”

I fall back onto my pillow, and Micah sits next to me on the bed.

“Because we stayed up all night slaying humans,” he says. “You looked like you needed the extra sleep. And you know, I wanted to shower first. You take too long. And you use up the hot water.”

He gets up, pulls a T-shirt over his head, and leaves the room. As much as I could let myself sleep through the Fourth of July, I force myself out of Micah’s bed and toward the shower.

“It’s always been my favorite,” Micah says.

He twirls the candy in his mouth, nothing but the stick protruding from his lips. I watch him in the mirror as I dry my hair.

I don’t see the appeal in artificially-colored, sugary rocks. Aside from the blue ones, they don’t even have a taste, just a lingering of salty bitterness that you can taste by letting a few tears roll down your face and into your mouth.

“My Nanna was the one who got me into these things,” he says, his words half-mumbled as he pulls the rocky stick out of his mouth. “One time, she brought home two treasure chests – one for me, one for Zoey – and she said they were full of diamonds.”

He jerks open a dresser drawer next to me and pulls out a small, gold-painted treasure chest. “She filled it full of rock candy. She actually turned them opposite of each other, so the sticks were hidden, and it just looked like a chest full of jewels, like real treasure,” he says.

He pulls the remaining sticks out of the paper sack and weaves them perfectly against each other in the small chest. His eyes light up when he smiles and shows me his replica of his Nanna’s gift. The blue rocks sparkle under the light, and I can vaguely picture Micah at Abby and Jade’s age, excited over his treasure chest of blue diamonds.

“It was like the coolest thing I ever got…ever,” he says.

He removes his candy from the wooden chest and tucks it back into its hiding place in his top left dresser drawer. Then he looks over at me.

“Nanna used to always bring me rock candy. I mean, it’s only ninety-nine cents now, so I’m sure it was like super cheap back then,” he says.

My smile sinks into a frown. I don’t think Micah realizes how sad that sounds. The greatest gift he ever received in his life was a cheap treasure chest filled with even cheaper candy, which he loves to this day. He catches me staring and sticks his tongue out. How mature. Blue flecks of candy decorate his tongue like blue rose petals frozen in tiny blocks of ice.

“Don’t worry about fixing your hair,” he says. “You’re about to get it wet again anyway. Get dressed. We have another horse to get through before tonight.”

One thing I really hate about the reservation is the dirt roads and flying dust. It wraps around Micah’s truck, and again, I really can’t see where he’s taking me. I know the river is close by because the top of the bridge is slightly visible over the dust.

He pulls his truck off the main road onto a sandy clearing under a bridge. “This is the place,” he announces. “C’mon. Get out.”

Awful attempts at graffiti and spray painted names cover the bridge. I wonder if Jon and Tara really stayed together “4-ever” or if anyone really cares that Kris M. was here. In the sand is a pile of beer bottles, cigarette boxes, condom wrappers, aluminum cans, and even a pair of swimming trunks. A Bud Light box has been mashed into the sand, half-buried under the tire tracks of a four-wheeler.

“Seriously, Micah?” I ask. I refuse to walk any further. This place is disgusting.

His attempt at a serious face goes askew, and he erupts into laughter.

“It’s bad, right?” he asks me.

“Bad? It’s worse than bad,” I say.

I glance back down at the trash pile and instantly feel the need to bathe.

“Get in the truck. We’re going somewhere else,” Micah says.

“This isn’t where you were taking me?”

“Hell no. Get in.”

I don’t even try to hide my sense of relief, and Micah is having too much fun at my expense.

“That’s the civilian side of the river. It’s county land, so when all your camp buddies talk about going to the river, that’s where they’re going,” Micah says.

“They’re not my friends,” I remind him.

After seeing it for myself, I’m so glad I never went along with them. I cringe at the thought of the kinds of girls they’ve been meeting there.

“I’m taking you to my side of the river,” Micah says. “It’s on reservation land, and it’s a hell of a lot better than that.”

The dusty roads don’t faze me during this ride. I don’t really care where he takes me as long as I don’t have to hang out in a murky landfill all day. The hazy air fades as Micah’s truck hits a gravel road. Rocks sling beneath his tires. A bridge lies ahead of us. It’s the same one that stretches across the civilian side of the river, but it lacks the spray painted names.

Micah pulls his truck off to a clearing under the bridge. It’s still the same water and sand, but it’s cleaner here. There are no leftovers from the previous weekend’s booze fest or sexual exploits. For once, I don’t mind ditching the civilian lifestyle.