The Atmospherians by Alex McElroy (digital ebook reader txt) 📕

“That’s all you need?” Dyson asked. “A list of names and you leave us alone?”

“That or a bribe.” He winked.

“Aren’t you a cop?” I asked.

“Fire department.”

Dyson lowered the kitchen table from the wall. He sat down and started to write.

“First and last,” Art said. “And middle if you got ’em.”

“No need,” I said. I slid the legal pad away from Dyson. “No need to go through the trouble of searching your database, Art. It must be time-consuming and expensive.”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.”

“It’s okay, Sasha,” said Dyson. “All our men are clean.”

“We have a man who’s been in a horde,” I said. “I’ll give you his name.”

“What man?” Dyson asked.

“What man?” Art asked.

“Leon Cranch,” I said.

For weeks, Dyson had criticized Leon for his reckless effort and drive and for saying Hoo-rah after every sentence he finished. Leon tried very hard, but he hadn’t finished above eleventh in a single one of our rankings. He purposefully coughed as others were trying to speak. He was expendable to me—a sacrifice worth protecting Peter. Dyson chewed his cheek, deciding whether Leon was expendable to him. I grew hot with shame watching him make up his mind. He might not have liked Leon, but he wouldn’t toss him aside. He didn’t give up on people—if he did, The Atmosphere wouldn’t exist. I wouldn’t be here.

Art pulled a notebook out of his pocket. “How do you spell it?” he asked me.

I gave my feet a long look.

Dyson said: “Leon is spelled how you’d expect it. And that’s Cranch with a C.”

“He admitted it during our therapy session,” I said, rejuvenated by Dyson’s collusion. “He was in a gruesome horde a few months ago. One of those violent ones.”

“What did they do?” Art asked.

“Please don’t make her repeat it,” said Dyson.

“My apologies,” Art said. He jotted down Leon’s name in a notebook he kept in his breast pocket. “I’ll still have to run it through the database.”

“You can do that or you can trust us,” I said.

“The law’s a precise science,” he said.

“It’s also a timely science,” said Dyson. “And if the hordes are as dangerous as you say it’s best we get Leon out of here quickly. Tonight.”

“We don’t want him infecting the others,” I said. “That’s how it happens, right? One man turning makes the other men turn. And relapse rates, for horders, it’s something like—”

“Eighty-seven percent,” Art said. “We need to fix it before there’s no fixing it.” He unclipped a walkie-talkie from his belt and stepped outside to call for backup.

After weeks of drifting apart, I’d forgotten the fun of scheming with Dyson. We were children again, back on the bus lying to the driver. “This is so perfect,” I said.

“Who are you hiding?” Dyson asked.

“Come on. You’ve hated Leon since he got here.”

“Because he’s easy to hate,” he said. “That doesn’t mean he was in a horde.”

“Art wanted a name, we gave him a name. Art gets to be a hero.” I deepened my voice, scare-quoted: “‘To protect the fine people of Johnsonburg.’ And we’re off the hook. We cut down to twelve—the safe number—and free ourselves of the worst man in the camp.”

“Art said you weren’t here when he got here.”

“Art says so many things.”

“Where were you?”

“So this is what we’re doing? We’re enjoying ourselves a minute ago and now you’re interrogating me. Like I’m a criminal. Like I’m breaking curfew. Fine, Dyson: I went for a walk to get fresh air and alone time. Barney’s a monster when you’re not here.”

“The last few nights I woke up and you were gone. Midnight. One AM. Are you meeting one of the men? Maybe Leon? Maybe something bad happened between you.”

“Maybe I don’t like listening to you make yourself sick, Dyson. Maybe it hurts me to hear you because I don’t know how to make you stop.” It was one of those rare, invincible lies: the lie so entangled with truth it may as well have been true. No, I didn’t leave to escape the sound of him purging—but the sound did hurt me; I didn’t know how to convince him to stop.

Dyson flopped onto the couch, hands in his hair. “If something happened between you two you can tell me,” he said, genuine care in his voice.

“Something happened between us,” I said, so monotone he’d have to know I was lying.

“Thank you,” he said. He needed a reason to send Leon away.

Art popped his head into the cabin. “The boys will be here in an hour.”

Randy and Peter pounded on the door in the dead of the night. “Leon!” they shouted. “They dragged Leon away!”

Dyson and I stood in the doorway. “This couldn’t wait until morning?” I asked. Randy’s presence disturbed me. Only Peter knew the path to our cabin. He’d eaten here as a reward for placing first in the rankings—a privilege he should’ve known better than to share.

“Who took Leon?” Dyson asked.

“I guess it was the police,” Randy said. “Though only some were police. Maybe fire department? They said they were both. They said Leon was in a man horde.”

“How did Leon respond?” Dyson asked.

“It’s not the type of thing someone repeats,” said Randy. “Not in front of a lady.”

“We’re past that,” I said.

“He told the police he was innocent,” Peter said.

“And that he’d stick their dicks in wood chippers,” Randy added. “And feed their chippered dicks to their children.”

I cringed. “We get it,” I said.

“And what’s left he’ll feed to their mothers.”

“Just tell us where Leon is now,” said Dyson.

“They hit him a lot,” Peter muttered. His voice was creaky with hurt. When the light from inside hit his face I flinched seeing the pallor over his cheeks.

“To get him into the car, he means. Leon put up a fight. You know Leon. He wasn’t gonna let them take him away. They even gave him a crack on the skull.”

“He was bleeding,” said Peter.

“It didn’t look good at all. Not one bit. If we had phones