After the First Death by Robert Cormier Read Free Book Online

name is Miro,” he said. He realized that this was perhaps the first time he had ever introduced himself to anyone. Usually, he was anonymous. Or Artkin would say “The boy’s name is Miro” when they encountered strangers.
    Kate pretended that she hadn’t learned his name earlier. “And your friend’s name?” she asked.
    “Artkin,” he said.
    The huge man outside the bus was now testing the lock. Kate didn’t care to know
his
name. His name would only establish his existence in her life, and he was so ugly and menacing that she didn’t want to acknowledge him at all. She glanced at the van and saw the black fellow at the wheel, staring into space, as if in a dream world of his own, not really here in the van, on the bridge.
    “Please,” Kate said. “May I see the child?”
    Miro shrugged. “We are going to be together for a while on this bus. You should call me Miro and I should call you Kate.” Miro found the words difficult to say, particularly to a girl and an American girl at that. But Artkin had told him to win her confidence.
    The girl didn’t answer. Miro, flustered, turned away and then beckoned her to follow him. He led her to the center of the bus. “She wants to see him,” he told Artkin.
    Kate drew a deep breath and looked down. The child lay still, as if asleep. His pallor had a bluish tint. Miro also looked, seeing the child from the girl’s viewpoint, wondering what she thought. Had she ever seen a dead person before? Probably not; not in her well-scrubbed American world. The girl shuddered slightly. “Come,” Miro said. She looked grateful as she turned away fromthe child. At least she had not fainted. Her flesh was pale, however, and this somehow made her blond hair more pronounced, more radiant. He realized that American boys would consider her beautiful.
    Artkin accompanied them to the front of the bus.
    “What happens now?” Kate asked. Would she ever forget that blue child on the bus seat?
    “As far as your part is concerned, miss,” Artkin said, “it will consist mostly of waiting. For a few hours. We have sent messages and are waiting for a reply. Meanwhile, you will care for the children. They will be awakening soon. I want you to reassure them. Most of all, keep them in control, keep them quiet.”
    Kate closed her eyes. The migraine reasserted itself, digging into her forehead. The blue face of the dead child floated in the darkness. She realized she didn’t even known his name. Escaping from that face, she opened her eyes to confront the two strangers before her. The full import of what was going on suddenly rushed into full and terrible comprehension.
    “I know what you are,” she said. She did not recognize her voice: it was strident, off key, too loud in her ears, the voice of a stranger. “You’re holding us hostage and you’ve made demands. You’re going to hold us here until the demands are met. You’re—” She faltered, unable to say the word. Hijackers. Her mind was crowded with newspaper headlines and television newscasts of hijackings all over the world, gunfire and explosions, innocent persons killed, even children.
    “This is no concern of yours,” Artkin said, his voice cold, the words snapping like whips. “The children are your concern. Nothing else. See to the children.”
    She drew back as if he had struck her.
    Turning to Miro, Artkin said: “It is time for the masks.”
    She saw them take the masks out of their jackets. They pulled them over their heads. They had suddenly become grotesque, monstrous, figures escaped from her worst nightmares. And she saw her own doom in the masks.
    She wet her pants so badly that the trickles down her thighs were like the caresses of moist and obscene fingers.

part

3
    Another picture postcard from the collected works of Benjamin Marchand: Nettie Halversham.
    Color the postcard to do justice to Nettie Halversham’s beauty: eyes the color of bruises, hair like the shining black of old classic automobiles,