SWAB (A Young Adult Dystopian Novel) by Heather Choate Read Free Book Online Page A

minutes.”
    “Please don’t leave,” Nathan begged, gripping my arm tightly.
    “I have to,” I said, pulling his fingers off and rubbing my arm. “I’ll be right back. I promise.” I didn’t want to leave him alone in that room. I didn’t want to face that big house by myself, but I knew that if I was to keep Nathan safe, I’d have to get some supplies. “If anyone comes,” I instructed, “use the self-defense moves we learned in karate. You remember how, right?” I wiped the tears and snot off his chin.
    “I don’t know—” he said, unsure.
    I lowered my head even with his. “You can do it. I need you to be tough now, okay?”
    “Okay.”
    I headed upstairs first. My hands shook badly as I flung open my closet door and dug under the stuffed animals for my school backpack. It still had end-of-the-year homework in it. I dumped the folders onto the floor and grabbed a couple of shirts and pairs of pants off their hangers. Underwear, socks, and the fishing knife my Dad gave me last Christmas went in next.
    Then I went to Nathan’s room. His backpack was harder to find, buried under his bed with about a hundred G.I. Joes. After filling his bag with clothes and Maba, his stuffed monkey, I threw in our toothbrushes and some toothpaste. What else? The packs were nearly full, but I knew that a couple pairs of socks and a fishing knife would hardly keep us safe. And what about food?
    I didn’t know where we were going, only that we couldn’t stay in the house. I saw Nathan’s fishing pole sitting against the wall in the hall where he’d left it the day before, so I grabbed that, too. I thought about getting mine from the garage, but I didn’t want to load us down with too much. One should be enough. I made sure to get my father’s leather work gloves, though. He’d always let me borrow them when I helped him weed. I figured I needed them now.
    A trip to the kitchen was inevitable, but I danced around in the hall outside it, unwilling to go in. I won’t go near the fridge, I told myself, but the food was in the pantry.
    Just go, and don’t look. I took a deep breath and plunged into the kitchen like it was an icy lake. Moving quickly, I went for the kitchen knives first, wrapping them in a hand towel and putting them into my bag. I decided to put one in my pocket. Next, I got two water bottles from above the sink and filled them to the top. Tears streamed down my face, making it hard to see.
    Turning, I made myself move to the pantry. I forced my eyes to look at the white of the pantry door, nothing else. I stopped about three feet from it and had to lean over awkwardly to turn the handle. I felt the weight of my mother’s head move across the floor as I pulled the door open, heard the whisper of her hair against the tile.
    With the door open just enough, I reached in and started grabbing things: a box of granola bars, a couple cans of soup, a bag of cereal. I quickly put them into Nathan’s bag, grabbed my dad’s keys off the counter, and left the kitchen forever.
    I made us both go to the bathroom and put on a change of clothes. Then, I gave Nathan his bag and put mine on.
    “Where are we going?” he asked. His tears stopped, his face hollow and ashen.
    “I don’t know,” I answered and grabbed the minivan keys off their hook by the door. “Let’s go.”
    When we left the house, we left the door open behind us. But Nathan turned and went back. He closed the door softly and made sure it locked.
    “It just feels right,” he said.
    I agreed. It was like closing a coffin.
    Being out of the house in the open, made me nervous in a different way. Though the street was oddly calm and quiet, I was afraid that my parents’ murderers would appear any moment. Where are the sirens? The police? The firefighters? It was eerily still. “Let’s go,” I told Nathan and we walked toward the van. He took his usual seat in the back. We usually argued over who got the front, but I let him be. I sat down in