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Synopsis: Your mother hollers that you’re going to miss the bus. She can see it coming down the street. You don’t stop and hug her and tell her you love her. You don’t thank her for being a good, kind, patient mother. Of course not—you launch yourself down the stairs and make a run for the corner.
Only, if it’s the last time you’ll ever see your mother, you sort of start to wish you’d stopped and did those things. Maybe even missed the bus.But the bus was barreling down our street, so I ran.Fourteen kids. One superstore. A million things that go wrong.
In Emmy Laybourne’s action-packed debut novel, six high school kids (some popular, some not), two eighth graders (one a tech genius), and six little kids trapped together in a chain superstore build a refuge for themselves inside. While outside, a series of escalating disasters, beginning with a monster hailstorm and ending with a chemical weapons spill, seems to be tearing the world—as they know it—apart.
SNEAK PEEK
(from Dean's perspective)
(from Dean's perspective)
We were in shaken awake around eight.
It wasn't that thing that happens where you're dreaming that you're running through a forest chasing a fox or something and suddenly a tree grabs you and starts shaking you and you begin to wake up and realize it's actually your mom shaking you and your alarm is going off and you're late for school.
Not at all.
This was: You're in a sleeping bag on the floor of a giant superstore and suddenly the floor starts pitching and heaving and you're getting bounced around like a piece of popcorn in a hot pan and things start falling off the shelves and everyone is screaming and scared out of their minds and you're one of everyone.
It was more like that.
And here's the hilarious part--it was a FORESHOCK. Apparently, that's what happens when you're about to experience an 8.2. It's an earthquake so big it sends messengers ahead.
"Get to the Pizza Shack!" Niko shouted. "Under the tables!"
I grabbed Alex with one hand and picked up Ulysses the first grader with the other and ran for it. Stuff was falling off the shelves or had fallen. From the Food section and elsewhere you could hear glass bottles crashing off the shelves and onto the floor.
The rest of the kids were right behind me. I saw that all the big kids had grabbed one or two little ones. Astrid was escorting Josie. Tripping and falling and hurrying as best as we could, we made it to the Pizza Shack and got under the tables. They were bolted down, which was why Niko wanted us there.
"We'll be safer here," I told Alex and Ulysses, whose nose was streaming wet snot.
"Hold tight to the table legs," Niko shouted.
"This is dumb," Brayden growled. "The earthquake us over. Why are we hiding here-"
And his voice began to shake.
Because the ground had begun to shake.
And he sure did grab himself a table leg.
The quake was less scary than the foreshock, in my opinion. We were ready for the quake. We were awake already.
We started shaking and shaking and you could hear things falling and crashing all around us.
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Synopsis: Trapped in a superstore by a series of escalating disasters, including a monster hailstorm and terrifying chemical weapons spill, brothers Dean and Alex learned how to survive and worked together with twelve other kids to build a refuge from the chaos. But then strangers appeared, destroying their fragile peace, and bringing both fresh disaster and a glimmer of hope.
Knowing that the chemical weapons saturating the air outside will turn him into a bloodthirsty rage monster, Dean decides to stay in the safety of the store with Astrid and some of the younger kids. But their sanctuary has already been breached once. . . .
Meanwhile, Alex, determined to find their parents, heads out into the darkness and devastation with Niko and some others in a recently repaired school bus. If they can get to Denver International Airport, they might be evacuated to safety. But the outside world is even worse than they expected. . . .
SNEAK PEEK
(from Alex perspective)
Mornings outside go like this: You are in the dark and it looks like night. Like a very dark night with no moon at all. But this part of your brain in a timer, waiting for the sky to get light at the edge. That kind of muddy gray sky, before it even gets light. You're just waiting for that and waiting for that and it never comes.
By my watch, I knew it was 6:07 a.m.
But it was dark, dark, dark.
Morning was never coming, it seemed.
Niko was feeling better, thank God.
He got everyone up, except for Josie. She was still out cold.
Brayden seemed the same as before. Still not really conscious but not dead either. Sahalia kept squeezing a little of Gatorade into his mouth every once and a while.
Sahalia, Batiste, and I had to get out and push the bus out of the ravine.
The ground was very muddy, with slime on it from the decaying leaves and grasses.
Niko was mad that Sahalia, Batiste, and I have our masks off, but really it's impossible to hear what anyone says with them on. At least when we talked to him or to the little kids, one side of the conversation could be understood.
And of course, we weren't the best choice to push the bus, but even Niko had to agree that we were the right ones, since we're all type B.
We rocked and rocked the bus. The wheels had a thin layer of that fuzzy white mold on them, but it didn't seem to matter. Eventually the bus rolled forward and got traction on some underbrush.
We got back on.
"Ugh," Sahalia said, wiping some muck off the front of her top layer, a men's Windbreaker, probably 5 sizes too big. "It reeks out there."
"I think it's decayed vegetation," I told her.
"Whatever, geek," she said as she plopped herself down next to Brayden.
If we were the two last people on earth--not, by the way, as statistically implausible as it was a month ago--she would still be rude and I would still pretend that it didn't bother me.
Niko drove. We were driving along the bottom of the ditch, parallel to the highway. The hill we had slid down was not too high. I would estimate 15-20 feet.
I was thinking about Dean. I knew he'd be worried. We should have made it to DIA by now. We should have sent a rescue party by now.
Soon Niko pointed to a big road sign.
We had to pick whether to take I-25 to I-225 or to go right and take the tollway.
"The tollway is more direct," I said. "But it will probably be more used, because other people would also choose the most direct route. On the other hand, I-225 runes through more densely populated areas, I think, because it gets closer to Denver."
Niko thought for a minute and then, without saying anything, he took the toll.
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Synopsis: The stunningly fierce conclusion to Emmy Laybourne's Monument 14trilogy.
The survivors of the Monument 14 have finally made it to the safety of a Canadian refugee camp. Dean and Alex are cautiously starting to hope that a happy ending might be possible.
But for Josie, separated from the group and trapped in a brutal prison camp for exposed Type Os, things have gone from bad to worse. Traumatized by her experiences, she has given up all hope of rescue or safety.
Meanwhile, scared by the government's unusual interest in her pregnancy, Astrid (with her two protectors, Dean and Jake in tow) joins Niko on his desperate quest to be reunited with his lost love Josie.
Author Emmy Laybourne reaches new heights of tension and romance in this action-packed conclusion to the Monument 14 trilogy.
SNEAK PEEK
(from Josie Miller's perspective)
I keep to
myself.
The Josie who took care of everyone – that girl’s dead. She
was killed in an Aspen grove off the highway somewhere between Monument and
Denver. She was killed along with a deranged soldier.
I killed her when I killed the solider.
I am a girl with a rage inside that threatens to boil over every
minute of the day.
All of us here are O types who were exposed. Some of us have
been tipped into madness by the compounds. It depends on how long you were
exposed. I was out there for more than 2 days, best we can piece together.
Myself, I work on self-control every moment of the waking day. I
have to be on guard against my own blood.
I see others allow it to take over. Fights erupt. Tempers flare
over an unfriendly glance, a stubbed toe, a bad dream. If someone gets
really out of control, the guards lock them in the study rooms at Hawthorn. If
someone really, really loses it, sometimes the guards take them and they don’t
come back.
It makes it worse that we’re just a little stronger than we were
before. Tougher. The cycle of healing, a bit speeded up. Not so much you
notice, but old ladies not using their canes. Pierced ear holes closing
up. More energy in the cells, is what the inmates say.
They call it the O advantage.
It’s our only one.
Awesome sneak peaks! Have you seen the official cinematic book trailer for Monument 14: Savage Drift yet??
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