Half Lives by Sara Grant

and tucked the other eighteen hundred in my bra, nine hundred dollars nestled under each breast.
How’s that for a boob job?
    I let my backpack fall to the floor. ‘Here,’ I said as I shoved the wad of cash at him.
    ‘Where in Vegas? It’s a big place,’ he asked as he counted the money.
    I struggled to come up with an answer. I didn’t want to tell him about my secret hideout, not that I knew exactly where it was. I told him to use the road Mum had pointed to on the
map.
    ‘I need an address and zip code,’ he said with a twang of annoyance in his voice.
    ‘I’ll tell you the exact location when we get closer.’ I snuggled back in my seat as if I made these types of transactions all the time, but it felt like this was happening to
someone else.
    ‘I owe you big-time, Icie,’ Marissa said, extending her arms to give me a hug. The gesture exposed ragged circles that were a darker shade of pink under each armpit.
    ‘I’d say we’re even,’ I said, and dodged her embrace.
    ‘What are we gonna do in Vegas?’ Marissa asked, bouncing nervously on the seat. ‘I was just going to get a hotel in Phoenix and wait it out, but Vegas is closer to
home.’
    ‘I’ll get you to Vegas and then we’ll go our separate ways.’ I hated that I was ditching her again, but I had to. Mum had said to tell no one.
    Her eyes narrowed. ‘Whatever,’ she said after an awkwardly long pause. ‘If that’s the way you want it.’ She turned towards the window. I liked Marissa. I liked her
a lot. She’d probably saved my life back there. But I’d watched enough horror movies to know that, no matter how big the cast, only one person survives to the credits and lives to fight
the sequel.

    We were stranded in grid-locked traffic leaving Phoenix. I read every inch of copy in the taxi. I memorized his taxi driver ID number. I was told I couldn’t smoke in seven
languages – as well as by the universal circle-slash no smoking symbol. The car’s air-conditioning couldn’t keep up with the humid night air and three nervous bodies. I felt
trapped in an oven of body odour, cheap aftershave and the lingering hint of farts embedded in the cracked vinyl seat.
    Marissa tapped on the Plexiglass. ‘How about some music?’
    ‘Everyone calls me Lobo,’ our driver responded, shifting on his wood-beaded seat cover.
    ‘OK, Lobo,’ Marissa said, ‘how about some tunes?’
    ‘No radio,’ Lobo said.
    ‘What?’ Marissa scooted up and pointed to the dashboard radio. ‘Come on, man, I mean, Lobo. Help a girl out. I’m going mental.’
    ‘No, I mean there’s only static.’ He switched on the radio and turned up the volume so we could hear the white noise. He flipped through the stations. Static. Static and more
static. Marissa and I exchanged panicked expressions. All I could think about was that scene from
Poltergeist
where the little blonde girl stares into the flashing TV screen and says
‘They’re here,’ in a singsong voice.
    ‘Uh, that’s not good,’ Marissa whispered to me.
    We scanned the horizon, looking for fighter planes or flying saucers, but beyond the stream of traffic, the landscape was dark.
    ‘Do you know what’s going on?’ Marissa asked him. I shot her a dirty look. If I was going to get through this, I couldn’t think about what was happening out there. I
couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t think about Mum or Dad or Lola or anyone on the East Coast. I told myself that it was going to be OK. I didn’t want Lobo to tell me
anything to the contrary.
    ‘Before the radio went funny, there was a national bulletin about solar or electrical storms or something, but I don’t believe any of it. Someone else said that an asteroid was
heading for Earth. Another station reported that the military was being deployed. Officials said satellite problems. Who knows? We are too close to Hollywood. Everyone has big imaginations.
Everyone panics.’ He glanced at us in the rear-view mirror. ‘Like you