Page 48 of Five Survive

“How, without actually getting shot?” Simon replied. “Are we going to build a fake human or something?”

“That’s exactly what we’re going to do, Simon.” The trace of asmile in Oliver’s voice now. Red bet he somehow thought it was all his idea, even though it was Reyna, Maddy and Simon who’d reasoned it out. “Red,” he said then, like he’d read her thoughts. “Can you hit the lights.”

She stepped toward the refrigerator and reached up to click the lights back on. Even on their lowest setting, the brightness of the dim overhead lights made her eyes water, rebuilding the RV and the six of them from the darkness.

Maddy squinted at Red, a nod to ask if she was okay. Red nodded back.

“And what are we going to build a fake human out of?” Reyna asked now, not disguising the doubt in her voice.

“Well, we already have that closet door.” Oliver gestured back to his shield. “That could be the body, if we put one of my hoodies overit.”

“The mop!” Simon said, louder than he needed to. “We snap it in half and those could be arms, inside the sleeves.”

Oliver nodded, considering it.

“Oh,” Maddy interjected. “I have a beach ball in my suitcase. Not blown up yet, but that could be the head, right?”

“That could work,” Oliver said.

No, it couldn’t, what were they all talking about? Even on her worst day, Red didn’t look like a closet door with stick mop-arms and a giant beach ball head. The shooter would never believe it was one of them; he had a telescopic sight mounted to his rifle. But she didn’t say anything. How could she say anything? That was part ofthe plan.Red looked over at Arthur and Reyna. They were silent, like her.

Oliver clapped and, my god, he had to stop doing that.

“Right, Maddy, can you go grab one of my hoodies? The green one. Reyna, grab that mop. Simon, bring the duct tape.”

“Red, come with me,” Maddy said, pulling on Red’s sleeve. She didn’t want to walk into the back bedroom on her own. And, sure, because even though this RV was thirty-one feet, Red had been in the same ten feet for far too long.

She followed Maddy, past the kitchen and the bunks, through the open door into the back bedroom. Maddy flicked on the light.

The black-and-white patterned sheets on the bed were crumpled under the weight of a blue suitcase.

“That must be Reyna’s,” Maddy said, walking past the foot of the bed to the large closet along the back right, as they faced it.

“This isn’t going to work,” Red said, now that it was just the two of them and Oliver couldn’t hear. “This plan. The shooter will never believe it’s a person.”

“He might,” Maddy said, reaching for the handle and pulling the closet open. There was a long mirror on the inside of the door. Red hadn’t known it was there. She flinched as it doubled the people in the room, catching eyes with herself over Maddy’s shoulder.

“Would you think closet-beach-ball-mop-man was real if you saw him out and about?” she asked, looking at Maddy’s reflection.

“I might, at a quick glance.”

“Why don’t you just ask him out while you’re at it? You’d have cute kids.”

Red made a face at her in the mirror, eyes wide and nostrils flared, wrinkles disappearing the freckles on her nose. Mom used to pull that same face at her, in the mirror opposite their kitchen table, making Red laugh over sugarcoated cornflakes. Red pushed the memory away. It wasn’t Mom in the mirror, it was her and Maddy, and that didn’t help anybody. It never did. Put her away. Red needed to focus on tonight, on the people still here, not the ones who were gone and never coming back.

Maddy bent low, back to her, blocking the view. But in the mirror, Red could see Maddy’s double, rifling through Oliver’s open suitcase on the floor of the closet.

Two Maddys, two Reds.

Wait a second.

“The mirror,” Red said quietly, not sure yet, the idea still forming. “Can’t we use the mirror to make a double of one of us? A reflection.” She tried to imagine it in her head, placing the mirror at the door of the RV, re-creating the angles. She couldn’t quite get there on her own, not all the way. “At the door. Can’t we…” She trailed off, but Maddy’s reflection had straightened up now, staring her dead in theeye.

“That’s brilliant,” she said.

Brilliant.Not a word people often used about Red or her ideas. She felt heat rise to her cheeks, but it wasn’t a bad feeling like it normallywas.

“Good job, Red.” Maddy sounded so much like her mom when she said that. “Guys!” she shouted now, turning away from the mirror so Red could see her real face. “Scratch the fake human plan, the sniper will never believe it. We’ve got a better idea!”

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