Monument 14

Emmy Laybourne’s 2012 novel, Monument 14, charts the experiences of a group of fourteen students in the wake of a mega-tsunami. The story takes place in the year 2024 in the city of Monument, Colorado. As both grade-school and high-school students ride the bus to school one morning, they encounter a hailstorm, which causes their school bus to crash. Mrs. Wooly, the middle-school bus driver, drives her bus into the Greenway, a superstore, and aids the grade schoolers as well as the high schoolers into the store, to seek shelter. The driver leaves the students to go get help, and they must survive on their own for the ensuing twelve days.

16-year-old social outcast Dean Grieder narrates the novel. Mrs. Wooly leaves Jake Simonson, a popular football player, in charge until her return, but the group decides to elect a new leader, Niko Mills, a social outcast with survival skills. Niko enacts initiatives to help the group clean up the store and assess all of their supplies. The students learn that a toxic chemical has been leaked from an aerospace defense facility, and it affects people in different ways, depending on their blood type. The students seal up all the doors and stop using contaminated water.

On the third day, Astrid Heyman, Dean’s crush, abandons the group and stays on her own in a space in the ceiling. Dean takes over her job of cooking meals for all of the students. Josie, who sustained a head wound during the hailstorm, acts as a mother figure to the young children, making sure they are safe and content.

One night, Dean witnesses Jake and Astrid partially undressed and kissing in the kitchen. Jake beats Dean up when the latter drunkenly reveals what he has seen. Dean later takes pain pills with Jake, and the two get high. 

On the tenth day, the students allow two outsiders, Mr. Appleton and Robbie, to enter the store. Robbie fixes the bus and becomes close to the children. Later, he physically violates 13-year-old Sahalia. In the ensuing fight, Robbie shoots Brayden, and Josie shoots and kills Robbie. Jake ventures out into the world to assess the situation and see if the hospital is open and able to help Brayden. The hospital is closed, and Jake decides to abandon the group.

Niko commands the group to leave on the newly-repaired bus and move towards Denver Airport, from which people are being evacuated to Alaska. Astrid confesses that she is pregnant, and Dean agrees to stay with her and Chloe (another O type). The youngest children, Caroline and Henry McKinley, decide to stay with Dean and Astrid as well. Dean tells his younger brother, Alex, to find their parents and have them come back to the Greenway to rescue him and the others.