by Skylar Finn
“I say we stay here,” Sharon proposed. Her hands trembled at all times, but not to the point where she couldn’t feed herself. Nevertheless, it was a clear sign that her Parkinson’s was advancing quickly, and it was no telling when it would begin to affect her mind. “We have shelter and safety. That’s most important.”
“Food and water is most important,” Walt argued as he tossed a peanut into the air and caught it in his mouth. “What’s the point of having shelter if we starve to death or shrivel up from dehydration?”
“We can find more food and water around the airport,” Sharon said firmly.
“I’m not sure we can.” Keiko rested her palm on Sharon’s knee as she joined the conversation, almost as a silent apology for not agreeing with her new mentor. “Sharon, I’m sorry, but you haven’t been out there as much as I have. More and more people are drifting toward the airport, even with the fire department out front. The other planes are picked clean.”
“Then we’ll go inside,” Sharon said. “There must be something left inside.”
“Most of the buildings have burned down,” Walt replied. “There’s nothing much left to search, and even if there was, the other vagabonds would have already gotten there anyway.”
“But we have a home.” Sharon gestured around the plane. “It’s not much, but this tin can is keeping us safe. We have beds” —she patted the arm of her chair, which reclined far enough to be considered a bed— “and we have a roof over our heads. Surely we can find other places to scavenge.”
“She’s right,” Ailani said, finally jumping in. Though she’d gotten a few hours of sleep in first class beneath a scratchy complimentary in-flight blanket, she was still tired. Her body focused all its energy on healing the bite in her leg, and there wasn’t much left to engage heavily in discussion. “We’re safe here. That’s something.”
“How long will we be safe here?” Walt challenged. “How long before those other people hanging around the airport come looking at these planes for better shelter? We’re out in the open. We have no protection. It’s only a matter of time before we get booted out of here, and when that happens, we need a place to go.”
Sharon gnawed on a piece of expired beef jerky. “You said the two of you were staying in Malibu before you came here. Can we go back there?”
Walt shook his head. “We were staying at a friend’s house on the beach, and it got raided by morons. They kicked us out. We’ll never be able to put up a fight against them.”
“What about the studio?” Ailani suggested. “It’s not far from here and we have a key, so it would be safe from invaders. We also have leftover supplies in the storage closet there.”
“You have a locked safehouse?” Sharon asked, eyebrows raised. “Why didn’t you tell us before?”
Ailani took a measured sip of water. “It’s not exactly a safehouse. We just happen to have a key. Anyone who worked at the studio could get in, so it’s not foolproof.”
“It’s also in the middle of a bad part of town,” Walt added. “Drug addicts all over the place. I’m not sure we should go back there. People had already tried to break into the studio a few days ago. Who’s to say they won’t try again?”
Keiko unwrapped a second cereal bar. Walt gave her a look but didn’t comment. She was thin already, and she needed the cereal bar more than anyone else. “It’s going to be like that wherever we go,” she said. “If we stay here, we have shelter for an indefinite amount of time, but no food. If we go to your studio or whatever, we’ll have shelter and food, but for how long? What are our other options?”
“A hike up the coast,” Walt said.
Keiko and Sharon perked up, but Ailani rested her head back and closed her eyes. She already knew what Walt was going to say, and she doubted Sharon would want to go along with his plan.
“What kind of hike?” Sharon asked, her expression already suspicious. “What’s the end game?”
“My uncle lives in a commune up north,” Walt answered. “They’re completely off the grid. I doubt the EMP affected them at all. If we can reach them, it’s our best bet of survival. They’ll have food, water, shelter, toilets—”
Keiko whooped and pumped her fist. “What are we waiting for? Let’s pack up and go.”
“Slow down, kiddo,” Sharon said, patting Keiko’s shoulder. “We don’t know anything about this commune or how to get there.”
“But Sharon—”
“No, she’s right,” said Walt. “It won’t be easy getting there. From what I’ve managed to figure out, it would take us about two weeks to hike there, and that’s if we don’t run into any trouble on the way.”
“Which we most definitely would,” Sharon insisted. “The longer we spend out on the streets, the less chance we have of surviving. When was the last time you saw this commune anyway?”
“Years ago,” Walt admitted.
“And have you spoken to your uncle since then?”
“Many times,” Walt said confidently. “He still lives there.”
“Well, that’s something,” Sharon grumbled, “but it’s not a sure thing. We can’t trek halfway across the state if it’s not a sure thing.”
Walt crossed his arms. “Even if it means dying here?”
“We could die on the way there too.”
“Why don’t we take a vote?” Keiko suggested. Unlike Sharon, Walt, and Ailani, she still believed in the power of positivity. It was all over her face. “That’s how these things usually go, right?”
“Why not?” Walt said. “All for packing up and heading up the coast in hopes of finding my uncle’s commune?”
He raised his hand. So did Ailani. Then, after a quick look at her mentor, Keiko raised her hand too. Sharon, whose shaking hands remained firmly in her lap, gave Keiko a look of betrayal.
“I’m sorry,” Keiko said, her brow knitting together. She meant it in earnest. She took one of Sharon’s hands in hers. “But I don’t think staying here is the best option. If there’s a place where we can learn to take care of ourselves with limited resources, I think we should go for it. I’ve always been good out in nature anyway.”
Sharon covered Keiko’s hand, her bottom lip trembling. “What if I don’t make it? What if this” —she lifted her hand, and it shook more violently than before— “prevents me from keeping up? The three of you are young. It won’t be long before you see me as a burden. Two weeks of hiking is going to be hard for me. I won’t be able to keep your pace.”
Keiko’s jaw dropped. “Is that why you don’t want to go? Because you think I’m going to leave you behind to die? Sharon, come on. I pulled you from a burning plane. We’re bonded for life.”
“It’s not the same,” Sharon insisted. “You don’t see it now, but once we get going and you realize that I’m slowing you down, you’ll start whispering behind my back—”
“Stop,” Ailani said. She’d been half-listening to the entire conversation. Though she hadn’t felt like weighing in before, it seemed like a good time to do it now. She pointed to her bandaged leg. “Look at that. A few weeks ago, Keiko barely knew how to use a band-aid.”
“Hey!” Keiko protested. Her shoulders slumped. “Actually, I guess that’s true.”
“When we were kids, I was always patching Keiko up,” Ailani went on, leaning in to make sure Sharon was listening. “If she fell off her bike or hit a reef during a surf session, she came to me. I always did the best I could, but she still has scars from all her adventures. In a few weeks, you taught her how to clean, treat, and bandage a wound as severe as a wolf bite.”
Sharon sighed heavily. “I don’t see the point of this.”
“The point is that you are an asset to this team,” Ailani replied. “You have knowledge that we don’t in a field that is particularly important at this time. I can assure you we won’t leave you behind on the road because we need you. I don’t care about your condition. We’ll figure out a way to accommodate it.”
Walt, at first taken aback by Ailani
’s sudden dedication to the conversation, found his voice again. “I agree with Ailani. We need you, Sharon. Hell, my uncle’s commune could probably use a brain like yours too. Last time I was there, they had a shaman in charge of healthcare. A shaman. Case in point, we’re not going to leave you in the forest or on the street. You’re coming with us, and that’s that.” He paused and changed his tune. “Unless, of course, you don’t want to come with us. That’s entirely up to you. I’m a modern man. I don’t force women to do anything they don’t want to.”
Sharon let out a throaty, half-hearted chuckle. “No, I want to go. I’d rather be part of a community who knows what to do in a crisis like this than wait around to run out of supplies and die. If we can get there, we have a fighting chance, right?”
Walt squared his shoulders. “I think it’s our best shot.”
Sharon rubbed her eyes. She had almost begun to cry at the thought of losing Keiko. “I propose we spend two more days here. Walt and Ailani can regain their strength, and we can do one last sweep of the airport for supplies. Then we can start hiking. Is everyone in agreement? Can I see hands?”
She raised hers. Walt, Keiko, and Ailani followed suit.
While Walt and Ailani caught up on sleep, Keiko and Sharon combed the airport and surrounding areas for anything else they could use on their trip. They didn’t come up with much food or water wise, but there was plenty of luggage to provide them with extra clothes. Ailani, for one, was grateful to change her underwear even it meant wearing ones that didn’t belong to her. They pilfered raincoats, hiking boots, extra socks, and the luggage itself. They packed rolling bags full of as much water as possible, glad for a way to carry it with them. Water would be the most essential necessity for their journey and the hardest one to keep enough of.
Walt mapped out a route, as he was the best one for the job. He kept to the main roads where he could, but once they got farther north, they would have to deal with more wilderness. Ailani and Keiko were okay with this—they’d spent a lot of time hiking and chasing waterfalls back in Hawaii—but Sharon was less sure of her skill in the woods. Walt was on the fence. He’d spent enough time at his uncle’s commune to pick up some Boy Scout skills, but he had never been camping with absolutely no materials. They would have to build fires, find shelter, and possibly hunt game. The latter, Walt refused to do at all.
Two days’ rest passed too quickly for Ailani’s liking. Soon enough, the trip upstate loomed before them. They had packed their bags and come up with a plan to ration food. They had slept longer than usual that night, enjoying what might be their last night with a real place to sleep. They had dressed in the best hiking gear they could find. Now it was daylight, and the only thing left to do was to get going, but the foursome kept finding reasons to delay their departure.
“I have to pee again,” Ailani said, dropping her pack on the flightline. “Wait for me.”
“Again?” Walt sighed. “You went five minutes ago!”
“I’m nervous!”
After Ailani had done her business, Sharon had to go double-check that she’d packed all of the first aid materials she intended to bring with her. Then Walt forgot to bring his heavy-duty rain gear. Then Keiko had to go back for a bracelet, getting teary when the rest of the team insisted a piece of jewelry wasn’t important.
“It was Mom’s,” she said under her breath to Ailani once they had finally started walking away from the safety of the plane and across the flightline. “It’s the only thing I have of hers.”
Ailani felt a pang in her chest. “Can I see it?”
Keiko gave her the bracelet. It was made of polished purple stones. As Ailani rolled the beads between her fingers, heat built behind her eyes.
“It’s mine actually,” she told Keiko. “Mom bought it for me for my thirteenth birthday.”
Keiko wrinkled her brow. “Dad said—”
“Dad says a lot of things.” Ailani gave the bracelet back. “You shouldn’t listen to him as religiously as you do.”
“Is that why you haven’t come back to visit in so long?” the younger girl challenged. “Because of this weird problem you have with Dad?”
“Drop it, Keiko. I don’t want to talk about it.”
Keiko fell quiet, but it only lasted for a few steps. “He misses you, you know. You should make more of an effort to talk to him.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Ailani said. “If we ever find a cell phone that works, I’ll give him a call.”
Keiko, realizing she’d lost the argument, moved forward to hike with Sharon and Walt instead, leaving Ailani to bring up the rear on her own.
The first few days of the hike were uneventful. They cleared the airport and headed north, following Walt as he consulted his map. Ailani’s feet ached. The wound on her ankle had begun to scab over, but every time she lifted her foot, she could feel the skin stretching uncomfortably. Keiko kept the bandages as fresh as possible, but they couldn’t afford to change them every day since they didn’t know how long their first aid materials would last. Ailani found herself envying Walt’s bullet wound. At least it was on his arm and didn’t affect his ability to trek hours and hours across hard pavement. But Ailani wasn’t the slowest member of their party.
The extent of Sharon’s disease had not been as apparent at the airport as it did on the hike. Not only did she have to deal with tremors, but she moved with a slow, shuffling gait. Though Ailani and Walt had promised not to leave her behind, they had not realized how slow she actually was. To make matters worse, Sharon often experience muscle stiffness that threw her balance off. More than once, she stumbled or fell as a result. Keiko took it upon her to walk by Sharon’s side to keep the older woman upright.
At night, they took shelter wherever they could. Gas stations, abandoned houses, and empty hotel rooms served as their accommodations. Most nights, they ran into other people. The other vagabonds were always wary of the group at first, but the foursome was quick to make their intentions clear. They were only staying for one night, and they weren’t asking for any supplies. All but one time, that was enough to keep out of trouble. The exception had landed them their first night outside without a bed or a floor to sleep on. They rolled out yoga mats they’d pilfered from luggage at the airport and slept on the ground right off the main highway.
With every passing day, Sharon’s pace slowed even more. Without a comfortable bed each night, she had trouble falling asleep. Her tremors kept her awake, and Ailani heard her shuffling around for hours before she finally went still. Ailani didn’t sleep much herself. Her mind constantly shuffled through the possible outcomes of their trip. Most nights, she watched Keiko sleep. The most important thing was that her sister was still alive. Now, it was Ailani’s job to keep Keiko safe. That was what kept her moving.
At first, Keiko was the strongest of the pack. For the first few days, she supported everyone else. She held Sharon up, kept Walt in high spirits by distracting him with talk of fashion, and fetched water and food for whoever was hungry or thirsty in the moment. However, she avoided Ailani. She made a point not to be alone with her sister. Perhaps that was why it had taken so long to realize what was happening to Keiko.
On the fifth night of their journey, the sun went down before they cleared a long stretch of road. There was nothing in sight for miles, and they were surrounded by nothing but trees and dirt. Walt wanted to keep going, but the rest of the group was worn out. They had no choice but to make camp in the nearby woods. Walt scouted out a sizable clearing for them to sleep in.
“Almost halfway there,” he said, dropping his pack at the base of a tree and rolling his shoulders out. “It hasn’t been too bad so far, right?”
Keiko helped Sharon sit with her back against another. Then she rolled out the older woman’s makeshift bed for her. Ailani didn’t bother with her yoga mat. She simply sat on the ground and let out a relieved groan as she pried off her hiking boots.
“Speak for yourself,” she said, examining her feet. “I th
ink my blisters have blisters.”
“Fresh socks,” Sharon said. “Don’t wear the dirty ones again.”
“Mm-hmm.” Ailani watched Keiko roll out her own bed. “You okay, Ko? You look kind of pale.”
Keiko brushed off Ailani’s question. “I’m fine. Where’s the food?”
Walt tossed his bag across the clearing to Keiko. The younger girl stumbled on her way to it. Ailani, despite her aching feet, stood up to help her little sister.
“What’s going on with you?” she asked in a low voice as she led Keiko to her own space on the forest floor. “Do you feel sick?”
“I’m a little light-headed,” Keiko said stubbornly. “That’s all. Can you get me a cereal bar?”
Ailani helped Keiko to the ground then looked through Walt’s pack. “We’re out of cereal bars. Do you want some jerky?”
Keiko shook her head. She unrolled her yoga mat, lay down, and pulled her hoodie over her eyes. “I’m tired. Good night, you guys. See you in the morning.”
Ailani watched Keiko like a hawk for the rest of the night, more vigilant to her little sister’s movements than usual. Twice, she got up to make sure Keiko was breathing. By daybreak, Ailani was exhausted from guarding her little sister, but after a full night’s sleep, Keiko didn’t look any better than yesterday. She looked worse.
“Eat something,” Ailani insisted, shoving a piece of jerky into Keiko’s hands as the rest of the group got ready to hike. “You look awful.”
Keiko nibbled the jerky, though Ailani suspected she was only doing it to placate her. Keiko rushed to Sharon’s side as the old woman struggled to roll up her bed. Keiko did it for her, but when she stood up to put the yoga mat into Sharon’s pack, she almost fell over. Sharon steadied her.