“Whatever. It’s a bad idea, the way things are now,” Geno said, effectively ending the conversation.
He wasn’t going to argue with a stranger. Her kid was practically grown. She couldn’t possibly understand what it would feel like to have an infant left alone in the world. She was assuming they would live long enough to get their child to a point where he or she could understand self-defense and handle a gun. The boy he had seen in the road couldn’t have been more than ten. That was far too young to be living alone without the protection of an adult. He wouldn’t do that to a child. Instead of letting the conversation linger, he rose to help the kids finish cleaning up as everyone began bedding down for the night. Even after spending the last part of the travel walking, he found that he wasn’t particularly tired, and felt grateful that he’d offered to take first watch.
Nearby, Heather muttered something under her breath before lying back and fluffing the blanket under her head. Finished tucking things back into packs, Geno bent down and gave Tabitha a quick kiss before moving away from the group to take the first watch, carrying the rifle with him.
7
Excited to get to do something on her own, Lily couldn’t help feeling that she was finally being treated like a real member of the team and not a kid who couldn’t take care of herself. Obviously, she wasn’t completely alone, but with Travis and that was just as good. They’d set out together in search of gas, going in one direction on their own while the others had spread out in different directions, hoping that together they would find enough gas to get them the rest of the way to the reservation.
At the moment, she and Travis were each carrying a five-gallon gas can, even if there was no way she could carry the thing back if they managed to fill both of them up. The idea was that they would aim to fill both cans halfway or a little more—or, if they got really lucky and could fill both, she’d carry it as much as she could with help from Travis and they’d spill some out, if necessary. Having him offer to pick up the slack for her hadn’t bothered her much at all. In fact, she turned to her left and smiled at him as he walked along with the hose around his neck, grinning as if he were on some grand adventure.
She couldn’t believe her dad had agreed to let her and Travis go alone, but Travis being armed and knowing how to handle a gun had sealed the deal. Regan had given him the 380 to carry in case of any trouble. It had taken a lot of convincing, and Heather and Regan’s support. Fred had been opposed to the two of them going off on their own and had nearly convinced her dad not to let them go. Lily was still mad at Fred for interfering, truth be told. She didn’t think it was any of his business what she did. She already had one father, and didn’t need another.
It had become apparent gas was going to be a priority when they’d stopped outside a small town earlier. The van was almost completely out of gas, and they didn’t want to risk running dry and potentially causing some damage to the engine, according to Geno. So, while Lily and Travis looked for gas, the others were looking for food. Their supplies had run dangerously low and there’d simply been nothing to scavenge.
“I hope they get some food,” Travis said as they walked down an incline leading to a few houses in the distance and taking a shortcut across the median.
“Me, too,” she agreed.
“I think Geno really wanted to go out scouting today. He seems to be tired of driving the van,” Travis commented.
Lily shrugged. “I don’t see how he can be tired. He’s not the one walking.”
For now, though, Geno and RC were guarding the van while everyone else searched the area for anything they could use. It had been yet another decision made by her father. Lily was convinced her dad wanted Geno guarding Grandpa. Geno was a big, tough guy who looked scary enough that a stranger might think twice about messing with him. That and the powerful rifle they had to defend themselves and the supplies with. It was cute how her dad wanted to protect his own dad.
“This is kind of fun, huh?” Travis offered cheerfully.
Lily looked at him. “What is? Looking for gas?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, all of this in general. It kind of sucked when it was just me and Mom, but now that we’re all together, it’s way better. I feel like we’re on some grand journey, like the pioneers when they went out west.”
Lily burst into laughter. “You’re crazy, but I’m glad you’re having fun. I mean, it is better having you and your mom with us. At least I have someone to talk to,” she joked, nudging his arm with her elbow.
“Come on, you have to admit it’s cool we don’t have to go to school or do normal chores. We don’t have to be in bed at a certain time or do homework.”
She rolled her eyes. “I liked school, and the internet and being able to text people. And we don’t have to be in bed because we don’t have beds. We might as well go to bed with the sun.”
He nodded his head. “Okay, yeah, I do miss my Xbox. The first few weeks we didn’t have power; I think I went through some kind of withdrawal. Mom even said she knew I’d been playing the games too much and was glad I couldn’t anymore.”
Lily grinned, easily able to picture the scene he described. “I love your mom. She’s so cool.”
Grimacing, Travis shook his head. “That’s because she’s not always telling you what to do and what not to do.”
“She’s a mom. That’s what they do.”
“Well, still, it gets old.”
Lily shrugged. “I don’t mind so much.”
“Don’t kill me for saying this, but I like Regan. She’s cool,” he offered.
She sighed, but couldn’t help agreeing with him, much as she might have fought the impression off a few weeks before. “I know. She’s not so bad. I guess I might have been a little hard on her at first, but my dad does seem happy with her. I’m glad he has someone.”
Travis grinned, bumping his shoulder against hers. “Someone’s acting very grown up.”
Lily tried not to blush at the contact or the compliment. “Thanks,” she muttered, a little embarrassed that he’d apparently noticed she’d been acting immature when she’d complained about Regan all the time.
They walked down the road in silence for another ten minutes until they came upon the first car they’d seen. It was stalled right near a sign advertising a lot for sale. Seeing its gaping doors, Lily again imagined what it must have been like for the people who’d been out in the world when the power had gone out. She remembered thinking the power outage had to be temporary, and that it would be over in a few minutes. Then, as the hours had stretched out and the atmosphere had felt different, she’d had that first sense of doom. She wondered what other people had done. The person driving the car had probably been on their way home or to visit a friend when the car had died right there in the middle of the road. Maybe going to the grocery store, or to work. It had to have been chaotic and terrifying for people as they’d figured out what was happening.
The look on her face must have concerned Travis. He stepped in front of her, forcing her to meet his eyes. “You know, you don’t have to do this. I know how much you hate the smell of gas,” he offered, looking at her with that sweet smile of his.
“I want to do this. I wasn’t thinking about the gas, I was thinking about the person driving the car.”
His eyes got wider. “You know who this car belongs to?”
She sighed and shook her head. “No, but look, there’s a car seat in the back,” she said, noticing the empty seat.
He nodded. “So?”
“I was thinking about what it would have been like for them when it hit. The people in those houses and all the other cars we’ve walked by.”
He smiled. “You’re a sweet girl, Lily. I love how you think on a deeper level than most people. I see an empty car; you see a story.”
Lily felt herself blushing again. “Thanks, I think.”
“Listen, I can do the siphoning.”
She shook her head. “I want to prove I’m as valuable as anyone
else in the group. I hate being looked at like I’m the baby because I’m the youngest in the group. That’s how it was on the island and I hated it,” she said.
“Fine, I only wanted to help. I’ll check this one,” he said, popping open the gas door and then twisting off the gas cap.
“That’s a good sign, right?” Lily asked excitedly when she realized the gas cap had still been in place.
He nodded. “Yep, I doubt anyone would bother putting the cap on after they siphoned off the gas.”
She waited while he put the hose in the tank, the other end in his mouth. She hated that part, but she was willing to do what it took to prove she was worthy of being a respected member of the team. She wasn’t a little girl. She could do everything the adults could, and she intended to prove it. There was no doubt in her mind that she and Travis were out searching for gas because her father would have known that this chore alone would keep them from going into buildings alone, which was itself maybe a form of protection, but she was going to make the most of it.
Travis spit and quickly put the hose in the gas can. “Gross!”
“Is there some in there?” she asked excitedly.
He nodded. “Seems to be.”
They stood over the red gas tank, watching and waiting. Travis finally pulled out the hose and saw nothing was coming out.
“How much did we get?” she asked.
He shook the red jug. “Not even enough to cover the bottom of the jug.”
“I’ll do the next one,” she said, taking the hose out of the tank.
“Lily, it’s going to have the gas all over that end,” he warned.
She shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t care. I can do it. It’s barely a second. I won’t die,” she argued.
He sighed, shaking his head. “I could do it for you. I’d tell everyone you did it.”
She knew he was trying to be nice, but it wasn’t what she wanted. This was something she had to prove to herself. He wouldn’t understand. He was a boy, and Heather gave him plenty of freedom; he was allowed to do a lot more than she was simply because he was a couple years older—and male. Nobody in the group looked at him like a helpless kid. He was one of them in their eyes, and an asset. But she wanted to be an asset, too.
“Up there!” she pointed, spotting an old truck out in a field that looked to have once been home to a tomato farm.
“It might be diesel,” he warned, running behind her as she raced for the truck.
“Dang it,” she muttered, looking at the diesel graphic on the front of the truck.
“Come on, there’s sure to be more,” Travis offered easily.
They walked on through the dead and dying tomato stalks that hadn’t been tended in some time. “Too bad we couldn’t have found some fresh tomatoes. That would have been a real treat,” Lily mused aloud as they walked down a paved road and into the small town that had probably boasted a population of fifty people or less. It wasn’t really a town at all, but a collection of farms alongside the road.
“I see a car,” Travis said as he pointed ahead.
“Do you think they were trying to hide it?” she asked, noticing it was behind a barn and not in a driveway or on the road like so many others.
Travis shrugged. “Maybe. Let’s see if there’s any gas in it.”
“I’ll check!” Lily took off toward the car, crossing another street that intersected the one they’d been traveling on.
“Lily! Wait up!” Travis called out.
Still jogging forward, she turned back to see if he was right behind her. As she kept moving, her shoe caught on a rock, sending her straight down onto the hot pavement leading down to the barn. With the gas can in her right hand, she tried to catch her fall with her left hand extended outward. The palm of her hand slammed into the ground seconds before her knees connected with the hard pavement.
SNAP!
She felt something in her arm give way a second before her head slammed into the pavement. Blinding pain tore through her body and her head. Suddenly, she couldn’t breathe, and she didn’t dare move from her weird, half-sprawled position on the road.
“Lily!” Travis screamed, dropping to his knees beside her.
She groaned, her eyes filling with tears. Her arm hurt so badly that the effort to form words was too much. She cried out when he touched her uninjured arm, from the shock as much as anything.
“Where are you hurt?” he asked.
Her injured arm was beneath her, and she thought she felt blood, but couldn’t tell for sure. “Arm,” she gasped, rolling over to lie on her back.
“You fell on some broken glass,” he said, looking at the pavement before his eyes moved back to her arm. Travis’s eyes nearly popped out of his head, his normally olive skin fading to a pale white. “Lily,” he gasped.
She blinked back tears and tried to use her arm to sit up, sending more white-hot pain through her body. “Ow!” she screamed.
“Don’t move,” Travis said, his voice dropping into a deadly calm.
“My arm,” she cried, tears spilling down her face in earnest now, soaking her neck and ears as they slid down her cheeks.
“I know. Hold on. Don’t move,” Travis said.
She could hear the distress in his voice and wanted to assure him she was okay, but she couldn’t. Her arm hurt so badly, she couldn’t do anything more than cry and moan.
“I’m burning,” she whimpered.
“Crap,” he muttered. “I have to get you off this pavement. I’m going to help you sit up. Don’t use your left arm, okay?”
She tried to nod her head, but everything hurt too much. “Okay,” she murmured.
He was behind her then, lifting her torso before sliding his arms under her pits and lifting her up to a standing position.
“My arm hurts so bad,” she wailed, the slightest movement sending fire through her body.
“You’ve broken it,” he said in a calm voice.
Not daring to look at her burning limb, she allowed him to walk her to the side of the road before he helped her sit down in the gravel that ran alongside the pavement. Dizzy, she felt relieved he’d let her sit down once again. She barely noticed when he reached up and took his shirt off.
“Don’t move,” he whispered, dropping down beside her again.
“What are you doing?” she gasped.
“I need to stabilize your arm.”
That was when she finally looked down and nearly threw up at the sight of her forearm. Her arm had a large gash in it, blood oozing in thick, dark red ribbons. She attempted to turn her arm to get a better view and jerked in pain.
“Ow!” she cried out.
“It’s okay, it’s just a cut,” Travis assured her.
She shook her head, tears filling her eyes and spilling down her cheeks. “No, I think it’s broke. My fingers…I can’t move my fingers.”
Travis looked at her arm, his hand barely touching the area above her wrist. It felt as if he had hit her with a hammer. She jerked away, causing another spiraling wave of pain to shoot up her arm.
“Oh god, it hurts, it hurts so bad!” she wailed.
“Shh, it’s okay. I’m going to grab a stick, Lily. Don’t move.”
She stared at her arm in disbelief. It looked like her bone had gone through the flesh. She reached out to touch the hole in her arm.
“Don’t touch it,” Travis shouted, rushing back toward her.
Travis dropped to his knees, two sticks in his hand. He placed them beside her before using strength she hadn’t known he had to tear his shirt into two strips. He placed a stick on each side of her arm, using one hand to hold them in place and his other to drop the strips of his shirt over the top of her arm. She had to bite back a scream when he touched her arm, and yelped when he shifted her, but saw from his face that he was doing his best to be gentle.
Bad as any broken bone would be, she knew it was especially bad. Her dad had given her some basic survival medicine training. A broken bone that broke through
the skin was one of the worst things that could happen. And without hospitals… she caught her breath. She might actually die after falling on a stupid road.
“I’ll help,” she whispered, using her free hand to hold the sticks in place while he quickly tied the strips around her arm, securing the make-shift splints into place.
He continued to shred the shirt, tying the sticks in place up and down her injured arm, carefully placing a wide piece of fabric over the bleeding wound.
“Can you walk?” he asked.
“I think so,” she whispered.
“I’m so sorry, Lily. This is horrible.”
He helped her stand up, but she felt lightheaded and swayed. “I’m a little dizzy,” she admitted, her vision blurring as she looked in the direction of where the van was waiting. Just now, she was really regretting her decision to want to go out alone. She should have listened to her dad.
“I would give you a piggy back ride, but I’m afraid it would jar your arm,” Travis said quietly.
She looked down at her arm, blood soaking through the bandage Travis had loosely draped over the splint. “It’s okay. I can walk. It’s not too far.”
“I’ll be right here. Lean on me,” he told her, and for the first time, she could hear the fear in his voice.
She tried to smile, but everything hurt. She must have scraped her knee, too, she realized, feeling a burning sensation under the pants she wore. Her head hurt, as well. She wished there was a hospital she could go to. She really wanted some pain medicine.
“Don’t forget the gas can,” she said as they started to walk away.
“We’ll come back for it later,” he said.
“But, Travis,” she protested.
“Lily, we need to get you to that van now. I don’t care about the gas can. Someone else can come back for it,” he said firmly.
She gave a tiny nod of her head.
With every step, it felt like a screwdriver was being driven through her arm. She tried to walk smoothly, but it didn’t help. As they walked back across the field, she started to feel faint again, but she kept it to herself. She could be strong. She wasn’t weak. She inhaled through her nose, taking slow deep breaths and fighting through the pain like her dad had always told her to do when she’d fallen off her bike.
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