by L. B. Carter
Henley slammed into his broad back while he reprocessed for a moment, running iterative scenarios to reach the most optimal choice.
“Nor,” he concluded, plowing onward and leaving Henley to accelerate after him again. “He knows someone with a helicopter. And they’re probably still nearby.”
“Someone we can trust?” she asked, wary after their adventure.
“An excellent question.”
And they were diving into the truck, tearing down the street.
“Go be heroes. Look after each other, and be safe,” Mr. Acton willed from the front door as Ace revved the truck east, back toward the fire.
ARID ALARM
Climatic Climacteric, Book Three
L.B. Carter
Chapter One
"I refuse to hold the pee pan." The girl known as Jennifer Tate wrinkled her nose, staring with disgust at the old man lying on his side in the bed. He was half-comatose, his eyes heavy lidded, drool leaking onto the lumpy pillow to form a muddy puddle, mixing with the dust that blew in through the open window. The breeze was weak, hot, and dry, but its limp pushes helped to dissipate the gag-worthy, stale odors emanating from her ancient, incapacitated, ill host. Like piss.
A snort was the response from the only other youthful guest in the house. Reed was braced close to the escape, that selfish jerk, leaning on the door jamb with arms crossed and brows raised, purposely ignoring the old man's increasingly frantic downward-pointing gesture. Reed's expectant stare was on her. "You wanna just leave him to rot in his own excretions?"
She treated his sarcasm like a rhetorical question, ignoring it as much as she wished she could ignore Reed. Currently, Reed was her only companion who didn't require help to stand... or urinate. They'd met just a few days ago when she woke up in the back of his Jeep, after a bad car accident, and jumped out—while the Jeep was in motion—and then wrestled him before she learned he wasn't the enemy. She'd won. And had no remorse. Her retaliation with a perfect water bottle-to-groin hit was justified; the car accident was a direct result of the fact she was attempting to flee after his and his brother's surprise appearance at the motel in which she and some other BSTU escapees were hiding.
Turned out he wasn't with Boston Science and Technology University, and fortunately for her, he could take care of his own bladder needs. That didn't make him a whole lot better than the old guy in her book. The old guy had a valid excuse for being a useless deadbeat.
That wasn't entirely fair. Reed was their source of food, having incidentally brought some delicious protein powder in the Jeep that broke down outside this family's farm.
"It's your turn. I get dumping duties. Or did you not want equality for women?" Reed retorted.
The bell rang with another tinkle even though she was right in front of Tio's frail form. It was possible he couldn't see well; Mrs. Juarez, his aged niece, had cataracts thick enough to block all but light, which was why she wasn't an option on whom to pawn this gruesome job.
Even if she somehow didn't possess a human amount of decency to care for her elders, especially the invalid, she owed the old man. It was his house—well, his and his niece's and her daughter's—that they were holed up in. Unfortunately, they didn't luck out on choosing a farm with any provisions left. All in all, she had nothing with which to argue her way out of the chore.
Her scathing glare bounced right off Reed's ego, his grin frustratingly self-satisfied. "Oh, if it's a dump, you're definitely getting all the duties. I'm out." The bell had only rung once, meaning number one, but Mrs. Juarez's tio had been around since before the seas had risen high enough to flood the country, dividing it down the middle; he couldn't always control his bowels or be cognizant of when they needed emptying.
"Doody." Reed chuckled like a pre-pubescent teen.
She cast him a disdainful look.
"Jen," he countered in mock surprise, "are you conceding that this is something you can't do?"
"It's not a matter of can't but shouldn't. He's a dude. I don't know how it all ...works; it doesn't make sense for me to do it. It's inappropriate." Her nose lifted.
Reed snorted. "I do not believe you've never seen one before. If that's true, I'd be more than happy to be the first…"
"And as I've said before—" Her eyes rolled. "—I'm happy to use you to see how much a diet of protein shakes has deteriorated my bite force. I'm guessing not much... when I'm motivated." She gnashed her teeth at him, and he cringed. "Can't you just take him outside?" She fluttered her long lashes, drawing her linked fingers up underneath her chin, an ass-kissing smile hiding said teeth from view. "Please? I'm sure a big, strong man like you could easily carry him down the stairs for little ol' me."
His head shook. "You have no morals. I thought you said you were a feminist."
Her arms dropped, and she shrugged. "I know when to use chivalry to my advantage. It's more about partnership." Her doe eyes widened in invitation. "We can be a team."
"We are. We take turns. I wouldn't dare try to take your independence away from you by dominating. Women can do everything better than men, right? That's what you said to me when Henley tried to woo the Juarez's into letting us stay here?"
"Except pee outside." She pouted. "And they did let us stay."
He shook his head. "Thanks to me, not Henley. Saving the day as always. Maybe you should try peeing outside. I'm simultaneously watering and fertilizing the little plot that still somehow produces vegetables."
Her voice raised to speak over the renewed vigorous bell ringing. "Yeah, so you should take him and double those efforts."
"If you don't hurry, it's going to be clean-up duty instead," Reed warned over the grumbling, eyes darting away from her to observe Tio's urgency.
Jen snatched the bell from Tio's gnarled grip, replacing it on the nightstand. The homemade quilt was tossed off of him without ado. Hell, he wouldn't catch cold in this weather, and he was already sick anyway. She crouched to pull the pan from under the bed—a literal cooking pan since the crumbling farmhouse was no hospital and they had no way to get to one to acquire necessary supplies. If they could get to a medical center, this vegetable of a human wouldn't be her problem. Jen unceremoniously shoved up his nightgown, hesitated, and then turned her head aside while unfolding the thick cloth they'd placed over his... bits in case of leakage. Hork.
"You're gonna have to look, or else he's gonna miss. And may I remind you we don't have enough water left for a bath."
She flung Reed an eyeful, wishing she could shoot lasers like the BSTU drones that had chased them through the cornfields outside. She'd decimated them with a baseball bat. Tempting.
She took a noxious breath, steeling her desire to upchuck, and faced the horror head-on. She couldn't prevent the look of revulsion from contorting her face as she used a pair of barbecue tongs she'd found in the kitchen to maneuver… things into place.
"Ahora, Tio."
After her loudly spoken alert, his stream came immediately but weakly in short spurts that trickled into the pot with an echo.
She gagged and turned away again, catching Reed's smirk. "Told you I don't have a great gag reflex," she snapped, waspishly, taking out her frustration over their situation on him. Being trapped at this run-down, middle-of-nowhere farmhouse just sitting, helplessly waiting for someone to come back for them was quite the adjustment after holding a position of power.
That's where it was helpful that Reed was her inmate partner. He could take her verbal abuse without offense. If Sirena had stayed instead, the onslaught from the mouth of the girl who was Sirena's supposed friend and creator from BSTU would have driven the superhuman to tears. Jen's hostility just riled Reed into upping his smarmy charm.
"And I told you I'm willing to help you work on that. In fact, you're already in position."
Well, Jen was more than capable of challenging his quips with biting remarks of her own. "I'm not sure it'd be substantial enough to induce my gag reflex given how much you compensate with your jeep and yo
ur ego." The banter was kind of fun, she had to admit. Their bodies may have been wasting away, but their brains were finding sufficient stimulation.
She adjusted the pan, her arm getting tired of holding it at such a high angle. The urine releases were getting more sporadic. She hoped the slowing inferred that Tio was almost done.
"You leave my baby out of this! She's my precious. And you know there's only one way to find out if I speak the truth or not."
She swiveled her eyes up, unimpressed, to see his eyebrows dancing up and down. "I doubt you ev—"
Without warning, Tio wheezed and started coughing. The result was a sharp, violent jet of lukewarm yellow liquid with each hack that ricocheted right off the bottom of the little pot ...and directly into her mouth.
Both men got a live display of her sensitive gag reflex as she sputtered, spat, and heaved onto the worn wooden floor over the sound of Reed’s shout of surprised laughter. The pot fell from her hands with a clang and gush of even more fluid that splashed onto her bare legs. Her stomach was empty, so her hurls did not add to the mess. Desperately, she scrubbed at her tongue with her sleeve, dirt and grit joining the acrid warmth coating the inside of her mouth.
Great guffaws melded with all the racket of Tio's coughing and her hacking. "Who'd have thought Jennifer Tate, the legacy BSTU genetics scientist who made a human in a lab would be so squeamish. Guess you are a girl, after all," Reed goaded.
She pushed to a stand, still spitting onto the floor, turned, and stormed around the bed to find some saltwater with which to rinse—anything was better than that.
Passing Reed, who was doubled over, laughing hysterically, she lashed out acidly. "Your turn. I'm not a swallower."
He should be glad that sentence was what her venom spewed in response instead of the truth that had risen with the bile up her throat.
Jennifer Tate might have been comfortable with bodily fluids, having assembled in a Petri dish the next generation of human, or rather superhuman, of which Sirena was the first.
But Valerie Acton, posing in Jen's place and wearing Jen’s face, was most definitely not.
And she was certain Reed wouldn't be so flirtatious, let alone keeping her company, if he knew the truth. He'd be long gone, no matter how closely death lingered on the outskirts of the farm, if he was aware that his recently killed ex-girlfriend, who he knew as Valerie Acton, was actually the real Jennifer Tate.
◆◆◆
She was still in the kitchen, gargling from the bucket of seawater that they stored in the defunct sink basin, when Reed ambled toward the back door, dangling in hand a soaked rag and the pot that held only a minuscule residue of what it had earlier, most of it having doused her legs.
He paused on the threshold, and she halted her swishing, storing the liquid in one puffed cheek to shoot him a glare, already anticipating something scathing being launched her way regarding her misfortune.
"If you're okay with that salty taste," he said, using his eyes to indicate the bucket, "what I can offer…"
She pursed her lips, arcing a thin stream of briny water over the counter. She had great aim, but he was standing too far away. It barely reached his boots, splattering in a manner not unlike what happened upstairs onto the parched floor, which soaked it up greedily.
He chortled and slipped out the screen door.
Mouth empty, she shouted after him. "I'll stick to getting my protein from the powder. Or I can just kill you and eat jerkwad for dinner. Though I bet your meat is sinewy and tough with how spindly you've become."
He didn't answer, so she was unsure if he heard her retort. She decided to award herself the point for that argument anyway. It was the only positive she was going to get. Honestly, drinking diseased-and-dying-old-man piss was barely the worst that had happened that day. Her morning had started with using the bathroom without flushing—they didn't have enough water to spare for mundane things like that. She was going on far too many days without a shower, feeling stinky even with all the windows and doors open to create a cross breeze. Lindy still hadn't gotten back with either water refill or news on the group that had carried on to the West Coast without them when their car broke down in the Midwest.
Part of her concern was getting the freak out of dodge. The other part of her worry was for the safety of Sirena, who'd been the single reason behind Val's brash decision to swap places with Jen and start this whole series of misfortunes, ultimately landing her in a place that felt like Hell.
The day was hot, and it wasn't yet noon. All joking aside, there was no way Reed would execute all the intimacies he was brazenly suggesting given how she smelled. Just contemplating that kind of physical exertion added a layer of sweat.
"Okay, it's disposed of, and all is again safe for your delicate female senses," Reed reported as he strode back in with an empty pot and no rag, the screen slapping the frame behind him. "Well, except the section of floor you poured pee on."
She waved a hand, lips pursing. "It'll dry in like two seconds in this drought."
He set the pot on the counter next to her. "As dry as your—"
"Humor," she overrode him, slapping her hands on the edges of the sink basin. "I am a better comedian than you." Val nodded. "I agree."
Reed mimicked her pose on the opposite side of the counter. "Because you're a woman and I'm a man?"
She leaned closer, eyes narrowing. "Because I'm me. And I'm perfect."
His lips quirked on one side, his green eyes flipping back and forth between her sky blue ones. "Thanks to spending so much time around me. I'm glad to see I'm such a good influence on you."
Her eyes rolled. "If you were a good influence, your brother would be funny."
"Nah, I never encouraged that from him. Can't have competition in the same gene pool; he's already too similarly blessed with good looks."
Valerie pulled her chin back. "You think your own brother is hot? That's pretty messed up."
He shook his head. "It's no different than you calling yourself perfect. He's like my mirror. I get to look at myself every day."
"There you go, flaunting your ego again, proving that I was right about..." She lifted her thumb and finger, separating them by mere millimeters as she held his narrowed gaze, her grin spreading wide. "How hard it must be to not have that mirror reassurance around you anymore; you need me to reaffirm your magnificence and give you attention. Well, it ain't happening, buddy. You gotta earn that."
His grin fell perceptibly. She suspected the drop in mood was caused by the reminder that Nor wasn't here rather than her hit. She knew Reed missed Nor. She missed her brother as well, which shocked the spit out of her. They had never gotten along well, and Ace had been incommunicable at BSTU for years while she was heading the USGCS.
Reed lifted both hands to pull her fingers apart, stretching them as far as her hand would allow. He eyed the span, speculating, one set of his fingers shifting to stroke the short beard that had grown on his chin without the luxury of shaving. "Now that seems about right." He caught her eye and winked. "For the width."
Valerie snapped her fingers together in a threatening scissor motion. She leaned her mouth closer to his, dropping her hand to his chest and peering up at him through her lashes. His gaze fell to her lips. She licked them lasciviously. The motion stung thanks to their chapped state. He swallowed. "Bring me a water bottle, and we can... place them gently next to each other to compare."
He pulled up his hands and backed away with alarm, her hand sliding down his ridged torso as he retreated. "Oh, no. I'm not falling for that. I know your trick now. I learn fast." He shook his head, appalled. "You can't destroy my ability to procreate. It would be unfair to starve the future world of mini-Reeds."
"There's still Nor for that since you said you're so similar." She gave a shrug. "Guess we'll never know if you exaggerate.
"Well—" She pulled her damp shirt over her head and his eyes bugged at the sight of her neon blue bra. He'd seen it before, but it always seemed to short-circu
it his brain. Valerie conceded that she kind of liked using him to validate her self-confidence and give her attention since life was freaking boring at the moment. He wasn't alone in that desire.
She turned and waltzed past him, pausing to glance over her shoulder saucily. He was watching avidly. "Shouldn't you be making Mrs. Juarez some lunch? You know that's your job since you ate all her pie when we first got here."
His guilt penetrated some of the clouding lust.
So she slid her pissed-on shorts (she'd turned her jeans into cut-offs to combat the heat) down her long legs, which were more lean than usual due to limited food intake. Bent in half to get them over her sneakers, she observed upside down as he took an involuntary step toward her ass. Val grinned, the power invigorating.
She stood back up and slung the shorts and shirt over a shoulder, both hooked on an index finger. "I'll just hang these up to dry. Maybe catch some vitamin D." She threw some extra sashaying into her hips as she sauntered out the back door, waiting until she was around the corner of the house under the pounding sun to give herself a congratulatory pat on the head. Another point to her.
Although... the interest in his gaze had sent some tingles into her core, and she couldn't fully deny that she hadn't enjoyed the feel of his chest under her fingers. "When in Hell, you may as well have some fun with the seven deadly sins," she told the air.
She went about pinning both garments on the clothesline within view of the living room window where she knew Reed would have a prime display of her semi-nakedness as he served Mrs. Juarez lunch.
Val ignored the growling in her concave stomach. "Especially while you have no choice but to boast a model's physique." It was the only benefit of their situation. And she wasn't happy about it. She was a food-loving girl and not one for trading taste for commercial-recommended vanity.
Valerie succumbed for a moment to the depression that had been seeping into her soul like the dust from the barren fields scattering throughout the house interior. She hoped Lindy came back soon. She wanted—no, needed to return to civilization. Even BSTU would be better than this place, based on the little time she'd spent there under the pretense of being Jennifer Tate.