by L. B. Carter
And sweating she was. The sun had barely risen, and already the land was baking like a desert, heat both bearing down on the crown of her head and emanating from the scorched earth under her bare feet. The incentive to pick up her feet quicker made her run faster.
By the time she reached the mailbox, she had to double over, one hand on her knee, the other braced on the tilted stake the rusted metal box hung from. The stake lurched a little further, the box swinging on the single chain remaining, breaking down like everything else in this destroyed part of the Earth. Val shifted that hand to brace on her other knee. She panted. A few droplets dripped from her forehead. They hissed upon impact and evaporated before the earth could greedily absorb the rare moisture.
"If you wanted to get sweaty, you could've just stayed in bed a little longer."
Valerie didn't acknowledge Reed's presence though she was delighted to hear he was also breathing heavily. Neither one of them was in their normal top shape.
"I brought you this."
A water bottle appeared under her nose.
"Where did you find that? I thought we were down to the buckets of seawater." She eyed it for a moment then snatched it. It was warm, almost boiling. Regretfully, she forced herself not to gulp. It felt like heaven slipping down the highway to hell that was her throat.
Reed paced down the tarmac a little ways, hands on his hips, staring the direction Lindy's rickety truck had trundled away from them what felt like ages ago. He still hadn't put on a shirt, but he'd switched out his jeans for loose basketball shorts. He'd still had a duffel in his Jeep, unlike Val's one-outfit option.
"Been saving it. For emergencies."
Valerie immediately stopped sipping and put the cap back on. "Shit. Then save it. What are you doing wasting it on me?"
He turned back around and looked at her for a moment. "You need it. I don't know what you consider an emergency, but no water seems like a pretty fuckin' serious bad situation to me." One brow rose.
She held it out. "You need it just as much. And Mrs. Juarez."
"I have one more saved for her." He didn't take her offering, so she gave it a shake like a maraca. The sloshing waves looked so inviting. Valerie wished she could undergo just a little more genetic modification and shrink, taking a dive right into the wetness.
He stalked over and swiped it from her. "Thank you." He took the world's smallest sip.
"Pussy," she jeered, goading him into a bigger swig. He was bigger than her; he needed more. He didn't take her bait, but he did take another small sip. Minor accomplishment. "There's a fine line between supporting women and chivalry," she warned.
He still capped the bottle and handed it back. "We need to use it sparingly."
She deflated a little without returning the snark.
Breathing normally, she too wandered into the middle of the road and gazed west across the patchwork of white tarmac, brown dirt and ocher crops.
Still dead.
All of it.
Wait.
"What's that?" She took a few steps further as Reed came up beside her to see what she was looking at. She pointed. It was a low-hanging cloud, sitting close to the horizon very far off, but it was dark. Very dark. "Thunderstorm?" Her voice was too high, breathy, overexcited, and her heart immediately started hammering. "Hallelujah! It's rain!" She tipped her head back and let out a crazed laugh, lifting both arms, one still clutching the water bottle to hop up and down and do a little dance eyes squeezed shut."
"It's not raining men. Dial back the enthusiasm," Reed intoned. He didn't sound as excited.
She glared at him. "How are you not excited about this? Fresh water! Sustenance! To revitalize the Earth and all its inhabitants."
He gave her some side eye, taking a break from scrutinizing the cloud formation suspiciously. "Okay, maybe that water's got something in it." His green irises snapped back to the impending storm. Slowly, his head shook, and he took a step back as though in fear. "I don't think that's a raincloud."
"It's not?" Val looked back at it, squinting. "Yes, it is. What else could it be?" She was baffled.
Reed retreated another few steps. "It looks like smoke."
"Shit." Val's gaze swung back to consider that option. He was right. It looked like it was rising from the ground. "It's dry enough here, maybe something caught."
"Wait. What's that?"
Valerie stepped to his shoulder to set her sight line down the trajectory of his arm.
Smaller puffs of dirt—a few of them in a row like a train made up of only steam engines—was winding through crops toward the tarmac. As they watched, the puffy blobs reached the intersection and turned left, a few small specks careening down the road toward them. Vehicles, lots of them.
◆◆◆
They sat on the edge of the driveway in the shade of a few stalks of dead corn, which rubbed together in a recurring rustle in the hot breeze. Bugs made pitiful calls for help as they too suffered. Reed and Val passed the water bottle back and forth a few times, neither of them saying anything as they waited. The bottle was half-empty. Val should be more positive with the turn in their luck arriving shortly: the bottle was half-full. Half-full of air, her sardonic side couldn’t help but add.
Finally, a rumble of engines broke the stillness. They both stumbled to their feet. Reed pushed Valerie into the cornstalks.
"Hey!" she snapped, swatting at his arm. "No touching." He pulled back. "What are you doing?"
"Hiding you. In case it's BSTU."
"They wouldn't be coming from the West." Val shook her head and tried to climb back out of the embankment. Reed's body formed a blockade. She sighed. "What about you?"
"They're not hunting me."
She rolled her eyes at his back. "They'll know you're with the rest of us by now."
"I can be sacrificed. You can't."
"Wha—?" She blinked at the back of his head. She suspected brain damage. More collateral from their situation. Why else would he be so ...courteous to her. "That's not true. You—"
"Shh." The caravan was almost there. Too late.
Reed stepped into the road, and a second later, brakes squealed.
"Hey! Get outta the road!" A voice yelled. Several honks corroborated his sentiment. "What're you, crazy?"
"Where y'all headed?"
"Ain't taking no hitchhikers, hear?" the man announced with menace.
Valerie eased out of her hiding spot just enough to observe. A man in a baseball hat as dirty as the rest of them in this part of the states was looking nervously behind him, craning his head out his open window. Reed waited slightly in front of the truck so the man couldn't leave. Well, not without causing manslaughter. That didn't stop everyone. Val should know.
"I'll make a trade. I've got some water." Reed kept his hand wrapped around the bottle to conceal the fact that it wasn't untouched. He waved a hand as if displaying precious gems. In this region, it kinda was a rare artifact.
The man snorted then hocked and spat onto the road, the slime almost hitting Reed's feet. "Ain’t enough."
"Better than none."
The man's lip curled. "Not with that." He jerked his thumb behind him.
Reed's head tilted, and Valerie paid attention. Was it a storm cloud then? Water was coming? Val was right? Of course she was. She owed Reed a told-you-so.
"What do you mean?"
The man inspected Reed then laughed long and hard.
"Hey, what's the hold up?" another voice shouted from further down the caravan.
The first guy cranked his neck to shout back. "This kid don't know what's going on, ‘at's what."
There was uproarious laughter from several vehicles. Reed's grip tightened visibly on the water bottle. Otherwise, he kept his cool. "Something going on out west?"
"'S a wildfire, son. B'twixt here 'n' the sea. 'S moving east. Best be gettin' on 'f I was you."
Valerie stepped out, bold. Her panic made her desperate. "Take us with you then."
"Well, how-d
ee." He craned across the passenger seat, giving her a full-body scan. "You wanna come with?" So much for the no-hitchhikers rule. Not that Val was complaining.
"And him." She pointed at Reed. "And Mrs. Juarez, the old woman back at the farmhouse up there." She indicated the long driveway.
Bushy brows rose. "No room for more n’ one, see?" He patted the passenger seat next to him.
"He and I can ride in the back. Mrs. Juarez can have the front." She took a step closer, letting the pervert ogle. Reed could give her shit later for using her assets for bargaining. They needed to get out of there at any cost. Even if the cost was her dignity and pride. "Or one of the other vehicles?"
"I'll throw in the water as a bonus," Reed enticed. "I recommend using it for a wet t-shirt contest."
Val controlled her urge to punch Reed.
It worked against them anyway. The comment reminded the dude that Reed was there, and his face twisted. "No doubt she's worth it. But I know your type. You chiseled, educated types, always tryin' to steal the girl. You kin keep 'er. I got more 'portant things to be doin' than wastin' time puttin' you in your place. 'Sides. 'S plenty of women and water out East."
The man cackled again and drove right around Reed, smashing through the row of corn on the side of the road and barreling away without a care. The other five... six... seven followed quickly, too quickly, kicking up dust that made Val cough.
Valerie darted onto the road, chasing after them. "Wait!" She was slow, abnormally slow after already using her energy for her morning angry sprint.
The elusive vehicles were already zooming on, guiltlessly refusing to lend a hand to Valerie and Reed. Or a helpless old woman. It wasn't like they'd be a burden; the caravan was already going that way. "Asshole," Val shouted at the tailpipes coughing out smoke. Diesel engines too, adding to the pollution. Natural disasters always revealed people's true selfishness. She seethed after them then kicked at the coated asphalt. "Fuck," she screamed to the sky.
Reed pressed a crunched bottle into her hand. "Let's go." He detoured around her and stalked toward the house.
"Go? How? Our only option for days just freaking drove off without us." She jogged after him with the water. It was the most precious thing they had. Even more so if that jerkwad was right about the fire. "We won't outrun it on foot."
"We're not trying to outrun it."
"What?" She pulled up, watching his shoulders, hunched in frustration, power to the house.
"We need to go west. We need to find Lindy."
Val's jaw sank. "You are crazy. Brain damaged. The west is currently on freaking fire. And we're in essentially a giant box of kindling."
Reed jumped onto the porch. His eyes were sad but determined when he looked at her as he opened the screen door. "Exactly. If we don't find water, we're toast. Literally. We can only hope Lindy's closer to us than the fire is."
Chapter Four
As soon as Reed realized Jen intended on joining him, he put his foot down in the most annoying, and thus convincing way that he knew how. "I knew you couldn't bear to be apart from me." He pulled overlapped fingers up under his chin, feeling the few days' of scruff, and blinked his lashes far too much. He started to feel dizzy, almost missing her eye roll.
"You can't go alone. It's too dangerous. Besides, then where's my reassurance you'll come back?"
Reed dropped his hands. "What, you need a big strong man like me around the house?"
She threw her hands up in vexation, and he smiled in triumph.
"I thought you'd want to be free of me."
Her eyes narrowed. "Which one of us here knows the land well, hmmm?" She jabbed a thumb in her sternum.
Reed scoffed and continued to load up his pockets with items from his Jeep trunk that he might need. Pocket knife. Flare. Rope. Compass. "Your mom is the geologist; you're a biologist. You should know you don't inherit knowledge from your parents like genes. Besides, the only thing I need is a geographer."
She exhaled through her teeth. "Aren't you from Canada? You don't know this area. You need me."
He waved a hand and fished around deeper in the bag, rooting under clothes for his emergency blanket. Not that Lindy was likely cold wherever she was. Hopefully not on fire though. "The only thing I need is myself. Bringing you is just an extra girl to have to worry about."
Her body wedged between Reed's and the bumper of the Jeep, their hips locking together. She tipped back to snare him with her blue eyes that seemed steelier gray today than their normal hue. "I'm not a girl." She spoke slowly and viciously. "And you won't have to worry about me. I'm used to being in a leadership role."
Reed resisted moving his hips with difficulty and instead raised a brow. "Woman. And raising Sirena doesn't count as leading. She was an impressionable lab rat."
Jen interrupted. "Sirena is the one who said we shouldn't split up. Or did you forget why I'm stuck here with you?"
His eyes dropped to her lips as they inched closer while the intensity increased during her short speech. He continued, ignoring the untruth that she wasn't enjoying his company. "Unlike a fully stocked lab, here we've only got half a bottle of water and potentially a fuck-ton of walking under a baking hot sun." His head tipped to the side as he watched a sweat droplet snake down her neck and slither into the inviting cave of her cleavage. "Or did you forget that we're in a drought? Things can get... hot." He traced the drop's path lightly with a fingertip.
She gave a growl of frustration, smacking his hand aside, and slid out from under him, stalking back to the house. "You're too hot. Hot headed." She slammed the screen door behind her. "And not in a good way."
"If you want a real argument: someone needs to use her woman's touch to prevent Mrs. Juarez from dying, too." He winced, realizing that his yell probably reached the old woman's ears.
Jen's reddening face popped into view behind the screen. "If we're talking about dying... Lindy might already be dead, and by going after her, you might, too. And then, Mrs. Juarez and I will die here, waiting for you both."
Her hair was frizzing. Reed assumed it was the heat and not actual electrical charge building inside her. Although, that would explain the vibration of her clenched fists.
"And then where will we be? Not underground like Tio, because there won't be anyone to even dig us nice graves or mourn our losses. We'll become animal food. Rotting meat for scavengers. Is that what you want?"
"You're the one who suggested eating human corpses earlier."
She swiveled and vanished again.
"Hot headed." Reed muttered.
"I heard that," came Jen's voice from somewhere in the house. "Asshole."
How? How did women have extraordinary hearing? Henley had been the only one to hear the drones. His mother always knew when he came home after curfew. It was like they were trained to sense trouble. Women were frustrating.
Jen should be thanking him for going off and risking his life to find Lindy.
He grabbed his Advil to stuff in another pocket, hesitated, and then popped one dry.
The damn woman was giving him a migraine. He'd be glad to be rid of her for a bit ...and the body she kept flaunting.
◆◆◆
If there was ever a perfectly embodied personification for the unrelenting, overbearing, breathing-down-his-neck, constant berating of the sun as Reed ambled down the tarmac, it was his father. His steps were slow but steady, Reed unwilling to submit and admit defeat.
Because then, he'd be vulture food. Some creatures were thriving in this hellish landscape of death and decay. Corpse munchers. Jen could join them. They'd started circling not long after he set off, shadowing his march from above. He didn't dare look up at the harsh light to count how many awaited his demise.
At least, Father was the only one left to be disappointed in his son. Mother wasn't around to witness his hate-filled spiral after her and his girlfriend's death and his inability to do the one job with which he was charged.
The white paint coating the tar was succe
eding in its purpose of reflecting the sun's rays, preventing the Earth from heating even further than the greenhouse-gas-rich atmosphere was already causing with its insulation. Unfortunately, that directed it right in Reed's eyes, so he was mostly trusting the sound of his feet hitting the pavement to keep on track. That left him as blind as Mrs. Juarez. He took an occasional peek through a squint to take in his surroundings, which remained unchangingly: nothingness.
Turned out the Juarez' farm was miles from the next neighbor. How had Lindy walked this? Her truck hadn't run until Handy Henley got her little nerdy engineer paws on it, magically making fuel out of basically corn and some kind of fuel adapting system with drone parts.
Jen smacking those drones out of the air with the baseball bat had been pretty hot.
The water bottle in his tactical cargo pants was already missing some fluid, the void space allowing what was left to slosh against his thigh. He'd intended to save the majority for Lindy, assuming he recovered her. If she'd only gathered saltwater, she wouldn't have drinking water until she got back and set up her homemade evaporation stations to slowly eek out most of the brine.
One of the vultures gave a caw, and Reed tipped his head back lethargically, almost feeling like his body wasn't his anymore. The sweat dried fast, leaving a sheet of salt on his skin, and everything moved like it was, ironically, underwater. He breathed heavily, yet altitude was not an issue on such a flat plane.
There was no amount of training that could prepare one for this. Even Father wouldn't withstand it. It was suicide. Not Reed's fault.
He tried to explain to the sun, but it only beat harder on his upturned face. Had he walked into the scorching wildfire without realizing it?
Don't give up.
Save the girl.
Fine.
Reed stumbled over something he couldn't see.
The vulture cawed again, further ahead. Reed cracked his lids a sliver and saw a mirage.
Shit. He was at the stage of hallucination. Reed scolded himself, adding a layer of self-critique on top of the sun's which was also Father's. He should have made this trek earlier before he was so close to the stage where he would be no help to Lindy ...even if he did get far enough and was fortunate enough to stumble into her path.