“So why are you heading to San Antonio?” Evelyn asked, figuring she would try to keep Ollie talking to see what she could learn about what had happened.
Ollie had taken his eyes off her for a moment, leaning back with his face in the wind like a dog hanging its head out of the window. He didn’t say anything for a second, and Evelyn wasn’t sure if he had heard her; then he pulled his head back and looked down at Tillie.
“We need to get Tillie some help … In case you couldn’t tell, she’s pretty sick,” he said, reaching over and trying to stretch the leg of her threadbare pants down over her ankle. Tillie flinched but didn’t move much, and Ollie, with no less tenderness than a father caring for his daughter, touched the skin on her leg with the back of his fingers, probably feeling to see if she was hot.
Evelyn didn’t have to touch her skin to know Tillie had a raging fever. It was already well into the eighties and getting hotter by the second with no clouds to shield them from the sun, but Tillie still shook every now and then like she had the chills.
“If you don’t mind me asking, what’s wrong with her?” Evelyn said, glancing back at Ollie but still not catching his eye, his attention firmly affixed to his sister.
“I got burned.”
Evelyn quickly looked at the almost-lifeless form of Tillie lying next to her brother and saw one eye peeking at her down her sweaty, pasty cheek. She had spoken in a crackly voice, like she hadn’t said anything in weeks and had to blow the dust out of her lungs before any words could find their way out.
“Just talking so I know I’m not dead,” Tillie added, weakly bearing a grin that also revealed her white teeth and her red—to the point of bleeding—gums.
Evelyn smiled back at her and watched as she slowly closed her eye, as if that moment had taken every ounce of strength she had.
“My sis is tough … probably tougher than me and all my brothers put together.”
Ollie looked up, and Evelyn finally caught his eye. For a moment, his brown eyes caught the sun just right, looking green, and Joseph found his way back into her thoughts. Evelyn smiled, thinking of him, and in a surreal lapse of time and space, she felt like Joseph and Ollie could have been the same guy living inside of two different people, considering they both had the same worldly toughness protecting an undeniable tenderness—a spirit that defiantly dared the world to break it.
“She got burned?” Evelyn asked, bringing herself back to the moment.
“Yeah,” Ollie started in a drawn-out sigh. “Just a freaky thing, I guess. We were relocated to the Flats once the war started. My brothers and I worked out in the dump digging up nuclear waste for the bombs them bastards were using … We didn’t know that’s what it was, but it damn sure was. We were pretty safe from the radiation because of the trucks we were in, but Tillie, because she’s a girl with delicate fingers … they had her actually touching the stuff, assembling the rockets.”
Evelyn couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She had figured the girl had the flu, not a terminal illness. “You mean she has radiation poisoning?” she asked with more surprise in her voice than she had intended, despite already knowing the answer.
“Yeah, that’s it. By the time we figured it out, the war was over, but the damage was done. Tillie got really sick, and the doctor at the plant didn’t do anything but give her a handful of pills and tell her she’s gonna die. Can’t hardly blame him, though. It’s not like they gave him much to work with. He was the only doctor for a hundred miles in any direction. What the hell’s he supposed to do?”
“But there are treatments for radiation poisoning, Ollie. The doctor didn’t say anything about getting a transfusion or chemotherapy or even getting gene therapy?”
“If that’s what you’re supposed to do for what she has, then no, he didn’t say anything about it. Just gave her a bunch of painkillers.”
“Pain pills … that’s it?” Evelyn shook her head.
“Yeah. Said he confiscated them from a patient. Said it was the only thing he had,” Ollie added, starting to grimace a little at the questions. “How do you know so much about it anyway? You a doctor?”
“Oh, no …” Evelyn said, realizing that even if she had been a doctor, her bedside manner was atrocious given her reaction to the doctor’s inept recommendation for treatment. “I just like to read,” she added, fumbling for an excuse as to how she knew what she did.
“Yeah, right,” Ollie started, crossing his arms. “Me too.”
An uncomfortable moment passed, and Evelyn noticed the landscape had become hillier. Live oaks were cropping up in clusters more frequently with each passing mile. Had she still been walking, she would have gone at least another night before she would have found a creek or trees for shade. In the moment, as uncomfortable as she was sitting across from Ollie, she was grateful he had thought enough to offer her a ride.
“So you think you can get Tillie some help in San Antonio?” Evelyn asked, breaking the silence.
“That’s what we’re hoping,” Ollie said, looking away from the scenery passing them by to find Evelyn’s gaze. “We heard about a guy … people just call him the Healer, but nobody seems to know his real name. We heard he performs these miracles. Some say he’s even brought people back from the dead.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. And you know … them damn pain pills will kill you,” he added with more than a hint of irony in his tone, “so we traded them and most of our guns for this truck, and now we’re out here trying to find him.”
“Do you really think he can do that? Bring people back from the dead?”
“Don’t know,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Don’t know what to believe, but I figure if we find him soon enough, he won’t have to … he can just do a regular sort a healing.”
“But, how do you know he’s there?”
“We don’t. Guess you could say we’re taking it on faith, and hell, none of us have anything to lose anyway. Before we crossed the border, we asked around and heard he had moved on to San-An-tone, so that’s where we’re headed.”
“The border of what?” Evelyn asked, and as soon as she had, she wished she hadn’t. Ollie’s expression evolved slowly from cool to confused to uncertain, and she saw him shift his weight like instinct told him he ought to make sure his gun was easy to access.
A second passed. “You sure are full of questions, Evie,” he said, a look of annoyance now weighing down his brow and causing his lips to grimace uneasily. “What do you mean, the border of what?”
Evelyn felt her pulse quicken. Her mind raced for something to say to explain herself. “It’s just … I’ve just been away … for a while. That’s all,” she said, unsure what else to say.
“Where the hell have you been? Mars?” Ollie asked, still probably looking relaxed to anyone other than Evelyn, who was certain Ollie could draw his pistol and shoot her, even from that position, fast enough that she wouldn’t even see it happening.
“No, but sometimes it feels about like that,” she said under her breath. She had yet to spend a moment apart from her sister or Joseph where she didn’t feel like some sort of alien, and even in moments when she had forgotten, it seemed there was someone like Mrs. Vandergaast or her daughter, Misha, and now Ollie close by to remind her. Mars wasn’t all that far from the truth, in terms of how close she felt to typical people, so the half-truth spilled easily from her lips.
Another moment passed, and then, as if he had realized something surprising, Ollie relaxed again.
“Wait a minute here. Were you in one of those detention facilities? The death camps?”
Evelyn felt a shudder run up her spine. She hadn’t been in DF-23, but she felt like she had. Just before the colonists had left Earth, Mr. Philips had been arrested as an insurgent along with Tate. Jane had tried to break into the prison with her help, but had been caught, and while Evelyn had worked from the outside, hacking into the security systems for the death camp, Jane had had to live though being there.
In the moments that passed in the bed of the rusty truck, Evelyn found herself unable to speak, tears welling in her eyes again at the thought that her sister could have survived that but not the horrible mistake Evelyn had made trying to take care of the colony’s needs for electricity.
Evelyn put her hand to her face to try to shield it from Ollie and Tillie, and bit down hard on her teeth, trying to keep her chin from quaking, to hide her unwanted display of emotion.
“Oh damn.”
Evelyn peeked around her fingers casually at hearing Ollie’s remark. His expression had changed again, his eyebrows raised in a look of concern at what he might have said.
“Hey … I’m sorry … I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Evelyn just nodded, breathing deeply and letting the emotion in her chest dissolve.
“Well, if that’s where you were, then maybe you don’t know.
“The bone wall we’ve been driving along was built by our government, trying to keep the raiders out. No one knows where all the bodies came from, but it stretches all the way from San Diego to Houston.”
That’s fifteen hundred miles from San Diego to Houston … maybe fifteen skeletons every three to four feet to build it that high … Dear God, there are thirty to forty million people’s worth of bones in that wall. Evelyn wiped a lonely tear from her cheek and looked at Ollie, shocked at the grisly reality her unstoppable mathematical mind had revealed. A moment later, she closed her mouth, realizing it was hanging open.
“It was supposed to intimidate the raiders, I guess, but it didn’t work. Only pissed people off all the more, and in the end, it didn’t stop them from beating us back.
“The border’s a few hundred miles north of here now. This may be Texas, Evie, but it sure as hell ain’t the United States anymore.”
ANNOYED
“You really don’t have a gun, do you?”
Evelyn looked at Ollie. For the past thirty minutes, she had been looking out of the side of the truck as San Antonio grew in her view. For the most part, if there had been a war in this area, it didn’t seem to have been too destructive. Most of the buildings she had seen were still standing, and those that weren’t didn’t have a look about them that said it was the war that had caused their demise. And if this land was part of Mexico again, as it had been once, centuries ago, it didn’t look any different to her than she thought it might have ten or twenty years ago.
“No, I really don’t have a gun,” Evelyn replied uneasily, as if saying she was defenseless made it more real. “Why?”
“Well, it’s just that most places in the borderlands aren’t all that safe for pretty girls.”
Pretty? Evelyn felt her cheeks start to blush, and she swallowed hard as if that might help keep it from happening. The unexpected compliment, even if it was in the context of him worrying she might be killed or worse, caught her off guard, and she felt her heart thump against her ribs.
“Don’t worry about me, Ollie; I can take care of myself,” she heard herself say, trying to sound tougher than she felt and realizing she may have pulled it off had her voice not cracked on the first syllable.
Ollie grinned and chuckled. “I have no doubt about that, but still, I wish you’d stick close until we find your brother. When I say it isn’t safe, I mean it. A girl looks like you and she’ll vanish in a heartbeat. I can’t live with that.”
Evelyn smiled and nodded, feeling her cheeks warm even more. “Sure, Ollie, thanks.” She glanced down at Tillie and realized her eye was open again, a little grin in the corners of her mouth.
“I think he’s sweet on you,” she whispered.
Evelyn felt her face blush and was sure it was as red as the stop sign they had just passed.
Tillie tried to laugh, no doubt seeing how embarrassed Evelyn had grown at the unexpected attention, and immediately started hacking weakly on the back of her hand.
“Thanks for calling me out, sis. When you’re feeling better, I’ll make sure you pay for that,” he said quickly, patting her ankle.
Evelyn looked back at Tillie as her cough calmed and her wince faded back into a grin. “It’s okay, Evie, I can’t hardly blame him,” she said with a weak wink. “If I was a boy, I’d be hitting on you too.”
Evelyn covered her mouth with her hand, unsure for a moment what to say, and then cocked her eyebrow at Tillie as she lowered her hand. “And I bet it’s pretty annoying having your older brothers chasing all the boys off. It’s obvious they’re a little overprotective.”
Evelyn saw the grin grow on Tillie’s face. Even sick, and probably closer to death than she realized, she had a simple beauty about her, and Evelyn knew her confidence and strength only added to it.
“You’re damn right about that,” Ollie said under his breath.
Evelyn looked up just in time to catch his eye roll and just barely heard the giggle from Tillie, unencumbered by sickness and maybe remembering seemingly lighter days, which brought a tear to Ollie’s eye a moment later.
Evelyn was touched, and she felt a twinge in her heart. She knew there was little chance the healer they were seeking was going to be able to help Tillie, but she couldn’t help but hope that maybe he did have a miracle in him somewhere, saved up just for her.
“When you’re feeling better, Tillie, we’ll see if we can find a couple of cute boys … just to drive your brothers crazy.”
Tillie breathed out a laugh, and then, as if she had again tapped every ounce of strength she had in the conversation, she fell asleep, a grin on her face.
Evelyn looked up at Ollie and noticed he had a crooked grin on his face, just like Joseph’s. She smiled quickly and then felt another twinge in her chest at the thought of the boy she loved, light-years away and probably forgetting all about her in the arms of another girl. Evelyn felt her smile fade and she looked away.
The truck rolled into a gas station, the pumps guarded by three men. They were all wearing jeans, long-sleeve and mostly threadbare ropers, and hats—presumably to keep the sun off their skin, but Evelyn couldn’t imagine how hot they must be. She looked up into the faded blue sky, the sun glaring on every surface, and realized it was probably over ninety degrees already.
Tanner guided the truck to stop just in front of the men. The temperature seemed to spike with each passing second, the truck having come to a full stop without a breath of breeze blowing anywhere. Even the dust that had been kicked up from the tires seemed bored with the stillness and settled back in the spots it came from.
The older of the three men stepped toward the truck. “Y’all lookin’ for fuel?”
Tanner leaned across Malcolm’s lap. “Yeah. We ain’t got cash though, but maybe somethin’ fer trade.”
“What d’ya got?”
“What d’ya need?”
The wrinkles in the man’s brow grew as he got a thoughtful look on his face. He tipped the brim of his hat up, seeming to take in as much of the truck and what was in it as he could.
He stepped around to the bed, and even though Evelyn had her back to him, she could see his expression in the back glass of the truck. Evelyn figured he hadn’t seen many fair-skinned blonds lately, because his eyes kept gravitating back to her. She didn’t know if she should laugh or shudder at his leering, though, but she figured if he tried anything, Ollie would make sure he regretted it.
“Not sure I see nothin’ I need,” the man said, stepping back around to the passenger’s side window.
“No?” Tanner answered. “How ‘bout some bullets …? Think I could part with a few.”
At this, Evelyn saw Ollie wince, as if he was irritated that his brother would offer such a thing.
“Yeah? What caliber?”
&nbs
p; “Forty-five.”
“Hmm,” the man said, bringing his hand up to his chin, clearly thinking about what they were worth. “I’ll give ya two gallons fer six.”
“I’ll give you six fer six gallons.”
“Naw, can’t do that,” the man said, shaking his head. “Too rich.” He paused for a second. “Can’t do any better than three gallons fer six. Take it or leave it.”
“Done.”
Evelyn watched as Malcolm dug around in his pocket and withdrew six brassy bullets, handing them to the man through the window. The man held one up to his eye, squinting at it, and then hefted it in his hand, checking the weight. “Give ’em the gas, son,” he called over his shoulder.
One of the younger men by the pump grabbed the pump handle and stepped closer to the truck. Evelyn hadn’t realized it, but the tank was just on the other side of the wall of the truck bed she was leaning against, and as the young man approached, she felt the hair raising up on the nape of her neck, realizing he was getting a little closer than he needed. She watched his reflection in the glass as he unscrewed the cap and put the nozzle in the tank, clearly paying more attention to her neck and shoulder and whatever else he thought he might strain to see than to his duties.
A moment passed, and Evelyn felt a heat build in her chest, growing tired of being ogled by these men. Without thinking, she snapped her head around.
“Are you getting an eyeful?” she asked, staring him straight in the eye. “I think that look’s gotta be worth at least another gallon.”
The young man’s face flushed, clearly embarrassed, and he took a step back. A moment later, the man’s father burst out with a lighthearted laugh, bending over at the hip and catching himself with his hands on his knees. “I’d say it was worth at least that much, miss, but the look on his face right now’s got to be worth at least one more.”
At this, Ollie, Tanner, and Malcolm all burst out laughing, as did the man’s other son, and the ogler’s face grew even redder as he stomped off toward the station. Even Tillie managed a weak laugh along with everyone else.
Doppelganger Girl Page 14