Not a Drop to Drink

by Mindy McGinnis

  He came to the bottom of the stairs. “What?”

  “Up here,” she said. He climbed the steps and shut the door behind him when he saw the look on her face.

  “Neva’s dead.”

  “How?”

  “Did for herself, with the derringer I gave her. Not long after they walked off. They left her out in the field.”

  Stebbs sat down on the stone steps, resting his head in his hands.

  “What do we do?” Lynn asked.

  “We’ll have to go get her, but right now we’ve got worse problems.”

  “How bad is Lucy?”

  “I don’t know much about sickness, but by the look on her grandma’s face, I’d say it’s bad.”

  Lynn sat beside him, ignoring the freezing water that soaked through her jeans. “What do we do?”

  Stebbs put his arm around her, and she leaned into him. “Kiddo, you and me don’t do so well in situations we can’t control. There’s nothing you could’ve done for Neva, and we can’t help Lucy now. It’s not up to us.”

  She rested her head on his shoulder, tears of futility pricking at her eyes. “Don’t think I care for that.”

  The door burst open behind them, and Vera ripped past, Lucy’s shaking, naked body clutched in her arms.

  “Jesus, woman!” Stebbs yelled.

  “She’s seizing!” Vera screamed, and disappeared over the bank of the pond. They ran after her, Eli on their heels, and crested the bank to see Vera plunge the white form into the icy blackness of the pond.

  Lucy’s eyes snapped open and she screamed, scratching frantically at the strong arms holding her body under the water. Lynn grabbed Vera and yanked her backward, but her strength was outmatched by the older woman’s determination. She landed on her back, the wind knocked out of her.

  “Get off me!” Vera yelled. “We break the fever or she dies.”

  Lucy kicked weakly, her efforts sending ripples through the water that broke against the ice still covering the depths. Vera pulled her out, and her limbs fell limply to the side, spraying Lynn’s face with freezing droplets.

  “Take her,” Vera handed her off to Eli, who raced back inside.

  Vera slumped next to Lynn on the bank, clutching her wet arms to her sides. “It was the only thing I could think of,” she said. “Once the fever gets past a hundred and five there can be serious brain damage. I had to cool her, fast.”

  “Did it work?” Stebbs asked.

  “She stopped seizing, but it will spike again.”

  “What’s wrong with her?” Lynn asked.

  “I’m guessing it’s a bacterial infection, though it could be viral. Her medical history makes me think the former; she’s always been susceptible to the bacterial kind.”

  “Neva said Lucy’s fevers always went real high,” Stebbs said.

  “Some people’s bodies burn higher than others.” Vera rose to her feet, looking at the ice crystals re-forming where she’d broken through with Lucy’s frail body. “It’ll spike again, and I’ll have to dunk her.”

  “I have some medicine,” Lynn said. “It’s mostly expired, but there is some aspirin. That can bring down a fever, can’t it?”

  “It can, but if it’s old it can’t do much against what she’s facing. It’s probably too much to hope that you have some antibiotics?”

  Lynn shook her head and followed Vera as she started back to the house and her patient, wet arms clutched against the rising wind. The older woman kicked in anger at a frozen clod of dirt. “I smuggled some medicine out of the city when I went, but I hid my pack when I ran into those men on the road.”

  “Is it far?”

  “Too far on foot to do Lucy much good. They picked me up in their truck and we drove awhile before we got to their camp.”

  “How long?”

  Vera gave a shudder that had nothing to do with the temperature. “Long time.”

  “Did you have a general sense of direction? Could you find it again?”

  Lynn opened the door for Vera and they descended into the basement together. Eli had wrapped Lucy in the extra blankets and had her lying in the cot near the fire. Vera put her hand on her forehead, frowning. “I had a compass on me, and a map. They took them both. I know we traveled east to get here, and I could recognize the area again. By the time we found the meds and came back though, it would be too late.”

  “I have a truck,” Lynn said. “I’ll drive you.”

  Vera tucked the blankets tightly around her granddaughter, her decision made the second she put her hand against Lucy’s burning flesh. “We leave now. Eli—stay close to Lucy. If she seizes again, you’ll have to dunk her. I know it’s ugly, but it’s the only way to keep her temp down. Let me see those aspirin.”

  Lynn handed the coveted bottle over to Vera, ashamed at the rattling of so few pills inside.

  “These are years past effectiveness,” Vera said critically. “Usually I’d say the drug is broken down past any use, but we don’t have a lot of options.” She handed the bottle to Eli. “Crush up two of these and mix it with some water, try to get Lucy to drink it. You—” She pointed to Stebbs. “Strip the other cot and start some water boiling so there will be clean bedding ready. And keep the water boiling to sterilize the dirty. If this fever breaks, she’ll be covered in sweat, and vomiting will probably follow. That’s the best-case scenario.”

  “What’s the worst case?” Stebbs asked.

  “It doesn’t break.”

  The truck started without a problem, and Lynn let out a sigh of relief.

  “You were worried?” Vera asked.

  “Don’t drive much, except for emergencies,” she answered. “Truck doesn’t always want to start up, and that’s the kind of day it’s been.”

  “Right.”

  Lynn headed straight west, her hands drumming against the wheel in an effort to channel her energy. Words bubbled up from her chest, looking for an outlet. “We’re lucky they didn’t come until after the melt. Even in this truck we couldn’t have managed the roads in all that snow.” The idea that something as simple as a snowmelt could dictate whether Lucy lived or died left her feeling shaky and unanchored.

  “They talked about coming sooner,” Vera said calmly. “But Roger—the one who did all the talking—”

  “Gap Tooth?” Vera gave her a blank look. “The one missing teeth?”

  “Yes—that’s Roger. He said they should wait. They wanted Neva, but they knew they would have to take you by surprise. If they used the trucks, you’d hear the engine and be on the roof in a second, and they couldn’t make the walk until the snow melted a little. Roger said from what they knew of you they had no guarantee you wouldn’t shoot us all, including me.”

  “A couple of months ago, I might’ve,” Lynn admitted.

  “How did Lucy end up with you?”

  Lynn was quiet for a moment, weighing her words. Vera still didn’t know Neva was dead, and it would fall to her to tell her.

  “They couldn’t care for her,” she said slowly. “Surviving out here is hard, and they weren’t ready for the weather. They thought they’d have shelter sooner.”

  “Why didn’t they? It seems like there’s plenty of abandoned houses around.”

  “Their original plan was to stay in my house, near a source of water. When they saw I was there, they knew they couldn’t take it. They were worn down and weak. Neva didn’t want to leave the stream, so they stayed there.”

  “Living where?”

  “Eli did a decent job of building them a little shelter. Stebbs— that’s the man back at my house—he talked me into coming over and visiting them. Eli and Neva decided that Lucy would be better off with me.”

  “They should have never tried it,” Vera said, placing her hand against the passenger window and splaying her fingers. “I could’ve aborted her pregnancy and they would’ve stayed in the city.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Neva wouldn’t do it. She said she’d rather have her baby out he
re than stay in the city and give it up.”

  “She lost it,” Lynn said. “It was a boy.”

  “Carried to term?”

  “Uh . . .”

  “Was she really big when she had the baby? Was the baby fully formed?”

  Lynn remembered the fading warmth in the little bundle that Stebbs had handed her, and Eli unwrapping it to see whether he’d had a niece or a nephew.

  “I think it was, yeah.”

  Lynn thought about Neva’s hunched form at the tiny grave, faithfully visiting every day no matter how cold it was. The same determination had been in her face as she traded her life for her daughter’s, and Lynn felt her gut twist at the thought that Neva had known what she was about to do even as she walked away.

  They drove through a crossroads, Lynn blithely ignoring the stop sign at the corner. “There’s a town up here, to the south, but it’s abandoned. Was there anything like that where you were?” She didn’t know if prompting Vera would help or hurt, but blind driving would get them nowhere. Lucy’s chances dipped with the sun and every turn of the tires.

  “I don’t remember any towns. I was in the bed of the truck most of the time, and on my back, but I had a little peripheral vision and I wasn’t looking anywhere else.”

  Lynn’s stomach rolled at the implications. “If you didn’t see much, it probably was west. There’s not a lot in this direction.”

  They drove awhile in silence. Lynn’s hands were tight on the steering wheel, her knuckles white. “Any of this looking familiar? Are we too far out?”

  Vera stared out her window, shaking her head. “Nothing looks right, but I think we were farther out than this. I do remember seeing a church spire, and thinking it was odd to see a church that big out here in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Was it white?”

  “Yes, but the bell had fallen out and crashed down the front of the tower.”

  Hope blossomed in her chest like a crocus pushing through the winter’s ice, and Lynn swung to the right. “I know that place, it’s the old Methodist church. When I was really little, Mother used to take me hunting with her, ’cause she was afraid I’d wander outside alone if she left me behind. She’d hunt there for wild turkeys. The bell was still hanging then.”

  “Your mother?”

  “Gone now,” Lynn answered. “This past fall.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Lynn drove fast in the fading light, scanning the horizon for the spire of the church. She hadn’t been this far from home since Mother had brought her out as a child, and though her sense of direction was keen, she didn’t trust her distant memories in the dark.

  “I need to tell you something,” Lynn said. “About Neva.”

  “I can’t think about her right now,” Vera said. “I can’t stop what they’re doing to her. It’s best to focus on Lucy and something I can help.”

  “She’s dead.”

  “What?” For the first time, Vera looked away from the window, her strong composure breaking with the single syllable.

  “She shot herself in the field, not long after they took her.”

  Vera closed her eyes and rested her head against the cold glass. “Neva, my poor girl. I’m so sorry, baby.”

  Tears pricked at Lynn’s eyes and she stared ahead, uncomfortable in the small truck cab with Vera’s mourning. The church spire stood black against the setting sun, the red rays of evening pouring through the hole that the falling bell had torn.

  “Here’s the church,” she said, driving past slowly. “Do you know where you are now?”

  Vera opened her eyes and wiped away a few stray tears. She cleared her throat. “I wasn’t far from here, there was a little cemetery around the corner. I had just passed it when I heard their truck coming. I was smart enough to hide my pack behind a tombstone, but stupid enough to not hide myself. I was hoping I’d be able to get a ride.”

  “It’s not like the city out here,” Lynn said. “You’re better off to distrust everyone at first and make them earn it.”

  “Then it’s exactly like the city.”

  Lynn drove to the little cemetery silently, parking so that the headlights cut across the graves, giving the stones long, black shadows.

  “You remember which one?”

  “I’ve got a general idea,” Vera said as she opened her door. “Everything was in my backpack and I ditched the whole thing.”

  “They didn’t think it was odd you were traveling empty-handed?”

  “They weren’t thinking with their brains once they caught me.”

  Vera and Lynn fanned out through the center section of the graveyard in the long evening shadows. Lynn’s feet sank into the soft ground as she walked. The backpack was hunched sadly against the back of a leaning tombstone, the underside dark with moisture. “Got it,” she called out, hefting the backpack up with one hand.

  “Careful,” Vera called out. “There are syringes in there. If they break, it’s pointless.”

  Lynn handed the pack over to Vera and watched as she checked the contents. “They’re injectable liquids, we’ll have to hope they haven’t frozen since I left this behind.”

  “Will they still work?”

  Vera shrugged. “Only thing we can do is inject her and wait.”

  They headed south, Lynn’s foot heavy on the pedal now that they weren’t looking for landmarks anymore. Full dark fell, and she noticed that Vera tensed every time they flew through a crossroads.

  “Sorry,” she said when she noticed Lynn looking at her. “It’s an old habit. When I see a stop sign, I still think ‘stop.’”

  “Mother used to stop at every one,” Lynn said, smiling. “She said running them felt wrong.”

  “It’s a different world now,” Vera said. “I am sorry about your mother.”

  “I’m sorry about your daughter.”

  “Right now, I’ll concentrate on saving Lucy, and mourn later.”

  Lynn sped up.

  Eighteen

  The needle sank into Lucy’s fevered skin, leaving a pucker behind. “She’s dehydrated,” Vera said. “Did she keep anything down?”

  Eli shook his head. “I crushed up a few of those aspirin and put them in some water, but she lost it pretty fast.”

  “Keep putting fluids in her. Her temp is dropping but it will spike again, even if the antibiotics are working. It takes a steady stream of medicine in her system to start fighting the infection. I can inject her with what I have maybe twice more, but that won’t kill the bacteria on its own. They’ll multiply and we’ll be back in the same situation in a week or two.”

  “So we need more antibiotics,” Stebbs said.

  Vera nodded and pushed a curl of Lucy’s hair behind her ear. “I’ve heard horror stories of people dying out here from the simplest things; I didn’t want to escape the city only to be killed by a scrape I overlooked one day too many. My own lab had the injectables, so it was easy enough to take some and adjust the inventory. But trying to take more or to take pills from someone else’s lab would’ve been suicide.”

  A heavy silence filled the air at Vera’s last word, and she put her hand to her mouth as if to force it back in.

  Stebbs cleared his throat and shared a glance with Lynn. “You’ll have to search some houses for the pills she needs.”

  Lynn began lacing her boots back up even though she’d just sat down. “I’ll go now.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Eli said, dragging his own boots out from under Lucy’s cot.

  “You do this sort of thing often?” Vera asked, her composure regained.

  “Sometimes,” Lynn said as she shrugged her coat back on. “If we need something we don’t have handy. I haven’t been out scavenging in a long time though, no idea what the nearby houses look like these days.”

  “Those men who took me . . . that’s what they were doing— scavenging. They’d go house to house and clear out anything that seemed useful—medicine, blankets, and tools. They had it all stockpiled back at their cam
p.”

  “Why’d they need all that stuff?” Lynn asked blankly.

  “They don’t. They’re taking it so that others that do need it have to come to them for it.”

  “To trade,” Stebbs finished for her. “Sons of bitches.”

  Lynn remembered the traveler on the road, the stranger whose boots had been taken off his feet in order to be stockpiled somewhere. “I won’t trade with them, even for medicine.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Vera said. “You don’t have anything they want. They’re on the stream. It’s flowing well right now from all this melt so they don’t need water. But you’re going to have to drive a long time before you get to a house they haven’t cleaned out.”

  Lynn tucked her handgun in her waistband, slung her rifle over her shoulder. “We’ll drive then,” she said. “Surely there’s somewhere they haven’t been.”

  The evening was cold and she leaned into Eli as they walked out to the truck. “Did Stebbs tell you?” Lynn asked quietly.

  “About Neva? Yeah.”

  Lynn rested her head against the steering wheel before starting the engine. “I can’t believe she did that. Eli, I swear I never thought she’d use it for that.”

  He touched her cheek. “I know you didn’t. It’s all right.”

  “You don’t blame me?”

  “No. If that was her decision, she would’ve found a way eventually.”

  Lynn squeezed his hand, then started the truck, a weight sliding from her shoulders with the idea that Neva’s face wasn’t among those she should feel guilty for. “I don’t know how far to go. Vera seemed to think those men cleared out a lot of the houses around here. They picked her up to the west, and their camp is somewhere to the south. We’ll go east for about half an hour and start checking houses.”

  Eli watched as the fields and woods flashed by. “You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?”

  “Not while I’m driving.”

  “You know what I mean. I was standing there when you threatened them.”

  “I will kill them, Eli. Now’s not the time, but I will do it.”

  “It won’t bring Neva back.”

  “I’m not trying to bring her back. They walked into my place and took something from me, and I let them. They’ll do it again and again, for as long as I have something they want. Leaving them alone guarantees my own destruction.”