Not a Drop to Drink

by Mindy McGinnis

  When darkness fell, she put on hunting camo, strapped her rifle across her back, and filled a canteen. “It’s not stupid, Eli,” she said as she closed the door and headed south across the field.

  South Bloomfield had once been a nice place to live, according to Mother. From her perch in the tree on the ridge, Lynn saw in the rays of the rising sun that most of the homes were brick two-stories with ancient, sagging porches. A few had swimming pools that now stood empty, except for the carcasses of the animals with the bad luck to fall into them. The town was upstream from Eli and Lucy, at a point where the water widened. The bridge spanning it had been rebuilt just before the Shortage, reinforced with steel guardrails that still held a reflective sheen. A relic of the past loomed over the village—a cell phone tower where Lynn had spotted a sentry once the sun rose.

  She envied the tower sentry his position. From his height, the only thing preventing him from seeing forever was the curve of the earth. The bare branches didn’t offer much cover. Lynn knew that once spotted she’d be dead, so she was stuck in the tree until dark fell again. The sentry had been exempted from the daily work in town, which meant he was an excellent shot. Lynn marked him as her first target.

  The first activity in town came mid morning. The man she thought of as Blue Coat led three women out of a yellow house near the center of town. He was armed. They were barely clothed. They shivered in the chilly air but didn’t try to cover themselves. The men passing by hardly glanced at them; they’d already seen everything on display.

  As much as she wanted to kill him, Blue Coat wasn’t her highest priority. He seemed to be in charge of the women and though he was armed, she doubted his capabilities under fire. He’d run his mouth too much when they’d come for Neva, and Lynn had noticed how his eyes were always squirreling away from hers, bouncing off everything in sight. Blue Coat didn’t have the cold stare of someone who could shoot well, or the sense to keep his mouth shut to cover up his nerves. He deserved a bullet, but she’d have to give him his after those more capable.

  Blue Coat marched the women to the stream, and they disappeared down the near bank. Lynn watched through her binoculars as they emerged minutes later, dripping wet and clutching themselves to conserve heat. Green Hat walked alongside the youngest girl, and Lynn saw him slip something into her hand before she disappeared into the house again. As tightly as the girl clutched the gift, Lynn guessed it was food.

  Lynn kept the binoculars on Green Hat and the line of women filing back into the yellow house. His actions caused a ripple of doubt on the placid surface of her cold rage. He had said he was sorry for Lucy’s illness when they came to take Neva, and Lynn could tell by his eyes that they weren’t empty words. The child’s illness had bothered him, and he had helped Neva up from the frozen ground as she’d stumbled toward her death.

  In the past, it had been easy to know who her enemies were— anyone not Mother. But even though he was clearly a part of the group of men, Lynn couldn’t bring herself to watch him through the rifle scope with her finger curled on the trigger. Slipping extra food to the starving, nearly naked young girl wasn’t an action she could account for in someone she needed to kill, and so she marked Green Hat as a question mark. She’d kill him or not, depending on how he reacted once the lead was flying.

  The man who had been on her roof watched everything from his position in front of the town hall, the only building under guard. He sat in a lawn chair in the parking lot with a rifle across his knees. Green Hat wandered away from the yellow house and made conversation with him for a few minutes but didn’t succeed in fully gaining his attention. The guard was constantly watching the movement in the streets, the other men, and the people who had come to trade. Green Hat couldn’t distract him, and he changed his position when men not a part of their group came into the village so that he could cover them with his gun. Lynn marked him as her second target.

  Traders were filing into town as noon approached, the sun glinting off the melting snow and giving Lynn a headache. People filtered in and out, more than she would have guessed existed in their small corner of the world. She couldn’t see well enough to know what everyone had brought to trade, but red gasoline containers were easy to spot, as were the round portable propane tanks.

  A man and woman appeared on the road, walking hesitantly toward town. She held a bundle protectively against her chest. Lynn squinted into the binoculars and could see a tiny fist jutting from the top of the blanket, entangled in her hair. As they approached the center of town, a man emerged from the largest house and hailed them from the porch. Lynn switched to her rifle.

  He was unknown to her. Tall and broad through the shoulders, with red hair and a confidence about him that immediately said he was in charge. He greeted the couple with familiarity. Lynn could see by the wary look on the woman’s face that she knew enough about him to be frightened. The husband gestured toward the baby in his wife’s arms. The redhead nodded and smiled as if he understood but shrugged off their questions, pointing to the church next to the town hall.

  The woman disentangled the baby’s fist from her hair and handed the bundle to her husband. She walked to the church with her head down. Lynn could hear the high-pitched wailing of the baby from her position in the trees, even as the father rocked it in his arms. The woman knocked on the door of the church, and Gap Tooth—Roger, Vera said his name was—opened it.

  She caught a flash of black and white behind him, and Lynn nearly rolled out of the tree in surprise. There was a cow in the church, a dairy cow. There was a pail swinging from the father’s elbow as he walked the baby up and down the porch of the brick house. The mother disappeared inside the church with Roger. Lynn hoped the doors were thick enough to stop the cries of her child while she did what she had to do to feed it.

  Other traders came. Tall Red stayed on his porch, where a line began to form. He sat at a table with a pencil and paper, figured out what the traders wanted, what they’d brought to trade for it, and whether it was acceptable. One man brought a five-gallon jug of gasoline to the table and walked away with an entire deer carcass over his shoulder.

  Those less lucky traded their own bodies or the bodies of their women. Tall Red never took them into the house himself, but Blue Coat, Roger, and a man with a black beard each took payment at different times during the day. One woman came begging for water, empty buckets in her hands and children clinging to her legs. Green Hat played with the children to distract them while Black Beard took the woman down to the stream far longer than necessary to gather water.

  Lynn decided not to shoot Green Hat.

  Tall Red dickered extensively with a man who had driven a truck loaded down with blankets, pallets of canned vegetables, and a mattress. Tall Red kept shaking his head, and the man walked back to his truck, emerging with a pack of cigarettes, which turned the tide. Tall Red scribbled on a piece of paper and handed it to him, directing the man toward the town hall. The guard there looked at the paper, spat, and stuck it in his back pocket. Roger and Black Beard emptied the truck while the man followed the guard out of town toward the east. They appeared minutes later dragging a wood splitter behind them.

  The sound of an engine caused Lynn to jolt. A huge truck with no muffler roared into town, the bed so loaded with goods that it rested on the back axles. Two men jumped down from the bed and began unloading the truck, carting their loot into the town hall where the guard kept a tally. Two more men emerged from the cab. Lynn began counting on her fingers. The presence of the looters swung the odds in their favor. A long way in their favor.

  The sun was beginning to swing back toward the horizon when one man took a bundle of food to the cell tower, where the sentry lowered down a bucket for his lunch, taking a leisurely piss off the side afterward. Roger led the cow from the church to an overgrown yard and tied it to a post to graze. The looting party gathered on the porch with Tall Red, their feet propped on the railings, heads lolled back in idle conversation. The stream of visitors slowe
d, then stopped entirely as the long shadows drew dark marks in the old snow.

  The sentry came down from the tower after dusk, his skills rendered useless. The guard at the town hall switched out with a less vigilant looter, and the unfamiliar glow of electricity came from inside the houses. The cow lowed to be let back inside and Roger returned it to the church. The slight breeze that had been blowing died down enough that Lynn could hear the squeaking of bedsprings and the whir of generators, while Tall Red remained on the covered porch, keeping watch over all.

  There were lights still on in some houses when Lynn tumbled out of her tree, legs numb with disuse. She flexed her neck and arms, keeping her eyes on the town below her. There was still a guard in front of the town hall; with her naked eyes, she could make out his dim, dark shape beneath the electric light that shone over the parking lot. The houses at the west and east ends of town each had a guard on the porch. Beyond the arc of the warm glow of electricity, Lynn could see nothing. There could be guards in the dark; there could be no one.

  Lynn crept east through the woods. The man who traded for the wood splitter came prepared with a truckload of goods in exchange. If the men were willing to part with one they probably had more, and a guard to watch over them as well. She’d counted eleven men in all, and didn’t need the surprise of a twelfth if she and Stebbs chose to attack.

  She crossed the road to the east and fought her way through brush to the stream. The moon came out, illuminating in stark brilliance that there was no choice.

  She burst through Stebbs’ door without knocking, causing him to whirl on her with a frying pan raised above his head.

  “Christ child, Lynn! What are you doing?”

  “They’re building a dam.”

  Twenty

  “Shit,” Stebbs said when they crested the ridge. “You weren’t kiddin’.”

  “Nope.”

  Machinery littered the meadow on the far bank of the stream, skeletal and pale in the moonlight. A dark scar marred the earth around the stream where they’d widened a reservoir area, a massive pile of stone stood nearby, menacingly solid. Stebbs took Lynn’s binoculars and squinted into them.

  “Shit,” he said again. “They’ve got a decent-size reservoir dug already, and plenty of stone to stop the river anytime they want. They probably couldn’t work in this mud, so they’re waiting either for a freeze or the ground to dry out.”

  “Either way, they’d have Eli and Lucy out of water in a week,” Lynn said.

  “Them and anyone else downstream who counts on it for water.” Stebbs handed the binoculars back to Lynn, and surveyed the dam area. “Shit.”

  “When Lucy was sick, you said you and me aren’t the kind of people who don’t like situations we can’t control. You said we need to be able to do something.”

  “I remember.”

  “I think it’s time we did something.”

  “I know it. But what?”

  She regarded him critically for a moment, biting her lip. “How’ve you been feeling?”

  Stebbs shifted his weight awkwardly on his bad foot. “I’ve been better, mostly back before I was cripple.”

  “Can you lay still for a while?”

  “Laying still is something I’m good for.”

  “You eat anything lately?”

  Stebbs forehead creased in confusion. “I ate well enough tonight. Why?”

  “C’mere. I want to introduce you to a tree friend of mine.”

  Stebbs was true to his word, making less rustling than Lynn, and even managing to fall asleep on his perch in the tree. Lynn had given him the long, wide limb she’d used earlier to stretch out on. She was nestled comfortably against the trunk where the limbs made a V, hugging her knees against her chest. She rested her head against her canteen, allowing the gentle swaying of the branches to lull her into a decent rest, if not sleep. The taut muscles in her back and legs screamed for a break, and she took turns flexing them as the gray light of dawn appeared on the horizon. She hissed at Stebbs to wake him, and they watched as the sentry climbed the cell tower.

  “He come out at dawn yesterday too?”

  “Earlier.”

  Stebbs made a noise in his throat and borrowed her binoculars again. “Keep them,” she said. “I’ve seen.”

  Through her rifle scope she watched the men go about the same duties as they had the day before. The guard who had been on her roof reclaimed his position in front of the town hall, and Roger brought the cow out of the church to graze.

  “Milk,” Stebbs muttered to himself. “Almost forgot such a thing existed. Looks like they’re keeping their stockpile in the town hall, since it’s the only place that’s guarded. The cow and the women being the exception. You got to realize that we start shooting, some of those girls could get hurt.”

  “I’m willing to take the risk. Bet they are too.”

  Stebbs shifted on the limb, moving his gaze to the group of men headed toward the truck. The same four looters started it up and headed out of the village with an empty bed. “Those the scavengers?”

  “Yup. I imagine we hit while they’re gone?”

  “I would. They leave about the same time yesterday?”

  “I didn’t see them go. They might even spend the night outside the village, the farther they’ve got to travel to forage.”

  “We’ll want to hit on an off day, once they’re gone and not expected back.”

  Lynn followed the truck through her scope, ignoring the urge to pull the trigger. “That was my thinking.”

  Stebbs watched the village in silence for an hour, finally handing the binoculars back to Lynn and propping himself on one elbow. “Well, I’d say so far you’re right on. Take out the tower sentry first, then the guard at the hall. After that, the guy with the beard and then the one in the blue coat. The guy in the green hat we wait and see.”

  “What about the big guy? The one in charge?”

  “Didn’t see him.”

  Lynn handed the binoculars back to him, gesturing toward the town. “Across from the church, there’s a big brick house, with a porch. He was out there yesterday, doing his dealings with the people.”

  She raised her rifle back to her eye again but found the porch empty. Movement in one of the windows caught her eye. “Heads up,” she said. “He’s coming.”

  One of the women from the yellow house opened the front door, clutching a blanket around her thin shoulders. She crossed the road limping, even though she’d been uninjured the day before. Tall Red walked onto the porch holding a cup of coffee and leaned against one of the pillars.

  “That’s him,” Lynn said, but there was no response. “What do you think? Should we pick him off before the guard at the hall?”

  Silence.

  “Stebbs? What’s the call?”

  He pulled the binoculars away from his eyes slowly, handing them back to Lynn. “That’s got to be your decision.”

  “Why?”

  “’Cause that’s your daddy.”

  “You’re sure?” Lynn asked as they slipped back to her house in the dark on stiff legs.

  “There’s no mistaking him. This change anything? He’s the only blood you’ve got left in the world, you know.”

  “He’s my blood, true. But I’ve been thinking lately that maybe he’s part of what makes up the bad bits, the things I’ve done that never bothered me until you said they should.”

  Stebbs thought about it as he trudged along beside her. “I knew your father, Lynn, and I know you. What you did, you thought you had to. Wasn’t no part of you enjoyed it, or liked hurting for the fun of it. If there’s some of him in you, it’s been for the good—the will to survive and the brains to figure out how. There ain’t ever been one person who was all good or bad, not me or you, not your mom or your daddy either. So I say again that it’s up to you—does this change anything?”

  “Good blood or bad, he’s a stranger to me and a threat to my friends,” Lynn said. “We take him out.”

  T
heir shoes crunched through the evening dew that had frozen the scanty patches of snow still left on the ground. “There’ll be a hard freeze in a few days,” Stebbs said. “That truck with the scavengers went out this morning. If you’re right about them spending the night outside of the village, we’ll need to do this right quick. I say we talk to Eli now. We can be in place by morning.”

  “He doesn’t want any part. You and I can handle it.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Two snipers are only good to have if they’re reinforcing someone on the ground. There’s no guarantee we’ll make every shot, and after that first one, they’ll scatter. We’ll be hard pressed to nail three right off, and then we’re in for a long wait while they’re undercover. We’ll be sitting in trees with only what we’ve got on our backs, and a truck with four more men in it coming back anytime. And that’s the best-case scenario, assuming neither one of us gets shot. One of us goes down, the other is dead.”

  “I don’t like it. I know you’ve been working with him, but Eli’s not good with a gun.”

  “No, but it’s his water we’re fighting for. Don’t you think he’d want the chance to defend it himself?”

  Lynn thought of their exchange on the roof, the bitter tang of uselessness that had threaded Eli’s words. “We’ll put it to him, see what he says.”

  “Where you go, he’ll go,” Stebbs said.

  “I know it.”

  “Tough caring about people, isn’t it?”

  Lynn considered the long, cold winter that had passed happily, with Lucy sharing her basement and a stolen night with Eli sharing her cot. Without them, she would’ve been alone for the dark hours, staring into the blackness fighting off grief and madness. “Wouldn’t trade it,” she said.

  “You’re sure this is necessary?” Eli asked, dissecting the crudely penciled map that Stebbs had drawn.

  “They’ll only grow stronger. The scavengers will keep looting the countryside until there’s nothing left for anyone in the area. We’ll all be begging them for something sooner or later,” Stebbs answered, bouncing a grinning Lucy in his lap. Not even the seriousness of the adults could cut through her happiness at avoiding bedtime.