by Cal, Sarah
For a moment, she felt dizzy, her legs feeling a little weak, like she needed to sit down. She wouldn’t, though. This was all...
Just how long had Merry been planning for this? She didn’t want to walk into the shed and start checking dates, was afraid to think how long her sister had been aware this would happen to them while the rest of the world remained ignorant. Merry hadn't exactly been quiet about it, others just refused to listen to it. If the situation could have been predicted, it could have been prevented.
There was no chance for any of that now, however.
She turned a frown to her sister. "You acquired that food with funds that came from me and hid it from me. All those times I went to a store and you asked me to buy you something, it wasn’t to eat, it was so you could hoard it, wasn’t it? How did you even hide this from me?"
Somehow, she was having a hard time accepting that. Not that Emma had cared much besides making sure there was food in the kitchen. When there wasn’t, they bought more, and that had been that.
"Well, I've been putting it away for a long time, always the stuff that would last longest. Even then, it won't last forever, but it's better than starving until we find a better way to acquire food. We'd be better off if we lived on a farm where we could just grow our own stuff."
She followed Merry's gaze to where Emma had found her and Janice planting the evening before. It looked fine, as far as she could see, but whether anything would grow only time would tell. Still, to keep this much to themselves...
"Do we even need this much food? Grandma eats less than you and you're the size of a twig. I don’t eat that much either..."
"Remember, because you got your friend to come stay with us, he's added to the equation. It looks like a lot now, but it won't last forever. It will, however, last long enough to matter." She closed the shed and locked it, depositing the key in her pocket. "You may provide for the family, Emma, but I prepared us for the worst. I know you don’t think I care about this family, but ever since Mom and Dad died, I haven't thought of anything else besides our future."
For just a second there, Emma remembered what it was like, being a little girl and having the best older sister. Even as she grew out into her pre-teen years, and Merry finished high school, prepared to go to college and join the country's work force. Emma had Chase now, but long before she met him, when everything was right in her world, she had her older sister to go to for her problems.
Merry's face even softened a little, with her hair still in disarray, looking like the person Emma remembered from her memories who would hold her when she cried over friends, boys, being bullied for being a little chubby and an introvert. Who she talked to before talking to her mother.
Then Merry put a palm on her shoulder that broke the image, reshaped it. This was still her sister, changed and removed from her memories, but they were still family, and Emma felt her heart warm with the knowledge.
"Don’t worry, Emma. Believe what I tell you, what I see, or not. I promise that we'll be okay, and no matter what happens, we'll get through it."
For once, Emma wanted to believe her.
Chapter 24
At some point, Chase had gone to look for her, and had followed Emma outside. He found her sitting still, lost in her thoughts, and took a seat beside her instead of disturbing her. Almost by reflex, she leaned against him, and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
They were sat out in the garden, looking out at Merry's shed.
It was kind of funny, to Emma, how she'd never paid attention to the building before, and it now held their futures inside of it. She wasn’t sure how Merry had kept a shed full of food secret, but then everyone thought she was crazy, so few people really paid attention to her. She wondered how long it could remain a secret, anyway. It didn’t quite set them up for life, but between that and the garden idea, they would be more comfortable than anyone else in town could hope to be.
Despite Merry's wishes, Emma told Chase about the food supply. He'd taken it all in silence, and they hadn't spoken a word to each other since.
Chase broke the silence first.
"I wonder how she managed to keep it a secret."
Emma had thought about it, too, extensively. Even if she didn’t notice a little food getting taken away every now and then, she reviewed her bank statements at the end of every month, after she'd paid bills and groceries, and set a budget for the next month. Some money always went into savings, but not a lot. She'd never noticed enough of a deviation in the calculations to alarm her, but considering what was in that shed, she had clearly missed something.
"I didn’t get a lot of time, with work, do be going out for groceries. Merry was the one that always did the online shopping and collected it while I was work, I just paid for it. I wasn’t exactly looking at the stocks. If I noticed something was there, then not the next time I checked, I assumed someone else in the house used it or ate it."
"You would have known though, wouldn’t you, if your food budget was a little high? You have one, don’t you?"
She frowned, thoughtful. "Well, yeah, but it wasn’t anything solid. When I wanted something added in, I just told her, added a bit of cash on and left it at that. It fluctuated sometimes, but nothing to great. Usually we just got the bare essentials with the occasional snack mixed in. Besides, I think she'd been doing it for years, shaving a bit every month so it wasn’t enough to notice."
Besides, Emma hadn't done any budgeting for their needs before, that was usually left to the adults. When she became an adult herself, she made guesses of estimates. She wasn’t sure how much was enough to feed them all in a month, she just checked to make sure it was relatively even across any month, so they could get rid of waste and buy only what they'd need.
Well, it had been wasted effort, anyway. The money she'd put away in savings wasn’t something she could ever get back now. If the lights never came back, that meant no bank records, and money had little meaning in the current world, anyway.
She felt Chase shift beside her, and glanced up at him. The look on his face was, she would say, relieved. For Chase, it was good that they had food, because it meant they wouldn’t have to worry. Still, Emma squirmed at his side until he slid his gaze down, curious.
"It's possibly going to save us, you know."
Emma swallowed the lump in her throat. She knew that, of course, had felt it when she looked into that shed and her mind processed what she was seeing. The last thing she wanted was to go back to the anxiety, wondering if the next meal would be her last. It left her relieved, just like Chase, that she didn’t have to be worried about providing for the family.
I don’t want that life. But she doubted others would, either. She'd thought it over after Merry left her alone, and Emma had stuck around, still staring at the shed like, if she watched it long enough, or hard enough, she would see what was in there.
"Do you know what I hate most?"
Chase arched a brow, surprised by her non-sequiter, but he listened.
"When I saw it all, I was so fucking relieved, Chase. My family would be just fine, and it was all I cared about. I include you as family now. I didn’t care about other people, the problems they would come to face. But then it did occur to me, and I realized just what a terrible, selfish person I am."
Emma knew that they needed food. But so would everyone else once supplies ran low.
"Emma..."
She ignored Chase's careful tone, gazing out again.
"I just feel so guilty... about having so much food hoarded when everyone else is going to starve."
The guilt was crippling, and she had no idea what to do about it. She didn't want to think about it at all, but then that would be just as selfish as doing nothing.
Chase pushed her away from him so he could place his palm on her shoulder, shaking her a little until she met his eyes.
"You don’t have to feel guilty for that."
She gave him a weak glare. "That's easy for you to say, Chase, but I
can't help how I feel."
In fact, she wondered why he wasn’t just as affected. They were going to be comfortable while the situation for a lot of people out there will only get worse over time. Chase didn’t even look like he thought about it, or that it bothered him, like he couldn’t see a problem.
"You're not responsible for everybody."
She just sighed and looked away, only for him to shake her again until she met his gaze.
"We need to think about ourselves first, Emma. There are other ways to help the community without giving away all of our supplies. Just keep doing what you've been doing. If you want, I can volunteer, too, and we can both help everyone else. And besides, it isn’t your job to look after everybody. Deciding to help is one thing; single-handedly making yourself responsible for everyone in this town can only end in disaster."
Emma wondered if she should be surprised that Chase was unknowingly siding with Merry. She understood the sentiment, had told him it was survival of the fittest, everyone saving themselves. If they went forward as a family, they could have each other's backs. It only furthered chances of survival for them. It was the practical thing to do.
But, seriously, screw the practical thing. She might not like the Wright family all that much, but they had a five year old girl that Emma had spent a lot of time around, they had a baby barely out of stage of infancy. They, and plenty more people, would want the option Emma's family had. She thought about being in their shoes, facing that uncertainty, and shook internally at how ready she was to sacrifice anyone not inherently close to her, and it made her body grow cold.
She realized her body was shaking, and for a moment, felt panic hit. But then she realized it was just Chase shaking her, and she focuses a glare on him until he stopped. She saw his mouth and realized he was speaking. She hadn't heard anything, had to concentrate just so she could hear him. When he realized he had her attention, he stopped shaking her, his hand falling off her shoulder.
"Emma, I realize the situation is not ideal, but we don’t have much of a choice."
She scoffed. "Don’t, Chase. I know you're not that much of an idiot. We do have a choice, we've already made it. The choice not to share even though we know the people of this town, even further than this town, will need it."
He narrowed his eyes. "Fine then. Imagine this. We go around and tell people, tell the cops, and then what. All of it, it's taken, maybe a small ration left for us. Or people get mad, and they storm the house to get at the food. You know it could happen, the cops put a curfew, are going around patrolling at night, for a reason."
"But if we gave up the food—" she tried to explain, to defend herself, but he cut her off.
"A few paranoid idiots would only think we have more and try breaking in anyway. If people broke in here, we couldn’t protect ourselves while trying to protect your sister and grandmother. I know you don’t like it. But believe it or not, neither do I. I want to do the right thing, but you asked me to be here, to be a part of this family, and to look after it. So I am. Hope isn’t lost for everyone else, but if you intend to keep offering assistance, you're going to need strength for it."
Emma blinked as her mind tried to process the words. They were easy enough to understand, but she didn’t think they addressed the moral issue she was facing. The good, moral thing to do would be to help other people. But she also had a duty to her family, to her sister. To Chase, for sticking him with them, and her grandmother for looking after the sisters when they needed her most.
But Chase was right, if she told anyone outside the family, they'd only be thrown in more chaos. People would wonder where she got it from, how she knew to prepare. Would they believe her if she attributed it to her sister's crazy rambling? And even if they did, what would that mean for Merry?
It would put a lot of suspicion on them. And Chase was also right about the house probably getting broken into by crazed people looking for food. There was a lot in the shed, but not enough to feed a town, not even with minimal rations. If people assumed she had more, and she denied it only for them to think she was lying, there was nothing she could do if they invaded her house. She had the one gun, never fired, she didn’t even know if it had any bullets and didn’t know how to check. The police had several weapons, and would use them if they found it 'to the benefit of the town.' But only for so long, before even they wised up and decided to take something extra for themselves, in exchange for the services they provided.
The world had been give and take for as long as she remembered, this wouldn’t be any different. If anything, it would be worse, with people turning against each other for the sake of food. She imagined, in one of the bigger cities of the country, the ones that held millions of people instead of their smaller number nearing to the thousands, that the situation was already that deplorable. Just because she hadn't seen it yet, didn’t mean that wasn’t the situation out there.
Then Chase spoke, pulling her from her mind again.
"Also remember this. You went to ask Merry for help. This was her secret, you promised her not to tell anyone. You already broke it once by telling me, even though I won't be spreading it around. But you know that Merry won't forgive you if you started distributing her supplies to the town."
No...
The last thing she needed was to alienate her sister, especially now that they were the closest to being on good terms than they had been in the past ten years. Emma didn’t want to lose that, neither did she want to lose her sister's help and support when she'd just started working to gain it.
She may have paid for all of it, worked her ass off in a job that left her unhappy, but Merry had a point.
Had Emma found that food before the crash, she would have stopped buying more until it was all gone, because it was a waste to have food and buy more when they didn’t have a lot of money to begin with. She would have doomed them to starve. But Merry had put it all away, prepared. She had been the one to get the food. Emma wasn’t sure her sister would have shared if Emma hadn't insisted on asking for help, but it was as much Merry's as it was hers, now.
"I guess I'll think about it," she muttered, defeated. She still felt conflicted, but she didn’t have to do anything about it immediately. They weren’t completely without avenues, after all. Somehow, the situation wasn’t so desperate yet to employ such drastic measures. "I'll take some time to think about it, but I can't make any promises about what I'll do."
Chase sighed discreetly as he pulled her into his arms and buried his face in her hair.
"I'm not going to ask for more from you. But while you're thinking... consider this. What would you do, what's the farthest you're willing to go, to protect yourself and your family. And when it came to it, what would you do between doing the best for your family, and doing what you believe is right."
Emma felt her body shiver at the seriousness in his tone. It still took getting used to. But she melted into the warm hug, silently vowing to think about it all seriously. And not just what she thought she should do, but also the consequences of each possible decision and what she could live with. This was one area she wasn’t going to let her impulsive behavior take control. It was too important.
A loud knock made them jolt apart, and Emma realized it was the front door. She wondered who it could possibly be, feeling a short bout of irrational fear and panic. Paranoia. There was no way someone could possibly know already, she was just being ridiculous.
"I'll go see who it is."
She watched as Chase got up, and scrambled to follow him inside, closing the back door as they moved to the front of the house. Chase was already talking to whoever it was, and Emma heard her name before Chase stepped aside so she would see who was there.
At the sight of the police officer standing on her doorstep, she did her best to school her face and hide her emotions. She would give them away by acting like she had something to hide.
"Officer, what can I do for you?"
He gave her a nod in acknowledgement.
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br /> "Ms. Waters, I was sent to ask you to go into town."
There was that flash of panic, again, before she buried it down. "What for?"
"Well, we got a visitor at the station this morning. The Mayor from the other town, Williams I think his name was, he wants to speak to you. Refuses to talk to anybody else."
Emma felt her eyes grow wide. She'd forgotten about the deal. Why had he personally come himself, though? And why to speak with her personally? He had made the deal with her, but she was technically acting on behalf of the town. Their own Mayor was believed to be one of the victims of the crash, but he could have talked to any senior officer at the police station.
She could only assume it was part of his tricks.
Also, she didn’t want to meet him, or attempt to make any more deals with him. She was still unsettled with what she'd learned, being in his presence would only make it worse.
Most of all, though, she was nervous, knowing she overstepped the line in her negotiations before. He might have attempted to cheat them, but it had been the literal agreement they made, even if he had been trying to poison the town.
She didn’t think she could go by herself. The officer might accompany her anyway, but he was a stranger. So she turned to Chase, who still stood beside her, waiting.
"Do you mind going with me?"
He glanced back into the house, up the stairs. "Are you okay with leaving your family alone?"
She hesitated. It had been okay the day before, but in light of new information, it was the last thing she wanted. Still, they might not be gone for long. Surely they could be okay for a while, and it was still daylight...
"It should be fine as long as it doesn’t take too long. If it does, you can come back and I'll follow."
He shrugged. "Then I don’t mind."
They both turned to the officer, waiting. He gave them another nod before turning sharply and leading the way. They locked the house behind them and followed the officer into town.