Burn

by G E Hathaway

  She didn’t stop running until she was six blocks away, her eyes finally adjusting to the darkness so she could dodge in and out of alleyways.

  When Ellie finally stopped, her chest wanted to explode. She collapsed behind a small house, sucking in air as if she were drowning. She didn’t dare to move for a long time, listening intently for her pursuers.

  She waited fifteen minutes. No one came. The urge to throw up came back, and she found herself thinking about Noah, Liam, and Talisa as a way of distracting herself. She was surprised at how much she longed for Noah’s companionship at this very moment.

  It was three o’clock in the morning by the time she knocked on the Gonzalez’s door. At first no one came, but after persistent banging on their splintered door it finally opened. She walked in without invitation and turned down the hall toward Miguel’s room. His mother trailed behind her in a stream of Spanish.

  Ellie sat down beside him on the bed and unzipped her backpack. His mother lit several candles on the dresser, providing enough light see the shape of her sleeping boy curled tightly under his sheet. She pulled out a box of amoxicillin and began peeling back the packaging.

  “He needs to take this for four days, twice a day,” she told his mother in Spanish. “Stick with it, don’t forget, don’t stop if you think he’s getting better. Four days.”

  His mother nodded. Ellie shook Miguel awake. His chest rattled and he coughed as she pulled him to a sitting position. She was startled at how bony he felt under his pajama shirt.

  “Agua,” she said. Miguel’s mother disappeared and returned carrying a glass of freshly filtered rainwater. Ellie shook loose the first antibiotic tablet and placed it behind the boy’s lips. Bebes.” She raised the glass to his lips. She felt him suck in the water and swallowed hard. She held the glass so he would drink all of it, then helped him lie back down again.

  “Gracias,” his mother’s eyes were wet. Ellie stood and walked quickly to the kitchen, pulling supplies from her backpack. Bandaids, acetaminophen, ibuprofen, antihistamines, rubbing alcohol. She dumped them across the counter, leaving only a third of the supplies in the bag for herself. She zipped it closed.

  “Yours,” Ellie told her, “keep it safe. I have to go.”

  She ignored the woman’s protests, the guilt already building and leaving a nauseous feeling in the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t explain. She didn’t have much time left.

  She ran out onto the sidewalk, the backpack considerably lighter around her shoulders. She reached behind their front steps and pulled out the two-and-a-half gallon gasoline can. The night was quiet, but this time it carried a promise of danger. Her nerves were on edge as she eyed every street corner, expecting one of the Kings to come chasing after her.

  Dawn was slowly filtering through the clouds by the time she reached the Charger, still sitting serenely in the middle of the road outside Noah and Liam’s ravaged house.

  She couldn’t believe she hadn’t considered this problem before. But then again, she didn’t have a source of gasoline on hand before. She had assumed the dashboard had been giving her an accurate reading of her gas levels, but maybe the car was so old that it no longer read the tank levels correctly. She popped open the gas cap, unscrewed the can, and tipped the nozzle into the tank.

  There wasn’t a lot, but there would be enough to get where she wanted to go.

  She drained the can and threw it into the trunk before dropping down into the driver’s seat.

  Moment of truth. She put the key in the ignition and turned it.

  The car started instantly. Her heart leapt in her chest. She put the car in drive and pressed on the accelerator. The car rolled forward.

  She was mobile.

  No one was out on the streets this early in the morning. She drove away from downtown Tucson and toward the interstate with some difficulty, shifting uneasily between gears and expecting the car to fail again at any moment. But it didn’t. Her confidence grew the closer she got to the on-ramp. She opened her windows and felt the breeze through her hair. By the time she got on the freeway, she had shifted smoothly into fourth gear with no difficulty.

  Noah and Liam had mentioned Marana before dropping her off.

  It was a relatively young town located just ten miles northwest up the interstate. Unlike Tucson with its historic infrastructure, an eclectic mix of traditional utilities and technical upgrades, Marana was built entirely on the Grid. After the Fall, Marana went offline completely, becoming an eerie modern graveyard of beautiful, minimalist buildings and streamlined road systems. No one stayed behind in Marana, but Noah had been determined to go there.

  Now she would go there too.

  Interstate 10 snaked north through Tucson and Marana before stretching out toward the open desert. A small cluster of ghost towns existed between here and the Interstate 8 junction. All she had to do was exit on Interstate 8 and drive straight for southern California.

  Instead, she kept her eyes peeled for Marana. She thought about Liam and Talisa and Noah.

  She remembered the way Noah looked at her when they chatted outside of the train station that early morning in the car. The way he had grabbed her hand and pulled her through the desert and away from their captor. The cave. The look in his eyes when he chased her and finally grabbed her-

  She felt a wave of guilt again. She had to see him again, make sure he was okay. Set things right.

  Butterflies flitted in her stomach when she saw the Marana directional sign. She could continue straight on the freeway and end up in California in five hours.

  She made a split second decision and took the exit ramp.

  “You’re stupid,” she told herself. “This doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

  But she kept driving.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Liam startled awake to the sound of loud banging on the front door. He rolled disorientedly off the couch and onto the floor, blankets tangled around his legs. He cursed loudly and shook the blankets free, momentarily forgetting where he was. Then his eyes adjusted to the early morning light and he remembered.

  For the past three days he, Noah and Talisa had bunkered down in an empty house just off the Marana exit. Aside from serving as shelter from the rain, the house was an otherwise useless, empty shell with unresponsive technology built into every inch of its structure. Even the high powered security system was useless.

  The knocking started again.

  Liam crossed the living room to the entry hall, gun in hand. He still wore yesterday’s button-down shirt and jeans, his shoes and socks stacked neatly under the coffee table. He waited a few seconds to steel himself, then opened the door.

  Ellie stood apprehensively on the front stoop, a backpack slung over one shoulder and several bags of clothes resting at her feet.

  Even in his sleepy state, he couldn’t hide his surprise.

  “I drove all over the neighborhood,” she eyed his gun nervously. “I recognized the dents in your car.”

  He looked past her to see a classic Dodge Charger parked in the driveway.

  “You got it to work,” he raised an eyebrow.

  “Yeah. It was...a simple fix.”

  He stepped aside and held the door open for her. She looked past him into the empty living room, blankets strewn across the floor.

  “No one else is awake yet,” he told her. “Come on in.” He bent down to grab her bags and together they walked into the house. He nudged the door closed with his foot.

  “Supplies are in the kitchen. We were able to find some food in the corner store. There’s soap too, the bathtubs drain so you can wash up. Conserve the water bottles. Noah’s in one of the bedrooms, but you’re welcome to set your stuff in any of the other rooms. I sleep out here. The drains work, but the toilets don’t flush, so we have to go outside. Sorry. At least there’s no one else here.” He thought about it. “I think.”

  She looked around. The place was gorgeous despite its
tomb-like silence. Sleek, modern furniture sat tastefully around the room in shades of grey and white. The walls were a slick black. All houses in Grid towns reflected their creator, and Utopian Industries’ aesthetic was apparent in every shape and color. Even their logo gleamed on the stainless steel kitchen appliances.

  “We’ve been harvesting rainwater and running it through a filter. It’s rained so much that we have a couple gallons now.”

  “Where’s Talisa?” she asked.

  “She’s on the roof. She never sleeps. She’s keeping watch, so far there’s been nothing.” He looked uncomfortable. “She’s mourning, we’ve left her alone.”

  Ellie nodded. “So what now, then? What do we do next?”

  A click sounded from down the hallway, and a door swung open. . Noah walked into the middle of the living room, his hair askew and with dark circles under eyes.

  He’d been working nonstop since they’d arrived in Marana, trying to turn the house’s main power back on. Liam had watched him in silence for several days now, recognizing the intense focus that usually accompanied Noah’s work process, and waiting for him to come to him when he was ready. But Noah had been unusually withdrawn this time around, and by the way he looked at Ellie and the way Ellie suddenly started fidgeting, Liam understood why.

  “I’m here,” Ellie said. The strain in her voice was unmistakable.

  Noah nodded his head and quickly looked away. Liam willed him to say something, but then he grunted somewhat noncommittally before shuffling back into his room. The door shut behind him.

  Ellie looked at Liam and he immediately sensed her disappointment.

  “He’s sleep deprived,” he told her. “He’s been working nonstop since we got here.”

  She looked uncertainty back at Noah’s door. “On what?”

  “Some tech. It’s how he feels useful while we wait.”

  “Wait for what?”

  He looked skyward toward where Talisa was currently perched on top of the house. “For a sign from the gods, apparently.”

  * * *

  Ellie stepped into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. It was a small room, dedicated to a single sink, a toilet and a shower stall, but it was beautifully designed with high ceilings, a white floor, black polished walls and a large picture window. The Utopian Industries logo gleamed on the toilet seat cover.

  Ellie looked in the mirror and was struck by the contrast between herself and her surroundings. Clean clothes were hard to come by. She normally rotated through the same ten outfits, and hand-washed them once a month. She had grown accustomed to the natural stiffness in the fabric that developed over time. Her hair was another obstacle. Curly and thick, she kept it out of her face as much as possible. She kept a small bottle of hair oil in her bag that she’d lifted from a Sally’s Beauty Supply, but thorough haircare was hard to come by.

  She pulled out the rubberband and massaged her head. She had stopped caring about how she looked ages ago, but standing in the pristine house made her uncomfortably aware of how far she’d come from her days before the Fall.

  She stripped off her clothes and folded them neatly on the white marble counter, carefully avoiding her reflection in the mirror. She grabbed a bottle of soap and an unopened water bottle and stepped into the shower stall.

  She fought the urge to explore the controls imbedded in the wall beneath the spout, knowing the shower wouldn’t be responsive anyway. She uncapped the water bottle, bent over so her hair would cascade forward, and poured a third of the water bottle slowly over her head. She used her free hand to work the drops through her strands and watched the water fall onto the shower floor and disappear down the drain. She had cut her hair herself a few weeks ago, keeping it short around her shoulders for exactly this purpose. Long hair meant wasted water.

  She lathered quickly, working the soap gently against her scalp with her nails.

  She couldn’t shake the feeling of guilt, now stronger than ever. It had been faint, simmering lightly in the back of her mind while she was in Tucson. Seeing Noah’s face sparked even more memories. She couldn’t get the image of his blood out of her head. A terrible, taunting image.

  She poured another third of the water over her hair and watched the suds splatter around the drain along with dirt and strands of hair. Then she lathered her body and poured the rest of the water over herself. She watched the last drops disappear, and the shower was over.

  She climbed out of the shower stall and grabbed a white monogrammed towel still hanging on the rack, slightly stiff with age. She wrapped it around her body and stared at her reflection.

  She had gotten herself this far. The only thing to do was to keep going.

  * * *

  Devising a strategy against the sun god wasn’t as quick or as forthcoming as Liam would have preferred. He didn’t like coming this far out from Tucson, away from the ecosystem they had so carefully established in the downtown district. As safe as Marana may be from most of society, it was practically uninhabitable.

  Noah, as usual, thought differently. He had his Gridlight, and he was determined to build on to it. Once they arrived in Marana, he had become hyper-focused and shut himself into a corner of the house where he’d proceeded to rip into the inner wirings of the infrastructure. Liam had learned long ago not to pry too hard at the early stages of experimentation. Noah would tell him more when he was ready.

  Noah also was different. The cave had changed him somehow, given him an unrelenting drive to work. Or maybe distract himself. Liam wasn’t sure which, but sometimes when he watched his roommate he wondered if Noah was trying to run away from something. Something that neither he nor Ellie could help him with.

  Talisa stayed for seven days and seven nights on the rooftop. Rain fell steadily from the sky, soaking into the earth until the soil became saturated and the water began to flood through the streets. Liam harvested the water for showers and cooking, a silver lining to Talisa’s grief.

  Liam climbed up to check on her several times during that week, careful to keep his distance and wondering if it was even necessary to worry about the wellbeing of a god. By the end of the third day, he approached her. She sensed his concern.

  “I feel the loss of his life in my soul,” she told him.

  “I’m sorry.” He wasn’t particularly fond of Coyote for abducting his friends, but she didn’t have to know that.

  Or maybe she did know these things. He was still unsure of her omniscience.

  She sat on the edge of the adobe-style flat roof, her legs dangling down the side of the stucco wall. He looked out over the neighborhood. Their street was slowly turning into beachfront property, water puddling into the porch and forcing him to barricade the front door with sandbags.

  “There’s only so much I can do while we’re here,” Noah blurted out. “What now?”

  “It is customary to mourn the loss of a loved one for a determined amount of time.”

  His face grew warm. “I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be insensitive. I don’t know how much time we have. Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it. I won’t bother you.”

  “My powers grow stronger.”

  He looked around nervously, taking in the flooded subdivision. “Oh?”

  “The longer I”m here, the more I regain.”

  “Like what?”

  She turned to face him. Raindrops slid down her face and throat and into her gown, the fabric clinging to her body in a way that Noah couldn’t help noticing, but was too scared to appreciate.

  For a second nothing happened. Then she disappeared in a wisp of air, rain splashing on Liam’s face. He looked around wildly, but she was gone.

  “I’m still here,” her voice whispered in the wind, tickling his ears. A cool breeze brushed up against his body, and goosebumps sprang up on his arms. He felt it weave around his arms and legs, ruffle his hair, caress his neck, and he quickly stepped back.

  “Wait a minute-”

&n
bsp; She stood before him again, and the wind died down. She was beaming, an expression he had never seen on her before.

  Liam’s heart raced inside his chest, the sensation of her touch still tingling his skin.

  “I can regain my intangible self now.” She radiated a pleasantly warm glow in her excitement, and the sudden contrast to the cold rain sent shivers down Liam’s spine. “But only for a little awhile. I am still not what I was before. I don’t know if I ever will be.”

  Her smile faded away. “Coyote did not regain his true self until he died.”

  “Is he truly gone?” Liam asked. “Does this mean gods can die?”

  She looked at him sadly. “In this new world, I fear we can.”

  * * *

  Liam made frequent trips to the surrounding grocery stores for supplies. He was thankful for the chance to recover after the cave, and he appreciated that Noah’s enthusiasm with his work, but he couldn’t help but feel like they were standing in place.

  Ellie liked to go with him on supply runs, and they quickly made a good team. The Marana-area stores were well-stocked because the residents had fled so quickly from the dead city. They filled bags with canned fruits and vegetables, water bottles, cured meat, olive oil, rice, and seasoning. Ellie added boxes of vanilla chai tea bags and a stainless steel kettle, and Liam scored a package of table mints that had not yet expired.

  Dinner wasn’t a large family affair. The first night, Liam and Ellie shared a simple meal of beef jerky and seasoned rice at the kitchen table. He started a small fire at the stove and Ellie poured a bottle of water into the kettle. She placed it over the flames, and less than five minutes later she set a steaming tea mug on the table. She breathed in the aromatic mixture of cinnamon and spices and sighed.

  Liam watched her, chewing thoughtfully. “What do you hope to do here now?” he asked.

  Ellie kept her eyes down as she took a small sip. “I wanted to help.”

  “You don’t have to. You could be in California by now. Leave all this behind you.”

  She tried to sound casual, but he saw the stiffness in her posture. “You don’t want me here?”