by Jay, Jess
“Oh, hello. How may I assist you today?”
“We need a key to a room?”
“Excellent. My system seems to have malfunctioned and my log for the past thirty years, six months, and thirteen days is empty. I have to assume something has gone wrong with my processing center and must ask you if you have paid already.”
Jojo nodded, so Thea did as well.
“Excellent. Once I am able, I will verify your payment. Until then, I ask for your patience. Excuse me as I get your room key.”
The robot glided down the counter and reached for a long, clear piece of plastic the size of a pencil. As the setting sun landed on the robot’s back, it illuminated a power button on its neck. There had once been a panel protecting it, but Thea guessed it had fallen off, leaving the button unguarded. The robot glided back to her and handed her a room key. She felt sorry for it. It spent the last thirty years alone, and she wondered if it felt the passage of time.
“Please come by again,” it said, and Thea felt sadness in the words. She knew she was being silly. It was a machine. It didn’t have feelings, but her heart ached for it. How long would it be before another person came along? Would another person come along?
“I’ll stop in before we leave,” she said, reaching over the counter and pressing the button on the robot’s neck.
“Thank you,” its voice faded as it powered down. She knew it was following its programming and thanking her to be polite, but she wanted to believe it understood. She wanted to believe it was grateful for its rest.
* * *
Thea let out a relieved breath as the key slipped into the door without issue, a green light indicating it worked. Vines had infiltrated a few other locks and forced their way into a few other rooms, but the room the robot chose for them was free of vegetation. It was on the second story toward the end of the walkway and the air inside was stuffy and hot from the day.
As she dropped her pack on one of the beds she had the urge to leave the door open to air out the room, but the sun had set—shriekers would be active and she wasn’t sure how far they could hear. She closed the door with a sigh, locking and bolting it, hoping she would be able to fall asleep. The heat was so oppressive it was difficult to breathe, but it was better than dying, if only a little.
“Jojo, could you take the top covers off the beds?” Thea asked as she turned on the solar light clipped to the outside of her pack.
Jojo rolled her eyes and let out an irritated breath but hopped off the bed anyway. With what tiny power she could manage, she yanked on the dusty fabric.
Thea didn’t wait for her to finish before using the last of her strength to move a dresser in front of the door. Unfortunately, her body didn’t want to cooperate, protesting every push and refusing to follow her orders. It had been a long day of traveling, and she knew she wasn’t eating as much as she should. Still, she managed to get the dresser halfway in front of the door before she admitted defeat. Panting and sweaty, she leaned on the wall, feeling her heartbeat through her veins.
Jojo finished her task, stomping over to Thea and thrusting the cheap covers into her stomach. Thea stifled a groan as she commanded her arms into action, but the girl dropped the blankets before she could take them. Thea tried not to be irritated. It had been a long day for both of them and she was grateful Jojo did what she asked. That was progress. At least that’s what she told herself as she hung the blankets over the curtains to add an extra layer of insulation to dampen any noise they made. It didn’t feel like enough, but it would have to do.
They ate in silence, Jojo mute and Thea unwilling to deal with the girl’s lack of regard for her. There had been moments, few and far between, when she thought the girl might be warming to her, but then the girl would realize what she was doing and pull back. Thea tried not to dwell on it, though she often did. She had finally found another person and that person didn’t like her. What if she met other people and they didn’t like her either? It was a stupid, silly thought. Her aunt and uncle had liked her, but she hadn’t been damaged then. What if she was too broken now and couldn’t relate to people? What if she was unlikable?
They drank water she boiled and bottled the day before, making sure to not deplete their stores but needing more because of the heat. They had been lucky, finding a source of water every day or so. She had no reason to believe that would change, but she also had no reason to believe she knew anything about anything.
The trip had been more difficult than she expected. Her body was sore from pedaling through thick vegetation with a wagon in tow and she was filthy with sweat and dirt. They had seen at least twenty-three shriekers so far. Each of them had been frozen in daylight but their number was alarming. They were lucky to find shelter each night, but she worried what would happen if they didn’t—what if they had to sleep out in the open, out in the dark?
Rain had hampered their progress for a couple days, trapping them inside a recharging station. The downpour only lasted a few hours, but when Thea woke up the next day, thick clouds hung overhead, blocking the sun. She chose to stay an extra night, but worried that wasn’t the right choice. What if one day was the difference between success and failure? What if they ran out of food and died one day from their goal?
Keep going. Don’t look back and don’t stop.
When Jojo finished eating she climbed into her bed and pulled out the only book she seemed to read. Thea pressed her lips into a line, looking away from the two bears on the cover, her eyes landing on her own pack. She remembered the books she’d found earlier that day and she dug them out but faltered before handing them to Jojo.
“I…” Thea’s voice sounded timid, and she winced. “I found these for you.”
Jojo didn’t look up from her book, turning the page as if to prove a point. Thea pressed her lips together again, this time to keep from saying anything else. She set the books on the girl’s bed and steeled her heart when Jojo ignored them.
Fine, then.
Thea laid down on her bed and turned her back to the girl, trying not to be juvenile and failing. She was tired; she wanted to sleep. What the girl did or didn’t do wasn’t her concern. If the girl ran away again, that was her choice. Thea wouldn’t go after her… No, that wasn’t true. Even if the girl didn’t want to travel with her Thea felt responsible for her and she couldn’t shirk that responsibility.
She moved slightly so she could see Jojo and found the girl looking at her, her large blue eyes peering over the pages of her book. When she met Thea’s gaze her eyes darted back to its pages, a tinge of red coloring her tan. Thea’s irritation and hurt crumbled, leaving an emptiness in its wake. Jojo was small and scared. She had lost her family and was forced to travel with a stranger. It was hard to remember what she was going through when Thea was so focused on herself.
Thea turned around and watched Jojo lay down to face her, the book clutched in her hands. Thea gave a small smile and the girl stared at her, her brain working behind her eyes but her thoughts a mystery.
Eventually Jojo’s eyelids drifted closed and the book slipped from her grasp, her breathing slow and even. Sleep didn’t come as easily for Thea. Despite her best efforts to keep her mind empty, it filled with the events of the past week.
That morning Thea came across the woman from the year before. She wasn’t sure it was her at first, the body laying in the middle of the road, face down, taking root in the pavement. She almost didn’t see her, but a piece of her shirt was visible through the leaves growing out of her. At first she thought it was just another body, but then she remembered the pattern of the fabric.
When she brushed the foliage to the side, she recognized the outfit and realized the woman’s dreams had only taken her that far. Doubt renewed its attempts to take control of her thoughts, but she wouldn’t let it. She was different. Her situation was different, and the world wasn’t as empty as she had thought.
About two days before that they came across a small vehicle, half the size of a regular car and
relatively free of vegetation. It had a seat for one in the front, a slightly more spacious seat in the back, and a large dent in the front fender. Thea thought for a moment it might be what Jojo had been traveling in, but realized that was impossible: Jojo and her family were traveling toward the Pasture, not away from it. That meant there was another person or another family that was alive or had been alive until recently. It gave her hope but scared her at the same time. The world was larger, more full than she expected, but she feared she was too late, that there had been other people and she missed them, like she missed Jojo’s family.
She shut out those thoughts, needing to stay positive, needing to stay strong. She would do better. She had to do better.
As she fell asleep, she tried to believe she could.
Chapter Eleven
Around noon the next day they came across a path cutting through the overgrown vegetation of a side street. Thea stopped and Jojo slammed on her brakes to avoid colliding with the wagon, smacking her hand on her handlebars in frustration or irritation. Thea didn’t respond or look away—someone or something had made that path. She knew it was probably a shrieker. They had seen a few shrieker trails, erratic and distracted, cut into the tall grass as they traveled, but that path was straight and focused.
She forced herself to look away and her eyes landed on a broken and faded sign. Vines reached for the letters, attempting to cover them, but the words “organically grown crops” and “greenhouse” were still visible. If a person came across that sign and was starving, they would have followed it. The odds the crops were still there and still clean were slim, but there was a chance. If the food grew in a greenhouse it might be safe.
She glanced over at Jojo, who set her face in a scowl, but decided against asking the girl what she wanted to do. She had a feeling the answer would entail causing Thea some kind of physical harm. Maybe if they found some food it would put the girl in a better mood. More importantly, if she didn’t try and they ran out of supplies later she would hate herself.
Thea turned her bike down the side road and followed the path cut in the vegetation, telling herself it was the prospect of food and nothing else that was spurring her forward.
That was a lie, of course.
Jojo waited for a moment before following.
After half an hour they came across a house with the shell of a building in its back yard and a various array of crops spreading from its ruins. Thea slowed to a stop and stared at the scene, hoping the few wooden beams sticking out of the ground weren’t the organic greenhouse. As if to mock her, a sign nailed to the house confirmed it was.
She swallowed the disappointment that attempted to leave her in a sigh. She wouldn’t give up. Not yet. There was still the chance something remained. In the center of the explosion of vegetation stood a scarecrow, and where there was a scarecrow there was something to protect.
Uncle Jeremy had told her that during the Chaos there were increasingly disturbing scarecrows meant to deter people from raiding crops instead of crows. Some were husks of people devoured by the green before being burnt and staked, but most were the mummified remains of humans who dared take what wasn’t theirs, left as a warning to those who might do the same.
Thea motioned for Jojo to stay on the road before leaving her and their bikes, taking the black light from her pack and making her way toward the scarecrow. The sun was bright, hampering the purplish light’s ability to detect the green, but the plants in the area appeared clean. She tried not to get her hopes up but felt her spirits rise at the prospect of finding food, so completely focused on her task she almost didn’t notice the scarecrow sway despite the air being still.
Fifty feet away she halted, pushing the rim of her baseball cap up so it wasn’t obscuring her vision. Her heart chilled as she noticed the scarecrow’s hair wasn’t straw or brittle, but a dirty, greasy brunette. It was wearing a red plaid shirt and a pair of jeans, beat up but too vibrant to have been in the sun for decades…
The scarecrow was new.
Thea put the black light back in her pack and pulled out the gun from her belt, undoing the safety and wishing she hadn’t left the shotgun on her bike. She kept herself steady, looking around the rest of the field, but didn’t see anyone except Jojo, tiny in the distance. That didn’t mean they were alone. A thrill worked its way through her body: if there was a new scarecrow, that meant there were other people… Other potentially hostile people.
Thea knew she should turn back and forget everything, but she couldn’t. She had to know if the crops were edible, if someone tended them, if there were others out there…
Steps slow and quiet, she continued forward, jaw clenched, eyes and ears open for any movement. If the crops were someone else’s she would leave them alone—they still had a few weeks of food left, which gave her the luxury of being considerate. It wouldn’t be right to take someone else’s source of survival. Had they been starving or low on food she wasn’t sure she’d be as solicitous. She remembered the rabid expressions of the people who attacked her uncle. She remembered what happened to them.
All at once, she was sure the crops were taken care of, that there were people watching her every movement, waiting to punish her for trespassing. Her curiosity and courage left her, and she stopped, feeling exposed and regretting all the impulses that brought her to that moment. She had been careless.
With one last glance at the scarecrow she turned to head back to Jojo but halted when she saw its left hand: it was covered in a rough, hard substance, cracked and copper. Its right hand was flesh and bone—and was holding a gun.
Thea’s breath caught in her throat as the scarecrow turned to look at her over its shoulder, its face a mask of nothingness and its dark brown eyes blank.
It wasn’t an it: it was a man—a boy—only a year or two older than her.
As his head turned, his disheveled hair shifted away from his neck, revealing the strange stone-like skin on his hand extended up to his stubbled jaw. His face was still human, perhaps even handsome.
Like a prince.
Thea berated herself for the thought and aimed her gun at the young man. She tried to think of something to say, something that sounded confident and strong.
“I’ve got a gun,” she said and almost smacked herself in the forehead if not for the incredibly obvious fact she had a gun in her hands. The end of his mouth twitched, as if he had the urge to smile, and Thea pressed her lips into a tight line. He was patronizing her. Not good. She had to salvage the situation. “What I meant is that, I’m not afraid to use it. So I will shoot you if you try anything with this gun. I mean, I will shoot you, with this gun, if you try anything.”
The young man smiled, then lifted his eyebrows and hands as he turned to face her. He was definitely patronizing her, and Thea suppressed the urge to shoot him in the foot for it. She had to do better. She read a lot of books, used to communicate efficiently with people who weren’t dried out husks trapped in cars or children who refused to speak—she was out of practice, not an idiot.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” Not the best she could have done, but they were questions she wanted answers to.
The young man looked at her, sizing her up, and the fact she was a smelly, dirty mess crashed into her. She felt her jumpsuit sticking to her skin, damp with sweat. A baseball cap covered the worst of her greasy dark hair, but her ponytail, threaded through the back, fell limp on her shoulders.
She told herself it didn’t matter. She had been traveling, there weren’t many opportunities to clean herself, and she didn’t care what he thought of her. She didn’t.
The young man cleared his throat. “Jack.”
The word came with difficulty. His voice was gravelly, not like when a person lost their voice to the green and their vocal cords became brittle, but the opposite—as if his vocal cords were too thick and clunky.
Thea looked at his neck again. The surface was reflective, like stones arranged in a mosaic on his flesh, a shade
or two darker than his natural almond colored skin. In a way, it was beautiful.
He cleared his throat again and asked, “You?”
It took her a moment to realize he was asking what her name was, but she didn’t answer. She shouldn’t be friendly with him. He seemed nice enough, but he had a gun. Worse, he was infected with something she had never seen before—it might be fatal or contagious. She had to be careful, no matter how much she wanted companionship.
“Is there any food over by you, Jack?” Thea urged toughness into her voice and hoped it came through.
Jack made a show of looking around him, then back at Thea. “Your name?”
He was impossible. He was obnoxious. He obviously had a hard time talking, yet he was deliberately testing her. Maybe she should shoot him in the foot.
“Thea.”
“Thea,” Jack said.
Thea felt her heart skip a beat. She hadn’t heard her name said by another person in so long it nearly toppled her defenses. All at once, she felt connected to him, bonded to him. He was a person, an actual person. Yearning flooded her, almost knocking her off her feet. It didn’t matter who he was or what he looked like, she didn’t want to shut him out. She knew he might be dangerous, that she had to think of Jojo, but she didn’t care.
Remembering the girl, Thea glanced over her shoulder to where Jojo stood, frozen and watching, clutching her stuffed dog. Jack followed her gaze and stilled, his expression becoming serious. He looked back at Thea, his eyes closed off, different. The hand holding the gun twitched and Thea gripped her own a little tighter. She remembered that Jojo’s mother had been running away from something. All her longing slipped away, replaced with fear and dread. She had to leave. She had to take Jojo and leave.
“There is food here,” Jack said, answering the question she asked ages ago. Thea didn’t move, watching him, impossible suspicions running through her mind and drawing her brows together. He backed up a few steps, making room for her to come closer to examine the food he claimed was there.