by Alex Barnett
They couldn't let themselves wonder, or hope, or grieve. There was no time for it. The only way to stay alive right now was to stay sharp, and stay alert. Sometimes, Lydia wasn't sure which of them had it worse. They knew what had happened to Ava's mom and dad. Lydia would never know what happened to her mother after that final text.
Ava sighed, the noise coming out watery and choked, and laid her head on Lydia's shoulder. They sat in silence, just listening to the rain on the rooftop.
2
By dinnertime, everyone knew that Burnouts had been spotted by the barricade. It was quieter than usual as most of their group filed into the Royces’ spacious dining room. Lydia moved through the line behind Ava and Grandpa, listlessly spooning canned chicken, peaches, and mixed vegetables onto a glass plate. She couldn't stop thinking about what she'd overheard in her grandfather's kitchen. Were they really running out of food?
She knew their supplies weren’t exactly plentiful. Most everyone had a foodsynth these days, and the fully-stocked pantries and cellars Lydia saw in books and old movies hadn’t been commonplace in a decade or two. Why would you need to keep cans of vegetables and boxes of pasta on hand if you could just synth whatever meal or ingredients you wanted? Grandpa and the Royces had been smart enough to start synthing as many nonperishables as possible once services started failing, but they’d only had a few days before safety measures in the energy plants started kicking in and the power grid went down. Backup power in house batteries had only lasted about a week after that. Another neighbor, Eric Grant, had a portable generator that he had managed to rig to a few car batteries, but they wouldn’t use that to run the foodsynths unless it was the only thing keeping them from starving.
Mr. Grant’s generator had a much more important purpose.
How had she not noticed how short supplies were getting? She grabbed a glass of water, and moved into the living room, which was the only room on the first floor that still had seating in it, and plopped cross-legged on the floor in front of the couch. Ava dropped down beside her a moment later, and began stirring the mushy pile of peas, corn, and carrots on her plate.
"What is this even supposed to be? It tastes like metal," she said, curling her lip.
"I thought everything was supposed to taste like chicken," Lydia replied, stirring her own pile of mixed vegetables with a similar expression.
"The chicken doesn't taste like chicken."
"It can’t be that bad." Lydia poked at the rubbery, white and pink lumps of meat on her plate. Synthesized food was supposed to be indistinguishable from non-synthesized food; it was all made of the same proteins and fats…but the quality did suffer the longer you ran a foodsynth without having the filters changed.
"You think chili powder is spicy, I’m not trusting your opinion on this.”
“I was nine, and Grandma’s family was from Germany, let it go!”
“You still think chili powder is too spicy,” Ava said with a disdainful sniff. Lydia rolled her eyes, but couldn’t actually offer a counterargument. “I'll give you half my peaches if you eat this, too," Ava muttered after a moment, lifting a spoonful of the vegetable medley only to let it slide back onto her plate.
"Eat your vegetables," Grandpa interrupted dryly, nudging Ava's leg with the toe of his shoe. Lydia bit back a snort of laughter at Ava's disgusted look. Ava wrinkled her nose, but immediately began shoveling the stuff into her mouth, obviously deciding that if she couldn't foist it off on her friend, she may as well get it over with as soon as possible.
And also obviously trying to chew without actually tasting anything.
Lydia shook her head and bent back over her own plate. She wasn’t a picky eater, but her stomach was knotting unpleasantly. She had never heard Grandpa sound like that, not in the entire time since the Burnouts had appeared. If he was that worried, their situation had to be even grimmer than she thought. What would they do if—when—they ran out of supplies?
Grandpa and Mr. Perry had argued long and hard about sending a few people into town to try and scavenge what they could find before deciding to make do with what they already had. Going to the surrounding houses would be a risky endeavor, too. No one was exactly sure how many Burnouts roamed the neighborhood, and, well...
She and Ava were the only ones on Meadowbrook under the age of forty.
Mike Carter was tough as nails, and he was the best shot out of their entire group. His knees gave him trouble now, though, and while he once might have been able to outrun the both of them (even Ava, who had been on the track team every year since seventh grade), that was no longer the case. Jim Perry was a pretty good shot, as was Jill Royce. Andrew was fine as long as he had time to aim.
There was no one else who would be able to deal with moving targets, though—especially if they had to be on the move themselves. And while Jim and Jill were good, Jim just wasn't all that fast on his feet, and Jill Royce was pushing seventy. Lydia knew how to handle every weapon they had (and Ava was learning), but there was no way Grandpa would allow them outside Meadowbrook to go hunting for supplies by themselves.
So what were they going to do?
She was jolted out of her thoughts when someone laid a hand on her shoulder. She looked up to find Emily DeSantos—the Royce’s next door neighbor—standing in front of her and Ava with a couple of packets of drink mix, in pink lemonade flavor.
Emily was in her late forties; a quiet, pretty woman with pale blonde hair going white at the roots and gentle, gray eyes. She was a divorced mother of twin boys, freshmen at Ohio State. The last Emily had heard from them, they were throwing a couple of suitcases in their car and heading for her house with some of their friends. They had never arrived.
"Oh, awesome! Thank you, Emily," Ava said, grinning up at the woman.
"Yeah, thanks," Lydia added, taking the drink packets. Emily nodded to her, and smiled at Grandpa before moving off to get her own dinner. Lydia passed one of the drink packets over to Ava, then ripped hers open and dumped it into her water. Amazing, that something as mundane as a packet of lemonade mix was cause for excitement now.
Lydia ate quickly, head bent over her plate as she let the hushed conversation in the room wash over her. Unsurprisingly, almost everyone was talking about the Burnouts she and Ava had seen—wondering how close the things might come to the barricades, if they should put more people out on patrol around the barriers between the houses in addition to the two that were always on shift on top of the van.
She listened with half an ear to the debate as she ate. Grandpa was oddly silent, and she and Ava were watching him with concern. He barely appeared to be paying attention to the others. He hunched over the plate in his lap, one foot tapping the floor by Lydia's hip in a fast, jagged rhythm. Despite herself, Lydia felt another wave of apprehension.
"I don’t know," her grandfather had said...and if Mike Carter didn't know what to do, when he had been the one directing them, leading them, holding them together since this had started, what were they going to do?
No answers had appeared by the time she made herself eat the last of the tasteless chicken. Ava finished quickly, as well, and the two sat trying to enjoy their warm lemonade. The conversation around them moved into how they would schedule extra patrols. The knot in Lydia's stomach refused to unwind, and after another ten minutes of listening to the adults in the room arguing, she stood up.
"Want me and Av to go take over for Mr. Perry and Mr. Grant so you guys can work this out with everyone?" she asked the room at large, though the question was mostly directed at her grandfather. Ava frowned at her before jumping to her feet.
"Oh, hon, would you?" Jim’s wife, Iris—a round faced woman with close-cropped, graying hair and laugh lines around her eyes and mouth—asked from her seat in the dining room. "That okay with you, Mike?"
Grandpa nodded reluctantly. "Someone'll be out before sundown...you see anything else, I want one of you to come get us, all right? Double-time." He leveled a hard gaze at her, then sighed and he
aved himself up out of the chair. "You girls be careful," he said seriously. He bent down and kissed the crown of Lydia’s head, then pulled both her and Ava into a tight hug.
Lydia closed her eyes for a moment. Even with her nose smashed uncomfortably against one of the buttons on his shirt, she never felt safer than she did in the middle of one of her grandfather's rib-cracking hugs. Grandpa smiled at them, and tucked a lock of hair that had come loose from Ava's braid behind her ear. The girls waved to Emily and Jill Royce, before heading to the front hall.
Ava swung her jacket over her shoulders. "Oh good," she deadpanned. "It would be a real shame if these had time to dry off before we went back out there." She gave Lydia a sarcastic thumbs-up.
Lydia winced. "Sorry," she offered sheepishly, shoving her arms into the still-damp sleeves of her mother's jacket. She opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch. The rain had let up, lightening into a soft drizzle that was more mist than anything else. "I wanted to get out of there."
"And we couldn't get out of there and do something besides go sit on the van for another hour?"
Lydia shrugged, unable to explain the itching, nervous energy twisting her insides. She needed to be doing something. "You didn't have to come with me," she said as they hurried across the court to the barricade. Ava shot her a look. And kept right on walking with her.
Jim Perry and Eric Grant gave up their places on top of the van without argument, climbing down quickly. Eric, a thin, nervous-looking man with bulging green eyes and reddish orange hair, had retired from an engineering job a couple of years ago. He was the one who had directed most of the construction of the barricades, and kept their few machines running as best he could with patchwork wiring and jerry-rigged power supplies. It was amazing what he’d been able to do with car batteries and some tin foil.
She and Ava crawled back up on top of the van, and took their places on the lawn chairs, Lydia once again balancing the rifle across her knees. It still wasn't getting dark until fairly late in the evening, but Lydia didn’t think Grandpa would wait very long before sending someone out. Ava shifted in her seat, stretching her legs out and crossing her ankles.
"Do you think we'll have to leave?" she murmured. She started picking at a loosened thread in the outer seam of her jeans.
"If we're running that low on food, we might not have a choice," Lydia replied.
The thought was terrifying. Meadowbrook Court was small. And cramped. And makeshift. It lacked even the most basic necessities she had grown up with, and most days she felt like she was trapped in some holofilm based on pre-Invasion days. She was afraid that she was going to wake up one morning and find that Burnouts had broken through their barricades. She was afraid of what was waiting for them out in the remains of the neighborhood she had known for as long as she could remember. Still...at least she knew what to expect here.
The thought of heading out of the relative safety of the cul-de-sac? Braving the roads and highways that broadcast after broadcast on ancient radios warned people to stay away from? Heading out into what was left of her home city with nothing but a car window between them and the Burnouts?
Even with her…talents…the thought was terrifying.
They might not have a choice, though. Whatever the radio broadcasts said, help was not on the way. That much was becoming clearer and clearer each day. If they truly only had a couple of weeks' worth of food left, their best hope for survival was making for the green zones in Cleveland or Indianapolis. Lydia very carefully did not let herself think about the possibility that the green zones were as much of a myth as the help on the way.
"Grandpa will figure something out," she said. She did believe that. No matter what, her grandfather would find a way to keep them safe. Ava nodded hesitantly, staring off into the direction that the Burnouts from earlier had come from. Quiet fell over them again, the air tense and uncomfortable.
Lydia couldn’t stay still, her mind turning useless circles as she drummed her fingers against the rifle, keeping an odd counterpoint with the patter of the rain still falling. From time to time, one of her hands found its way to her mouth, and she chewed on her thumb nail until she realized what she was doing. The rainy, gray gloom that had enveloped the street was just starting to darken, when a loud noise split the air.
It came from farther up the street, where the road curved into a sharp bend that led out into other parts of the development—a clattering, metallic crash that carried over the rain. In the graveyard-like quiet of the neighborhood, the sound echoed. Ava sat bolt upright in the chair, shrieking before she caught herself. Lydia jerked to her feet.
"What was that?" Ava whispered. Lydia shook her head, clutching the rifle until the stock creaked.
"Sounded like a trash can or something got knocked over?" she replied, squinting against the gathering darkness. They still heard the occasional car alarm go off somewhere in the subdivision, or animals rooting through garbage and debris that littered the streets. Ava stood up as well. The falling rain was the only sound for several seconds. Just as Lydia was about to shrug it off and sit back down, the quiet was broken by another crash and a shout. A distinctly human shout.
Ava’s hand came down on Lydia’s shoulder, her nails digging into the muscle. “Was that,” she began, but Lydia hushed her.
She raised the rifle, her hands trembling. Voices meant people—living, breathing people. They hadn't seen any other survivors in the neighborhood...hadn't even been aware there was anyone else alive nearby. She held her breath, straining to hear anything else above the sudden pounding of her heart. They did not have to wait long.
Two people careened around the curve of Brookhaven Street, stumbling as they tripped out into the center of the road. The taller of the two—a black man with short hair—wrapped one arm around the shorter figure's shoulders and hauled them around to face the way they had just come. The man had a sidearm blaster, the kind issued to police and military, and he fired off a shot that lit up the street with a pale blue glow. Lydia tore her eyes away from the two people, the first living strangers she had seen in almost four months, and glanced behind them. Her heart dropped at the sight.
Burnouts.
Several of them—maybe a pack of ten or twelve. The things were racing after the strangers with frightening speed. Some were full-on sprinting towards them, the silver veins in their skin gleaming brighter and brighter as they sped up. The man with the gun fired again, dropping one of the closest in the pack. Then he turned and ran, the smaller figure jammed up close behind him. They looked as though they were going to run straight across the street, try to vanish in between some of the houses and maybe lose the Burnouts by jumping one of the yard fences.
“Lyds, we have to help them.” Ava’s eyes were so wide the whites were showing all around.
“But Grandpa said—” Lydia broke off. They were not supposed to engage with other survivors, if they saw them. Grandpa had made that very clear—the girls were to run and get the nearest adult immediately, and then go into one of the houses to wait for an all-clear. But how could they just leave those two people to the Burnouts?
“Lydia!” Ava shouted, and then made the decision for them. "Hey!" she screamed as loudly as she could, raising one arm and waving. "Hey, over here!"
The taller man's head jerked toward the sound. The strangers changed course in an instant, nearly falling again as the taller one changed direction mid-stride. The smaller figure (another man, Lydia could see now) was clutching the other's belt, trying to stay in line behind him.
Behind her, she heard the sound of the Royce's front door slamming open, a stampede of footsteps across the porch. Grandpa shouted her name, and the rest of the group would be right behind Grandpa. Help was on the way, but the Burnouts were gaining on the men. Two of the things in the front of the pack were nearly upon them, their grasping, clawing hands outstretched, mouths gaping open without any sound.
Ava would never forgive her if she didn’t help. She’d never fo
rgive herself.
She bit her lip, raised the rifle, and aimed for the Burnout closest to the two men. It was a woman—had been, had been, had been a woman—dressed in a t-shirt and a pair of black track pants. The Burnout's jaws snapped as it raced after the two men, like a rabid ghoul. She breathed. Aimed. Fired. Just the way Grandpa had taught her. Just the way she did when it was a wild turkey, or a deer, or a painted target on the other end of the rifle.
The Burnout jerked, crumpled in the street, and Lydia forced herself not to look at it. The strangers put on another burst of speed, but the Burnouts were so fast. It was almost inhuman. The silvered veins glowed blindingly bright now, streaks of light painted on skin as muscles moved faster and more fluidly than they ever did otherwise. The Burnouts were on the hunt. She took quick stock of the remaining things, and reluctantly set the rifle aside. She and Ava dropped to their knees on the van’s roof and stretched out their hands.
"Come on! Come on, faster!" Ava shouted.
"Girls!"
Grandpa hauled himself onto the van's roof faster than she had seen him move in ages, Jim Perry seconds behind him. They were both armed—her grandfather with one of their few laser rifles, and Mr. Perry with an upgraded revolver that could fire both bullets and blaster charges. Grandpa swore violently as he realized what was going on.
"Move!" he bellowed as he and Mr. Perry both took aim. Lydia hunched her shoulders and braced herself. The two strangers finally reached the barricade, skidding to a halt right in front of the van.
"Help my brother," the taller one gasped, grabbing the other's shoulder and pushing him forward. "Up, Zack, we gotta go up!"
Lydia lunged forward and grabbed one flailing hand, pulling as the stranger boosted his brother up. Ava grabbed his other hand. The man scrabbled for purchase as they half-dragged him onto the roof. As soon as he was mostly up, his brother let go of his legs and darted to the side, scrambling up onto the pieces of furniture that made up the rest of the barricade. Emily and Eric Grant yanked a dresser aside to give the stranger enough room to climb through. Three Burnouts barreled for the van, their eerie silence somehow more terrifying than if they had been shouting and screaming. As soon as Lydia, Ava, and the stranger were clear, Grandpa nodded at Jim. "Put them down!" he ordered.