Hope for the Best

by Vanessa Lafleur

  Lareina laughed but wished her greatest fear could be so simple. She didn’t like feeling trapped in small spaces, thinking about catching the fever terrified her, storms had always made her uneasy, and looking at the pendant gave her a sense of foreboding. “Being caught by the detective,” she lied. Never finding a family, she thought. That would be worse than all of the others combined.

  They looked to Aaron, who stared down at the book in front of him. “Being a failure,” he muttered. “Ever since I was a little kid, I told my parents I would become a doctor and take care of them and send them money. They expected me to get perfect grades in school, and I did. But since getting into medical school is practically impossible, I’ve been trying to find another way.”

  She lowered the book to her lap. “Is that why you won’t write to them?”

  He nodded without looking up.

  “You should just tell them you are a doctor.” Nick touched the fading pink cut on his forehead. “I’m convinced.”

  “You’re studying right now. You’ll be a doctor one day, a good one.”

  “What’s the next question?” Aaron analyzed the checkered pattern on the rug.

  “If you could choose a superpower, what would it be?”

  Nick sat up. “When was this book written anyway?”

  She flipped to the front and held the book to the light. “The first date is twenty thirty.”

  “That’s old,” Nick exclaimed. “Forget old, it’s ancient.”

  Aaron slid his book forward and sat up. “Or maybe it’s history.”

  “Who studies history anymore?” He watched water droplets slither down the glass. “People don’t even know if they’ll live to see tomorrow.”

  Gloom slipped back in and Lareina wanted to continue the distraction for just a little while longer. “If I could choose a superpower, I would want super speed.”

  Nick swung his feet to the floor. “I would want to fly. Nothing would stand in my way and I could travel even faster than you.”

  “I want the ability to memorize all of this.” Aaron picked up his book and slid it onto his lap. “And understand how to use it.”

  Lareina closed her book and looked out at the gloomy afternoon. Sometimes she imagined that new leaders would emerge and fix the world or at least restore it to the way it was during better times. But maybe it wouldn’t save her or Nick or Aaron. Maybe they already lacked the education and skills they would need to survive in any world except the one around them. They were part of an entire generation, slipping through the cracks, ignored, neglected, abandoned. The generation that would be responsible for saving civilization or tipping the world into inescapable chaos.

  Chapter 11

  The moon chased the sun in a never-ending cycle of light fading to darkness and darkness brightening to light. The trio woke up, ate breakfast together, and scavenged the surrounding land for food. Nick and Aaron played Battleship or a new game they made up involving dried up bottles of nail polish and windmill trinkets that they moved across the squares of the area rug in a complicated flurry of rules that never allowed either of them to move all of their pieces to the other side. Lareina read books about medieval royalty, detectives solving mysteries, men and women fighting wars, and lawyers finding evidence just in time to save clients from a life of imprisonment. In the evenings, she walked a half mile to the nearest train tracks and watched until dark, but not one train passed by.

  One morning she stepped outside and sat down on the bottom step of the front porch. A cool north wind swirled into long-forgotten flowerbeds and pulled out crunchy brown leaves trapped there a year earlier. The wrecked neighborhood appeared much as it had when they arrived, except the leaves on partially severed branches had withered into skeleton arms. Another flurry of wind sent some wrappers and papers skittering down the street. A tree limb stopped them at the end of the front walk.

  She stood and approached the fallen branch. Two wrappers from candy bars, three grocery receipts, and a page from a newspaper fluttered as the wind plastered them around scarred bark. Careful not to tear it, she peeled the ragged, yellowed newspaper from its trap.

  In smeared ink, the top of the paper displayed the date as 9-2-2090. September. It had been mid-August when she left San Antonio. She flipped the page over.

  Trains in and out of Austin Stalled until the New Year

  As Austin’s latest epidemic eases, a new challenge faces the city. Last month’s flooding has washed out several miles of railroad track north of Austin. Four key railroad bridges have also been reported destroyed in the eastern half of the state. Plans are being made to transport supplies to isolated communities. The public is asked to be patient as repairs are made. Due to major railroad damage throughout the country, there is a shortage of materials. Please postpone any plans to travel by train until the new year.

  There wouldn’t be a train for months. Not until the middle of winter. She folded the paper and put it in her pocket, all the while gazing down the road that would take her on her first steps to Maibe. The main reason she had delayed traveling was for the chance to catch a train. But it had all been a fantasy, a futile dream that she could be home by the end of summer. Now she had miles of walking ahead of her with winter quickly approaching.

  Lareina rushed into the house and pounded up the stairs to the room she had claimed as her own. She tossed her backpack onto the bed and began shoving clothes, brush, flashlight inside.

  “Rochelle, what’s going on?” Aaron stood in the doorway.

  “The trains aren’t coming.” She tossed a pair of socks into her bag. “I have to go.”

  “What are you talking about? How do you know that?”

  She handed the article to him and watched as he read it. “There won’t be trains out until January. I can’t wait that long. I should have been out of here weeks ago.”

  Lowering the tattered paper, he nodded. “This is a setback, but we can figure it out.” He turned toward the door. “Nick, come up here for a minute.”

  Shoving her bag aside, she sat down on the bed with her legs folded under her as Nick’s footsteps creaked up the stairs.

  “What happened now?”

  Lareina explained the situation as he stared down at the article in Aaron’s hand. “In another month we won’t be able to find food and we’re not close enough to the city to get our food there daily.”

  Aaron rested his arm on a dresser. “Are any of us going to the same place?”

  Nick frowned. “I need to find Ava, but I’m not sure where to look.” His head dropped. “I should have probably left a week ago, but I don’t think I know how to survive out there.” Aaron shrugged. “I’m not sure I do either, but I think the three of us together handle it pretty well.” He looked at Lareina, eyebrows raised.

  She leaned forward with her elbows on her knees. “I’ll travel with you guys, but I have to go north.” Her destination would remain confidential. She wanted to trust them, but what if they learned the truth about her? What if, in the future, they had a reason to betray her?

  “I have an idea.” Aaron tossed the article aside. “A year and a half ago every state was required to do a census. It doesn’t mean it’s entirely accurate, but wherever Ava was at that time should be on record. The article says the fever has burned itself out in Austin, so let’s go there, check the census, and figure out which direction Nick should be traveling. From there we’ll decide what to do next.”

  Nick cocked his head, considering. “Where do they keep the census records? I didn’t even know there was a census.”

  “The head of household usually fills out the information. And I’m not sure where the records are kept, but Austin is the capital, so they have to be in the city somewhere. We’ll ask around when we get there.”

  Now Nick nodded enthusiastically. “That’s the only real plan I’ve had since I started looking for Ava. I definitely need help from you two if I’m ever going to find her. Let’s take our time packing and leave tomorrow mornin
g. Right, Rochelle?”

  Two sets of eyes waited for her to verify the plan. She felt anxious about leaving, apprehensive about staying, and unprepared to travel in a group on foot. But Aaron’s plan was solid. “We’ll leave tomorrow.”

  For hours she wandered around the house, collecting small items that she hoped the homeowners wouldn’t miss if they ever came back to collect their belongings. A gold-colored bracelet, long forgotten in the bottom of a shoe box; a watch in the kitchen junk drawer that looked like an expensive Timetale but upon closer examination turned out to be a worthless Timetail. She pulled jackets from the backs of closets, preparing for more rainy weather and cooler fall temperatures. She packed, unpacked, and repacked, utilizing every inch of space in her and Aaron’s bags so they could carry every ounce of food and supplies with them.

  Chapter 12

  The pavement felt harder and the sun blazed hotter after a week and a half of floors beneath her feet and a roof over her head. Aaron and Nick trudged along behind as Lareina retraced her steps from the grocery trip.

  “Where do you guys want to go after Austin?” Nick’s voice crashed through her thoughts.

  “There is absolutely no reason to go west, unless you want to get caught up in the water wars,” Aaron reported. “I guess I’ll keep going north to Dallas. Try to find work.”

  Her plans shifted like a teeter-totter inside her head. She wanted to stay in a city where she knew she could always find food. She wanted to leave Texas. She never wanted to see Galloway again. She didn’t want to walk all the way to Nebraska, but her memory always carried her to that little town with a park and a bakery. Nick and Aaron were as close to being her friends as anyone had been since she lived in Maibe. Now that they were traveling together, she had to start trusting them with at least some information.

  “I want to go back to Maibe.”

  “Maybe where?” Aaron asked.

  She kicked a loose rock, sending it skittering down the street. “Maibe, Nebraska.”

  Aaron shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket. They couldn’t fit anything more in their backpacks, and Lareina’s fifteen-minute lecture on the perils of winter without proper clothing convinced the boys to bundle up despite the summerlike heat.

  Aaron shrugged to reposition his bag. “If Nebraska is just a maybe, then where else?”

  “No, the town is called Maibe.” She laughed. “It’s some guy’s last name, the founder of the town, I think. I didn’t pay attention to that lesson.”

  Nick caught up to her and kept pace alongside her. “The place you learned to sew, right?”

  “That’s the last place I would go,” Aaron interjected. “All of the people and civilization are east in places like New York.” “I heard part of the East Coast broke off the continent and sank into the ocean, like Atlantis,” Nick stated in a low voice as if it were a secret.

  “Who told you that?” She rolled her eyes. “There is no way that really happened.”

  “Someone else told me . . .”

  “You can’t believe everything you hear, Nick.”

  “Whatever. Once I find Ava, I’ll just live wherever she decides.”

  “If I can’t find work in Dallas, I’m heading east,” Aaron declared.

  Lareina sped up her pace so she led the group again. After another thirty minutes of walking, the three of them entered a city transformed. Compared to the ghost town the city had been a week and a half earlier, now it practically bustled. Outdoor markets had popped up in the middle of streets, wherever shipping trucks dropped off food and other provisions, and were being perused by cautious adults, some of them wearing masks or cloth tied over their nose and mouth. Many looked not too much older than she was. Each face she passed seemed dull and worn, and few people made eye contact.

  She led Nick and Aaron toward the park she had visited on her first trip to the city. A large market had materialized across the entire block, flocked with crowds of people buying groceries. No one they encountered appeared to be sick, but she didn’t want to look too closely for fear of brushing shoulders with a shivering stranger displaying the earliest symptom of the sickness. Instead, she surveyed the area for unwatched goods—her instincts to take food when she could get it were hard to restrain—but people swarmed every corner of the market.

  “Do you know where I can find census results?” Nick canvassed the area, asking anyone who would listen.

  She left him to it, giving her attention to a woman selling baked goods from a nearby cart. Cookies, cupcakes, slices of pie—it all looked delicious, but too many watching eyes made it too risky to justify stealing.

  “Maybe I know something. What will you trade me to find out?” a gruff voice replied. It wasn’t the statement itself, but the threatening desperation dripping from it that warned her to turn around. Ten feet away, a man clutched the collar of Nick’s shirt in his fist while Nick stood there, helpless and stammering.

  “I d-don’t have anything to t-trade.”

  “Hey, let go of him.” She struggled to keep her voice steady and calm as she sprang toward them.

  The man turned toward her, pulling Nick along with him. She decided he couldn’t be much older than her, maybe three or four years, but he was thin and dirty as if he had been living on the street, unsuccessfully, for a long time.

  “Not without a trade,” the man insisted.

  “I don’t have anything to trade,” Nick repeated in a shaky whisper.

  What had she pilfered from the house that this man might find valuable? She reached into the pockets of her jacket and felt the rough outline of a book of matches, the cool metal of a couple of coins, the fake golden bracelet that she might be able to sell as real, a box of toothpicks, and the thin outline of a watch band. With a sigh, she pulled the watch from her pocket and held it up in front of her, contorting her face into a mask of fear and naiveté.

  “I’ll give you this Timetale watch if you’ll let him go. It was my father’s, it’s all I have left . . . Please.”

  The man examined her as if trying to determine the watch’s worth from the appearance of its owner. Then he held out one hand, still clutching the front of Nick’s shirt with the other.

  “On three,” the man directed.

  Lareina nodded.

  “One,” he began.

  “Two,” she counted, lowering the watch toward his palm.

  “Three.”

  She dropped the worthless watch into the man’s open hand; he pushed Nick toward her and ran off. The force of Nick crashing against her threw her off balance, but he caught her elbow and kept them both standing.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah.” He took a long breath. “Was that watch really . . .”

  A smile quirked at her lips. “It wasn’t real. I found it in the junk drawer.”

  “You lied about it,” he exclaimed in a hushed voice, eyebrows lowering. Then after a pause, “And you stole something unessential from the house.”

  “Yes,” she said, taking his arm. “Now let’s get out of here before you find any more trouble.”

  “You have to stop. Rochelle, you’re going to get caught one of these days and then what are you going to do?” he protested as she pulled him down the sidewalk.

  Keeping her arm linked with Nick’s, she stopped and looked across the busy marketplace. “You’re the one who has to be careful because one day I’m not going to be close enough to rescue you. But for now we need to find Aaron. When did you see him last?”

  “Not since we first got to the market.” He tilted his head and squinted one eye. “I think.”

  “Think harder. We have to find him.” She watched light fade from above. “And find a place to sleep tonight.”

  “Hey guys, over here.”

  They turned at the same time, trying to locate the source of Aaron’s voice. Standing on her tiptoes, she strained to see over the streaming crowd of people surrounding the busy stands.

  “Come on, his voice came from thi
s way.” Nick pulled her through an impatient line of customers waiting to buy fruit.

  Keeping pace with him, she glanced from her feet to the sidewalk, trying to locate Aaron without slipping off the curb. Finally they spotted him waving from across the street.

  With Nick right beside her, she followed Aaron around the corner, through an alley, and to the back of a building with an arched doorway. He stopped and pointed proudly. “We should be safe here tonight, and there’s a little shelter in case it starts to rain.” Steps beneath the archway led up to a set of padlocked double doors that were clearly no longer in use. A wide, smooth top step stretched back into a sheltered entrance secluded from the bustle of the market.

  Nick stepped inside and sat down. He squirmed back into the alcove then rested his head against one of the doors. “It’s perfect.”

  Lareina sat down next to him. “Good work, Aaron. This place couldn’t be better if I’d found it myself.”

  Beaming, he leaned back against the door and slid down next to her. They had stayed at the olive-green house long enough to eat lunch then snacked on berries and plums, which wouldn’t keep well in their backpacks during their walk. Something about exploring the market, verifying other people still populated the Earth, had given her the rush of adrenaline she needed to temporarily forget that she hadn’t slept well the night before. Now, exhaustion settled in, and the three of them didn’t say another word.

  Distant shouts of “Five minutes until closing” floated down the alley. The one sound she wanted to hear, a wailing train whistle off in the distance, remained absent. Nick’s head slid against her shoulder and Aaron breathed steadily beside her. She sighed, rested her head against Nick’s, and closed her eyes.

  Lareina stepped out of the pawn shop, where she had managed to sell the gold bracelet for twenty-five dollars, ignoring the certainty that an unsuspecting stranger would be conned into buying it for a couple hundred. She wound her way through a maze of sidewalks to the building that housed census records. The building that had taken a day and a thousand repetitions of the same question to locate. The building that Nick had entered three times each day for the last week, inquiring about Ava Welch, but being told only proven family members would be given access to such information.