That night, though I’m still sore from head to toe, and Emily’s still pale with rings around her eyes, there’s a hint of celebration in the air. We’re together. Safe. A warm meal in our bellies, and a bottle of whiskey making rounds as we sit around the fire. A night like this was overdue: a night where talk and laughter dominate the evening and we don’t stress about our next move or worry over all we don’t have. Perhaps it’s the alcohol in my bloodstream, but I’m feeling hopeful for the first time in weeks. I know the odds are stacked against us. They have been since the world went dark, and I don’t see them changing any time soon. Yet here we are—alive, unbroken—laughing against the darkness. I know we’ll survive this. I know the future holds more treasured nights like this one.
I lean against my pack, my arms wrapped around Lauren whose head lays against my chest, so close I wonder if she can hear my heart miss a beat when she turns and fixes me in her gaze. I kiss her gently, so unbelievably happy it hardly seems real. The hours pass, and yawns start rolling in, and eventually we retreat inside our tents. Emily and I are excluded from guard duty, despite my insistence that I’m fine. I’ve slept off and on all day, my body soaking in the rest it’s been denied the past month. I expect a night of tossing and turning, trying to get comfortable. But I’m wrong, my body surrenders to sleep almost immediately.
When I wake, I find Maya tending to the fire in the predawn gloom. “Morning, sunshine,” I say brightly, knowing she’s still getting accustomed to going without coffee in the morning—a fact I like to exploit. “No coffee on yet? F for customer service.” I move stiffly, but I feel better than I did yesterday.
“A: You’re not paying me, so you’re not a customer. And B: It’s not funny to tease an addict,” she says with a slight edge in her decaffeinated voice.
I take a seat beside her, sighing like an old man settling down. “A: Being in my presence is a gift, so technically I am paying you. And B:It’s a little funny,” I say, laughing despite my tender ribs to illustrate my point.
“Keep laughing and I’ll show you how funny it is.” She glares at me, determined not to crack a smile. Challenge accepted.
“What about chuckling?” I ask. “Is that ok?”
“Nope.”
“Giggling?”
“A: Only girls giggle, and B: All sounds of amusement are banned before sunrise,” she states, though she’s starting to sound amused herself. Still, she doesn’t crack and I’m determined now.
“A: Giggling isn’t gender specific, and B: What are the restrictions on silent forms of amusement? Is smiling ok? Or grinning? Smirking? What about…” She lets loose a sigh of frustration, hiding her face with her hands. She reemerges with a smile on her face, and I cheer inside at my victory.
“Damn, you’re irritating. Anyone ever tell you that?” she asks.
I scratch my head, making a show of thinking. “Has anyone told me, I’m irritating? Hmm. Yeah, now that you mention it.” I start ticking names off my fingers. “Leon, Felix, most my friends from home, Emily. Hell, Emily could have her own column. She usually uses different words, though. Asshole is probably the most common. Don’t know why. She used to get mad at me when I did things like fill her shoes with Jell-O, or circle her car with duct tape so she couldn’t open the doors. Crazy, right?”
She’s laughing now, and I call her out on breaking her own ban. “Emily is right, you are an asshole,” she says. “You remind me of my cousin, Andrew. He would annoy the hell out of me like no one else could, but turn around and make me laugh like no else could too.” Her eyes have a faraway look; reflecting, I’m sure, on memories of her cousin and other loved ones she will never see again. But no tears fill her eyes. No trembles rock her body. She’s grown since all this started. Gone is the girl in Denver who nearly let grief get the best of her.
"You alright?" I ask.
She doesn't immediately answer, continuing to stare off into the distance with a ghost of a grin. "Yeah," she finally says. She turns my way, a look of surprised realization on her face. "I think I am, actually. I still miss them, that will never change, but it doesn't hurt to think about them anymore. They're strong, and I know they have each other. And I'm not alone either: I'm still with family." I put my good arm around her shoulder and squeeze her tight. "You bet your ass you are."
I’m already feeling stir crazy and it’s barely past midday. I know I need to give my body time to heal, but it’s a challenge to sit so idle. I’m forbidden from anything that might overexert myself, Dr.’s orders. Or at least Felix’s orders, our boy scout being the closest thing we have to one. Under his supervision, Emily continues to recuperate, and already I can tell she's beginning to feel the stir as well. She and I lay out under the summer sun with Grace, tracing shapes in the clouds above. Leon and Lauren have been tasked to haul water and check traps, while Felix and Maya hunt further from camp, leaving us three to hold down the place.
The afternoon is peaceful, but I find no joy in it. Before Felix left I was given a rundown of our remaining food. It's bad. Unless something changes, we'll be out in two days’ time. I expected as much, but having it put so bluntly is hard to hear. It has taken us nearly a month to get this far, and we've only covered half the distance home. The urge to get back on the trail clashes with the need to let myself and Emily heal, and I don't know what the right call is.
The celebratory air of last night doesn't transfer into this one. With me back, and Emily on the mend, the worry of what comes next settles over us like an oppressive fog. Smiles are worn and laughter is had, but I can sense the unease among us. With no game felled from either trapping or hunting, we are left with a meager supper of rice and scavenged berries. The hunger remains long after the food is gone, and what's worse is I have no idea when the feeling might go away.
Despite my assurances once again that I'm fine, I'm still exempted from guard duty. But rather than retreat to the tents with everyone else, I join Felix for his watch, arguing that I'm not keeping watch myself, merely auditing. Felix has always been one to pick his battles, and this is one he chooses not to fight.
The night is dark and clear, the moon no more than a sliver in the sky, which only serves to make the stars shine brighter. I remember reading once about how long it took starlight to reach earth: hundreds, even thousands of years, and those are just those visible to the naked eye. What always stuck with me wasn’t the distance the light traveled, or how long it took to get here, but that the light we see might have been cast by a star which has long since died. I always found it sad thinking of that burnt-out star, cold and left in darkness, while its light still hurled through space and time. But beautiful too—that though it’s gone part of it remains still, shining bright against oblivion—an echo for us to witness. It’s calming, in a way, to be reminded how truly small we are in the grand scheme of things. It helps put the miles laid before us in perspective.
“You remember those two weeks we spent camping out at Navajo, before senior year?” I ask Felix.
He laughs. “You kidding? That trip was epic! I still can’t think of Leon’s sunburn that first day without laughing.” I laugh too, remembering Leon’s surprise that despite his dark skin and never being sunburnt before, he wasn’t immune to them. “Why do you ask?” he questions after we settle back down.
“I don’t know, just remembering I guess. Crazy to think how long it’s been since then. I mean do you think we’ll ever even see it again?”
“The lake?” Felix asks. He lets out a long breath. “I doubt it man, not unless the grid goes back up and things turn back around. What point would there be to hike so far just to get to a lake?”
“Exactly!” I respond. “That’s what’s so crazy to think about. I mean do you realize that right now we’re the furthest from home we’ll ever be again?”
“Yeah,” Felix says quietly. “I never really thought about it like that...where is all this coming from?”
“Being forced to sit idle all day, I guess. You know me, I’
m not a fan of staying put too long.”
“Yes,” he replies, a smile in his voice. “I know you don’t. But honestly, once we get back I think getting out of there will be the least of our worries.”
“I know,” I agree. “I’m still just wrapping my head around all this, I guess.”
"Well you have plenty of time to figure it out. Home's still a ways away." He pauses a moment. "Speaking of, I figure we give you and Emily another two days’ rest before hitting the trail again." I dig the heel of my foot into the dirt, channeling my frustration into the motion. "We'll be out of food by then," I say.
"Maybe," Felix says. "Either way, we need to give the antibiotics more time to flush out the infection, and you still need time to heal. If we set out too soon it could end up biting us in the ass. Besides, we stand a better chance of getting some meat here than on the trail." The mention of meat sets my mouth watering and the hollowness in my stomach seems to grow. "You're right," I say. "I just wish you weren't."
He laughs dryly. "Yeah well, what is it your dad always says? Wish in one hand..."
"...Shit in the other," I finish, sharing the laugh. "I know Chavo. I know."
Chapter 16
Stiffness and soreness greet me once again the morning before we depart, but it's getting more manageable by the day. My shoulder still flares up from time to time, and the tenderness in my ribs has yet to abate, but it's pain I can handle. Already I've weaned myself off ibuprofen. I just couldn't justify taking anymore with so much left unknown between here and home. The second half our journey looms omnipresent in my mind, which is why I find myself dressed long before daybreak, looking for a distraction before thoughts of home take over. Lauren and Grace sit stoking the fire against the morning chill.
“Do you ever sleep in?” Lauren asks as I approach. I squat in front of her and kiss her lightly. “Either I kiss you in my dreams, or I kiss you when I’m awake. Your lips don’t taste nearly as sweet in my dreams, though,” I say, sliding down beside her.
“Corny much?” she asks, though she smiles back at me.
“Very much so,” I agree. “I think people underrate corny.” I look over at Grace. “Speaking of early risers, good morning, Grace. What’s got you up so early?”
She looks up from the twig she’s been overly interested in digging with since I bent down to kiss her sister. “Morning, Morgan,” she says. “Just couldn’t sleep I guess. I wish there was something to do, though.”
“You and me both,” I agree, not looking forward to another day like yesterday. Even if we can’t put in any miles, I want to do something. I think back, remembering the summers of my youth when being bored was never a problem and afternoons melted away faster than an ice cream cone. It amazes me life was ever so simple. We took so much for granted, ignorant to how precious those years were: that we might one day look back with a sad nostalgia, yearning to feel the limitless imagination that could make the simplest of games an adventure.
"Don't worry, Grace. We'll figure something out," I promise.
Yesterday was full of rest. Today is a day of games and laughter, one I desperately needed. The smiles and teasing and warmth of those around me fill me up, taking away the pain far better than any pill. We play games we know, sweeping back the clocks and making me feel twelve years old again. But we also invent them as we go along, that feeling of limitless imagination running rampant through our bodies.
The sun shines bright above, swathing our small clearing in light as we play one of our makeshift games. We've tied three lengths of paracord into circles and arrange them in a bullseye formation, a wooden stake sticking out of the ground directly at the center. The goal is to toss a rock as close as possible to the wooden stake. A direct hit is worth four points, landing inside the inner circle three points, landing in the middle circle two points, and landing in the outside circle one point. On Grace's insistence, we've been playing boys vs girls.
"Care for a wager?" Emily asks at the onset of our next match. Hearing the self-assured taunting in her voice brings a smile to my face. Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes alert and challenging. I'd take the beating Gibbons gave me a hundred times over if it meant her healing as she has.
"What do you have in mind?" I ask.
"How about losing team has water duty for the next week?" Emily asks.
"High stakes, don't you think?" Lauren asks. The response draws a laugh out of me. If there's one daily chore she could omit herself from, it's this one.
Emily wheels on her, not taking ‘no’ for an answer. "C'mon Lauren, think about how much better the water will taste not having to haul or treat it." She doesn't look quite convinced, so I apply my own pressure. "Sounds good to me. As long as McCoy is ok with filling my canteen for the next seven days."
She narrows her eyes at me, and I know I’ve got her. "Fine," she says. "I'm working up a thirst. I expect a full canteen tonight, Morgan."
We decide on five sets of a dozen throws per team, the team with the most points after sixty throws, wins.
"You know a gentleman would let us shoot from a closer line," Maya says, as her first toss falls short of the target.
"Or let ladies go first," Emily adds, stepping up for her first toss. We set the bar high on our first twelve shots, scoring twenty-one points.
"You're the one who wanted to bet, Princess," I taunt Emily. "Don't act surprised when we play to win." She tosses her first rock and the thump it makes from hitting the stake can be heard from here. She turns toward me, completely smug. "Not surprised. I play to win, too."
By the end of the third set we’re up, but just barely. I'm beginning to wonder if going first was wise, the girls seem to thrive under pressure. Our fourth set isn't good, a fact Lauren and Emily point out. I try and get under their skin but they might as well be made of teflon, and by the time they finish they are up by eight points.
"Feeling the pressure, Morgan?" Emily asks. Grace giggles after my first toss bounces out of the scoring area. I step back and let Leon line up for his first shot. He pings it off the stake and punches his fist in the air, coming up big. "Just the first shot Em," I tell her. "Still got plenty of chances to score." And score we do, each of us hitting the stake at least once, creating a sixteen-point lead. The girls might be letting the pressure get to them as their first eight throws only earn them nine points. Maya shoots her final shot and it's worth two, bringing them up to eleven.
"Whatever you do Emily, don't choke," I warn. "I don't know how to do the Heimlich!" She doesn't respond until after her final toss lands an inch away from the stake: three points, bringing them within two. The look on her face shuts me up even before she opens her mouth. "What were you saying again about choking?" I don't reply. Lauren is up next and I can already hear her telling me to go fetch her water. She lines up shoots. It hits in the middle, bounces within an inch of the stake, and rolls out of the scoring area. I let out a breath of relief.
"Nervous, Morgan?" Emily asks, hearing me.
"You're the one who's down, Princess," I reply.
"Not for long," she says. "C'mon Gracie! Shut my brother up!" she cheers. Lauren and Maya join in cheering their teammate on. The look on Grace's face is priceless, completely in the zone as she sizes up her toss. She swings her arm back and forth in a pendulum motion, feeling it out before letting it fly. I watch the rock arch up as if in slow motion, climbing, climbing, until it reaches its crest and descends back down, bounces off the ground, once, twice, and then finally hits the stake. Four points. The girls win by two. They scream in celebration and Grace is lost in the middle of a team hug. I look to Leon and Felix, more amusement than disappointment on their faces as they watch on.
The girls break apart, and the look on Grace's face more than makes up the shit I'm about to hear. "So, I'm feeling thirsty," Emily says. "Anyone else?" Lauren, Maya, and Grace are all suddenly parched as well in their victory. Lauren takes a long drink of her canteen, draining the rest of it. She tosses it to me and I catch it out of the air. "
It's not going to fill itself, Morgan," she says.
"No, I don't imagine it will," I reply, unable to keep a straight face.
We top off the canteens with what we have left before setting out to collect more. Despite losing, I'm really not all that upset with having to haul the water. I haven't stretched my legs like this in days and it feels good to do so. The late afternoon sun splashes across my back, warm and comforting. We take our time, in no hurry to reach the stream and return to the gloating we're sure to endure.
"I forgot how smug Emily can get when she wins something," Felix says out loud.
"I don't think smug is the word I'd use," I comment.
Leon laughs, and we look to him questioningly. "Remember senior year when we coached powder-puff football?" he asks me. I start laughing and so does Felix even though he never played, preferring soccer over football: yet another fact we’ve always given him grief over.
"How the hell could I forget?" I ask. "We shared the same roof remember?"
"I swear, I laughed so hard during the game my abs were sore the next day," Felix adds. "She can put on a freaking show." Stories of Emily's competitive streak last us till we reach the stream. Collecting water has become as routine as checking my email use to be. We have a total of six, one-gallon stackable jugs which we filter water into. When they're filled we cap the jugs, and stack two each into our respective backpacks. Once we arrive back at camp, it has to be treated and boiled before it's drinkable. It's a process, just like everything seems to be nowadays.
We strap on our packs and head back. The sky above the treeline is tinged red, dusk not far off. "Think Emily would be up for a one on one grudge match?" I ask.
Echoes of a Dying World (Book 1) Page 18