In the two days we’ve been driving, I have yet to see a pond, creek, river or lake.
“I don’t know. But obviously they find it somewhere. They’re still out here.”
“But how do you know?” I ask. “The government lied to you about the radiation. Maybe they lied to you about the people out here.”
“They didn’t lie about the survivalists, Julia. They are very, very real.” Reece’s tone is gruff. “Every few years they attack Springfield, trying to get our food supply.”
Tears of frustration and irritation burn my eyes. Why does he have to be so hateful?
Evan sighs. “She doesn’t know, Reece.”
“Then she needs to stop pretending like she does.”
I grit my teeth and count to five. I remind myself that Reece treated me the same way the night he and Evan helped me escape from the medical lab. This is his way of guarding his heart. I either need to learn to live with it or break through his barrier again. Perhaps the former is fairer to him, even if the latter makes my life more bearable. “So back to my original question. What do you want me to do?”
The boys sit in silence for several seconds.
I want to tell them what I want to do—go investigate. If it’s a store it might have clothing or blankets. Or even canned food. Surely canned food survives decades. But I keep my mouth shut. Reece has made it painfully obvious he doesn’t want my input. I wouldn’t put it past him to not investigate just to piss me off.
“How long has it been since the last flyover?” Evan asks.
Reece releases a short breath. “Too long. But this is a bad idea, Evan. I can feel it.”
“So we just go a little closer and see what we find. We need a place to hide.”
“Fine.” Reece agrees, but the tone of his voice betrays his reluctance.
“Move about fifty meters closer,” Evan says.
While I learned the metric system in my science classes, it was more for theory than for practicality. Turns out that the United Regions did away with inches and pounds in favor of the more scientific metric. I’m not sure how far fifty meters is, but I’m too ticked off to ask. Instead, I shift the truck into drive and pull forward.
“Stop!” Reece shouts.
I stomp on the brake, and we jerk forward.
“Fifty meters! Not fifty kilometers!”
“Reece.” Evan’s voice is quiet but firm. “We’re all nervous here, but we have to work together, not tear each other apart. The only way to survive this is to stick together.”
To my surprise, Reece gives a sharp nod of assent.
“What do you think?” Evan asks. “So far so good.”
“Maybe too good, but let’s get a little closer.”
This time I creep forward at a snail’s pace until Evan tells me to halt. We’re twenty feet from the broken front doors. Pieces of glass are scattered across the cracked concrete, glittering in the unrelenting sun. A sign is still attached to the building but hangs down on the left, letters missing so all that’s left are an M-t- g-o-m and W-r-d.
“Montgomery Ward,” Evan whispers.
“How do you get that out of those letters?” Reece sounds unconvinced. “And what does it matter? The doors are too small to drive through. I say we get out of here.”
“Wait.” I turn to Evan. “What’s a Montgomery Ward?”
“They were department stores. Like Sears and Macy’s.”
“So they had clothes and blankets?”
“Well, yes but—”
I reach for my door. “Then I’m going to check it out.”
“Stop!” Evan cries out in panic and grabs my arm in a desperate grip. “You can’t just go in there.”
“You need to lie down in the back, but instead, you’re forced to ride up here. There might be blankets in there, Evan. Bedspreads. We can make a bed for you in the back. Beds for all of us so we aren’t so cold all the time!” My voice breaks in my frustration and fear.
Evan’s eyes soften and fill with love. “Julia, you can’t just march in there. It’s not safe.”
“You can’t expect me to sit here and do nothing, Evan. You can’t expect me to sit in front of a store that might have something to help you and drive away.”
“She’s right,” Reece says so quietly I barely hear him.
My mouth drops in surprise.
Evan shakes his head. “Reece. No. You can’t go in there alone, and I can’t let her go in there with you.”
“First of all, the last time I checked, Julia is capable of making up her own mind. And second, she knows how to handle a gun. You didn’t see what she did to the general.”
What I did to the general was a fluke. I’d never held a gun in my hands before that night. But now seems like a bad time to bring up this fact. I swallow the guilt and horror that rises in my throat, along with the memory of the incident. I still can’t accept that I killed a man. No matter how justified it was.
“Reece…”
Evan is weakening, and I pounce. “Evan, you know we need to go in there, and Reece can’t go alone. Let us do this.”
It’s two against one which means Evan has been outvoted. Our first day out here, we knew that we’d face situations that we all wouldn’t agree on. We decided then that we’d go by majority rule.
Evan realizes it too as he swears softly under his breath. He turns to Reece, desperation in his eyes. “If anything happens to her…”
Reece’s voice lowers. “I won’t let anything happen to her.”
Evan leans back and scrunches his eyes closed. “Five minutes. That’s all you get. Get in and get the hell out.”
Reece is already pulling out flashlights. I reach for my handgun in the side panel of the door.
Evan sits up and takes my gun. “No, I want her to carry something bigger. I’ll keep this one with me.”
Reece nods and hops out the door, going around the back of the truck.
“You don’t have to do this, Julia.”
“I know, Evan. I want to. Not just for you, but for all of us.” The thought of being slightly warmer while trying to sleep helps me ignore whatever danger might lurk inside. At least temporarily.
Reece climbs back in the cab carrying two guns that look like rifles. Evan takes one and fiddles with the side before he hands it to me.
“If you come across survivalists, they’ll only be armed with primitive weapons. I’ve set the gun to stun them, so if you actually see anyone and feel threatened at all, shoot them. It won’t hurt them permanently, like if you shot them with a bullet, so you won’t have to feel bad about using it. It’s like a stun gun.”
While I’m sure people shot by a stun gun aren’t too happy about it later, Evan is right. I’ll be more likely to shoot if I don’t think I’ll kill them.
I hop out before I change my mind. Reece meets me in front of the truck.
“We stick together. I’ll take the lead. If you see anything that makes you feel threatened, shoot it, Julia. Got it?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“We only have five minutes, so we need to make the most of it.” Reece takes the small flashlight out of my hand and clips it onto the scope of my gun. “There. Dual purpose. Just don’t shoot me, okay?”
“Ha. Ha. Very funny.” But my voice shakes from my nerves.
I have no idea if the doors are locked, not that it matters. Reece turns sideways and slips through the busted-out window panels of the metal frame.
I give Evan one last glance and follow Reece into the darkness.
Chapter Three
The smell hits me first. It reminds me of my great-grandmother’s attic. Dust and rotting paper.
Even with the flashlights, it takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust. The store is a disaster. It’s obvious everything has been ransacked. Metal racks have been overturned and I have to step over twisted bars as Reece pushes deeper into the darkness.
I hurry to catch up, my foot catching on an object, and I stumble into Reece’s back.
<
br /> He turns around with a glare. “Maybe you should go back to the truck.”
I try to plaster on my meanest face. For some reason, it was always easier to achieve with my annoying little sister. “Maybe if you’d slow down, I wouldn’t trip.” I hiss. “Your legs are twice as long as mine.”
Without a word, he spins and forges ahead, swinging his gun in a slow sweep. The beam from his flashlight moves over clothing racks scattered around the space on our left. A few rags lay here and there but little else.
To the right is a housewares section. Reece heads in this direction.
We pass row after row of dishes and small appliances. What’s left of the ceramic ware is broken. The store has obviously been looted so it’s no surprise when we find the shelves for the linens and bedding empty. The only evidence of their existence are faded signs. Montgomery Ward Special, Electric Blankets only $9.94 and Twin sheets $3.99.
Fifty years ago, people were in this store. They had lives. They went to work and school and drove big cars that were the size of two of my mom’s car. They watched black and white TV. Like my grandfather. He never forgot the terror of the Cuban Missile Crisis. He called it the week the world almost ended.
Turns out it did end. Just not in our universe. If Evan’s theory is correct, what happens in our lives is basically the result of a coin toss. Heads we win.
I flip over a yellowed, dust-encrusted can opener. “$6.88.”
Tails we lose.
The thought is too depressing given my surroundings so I push it away, focused on finding something, anything to help Evan.
Reece has moved to the hardware section. The sound of clanging metal fills the room as he sorts through items on a shelf.
In the far right corner are appliances and a few odd, broken pieces of furniture. I suppose appliances have little use in a world without electricity.
Reece shoves a couple of screwdrivers and some other tools into his back pocket, then moves toward the appliances, his eyes lighting up. He seems more interested in our quest than when we first entered the abandoned store. “I might be able to get some parts that could come in handy.” He looks happier than I’ve seen him in days. “I can use some of the tools I saw in the store.”
I tag along and watch him unscrew the back panel to a dryer.
He looks up at me and his eyes soften. He shakes loose hair out of his eyes. “Julia, you look exactly like her, you know?”
I nod then swallow. We need to have this conversation, but it doesn’t mean that I like it.
His focus returns to the dryer that he’s working on. “It’s hard watching you with him. Wondering why it wasn’t me.”
“Reece.” My voice breaks.
He looks up again. “Is it because he found you first?”
I lean against the machine and sigh. “I don’t know.” I turn to study him. “But I’ve spent more time with him. He’s seen the worst of me when he was in my world. It wasn’t pretty, Reece. I was a mess. Yet he still cared about me.”
He shakes his head, his scowl returning. “I would have cared for you too. You just didn’t give me a chance.”
Squatting beside him, I put a hand on his arm, and he tenses. “He’s seen the real me. You see the Julia you remember. I care about you, Reece, but I don’t love you. Sometimes I’m not even sure if what I feel for Evan is real, but I can’t let him die. Which is why I insisted we come in.” I lower my voice. “And for the record, if it was you, I’d be doing the exact same thing.”
His shoulders relax and he covers my hand with his own, the screwdriver between us. “I care about him too, in spite everything that’s come between us. And it was a good idea to come in here.” He gestures to the dryer. “I’m sure I can use these parts for something. Besides, I couldn’t let you come in here alone. I care about you too, Julia.” His eyes search mine with a hopeful gleam. “I’d never let anything happen to you.”
“I’d never let anything happen to you either.”
He grins then it fades and seriousness crinkles his forehead. “Just try to keep an open mind, okay? Don’t make any decisions yet. Give me a chance.”
Something about him reminds me of his doppelgänger back home, and it’s more than his appearance. I study him for a second longer and recognize the quiet desperation that filled the Reece in my world the day he took me home. The way he sat on the bench and told me we were more alike than I realized. Is that true of the Reece in this universe?
Nevertheless, I still feel a loyalty to Evan that I can’t ignore, which pierces my chest with guilt when I nod. “Okay.”
He tilts his head toward the back wall. “This place looks safe. If you want to look around while I work, it should be okay.”
Reece says this place is safe, but I can’t ignore the feeling that I’m being watched. I scan the room with my flashlight and find nothing but cobwebs and shadows. My imagination is playing tricks on me.
I move toward a door in back of the store. I suspect it leads to a storage area and maybe a break room. Reece looks up and realizes my intent. His mouth twists to the side as his brow furrows. He’s reconsidering.
Even though there’s not much chance of finding anything, I’m not leaving until I know for sure. “We’ve come this far without trouble. I should just give it a quick check.”
His smile fades, and he releases an exasperated sigh. “Fine. Check out the storage area and come right back. If you run into any trouble, shoot first—”
“And ask questions later. Got it.” I open the door, then hesitate as I move my flashlight beam around.
It’s a storage room, filled with tall metal shelves at one end. Closer to me are more ancient-looking appliances. The space is huge and I have little time to investigate. If I hope to find something, I need to get moving.
The room is cool and a shiver crawls down my spine, but I’m sure it’s not from the temperature. Something is in this room with me. I can feel it. My feet stick to the floor, and I try to hold my breath as my ears strain to pick up a telltale sign. The only sound I hear is Reece’s banging out front.
Shaking my head, I force my feet to walk. I’m being ridiculous. There’s nothing here.
As I pass between the bare shelving, I wonder about the people who cleared the merchandise from this space. Did they find what they needed to survive? How did the people outside Springfield city limits live through the nuclear winter those first few years? I can’t imagine living in this wasteland, spending every waking moment trying to survive. An involuntary shudder ripples down my back. Will we be reduced to this, living out in the wilds, if we can’t find Reece’s mom? I can’t face the thought of never going home.
At the end of the storage room, a door hangs open on the back wall. From the way the walls jut out to form a square, I suspect it’s the entrance to an employee lounge or office. An employee could have left medication of some kind. It seems like a longshot, but it’s worth checking out. My heart races as I hold my gun up, the light from the flashlight focused on the opening. I lift my foot and press the door open. It swings and bounces on the wall, only to bang shut as I’m about to walk through it. Brilliant, Julia.
I grab the door with my hand, but something moves in the corner of my eye, and I release an involuntary shriek.
“Julia!” Reece’s muffled voice calls out to me.
I turn the light to where I saw the movement but find nothing. Still, my breath comes in short bursts and I spin around and run straight into Reece’s chest, releasing another shriek.
“What is it?” Panic fills his eyes as he grabs my arms to right me.
“Something moved.” I point to the door. “In there.”
“What was it?”
“If I knew what is was, then I would have told you instead of calling it something.”
A guttural sound escapes from Reece’s throat. He brushes past me and kicks the door back open with better success than I did, stopping the panel with his shoulder on its swing back.
I move behind him a
nd stand on tiptoes to look over his shoulder. His flashlight scans the room, and I see another movement where the wall meets the floor. “There!”
“Yeah, I see it.” His light tracks the small gray object until it reaches the corner and turns toward us, its beady eyes shining in the light.
“It’s only a rat.” I breathe a sigh of relief.
But Reece slowly backs up and whispers in a tight voice. “If there’s a rat here, that means there’s something for him to eat. The way this place has been picked over, it’s a pretty safe bet that there’s no food left over from before the war. We need to get out of here. Now.”
A protest dies on my tongue. He’s right, and his admission binds a stone around my hope and drags it back into the murky depths of my fear. Not only do I not have supplies to keep Evan warm, but we might be in danger. I give him a quick nod, ignoring the bile rising in my throat.
Reece turns to leave, but I give the room one last glance, really seeing it for the first time. Several blankets are spread out like beds and several metal boxes are lined up against the wall.
Somebody lives here.
Something dark and greedy rises in my chest as my eyes linger on the boxes. There might be medicine stored inside. There might be food.
The decent part of me shoves it back down. No. Whoever lives here must fight for everything they get. How can I take something of theirs and live with myself?
A moan comes from the far corner, and my heart seizes as I shine my flashlight toward it. A girl my age squats in the corner. Her hands are tied and a rag covers her mouth. Her eyes are wild with fear.
“Reece!” I shout. I want to help her, but there’s a feral look in her eyes. I take a deep breath and a step closer, dropping to one knee. “It’s okay. I won’t hurt you.”
She tries to back into the corner, so I stay where I am, although it goes against every instinct. Her clothes are torn and dirty. Her left cheek sports startling purple bruises and although she looks frightened, there are no tears in her eyes. Her hands are bound in front of her, palms together. Her almond-shaped eyes blink, and her gaze lowers from my face to the gun I hold in my hand.
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