“Yeah.”
“Anything you wanna talk about?”
She picked at the shotgun grip. “Why did this happen?”
“Oh… someone with no brain, too small a heart, and too big a mouth got too close to the button.” Cliff took a step closer to the security gate, hands on his hips, and sighed. “Never did understand the point of nukes. Only an insane person would ever consider actually using a weapon like that. Most politicians want to rule the world, not end it.”
“Yeah. Total movie villain stuff. ‘If I can’t have the world, no one will.’ This is just so stupid. I should be in school, getting ready for life. Not sleeping in dumpsters or alleys. We should be home with our parents…” She paused before her voice broke up.
He glanced over at her, his expression somewhere between sympathy and pity. Harper sensed an offer of a hug if needed, but she couldn’t betray the father she failed so epically. Before the temptation to cling to him like the frightened child she felt like grew too strong to resist, she looked down.
“Are we going to get sick from radiation?”
“Where were you when it went off?”
“In our basement. Dad dragged me out of bed at stupid-o’clock in the morning. I wasn’t even awake enough to ask what was going on. Mom always got up super early, so she saw the news talking about nuclear war and woke him up. We had nowhere else to go, so we just went into the basement.”
Cliff nodded. “That’s probably the best thing you could’ve done. Fallout radiation breaks down pretty rapidly. We’re all soaking up way more than we would have normally, but Springs is reasonably far away. How long before you two went outside?”
“We left the house a couple days ago.” Harper teased her finger up and down the trigger guard. If not for her chickening out, she might’ve still been there.
“Unless we go toward a strike, we should be reasonably safe. You were underground for the worst of it. Probably ought to get some contractor’s masks at least until we’re out of the haze. That smoke all over the place could still have some radioactive particles in it.”
She took her left hand off the shotgun to grab her throat. “Really?”
“Ehh. Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you like that. It’s possible. Don’t have a Geiger counter on me, so…” He patted her shoulder. “You should get some sleep.”
Harper gave him a ‘yeah right’ look. “Should and can aren’t the same thing right now.”
“At least try. I’ll keep an eye on the door.”
“’Kay.”
She trudged back down the aisle to the ‘bedroom’ area. Madison lay in one of the sleeping bags on a cot, her shirt, shorts, flops, and underpants on the floor next to her. White fabric at her shoulder said a man’s plain T-shirt served as a nightgown. Jonathan occupied another sleeping bag on a cot across the room, only his head sticking out. His shirt and pants also sat on the floor beside the bed.
Harper didn’t trust things enough to strip down to her underwear for sleep. Already barefoot, she crawled fully dressed into the only remaining cot. It probably belonged to Cliff as the one Madison had taken didn’t look used. Still, having him watching the door offered a rare sense of security she hadn’t felt since she’d left home. Because he’d called her parents instead of the cops three years ago, she trusted him.
A shotgun made for a less comfortable bed buddy than one of her plush animals, but it offered real security.
If she could ever bring herself to use it.
9
Scavengers
The fragrance of potatoes nagged at Harper until she opened her eyes.
She peered out at the room defined by sheets, most still bearing creases from their packaging. Cliff had likely taken them from a nearby store. Jonathan emerged from his sleeping bag in his briefs, stretched, then pulled on his shorts and T-shirt. Drawn by the smell of food, the boy wandered off to the ‘door,’ a gap between sheets, and disappeared.
Harper sat up and yawned.
Madison entered from the same gap, having already changed back into her bloody-hand-print shirt and tiny denim shorts. She hadn’t bothered putting her flops on. “Bathroom’s busted.”
“Huh?”
“No water.” Madison sat on the edge of her cot and stared at her iPhone.
Harper pulled on her socks and sneakers, stood, and walked out, pausing to pat Madison on the head. “Be right back.”
“’Kay.”
She headed to the ladies’ room. None of the sinks worked and all the toilets had gone dry. Still, for what she had to do, a drain worked fine. Once finished, she hurried back into the seating area. Cliff had the kids at a table, picking from a giant bowl of French fries. He’d found a jar of nacho cheese sauce and a bottle of dried bacon bits, which they liberally dumped over the potatoes. Madison guarded her fries with her hands to defend it against the evil meat product.
Without a word, Harper joined them for the strange breakfast.
While eating, she kept thinking about home with an increasing sense of indignation at losing all her precious stuff, not to mention clothes. Irreplaceable keepsakes like gifts from her parents or sister, things that reminded her of her friends, and so on had been taken away by that stupid gang. For all she knew, everyone she went to school with had died already. Only a handful lived close enough to visit without driving, and she hadn’t seen even one of them since the strike.
Cliff collected the dishes after the meal and carried them to the kitchen. Taken by sudden inspiration, Harper got up and followed him past a pair of flapping plastic doors. He went over to a counter by a giant steel sink and wiped off the bowls and plates with a rag. She almost asked if he was going to wash them, but remembered the water didn’t work here.
“Umm,” said Harper.
Cliff looked up. “Oh, hey.”
For an instant as they made eye contact, Harper became acutely aware that she’d left the shotgun on the cot. If this guy wanted to do anything to her, she’d have no way at all to stop him. Her unexplained fear abated as rapidly as it had manifested. Nothing about Cliff’s demeanor suggested he possessed the least bit of inclination to hurt her. Sure, he once kept her chained to a chair for two hours, but she had stolen something. And he could’ve been a total prick and called the police, but didn’t.
“Hey. Umm… I was thinking about trying to go back to my house and get some of our stuff. Clothes mostly, but I kinda wanna grab some stuff to remember my parents by. It’s too scary to go alone with the gang all over the place. Think you’d go with me?”
“Planning to bring your little sister and Jonathan along with us straight into their territory?”
Harper bit her lip. “Uhh. No.”
“So you’re going to leave them here alone and hope they’re okay when we get back?”
“Ugh.” She hung her head, staring down past her long, red hair at the floor. “You’re right. It’s too dangerous. We barely got away from them once. Going back there would be stupid. All that stuff there will only make me sad anyway. All the pictures I had of my friends and parents are either online or on my phone. Probably don’t even exist anymore. Even if the devices worked, does EMP erase hard disks?”
Cliff kept working the rag around the big bowl. “Not sure on hard drives, but anything in the phone is toast. Flash memory would be burned out. Hey, stuff is nice, but it’s not everything. Electromagnetic pulses can’t take away your memories.”
“Getting old and going senile can, but we probably won’t get old.”
“That defeatist attitude isn’t going to help anyone.” He grinned while scraping cheese sauce off a plate into the sink.
She shrugged. “I don’t think it’s defeatist. There’s no more medical technology. We’re probably not going get old enough to go senile. Didn’t people in medieval times used to drop dead at like fifty or so?”
“Yeah, I guess. But they also didn’t eat all those preservatives and chemicals to get cancer. But, you two could both use more clothes. Don’t have to go
all the way back to your house for that. Should be plenty of stuff right here in the mall.”
“Cool.” She pointed at him. “Why are you cleaning dishes if we’re gonna be leaving?”
Cliff looked at the plate in his hands and laughed. “Force of habit I guess. Might as well head down the hall now and get you two some stuff.”
“Okay.”
He tossed the rag aside and headed out to a cabinet near the ‘bedroom’ that looked like a computer station where the wait staff had put in orders and run payments. He’d gotten rid of the monitor and used the area for his gun kit. While he put on a green belt with a holster and pouches, Harper headed to retrieve the shotgun from the cot.
Jonathan and Madison worked on dance stretches nearby. She grimaced away from the boy standing on one leg with his other leg tight to his chest, pointing straight up. The mere sight of it made her muscles ache. The only time she’d ever done anything even close to a split involved an icy sidewalk, bruises, and walking funny for a few days.
She collected the shotgun and searched for something smaller than her massive denim purse to carry some extra shells in. Nothing jumped out at her, so she slung her purse over her left shoulder as usual and walked back out of the cloth-walled bedroom.
“C’mon guys. We’re going scavenging.”
“Okay.” Jonathan nodded.
The relatively normal expression on Madison’s face retreated back to the emotionless stare she’d had ever since the second or third week after the bombs. She sat on the cot and resumed staring at the iPhone.
“I don’t wanna. Can I wait here?”
Harper sat beside her, an arm around her shoulders. “I can’t leave you alone. I gotta protect you.”
The blank look Madison gave her could’ve said ‘like you protected Dad?’ Or, simple disassociation from reality. “What if someone tries to call me?”
“Cell phones are portable. They can still call you if we’re down the hall a bit.” Jonathan took a step toward Cliff, waving for Madison to follow. “Come on. It’ll be fun.”
Harper opened her mouth to say ‘please,’ but closed it. Back in the bathtub, her little sister seemed to want a mother more than an older sibling. Maybe she should try talking like Mom. “Maddie, come on. We have to do this. I know you’re not really interested, but it’s important.”
Head down, Madison stood and stepped into her flip-flops.
Cliff opened the security gate to let everyone out of the Friday’s, then closed it before heading off toward the long concourse on the left.
Harper tapped Jonathan on the shoulder upon noticing he still went barefoot. “You don’t have shoes? Are the stores all empty?”
“They’re inside.” He pointed at the restaurant. “We’re not leaving the mall, right? If we hit a flooded spot, I don’t want them to get wet.”
“Oh… okay.”
Madison’s flip-flops snapped and popped as they made their way down the hallway past abandoned stores and vendor carts full of random junk. Keychains or mugs with peoples’ names on them didn’t seem at all useful anymore. She could bash open all the cash registers and take more money than she’d ever seen in one place before… but it would probably be useless. Would anyone even care about paper bills anymore? Most people used debit or credit cards anyway. Everyone’s money had been nothing more than bits inside a computer somewhere. All of that had evaporated in an instant.
Cliff stopped at a place a little beyond the halfway mark and unlocked the security gate. Child-sized mannequins stood in the windows modeling clothes. Harper pulled Madison inside and wandered the display shelves. After a minute or so, her kid sister put the iPhone back in her jacket pocket and began looking around like they’d merely gone shopping on any ordinary day.
Jonathan checked out some cartoon-character shirts in his size. He tried a few on before noticing a rack of underpants. He ran over, rummaged a few packets, and changed into them right there in the open.
Madison gawked at him, blushing. She tugged at Harper’s arm and whispered, “I need new underwear too. I’ve been wearing these too long.”
Cliff appeared with two giant shopping bags, into which he tossed various shirts and pants. Harper walked with her sister over to the girls’ section. Upon finding a shelf of underwear, she grabbed a few packets in Madison’s size, ripped one open, and handed her a clean pair. The girl took them, but continued standing there.
Harper grabbed a pair of jeans she thought would fit her as well as a clean shirt, pink socks, and a pair of sneakers. She tried to hand the haul over, but her little sister didn’t move to take any of it, seeming not to care.
“Come on, Termite. This stuff is yours now.”
Madison shrugged, continuing to ignore the clothes while staring at her iPhone. “Mom hasn’t called.”
Harper swallowed the lump of guilt that formed in her throat. “Okay… I’ll pack it. You can put it on later. It’ll be too cold for flops and shorts soon.”
“It’s too cold for flip flops now,” said Cliff.
Jonathan, in a new Wolverine T-shirt and jeans, ran over. “It is kinda cold. You won’t be able to dance if your toes freeze off.”
“You’re not wearing shoes at all.” She playfully stepped on his toes.
“We’re inside, and there’s water all over downstairs. I didn’t want them to get wet. It’s still too cold.”
“I’m not cold.”
Harper sighed at the floor. “Please? It’ll make me feel better if you look warm. I don’t want you getting sick.”
Madison continued staring into the iPhone for another moment, but eventually looked up with a resigned sigh. She tucked the phone away in her jacket, accepted the bundle, and headed off to a changing room. At the entrance to the dressing area, she looked back at Harper with a ‘why are you just standing there’ sort of expression.
“Okay…” Harper trotted over, worry gnawing on her gut.
The last time they’d been shopping, her sister didn’t want Mom anywhere even near the dressing area while she changed. Then again, the odds of random bad guys showing up and trying to kidnap her had been quite a bit lower then. Madison held the booth door open for her, so she squeezed in with her. The space made for tight quarters with a shotgun in hand.
Madison undressed, frowning at herself in the tall mirror. “I’m gonna get in trouble for being too skinny. Mom thinks I’m not eating.”
“You’re fine,” said Harper.
“Miss Clare’s gonna yell at me for not eating. She thinks everyone in class who’s thin is bulimic or something.” Madison pulled on the clean underpants, then jeans. She sat on the floor to pull the socks and sneakers on, then stood.
Harper pulled a T-shirt over her sister’s head. “Forgot something.”
Madison shifted her weight, testing the sneakers.
“Do they fit?”
“They’re okay. Mom would never get these. They’re way too expensive. We’re gonna get in so much trouble for stealing all this stuff.”
Harper leaned the shotgun on the wall so she could hug her sister in both arms. “No we won’t. We’re not in any trouble.”
“You don’t have to lie.” Madison stood there tolerating the hug. “We’re in big trouble… and not the getting grounded kind.”
Harper couldn’t think of anything to say, nor could she have gotten any words out if she had some in mind.
“You need new stuff, too. Your clothes smell like trash.”
“Yeah…” Harper managed a weak chuckle. “We slept on garbage a few times. Happens.”
Madison made a face as she picked up her dirty shirt and shorts.
They headed back out to the store. Cliff and Jonathan had stuffed one of the shopping bags full.
At the sight of it, Harper laughed for real.
Both of them looked at her.
“What?” asked Cliff.
“It’s just ironic that you kinda arrested me for shoplifting one pair of pants. Now you’re helping us raid a whole
store.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I guess that is funny.”
Madison put her clothes and flops into the other shopping bag. She sat on the floor beside it trying to make her iPhone work while Harper ran around gathering more stuff for her to wear, grabbing anything in the girl’s size, plus a couple of larger items she could grow into.
“That should about do it.” Cliff nudged the overstuffed shopping bags with his shoe. “We should probably take this whole store, but we’re going to have to carry it all.”
“Yeah.” Harper reached for the bag of ‘Maddie clothes.’
Jonathan beat her to it. “I’ll carry it. You got shotgun.”
“Heh.” She smiled on the outside, but cringed mentally. Dad trusted her with a gun, but that had been a big mistake. She should’ve been hiding under the table with Madison.
Harper acted tough, but dreaded she’d freeze again the next time someone wanted to hurt her.
10
Next Time
Looting done, they headed out and crossed the hall to another place that had clothes in Harper’s size.
There, she filled another shopping bag. Unlike the kids, she didn’t have to worry too much about growing out of things. It didn’t seem terribly likely she’d get fat given that food had become more a question of ‘will there be any’ instead of what to eat. Had she been there only with the kids, she’d have changed by the display rack, but with Cliff there, she couldn’t bring herself to. Harper collected new jeans and a shirt, along with clean underwear. Madison refused to leave her side and followed her into the changing room. After bathing together, a quick change didn’t bother her at all. Wearing stuff that still smelled new made her feel a little better. She gathered her dirty stuff—no sense wasting clothing—and went back out to the store, spending a few minutes collecting extra clothes in her size, which she stuffed into a bag.
On the way out of the changing room, she spotted a rack of long-sleeved sweaters. She pulled one on and collected three more to take with. It felt like such a waste to leave so much stuff behind, but no way could she carry the store’s entire inventory up into the mountains. Harper contented herself with their modest haul. Wearing the same few items over and over again beat having only one outfit. Also, once they got to safety in Evergreen, she could think about washing clothes.
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