The Dry Earth (Book 1): The Phone

by Orion, W. J.

“Cup of water, on us,” Kim said and brought the drink to Yaz.

  “Thank you,” Yaz said, and leaned onto her side in the twin bed to take a sip. The lukewarm water was clean, and eradicated the scratchiness that irritated her throat.

  “Slow, now. Not all at once. You might throw it up,” Kim said.

  Yaz nodded in agreement and rolled onto her back. The movement hurt but she felt relief. Yaz reached down to her cargo pants pocket to ensure her phone was there. Under the thin blanket, she realized she wore no pants. No pants meant no pocket, and without a pocket, there was no phone. She sat bolt upright, eyes wide, fully afraid of where her precious phone might’ve gone to. Feelings of fear, failure, and terrible loss coursed through her.

  “Your pants?” Kim asked before she could ask herself. “Calm down, now. We took them off and cleaned them. They’re right there in your bag along with the stuff in your pockets. You carry a lot of old mementos. A dead phone? Trash it, kid. You’ll be thankful you got rid of the weight.”

  “Did you… Did you look through my stuff?” Yasmine asked, already feeling the loss of her secrets, the voiding of her privacy. She felt hollow, exposed. She felt like she’d betrayed her mother somehow. She felt like her world just became smaller. It felt smaller.

  “I opened the bag and took your laundry. You’ll owe me for the work I did on your clothes. Getting that blood stain out was my entire morning yesterday,” Kim said, handing over a warm chunk of bread filled with tiny bits of nuts and fruit.

  Yaz took a bite. It was fresh and delicious. She felt even better.

  “Tell me what you want and I’ll pick for it,” Yaz offered.

  “Liam and Owen both need toothbrushes and we all need toothpaste. Keep an eye out and we’ll call you square,” Kim said, sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “I can do that,” Yaz said, happy to have a debt like that.

  “You gonna owe a lot of people. Doc gave you those stitches, and some meds too. He’s gonna want something.”

  “I’ll make it right. I always get square with who I owe,” Yaz asserted. She told the truth.

  Kim smiled and nodded.

  “Brent will want to talk to you once he knows you’re awake. He’s been wanting to talk since you came in a few nights ago,” Kim said. The boarded windows rattled as the wind picked up outside. She spoke louder. This was the world now. Dusty, dry, and windy. In the dry ocean flats where some water still pooled it wasn’t as dry, but with that moisture came more crabs.

  Crabs.

  She remembered the school and her violent run-in with the alien monster.

  “Come back to me,” Kim said. “You ‘re drifting. What’re you thinking about, kid?”

  “A few nights ago?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I was picking for books at a school,” Yaz blurted. She’d shared more in that one sentence than she’d let slip to another human in the past three months. “And I slept in the bottom floor of the ruins. When I woke up I hit the library, and a crab found me there. It tried to kill me.”

  Kim laughed. “Are you sure you saw what you saw? Crabs never mess with people unless we mess with them first, or if there’s water to be had. Plus, there ain’t been crabs near here in months. Not enough water to take, and so long as we leave them be, they let us alone. They know they won.”

  “I saw what I saw. I’m not a liar. I have proof,” she said, and regretted it again as soon as she said it.

  “You make a detailed drawing? Paint it like a French girl?”

  “What?”

  “Old saying, never mind I said it. Look, if you say a crab attacked you, I guess I believe you. Other teenagers I wouldn’t believe, but you, I trust. Now we gotta get ready in case crabs are coming back,” Kim said, thinking hard and sounding somber. She rested a dark hand on the thin blanket that covered Yaz’s knee. The touch felt good, but after a few seconds, Yaz had to move her leg.

  “I feel crazy saying I saw a crab, but I did. And I killed it. Thank you for believing in me.”

  “You’re welcome, hero. Look, you need to tell Brent about what you saw. Shantytown’s defenses need to be addressed. A council will need to form to figure it out,” Kim said.

  “I don’t know why you don’t just have a standing government. Why a council needs to be formed every time a decision must be made. So inefficient,” Yaz said. She thought about her mom’s phone again.

  “We live in a demarchy, Yasmine. Everyone is allowed to make major decisions in a rotation. Equal representation comes to all. It’s fair.”

  “Yeah, well. It’s a lot of work to figure little things out.”

  “Fairness and justice are always difficult. Look, eat your bread, drink your water, and if you think you’re able to, I’ll have one of the boys get Brent. Just holler. I’ll be in the kitchen, making more bread.”

  “You make a lot of bread,” Yaz teased.

  Kim stood and puffed her chest out, proud. “And it’s damn good bread, too. Pee in the jug in the bathroom.” Kim patted Yasmine’s leg and departed the boy’s bedroom for her work. The boarded windows rattled again.

  Yaz waited a minute, then went to her pack despite the pain in her lower back. She undid the buckles and flipped the top open. True to Kim’s word the clothes she’d worn during the face off with the crab were folded neatly atop the other contents. Just underneath those was her mom’s phone.

  She snatched it up and then fished out a battery recharger. Yaz plugged the phone into one of the chargers she had and after a few seconds she was able to power the relic on. After it booted up and she unlocked it, she went to the photo gallery, and looked at the most recent picture she’d taken.

  In the image, the face of the crab trapped under the rubble of the stairway stared up at her. One bright beam of light beside a red pip of an eye. Surrounding its bright red cyclopean orb she saw deep scars of red in the shell of its armor. The fractures didn’t make the thing seem fragile; it made it look tougher, more sinister even. Somehow, the animosity of the creature remained in its death, and she felt uncomfortable even looking at the picture.

  She shut the phone, held it tight to her chest, and decided she felt well enough to go meet with Brent.

  After she read some of her mom’s text messages of course.

  And after she looked at pictures of her mom and dad.

  And maybe after she played herself a song with the ear buds in.

  Chapter Six

  The Doctor’s Office

  Yaz loved her visits to the closely arranged multi-story brick ruins at the center of Shant’s village. Old blankets and sheets were attached to the sides of the buildings a foot or two higher than she could reach, and the material created alleys of cooler air the citizens passed through. Without shade daytime was a death sentence, and the fabric awnings and roofs gave the citizens a stay of execution. Dirty kids who had never seen rivers or ponds, or clouds played in the shadows, wearing scavenged clothes older than they were. She smiled as they played catch with a baseball that had almost lost its stained outer skin.

  She made a note to try and find a baseball.

  Yaz walked slow to ease the pain in her back, carrying all her gear as best she could. She kept the weight away from her stitches and took her time. She’d travel at dusk back to her home outside the walls and had to spare herself.

  Yaz left the cluster of old shops with its second floor apartments and broken windows and turned the corner to head past the gardens. The tired soil of an old park grew the summer crops for Shant; beans, cucumbers, beets, and squash. All of it ringed an old fountain that’d never spray water again. So long as the town collected their spent urine for their solar stills they could drink and irrigate, and that meant food. The two wells in town coughed up a few gallons of water every day, so that helped a little too.

  She waved at the farmers as they cleared out the few weeds that tenaciously tried to survive in the thirsty world and she hustled a bit to get back into the shade near the market. Her eyes were mesmerized b
y the wood and steel windmills that gave Shant its tiny electrical supply. The constructions sat atop many of the flat roofs that could support them, and a few were in the yards of flattened houses. Thick cords ran everywhere along the ground, delivering the meager power to its destinations. She patted her backpack where her folding solar cell was and smiled. Her mother had given her such great gifts before she died.

  “Do you have gasoline?” a lady’s gravel-filled voice called out.

  Yasmine stopped and looked a pile of rags with a bony old woman beneath it. The pile of rags reached up with two skeletal, shaking hands and pleaded, palms up.

  “I’m sorry?” she replied.

  “Gasoline? What about motor oil? Cooking oil?” the elderly woman asked.

  Yasmine saw two cataract-coated blue eyes peering out between two slits of fabric. They weren’t looking directly at her… but she knew the woman spoke to her.

  “No. None of either. Why are you begging here?”

  “What about water? Can you spare me some water? I’m too frail now to get my own,” she said, her voice shaking.

  “If you live here in Shant, then you know you can get water for just a little work. Watch some children play for their parents and you’ll get a sip or two. Ball up old yarn for a cup. No one goes thirsty here.”

  The pile of rags lowered its rag-covered head and muttered a curse.

  “I might not live here, but I know the rules,” Yasmine said. She started to walk away, but stopped. She backed up, produced a small, almost crushed up plastic bottle with a mouthful of water in it, and tossed it to the begging lady. The skeletal hands scratched the bottle up from her lap and clawed at the cap. “You’re welcome. Stay in the shade, and stop lying to people.”

  “Thank you,” she muttered after taking a gulp from the bottle.

  Yasmine shook her head, and walked off.

  Shant’s market had a sign above the entrance. The worn metal read; Clearance 13 feet. Yasmine had put together that the market was in the bottom of what was originally a place for parking cars. The two-story garage gave the merchants a cooler place to sell their goods or ply their skills, and on the sun-scorched open upper floor they had black PVC piping and barrels where they made lukewarm water hot for washing things, and the occasional bath.

  So long as you could trade fair for the luxury.

  She sighed, walked under the sign that told her the ceiling was 13 feet up, and headed down the concrete ramp to the center of the market. She could hear the happy commotion ahead, and felt a little excited to say hi to Brent, and maybe the two boys.

  Yaz couldn’t go into Brent’s stall.

  She tried to, but the thoughts of owing Shant’s doctor a debt put such severe guilt into her head she couldn’t move. She stood at the end of the wide central row of the garage as a few dozen worn and hot people walked around her, giving her a multitude of expressions. Many were annoyed she’d stopped in the middle of a walking space (that she was annoying people didn’t help her situation) and some were outright angry that she’d frozen solid in a place of business.

  She saw Brent’s big body appear at the opening of his tattered pavilion tent-stall. He looked away from her, then towards her.

  She turned around as fast as she could and dropped to a knee. She fidgeted with her boots like something needed to be done with them and people seemed to not notice her. She stood, hunched over in pain, and scampered up the ramp and out of the garage.

  She’d see Brent after she made it square with the doctor.

  Shant’s clinic was an old dentist’s office. Made sense, as Shant’s doctor was a dentist.

  Dr. Sonneborn was another big man, but tall not wide, unlike Brent. When Yaz burst through the glass front door of the practice into the remarkably clean (still dusty though, you can’t escape the dust anymore) reception area the lanky doctor was right there. She nearly knocked him back as he felt the throat of an emaciated older woman with hair the color of the high moon.

  “Yasmine,” Dr. Sonneborn said, moving his patient to a shaft of light coming through a boarded over window. “It’s good to see you up and around. I’m glad you’re here, if you take a seat, I’ll check on your stitches in a minute.”

  “I um…” she started, nervous of the lean man who held her in his clutches of owing. “I came to make our transaction square.”

  He made a face at her as he continued to feel the older woman’s neck and jaw.

  “You gave me care. I owe you for that,” Yaz added.

  “Oh, yeah. Um, sure. Sit. Relax. We’ll come to an agreement. Let me assist the dear Miss Fishman here first. I’ll be done in a few minutes.”

  “Of course,” Yaz said, feeling silly and awkward. She folded her arms across her chest like armor and backed away. She found a worn chair in the corner and dropped her bag beside it. She eased into it, and waited for the doctor.

  Without her phone out she guessed she waited about three minutes.

  “Stand up for me,” Dr. Sonneborn said, motioning for her to rise as he walked up to her. “Let me look at your back.”

  She stood and turned around. She gritted her teeth and pulled up the sides of her stained t-shirt to reveal her mending wound. When he touched her, he was gentle, and his hands were warm. It wasn’t as bad as she’d expected it to be.

  “You need a fresh bandage, and some honey ointment. It looks good, Yaz. Real good. You’ll have a scar but it’s well hidden. Your beach figure will be somewhat protected.”

  “No one goes to the beach anymore,” Yaz said with a sigh.

  “Maverick and Goose shall shed a river of tears. Sense of humor, Yaz. Work on that,” Dr. Sonneborn said to her.

  He walked over to the door that led into the back where the dental procedure rooms were and grabbed some supplies off a cart. Freshly cleaned cotton bandages, a white plastic bottle with a worn label and a jar of milky honey. He talked to her in the waiting room as he tended to her back.

  “Apply a thumb sized dollop twice a day directly on the wound, and keep it clean as you can. Change the bandages when you do the ointment, and don’t reuse them. Bring them back when you run out. These are acetaminophen. Low grade pain killer. Take one if you’re in pain. Two if you’re in a lot of pain. Come to me if you think you need a third. There aren’t many left. “

  “What do I owe you?”

  “You are singular of purpose, young lady. Small talk isn’t your forte, is it?”

  “I talk to myself a lot,” Yaz said. “I spend a lot of time alone out there.”

  “Yeah. You do. Why don’t you live in town? There are plenty of empty places, with a little work they’re waiting for a nice occupant. You do enough for Shantytown to take one for free. I’d put in a good word. A council would give you a house.”

  “No thank you. People make me nervous.”

  “At least you’re honest about it.”

  “What do I owe you?”

  The doctor backed away and surveyed his work on her wound. He nodded his approval and took a seat near her. She fixed her shirt and sat down in the waiting room chair. She leaned forward, waiting for his answer.

  “I hear you don’t go into the city, right?”

  “There’s no meat on those bones worth picking,” Yaz said without thinking. She wanted to touch her mom’s phone.

  “Truth to that. Too many scavengers have been there for too long. Too many fighting for control of their kingdoms of nothing. There’s a man there now that’s managed to take over the big building you can see on the horizon. Calls himself Baron Monolith.”

  “I’m all set with the city, Dr. Sonneborn. Sorry.”

  “I had thought to ask you to try and make it to my condo on the north shore, but if the city is off limits, I won’t ask it of you. Let me think…”

  She waited, feeling a little better now that they were discussing terms. His eyes lit up.

  “You do more than just picking, right? You can read?”

  Her eyes narrowed, as she felt a sudden flare of
suspicion for his motives. “I can read. What are you asking?”

  “If you can write too I need some help here in the office. Record keeping, organization. Light work. I’d call your debt square if you stayed here and helped me for a few days. Gave me someone to talk to for a bit. No more than a week.”

  “I… should be out picking,” she replied. His offer was reasonable, and somehow, she felt like it was the worst thing he could’ve asked her to do.

  He wanted… her company.

  “You can stay in a patient room down the hall. Comfy bed, there’s some electricity at night and the door locks. I’ll supply you a little food and water too. That’s my offer. It’s a good one. Figure out if you’re willing. Otherwise… I don’t know what to tell you.”

  “Can I think about it?” Yaz asked him.

  “Sure thing. I close up shop in about… two hours. Right before sundown. If you’re game, be here before the door locks,” Dr. Sonneborn said, and stood to his enormous height.

  She picked up her bags and escaped out the door before he started to talk about the weather, or what book she’d been reading most recently.

  She had to get to Brent and get that debt handled.

  Plus, she wanted to say hi.

  Chapter Seven

  Shantytown Loves You

  Yaz watched as Brent smiled at the customer walking out of his shop at the market. She saw Brent had six precious bird’s eggs in his hand. Delicacies with a value off the charts, Yaz felt her heart skip a beat with excitement for him. The thrill of his trade made her forget she was nervous about talking to him. It made her forget the wound in her back. She skipped into the stall made of chain link fencing covered in rugs and blankets to push out the heat. She stopped below the single coil-shaped light bulb that dangled from a wire attached to the chain link roof.

  “What’d you trade that guy to get eggs?” she asked him after leaning on a plastic folding table covered in plastic containers filled with bits of electronics.

  “Hi Yasmine,” Brent said with a grin. “It’s good to see you’re well. I’m doing great, thanks for asking.”