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PROVISIONS
Kira Lerner
Distant, inhuman moaning—the soundtrack to Becca Harker’s life—broke the seventeen-year-old’s concentration while she tried to pick the front door lock.
It was dusk, but no streetlamps were lit in this formerly middle-class neighborhood. There was no more middle class, not as there used to be when Becca was small. No electricity either. She’d grown used to the dark, like everyone else. This was the safest time to forage. At dusk, the sun no longer acted as a spotlight, picking out prey to the predators: canny mutants, mindless revenants, packs of humans who’d gone feral after the meteors fell. And dusk was too early for the shapeshifters and other nocturnal beasts to hunt.
Not many of us left.
Becca felt little regret at this, and less every day. Finding supplies was easier without competition.
Still… she missed people. Her siblings were a comfort and she would die for them—and kill for them—but Jake and Mia were so young. Just kids, as much as anyone could be a kid nowadays. Since their parents died, Becca’s main interactions, other than with her brother and sister, had been with scavengers or predators. Any words exchanged were poisoned by fear or aggression. Her friends had long since vanished, having either moved closer to the Haven complex near the City or they’d just… gone. Died. Or worse.
She swore under her breath for being so maudlin. Such friendships had been Before. This was After.
Nearby, hidden in the shadows of overgrown, radiation-deformed shrubberies darkening the west side of the house’s front door, Jake and Mia seemed alarmed by the groans. Becca heard the leaves rustle when they crouched further into the relative safety of the tangled branches. “Don’t worry,” she murmured, brushing back some sweaty strands of hair before swiftly returning to the task at hand. “Three blocks away, easy.”
“What’s taking so long?” Jake’s hissed voice betrayed his anxiety. “Since when do you have trouble getting past a lock—”
“It’s a frickin’ Baldwin, okay? Don’t rush me.” Just what the hell a rundown house like this needed a high-end lock for, Becca couldn’t even guess. Still, despite the difficulty, she was glad. The more secure a house was, the better the odds were that something worthwhile was inside.
As a kid Mia’s age, Becca wouldn’t have even known houses had different brands of locks, much less the attributes and idiosyncrasies of each one. As a kid, Becca had been taught not to steal, not to intrude, not to kill.
As a kid, Becca had never known hunger.
At last: an infinitesimal but encouraging click from the lock’s mechanism. She was headed in the right direction. “Soon, guys. Just hold on—”
Then she heard it. Felt it. Someone was nearby. Not three blocks away, not even three houses away.
Her siblings heard it too. Mia’s gasp was muffled, probably by Jake’s hand—he was a quick thinker. Becca yanked the knife from her utility belt and focused on the small house’s east side. The person…or animal or thing…would show up there. And Becca would stay and face whatever came. She trusted Jake to lead Mia out of danger.
In many ways, those two were better suited to this hellish world. They’d been born into it, knew no other life. Becca was the one who’d had to adapt, to change everything she was, ten years ago. Once the sky turned to fire and civilization to ashes.
A solitary figure appeared from behind the house, barely distinguishable from the surrounding dead, leafless trees. It was tall and slender, almost spindly, with hair spiking out like thorns.
Then Becca saw eyes that glittered as they met hers. They’d been covered by a fringe of black hair, but now the figure lifted its head to reveal a face. In the dark she could still tell he was a young man, near her own age. Human? Possibly. At least, though his eyes were wide, they lacked the mad ferocity of a mutant or the lifeless stupor of a revenant.
The horrifying question—is he a feral?—flashed in Becca’s mind, freezing her lungs. Except he didn’t seem like one. Too clean. No stench of carrion. And not only was he traveling alone—rare for a feral—nothing in his manner indicated that he’d resorted to cannibalism. Becca’d never seen a feral close-up; she wouldn’t be alive if she had. But even spied from afar, they were obvious. They all had the same bearing, mannerisms, and ravenous, predatory gaze. Feasting on their own kind probably changed them forever.
No, he wasn’t feral. But he wasn’t like her. Becca’d had ten years’ practice in identifying most of the various beings who’d survived or been created by the initial meteor holocaust, subsequent nuclear meltdowns and chaos. This one, though…
At least she recognized his suspicious, challenging expression. She probably wore the same one herself.
They stood, each waiting for the other to speak or move. Try something, go ahead. Becca’s damp fingers tightened around her knife. Give me an excuse.
Instead, he simply broke the silence. “What are you doing here?” His quiet voice sounded silvery. Wintry wind over a frozen lake.
The question was so innocuous she almost laughed. “What do you think?”
“That you don’t belong.”
“Yeah? Is this your house?”
His thin slash of a mouth tilted up. “No. But what’s in here is mine. I found it first.”
“Bull. I’ve been casing this place for almost a week.”
“Casing?” The stranger chuckled. “You get that out of a book or some ancient vid?”
“I got it from the same place I learned ‘first come, first served.’ Now back off. There’s other houses on the block.”
“You know as well as I do that there aren’t. Everything else has been gutted. This one is… special.”
He was right, of course. This house was unique. Windows boarded up tight, doors with crazy security, no one seen entering or leaving … Someone was using it for storage. And she wanted in.
But Becca kept her expression under control. She valued that above all else: control. It had gotten her through eight years of parentless survival.
He continued. “Truth is, I’ve been ‘casing’ this house myself. Guess we’re on opposite shifts.”
She glanced at his black t-shirt, dark jeans, boots, and finally the slim but well-defined muscles of his arms. Then she eyed his sharp, vulpine face. “Clean clothes. Relatively well-fed. You can stand waiting another few days before your next windfall. I don’t have that luxury. This one’s mine.”
Not surprisingly, the stranger gave her the same onceover she’d given him. For the first time in… well, maybe ever… Becca felt self-conscious about her raggedy appearance. Hair stuffed haphazardly into a baseball cap, figure dwarfed in a maroon sweatshirt that hid dirt and stains much better than her father’s baggy, ripped jeans... She probably looked about twelve. Even if she weren’t underfed, in this get-up she had no visible female curves.
Annoyance burned her cheeks. Vanity was another luxury she couldn’t afford.
She lifted the knife higher to get his attention back where it belonged. His eyes widened again when the blade’s well-polished metal shone even in the dusk. He didn’t retreat as she’d hoped, but he took a sharp breath and wasn’t coming any closer.
“Well prepared, I see.” His soothing murmur sounded like someone trying to appease a wild animal. “Put that away. I’m not gonna hurt you.” He hesitated. “You don’t know who I am, do you?”
Becca scowled, wary. His question sounded like a challenge. Was he someone important in this strange, tribal community? Various survivors had formed gangs—strength in numbers, they claimed. Recently, some gangs had turned participation from voluntary to mandatory. A new slave class seemed to spring up overnight, the weak forced to serve the strong.
So even regular humans couldn’t be trusted. The lines between civilized and savage, human and monster, had blurred.
Now Becca had to worry about this guy. He might be a recruiter—a euphemism for ‘slave harvester.’
“No,” she
said, keeping the knife steady. “Why should I know you?”
“I used to live near you. Before kindergarten, and a little after. We had playdates. We used to jump around in my dad’s sprinklers. Remember?”
Becca’s mouth parted for a few seconds. From somewhere she recalled a hot, yellow-tinged summer sky above a lawn. Grass that was lush, green, damp and cool as it tickled her bare feet. Laughs of glee shared with a black-haired boy who chased her, then shouts of triumph when chasing and ‘tagging’ him in return.
And the sprinklers.
Water was precious. Only yesterday Becca had been thrilled to find a promising stone well, not too far from this very house, with a ladder that someone had probably installed to reach the diminishing water line once the drought sucked it further into the fetid air. To her disappointment, by the time she’d looked inside, the stones were hot and the ground at the bottom was utterly parched.
Before, such a resource could be wasted on a children’s lawn game. Becca could picture it all, could feel this boy’s wet fingers in hers as they clasped hands and leapt through a curtain of water.
“Lucas,” she exhaled at last.
“Becky.”
“Becca,” she corrected, and then flushed at his arch grin and the memory that accompanied it: he used to tease her by calling her the wrong nickname. She’d always corrected him then, too.
What blind, silly kids they’d been. They hadn’t known that in two years, they would never be carefree again.
Remembering such things was useless. Unproductive. All Lucas was now was a rival who wanted what she’d claimed as hers.
“All right, that’s enough of the reunion. I need to get to work.”
Lucas’s smile faded into a stern, thin line. “No. You can’t go into that house.”
“Funny, my tools and this knife tell me I can.”
“Not alone. You don’t know what’s in there.”
“Do you?”
He licked his lips. “Not exactly, but I think…” He tilted his head up as if consulting the lavender sky, then looked back at Becca, impatience hardening both his gaze and his voice. “I don’t want to argue. Team up with me.”
“Why should I?”
“Because I bet I’m the only sentient being you’ve spoken to in a month who didn’t immediately try to kill you. And vice-versa. To me, that makes us allies. Or at least, non-enemies.” And yet his fingers were stretching and clenching into fists; stretching and clenching over and over. He was on edge. “Partnering makes sense. I doubt you’d be able to handle serious trouble on your own.”
Presumptuous ass. “How do you think I’ve survived all these years?” Becca peered into Lucas’s face, with its network of healed scars barely visible in the dwindling sunset. “You don’t seem so great at defending yourself.”
Lucas smiled again, wide enough to show his teeth. He looked even more vulpine. “You should see the other guy.” His eyes showed no joy. “Anyway, you’re the one with all the bandages.”
Becca’s hand automatically lifted to cover the tape-covered gauze on her throat, visible beneath her sweatshirt’s frayed collar. There were about a dozen bandages, most hidden by her clothes. “Yeah, well, it’s kinda rough out here,” she snapped. “But not rough enough to team up with someone I hardly know. Where do you even live now? How come I’ve never seen you around before?”
“I’ve been sticking near the Estate Park area, but the pickings are slim and…” He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I didn’t see you either, so I bet we’re both good sneaks. And there’s those differing schedules, like I said. Would you please put down that knife now?”
Becca complied but kept a firm grip on the weapon’s handle. Just because they’d known each other a lifetime ago didn’t mean Lucas hadn’t turned into something to fear. That’s exactly what happened to everyone else from the old life. “What use are you? You don’t even have any tools—that I can see, anyway. How were you planning on getting past all the locks?”
A flash of… something… crossed his face. But his answer came quickly enough. “Brute force.”
Despite the circumstances, Becca almost laughed. The guy was thin enough to use as a lock pick himself. He seemed to notice her amused disbelief and, as if answering the unspoken question, stretched his arms out to display his physique. “I may not be muscle-bound, but I’m not skin and bones, either. I’ve—”
He stopped. His chin lifted and eyes narrowed in concentration.
“You’ve got others with you.” Each word was measured and accusatory. “Where?”
Crap. Had the kids moved without her hearing them? Impossible. Then again, Becca’d been paying way too much attention to Lucas. By now a horde of revenants could’ve attacked and Becca would’ve been too focused on him to notice.
This made him dangerous. And a distraction. A remnant of a bittersweet past she’d had to forget to survive the present.
Worse, he was competition. She had three mouths to feed and couldn’t spare any resources.
She was about to deny that anyone was nearby when Lucas lifted his palm. “Don’t bother. Family, right? Except there’s something…” He tilted his head. “You’re not all the same.”
Her heart thumped. “They’re my brother and sister. Will you just go already?”
“You were an only child when I knew you.” Still that same, calculating look and quiet tone. He kept glancing at the tangle of dead branches behind her, as if knowing precisely where Jake and Mia were despite the deepening twilight. “So… they were born After. Lots of babies born around that time didn’t make it, with all the mutagenic radiation and the plague bugs. They must be strong. Or have a strong protector.”
His uncanny curiosity worried her; the hair on her neck and arms prickled and rose in electric fear. She took a step forward, weapon at the ready, and was gratified to see him back away. The first hint of moonlight revealed the unmistakable alarm in his dark eyes.
“You called me a non-enemy,” she muttered. “Don’t be too sure about that. I’ve killed for them before and I’ll do it again. That’s all I’m gonna say about my family to you. Go.”
“Damn it, Becca, you don’t understand. Even if you get past that door—” Lucas winced and, oddly, rubbed his arms as if cold. His gaze shifted from the knife back to her glare. His tone was still soft, but there was nothing calm in the abyss of his eyes. “I can’t stay and argue. Just… you have no idea what you’ll find.”
“Good. I like surprise gifts. Now you’ve got ten seconds to leave. Ten. Nine…”
Lucas was gone before the count reached seven, disappearing so quickly into the shadows that Becca could easily believe he’d just vanished.
Swallowing with difficulty—her throat was as dry as one of the desiccated bones from the town’s burial pit—Becca returned to work on the lock.
“He’s gone,” she whispered, not facing her siblings. “But don’t move. He could still be watching.”
“We know.” Mia’s truculence grated, but Becca knew it came from a frightened, hungry place. Used to this life or not, Mia was only eight. “Why’d you make him go?”
“We don’t need him.”
“Maybe we do,” Jake said. “You’re so weak.”
“I’m fine. And we can’t trust him.”
“We don’t have to trust him. He might’ve been useful—”
“No!” Becca closed her eyes briefly and warned herself to calm down. “There was obviously something up with him. Maybe a shifter.”
Jake made a dismissive sound. “He had plenty of time to change while you were talking. He’d’ve attacked you, easy. Why couldn’t you just—”
“I don’t have to explain myself! You guys know my rules, and that’s final!”
The kids fell into silence. Then her little sister whispered, “We’re hungry. We’re almost always hungry. Your rules don’t make sense. What if something happens to you? Won’t we have to break the rules then?”
Becca took a deep breath against t
he shudder that ran through her. And continued her work.
* * *
Finally, finally, the door gave way to Becca’s persistence and skill.
She opened the door as slowly as hunger and impatience allowed, then peeked inside. It was almost pitch black except for the dwindling daylight behind her. Listening for any suspect sound, Becca took an experimental sniff. Mold, dirt, blood—something had died here. Maybe several somethings. But after a long wait, she heard nothing moving. Even the air was as still and undisturbed as a long-sealed crypt.
Suddenly she remembered the warm coziness of the childhood home they’d abandoned long ago. Was someone in there now, scavenging it with no thought of the family that had lived there? Ransacking and dismissing once-loved belongings?
Just like we’re about to do?
Becca ignored the guilt, probably stirred from the encounter with Lucas. Another spillover from her old family life, from Before, and just as dangerous. Her parents taught her right from wrong, but they also made her vow to provide for her siblings. That’s what she was doing.
As if reading her mind, Jake spoke wistfully. “Remember they told us never to go where we weren’t invited?”
Almost ten years old and a stickler for etiquette. Weird kid. Still, relief at having defeated the lock turned Becca playful. She stepped beyond the threshold and whispered half-remembered niceties from an old book, “Then by all means, I invite you to enter, Master Jake and Miss Mia.”
Mia tramped in, more pragmatic than their brother. “Come on. Stop worrying, Jake.”
“He’s right to worry.” Becca didn’t want them getting any ideas that this was a walk through the park. “But I’m with you, and I’m sure there’s something in here. No one springs for that kind of lock without there being something worthwhile to hide with it.”
Once the children entered, the heavy door swung shut behind them, cloaking them in black. Becca reached for her tiny penlight, but the darkness wasn’t as total as she’d expected. Squinting, she tried find the source of a dim, flickering light… until all three gasped. A flame, seemingly floating in the distance, grew nearer. Soon it revealed a tin lid full of grease—an old-fashioned makeshift button lamp, Becca guessed; she’d learned about those from ancient 19th century household journals—along with large fingers holding it, and a face above belonging to a hulking, shaggy-haired man.
That Moment When: An Anthology of Young Adult Fiction Page 29
