Strike

by Delilah S. Dawson

  I call shotgun, only belatedly realizing how lame that sounds now, and Chance sits in the middle of the backseat and pulls his duffel bag from under my seat, checking that his drugs are still there, I guess.

  “Big Choice okay?” Wyatt says.

  “Whatever,” Chance and I say at the same time.

  Wyatt turns left. “It’s closest. You guys agree we need to hurry back before they assimilate our friends and dog?”

  “Yeah, nerd. Let’s keep the hillbilly Borg from giving your dog too many treats,” Chance says. But he doesn’t say anything about Gabriela and Kevin, which I’m learning means he’s worried about them.

  Big Choice looks so different when we have two thousand dollars to spend. We each take a cart and stop by a Thanksgiving display. The boys look at me expectantly, like my fallopian tubes make me an expert shopper.

  I sigh. “Look, it’s easy. We need tents, sleeping bags, flashlights, knives. Backpacks. Deodorant. Coats. Socks. Underwear. Boy Scout shit. Go.”

  Wyatt manages to look sheepish. “Uh. So. Do you want your own tent, or . . . ?”

  I blush and join him in staring at the ground. “Not really.” I spin and walk away, pushing my cart fast.

  I head for the women’s section and pick out the least offensive underwear in my size and Gabriela’s size, plus pajamas, extra socks, fleece jackets, leggings and stretchy jeans, tees, long-sleeved shirts, knitted hats, hoodies, all in black, and two black puffer coats off the sale rack. I get myself a pair of slip-on shoes and try to remember what kind of shoes Gabriela was wearing. She didn’t tell me her shoe size, and I can’t remember. Crap. I hope her current shoes don’t have holes.

  I buy a big-ass bag of dog food and a bowl and a new leash and collar. In the health and beauty section, I get replacement packs of the same face wipes I stocked my mail truck with before going on my first mission to kill Wyatt’s dad. I get fingertip toothbrushes and floss and mouthwash, a brush and rubber bands and deodorant and coconut-scented body spray and lotion—double everything, because Gabriela’s got to feel as crappy as I do. And maxi pads, because I can’t imagine how bad it would be for either of us to start bleeding in a tent in the middle of nowhere. Being a girl sucks even more in the apocalypse.

  And then I do something insane. Something I would never have considered doing just a week ago. Something I wouldn’t want my mom to accidentally find out about. Something daring.

  I buy a box of condoms.

  Because it’s the end of the world, I have a boyfriend, and I don’t think I want to die a virgin. An old man glances at me from the fiber and stool softener section, and I stubbornly stick out my chin . . . and hide the box under the coats in my cart.

  In the food section, I grab crap. All crap. Pop-Tarts and granola bars and peanut butter crackers and Gatorade. Snack cakes and cookies and animal crackers in a giant plastic jar shaped like a bear. Since I know the guys will forget it, I slam a twelve-pack of toilet paper on top. I’m sure I’ve forgotten half the things I should be getting, and as I stand in the aisle biting my lip, I remember one thing. One small thing. Just for me.

  The guys are arguing over tents as I hurry by without a word, straight to the craft section. I get a roll of knitting needles with all sizes, even rounds. Pawing through the yarn, I choose soft things and cheap things and bright things and speckled things, but nothing in that damning Valor blue that should’ve been a tropical teal but somehow ended up cold and ugly. I stop in front of the embroidery, but you can’t hang samplers on tents. The last thing I get is a couple of backpacks on sale from the back-to-school section so Gabriela and I have a place to keep all our clothes. It’s all we have now.

  The guys are in line, looking smug and easy. I guess they solved whatever they were arguing about, and they each have a full cart. Perched on top of Wyatt’s cart is a stuffed green turtle with big, goofy eyes like Ping-Pong balls. Which means he remembers that my stuffed-turtle collection died in the truck fire, which is possibly the sweetest thing on earth.

  “Thought you might need some company,” he says, and my heart wrenches.

  I can’t say thanks without crying, so I just wipe my eyes and hug him.

  Outside of my turtle, everything else he has makes sense, including a portable plastic aquarium for his snake. I know we’re missing a million things that we won’t think about until we’re squatting in the tent, but at least he remembered two sleeping bags and a two-pack of pillows. His stuff adds up to four hundred and something, and we all go tense as he swipes the card.

  “Can you put in your passcode, sir?” the cashier says.

  Wyatt gulps. “Uh. I . . . uh . . .”

  We just stand there staring at each other, and the lady looks toward a stand where a thick-built dude in a manager’s jacket is watching us, one hand on his radio.

  The skin on the back of my neck prickles, and I look around at the other people waiting in line to check out. It’s mostly men, and they all look guarded. They’re staring at us like we might be trouble. Black holsters peek out from under their shirts, and they constantly glance at one another and the doors as if waiting for a shoot-out. Most people are alone. There’s not a single child. Maybe Chance wasn’t that off when he said it was turning into the Wild West. People have to have food and toilet paper and aspirin, but no one is sending out a pregnant wife with a little kid to fetch it, either. There’s no polite conversation, no friendly banter. Just tense silence and carts overloaded with necessities.

  “Just run it as credit, idiot,” Chance says. He reaches past us to the machine, hits cancel, and presses credit. It goes through, no problem, and I try to look cool and not like I expected Valor SWAT to burst through the door.

  I’m next, and mine is more than seven hundred. The lady gives me a pained look when I run my card. “Sorry, honey. There’s only five hundred and fifty on there. How else would you like to pay?”

  My face goes hot, and I start doing mental calculations about what to put back when Chance slides another card through. “You got my sister’s stuff, right? Here’s her card.”

  That card goes through fine, and once Chance is up, our cashier chews her gum like cud and says, “You kids got one of them festivals or something? We’re selling lots of tents lately. Seems like a dangerous time to be out in the woods, what with the crime wave.”

  “We’re just going camping with some friends,” Chance says. He starts bagging his stuff up so we can get the hell out before we have to tell a bunch of stupid lies to someone who has no idea that she’s not an American anymore. Valor must be hiding what they’re doing from the media, or else she’d know exactly why we have survival gear.

  A crime wave? That’s what they’re saying? Scared people will believe anything.

  “Have fun. Watch out for bears.” She’s still chewing, hands on her hips, as we push our carts out.

  I’m putting my bags in Wyatt’s trunk when a guy gets out of a black sedan across the lot. In between the darkness and the credit card panic during checkout, I forgot to look for suits. In this country town, unless it’s prom weekend or you’re going to a funeral, there’s only one reason to wear a slick black suit. I go cold all over and turn around, pulling my gun out from my waistband and holding it low behind my back as Chance follows my line of sight and mutters, “Shit.”

  But the guy just walks past us, checking his phone. No sunglasses, no ear wire. Probably not even Valor, then. Or maybe off duty. He didn’t even look at me. But, well, I’m not special, am I? Just another dumb kid until I pull out my gun.

  “You’ve got money left on Gabriela’s card, right?” I ask Chance.

  He eases his gun back into his jeans. “Yeah. Why?”

  “Because I don’t want to eat whatever they’re serving at Leon’s house.”

  The drive to Crane Hollow is quiet, the car filled with the scent of burgers and fries. I’m worried about Matty, worried about Gabriela and Kevin, worried about what a rebel camp on Leon’s land is going to be like. We pass the road t
o my house, and my throat goes tight. The sky is dark and cloudy, but I still look for smoke. If Chance did what they asked and they still burned his house down and killed his parents, what are they going to do to my mom once they realize I opted out? Shit. I pull down the mirror and barely recognize myself. I look like I’ve been to war, like I’m haunted. Like I killed ten people this week, most of them innocent.

  “We won’t let them hurt you,” Chance says, quiet.

  My head jerks up. “What?”

  “I’m just saying . . . I know we started off on the wrong foot when you shot my orphan, but whatever’s happening in Crane Hollow, you and Gabriela don’t go anywhere alone. I don’t trust that guy.” He scoffs. “Leon Crane. Who names a kid Leon?”

  “The notary public married to a deer butcher,” Wyatt says. He glances at me in the half-light. “And he’s right. You need to stay close. After those guys . . .” He trails off. I don’t know if he’s referring to the IT robbers who tried to rape me in the back of my truck or the thugs at Sherry’s house, and it doesn’t matter. Men are desperate now, and there are no laws.

  But I don’t want to sound like a damsel, so I say, “Whatever. I’ll just shoot anybody who gives me trouble. It’s worked so far.”

  We turn onto Crane Road at a light, and there’s a stark difference between the busy, well-lit highway and the curvy country road. There are no streetlights, and the grass is high on the shoulders, with heavy forest and barbed-wire fences in various stages of slow death along the sides. It’s always looked like this—like anyone who isn’t a Crane is unwelcome. If we kept driving down this road and made a few more turns, we’d end up at Alistair’s trailer—or the ashes of it. Instead, we turn at a collection of ramshackle mailboxes covered in NO TRESPASSING signs and bump along the dirt and gravel road toward the scattered buildings of Crane Hollow.

  6.

  A figure steps from the woods to block our car’s path. A big guy with a big gun. It could be Tuck or Hartness, but it’s not. The Cranes must have an inexhaustible supply of huge, scary-looking cousins. Wyatt stops the car, and the guy comes around to the window.

  “You miss the signs?” he says, unfriendly-like, stubby finger on the trigger.

  “Leon invited us.”

  The guy nods like he already knew that. “Go on past the barn. Park in the field and head up to the house.” As Wyatt rolls up his window, the guy gives a small smile and says, “You got a good dog.”

  And I know they weren’t going to eat Matty, but I needed to hear that, that the Citizens for Freedom or the Cranes for Fucking Up Shit or whatever they call themselves—that they’re still human and can smile. I would thank him, but he’s melted back into the woods and we’re passing the barn and bumping into a huge field. It’s got to be at least ten acres, with cars neatly parked at one end and rows of tents at the other end.

  “I always wanted to go to Coachella,” Wyatt says.

  “You still play bass?” Chance asks.

  “I did, yeah.”

  Silence falls. Hobbies are a luxury we don’t necessarily have anymore. Even my guerrilla knitting serves a purpose.

  “Maybe the rednecks will lend us some banjos,” Chance adds grimly.

  Which, to be honest, pisses me off a little. I can’t help thinking about Jeremy, about how he proudly called himself a redneck right up until the end but would dive into a fight with any stranger who tried to use the term against him. Whatever his family situation, he was a good person, a good friend. Is it fair for me to think of the Cranes as rednecks if I was constantly chiding Jeremy for using terms like “fag” and “retarded”? And even if they act like what I grew up thinking a redneck was, they still own more land and resources than my mom and I ever did, so technically, they’re more successful. How can I point fingers at anyone when I’m the one with innocent blood on my hands? They might be country, but I’m a monster.

  “How about you don’t call them ‘rednecks’ again?” I say.

  “You want to hear what guys like them called guys like me in juvie?” he shoots back.

  “How about we remember that everyone’s packing heat and just act polite?” Wyatt says softly.

  He parks in line, and we get out and stand there. The field is silent. There are no lights, and no one is here to meet us. A bobwhite calls, somewhere in the forest, and Wyatt pops the trunk, hunts around, and hands me my new puffer coat.

  “You look cold.”

  I smile and go up on my tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek, and it’s still new enough to make him blush. We’ve been together for less than a week, but it feels like forever.

  “Blech,” Chance mutters. “I’ll take my chance with the Cranes.”

  When he heads for the main house, we follow, leaving our bags behind for now. It looks like a plantation house that no one wants to fix but everyone wants to add on to, white with four crooked columns out front and wings that just keep on going in different kinds of wood and metal. Chickens roost on a ladder behind a wire fence, their chicken house a replica of the big one and, honestly, better kept. A sharp bark becomes an orchestra of dogs, and the screen door bangs open. A pack of hounds bursts out, and Matty runs for me, yipping joyously. I squat to hug her and fend off her licks. The other dogs just jump around and bark like idiots. Tuck stands on the porch holding a fried chicken leg, and Gabriela walks out to meet us, her arms crossed.

  “About damn time,” she says.

  “Yeah, well, we had a lot of shopping to do,” Chance says, his voice high and careless with relief as he hugs her.

  “Where’s the goods?”

  Chance inclines his head toward the car, and Gabriela jumps down and hurries toward it. We struggle to catch up.

  “Everything okay?” Chance asks quietly.

  Gabriela shakes her head. “Yeah, sure. Bunch of angry white folks eating KFC in their camo hats and talking about football. It’s awesome. I totally fit in. By which I mean nobody talked to me and one old lady told me coloreds had to use the other bathroom. Please tell me you got the Pop-Tarts.”

  I paw through the bags and help her parse her stuff into the backpack I bought for her. She doesn’t seem excited, but who gets excited about pastel cotton underwear? The coat fits and she’s glad for the hoodie, at least. She tries to put on the hat, but her fro-hawk is too big to fit under it—but at least it gets her to laugh. When she sees the Pop-Tarts—that’s when she finally thanks me.

  As she tears into a packet, I make sure to shuttle the condoms discreetly into my backpack. Matty’s leaping around us, and I put the new collar and leash on her and tell her how pretty she looks. The guys shoulder the tent boxes and whatever else they can carry and head for the tent city. When we get closer, we see the blond clipboard girl waiting out front wearing the same big, fake smile.

  “Okay, so you can set up wherever you want, but you can see that we’re avoiding the ditch and the cars. The porta-potties are over there, and the well is over there. So just pick a place, set up, and come on up to the house.” She turns around and walks away, then stops and looks back. “Oh, and don’t worry about thieves or anything. Thieves get punished in Crane Hollow.”

  “Uh, how?” Chance asks.

  She smiles sweetly. “I think you can guess.” And then she’s gone.

  “We’re pitching our tents close together, right?” Gabriela says.

  “Better the devil you know.” Chance readjusts the tent box and keeps walking.

  Watching boys argue and set up tents is boring and annoying, so Gabriela, Matty, and I head up to the house to check on Kevin.

  “How’s he doing?” I ask.

  She exhales through her nose. “I don’t know. They wouldn’t let me upstairs. Said he was with ‘the doc,’ but I never saw anybody that looked like a doctor. This house is crazy. The clinic and the head honchos are up on the second floor, and they guard the staircase all the time. There are a few bedrooms downstairs, but most folks are in trailers out back or in tents. They’ve got chickens, goats, pigs. It’s
like its own little city. Like . . . Backwoods Disney World.”

  The wood porch steps creak, and Hartness holds the door open. “Welcome home, ladies. Dinner’s in the kitchen, and they’re waiting for you in the study.” He looks past us, puzzled. “Where’s your boys?”

  “Tent duty.” Gabriela hooks her thumb through her belt next to her machete.

  Hartness laughs. “More chicken for me, I reckon.”

  “Where’s Kevin?”

  “Who?”

  “The kid who came in with me. The one who got shot.”

  Hartness scratches his beard. “Didn’t see any kid. Ask Heather.”

  Gabriela’s eyes shoot meaningfully to mine. I can almost feel her thinking, See?

  She nods to him, and he pats Matty as we pass. It’s claustrophobic in here, all dark wood floors and narrow halls. Gabriela leads me past the kitchen, and I am definitely glad I bought a bunch of trash food, because it looks like a place where they cook possum stew in rusty cauldrons. A few older women with home perms and claw bangs stare at us and mutter under their breath, and we hurry down a different hall.

  We pass a narrow sunroom with a long table full of people who look enough like Leon Crane for us to assume they belong here. Crane men seem to come in two types: whip thin with huge eyes or bouncer sized with beards. People are everywhere, in every room, eating on the floor and waiting in line for a bathroom that doesn’t look much better than squatting outside. You can tell who’s kin and who’s a new member of the CFF—the folks who fit in are as comfortable as an old couch, while the new recruits are nervy and sleepless, their eyes looking us up and down and their chicken-greasy hands constantly going for their guns.

  At the stairs, we find the blond girl, Heather, eating a limp salad from a KFC container. Before she can stand, Gabriela pushes into her space and asks, “Where’s the kid?”

  Heather dabs her mouth with a napkin and smiles. “Upstairs, asleep. We gave him something to help him relax. You ever had a bullet wound reopened and disinfected? Hurts like a bitch.”