In a Handful of Dust

by Mindy McGinnis

  “You’re not going to,” Lucy decided. “Follow us. Lynn doesn’t have to know. If you can reach Entargo, there’s people there that can test your blood, and if you’re clean, there’s no reason you can’t come with us to California.”

  “And if I’m not, they shoot me dead.”

  “Take the chance,” Lucy said. “What else is there?”

  “Nothing,” Carter agreed. “There’s nothing for me. I don’t have people like you do, Lucy. Vera and Stebbs, they’re positive it’s not in you, and Lynn’s leaving her whole life behind just to be at your side. My mom, she heard it might be me and she wouldn’t even look in my face anymore for fear of catching it herself. With Maddy gone and me on my own, I just can’t . . .”

  Lucy tightened her grip on him. “You can’t what?”

  “I can’t see anything for me.”

  She tossed his hand away. “So what then, you give up? You’re done? You going to find a nice place to curl up in a ball like a sick possum and just die? Even with me offering you a way out? Follow me, Carter. I’ll leave food out. Lynn’s leading us straight to water every day. You can make it.”

  “I can’t keep up, Lucy,” he said, looking away from her. “I can’t keep your pace, and you can’t give me half your food without hurting yourself. I won’t let you do that.”

  “I don’t usually eat much,” she said stubbornly.

  “You’re not usually walking across the country either,” Carter said.

  “I’m leaving it out anyway,” she said, sticking to her plan. “So you can either follow and make it matter, or the critters can have it and I’m weaker for no good reason.”

  “Lucy, don’t do this—”

  “It’s done. Now you get out of here before Lynn comes back and shoots you.”

  He placed one hand on either side of her face with a sad smile, and her thoughts raced for a string of words that would make the feelings in her heart and the harsh nature of their world work hand in hand.

  But there was nothing.

  Deceiving Lynn wasn’t an entirely new experience for Lucy. She’d snuck out of their house more than a few times, told small fibs about broken windows, even bailed out of chores once or twice on a whim. But failing to tell her Carter was trailing them outdid all her white lies, and the guilt didn’t sit well. But she could bear the burden, knowing the alternative was to leave Carter to die.

  Lucy ignored her conscience pangs as Lynn wrapped her foot in some bandages she’d found, padding the heel well before sliding the new boots over Lucy’s feet.

  “How they feel?” Lynn asked.

  “Pretty good, might be a little loose.”

  “Loose can give you a blister just as bad as tight can,” Lynn said, her forehead creasing.

  “Yeah, but I need the room for the bandage,” Lucy said quickly, not wanting Lynn to leave the camp again. “And who knows how long it will take us to get to California . . . I might grow into them.”

  “Hopefully not that long,” Lynn said, as she lay down on her blanket, eyes sliding to the horizon and the dark clouds piling up above the sunset. “Might rain.”

  “Feels weird not running for buckets.”

  “We should set out our bottles. They’ll catch something at least.”

  They piled their backpacks and blankets underneath the spreading canopy of the pine as the clouds neared, flickering lightning licking the edges of the storm front.

  “Think it’ll be bad?” Lucy asked.

  Lynn watched the clouds for a moment. “Not very,” she decided. “It’ll be one of those that gives us a soaking and then moves on. I should’ve noticed it sooner. We could’ve been in one of them houses below.”

  Lucy slid under the lowest branches of the pine, the needles tickling her back as she lay on her stomach. “There’s good cover here. We’ll be fine.”

  Lynn scooted over to lie next to Lucy, her face propped in her hands. “Something’s not right,” she said, her eyes darting over the horizon. “I don’t know if it’s bothering me I didn’t see that storm coming sooner, or . . .”

  “Or what?”

  “Or if it’s like I feel somebody is watching.”

  “Nobody is watching us,” Lucy said quickly. “There’s nobody out here but you and me.”

  “Maybe. But keep your gun close,” Lynn said, her nerves still clearly on edge. “I guess I’ll lay here in the dirt and watch the first rainfall I’ve never been running around willy-nilly to collect.”

  The next day dawned clear. As Lucy dragged herself out from under the pine, she saw Lynn critically inspecting the water bottles they’d left out the night before.

  “Catch much?”

  “Not too bad, but I think a critter got curious in the night, knocked this one over.” She held up an empty bottle. “Not a drop in it.”

  “Critters, what can you do?” Lucy shrugged, forcing the image of Carter chugging the water, his bruised and broken lips cracked with thirst, out of her mind.

  “Shoot ’em,” Lynn said, and shoved the empty into her pack along with the rest. They made good time once Lucy had convinced Lynn her new boots weren’t bothering her. She regretted putting on such a convincing show; if Carter couldn’t keep up with them, he was a goner. They ate a sparing lunch of Stebbs’ venison jerky along with some dried peas, their rations so meager Lucy knew the small amounts she could spare for Carter would only keep him alive for so long.

  “Do you think we should hunt while we’re still in an area we know?”

  “Maybe,” Lynn said, “but we’ve got plenty of food to keep us going at least out of Ohio. Once we’re low, we can start thinking about hunting smaller animals, something we can eat in one or two meals. We can hit some empty houses up, see if there’s anything left in the way of cans.”

  Lucy looked past the words Lynn was saying and into her tone. “But not yet?”

  “Not yet,” Lynn said, looking up at the midday sun. “Mostly I want to get moving. The faster we get to California, the sooner we don’t have to worry about things like food and water.”

  “Right,” Lucy agreed, knowing full well Carter wouldn’t be able to do “fast” for long.

  The gravel road they were on switched into a patchy pavement, then intersected with a wide highway with a straight yellow line painted down the middle. Lucy walked to the edge where the grass had begun to reclaim its territory, shooting up through the blacktop and reaching for the sun.

  “Which way?”

  “If you still want to see Entargo, we go left,” Lynn said. “Up to you.”

  “Let’s go left then,” Lucy said, and walked onto the road, her new boots clunking against the tarred surface.

  Lynn followed, her hand resting lightly on the butt of the gun jammed in her jeans. “I don’t like traveling the bigger roads,” she said. “Could mean more people.”

  “More than what? Zero? ’Cause that’s how many we’ve seen.”

  “Doesn’t mean we haven’t been seen,” Lynn argued, but fell silent as they walked.

  The highway cut through fields once sown with corn, now choked with waist-high grass and clumps of maples that had seeded themselves over the years. Houses that had been neglected for decades stood like skeletons, their siding peeling off like flaps of skin to show the framework. Around three in the afternoon, Lynn stopped Lucy.

  “We’re gonna want to steer clear of that one.” She nodded into the distance at a house that looked no more imposing than the others they’d passed.

  “Why that one?”

  “See the sun glinting off all the windows? None of them are broken. Somebody’s living there. No point giving them the willies by walking past.”

  They veered off the road and into the abandoned fields, going slowly over the uneven ground and decades of brush growing unchecked. They cleared a rise to find the remnants of a town nestled in the valley, the road they had been following cutting straight through it and marching into the distance, where a new sight broke the horizon.

 
Lynn frowned. “What’s that?”

  “The city,” Lucy said, her heart skipping a beat. “It’s Entargo.”

  “Yeah, but what . . .” Lynn trailed off, her confusion evident. “How come I can see it so far away? What am I looking at?”

  “That’s what we called a skyscraper. It’s a really, really tall building.”

  “Taller than them cell phone towers we’ve got out our way?”

  “Oh yeah. Much taller.”

  “Huh.” Lynn put one hand on her hip, brows still furrowed.

  Lucy tried not to smile. It was so odd to see Lynn perplexed. “What were you expecting?”

  “Don’t know.” Lynn shrugged. “Something more like that, I suppose.” She gestured toward the village below them. “Just more spread out.”

  “There’s places that look like that,” Lucy said, surprised the memory was still there. “It’s where the people mostly lived, the housing areas. But the big buildings like that were mostly for the government, and the hospital where Grandma worked is one of them.”

  Lynn nodded, eyes distrustfully riveted on the gray towers. “Isn’t it scary to be up that high?”

  “Not really. We lived in one something like that, called an apartment building. Lots of people live in one, you have your own rooms, but you’re all stacked up on top of each other.”

  Lynn sat down, unscrewed the cap of her water bottle. “You didn’t have your own house?”

  Lucy took advantage of the break to rustle in her pack and slip a few pieces of jerky to the ground while Lynn wasn’t watching. “Having your own place might sound better than living in one of the towers,” she explained, “but it wasn’t. Mostly the people that lived in the outlying areas were on their own. If you lived in the city in one of the towers, you were safer. They were guarded, always. Our water was cleaner. We even had bathrooms.”

  “Didn’t know you remembered much about it.”

  “It’s hard to forget having a bathroom.”

  “I have a bathroom,” Lynn said defensively.

  “Sure you do. Remember what happened when I tried to use it?”

  “Lord, that was a mess I did not enjoy cleaning up.” Lynn stored her water bottle and shouldered her pack. Lucy took her time doing the same, aware that every second she delayed could make a difference to Carter.

  “Still wanna see it?” Lynn asked.

  “Sure.”

  “All right. We’ll see how close we get. Somebody takes a shot at us, I don’t care how much you miss your bathroom. We’ll give it a wide berth.”

  “Somebody takes a shot at me, a bathroom might come in handy.”

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  Eight

  Lucy stood on the overpass, stunned.

  Entargo was dead.

  “Cover your nose, little one.” Lynn slipped her handkerchief over the lower half of her face. “There’s no knowing what’s on the wind here.”

  She did as she was told, hands numb. The outer belt they stood on ran above and outside the perimeter of the city, giving them a good view of the streets, empty except for the trash blowing through them.

  “Whatever happened here, it wasn’t long ago,” Lynn said, her voice muffled. “Breathe through your mouth. There’s no stench that way.”

  The rows of dead back home had been burned quickly to ward off contagion, so Lucy had never smelled rotting people. The smell of death and decay was no stranger; wild animals ripped one another open all the time, leaving behind the bits they weren’t interested in to fester in the sun.

  But the smell of death rising up from the city was so strong that breathing through her mouth felt like inviting the thickness of the air to gag her. The wind shifted against her back and took the worst of it to the north, but she kept her handkerchief in place.

  “What do you think happened?”

  “Cholera, I’d say.”

  Lucy looked at the older woman. “How can you know?”

  “I don’t see any bodies outside the city; doesn’t look like people tried to flee, or had the chance. Cholera will drop you in hours, once it gets ahold. Spreads like wildfire too, so once one person got sick, the people nearby were good as dead. I’m guessing nobody wanted to own up to being sick, for fear of being tossed out, so everybody kept their mouths shut, infected others, then died.”

  “Lots of things kill you quick,” Lucy said. “Who’s to say it wasn’t polio here too?”

  “’Cause underneath the rot, I can smell the shit.”

  “That’s how cholera kills you?”

  “Yup. Whether you got a bathroom or not.” Lynn’s eyes shifted to the rooftops, and Lucy saw some movement there.

  “Buzzards,” Lucy said. The scavengers of the dead perched along the roofs, lining every skyscraper and townhouse alike.

  “Time to go,” Lynn said abruptly.

  They walked through dusk to reach Lake Wellesley, the organic smell of the water so strong it pulled them to it like a magnet. Lynn found a spot to camp under a clearing and they spread their blankets, eating without a word.

  Exhaustion lay like a weight on Lucy. She had known their trip would wear her down, put blisters on her heels, and maybe even make her be quiet once in a while. But she hadn’t been prepared for the deep ache that filled her limbs, the momentous effort it would take to move at all once she’d sat down for the night.

  “You should sleep,” Lynn said, glancing at Lucy in what remained of the light.

  Her eyes snapped back open. Lucy hadn’t even known she was dozing. “What about you?”

  “Used to it.” Lynn shrugged, without elaborating.

  Sleep tugged at her, promising a release from her aches, but Lucy fought it. She needed to get some food to Carter. She was about to excuse herself to the woods when a flash of light on the opposite side of the lake caught her eye, and Lynn’s head shot up.

  “I’ll be damned,” Lynn said, watching the fire sprout, its flickering image mirrored on the surface of the water. “Somebody else is here.”

  “Few somebodies.” Lucy nudged Lynn and pointed to the east bank, where another bright fleck of orange had shot up, as if encouraged by the appearance of the first. “Whoever it is, they feel comfortable enough to light a fire.”

  “Maybe that’s ’cause they belong here. And we don’t. Stay close.”

  Her hope sputtered out as quickly as the strangers’ fires had come to life, but Lucy wasn’t terribly worried for Carter’s safety for the night. She’d found a few opportunities throughout the day to leave him food, cutting more deeply into her own rations than was probably smart. And now they were at a huge body of water, one other people were using with impunity. He wouldn’t starve tonight, and he wouldn’t die of thirst either. She would find him tomorrow, she thought, as her thankful body gave in to unconsciousness.

  Lucy was surprised when Lynn said they would stay by the lake for another day.

  “What’s gotten into you? I thought we were hell-bent on California.”

  “We are,” Lynn said. “But I’m curious about those other fires, and what the situation is here.”

  “You think we could stay here, don’t you? We might not go all the way west?” Oddly, she didn’t feel the elation she’d expected. The promise of California had seeped its way into her soul without her being aware of it, and the chance to live a different version of the same life—only with a bigger water source—didn’t hold the allure she had expected.

  “All I think is, this is a large body of water, there’s plenty of wood, lots of game.”

  “So why don’t you look happy?”

  Lynn rolled up her blanket and jammed it in her pack before answering. “’Cause if things are so great here, how come nobody’s guarding it?”

  “It’s too big to patrol? Or maybe the water is sick?”

  “Both are possible. We’re going to walk the perimeter
, then go down to the bank. I’m going to take a drink.”

  “That’s a crappy plan, Lynn.”

  “I’m drinking,” Lynn said, with finality. “Then we’ll sit for the day and see what happens.”

  Lucy rolled up her blanket, glancing around for any sign of Carter as she did, but there was nothing. She followed Lynn as they picked a path around the perimeter of the lake, her heart sinking.

  She had no way of knowing if he was getting the food she’d left out, or if he was still following her. If he was, not leaving any out could kill him. If he wasn’t, leaving food behind weakened her and made the road to California longer than it already was. Somehow the ocean had begun to pull on her, as real as the tide itself. Lucy wanted this phantom life that her dead uncle had spoken of, this vague promise that was California. But her past pulled on her conscience, as strong as Carter’s body was weak. It only made sense for her to keep her stores for herself, strike west and not look back. But her heart wasn’t worried about making sense when it skipped a beat at the thought of him searching for food she hadn’t set out.

  Lynn held back a branch and waited a tick for Lucy to pass, but Lucy wasn’t paying attention, and it snapped back in her face, knocking her to the ground.

  Lynn turned at the sound. “What’re you doing?”

  “Sorry,” Lucy said, embarrassed to have been caught daydreaming. “Wasn’t paying attention.”

  “Might want to start.”

  Lynn gave Lucy a hand and pulled her to her feet, and they broke through the trees together to the edge of the lake. Lucy’s breath caught in her chest at the sight. She could see the other bank but had to squint to make out details across the expanse of water, alive with ripples from fish teeming under the surface.

  Lynn was fixated as well, so Lucy dropped to her knees and scooped a handful of water into her mouth before Lynn could stop her.

  “I win,” Lucy said, through a mouthful of water.

  “Not if you get sick, you don’t.” Lynn regarded her coolly. “How’s it taste?”

  “Wet,” Lucy answered, her tongue curling around the answer as she sucked up stray drops that ran from the side of her mouth. It was cooler than the water from their pond at home and left an aftertaste of wildness. Lucy watched as fish reappeared at the bank after having darted into the shadows at their approach.