She fidgeted, wholly uncomfortable with his line of reasoning. Sounds like some kinda evil pure genetics thing a bad guy government would do in a movie.
“Eh, ignore me.” He waved dismissively off to the side. “I’m having one of my nihilistic moods. Here to see Dr. Hale. You know, a therapy session.”
The urge to call him an insensitive dick faded. “Cool. She’s super nice. Hope she’s helping.”
“I’m still here, aren’t I?”
“Don’t talk like that. We still need you. Anyone who can successfully become a lawyer has got to be smart enough to help us out in some way. We’re not the only settlement out there. Maybe if we keep growing, we’ll eventually need like an ambassador to another town. You’d be perfect for that.”
He chuckled. “I should be so lucky. We’ll see. For the time being, I’m working at the farm. Eating is good. I’m kind of addicted to it.”
“Yeah. Same here.”
Arturo waved, then headed into the medical center, muttering under his breath about paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition so he can plant turnips and shovel cow shit.
Ugh. She slung the Mossberg off her shoulder, then resumed walking back up Route 74 toward her patrol area. If animals had the ability to save their offspring, parents, or siblings from ‘natural selection,’ they damn sure would. It couldn’t be true nature decided to kill off certain people. Arturo’s comments implied some people had been determined ‘genetic dead ends’ and needed to be pruned from humanity’s family tree. Though she’d call the Lawless ‘genetic dead ends,’ it infuriated her to hear someone so callously disregard inevitable death for no reason other than medical technology being thrown back a century or two.
People in a modern country shouldn’t die due to lack of insulin. She stopped short, feeling like an idiot. We’re no longer in a modern country.
Harper shivered at the idea humanity had lost the ability to defy nature’s process. True, Evergreen had two real doctors plus some supplies. It put them far ahead of being literally in the 1800s, but the supplies wouldn’t last forever and neither would Dr. Khan or Dr. Hale. The woman seemed quite young to be a medical doctor, barely into her thirties. Perhaps to be calming, she’d asked Harper to call her Tegan rather than Dr. Hale.
Despite her relative youth, even Dr. Hale would eventually die, leaving Evergreen without ‘legitimate’ doctors. They presently trained Grace as an apprentice, one of the cheerleaders who’d arrived on the bus with Logan and some other high school seniors. Their arrangement couldn’t compare to actual medical school, but it beat having no doctors at all. When Grace and any other apprentices trained by the real doctors became too old to do the job, the town would have to rely on whoever they trained. Invariably, knowledge and expertise would be lost along the way. Eventually, they really would be back to 1800s medicine… unless some Third World country which had escaped total destruction assisted the rest of the planet in rebuilding.
I’m not going to be around to worry about the second-generation apprentices… but if I have kids, they will be.
She exhaled hard.
“Nothing I can do about it. Humanity survived the actual 1800s. We’ll do it again.”
3
Waiting to Die
Madison balanced the big bowl of feed on her hip, opened the gate, and slipped into the chicken pen.
Sensing dinner, several dozen chickens swarmed her, scrambling around and crashing into each other in their haste. Happy coos and clucks came from all sides.
“Hello, guys,” whispered Madison. “It’s lunchtime.”
She grabbed handfuls of feed, tossing it around evenly, smiling at the birds pecking it up as fast as they could. A few tosses at the back of the cluster helped spread them out so all the birds got something to eat. It took her a few minutes to empty the bowl by handfuls. Most of the other kids would dump it all in one spot to be done with the job as fast as possible. Invariably, leaving a single big pile set off a battle royal among the chickens. Madison didn’t care how long it took her, she wanted to be nice to the birds.
Around twenty minutes later, Madison sprinkled the last handful of feed on the ground right in front of her, watching the kernels bounce off the dirt. One landed on her foot. A chicken ate it before she could twitch. She stared down and gave a sad sigh. Dirty, splitting apart at the seams, and uncomfortably tight, the pinkish-purple sneakers her Mom bought her looked about ready to disintegrate. She’d given them up for lost the day the bad guys forced her and Harper to run away from their home, but Cliff and some of the militia brought them back when they’d recovered usable clothes from the old house as a surprise for Harper’s birthday.
The sneakers hadn’t hit her in the feels at all until now.
Seeing them in such a sad state almost felt like being mean to Mom. Almost. Running shoes hadn’t exactly been designed for farm work. Not that anyone made her or any of the kids under fourteen do anything seriously grueling, but farms had mud, animal poop, water, sharp things hiding in the plants… The sneakers, New Balance, hadn’t cost all that much nor bestowed many style points. Up until this moment, she hadn’t placed any great significance on them.
Seeing them in such worn out shape hit her as a shock. She’d expected to outgrow them after about a year, no big surprise they’d gotten tight, but their beat-up condition offered glaring proof of the world changing. Madison daydreamed about the day she got them. Mom had taken her to the mall last August for ‘back to school’ shopping. She’d grumbled and whined the entire time because the shopping trip got in the way of hanging out over Becca’s house on one of the final days of summer break. Now, she’d have given anything to have even five minutes with her mom.
Silent tears rolled down her face.
Nothing lasts. Not shoes… not parents… Madison wiped her eyes. Maybe that’s why Lorelei doesn’t care about clothes. She loves being with people and doesn’t give a crap about things.
She debated taking her shoes off to escape the annoying tightness, but decided against it due to not wanting to step in chicken poop. Going barefoot didn’t bother her while running around with her friends at home… but on the farm, it seemed like a disgusting—and possibly dangerous—idea.
Her thoughts drifted from sneakers and Mom to chickens. It didn’t feel like it had been long at all since she screamed when the chickens got too close. As much as she loved animals, she’d only ever seen dogs, cats, and hamsters up close. For some silly reason, having thirty some odd chickens gathering around her freaked her out the first week or two.
The crowd of—now about sixty—chickens didn’t bother her anymore.
Madison crouched, patting random birds while they hunted the last few grains of feed. The idea many of them would eventually become food made her want to hug them all and hide them somewhere. Few people thought of chickens as anything more than stone dumb birds barely smart enough to comprehend their own existence. Of the kids tasked with feeding chickens, only Madison spent any time with them beyond the minimum necessary to drop off food or collect eggs. Everyone else merely dumped the feed and left. The chickens, some of them anyway, showed signs of affection toward her. One she’d named Rosie routinely followed her around and even demanded hugs sometimes.
She’d tearfully pleaded with Mr. Rollins, the man in charge of the farm, to spare Rosie. It killed her to think a creature capable of recognizing her and showing affection like a dog or cat might soon be slaughtered. Sure enough, soon after she crouched, Rosie leapt into her lap, resting her head on Madison’s shoulder.
So soon after her dying sneakers reminded her of Mom, Rosie’s show of affection broke the dam. Madison hugged the chicken, trying not to make too much noise while bawling over the creature’s imminent death. Rosie emitted a contented coo.
I gotta save her!
A few minutes later, two voices whispering in the gap between the chicken house and the barn distracted her from a rapidly forming plan to smuggle Rosie home. She couldn’t save all the ch
ickens, but she could save the one who asked for hugs.
Madison stood, still holding Rosie, and crept across the pen to the building at the back end. Careful not to make a sound, she leaned left over the fence, peering around the corner of the chicken house.
Her ‘brother,’ Jonathan, and Mila Cline faced each other at the opposite end of the narrow alley between the two buildings. It still seemed weird to see Mila not wearing black everything. Her light purple dress made her seem almost normal, like any other kid in school. Jonathan had likely been born in a T-shirt and jeans. Madison backed off, hiding against the wall, watching them with only one eye.
Jon and Mila stood there looking at each other for almost a minute in silence.
“Are you going to do it or just stare at me?” asked Mila.
Jonathan fidgeted, clearly nervous. He waited a few seconds, then leaned forward, giving Mila a brief kiss on the cheek.
Ooo! Madison squeezed Rosie.
The chicken made a bwawk noise, but given all the other chickens around, neither Mila nor her brother noticed.
“Did I do it right?” asked Jonathan.
Mila shrugged. “How should I know? You’re the first boy to kiss me.”
“Did you like it?”
“Umm.” Mila scrunched up her nose. “I think so.”
Madison ducked out of sight before they noticed her, feeling a bit rude for spying. Of course, she already knew Jonathan was sweet on Mila, no big reveal there. She also had no intention to make fun of them or even tell anyone about it. Protecting her family included more than simply shooting guns at bad guys. She sighed. Her pre-war self probably would have made fun of him or at least teased him in private… but bad people drained most of the joy out of the world. Happiness snuck in here and there sometimes, and if doing something embarrassing with Mila made Jonathan happy, she couldn’t dare ruin it for him. This post-war version of her couldn’t, feeling only warmth at seeing him smile. Still, she sorta laughed a bit at their awkwardness. Harper and Logan kissed way different. She debated telling Jonathan to try kissing her on the lips next time like she’d seen Harper and Logan do, but couldn’t without admitting to catching them.
She retreated back among the chickens, her whimsical mood falling flat again watching the birds peck at the dirt, stupidly trying to find feed where none existed.
They’re sitting here waiting to die and don’t even realize it… just like us.
Rosie appeared content to cuddle, so Madison kept holding her.
“Hey Maddie,” called Eva.
Madison looked up.
Her friends, Eva Parsons and Becca Perry, rushed over to the fence around the pen. Madison had known them both since first grade. Every time she saw them, she had to remind herself she didn’t imagine their presence. Eva still looked too skinny, her long mouse-brown hair as wild as a shell-shocked child survivor of nuclear war probably ought to look. She and her mother ended up at the Army survivor camp in El Dorado. Only by the sheer random chance Harper went on a delivery run there, she found them and brought them back to Evergreen. Madison still had no idea what happened to her other before-the-war friend, Melissa. Both of Becca’s parents were alive and here with her, something Madison occasionally felt jealous about, but not too much. No bad feelings for Becca, she just wished she still had her parents, too. Eva lost her dad. Her mother survived, but suffered some mental problems as a result of stuff that happened in the camp no one had explained to her. Anything ‘too bad’ for Madison to hear at ten had to be bad. She decided not to push for answers, having enough things in her head to be sad about already.
“Why are you crying?” asked Becca, swiping her blonde hair off her face. Despite the state of the world, she still made time to style it as best she could—though no longer bothered trying to curl it.
Madison looked down, hugging Rosie a little tighter. “The chickens. I feel sad for them.”
“Wow…” Eva blinked. “Seriously?”
Becca pursed her lips. “It’s kinda stupid they made the vegan feed chickens.”
“I don’t mind taking care of them. It’s what’s going to eventually happen to them that makes me sad.” Madison sighed. “Okay, I’m not really crying over chickens. They’re part of it, but I’m really sad about lots of other stuff… you know… everything.”
“Yeah.” Becca folded her arms atop the fence and rested her chin on them. “I miss how it used to be, too.”
Eva kicked at the ground. “Yeah.” She glanced up for a second, seeming to swallow whatever she wanted to say next.
“What?” asked Madison.
“Sorry.”
“Say it, it’s fine.” Madison relaxed her hug on Rosie, set the chicken back on its feet, then swiped her hands down the front of her T-shirt to knock away a few stray feathers.
Eva’s lip quivered, but she didn’t start crying. “I miss the way the world was, but I could deal with it better if Mom wasn’t weird now. Sorry.”
Madison walked over to her friends. “Why are you apologizing for being upset your mom has some issues? Everyone has issues.”
“I shouldn’t complain.” Eva avoided eye contact. “My mother is still here. Yours… umm…”
“Not your fault. I know Becca’s still got both of her parents and they’re still normal.” Madison half smiled.
Becca laughed. “Parents are never normal. They’re parents… and they’re not really the same now, anyway. They don’t fight anymore, like ever. It’s kinda weird. But nice.”
Rosie wandered over and leaned against Madison’s leg.
She crouched to pet the chicken. “How much trouble do you think I’ll get in for bringing one chicken home?”
“Huh?” asked Becca.
Madison explained her plan to ‘steal’ Rosie because she didn’t trust her request not to kill her for food would be honored. “… Mr. Rollins said they’d leave her alone, but she looks just like all the other white ones. The only way to recognize her is she runs over for hugs whenever I’m here. Someone’s going to make a mistake.”
“Everyone knows how you are about animals. You’re not stealing extra food… and you’re still a kid.” Becca grinned. “Someone might yell at you, but I don’t think you’ll get in big trouble.”
“Yeah, not unless you try to set all the chickens free.” Eva crossed her eyes and twirled a finger around by her right ear.
Madison snickered. “I would, but then I’d get in real trouble. Animals deserve to live, but even they eat other animals. It’s not like before when stores had all kinds of food and no one needed to eat meat. It’s not right for me to risk other people’s health because I cry about dead chickens… but I wanna save one.”
“You’re way too upset for one chicken.” Becca poked her in the side. “What happened?”
“Nothing happened.” Madison flapped her arms. “Just… thinking. My sneakers are falling apart and it made me think about how everything falls apart. Stuff doesn’t last forever. My mother bought me these sneakers for school. It’s really stupid, but I might keep them to remember her.”
Becca giggled. “That’s how people turn into hoarders.”
“Hey, we’re supposed to feed the cows,” said Eva. “Are you done here? Wanna help?”
“Sure.” Madison pulled herself up to sit on the fence. “I can come back for Rosie after.”
Becca faced the farm, squinting into the sunlight. “Feels so weird to have to work. It’s like illegal to make a ten-year-old have a job.”
“It isn’t work. We’re surviving.” Madison jumped down outside the pen. “More like having to do chores at home.”
“Yeah.” Eva wiped at a dirt smear on her left arm. “And they let us go home at lunchtime. Mom said a ‘job’ is working to help someone else get rich. So, this isn’t a job.”
A man’s anguished scream came from the field off to the left.
Madison jumped back against the fence. Becca and Eva spun to stare in the direction of the cry. Several adults rushed into
the tall greenery. Eva grabbed Madison, clinging and half hiding behind her. The girl hadn’t spoken too much about the time she’d spent in the Army camp, but like her mother, she’d changed. Mrs. Parsons was sad all the time, barely cared about things other than her daughter. Eva had become easily frightened, afraid of the dark, afraid of being alone, jumpy at loud noises. For the most part, she acted mostly the same as before the war, but unexpected bangs or aggressive men made her run away and hide—or cling.
People shouted in the distance. One man yelled for something to make a bandage with. A woman called, “He’s here” a few times. Madison put an arm around Eva. The three of them stood still, staring at the distant corn plants. Before long, five people emerged onto the dirt field between the small animal pens and the planting rows. Three men and one woman carried another man, who appeared to have passed out. A thin metal shard stuck out from both sides of his leg at the calf. Blood saturated his jeans.
Madison stared at the impaling blade—likely a broken scythe or piece of farm machinery—as they carried him right past the girls. Eva turned away, unable to bear the sight of blood. Becca took the scene in relative stride, eyebrows up in a ‘whoa’ expression. After seeing Harper shoot Lawless at close range with a shotgun, a piece of metal sticking out of a guy’s leg didn’t faze Madison much. She didn’t like seeing it, but it didn’t bother her.
She let a long sigh slip out of her nose. Guess I’m a little nuts, too.
Evergreen (Book 5): The Nuclear Frontier Page 3
