I pressed on until I saw the large orange and white sign. The map had been correct and so had Shaun. This was a gas station that had been part of a migration west. It hadn’t been in use since the sixties, but this was two thousand and seventy-one. I think we had been on the road about a year maybe more.
I stood long looking around. There was no signs of life or that there ever were within the last twenty years. If the well had been here, I thought, there would be something—but there’s nothing. There’s no wood, brick, or cement left of the structures. Only an iron sign and rusty discarded cars that had pulled in expecting gas during the final days when everything went off line, and the government broke the news that there was no gas and no water. “We need to get to New York,” I mumbled to myself. The sign of decay told the story of what my future held—dust, sand, rot, rust, and an empty barren existence before death.
I plopped in the dirt, tired from worrying, pulled out another piece of the snake meat. It still contained a little moisture but the salt would make me thirsty. It was a catch twenty-two. If I eat the salt meat, my energy will return, but I would need water. I made a choice. Eat the meat. After savoring the meat, I pulled my tired body up and stood. Looking out ahead of me, I left that spot to search for the well.
I lumbered around searching for signs of Shaun. I looked up and in a distance there were mountains and deep cracks in the earth running downward. I had read about water traveling down and I followed the line of cracks. When I reached the bottom of the hill, I heard a faint sound. I stopped and listened.
3
“Help! Help! Help!” The voice weak but the words clear trailed off. It was a human voice. I moved in the direction of the sound. It stopped and I stood still. Then I continued walking with unsteady caution, eyes downward trying to focus on the spot where I first heard the plea for help. Moving quick, dropping my pack, not sure of who I would find, I didn’t answer. Then it started again and I recognized the voice.
“Shaun, where are you?” I shouted
“I’m here. I’m here!”
“Keep talking,” I said to him. I ran and stood at the rim of an opening. In my haste I almost fell. I stood teetering on the edge of an opening large enough for a man to fall into. I gained my footing and balanced myself as I peered into the hole.
“I’m at the bottom of this well.”
My heart raced. “There is a well after all. The map was right,” I shouted.
“Get me out David. I’m up to my neck in mud and I can’t hold on any longer.” My hopes destroyed. Mud. No water. I rushed to the edge of the hole and I lay on the ground with my face in the opening to see what I was up against. I stood and had to propel my body backward to keep from falling into it and killing both of us. I leaned with my face looking down.
“What happened?” I inquired.
“I can’t talk about it now. If you don’t find something to get me out…”
“I have something.” I rushed to grab my backpack to get a rope. I prayed it would be long enough. I retrieved the rope and ran back, tied a loop at one end and threw it into the well. Can you reach it?”
“Yes. Now get me out of here.” The well was deep. I saw only Shaun’s head. The rest of his body was buried underneath a quicksand of mud. With the mud weighing him down, I hoped I had the strength to pull him to safety.
He looped the rope over his head and under his arms. I had to test my strength. My father said that in times of stress your body would meet the challenge. Adrenalin would kick in and an ordinary man would perform feats of a giant. I didn’t know if that was his way of giving me false hope, but it worked.
I pulled and pulled and somehow I was able to drag Shaun from a horrible death. Drowning in mud had to be the worst death of all.
He lay at the rim of the well, out of breath, but happy and alive. He said, “I think my ankle is broken.” Could it get any worse? I thought. Shaun glanced up at me as if he was a new puppy leaving its mother and wondering what’s in store for him with his new owner.
“We’ll make do Shaun.”
“I’ll stay behind. You don’t have to worry about me,” he said.
How could I leave him? How could I sleep at night knowing I didn’t do everything for him? The answer was swift. I would do everything I could to keep him alive.
“Don’t worry, I’ll find a way. I’ll do something,” I said to Shaun.
“I wanted to be the one to help you. And now here I’m a burden to you,” he said.
“Stop the talk. What happened? How did you get in that well?”
“I wandered into this town reading the map, not paying attention to my surroundings, looking up and around for signs. Not looking where I walked. I stumbled down a steep hill, rolled the rest of the way and ended in this ravine. I was turning in circles looking for a way to get back to the highway and my foot caught on that large mound over there,” he said pointing. When I tried to remove my foot, I fell head first into that deep well. I managed to right myself before I became exhausted.”
“It took so much energy to keep from drowning in that mud,” he said out of breath, “I couldn’t climb out of it.” Shaun paused and gasped for air and pointed to the mound he tripped over at the edge of the well. “There’s no water. We were led down a rabbit hole,” he said rubbing his ankle. “There’s nothing here,” he said looking up at me.
“Let me see your ankle.” He lifted his pants’ leg and it was swollen and tender. I glanced around, found my sack, and pulled out strips of cloth and tied it tight around his ankle. I saw his face grimace. His brow furrowed and he resembled an old man. He bit his lip to keep from screaming. “It probably hurts like hell but it’s not broken,” I said to Shaun.
“I was going to ask you to shoot me,” he said. Looking to me to gauge my reaction.
I smiled and said, “If it ever comes to that, you won’t have to ask.” I stood and lifted Shaun. He limped along holding on to me.
He glanced at me, “I didn’t mean it. I was just wondering whether you would do it.”
Shaun couldn’t walk. The pain was severe. I watched his eyes open wide and each time he had to use his foot, he bit his lip.
“Shaun sit here. I need to look for something that you can use as a walking stick.”
“I won’t need it,” he said. His eyes sad and wandering.
“What do you mean?” I said to him.
“There’s no water and I dropped my backpack in the well with the last of our food and water.”
“Sit here and rest. I’m going to search around to see if there is something we can use.”
I walked a few feet and then the toe of his boot hit something. “It’s that damn mound,” Shaun shouted. But there was something that caught my eye. It was angled and jutting out of the cracked earth. The tip of it was white. I used my hands to push back some of the sand and dirt. I kept digging with my hands into the earth at a feverish pace, like a dog burying a bone.
“What is it?” Shaun shouted.
“I don’t know but I have the top uncovered,” I said. Shaun lifted his body and crawled over to me and I never stopped digging. He joined in and with his help we looked at what we had uncovered.
“It’s a chest,” Shaun said with a curious look on his face.
“Why would anyone bury a chest out here? What good is gold? I think they stopped using gold as the standard in 2020,” I said shaking my head and slumping down on the ground to rest.
“It’s not that kind of chest he said, “It’s an ice chest.” I had seen them in magazines where young men and women were dragging them filled with beer out to the parks, beaches, and around pools.
It must have been good to be a teenager in 2020, but this was 2071 and it was hell.
I eased out a breath. “We shouldn’t use our last bit of energy to unearth a beer chest.”
“Why not,” Shaun said. “If there’s liquid it could save our lives. As it stands we’re dehydrated. “I can’t go another day without a bowel movement.” I look
ed at Shaun and I dug my hands into the dry sand and earth, faster, and soon we unfastened the clip that held it tight. We paused a moment. We were on our knees, we looked to each other, our glances wavering back and forth, and we looked to the dust filled sky and said a prayer.
We prayed for water.
4
Together we lifted the top of the chest. Our silent prayers didn’t go unanswered. There were plastic bottles lined up and some were filled with water. The rest had evaporated. But still there was enough to see us to the next place. “It’s the well,” I said to Shaun. It’s not the kind you find in the ground. Those wells are dry and useless.” He looked to me with a puzzled look. “Someone buried bottles of water on their way to New York. Give me the map.” He handed the wrinkled folded paper to me. I pointed to the spot indicated on the map. “See. It’s here.” I closed my eyes for a moment. Relieved.
“Now all we need is food,” Shaun said. So much happened to me in a short period of time, I forgot to tell Shaun about the snake. I glanced at him and pulled the salt meat from the bag.
“It’s meat,” I said.
“What kind is it?” he said grabbing a piece and eating it with both hands.
“Don’t ask,” I said.
“You didn’t…”
“No I didn’t.” I know what he wanted to ask. Was it human flesh? We made a vow that no matter what happens we will never resort to eating another human being. At the time it wasn’t necessary, but what the future held, we didn’t know. For now, we were just grateful to have something to eat.
We decided to make camp where we were and let Shaun get some rest. I walked around gathering dry wood and started a fire to cook the snake meat. We sat around the fire and laughed and cried for all our family members that didn’t make it. We drank as much water as our bodies could take and counted the bottles to figure out how they could last us to the next well because we knew we could carry only so many.
“What are we going to do with the rest of the water?” Shaun asked. “We can’t carry all of it.”
“We’re going to bury it and leave a note for anyone that makes it this far to be able to find the water,” I said.
“Suppose we need the water on our return trip?”
“There is no return trip, Shaun. It’s all or nothing.” He looked at me and lowered his eyes and fell asleep. One of us had the task of watching the fire, keeping it going as the other slept, but that night, exhausted, my eyes eased shut, and I slipped into a deep sleep.
***
When we awoke the next day, my body began to function normal, or as normal as it could. I let Shaun sleep a little longer while I urinated and tended to other body functions. It was the best I felt in a year. My legs didn’t hurt any longer. They needed a good rest.
We had traveled fifteen hundred miles and time stole my youth. Sometime on our journey I had a birthday and I felt older. I’m now seventeen years old. I hadn’t seen myself in a mirror in twelve months.
“Get up Shaun.” He didn’t move. “Shaun…” I paused thinking that he was overly tired, but we had to leave. “Get up.” When he didn’t respond, I gave him a soft kick on the shoulder. I pulled off his blanket and Shaun lay there with the bottom half of his body—severed. He had no legs. His upper thighs gone. All parts below his trunk, missing, cut off.
He was dead.
Standing over him blind to what I saw, and speechless, I wondered what could have happened to him. I slumped down beside him, on my knees, and I looked at his body, his sunburnt face pale, and all his blood spilled on the dirt. All his youth gone.
Then I spotted the skin of a large snake nearby. It was larger than the one that had crossed my path. I sat shivering, not knowing what to do next. With my eyes closed and holding what was left of Shaun in my arms, I rocked back and forth. Then I thought about what my father had said about how soldiers handled their losses on the battlefield.
They bury their dead and march on.
I had the things I needed to go on. Now I knew that there was water somewhere. Not the ones that I had been use to, but bottle water someone had buried for the trip north. I lay Shaun in his blanket, stood, dried my eyes, and packed to leave this place.
Haunted by falling asleep made me sad. Tears welled in my eyes and I couldn’t hold them back. My emotions erupted. I had so many regrets. If I tended the fire, Shaun would be alive today. I didn’t know what to do with his body. If I buried him under the dust and sand then maybe the snake would return and feast on the rest of him. If I burned him, I would not be able to sleep at night. I made the decision to bury him as people had done in my great grandfather’s time. The time before everyone resorted to cremation.
My father would say bury him and let the animals survive on his body. That is the cycle of life. The cycle had been broken when water, grass, fruit, birds, bees, and all manner of life had vanished with the disappearance of water.
I have to think like a soldier. I have to keep moving no matter what. I have to get to New York to find out if there’s hope for the human race. I hadn’t come across my uncle on our journey. I felt relieved because I would have to tell him about Shaun. Was it because I took a road that most wouldn’t travel.
Why hadn’t the government provided some kind of assistance? All these questions bothered me. When you have thoughts to keep you occupied, the task of burying a love one become less horrific. Now I had to face being alone, which could be worse for me than starving to death.
5
After burying Shaun under sand, I slung my backpack over my arms, and with the weight of the bottle water, my shoulders bent forward. I found the strength to keep going. I trudged through the never ending sand and unfertile dirt all day and all night because I couldn’t bear the loneliness settling over me. I knew at this point that I would lose my mind. Yet I kept moving. Plodding aimlessly through the sand, it was so thick that I considered lying down, closing my eyes, and letting the earth and sand take me. Then my feet tingled and my toes were numb. I stopped because I had learned a lesson. There is so much abuse a body will take and then it will not serve you when you need it.
Throwing my pack on the ground and searching for dry wood, I made a fire. I wouldn’t take a chance on any more large reptiles surprising me. All night my thoughts were of a legless Shaun staring with open eyes in his bloodless face. I missed Shaun and Sarah, but I missed my parents too. I’m just a teenager on a man’s journey, I thought, with no one to guide me and help me. Finally sleep overtook me and I didn’t have to think anymore.
***
When I woke, I looked up, startled by the sight of a girl. She was about my age, sixteen or seventeen. Her blond hair dry and lifeless, but she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. The kind of girl I dreamed about while gazing in my mother’s magazines. I didn’t believe that there were girls that beautiful but here she was standing over me in a dress stitched together with bits of cloth, like patterns in a quilt.
I sat up looking at her mystical face. Happy to see her. “What do you want?” I said in a low calm voice.
“I need water and something to eat,” she said, shivering with her arms crossed.
“But where did you come from?” I said to her.
She pointed, “There’s a small farm over there.” As she talked, I sat up reaching for my backpack, which I slept on. I guarded it with my life because it was my life.
“Are you alone?” I asked. I handed her a piece of meat that I would have shared with Shaun. She gulped it down. She didn’t ask any questions and she didn’t answer my question. I handed her some water. She appeared grateful. Her eyes sad but bright. She sat down near me.
“Where did you get the food and water? Is there anymore?”
“No. This is all there is,” I said looking into her blue eyes which cast a spell over me. “But I can give you a little more,” I said. She held her hand out and I handed her another piece of the salty snake meat.
She hadn’t answered my question, which was important. I couldn�
��t risk being in a family of hungry thirsty people. I had only enough to make it to the next well and it was miles away.
“Are you alone?” I repeated.
She shook her head and answered with a soft, “Yes.” A frightened look passed over her face. Her blue eyes stared out, looking in the direction of the farm-house. When I stood I could see it. I had walked out of the mountains and now all that was in front of me for miles lay flat land, and a dilapidated gray house with bruised paint that had been beaten and abused by the wind and dust. With its structure setting to the side, the next strong wind would pummel it to the ground, I thought.
She must have known what I was thinking. “We live in the underground cellar.”
“What are you doing wandering around at night?”
“I was looking for food. My father put me out because he thought there wasn’t enough food for all of us,” she said.
“How many family members are alive?”
“My father and brother and me I guess. They sent my mother out last year. I found her bones not far from here. Over there,” she said pointing with her arm suspended in air and her head tilted to the side. “I remember the dress she wore when she said goodbye to us,” the girl said lowering her head and placing her hand over her mouth to muffle her moans.
“And they would do that? Send you and your mother out to die?” I said in disbelief.
“They had no choice. They had only enough food and water to make it for a week.”
“But how could they do that I don’t understand that thinking?” I said.
“We are farm people. It’s for the good of the family. I understand why they did it. I couldn’t contribute,” she said.
“Aren’t you part of the family?” She stared at me with a blank expression. It was nothing but the pecking order. Those who weren’t strong give in to the will of the strongest. “Do you want to come with me?” I said before I thought it through. I couldn’t leave her. Besides, I needed her company to keep me sane, and I liked her. I liked her a lot.
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