Finding Shelter

by Ryan Westfield

  They sat in silence for a few minutes.

  Mandy had her eyes fully open now. Her face looked like it had been through the wringer, with dried sweat, and, it seemed, even some new lines. Lines from dealing with the pain. Lines from the stress of the whole thing.

  "Maybe I'm going to be OK," said Mandy, sounding as if she was nervous to even suggest the possibility. "I really don't feel that bad... Is there anything in the book about some condition that can come and go this suddenly?"

  "Maybe. I'll have to look back through it..."

  "Here, give it to me."

  "You're feeling that much better?"

  "Yeah. Good enough to read. Maybe not good enough to take a watch shift, or chop firewood."

  "Here you go."

  Cynthia handed the book to Mandy.

  Mandy took it and began flipping through it.

  "I guess we don't know if it'll stay gone, or if it'll come back. The pain, I mean. And the other symptoms."

  "No," said Cynthia. "I guess we'll just have to wait and see."

  And that was the truth. There wasn't anything they could do but wait and see.

  Hopefully, Mandy and the baby would be all right.

  Hopefully, nothing would happen.

  How terrible would it be if Max returned, and there'd been some horrible problem with the pregnancy?

  Or if Max didn't return at all? And his sacrifice had been completely in vain?

  It all seemed too terrible, and Cynthia buried her face in her hands.

  20

  Sadie

  Sadie needed to get out of there.

  She didn't know how long she'd been lying there now, with the stench of the paint all around her, all over. She'd just been waiting for the woman to come back.

  And when she came back, what then?

  Would Sadie die? Would the woman decide it was easier to kill her?

  Or would the woman have news of a ransom note that she'd somehow delivered to her mother?

  Sadie couldn't see her mother taking the news well. But no doubt she'd come and rescue her.

  But if her mother could have talked to her now, what would she have said?

  She'd have told her to fight. She'd have told her not to rely on others for help. She'd have told Sadie to not count on anyone to come rescue her, not even her own mother.

  She'd have told Sadie that it was up to her, and her alone. That she had to do it all herself. That she needed to be strong and courageous and clever.

  But what was she supposed to do? She was tied up. Completely. She couldn't move. She couldn't even feel her limbs.

  What were the chances of different outcomes? What were the chances that Olivia would come back and kill Sadie?

  Probably not great. How did she figure that? Well, it'd have to be based on revenge. And revenge only.

  Why revenge only? Because she didn't seem like the kind of woman who had killed before. She had relied on her husband to do the dirty work for her. So even if she wasn't going to play the ransom game and try to use Sadie as a pawn in her survival game, she likely didn't have the courage to actually kill Sadie.

  No, she wasn't the courageous type. Not like Sadie. Or her mother. Or Max.

  Olivia was the type of woman who, if it served her purposes, would just let Sadie rot on her own. She'd let Sadie die of dehydration there in that stupid torturous little room.

  Sadie wasn't going to let that happen.

  She had to figure out something.

  But what?

  The situation seemed hopeless. She had nothing on her. She could barely move now.

  She had no tools. Nothing to cut the rope with. No way to even move well enough if she did have a tool.

  Sadie took a couple deep breaths. She was starting to panic. The situation was starting to seem even worse than hopeless. Her very thoughts were starting to feel completely pointless.

  The breathing helped.

  Helped keep her from panicking.

  Panicking wasn't going to do her any good.

  But neither was just lying there.

  Her mind was racing. Trying to think of everything that Max and her mother had ever told her.

  It was hard to remember everything. She'd told her a lot. They'd taught her a lot.

  She remembered that Max had told her that even when it seemed like there were no options, when it seemed like there were no routes out, there was always something to fall back on. And that was the mind.

  She couldn't remember when Max had told her that.

  But he'd definitely told her that at some point.

  Or had she imagined it? Had it just been some kind of cinematic dream?

  Sadie didn't know.

  But she knew that she still had her mind.

  Sadie still had her mind.

  Maybe she couldn't use her limbs. But she could use her mind. She could use her mouth.

  Maybe she had a tool there in the house. Maybe it wasn't a traditional tool.

  But she knew very well that there was a girl there her own age.

  And Sadie knew how to talk to kids her own age. It had been a long time. But she could do it.

  "Hello?" she called out, trying to keep her voice loud enough that it could be audible on the other side of the door, but not much beyond that.

  Ideally, the daughter, Lilly, would hear the call, and not the mother.

  Of course, Sadie really had no way to control that.

  But she could hope.

  And she could keep trying.

  "Anyone there?" She called out again.

  Nothing. No answer.

  But Sadie did hear something. A noise on the other side of the door. Sort of like a scratching sound.

  "I can hear you," said Sadie, going out on a limb.

  She hoped that she was speaking to the daughter and not the mother.

  One wrong move, the wrong thing said, and the mother might get pushed over the edge. She might wind up killing Sadie.

  The noise stopped.

  That meant they were listening. Whoever it was.

  Sadie had to take a chance. This was her chance.

  "I haven't seen anyone my age in forever," said Sadie. As she spoke, she realized how "adult" she sounded. Before the EMP, she'd spent most of her day with kids her own age in school. Now, she spent most of her time with adults, with the exception of her brother and Dan.

  She had picked up the adult way of speaking, and she'd lost the slang phrases that had been so common to her speech before.

  There was no response. But there was the noise of slight footsteps. A very faint sound.

  "I know you're there," continued Sadie. "And I know you can hear me. And I know you're curious about me. Otherwise you wouldn't have been nearby. I know you're scared about what's going to happen to your dad. It'll be just you and your mom... it's a tough situation... I can understand. I've been there myself."

  Sadie didn't quite know where she'd picked up this ability. But she recognized that it was something adults did, from time to time. It was manipulation, plain and simple. But sometimes it was necessary.

  Still no response.

  "Why don't you open the door?" said Sadie. "Aren't you curious about me? I know you've been here all alone with your parents. All cooped up... It's got to suck big time..."

  Some of the slang was coming back, but it still sounded unnatural.

  Sadie waited.

  It didn't seem like anything was going to happen.

  There was no noise.

  And then it happened.

  The door handle turned.

  The door opened. Creaking on its hinges.

  Sadie hoped it was the daughter, and not the mother.

  She held her breath as the door continued to open.

  She craned her neck.

  High up above, where the mother's face would be, there was nothing. But below, there was a little girl's face.

  She was about her own age. Maybe a year younger. Hard to say, because she was thin and small. It looke
d as if she hadn't been eating very much. More or less like the mother.

  It was strange and sad to see that gaunt look on a child. Sadie realized that she'd had it lucky, in a way. She'd eaten much better than this child, for instance. Sadie had retained her strength, and even grown in height and strength since the EMP had hit.

  Then again, what could be sadder than Sadie's current situation? It seemed likely that she'd die, so it didn't really matter if she was well fed or not.

  The girl stepped into the doorway. She looked down at Sadie but didn't speak.

  "Hey," said Sadie.

  It was weird. Definitely weird. Sadie was speaking as if she were meeting a new potential friend on the playground at school. But in reality she was tied up on the floor.

  "Hi. I'm Lilly."

  "I'm Sadie."

  "I know."

  "How's your dad?"

  "Not good. My mom's out there with him. She says he's going to die."

  There were the remnants of tears on Lilly's face. But she seemed to be taking the imminent death of her father fairly well. Maybe she was in a state of shock?

  "Don't you want to be with him?"

  Sadie was being careful not to jump right to her situation, even though it should have been painfully obvious that something was greatly amiss with her. She couldn't move, after all.

  "He told me to go away. He wasn't very nice about it. He wanted to spend his last... time with my mom." Lilly gulped as she spoke.

  "That's got to feel bad. Is he always mean to you?"

  "A lot of the time. Since the power went out, especially."

  "That sucks," said Sadie.

  Then Sadie waited. She said nothing more.

  "What are you doing here?" said Lilly. "I haven't seen any other kids since... a long time..."

  "Your dad kidnapped me," said Sadie. "You're not going to be believe me, but I heard about you and wanted to come see you.... I was just desperate to talk to someone my own age after so long... And then your dad decided to kidnap me and use me as ransom...."

  Sadie didn't want to add, "so I shot him," even though it was obvious enough what had happened.

  Did Lilly blame her for killing her dad?

  Sadie was pretty sure that if the tables were turned, she'd be upset if her dad was dead.

  But Sadie didn't know her dad. Not at all. So it was a little hard to imagine.

  There was a long pause. Very long.

  Finally, Sadie decided it was time. Time to make her offer. Time to risk everything.

  "So," said Sadie. "Do you want to come with me?"

  "Come with you?"

  "Yeah. Back to my camp. You can live with me and my mom. My brother, too. And everyone else."

  "I... can't leave my mom..."

  "She can come too."

  "I don't think she will."

  "But what will you two do without your dad? Why don't you try to convince her to come?"

  "She won't do it. She's too suspicious."

  "Suspicious of what?"

  "People. Other people. We almost got killed. The three of us. There were some... other people and they..."

  "It's OK," said Sadie. "You don't have to tell me the story. But I wish you'd at least consider what I'm saying."

  Lilly shook her head vigorously. "There's no way.... there's just no way..."

  "What are you and your mom going to do then? If you don't use me as ransom, I mean?"

  "We'll find a way, I guess. We don't really need that much to eat. My mom said we really only need 800 calories a day."

  Before the EMP, Sadie wouldn't have known what 800 calories a day meant. Now, she had a very good understanding. She'd eaten 800 calories a day, and she'd been painfully aware of that fact all the while. It had been brutal. Her stomach had been in pain the whole time, and she'd been weak, with a horrible lack of energy.

  "And that's for her..." continued Lilly. "I only need 500 'cause I'm just a kid. Not as much as an adult."

  "But our metabolisms are faster," said Sadie. She didn't want to start any kind of argument, since that didn't really fit in well with her plan. But the words just tumbled out, like a reflex. "We burn more calories per pound of tissue. Our basal metabolic rates are much higher than adults."

  "Oh," said Lilly. "I didn't know that. But I'm fine... 500 is enough for me... we'll get by..."

  "I know it's going to be hard without your dad."

  "He... wasn't..."

  "What is it?"

  "He wasn't... always nice to us... he's been getting meaner..."

  "So it won't be that bad without him?" ventured Sadie. "Maybe it'll be a little better?"

  Lilly made a non-committal sound and shrugged her shoulders. It was as if she couldn't actually admit the sad truth about her father.

  "So," said Sadie. "Your mom's either going to use me for ransom... or what...? I don't think she's going to let me go.... your dad was telling her that..."

  Lilly made a sound as if she was choking.

  "You OK?"

  It was weird. Sadie was the one tied up. She was the one in the bad situation. And yet she was asking Lilly if she was OK.

  "Uh, yeah. I'm OK. I just get nervous sometimes... make that weird sound... sorry... they used to make fun of me at school..."

  "Well, there's no school anymore," said Sadie. "That's really mean that those kids used to make fun of you..."

  "The teachers too."

  "That's horrible," said Sadie. "They shouldn't have done that."

  "But they did."

  "My friend, Max, he's always saying that the important thing is that we're alive now. The past is the past. And now it's the way past. The EMP destroyed our entire culture. We're living in a different world now. A different reality. A new reality...."

  Sadie was aware that she didn't sound so much like a kid. She didn't sound like an adult either. She knew who she sounded like.

  She sounded like Max. He'd been rubbing off on her. His vocabulary. His attitude. His take on life.

  "I guess that's true," said Lilly. "I don't even know if..." She made that choking sound again but managed to continue. "The people I knew before... I don't even know if they're still alive... it's weird to think about... Like the people that I'd see at the grocery store when I'd go there with my mom... maybe they're all dead now... It's horrible... My mom and dad don't like to talk about it all... they like to pretend... but I think about it all..."

  Sadie felt like she had connected with Lilly. At least somewhat.

  It was time to go for it.

  "Lilly," said Sadie. "If you don't want to come with me, that's fine. You and your mom are going to be all right. You've survived this long... But I need to get back to my family.... My mom's going to be worried about me... She's probably giving my brother hell for letting me get away..."

  Sadie paused.

  Lilly said nothing.

  But Sadie could tell that Lilly was thinking. Thinking hard.

  "Why don't you just untie me, Lilly? If the situation were reversed, I'd do the same for you... I really would... There's not much time... While your mom's busy, just cut the rope and I'll slip away. You won't have to tell her anything... You can just pretend you don't know anything, and your mom will just think I managed to get away on my own..."

  Still no answer.

  Just that strange choking sound.

  "Come on, Lilly," said Sadie. "There's nothing to worry about. If you're going to do it, you've got to do it soon. I don't know when your mom's going to come back."

  What Sadie didn't want to say was that she didn't know how much longer Lilly's father would stay alive. He might have already died, and Lilly's mother might be coming back soon.

  And there was no telling what she'd do.

  Sadie knew that people confronted death in various ways. And she knew that it was entirely possible that Terry's death would greatly upset Olivia.

  It was very possible that Olivia would channel her sadness and hopelessness into rage.

  And i
t was very possible that she would direct that rage at the person responsible for Terry's death.

  If Sadie didn't escape soon, she might soon find Olivia standing over her in a rage.

  Ready to kill her.

  Sadie needed to get out of there.

  21

  Georgia

  "You'd better leave me," grunted John. "Or I might just shoot you myself. If that's not an impetus for you to leave, I don't know what is."

  "I don't believe you. Not for a second," muttered Georgia.

  It wasn't as if she was putting a lot of thought into what John was saying. She knew he wasn't going to shoot her.

  The five men were a much bigger threat.

  They hadn't shown themselves yet.

  But she knew they were there.

  Unless they had retreated.

  If, after a couple hours, they didn't attack, then maybe it'd be safe to try to head back to camp.

  Georgia already knew what she'd do. She already had a plan. She'd make a rudimentary sled and throw John on it. She'd drag him back to camp. Then she'd head off again, looking for her daughter, provided she hadn't somehow returned to camp on her own.

  Despite the intensity of her own situation, Georgia's mind was still fixed on Sadie. She was still thinking about her. She couldn't get her out of her mind.

  That's just the way it was. That's how it was being a parent.

  Georgia was starting to think that if Sadie was going to get out of whatever situation she was in, she was going to have to do it herself.

  Georgia might not get out of her own troubles alive.

  Hopefully Georgia had taught her daughter enough.

  She'd certainly tried her best. She'd hardly ever done anything at camp without explaining to her children why she was doing it. She knew that, somehow, sooner or later, she'd no longer be around to teach them anything.

  And they'd be on their own.

  Maybe that day would be sooner rather than later.

  Georgia had never thought she'd get to old age and die in her sleep. Well, she'd thought that before the EMP. And after everything had collapsed? No, not since then.

  She'd figured she'd die fighting. Sure, there'd been times when she'd thought they'd all starve to death. Or worse.