by Lissa Bryan
Her team shuffled forward, all of them scowling. They all wore black shirts, like Carly’s, splotched with paint splatters. Justin’s team wore pristine white, trying to smother victorious grins.
Everyone wore goggles or eyeglasses with plain lenses, taken from the local optometrist’s sample wall, and a helmet. Carly wore the blue bicycle helmet Justin had given her when they first started out from Juneau, but the others were alternately wearing football helmets, hard hats, and a couple bicycle helmets of their own, scavenged from town. The only one Kaden could find that fit him had Hello Kitty on it, so Justin had traded it for his blue one, plunking the pink and white thing on his own head without a word. Kaden hadn’t said anything, but he’d looked very grateful. Later, when Carly mentioned it, he simply shrugged and said, “You know how kids are.”
Yes, she knew how kids were, but at this point, she’d almost welcome teasing. It would be a sign the kids were adjusting, returning to normal. After more than a year on the road, being settled for a few months in Colby hadn’t given them back their equilibrium. Most of them had an aged solemnity, miniature adults with too-wise eyes.
Pearl’s motorcycle helmet had the Harley-Davidson logo on it, and Carly shook her head with a wry twist of her lips when she saw it. Of course it did. But then again, Pearl could wear the Hello Kitty helmet and make it look badassed.
“Great job, everyone,” Justin said, clapping both teams on the back as he headed into the center of their group. “All right, let’s go over the mission …”
Before dispersing, they discussed what had gone right and wrong with the attack and what they had learned from it. Afterward, Kaden went off with a small group of young men who were going to try to use the slingshots Justin had introduced to them to catch frogs. Kaden loved fried frog legs, but they were often too fast for the unskilled hunter to catch with nets and Justin wouldn’t waste ammo on them.
Carly lingered with Justin until everyone had gone and helped pick up the rest of the stray equipment left behind. Justin headed for the door and she just couldn’t help herself.
“Ouch!” Justin jumped and whirled around, clapping a hand to his backside. He drew it away, covered in orange paint. “Did you just shoot me?”
Carly nodded, fighting to keep a grin off her face and failing.
Justin grinned, too, but he lowered his head and stared up at her with those dark eyes sparkling with wicked intentions. “I’ll give you a ten second head start.”
Her heart pounding already in anticipation, Carly spun around and took off. She had learned a lot in the last two years, and she was fast. It took a while for Justin to catch her, but oh, when he did …
Tired, happy, and more than a little sore, Carly and Justin began preparing dinner. Justin was on the back porch, grinding corn using an aluminum baseball bat for a pestle and a metal pail as the mortar. Carly was inside, chopping up cattail roots for soup, Dagny strapped in the baby carrier on her back. She snoozed with her head pillowed on Carly’s shoulder. There was no doubt the baby was spoiled for her parents’ attention, but this was such an uncertain world. Carly felt better having her baby with her as much as possible, and she knew Dagny preferred it as well.
“Carly?”
“Mm?”
Justin brought the bucket of corn inside. It was broken up; he just had to grind it now. He glanced at the baby and then at the grinder.
“Dead to the world,” Carly said. “You won’t wake her.”
He took the old-fashioned crank coffee grinder from the wall. It was one of the things he’d brought with them from the house in North Dakota, which had been furnished with things he’d scavenged from a local museum. There hadn’t been coffee beans for a long time, but it worked great for corn meal. He poured in a handful and began to crank. He had to speak up over the racket, but as promised, Dagny never stirred.
“We’re heading for Brewster again in the morning.”
He’d delayed the trip to get to know Pearl a little better, and he was still in favor of taking her along. He was convinced she’d be an asset, and her cool, efficient behavior today at the war games had strengthened that opinion.
“Are you taking Stan or Kaden?”
“Kaden, if you’re comfortable with it.”
She sighed but nodded. She had to trust his judgment, despite how she worried. She took Dagny from her back and laid her down in her playpen before she turned to him.
He took her in his arms and looked down into her face, his eyes saying all the things that didn’t need to be said. After a moment, he lowered his head, his lips so soft and sweet and warm. She should be sated, she thought, after the romp in the warehouse, but her heart always slammed against her ribs when he kissed her like this. Twining her arms around his neck, she kissed him back with equal heat.
Kaden cleared his throat. “Uh, should I come back later?”
Justin chuckled. “Nah, come in. We’ll behave. What have you got there?”
Kaden held up two large blackbirds. “Dinner, I think. We can eat these, right?”
“That we can,” Justin replied. “You got those with your slingshot? Good job!”
Kaden grinned with pride and headed back out to the front porch to start cleaning them.
“And here I always thought eating crow was just an expression,” Carly said.
“Tastes like chicken,” Justin promised.
“That’s what you always say.”
“Because it’s always true.” Justin winked at her and said in a stage whisper, “Wanna sneak in a quick make-out before the kid gets back?”
“I heard that,” Kaden called.
Justin laid a smacking kiss on Carly’s cheek and went back to grinding corn.
“Crow and cattail soup.” Carly laughed to herself. Her menus had certainly become more exotic over the last year, but they were fed, and that was the important part. She glanced over at her baby and prayed they would always find a way to keep her from hunger. Justin was very resourceful, she assured herself, and the swamp offered many food sources. She took the chopped meat from Kaden when he brought it in and put it in a pan to brown before adding it to the stew. She had to have faith. Fate would not have brought them this far to abandon them to a grim desperation.
Chapter Six
Laundry day was something all of Colby dreaded. It was a communal effort. It had to be. There was too much work to be done, and the necessary equipment had to be shared. And thanks to Carly’s concerted efforts, it was also a task for both males and females. Not only did they need the muscle, but she was concerned with the way tasks had begun to fall back into traditional gender roles. The fall of civilization threatened to set back the cause of women’s rights, but Carly wasn’t going to sit by and have her daughter and the other kids growing up with the idea of gender-specific chores. No, they were going to see men and women doing the same work.
They set up their laundry operation in the old firehouse, which had plenty of space once the useless fire trucks had been rolled outside. They opened the bay doors for ventilation, and worked inside, under the shade. The cement floors in the bay had drains for dumping the used water, and they had even set up a hot water system Carly thought was very clever. Tired of lugging buckets of hot water from the large kettle over the fire outside, the teenage boys had rigged up a PVC pipe along the wall that allowed them to tilt the kettle and pour hot water down the tube into the wash tubs. The water valves that had once been used to fill the tanks on the trucks still worked, fed by the large water tower. When it was empty, they’d have to hook it up to the irrigation system, but they had water for now.
Carly stood over a large five-gallon bucket. Through a hole in the lid, a broomstick protruded, attached inside to a round wood disk with holes. She plunged it like a butter churn, agitating the clothes inside for the second time, this time in rinse water.
“Did you know that detergent makers add something extra to the soap to make bubbles?” she asked Mindy, who was stirring her own bucket beside her. C
arly thanked Pete as he delivered two buckets of clean water beside them.
“No. Why?”
“Because people don’t think the soap is working unless they see bubbles. But the bubbles aren’t actually necessary. I read it in a book.”
“A book on soap?” Pearl asked. She was in a plastic kiddie pool, stomping around in circles to wash sheets and other items too large to fit inside the buckets.
“Yep.”
Pearl shook her head. “Carly was a nerd … I never would have guessed.”
“I read everything,” Carly said. “When I was a kid, if I asked a question, like how clouds are formed, my dad would go buy me a book on the subject. I never grew out of that curiosity, so I read books on all kinds of topics.”
“Except for stuff on engines and engineering,” Kaden added with a grin. “You know, the useful kind of stuff.”
“The stuff on soap was useful!” Carly said, giving him a wounded look. “Motors and angles of descent just bore me. Sorry. But that’s why we’re in a community. So we each don’t have to know everything ourselves. We can pool our knowledge.”
“I hardly ever read Before,” Mindy said. “But after the power went out, I started reading and I couldn’t stop. Stan and I looked for books whenever we were out scavenging. We brought back as much weight in books as we brought back in food.”
“I loved to read.” Pearl reversed her direction and began stomping around counter-clockwise.
Carly paused to wipe the sweat off her face with the small towel draped over her shoulder. “Let me guess … mysteries?”
Pearl grinned. “Nope. Romance novels.”
“Really?”
Pearl nodded. “I like a happy ending. Life has too few of those, you know?”
Especially these days. Carly popped the lid off her bucket and dumped the water into the drain. She lugged the sopping clothes over to the wringer. It was Carly’s own invention, a large press, mounted on a stand she’d banged together using raw two-by fours. She felt like pointing it out as proof she could engineer some stuff. It may have been ugly, but it did the job.
She pushed down hard on the two handles. She’d tried to pad the edges of the handles with cloth after she smoothed off the corners of the boards, but they still bit into the heel of her hands. The press mashed the clothes between two wood grates, which creaked under the pressure as she pushed. Carly felt the muscles of her arms tremble as she pressed hard to squeeze out as much water as possible before she released it. She rearranged the clothes and pushed again, trying not to think how she’d once blithely tossed her clothes in the dryer of the laundry room in the basement of her apartment building and gone back home to watch TV until it was done.
It was hard work, crushing the water out of the clothes, but what wasn’t hard work these days? Once she had as much of the water out of the clothes as she could manage, Carly carried them outside to the lines they’d strung between the trees and hung them up. There was already a long line of garments swaying in the breeze.
Her basket was full. Everyone wore their work clothes as many times as possible, but laundry for four people was still a lot of clothing. She just thanked God there was still a supply of disposable diapers left.
Kaden and Kross helped Pearl dump the pool and refill it with clean water to rinse. Pearl sat down on the wood bench against the wall to rest for a minute. The boys took over and decided to turn their stomping into a dance routine, singing Bad Romance as loud as they could to tease Pearl about her reading habits while they gyrated with the boundless energy of youth. Mindy sang along, pretending her wash bucket handle was a microphone.
Carly grinned around the clothespins in her mouth. The sheet she was holding slipped from her hand, and Laura, who was pinning her own clothes on the other line, stepped over and grabbed it before it could hit the ground.
“Thanks!”
“No problem.” Laura pinned it in place.
“Oh, hey, Laura, I’ve been meaning to ask you. Have you ever read about Queen Anne’s Lace seed in your herb books?”
“Wild carrot,” Laura said, nodding. “Are you planning to use it as birth control?”
“Old Miz Marson suggested it.”
“She’s right. It’s been used in folk medicine for thousands of years.”
“But what about using it while breastfeeding?”
Laura fished in her bag for another clothespin. “I can’t say. I’ve never read anything about it. How much longer are you going to breastfeed Dagny?”
Carly shook her head. “I’m not sure. One of my books says two years is recommended. The other says to start weaning as soon as nine months.”
“You’re giving her solids now, right?”
“Soft foods, like eggs and mashed potatoes.”
Laura nodded. “She should start naturally weaning herself as you increase the amount of table food in her diet.”
Carly knew that. She looked over to where Dagny played with Madison Laker, who was holding her hands and encouraging her to walk across the blanket spread in front of Mrs. Davis, who was reading a book to the children in the shade of a tree outside of the station. Her baby was growing up, and it was time to start easing her into the next stage of her life. There was a little pang in her heart. Carly would miss it, the closeness and the sweet security of it.
Soon, she promised herself. When she was ready, when Dagny was ready.
Laura tilted her head. “Are you feeling okay, by the way? You look a little pale.”
“Fine. Just a headache. I think it’s the heat. I still haven’t gotten used to it.”
“Come here.” Laura put her pins into the hanging cloth basket and laid her hand on Carly’s forehead. “You’re really warm.”
“The heat.”
Laura pressed her fingers under Carly’s jaw. “No, I don’t think that’s it. Your lymph nodes are a little swollen, too. Have you had any other symptoms? Sore muscles?”
Carly stared pointedly at the laundry operation and laughed. “Are you serious?”
Laura laughed a little herself. “Okay. But why don’t you see Stacy, just to be on the safe side? Have her check you out.”
“Sure.” Carly nodded, having no intention of doing so.
“You’re a terrible liar,” Laura said. “Hey, Mindy!”
Mindy looked up from the towel she was twisting to wring dry. “Yeah?”
“Nag Carly until she goes to see Stacy.”
Mindy nodded. “Will do.”
Carly made a face at Laura as she finished pinning the rest of her clothes and went over to help Mindy wring towels.
“Speaking of Stacy,” Mindy whispered as they both took an end and twisted, hard. “Did you hear Mark left?”
“No!”
Mindy nodded. “He moved into that little house at the end of the block, the one that had the swimming pool.”
“Wow,” Carly said, even more determined now not to burden Stacy with having to look her over. “How’s Stacy taking it?”
“I haven’t seen her,” Mindy said. “But I saw Veronica pass by last night on her way to class. She looked like she’d been crying. They say kids often blame themselves for these kinds of things.”
Carly frowned. She looked around and spotted Veronica helping to pin up clothes on the other side of the lot. “Be right back.”
Carly went over to sit beside Pearl, who was putting some sheets into the press. “I need to ask you about something.”
“Sure.”
“Have you heard about Mark and Stacy?”
Pearl shook her head, and so Carly repeated what Mindy had told her.
“Damn shame. I hope they’ll work things out.”
“I do, too. But in the meantime … you know how Veronica looks up to you. How would you feel about sort of taking her under your wing until Mark and Stacy sort things out? Just help keep an eye on her and—”
“Absolutely not,” Pearl said, her voice so loud that everyone stopped to stare at her for a moment. She lowered h
er voice, but her tone was firm. “No, Carly. No way.”
Carly blinked. “Okay. I … uh … I’m sorry.”
Pear wasn’t looking at her. She stared at the concrete floor. “I just don’t want to be responsible for someone again, okay?”
Again? She must have been referring to something that had happened before she came to Colby. Carly remembered Pearl saying she hadn’t been alone the entire time. Had she been responsible for someone, a child perhaps, and seen things go terribly wrong? “Pearl …”
She stood. “My clothes should be done soaking.”
And with that, she left, heading across the wet concrete floor to where her bucket waited. She began to churn it with brisk efficiency. Carly bit her lip and returned to her own washing.
Justin dreamed of Juneau.
He climbed the tree and settled himself on a wide branch, leaning back against the trunk, settling into a position that would allow him to remain motionless for hours. His binoculars hung from the strap around his neck. He removed the lens caps and focused on the town below.
Justin scanned the main street, following the sidewalk. A flash of movement caught his eye, but it was only an empty potato chip bag, swept up in the breeze to saw its way back down to the curb. He reached the end of the street where a blackened pit still smoldered after the fire had burned itself out. It was the scent of smoke that had drawn him from his camping site in the woods in the first place. The lack of response to the burning store had been his next indication that something was very wrong.
There was a Buick parked haphazardly at the curb. Justin had gone down earlier and plugged his phone in to the car’s cigarette lighter and left it lying on the hood, to draw the attention of any Uninfected people who happened to see it.
He didn’t know why he was bothering to charge it. None of his contacts had answered when he ran through the long list, one by one. No one had answered when he called the Unit’s emergency contact number, either, something his mind insisted was impossible. He had stared at his phone, incredulous, afterward, peering hard at the numbers to make sure they were in the proper order, though he knew they must be. Lewis had programmed it in himself.
