Dry

by Neal Shusterman

  Alyssa turns to me and produces a pair of keys. The keys to the BMW. She must have grabbed them during all the chaos. While the rest of us were gripped with shock, Alyssa was already calculating our escape.

  “We have to get out of here now.” She motions to Kelton’s limp body. “Take him.”

  She clutches the keys tightly, and I realize they’ve become leverage in a power game.

  “Who put you in charge?” I challenge, but with the house being stripped bare all around us, it’s not like staying is much of an option—and if that bug-out thing will now be more than available, we’re going to need Kelton to show us how to get there. In sum, she’s right, and I hate that.

  Alyssa races back into the kitchen; she tries her best to get Kelton’s parents to leave with us, but they won’t budge. All they want to do—all they’re capable of doing now—is pointlessly comforting what I now realize is their dead son.

  “Go,” they tell Alyssa through their grief. “Just go. . . .”

  While around us, the intruders scavenge like jackals.

  What happened here was inevitable. They had to flaunt their electrical system and their resources. Kelton’s father had to be the family hero. It’s like he was so obsessed with protecting the house that he forgot the main of objective was to actually protect everyone inside of it.

  I grab Kelton under the shoulders and pick him up. I shoot a glance to Garrett, who’s been hiding, crouched by a sofa. We drag Kelton down the hall toward the front door, Alyssa leading the way. As we make our way there, I try to take stock of what’s actually happening around us, but it’s too dark—just shapes and outlines. But I can hear everything: the defeated whimpers of Kelton’s parents, underscored by dozens of scurrying feet that squeak, click, and scuff against the hardwood floor. A door somewhere is kicked open—I hear wood chips splinter. Jars clink and crash in the kitchen as they’re knocked from pantry shelves, or fall from overloaded arms. A water jug we had brought up earlier tumbles down the stairs and bursts across the floor. This place will be ravaged and picked apart until all that’s left is the carcass of a home.

  Alyssa opens the front door, and more people flood in. A veritable cross-ventilation of water-zombies.

  Just as we get out the door, one man raises a baseball bat, threatening to swing at Alyssa. He holds it there for a moment and lowers his weapon, recognizing her.

  “They left us no choice!” he says, as if it can excuse his actions.

  But Alyssa doesn’t acknowledge it. In fact, she doesn’t give him even the slightest satisfaction of a human moment. She pushes past, toward the BMW in the driveway.

  Garrett and I stuff Kelton’s limp body inside—it feels like we’re kidnapping him, and then I remember we technically are. Alyssa climbs in after to tend to him in the back seat, so Garrett climbs into the front to sit shotgun. Today I wish the passenger seat weren’t called that.

  I get behind the wheel, close the door, and hit the lock button, hearing the satisfying sound of locks thudding down. Although the marauders are too crazed to even notice our exit.

  I reach a hand back to Alyssa. “If you want me to drive, you’re going to have to give me the keys.”

  Still she won’t give them to me. She holds them tight in her fist. “It’s a keyless ignition—just push the button.”

  Damn BMWs. As long as the key is in the car, it will start, regardless of whose grubby little hand it’s in. Again it looks like I don’t have much of a choice. I start the car, back out past the water-zombies that lurk around us, then speed headfirst into darkness, nearly forgetting to turn on the headlights.

  • • •

  A left. Then a right. Then another right. Then a left.

  I’m driving too fast and I know it, but I can’t seem to slow down. Adrenaline has turned my foot to lead. I run over a piece of debris in the road. I hear it scrape against the bottom of the car. I pray to God it didn’t puncture our gas tank.

  “I’m gonna throw up,” says Garrett. “I think I’m going to throw up.”

  “Swallow it down and man up!” I tell him.

  “Don’t you talk to my brother like that!”

  I turn right. I don’t know why; I’m at a T in the road and I have to choose. I put my brights on because I want to see everything that’s ahead of me. I don’t care if I blind oncoming traffic. There is no oncoming traffic. Anyone who’s going anywhere has already gotten there, or has given up.

  I chide myself for even getting into a situation like this. I should have found a way to get the keys back during the night from Kelton’s father, but I gave in to the comfort and safety of a well-stocked home. False security. There was nothing safe about that place; all those supplies, all those pissed off, thirsty neighbors. The place was a lightning rod in a shit storm, and they couldn’t see it. Well, what do you expect when you bunk up with a family of angry nerds? That’s what Kelton’s family is. Nerds who traded in their Comic-Con passes for gun show tickets. Instead of Star Trek trivia, they could probably tell me about every application of a weapon, yet could never even begin to fathom what it feels like to actually end a human life. Well, now Kelton’s father can. Nerds with guns. Now I’ve seen everything.

  “Where are we going?” Garrett asks, successfully not hurling.

  “Away from that goddamn house,” is the only answer I can give. We drive down another identical suburban street, past endless rows of tightly spaced homes, once full of life, but now their facades look like dead faces with sagging eyes seething despair. This place feels like the eerie, abandoned suburban neighborhoods that surround nuclear power plant leaks. It feels bleak. A place where hope goes to die.

  I make a left. It’s just another residential cul-de-sac. Dammit! I nearly do a donut at the end, and head back out.

  “We can’t just keep driving in circles!” Alyssa says from the back seat.

  “Fine!” I snap. “Then navigate.”

  “To where?”

  “Anywhere!”

  Alyssa leans forward and looks around us. We can barely see a thing, but she seems to know where we are.

  “All right. Take a right. Not here, but the next one.”

  Two more turns, and we’re finally out of the neighborhood and on a major street. Although I’m not sure what that buys us.

  I glance in the rearview. Kelton is propped up against the door behind Garrett. He’s still limp and lifeless.

  “Wake him up,” I say.

  “I want to let him sleep it off,” Alyssa responds.

  “How do you know he’s not dead? You hit him pretty hard.”

  “He’s breathing,” Alyssa says, annoyed by my suggestion. “Dead people don’t breathe.”

  Garrett turns around to look at him. “Maybe you’re both right. Maybe he’s brain-dead.”  Which really pisses Alyssa off.

  “He might have a concussion. We won’t know for sure until he wakes up.”

  “So wake him up,” I say again. This time Alyssa reaches over and shakes him. He wakes up, and I think I’m just as relieved as Alyssa is.

  Kelton coughs, rubs the back of his head, and blinks a few times, still woozy.

  I wonder if he knows he got knocked out cold and dragged to the car. I wonder if he remembers what happened in his house. Sometimes when you have brain trauma, it wipes your short-term memory. You lose the last few minutes like a lousy Word doc that you forgot to save.

  It takes a moment to clear the fog, but clearly he does remember, because he goes berserk.

  “No!!! What are you doing? We have to go back!”

  Alyssa grabs him with both hands, but he wrestles her off. “We have to stop them!”

  “It’s too late for that, Kelton!” Alyssa says.

  He pulls on the door handle, fully prepared to leap out of the moving car. It’s only sheer luck that his child lock is on, and the door won’t open.

  He wails in fury and kicks the door handle until it breaks. But the door still doesn’t open.

  I change lanes sharp
ly to force him away from the door. It works. He gets thrown back onto Alyssa, who holds him with more strength than I thought she’d have as he thrashes.

  “But my parents!”

  “I tried to get them to come—they wouldn’t.”

  “Those people might kill them!”

  And then Garrett says something that’s actually kind of wise. “Prolly not,” he says. “I mean, they weren’t fighting back. Water-zombies just want one thing, right? If you don’t get in their way, I bet they leave you alone.”

  It seems to calm Kelton down a little bit. At least enough for Alyssa to trust letting him go. He slumps back into the seat again, shaking his head.

  “No no no no. We can’t . . . we can’t . . .” But he doesn’t have the conviction of his words anymore. He’s quiet for a moment as his fury rolls out, and the real emotion behind it surges in.

  “My brother’s dead. . . .”

  I don’t say anything. What can I say? It can’t be undone, and all you can do is die or deal. Kelton would probably choose the former right now. I leave compassion to Alyssa. I’m sure she’s much better at it. I can only imagine the dark, messed-up things that are going on in Kelton’s head right now. I keep playing the events of the last fifteen minutes over and over in my head, and the more I let the mental merry-go-round spin, the more I realize that Garrett had the right idea. I feel like I want to barf, too. What happened in that house—I’ve never experienced anything so savage, anything so inhuman.

  “I’m sorry, Kelton,” Alyssa says. “It sucks.”

  And that just makes him go psycho. “Sucks? It sucks? No, Alyssa. Failing a midterm sucks. Dropping your phone in water sucks. My father just shot my brother in the chest and I watched him die! Don’t insult me by saying that it sucks!”

  And then he kicks the back of the seat so hard I almost lose control of the wheel. “And I will never forgive you for knocking me out!”

  “Me?” I say. “As much as I’d enjoy rendering you unconscious, I wasn’t the one who hit you.”

  “I hit you Kelton,” Alyssa says. “I had to—you were about to kill Stu Leeson.”

  “So what?” says Kelton. “I wish I had! He deserves to die! They all do!”

  “Trust me, Kelton—you’ll be glad I stopped you later.”

  Kelton hardens his jaw and turns away from her. His eyes are red and clouded with tears. He catches me looking at him in the rearview mirror.

  “Don’t look at me, bitch!’

  Normally that would be met with severe punishment, but Kelton’s not himself. Grief can twist people in ways they’re not supposed to twist. So I’ll give him a pass.

  The road ahead curves. Dark fast food places on either side. Then, just past a major intersection, I see scores of cars and tents amassed around a Target. It’s probably some sort of relief center that hasn’t actually seen any relief yet.

  “You think there’s water there?” Alyssa asks.

  I shake my head. “Not a chance. But they’re all waiting for it like the second coming.” There are so many of them there. Misery loves company, I think, but then again, so does hope. If it didn’t, I wouldn’t be here with these fine idiots.

  As we pass the Target tent city, I have to do a reality check. This is the same planet I was on last week, and yet how could it be? I never would’ve imagined that “perfect” Orange County could go so utterly insane. Funny how my disdain for this place once left me wishing that God Almighty would plague it with locusts and leaking breast implants. But now that the whole of Southern California has actually been plagued, I’m a little disappointed. Not that I want to endure any more than I already have, but I’m disappointed by people—how weak they are, how frail their psyches must be to allow a water shortage to turn them into murderous mobs. If there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that I don’t want be in the same league as them—hell, I don’t even want to be in the same ballpark.

  Not to say that I’m any sort of saint. I’ve broken my share of windows. Raided countless fridges and supply rooms. I’ve made a hobby out of breaking into houses, living the high life and moving on. The difference is, I did that by choice, and not at the expense of others. I mean, yeah, my crimes weren’t entirely victimless, but the victims barely noticed what they were missing, and when they did, they had good insurance. I do the scofflaw thing with a wink and a smile. I don’t think I could ever be part of a mindless mob that raids a house. Instead, I’d be the one who takes the truck where the mob just stashed all the stuff they stole, leaving behind a Hello Kitty note that says, “See you, suckers.” To me, that’s the Bette Davis move.

  “Look at that!” says Garrett. He’s pointing ahead, where a church is lit by hundreds of candles. The door is wide open, the sanctuary is packed, flowing out to the street. Dozens of families, huddling close, praying for deliverance from thirst. My grandmother believed in the power of prayer. There’s a trite saying among the faithful, goes like this: “God answers all prayers. And sometimes his answer is no.” My grandmother hated that. “God never says no,” she told me. “He just says, ‘Not today.’ ” Which is exactly the answer raining down upon this candle-lit vigil.

  Behind me, Kelton has gone entirely silent. Right now his brain is beyond short-circuited, and I’m realizing that he’s going to need a full reboot if he’s going to make it out of this situation alive.

  Garrett, seeing Kelton’s shell-shocked state, offers him his canteen. “Here, have some,” Garrett says. “You’ll feel better.” Funny how in all of that chaos, Garrett was the only one who remembered to grab the most important thing.

  Kelton doesn’t even acknowledge his offer, as if water is the enemy that got his brother killed. I guess in a way it was.

  When Kelton doesn’t take the canteen, I take it instead—but rather than acting like a water-zombie, I take a brief, measured sip and hand it back to Garrett. Alyssa glowers at me and purses her lips—probably to stop herself from saying something stupid. Then she asks Garrett for the canteen and takes her own measured sip.

  All this time, we still don’t have a destination. I’m not driving in circles anymore, but it doesn’t change the fact that we have nowhere to go.

  “Kelton, where’s your bug-out?” I ask.

  “Up your ass,” he says.

  “Ooh, look who’s suddenly become a potty mouth,” I tease. He responds with an expression an Eagle Scout type like Kelton shouldn’t know.

  “Leave him alone,” says Alyssa.

  “Give me one more order,” I tell her, “and I’m throwing you out with a ‘drink me’ sign taped to your back.”

  Which actually gets a very slight snort from Kelton. Good. Progress.

  Now, to our right are dozens of families, migrating in droves—as if they’re all partaking in some kind of divine pilgrimage. At least these people are taking action rather than sitting and waiting for someone to save them. It’s like everyone has divided into camps, all with their own theories on what course of action to take.

  “Where do you think they’re going?” Garrett asks.

  “I’m not sure they even know,” I answer.

  “Just like us?” Alyssa points out.

  And then Kelton points ahead, where the light of dawn crests the distant mountaintop. “They’re going to Lake Arrowhead,” he says, “But they won’t get there. There are two mountain ranges and two counties between here and there.”

  Looks like the pilgrimage has brought him back to planet Earth. I take this opportunity to tease more information out of him.

  “Is that where the bug-out is?”

  He shakes his head. “No . . . it’s in Angeles National Forest. Much closer. Due north rather than east.” He redirects his gaze. “But we’re not going to be able to get there in this car. We’re going to need something with an elevated chassis. Four-wheel drive.”

  “You mean a raised truck?” Garrett suggests. “Like Uncle Basil’s?”

  “Exactly like Uncle Basil’s,” Kelton responds.

&nbs
p; “He’s staying with his sort-of ex-girlfriend,” Alyssa says. “In Dove Canyon.”

  And finally we know where we’re going.

  PART THREE

  THE CHASM BETWEEN

  DAY FIVE

  WEDNESDAY, JUNE 8TH

  18) Henry

  There’s a very specific way that one must think if one wishes to achieve true success. You could run the best textile company in the world, design a new propulsion system for NASA, even paint the next Mona Lisa—and at that point you may be rich, but you’ll still be one important skill set away from being wealthy.

  That’s because wealth is a mindset.

  Or, as my mentor, Vice Principal Metzer, always says, “Rich is an adjective, wealth is a verb.” Actually it’s a noun, but that’s beside the point.

  True wealth is only established after you’ve disciplined yourself to invest in assets that generate enough income to cover your expenses. Right now my expenses are minimal, and my new hydration business has taken off, launched through the roof, and shot into the stratosphere.

  My parents and I live in a gated community called Dove Canyon. And when you’re living in upper-middle-class Orange County—and especially in a canyon—elevation is everything. That’s why my mom and dad invested in a house near the top of the hill. It’s one of the biggest in the community, with a panoramic view, presiding over the golf course and most every other house that shares our zip code. And since my parents left on vacation last week, I’ve been looking after our home all alone, even through these difficult times.

  The Tap-Out has not only contributed to my growth as a person, but has proven to be a fantastic learning experience in business and commerce. A while back my father encouraged my mother to start a business of her own; instead she let one of her friends talk her into buying sixty cases of ÁguaViva, a pyramid scheme where you spend a ridiculous amount of money to purchase seven hundred twenty bottles of alkaline-infused goji berry mineral water—only for it to sit in your guest room for six months because nobody wants to buy alkaline-infused goji berry mineral water. However, now that the value of water has exponentially risen, I’ve been turning a substantial profit on the ÁguaViva.