Dry

by Neal Shusterman

  “If it’s not a break-in, then what the hell happened here?” I ask.

  “My brother happened here!” he says, with so much anguish in his eyes, I have to look away. “This is where Brady must have been living! We knew he lost his job and bailed on his roommates. We thought he might be living with his girlfriend. It never occurred to us that he might come here. Where he knew there was food and water enough to last for months. . . .”

  And I realize that “was” is the operative word here. “Was” is the difference between salvation, and doom.

  32) Alyssa

  This is not the end of the world, I tell myself. This is just a glitch. And now I’m grateful that Henry was so obstinate about not opening the box of ÁguaViva. With all the forces that have been mobilized to bring relief, it will be a while until the supply chain can meet the demand—and the ÁguaViva will get us through that time. There will be people—lots of people—who won’t be able to hold out that long, but we won’t be among them. Thanks to Henry. He wanted so badly to be the hero. Now he is.

  Kelton keeps digging through the storage space below, pulling out every plastic water jug, trying to get even the tiniest drops out, but all the jugs are open, and any moisture that had been left in them has long since dried up.

  “I can’t believe Brady did this!” he wails. “How could he do this? He knows better!”

  “Knew better,” corrects Jacqui, and I hit her hard enough to generate a warning glare, which I return with equal ferocity. Has she already forgotten how terrible Brady’s death was, or is she so callous that she just doesn’t care?

  Jacqui turns to the pantry and starts pulling out Styrofoam noodle cups. “Well, at least we have plenty of chicken-flavored Top Ramen,” she says. “ ‘Just add hot water.’ ” Kelton groans.

  I turn to Henry, who has been unusually quiet through all of this. He offers me a slim, pained grin, and I try to offer him one back that’s not quite so stretched.

  “Some alkaline-infused goji berry mineral water sounds really good right about now,” I tell him.

  “It does, doesn’t it?” he says, with a little chuckle.

  “Kelton, give it up,” says Jacqui. “The bug-out’s a bust. Back to the truck.”

  Kelton is reluctant. He keeps digging through the same empty jugs, like he’s going to find something different. Finally he gives up. He climbs out of the crawl space and kicks the jugs in frustration. They make a sad noise, like muted church bells. When we leave, he doesn’t even close the door, because what would be the point?

  We make our way down to the truck, which still waits for us by the upturned stump, and Jacqui hops in the back, pushing things out of the way until she gets to the box. She hoists it and brings it out, setting it down. The corners are a little dented, but otherwise it’s intact. She attacks the tape with her nails, but it’s thick strapping tape, and there are multiple layers.

  “Does anyone have a Swiss army knife?” She turns to Kelton. “How about you, Survival Boy?”

  “Yeah, there are plenty of knives back at the bug-out,” he says, but none of us, least of all Jacqui, wants to wait that long.

  “I’ll go get one,” Henry volunteers, but he’s overruled.

  “Forget it,” says Jacqui, and holds out a hand to him. “Keys, please.”

  Henry takes a step back from her as if there were a weapon in her empty hand, but Jacqui’s wriggling fingers are insistent. I’m pretty sure I know why he doesn’t want to hand them over. Once Jacqui has those keys, she’s never giving them back to him. In the end, he relents, and hands the keys over to Jacqui. I wonder why he didn’t just take over the task of opening the box himself—after all, it’s his box—but the thought flits out of my mind before I even have time to really consider it.

  Jacqui finds the sharpest key and starts slashing at the tape, then sawing it, then stabbing it.

  “C’mon!” says Garrett. “Hurry up!”

  Jacqui grunts in frustration. “What idiot tapes up a box like this?”

  Finally she gets a good size hole in the tape and starts working it larger, until she can get her hand in and rip a whole flap off the top of the box. Then, with the box finally open, she just stands there. Instead of reaching in and pulling out water bottles, she just stares into the box.

  “Aw, you gotta be kidding!” she says. “No freaking way!”

  “What?” I say. “What is it?”

  Instead of answering, she dumps the box over, and out spill hundreds of glossy brochures.

  ÁguaViva! Hydrate with Elegance!

  Pictures of slim, happy people jogging and a glistening mountain spring that makes my soul yearn to be in the picture.

  The sight of the pamphlets hits me like radiation. That is to say, I feel the sudden blast of this terrible truth, yet I know the full ramification of it hasn’t settled in yet. But it will. I think to the empty jugs in the bug-out. Then flash to the people behind the football field fence so desperate for water that they would sell their souls for a thimbleful. And then I flash to the rush Henry was in when he traded the box to get the truck keys back. How he wanted to get away as quickly as we could. Before that soldier opened the box. And I realize that this is not just a tragic mistake. Henry knew. He knew all along. Which is why I’m not entirely surprised when Garrett says:

  “Henry’s gone!”

  33) Henry

  In life, one should always have an exit strategy for any given situation. I’ve always known this—lived by it, even—but in this particular instance, I was caught woefully off guard. It never occurred to me that the bug-out would be a nonstarter. Because as much as I dislike Psycho-Ginger, I believed he had our backs. Serves me right for letting my guard down.

  In a perfect world, no one would ever have opened that box. It would have been like Schrödinger’s infamous cat. As long as the box stayed closed, there might actually have been water in there. At least as far as the others were concerned. And who’s to say if their reality was any less real than mine?

  But when the box was opened, that all became moot. If I had my wits about me, I would have slipped out and taken off with the truck the moment I realized there was no water in the bug-out. I should have abandoned any and all hope of being this ill-fated group’s glorious savior, cut my losses, and bailed. But I hesitated. And that hesitation cost me everything.

  So now I’m left to stumble through the woods, no vehicle, thirsty beyond belief. I remember the way we came. I know how far it is back to civilization, if you could even call it civilization anymore. My plan is simple. I will make my way back to Charity and her freeway commune. I will make myself an indispensable part of her little collective, and I will receive enough water to survive. It will be a long, difficult trip, and although I have doubts as to whether or not I can make it, I have to try. It’s all a matter of risk tolerance, and in this volatile world, what other choice do I have?

  But before I even get back to the road, I’m tackled to the ground. My first thought is that it’s a bear—but then I realize it’s much worse.

  34) Kelton

  People trying to escape don’t act in the smartest of ways. For example: Henry Not-Roycroft. He took a direct path away from the truck—straight up the slope of the wash. But to get back to the road, he’d have to turn right once he reached the crest of the little ridge—so, just like in hunting a small-brained quadruped, I triangulated his course and ran the hypotenuse.

  I scrape my knuckles on a rock pretty badly as I’m taking him down, but the pain is a good kind of pain. It helps me to focus my anger where it belongs.

  Now I’ve got him pinned with my knee on his xiphoid, making it hard for him to breathe, much less move. Quickly I clamp my right thumb and forefinger around his windpipe. I’ve seen this in demonstration videos, so I know the theoreticals, but in practice it’s different than I imagined. The windpipe doesn’t stay put. It shifts and slides around. It takes a moment until I’m sure I have it. I know because I can’t hear him breathing. With all
the air pushed out of him with my knee, it will only take about ten seconds to render him unconscious. Twenty seconds to give him brain damage. Thirty seconds to kill him. My fight function is now engaged. That, combined with my rage and my thirst, leaves me uncertain of which of the three outcomes I want.

  “Kelton, enough!”

  I snap out of it at the sound of Alyssa’s voice and release Henry’s throat, grateful that she was there to make the right decision for me, because I know I might not have. Henry gasps and coughs and gasps again. There’s no fight or even flight left in him now. He’s little more than a rag doll on the ground, just as he was when I dislocated his shoulder.

  “Call off your goddamn pit bull!” he rasps.

  “It’s okay, Kelton,” Alyssa says. “He’s not going anywhere.”

  And so I let him go. Not because I want to, but because the orders Alyssa is giving me now are the first things she’s said to me all day.

  By now, Garrett and Jacqui have arrived. And it looks like I’m not the only one harboring homicidal intentions, because Jacqui pulls out my gun and aims it point-blank at Henry’s forehead.

  “I will be solving so many problems if I pull this trigger,” she growls.

  “Stop it!” demands Alyssa. “Killing him won’t solve anything!”

  “All right, maybe not, but it’ll feel really good.”

  “Put that away!” Alyssa yells, but Jacqui is not following anyone’s commands, least of all Alyssa’s.

  And then Henry begins to grovel for his life. “Please,” he whimpers. “I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry for everything. . . .”

  “The only thing you’re sorry for is being caught,” says Jacqui, which is probably true.

  And then Garrett, feeling this betrayal more deeply than anyone, says, “Do it! Do it, Jacqui!”

  Alyssa reels at that, horrified. “Garrett!”

  “Do it! He deserves it! He lied to us! He tricked us! He pretended to be our friend!”

  As I recall, Garrett had also wanted me to pull the trigger on the blond water-zombie at the beach.

  Now a stain spreads across Henry’s crotch. He’s wet himself. Not much of a stain—he doesn’t have much water in him. I have no sympathy. Maybe I will if Jacqui shoots him. Right now, not so much.

  Jacqui looks at Garrett, almost as surprised by his outburst as Alyssa is. Then she ejects the magazine and fires the bullet that’s already in the chamber into the sky. It echoes back and forth between the mountains around us.

  “What is wrong with you?” Alyssa yells.

  “If I didn’t shoot it in the sky, it would be in his skull right now,” Jacqui says.

  “More likely the ground right behind his skull,” I point out, being that it’s such close range.

  Jacqui storms off, and Alyssa burns Garrett a glare. “Go with her. Make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid.”

  “Like I could stop her.”

  Alyssa holds her brother’s gaze, and I know what she’s thinking. Are you broken, Garrett? Has all of this broken you worse than it’s broken the rest of us? And if the gun was in your hands, would Henry be dead now?

  “Just go,” she says.

  Now it’s just me, Alyssa, and Henry. He’s recovered enough to make a run for it, but he doesn’t even try because he knows I’ll just take him down again, and he’s deathly afraid of me. Funny, but no one has ever actually thought of me as a legitimate threat before. No one’s ever called me a pit bull. Mostly, kids like Henry have either ignored me or seen me as a joke. But now I’m Kelton the Intimidator. If I survive this, I’ll have a shirt made.

  “I just want to know why,” Alyssa says.

  Henry can’t look at her. Good. He doesn’t deserve to look at her anymore.

  “If I didn’t have something to offer, you would have just left me there in Dove Canyon to die along with everyone else!”

  “So you lied.”

  “I never said there was water in that box. You just assumed.”

  Alyssa looks like she might kick him. That look is sweet revenge. Almost as good as if she actually did kick him. But since she doesn’t, I do a little bit of my own tormenting.

  “If we change our minds, there’s a shovel back in the bug-out,” I say. “And the ground here on the ridge is soft enough to dig a grave. . . .”

  “I’ll make it up to you!” Henry pleads. “All of you. I promise.”

  “Just shut up, Henry,” Alyssa says. “Or I swear I’ll get that shovel myself.”

  35) Alyssa

  Henry may have killed us all.

  I don’t want that thought in my head. I want to focus on the solution, not the problem. But the thought keeps worming back in, undermining every attempt to rout it out. I think of all the things we might have done differently if we knew there was no water in that box—including leaving Henry in his fancy air-conditioned house. But who am I kidding? If I knew he had no water left, and he wanted to come with us, I would have fought to bring him with us.

  But had we known, maybe we would have made a real back-up plan. Now we have nothing. Nothing but despair and that singular nagging thought: Henry may have killed us all.

  We take him back to the bug-out with us—because if we just let him go, he’ll probably die before he gets out of the woods, and I don’t want that on my conscience. Jacqui insists on binding his hands so he can’t do much of anything—and so he won’t forget he is now under house arrest. I don’t argue with her because maybe it’s the right move. I trusted Henry and look where it got us. Even Kelton agrees that it’s better having him under our watchful eyes than out there where we can’t see what he’s up to. From this moment on, the best policy is suspicion on all fronts.

  In the bug-out we strategize our next move. Garrett is despondent, just slumped in a corner. “I’m conserving energy,” he says. “Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? Conserve energy?”

  “We have enough gas to get back to the freeway,” I tell everyone. “We’ll find Charity, let her know what happened. She’ll help us.”

  “If she hasn’t been taken out by marauders,” says Jacqui—a ray of light, as always.

  “I have a better idea,” says Kelton. Then he searches through a few drawers, until coming up with a map. He spreads it out on the small kitchen table.

  “We’re here,” he says, pointing. “And Charity’s there—about thirty miles away. But look at this.” He brings his finger to a long, Y-shaped lake west of us. “The San Gabriel Reservoir.”

  Jacqui scoffs at it. “Haven’t you heard? The reservoirs are all dry. That’s what you get for looking at an old paper map.”

  “Yes,” says Kelton. “The Cogswell and Morris Reservoirs are gone—but the lake behind the San Gabriel Dam is maintained for firefighting aircraft. I’m sure of it.”

  “How can you be sure about anything?” Jacqui snorts.

  “Because it’s why my father chose this spot for the bug-out. It will be way down from its usual level—but there’ll still be some water there.”

  By checking the distances on the map, I can tell it’s just ten miles west of us—much closer than going back to Charity.

  “We’ll have to go totally off-road for a while. We can cross this ridge here,” Kelton says, dragging his finger along the paper, “and pick up East Fork Road here. That will wind to the lake.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” says Henry from his spot in the corner. Jacqui kicks him—not hard enough to hurt him, but just enough to make it clear his input is not welcome anymore.

  “Are we all game for this?” Kelton asks.

  The answer is no, but no one admits that. Because if we want to live, it’s the best choice we have.

  There are a few backpacks and drawstring bags around the bug-out. I gather them up and hand them out. “Let’s look around and grab things we might need—but don’t weigh yourselves down.”

  I’m about to hand one to Henry, but he holds up his bound hands and shrugs. If I want him to participate, I’ll need to cut him loos
e. So I don’t give him a bag.

  Then Jacqui does something I’d never expect her to. She gives Kelton back his gun.

  “Here, take it,” she says. “I don’t want it in my belt anymore; it’s giving me a rash.” Then she glances over at Henry. “Besides, I don’t trust myself with it, considering our current company.”

  Kelton takes the gun back, surprised by the offer. “So you trust me now?”

  “Absolutely not,” Jacqui says. “But at least if you do something stupid, it will be your problem, not mine.”

  Jacqui herself is a loaded gun with a hair trigger—and the fact that she, in this moment, is able to recognize that, makes her seem slightly less mental. Maybe even trustworthy.

  I open the pantry, trying to see if there’s anything other than the dry ramen cups. Nothing, but that doesn’t mean we won’t find something lying around.

  “We should probably eat anything we find that’s actually edible,” I tell the others. “We’ll need the energy.” I pick up the spoon with dried peanut butter, hold it out to Garrett, and he gives me a look of profound disgust. “Beggars can’t be choosers,” I tell him.

  “Obviously you’ve never met the beggars in Laguna Beach,” Jacqui says. “I happen to know several of them.” And then she starts to mimic them in various different voices. “ ‘Hey, lady, this sandwich has a bite taken out of it!’ ‘Excuse me, but is this bread gluten-free?’ ‘Just a dollar, dude? Maybe you could send me a little more on Venmo.’ ”

  It sets me off giggling, which gets everyone else laughing. And it occurs to me that even in these do-or-die moments, there’s still space for us to laugh. I guess that means we still have some fight left in us.

  36) Kelton

  There is absolutely no reason for me to take comic books with me. They will take up space, and I’m definitely not going to be reading them. But there they are on the floor of the second bedroom. The room that was supposed to be for me and Brady if our family ever had to use the bug-out. As I lean over to pick them up, I can smell his sheets. Sour. There’s no air-conditioning in the bug-out—just a fan, powered off the same miniature solar grid that powers the lights. The fan probably drains the battery halfway through the night.