Evergreen

by Cox, Matthew S.

  “Sure.” Harper stared down and resumed walking.

  Dad always made jokes about having a pretty daughter and shooting boys who didn’t bring her home on time. This kid Gerald she’d dated sophomore year made a remark that she was ‘epically cute’ more than hot. Of course, Introvert Prime had a universal reaction to any sort of compliment: blushing.

  Madison and Lorelei—mostly Lorelei—chatted the whole way back to the house. Tyler walked beside Harper. For the most part, he looked at houses or trees, sometimes sighing. He seemed worried, but not in a guilty way. She didn’t think he’d done something and feared being caught. Perhaps he’d survived violence and hadn’t quite accepted his demons wouldn’t find him here.

  The sight of smoke coming out of the chimney at the house worried Harper up to a run. She dashed the last forty feet to the door and barged in to a somewhat-warmer-than-outside room saturated with the fragrance of wood smoke.

  Jonathan smiled up at her from where he knelt in front of the fireplace. “Hey.”

  Cliff didn’t appear to be anywhere nearby. She opened her mouth to yell at him for starting a fire while home alone… or being home alone at ten, but stalled. Did people in the 1800s lose their minds having a kid his age alone? She decided to skip the pointless argument. Admittedly, Jonathan was far more responsible with fire than any boy his age had a right to be. Probably not. We all have to grow up fast.

  Madison rushed in and hopped on the couch. Lorelei invited herself along, scampering up beside her. When her sister smiled, Harper had to turn away so they didn’t catch her getting teary-eyed.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Tyler, stepping inside.

  She nodded toward the kitchen and shut the front door. “Should probably figure out what we’re eating tonight.”

  Tyler followed, leaning on the dead fridge while she rummaged cabinets, sorting among canned goods.

  “My sister doesn’t make friends too easy. It just hit me in the feels that she’s getting along with Lorelei so quick.” She sighed at a giant can of lima beans and put it back in the cabinet. No, we’re not that desperate yet. Oh, who am I kidding? We are, but not tonight.

  He smiled. “Yeah. They look happy.” Awkwardness fell over them for a moment. “Uhh, sorry. Never was really good at random conversation.”

  “So, how was your day at work? Not too bad. Killed a couple of guys trying to kidnap me, had some creep lick my ear. We looted a Walmart. Now I’m just gonna cook dinner.”

  “Ouch. Yeah, Lori’s real outgoing. You’d never think the poor kid almost starved to death. Still hasn’t said anything about her parents or how she wound up alone out there. At least she seems happy here.”

  “You aren’t?”

  “Are you?”

  Harper shrugged one shoulder and selected three identical cans of mini-potatoes. “I’d rather be at the house I grew up in with my parents still alive, but, I can’t, and they’re not, so yeah. This place is okay.” She grabbed the pan she’d used yesterday off the stove and set it down on the counter a little too hard.

  “Sorry.”

  “What for?”

  “Upsetting you.”

  “I’m not upset.” She peered back at him, throwing red curls over her shoulder with a sharp head motion. “I just killed a couple of dudes today who tried to kidnap and rape me. Came home, found my sister missing. I’m pretty damn calm, all things considered.”

  “Maybe I should go. I’m upsetting you more. Maybe I should just keep going.”

  Harper leaned on the counter, head down, and sighed. “Sorry. Not your fault. I hate that I had to do that. It doesn’t feel real sometimes, yanno? I used to be the kid who’d catch bugs and carry them outside and get upset if my father stepped on one. And, you should stay here. It’s safe here. Out there, it’s like chaos.”

  “It can’t be that bad everywhere. I’d like to explore places, check out all the stuff I could never see or do before. Like rich people’s houses. Big boats, fancy cars. Go into all the places at like airports where they never let people go. See what’s inside a hospital’s operating room or a secret government base.”

  She attacked the potato cans with an opener. “Heh. You know most cars don’t work anymore, right?”

  “Depends on how electronic they are and if EMP got them. I saw a few working ones on my way here. Older cars aren’t affected. Like classics with carburetors and stuff.”

  Harper dumped a bunch of egg-sized potatoes into the pot along with the cloudy water they’d been packed in. “Gonna run out of gasoline at some point.”

  “You’re not tempted to do stuff you’d have gotten in trouble for doing before? I want to go to a big city and check out the corporate offices, the big computer rooms. Mansions, that stuff. Drive on the wrong side of the road. Talk in a library!” He laughed.

  “Nah. Not me. All I want to do is keep Maddie and Jonathan safe.”

  “What about keeping you safe?”

  She smiled. “That’s implied. I can’t protect them if I’m not alive. And it sounds like you’re just restless. It’s much safer here.”

  “Safer…” He stared off into space.

  “Yeah. Safer.” Harper dumped the second can into the pot. “Fallout, crazies, bad stuff going on out there.”

  He crossed the kitchen to stand beside her. “You don’t sound like a badass militia soldier.”

  “Hah.” She added the last can to the pot. “Probably because I’m not.” She set the empty can down and stared at it for a few seconds, lost in thought. “I haven’t told anyone this yet, but I’ve been thinking I don’t really belong on the militia. I’m still a kid. I don’t know how to fight, just have a shotgun.”

  “Not many kids know their way around shotguns.”

  “My dad got me into competition shooting when I was like eleven. By thirteen, I’d won a couple trophies. Even kinda got YouTube famous among the gun crowd. You know, check out this bad ass little girl on the timed course. She’s only twelve but she’s scoring better than men three times her age. That sorta BS.”

  “Nice.”

  “Nice is shooting clay pigeons or water jugs. People, not so much.” She looked into the cabinet for something to have with the potatoes and wound up staring in horrified awe at ‘canned meatloaf.’ “Ugh. Seriously? Who thought that was a good idea?”

  “Speaking of shooting things…”

  She laughed until tears ran down her face. What he’d said hadn’t been that funny at all, but she couldn’t stop. Maybe the tension finally snapped. Or the premise of meatloaf in a can had been one last scrap of wrongness on top of ‘the world is broken’ that her brain couldn’t process it.

  “I didn’t think it was that funny.”

  “It’s not.” She wiped her eyes. “I don’t know why I’m laughing. But, maybe the idea of me being on the militia is just that ridiculous. As ridiculous as meatloaf in a damn can.”

  Tyler leaned on the counter. “Stuff’s different. We gotta grow up now.”

  “Yeah. Grow up…” She glanced sideways at him, wondering if he’d try to put an arm around her—and not sure if she’d mind. “I used to get mad when Starbucks ran out of the skinny Mocha stuff.”

  “Totally!” shouted Madison from the living room. “She used to whine for hours whenever they ran out.”

  Harper blushed. How much did she hear?

  “Heh. I used to hate it when some news story cut into my favorite show.” Tyler grinned. “Totally freaked me out. Broke my routine and stuff.”

  “Might want to stand back. I’m gonna open this atrocity.” She attached the can opener to the meatloaf. “I used to love getting pizza on Fridays.”

  “Used to get angry at the way I’d get caught at every damn red light on the way home from work.” Tyler made the sign of the cross at the can.

  The smell that emerged when she punctured the lid worried her because it smelled appetizing. Canned meatloaf should be the exact opposite of appealing. “I used to hate homework.”

  “
I still hate homework,” said Madison from the doorway.

  “You don’t have homework now.” Harper smiled back at her.

  “What’s homework?” chirped Lorelei beside her. She’d taken her shoes off, and had removed her puffy winter coat. The girl looked too damn thin to be a real person. Deep grooves outlined her collarbones where her pink dress didn’t cover. Still, she grinned at everyone.

  “It’s school stuff you do at home.” Madison muttered ‘duh’ and rolled her eyes.

  “Oh.” Lorelei giggled.

  Harper upended the canned meatloaf over a pot. A perfectly cylindrical slug of ‘meat like substance’ emerged with a long slurp and fell with a plop. She repeated the process with a second can. “You can probably eat this, Maddie. I don’t think it counts as meat.”

  “Bleh.” Madison stuck her tongue out. “It’s probably all the scraps they can’t use for anything else and a bunch of chemicals to make it taste like beef.”

  “There are probably enough preservatives in that to add five years to our lives.” Tyler grinned.

  “Fireplaces used to be decorative.” Harper picked up both pans and carried them into the living room. She set them on the oven rack over the fire, then backed off to remove her winter coat, which she tossed on the recliner before kneeling to worry at the embers with the poker.

  Madison and Jonathan decided to show Lorelei some dance moves.

  Tyler took a seat on the sofa. He fidgeted, right leg bouncing while looking around. His unsettled energy made him seem like he desperately waited for the right moment where he could leap up and run away without being noticed.

  “I used to take dance classes,” said Madison.

  “I used to complain about having to drive you there.” Harper sighed. “I’m sorry.”

  “I used to have parents,” said Lorelei in an entirely wrong, happy tone.

  Everyone stared at her.

  Madison let go of her foot, which had almost been touching the back of her head, and lowered it gradually to the floor. “Yeah. Ours died too.”

  Lorelei attempted to mimic lifting her foot up behind her head, and fell over. She bounced on her butt, landed flat on her back, and burst into giggles.

  The front door opened. Harper jumped, grabbing for the shotgun on the floor beside her. Cliff walked in before she could pick it up. She melted into a puddle of nerves, freaked out that a simple door opening had scared the crap out of her so bad. Cliff stopped two steps into the living room and locked stares with Tyler.

  “Hey,” rasped Harper. “What’s up?”

  Cliff walked over to her, holding up a bundle wrapped in paper. “Got some venison.”

  She stood. “Okay.”

  “I can get it. You’ve had a heck of a day so I hear.”

  Her lip quivered. “Yeah. Bit.”

  “C’mere.” He held his arms out.

  She leaned into a much-needed hug, surprising herself by not crying. Merely holding onto him comforted her in a way that reminded her of Dad. Over the next hour or so, she quietly told him about the Walmart raid while he cooked the venison. Going over it in a safe place brought on some twinges of nausea and anger. He thought she did right by not shooting that one guy who only looked at her, even if he did wind up grabbing her later.

  Soon, everyone crowded around the dining room table for a feast of fresh grilled venison, canned potatoes, and questionable meat from a can. Cliff continued to discuss the Walmart raid, suggesting he start teaching Harper some hand-to-hand techniques. In the back of her mind, she resisted the idea, still half tempted to give up the shotgun and maybe help Violet out at the school. If it didn’t feel so much like failing Dad all over again, she would’ve done it already. Unable to make a firm decision, she nodded at him and kept eating.

  Lorelei ate daintily, as befitting her appearance. Despite taking tiny bites, she seemed intent on finishing her entire portion.

  A moment of tension settled over the table when everyone stopped speaking at once. Cliff stared at Tyler with an odd note of hostility or distrust hanging between them. Harper glanced from one to the other, the kids oblivious to the bad energy. The last time she’d seen that look on Cliff, he’d been staring at her while she sat handcuffed to a chair in the mall and tried to lie her way out. Fortunately, she’d been so terrified she cracked in under a minute and wound up sobbing.

  Oh, he’s doing the dad thing. Thinks Tyler’s trying to get in my pants.

  “Never had venison before,” said Harper, a little bit too cheery. “It’s good.”

  “You’re eating Bambi.” Madison frowned. She’d tolerated some of the canned gunk but had no interest in the fresh meat.

  “Bambi tastes good,” chirped Lorelei.

  Cliff wiped a hand down his face, laughing. “Okay, that’s wrong.”

  “Yeah, this is really good.” Tyler nodded.

  “So, what’s your story?” asked Cliff, again staring challenge at him.

  “Not much to say really,” replied Tyler, gaze locked on his plate. “I lived with a couple roommates. Didn’t get along with my parents at all. No idea if any of my family’s left. Can’t say I really care to find out.”

  “Bad blood?”

  “You can say that, yeah.”

  “Gay?” Cliff ate a whole mini-potato in one bite. “Nothing wrong with that, just curious.”

  Harper stared at him, trying to say ‘really?’ with her eyes.

  Tyler sputtered. “Umm, no.”

  “You work?”

  Harper blushed and looked down. He’s totally doing the dad thing. Crap. We’re not dating.

  “No. I mean, I kinda lost my job when the nukes fell.” Tyler let off a feeble laugh. “Before, yeah. Worked at Walmart.”

  Madison finally ate a little of the canned meatloaf, but made a horrible face at it.

  Cliff watched Tyler like a gunslinger about to throw down. Any minute now, he’d either shoot the kid, throw him out, or do something embarrassing.

  I’m not even thinking of… She glanced sideways at Tyler. Okay, he was kinda cute in the ‘weird outcast’ sort of way. And he had a soft spot for kids, taking Lorelei in. He sounded reasonably smart. Not like Evergreen had much of a teen population. From what she’d seen so far, just her and Tyler. The oldest kids at the school all looked around fifteen or so. Not that Harper felt any need to have a boyfriend, but if it happened, she’d prefer someone close in age rather than being assigned to an adult man. But, she had far too much on her mind to even contemplate romance. Dead parents, broken little sister, people shooting at her for going shopping at Walmart, worry over her inadequacy as a soldier. Yeah, kissing boys had fallen quite far down her list of stuff to do.

  Technically, nineteen is an adult. She smirked to herself. Speaking of used-tos. I used to be jail bait.

  This, of course, brought on the mortifying thought that things like birth control, condoms, tampons, pads, and such would be damn hard to find fairly soon if not already. Her cheeks burned hot with blush. Maybe she would volunteer to go on another scavenging trip for looter’s privilege. Her little stash of razors wouldn’t last long before shaving her legs with steak knives would seem like a less painful idea.

  Naturally, Cliff misinterpreted the blush wrong based on the scowl he shot at Tyler. No way could Harper admit to freaking out about feminine products going extinct in front of everyone. Hell, she probably couldn’t tell Cliff that even in private. No slight on him, though. That conversation she couldn’t have had with her actual father either. Maybe she’d visit Carrie later and ask her for advice.

  Cliff sliced off a strip of his venison and transferred it to Madison’s plate. “I agree. That brown goop is nasty. And I’ve eaten bugs.”

  She made a sour face at it, a worse face at the canned meatloaf, then tentatively cut off a piece. “I used to be a vegetarian.”

  Jonathan laughed. Cliff smiled. Harper stared apologies at her sister. Lorelei made silly faces at everyone. Tyler kept his attention on his plate, but snuck a feeb
le smile at Harper. She couldn’t tell if Madison’s quip amused him or he tried to send her a message. Though she wanted to crawl under the table and hide, she didn’t.

  I used to be socially awkward. Nope, wait. Still am.

  26

  Rain

  A strange sound intruded upon Harper’s dream, pulling her away from a slumber party at Christina’s to her stolen house in Evergreen.

  She and Madison clung to each other under the heavy layers of blankets and comforters, both in the new nightgowns she’d grabbed at Walmart. Given the infrequency—or potential impossibility—of washing laundry, it couldn’t be smart to sleep in her clothes. On some days, she used to go through three complete outfits. Having only a sheer nightgown on while sharing a bed embarrassed her at first, but Madison didn’t seem to care at all. Better a little blushing than either of them contracting an infection that doctors might not be able to treat.

  There had to be some way to wash clothes. Laundry detergent and washing machines hadn’t been around for the entirety of human history after all. A mental image of cavemen pouring detergent into a cap and running a machine made her snicker. Madison grunted and snuggled closer, rolling on her side with one knee across Harper’s legs. The inflexible presence of a nonworking iPhone pressed into her side, compressed between them.

  Her little sister had cried over the plush rabbit, even if its newness had given it away as not her bunny. She’d fallen asleep hugging it (and the iPhone) to her chest like a girl half her age.

  This bed is going to get kinda cozy when she’s older. Harper yawned and spent a while wondering how her sister would handle it if ever she did the boyfriend thing and moved in with someone. At that moment, she didn’t have much of an urge to. She could be happy staying here with the only family she had left. Who cared if people thought it bizarre for a pair of grown women to sleep in the same bed? They were sisters. Not like anything icky would happen. Some people might think Madison’s degree of clinginess to be a bit creepy ten years down the road, but maybe she’d grow out of it. Not much time had passed since she witnessed her parents’ death. And if they grew older and turned into the creepy, ‘sisters on the hill’ from some bizarre redneck horror movie, so be it.