“What’s she saying?” said Max.
“She said she’s from Spain. She’s here on vacation.”
Max couldn’t help but chuckling. It was all the tension breaking. “Hell of a vacation,” he said.
“She also says her husband has an injured arm.”
“Is he OK? Ask her what’s going on with it.”
“I’m forgetting a lot of words,” muttered Mandy. “But I’ll try.”
“No one’s grading you,” said Max.
“Yeah, but a man’s life might depend on what I can and can’t say.”
Mandy spoke again, and again Max understood nothing of the response.
“She says that his arm got cut, and that he has a bad infection,” translated Mandy. “At least that’s what I think.”
“She needs antibiotics,” said Max.
“Don’t we have some?”
“Yeah,” said Max. “But honestly we can’t spare them. He’s going to need a long course of them. We don’t even have enough for that. And if we did, we couldn’t give them away to some stranger.”
“I know,” said Mandy. “What should I tell her?”
Max looked at the woman. Even though he didn’t understand the language she was speaking, he could see clearly in her face now the desperation. She wanted to help her husband. If he didn’t get treatment, he’d surely die.
This shouldn’t have happened. None of this should have happened.
“Tell her we don’t have any,” said Max. “And you and I will find a spot on the map that might have a pharmacy. Some little town that might not have been raided yet. That’s the best we can do.”
Mandy nodded. She began speaking again, explaining to the woman the plan.
The woman began speaking rapidly, visibly growing more upset. “Pero no vamos a encontrar nada de nada. Todo esta bien jodido. No hay nada de nada. Va a morir. No puedes hacer nada?”
“She says it won’t work,” said Mandy.
Max had a feeling that that wasn’t all she’d said.
“Then tell her we’re sorry,” said Max. “We’ve got to get going.”
They left the woman and her husband, walking back towards their truck. There was nothing they could do.
“I’ve never felt so hopeless,” said Mandy.
“I know what you mean,” said Max. “But never? We’ve been in equally bad situations ourselves.”
“Yeah,” said Mandy. “But we always get out of them. Probably because of you and Georgia. That woman isn’t going to make it, and neither is her husband. They just don’t have the… instinct I guess.”
“You never know,” said Max. “She could make it.”
“Maybe, I guess. But her husband won’t.”
“No,” said Max. “Probably not.”
“Don’t you feel bad about not saving his life?”
“Yeah,” said Max. “I do.”
“So what are we doing? I mean if we really wanted to, we could take them back to camp, get the guy fixed up. There’s enough medicine there. But we’re not. We’re choosing to let him die. And yet at the same time we’re risking our own lives to go save some kid in a different state. It doesn’t make sense.”
“No,” said Max, quietly. “But nothing makes sense now. That’s just the way it is.”
They got back into the pickup truck and watched the minivan back up, do a three point turn, and drive off back the way it had come.
“Looks like my language skills really came in handy,” said Mandy, sarcastically.
Max dug the keys out from where they were wedged between the seat cushions, put the clutch in, and cranked the engine.
10
Dan had lain on the floor for close to half an hour, hoping against hope that they hadn’t heard him.
In the end, nothing had happened. The next time he’d dared to peer out the window, they’d been gone.
Who were those men? What had they wanted?
Something was changing in the neighborhood.
Who had that man been that had attacked him seemingly for no reason in the garage?
Dan had to get out of there. He had to leave.
He couldn’t wait for Max.
He probably wasn’t coming, anyway. He was nothing but a disembodied voice on the radio.
Dan had to remember that. He needed to remember that he couldn’t rely on others. He needed to look out for himself.
He knew that now. That he was the only one who could keep himself alive. He alone was responsible.
His grandfather was dead. Not that he’d been well enough to help Dan anyway.
The emotion of his grandfather’s death had been stifled by the events of the day, by the panic that Dan had felt.
Well, he’d need to keep it stifled for a while longer. There was no time for grief. Not now.
Dan needed to be purely practical.
But still the thought of leaving his grandfather’s body there in the house, probably to rot, was not appealing in the least bit. He’d been planning to bury him. That would never happen.
Dan bit his lower lip in frustration, squeezing his fists hard, his nails digging into his palms, leaving marks.
He’d had a getaway bag packed for some time now. Dan grabbed it from where it’d been resting on the kitchen floor. It was full of everything he’d thought would be useful. Unfortunately, aside from food, there hadn’t been a lot to choose from.
He’d packed all the food he thought he could carry. Most of it was canned, and it weighed a lot. The good thing was that the canned foods were heavy on water, meaning he could get his daily water requirements that way. He had two large soda bottles filled with water, one bottle of soda, and the couple cans of tuna fish that were still left in the pantry.
He had the kitchen knife with him, and he’d packed two smaller kitchen knives, a fork and a spoon.
For medical supplies, he didn’t have much. Just a couple bandages, some aspirin, some baking soda. The baking soda was an old trick his grandmother had taught him. She’d always told him it’d help with nearly everything from an upset stomach to headaches. Dan wasn’t so sure that it really helped with anything, and he’d packed it more as a reminder of his grandmother than anything else.
Originally, he’d packed some photographs of his family. But he’d taken these out, telling himself he couldn’t spare the weight. And he’d been right.
When he went to shoulder the pack now, he realized it was still far too heavy for him. When he’d packed it two weeks ago, he hadn’t been as exhausted as he was now. He hadn’t gone days without sleeping, and he hadn’t just been attacked and nearly killed.
Quickly, almost in a frenzy, he zipped open the large schoolbag and started tossing items onto the kitchen floor.
He wasn’t going to get very far if he couldn’t walk, let alone run, because he was weighed down by his backpack.
The baking soda was the first to go. Then some of the canned soups. He didn’t bother looking at them, or deciding which ones he liked more than the others. It was purely a matter of weight.
With finality, he zipped up the bag again, shouldered it, and grabbed the large kitchen knife.
Dan had a tear in his eye when he made the decision not to go upstairs to say goodbye to his grandfather. His grandfather would want Dan to live, to get out of there as fast as possible. At least, that was what Dan told himself. It made it easier.
He walked out the front door for what he knew would be the last time.
Clouds obscured the moon, rolling past swiftly. The street seemed once again dark. It was that darkness that Dan had never experienced before, with the absence of the streetlights and light pollution creating a type of night that not many had lived through.
Dan kept in the shadows of the sidewalk, where the trees were tall. The leaves from the fall had never been raked up, and they drifted here and there, propelled by the gusts of wind.