“Think I can trade this for something?” she asks, rubbing her shaved head.
“Well, I don’t think you’ll be using it,” I say, grinning. “Hey, let’s stay away from the house. There might be a well back here.”
“Hell no,” Brenna says, walking up on the porch. “Let’s see what else is inside.”
“Brenna, I’m telling you, the place could be—”
Quick as a flash, a figure shoots out the door. Before Brenna can move, the attacker has her by the neck and holds up a rusty kitchen knife. It’s a woman, thin, with dark rings under her eyes.
“Occupied,” she whispers hoarsely. She’s so filthy, it’s impossible to tell her age, but she looks at least as old as my mother. Her hair is plaited in two greasy gray braids.
Brenna yells in frustration and struggles to free herself. The woman holds the knife closer to her neck.
“Be quiet, girl!” she shrieks between clenched teeth. “Do you want those things to come? I have nothing to lose by killing you.”
“Except that I’ll kill you,” I say, purposefully loud. The volume puts her on edge.
The woman narrows her eyes and looks at me.
“How?” she sneers.
“It will take me exactly one second to take out my gun.” I lay my hand on it at my side.
The woman grits her teeth but holds tightly to Brenna. “What do you want?”
“Water,” I say. “That’s it.”
She looks at me warily.
“I’ll stay right here with your friend while you get it,” she says. “And don’t think about going inside. My man’ll kill you in a second.”
“Well, she’ll kick his ass,” Brenna says. “I’ve seen her level dudes bigger than whoever you’ve got back there.”
The woman looks at me again. I notice that her hand is shaking. She’s terrified of us, that we’ll bring the Floraes.
I nod and slowly make my way around the house. The well, like she said, is easy to spot. When I look inside, the water is murky but filterable. “Found it!” I yell.
There’s a grunt from the front of the house. When I look in the direction of the noise, I let out a small breath. The entire back of the house has been burned away. There’s no way anyone could be inside.
“It’s just gonna take another minute,” I call, then silently make my way to the house. Without taking the time to look around, I walk through to the front and rush through the door, grabbing the woman’s arm and yanking the knife away from Brenna’s neck.
The woman doesn’t scream as she tears at me. She’s survived this long by being quiet. But within a second, Brenna has her pinned to the floor. To my surprise, she doesn’t struggle at all. She just lies there, limp, on the rotting porch. Up close her face is red and cracked, her nose permanently red, as if she’s been crying for years.
I check the front windows to make sure there’s no one lurking around. Through one of the downstairs windows, I can see one room that survived the fire. Purple walls and what looks like a poster of a teen star from Before. I can’t help but smile when I realize who it is—Kay, holding a microphone, her eyes shut, her short hair streaked with blue and her body wrapped in a spangled leotard. It’s hard to think of the Kay I know as the same person as this clichéd teen superstar. My eyes dart around the rest of the room. It’s mostly trashed, but I can make out some other items. A broken princess mirror, a canopy bed on its side.
A girl must have lived here, Before.
I return to the front. “There’s no one there. Nothing inside really.”
“Go ahead and kill me,” she says, as loud as I’ve heard her speak yet. “I don’t care anymore.” She stares at us pathetically.
“Why would I kill you?” Brenna asks. “It was just, you know, a misunderstanding.”
The woman turns her empty gaze to the sky.
“Everyone kills everything,” she whispers. I look at Brenna, whose face is carved into a deep frown.
“This your house?” Brenna asks.
The woman nods.
“Kids?”
“Not anymore.” She closes her eyes. “We used to be three, and now I’m one,” she says flatly.
We stare at her, unable to respond to her sadness.
“My husband was bitten, infected. He killed our girl. Ate her. Now I hide in the cellar to keep him from killing me when he wanders back.”
She sits up and wipes her face angrily. “Take as much water as you want. I don’t care. I’m surprised the creatures aren’t here already, with how much of a racket you all are making.”
“Go back to the cellar,” I say. “We’ll leave soon, and you’ll be safe from the Floraes.”
Brenna holds out the pink brush to the lady. “I guess this is yours.”
The woman looks at it. “Keep it.” She turns and walks into the shell of her house.
“Wait!” I call to her, but she hurries into the house and disappears, though I see her peeking through a burned-out window frame. I leave the woman as many protein bars as I can spare on her front steps. “These are for you . . . for the water,” I call out to her.
She pokes her head out of the door. “What’s wrong with them?” she asks suspiciously.
“Nothing. . . . Please, take them,” I tell her.
She bends down and gathers them up in her arms. “Thank you,” she says hesitantly. “I forgot . . . you know. That people can be kind.” She backs away and ducks inside.
I stare after her for a while, sad, but Brenna calls to me and breaks my trance. We stay just long enough to fill up our water bottles. Then, after bleakly surveying the ruined landscape, we get on our bikes and slowly ride away.
I’m quiet for a long time. Brenna, seeming to sense my mood, doesn’t bother to talk until we’re a few miles away.
“She’s been out there a while,” Brenna says. “It’s hard to remember, isn’t it? That Florae are people. We’re so glad when they die, but those are ex-humans that get blown away.”
I don’t say anything. Actually, it isn’t that hard for me to remember. Because my mother started it all. Because I was forced to kill a Florae that used to be a friend.
And this is what Jacks doesn’t understand. Or Rice. Or anyone, really. I don’t have the luxury of starting a life in Fort Black. Or New Hope. Or anywhere. We used to be three, that woman said. Families have been torn apart because of what my mother did. I owe it to them to try to stop the cycle—to stop whatever Dr. Reynolds is pulling now.
But first thing’s first. I have my own family to think about. And Brenna’s helping me get closer.
“Hey, there it is,” Brenna says, pointing to an old strip mall next to the abandoned highway. “That’s where the mechanic’s shop is. . . . Dwayne said there were plenty of gassed-up cars.”
We pedal faster toward the strip mall, containing the auto shop, an old frozen yogurt shop (judging from the remains on the plastic chairs and tables, clearly a site of a huge Florae attack), and a sporting goods store, thoroughly looted. My pulse speeds up as I see the parking lot filled with vehicles. We drop our bikes, running from car to car. Most have keys in the ignition, but the gas caps are all hanging open. The fuel has been siphoned. There are plenty of cars but no gas to get them going.
“Shit,” she says, slapping the open door shut. “They got to this one too.”