She would have to find a way, even if it meant extra miles and days. It was either that or leave Grandma alone forever. Red was not going to let her grandmother wait by herself, twitching the window curtain at every sound, hoping against hope that her family was returning to her (like D.J.).
So the boys with the guns would have to be dealt with. And she would deal with them. Somehow.
“These young men dispersed throughout the area. They broke doors and windows in some of the houses, but only if they were easy to get into.”
“Did they try this house?” Red asked.
“They tried, but only the front, which was as I’d hoped. I hadn’t bothered fortifying the back, assuming that anyone who came around would move on to the next house rather than continue to try here. My house is modest compared to others in the area, and I thought they wouldn’t think it worth the effort.”
“That was what attracted me,” Red said with a little smile. “I figured the larger houses had already been raided.”
“Besides,” D.J. said, and he smiled a very grim smile. “If they had broken in they would have regretted it. I am not incapable of defending myself.”
Red knew what he meant, and she sighed. “Not you too.”
“Not me too what?”
“You’ve got a gun, right? The gun’s going to fix all your problems.”
“Well, no, but it can fix a certain kind of problem. The kind that comes to my door looking for trouble. You don’t have a gun with you?”
“I don’t like guns,” Red said.
“I don’t like them either, but I do acknowledge their occasional necessity,” D.J. said. “How are you supposed to protect those children without a gun?”
“You think a gun is going to help me more than my brains?” Red asked.
“No, but—”
“No buts. I don’t like guns. The only point and purpose of a gun is to kill, and I am not going to carry something that’s only for killing. Let’s move on.”
He gave her a strange look, like he didn’t understand her. That was perfectly fine with Red. Most people didn’t understand her and she wasn’t looking for their understanding, anyway.
“So the men tried your door, couldn’t get in, moved on?” Red prompted.
“Yes,” D.J. said. “I admit I was slightly confused by their behavior. Nothing they did seemed systematic. They broke into some houses, took useful supplies from a few of those, and others they just seemed to want to destroy for no particular reason. After an hour or two of this they climbed back in their truck and drove away.”
“But it wasn’t the last you saw of them,” Red said.
“No,” D.J. said. “The next day a group of three men came through on what was clearly a patrol. And the patrols continued every day at approximately two-hour intervals.”
“They’ve obviously got some kind of base nearby,” Red said, more to herself than D.J. “You never tried to find out where they were coming from?”
He shook his head, and flushed. “I didn’t want to know, if I am honest with myself. I know what they are doing and that they are not good people. If they found me out on the road or near the place where they are encamped, then they would shoot me on sight. I thought it better to stay here, out of their reach.”
Where it is safe. He didn’t say it out loud, but he didn’t need to.
“You can’t save everybody,” Red said.
“Perhaps I should have tried to save some,” D.J. murmured. “People have passed by this house and decided to stay the night in one of the open homes. Those people are always, always caught by this group and their patrols. I could have warned them.”
“And if they didn’t listen?” Red asked. “What if you warned them and then they told those men that you were here in this house? What would have happened then?”
“Yes, I understand what you are saying,” D.J. said. “But somehow I feel I should do—should have done—more. There were children. Sometimes, there were children.”
“If you had done more you might not have been here when we needed you,” Red said.
“I haven’t done anything so extraordinary for you,” D.J. said.
“Don’t kid yourself,” Red said. “A bath feels pretty extraordinary after so many weeks on the road.”
D.J. laughed, but it was a sad laugh. Red felt somehow that their presence was making him regret his choices in a way he might not have otherwise.
“We should wash your clothing now,” D.J. said. “As I said, the washer is somewhat noisy. The next patrol will come through shortly, and though they largely stay on the road there’s no use attracting their attention. And we can’t use any of the electricity after dark. The patrols are . . . worse after dark.”
They hadn’t discussed it at all, but somehow a botched break-in had become a lunch invitation that became a staying-for-the-night invitation. Red wouldn’t have tried to move Riley and Sam in any case. She expected that they would sleep through dinner and into tomorrow.
D.J. showed Red how to use the washing machine and then left her to it. As she poured extra laundry detergent into the basket she wondered (in the random way that she sometimes did) what was going to happen to all the laundry detergent with no electric washers. It wouldn’t have the same currency as food, even if there were people like D.J. who could function off the grid.
Her own grandmother was one of those people—her cabin in the woods was just as self-sufficient as the house Red stood in. Red worried about her grandmother, even though most days it seemed she didn’t have a second to spare a worry for anyone but herself. And her grandmother was far more capable, far more prepared for the current circumstances than ninety-nine percent of the population.
And now I have Sam and Riley, too.
Red hoped they would stay with her. It was nice not to be alone anymore.
About forty minutes later Red was about to transfer the clothes from the washer to the dryer when D.J. stopped her. He’d gone into the front room for a while after their talk. Red hadn’t wanted to intrude so she sat on the bench in the laundry room with one of the two books she’d packed. The cover of The Blue Sword, which had been loved to death even before this trip, was hanging by a tattered edge.
For a little while she pretended she was at a Laundromat, reading while she waited for her clothes, and that when she was done she could go to a diner and have a greasy burger and more fries than she could eat and a chocolate milkshake.
Then D.J. came in and said, “Would you come up front, please?”
He led her into the front room, which was as neatly polished and organized as the kitchen. Three large bookshelves overflowed with books—some titles had been stacked on the floor in front of the shelves. The floor was hardwood, like the kitchen, and worn to a loving patina. A couch and two chairs were clean but used—no plastic furniture covers here, Red thought. It looked like a room where guests were welcome, where kids had jumped on the cushions, where life had been lived.
The windows were all boarded up except for one, as D.J. had told her. This one had curtains that hid the shutters from the inside. The shutters had narrow slats that made it possible to peek out onto the road below.
“Look,” he said.
The sun was going down outside—the days were getting shorter, after all—and the patrol was out again. This time there were six of them instead of three, and they moved with more purpose. Red watched them systematically checking each house, looking for signs of life. One of the men walked up on D.J.’s lawn and flashed a light toward the house.