I didn’t answer her, but I pulled the pack on without taking a drink. My mouth felt horrible, dry and sandy and tasting of bile. I tried to ignore that, tried to stop running my sandpaper tongue over my gritty teeth, and started walking.
My stomach was harder to ignore than my mouth as the sun rose higher and hotter above me. It twisted and contracted at regular intervals, anticipating meals that didn’t appear. By afternoon, the hunger had gone from uncomfortable to painful.
This is nothing, Melanie reminded me wryly. We’ve been hungrier.
You have, I retorted. I didn’t feel like being an audience to her endurance memories right now.
I was beginning to despair when the good news came. As I swung my head across the horizon with a routine, halfhearted movement, the bulbous shape of the dome jumped out at me from the middle of a northern line of small peaks. The missing part was only a faint indentation from this vantage point.
Close enough, Melanie decided, as thrilled as I was to be making some progress. I turned north eagerly, my steps lengthening. Keep a lookout for the next. She remembered another formation for me, and I started craning my head around at once, though I knew it was useless to search for it this early.
It would be to the east. North and then east and then north again. That was the pattern.
The lift of finding another milestone kept me moving despite the growing weariness in my legs. Melanie urged me on, chanting encouragements when I slowed, thinking of Jared and Jamie when I turned apathetic. My progress was steady, and I waited till Melanie okayed each drink, even though the inside of my throat felt as though it was blistering.
I had to admit that I was proud of myself for being so tough. When the dirt road appeared, it seemed like a reward. It snaked toward the north, the direction I was already headed, but Melanie was skittish.
I don’t like the look of it, she insisted.
The road was just a sallow line through the scrub, defined only by its smoother texture and lack of vegetation. Ancient tire tracks made a double depression, centered in the single lane.
When it goes the wrong way, we’ll leave it. I was already walking down the middle of the tracks. It’s easier than weaving through the creosote and watching out for cholla.
She didn’t answer, but her unease made me feel a little paranoid. I kept up my search for the next formation-a perfect M, two matching volcanic points-but I also watched the desert around me more carefully than before.
Because I was paying extra attention, I noticed the gray smudge in the distance long before I could make out what it was. I wondered if my eyes were playing tricks on me and blinked against the dust that clouded them. The color seemed wrong for a rock, and the shape too solid for a tree. I squinted into the brightness, making guesses.
Then I blinked again, and the smudge suddenly jumped into a structured shape, closer than I’d been thinking. It was some kind of house or building, small and weathered to a dull gray.
Melanie’s spike of panic had me dancing off the narrow lane and into the dubious cover of the barren brush.
Hold on, I told her. I’m sure it’s abandoned.
How do you know? She was holding back so hard that I had to concentrate on my feet before I could move them forward.
Who would live out here? We souls live for society. I heard the bitter edge to my explanation and knew it was because of where I now stood-physically and metaphorically in the middle of nowhere. Why did I no longer belong to the society of souls? Why did I feel like I didn’t… like I didn’t want to belong? Had I ever really been a part of the community that was meant to be my own, or was that the reason behind my long line of lives lived in transience? Had I always been an aberration, or was this something Melanie was making me into? Had this planet changed me, or revealed me for what I already was?
Melanie had no patience for my personal crisis-she wanted me to get far away from that building as fast as possible. Her thoughts yanked and twisted at mine, pulling me out of my introspection.
Calm down, I ordered, trying to focus my thoughts, to separate them from hers. If there is anything that actually lives here, it would be human. Trust me on this; there is no such thing as a hermit among souls. Maybe your Uncle Jeb -
She rejected that thought harshly. No one could survive out in the open like this. Your kind would have searched any habitation thoroughly. Whoever lived here ran or became one of you. Uncle Jeb would have a better hiding place.
And if whoever lived here became one of us, I assured her, then they left this place. Only a human would live this way… I trailed off, suddenly afraid, too.
What? She reacted strongly to my fright, freezing us in place. She scanned my thoughts, looking for something I’d seen to upset me.
But I’d seen nothing new. Melanie, what if there are humans out here-not Uncle Jeb and Jared and Jamie? What if someone else found us?
She absorbed the idea slowly, thinking it through. You’re right. They’d kill us immediately. Of course.
I tried to swallow, to wash the taste of terror from my dry mouth.
There won’t be anyone else. How could there be? she reasoned. Your kind are far too thorough. Only someone already in hiding would have had a chance. So let’s go check it out-you’re sure there are none of you, and I’m sure there are none of me. Maybe we can find something helpful, something we can use as a weapon.
I shuddered at her thoughts of sharp knives and long metal tools that could be turned into clubs. No weapons.
Ugh. How did such spineless creatures beat us?
Stealth and superior numbers. Any one of you, even your young, is a hundred times as dangerous as one of us. But you’re like one termite in an anthill. There are millions of us, all working together in perfect harmony toward our goal.
Again, as I described the unity, I felt the dragging sense of panic and disorientation. Who was I?
We kept to the creosote as we approached the little structure. It looked to be a house, just a small shack beside the road, with no hint at all of any other purpose. The reason for its location here was a mystery-this spot had nothing to offer but emptiness and heat.
There was no sign of recent habitation. The door frame gaped, doorless, and only a few shards of glass clung to the empty window frames. Dust gathered on the threshold and spilled inside. The gray weathered walls seemed to lean away from the wind, as if it always blew from the same direction here.
I was able to contain my anxiety as I walked hesitantly to the vacant door frame; we must be just as alone here as we had been all day and all yesterday.
The shade the dark entry promised drew me forward, trumping my fears with its appeal. I still listened intently, but my feet moved ahead with swift, sure steps. I darted through the doorway, moving quickly to one side so as to have a wall at my back. This was instinctual, a product of Melanie’s scavenging days. I stood frozen there, unnerved by my blindness, waiting for my eyes to adjust.
The little shack was empty, as we’d known it would be. There were no more signs of occupation inside than out. A broken table slanted down from its two good legs in the middle of the room, with one rusted metal chair beside it. Patches of concrete showed through big holes in the worn, grimy carpet. A kitchenette lined the wall with a rusted sink, a row of cabinets-some doorless-and a waist-high refrigerator that hung open, revealing its moldy black insides. A couch frame sat against the far wall, all the cushions gone. Still mounted above the couch, only a little crooked, was a framed print of dogs playing poker.