I’ve run my baby ragged and abandoned it to the desert, I’m ducking my boss’s killers, I’m even dodging dangerous wildlife I don’t know the names for… but in the end, it’s the Chrysler-forsaken sun that gets me.
I limped on through the night, but come morning the heat just sears me deeper than skin, and my arms and legs start to feel like I’ve been flayed and lit on fire. My eyes aren’t any better. Everything’s blurry and I trip and fall every couple of minutes. Finally, I fall hard enough that time stretches weird and I lose my grip on everything. The sun turns into a swarm of headlights bearing down. I give in; I accept it. Somehow, I always knew I’d turn roadkill.
When I wake up, I’m in the shade, only I first figure it has to be those towering pricks standing over me so I try to jump up, ready to go down in a fight. A soft gasp chills me out, gets me to give up and lie back down, and my eyes focus enough for me to see that I’m lying on a flimsy mattress surrounded by dry, wooden walls, sunlight peeking through any crack it can find. A distinctly male grunt comes from the corner to my right, and I make out someone sitting in a chair there, a shotgun or a rifle across his lap. His face is like a map of canyon country where it isn’t hidden by white beard. There’s a glint of menace in his eye that I don’t have to be psychic to read. I’ve gotta keep myself small and harmless if I’m going to get out of this one.
“Where the hell am I?” I ask with a groan. Not too hard to keep myself small when I’m barely skin and bones and the room keeps tilting to one side like the whole cabin’s about to come tumbling down on me.
“You’re in our home, so I’ll thank you to show some respect and not curse in front of Molly,” the man grumbles.
“Can I see what’s in his box now, Pa?” the girl asks. I turn to give her a look-over, guessing the sight is better than the grizzled desert rat ready to shoot me if I flinch. Sure enough, she’s got long blond hair all pulled up, pretty oval face. I’m guessing fifteen, sixteen, which means post-Crash is all she’s ever known. Hard to believe that people keep making more people in this mess of a world.
“Sorry. I don’t suppose you could spare something to drink?” I ask.
“Fill a jug from the well, Molly,” the man says. “This fella’s gonna need his strength to move on.”
The girl nods, picking up an old plastic milk jug, and heads outside. “Not before I find out what’s in his toolbox!” she says over a shoulder.
“Thanks for taking me in,” I say. “I’ll move on just as soon as I can get my feet under me. Mind if I try and stand up?” I’ve got a pounding headache, a twisted ankle, and some scrapes, but nothing so serious that I have to stay and risk getting shot.
“Go right ahead, just don’t get any thoughts about trying to turn Molly’s good deed into opportunity for worse. We ain’t got nothing worth stealing anyway.”
I sit up again, stretch my neck a little, and test the ankle. It’s swollen, but not badly enough I can’t hobble off when the time comes.
The toolbox begins to make scratching sounds, and Pa shoots me a curious look.
“Just some… mice I caught. Dinner.” Please don’t meow, I think at them.
The little bastards, not knowing when to give up being catty, do, in fact, meow.
“Mice, huh?” Pa sits his gun against the wall and stands, moving toward the toolbox. Even if he has a couple decades on me, I’m in no state to take him in a fight. Anyway, I couldn’t see myself repaying their kindness with more violence.
“Okay, no, not really. They’re kittens.”
Pa’s face splits with a broad, surprisingly toothy grin. “Where’d you get kittens around here? I haven’t seen a cat in ten years at least.”
“Sir, I have to be honest with you. I stole them. Don’t give me that look—ordinarily, I’m no thief. I was just a runner and mechanic for Gunter, over in Crabtree.”
The old man nods. “Thought I recognized your face from the last time I was at the trading post. Now how did that scumbucket get his hands on kittens?”
“The boys brought ’em in—got them off a raid down in Bracken Valley over on the main stretch of highway. None of Gunter’s boys can read too well, so they didn’t understand the shipping markers right, thought they were stealing medical supplies. Anyway, Gunter decided he wanted them cooked up as a little feast.”
Pa blinked. “Good god damn, but that man’s a monster. Even with a world gone to total shit, pardon the language, there’s no excuse for eating a kitten.”
“I don’t remember the old world too well; I was eight when the shit hit the fan belt, but… I just couldn’t stand there and watch Gunter eat these little guys. Besides, they’re too small to do much more than get stuck between your teeth. Go ahead, open it up and see for yourself.”
The old man opens the box, and there’s that grin again. A little sparkle of gold in the world. For a minute everything I been through in the past day feels worth it and I feel good, like someone’s topped up my tank with high octane.
“They’ve been treated pretty well, but they look thirsty,” he says. The one tough little bastard rears up on his hind legs, takes a swipe at the man’s ragged beard. The old man breaks out in a raspy chuckle.
“I think they’re Siamese or something?” I say.
“Nonsense like breed and what-not doesn’t matter anymore,” the old guy says. “Lord almighty. Kittens, here in my shack. What in the world do you plan on doing with them?”
What, indeed. I don’t know the first thing about the care of any animal that doesn’t have an engine instead of a heart. Start to wonder if maybe I should leave them here. I might make it further without the weight of them slowing me down. Maybe the old man and the girl would know better than me how to keep them alive.
I start to say all that, but I’m cut off when Molly sprints back into the cabin and slams the door shut.
“Pa, there’s men… getting out of big black trucks… coming up the hill,” she says between gasps for breath. I wonder if I can make it out the door before the old man shoots me in the back. The girl hands me the jug of dirty water, so I start to down it, then change my mind and pour it into the cup of my hand for the kittens. They cluster around and drink it greedily.
Pa looks over to me. “Gunter’s boys?”
I nod. “Must be.”
“Molly, get down in the crawlspace.” She moves to a corner of the room, rolls back a rug and some boards, and starts down a ladder into the darkness. The old man covers it up real quick. I get the feeling this ain’t the first time they’ve had to hide her away.
I force myself up and stagger to the door and peek out between the boards. Shouting outside startles the kittens and sends them scattershot through the cabin. Four of Gunter’s goons are hunched over, hustling up the hill, guns pointed our way. How they managed to find me, I don’t know. What I do know is I can’t run any further.
“Maybe you should get down in your hidey hole with your daughter,” I say. “This is my mess.”
“Not my daughter, not really. Just another stray. Seems I’m a magnet for them in my old age. Anyway, not sure I could live with myself if those brutes eat the little ones.”
“I’m sorry to drag you into this,” I say. I mean it. These people have been nothing but kind to a strange man they found dying in the dirt and sun, and now I’ve brought Gunter’s brand of brutality to their door.
“If we’re lucky, there’ll be time for apologies later,” Pa says. “Now what are we going to do here?”
“Do you have any other guns?” I ask.
“Nah,” he says, growling. “And I only got five shells for this old thing. Half likely to blow up in my hands if I fire it anyway.”