Page 31 of The Last Stars in the Sky
Four bottles, I recall from the inventory we did. I don’t reply, but neither do I protest when she heads to the bathroom. I walk back outside to check on our stuff. The street is still empty, silent. The sky is still bright, and the air has that metallic edge that promises snow. I glance at the bed of the truck, filled with the bins and bags and crates of stuff I know we’ll find useful. But if Kerry is right—if we’re living in something out of a disastermovie—how long will any of our stuff last? A couple of months, maybe, if we eke it out?
And then what?
Kerry comes outside, holding another bag of stuff in one hand, the slippers in her other. “I didn’t want them to get dirty,” she says, tossing the bag in the back of the truck like some renegade Santa Claus. “There weresixCostco-sized bottles of Head and Shoulders. I don’t have dandruff, but I guess my uncle did. Beggars can’t be choosers, eh?”
“It’s almost like you’re enjoying this,” I tell her, and she shrugs.
“How would crying or wringing my hands help?”
“It wouldn’t, but it would be…understandable.”
“Yeah, well, I prefer to be practical.” Her expression hardens. “Like you are, right? I mean, the only reason you asked my mom and me to live with you is because you wanted our stuff.” She says it like a challenge, and I decide to be as blunt as she’s being.
“For your stuff, and because I thought you and your mom actually knew something,” I tell her. “Hunting, fishing, that kind of thing.”
She lets out a huff of laughter. “Oh, so because we live out in the sticks, you think we should know how to skin a deer? Joke’s on you then.” She’s smiling, but her eyes look flinty.
“Yes,” I agree, as I climb into the truck. I feel too defeated to be angry, but I know I really dislike this woman. “Joke’s on me.”
Kerry strolls to the other side of the cab, her precious slippers in her hand. “It was nice of you,” she says, somewhat grudgingly, as she slides into the truck, “to ask us. Even if you only did it for what you could get out of it. I don’t think we would have survived, in my mum’s house.”
“What about your own place?” I ask, and she shakes her head.
“I don’t have my own place.” She pauses. “I used to live here in Corville, a couple of years ago. I worked in the hairdresser’s, as a trainee.” She stares out the window, and then gives herself a shake, like she’s coming to. “Anyway,” she says, a way to the end the conversation, and before I can think how to respond, a sudden crack splits the air, and then another. They’re coming from over by the Foodland.
Gunshots.
TWELVE
DANIEL
December
He wakes to sunlight in his eyes, and he blinks slowly. He is staring at a ceiling, stained brown from nicotine, and the air is thick with the cloying smells of air freshener and stale cigarette smoke. He is lying in bed. His mind is a blank. He tries to move his limbs, and realizes, with a jolt of panic, that he is naked. His memories are fuzzy and unformed, shadows slipping away before he can grab onto them, turn them into recognizable shapes.How did I get here?
Then, in a sudden, sickening rush, it comes back to him, a flash of images, of memories. The nuclear strikes, Sam. The boat, the river, the push, the gunshots as he clambered to the other side. He ran through the night in soaking-wet clothes, stumbling, falling, and lurching up again, his lungs burning, bursting, the clothes freezing to his body, until he could run no more, having no idea if he was being chased, if he would be shot.
The last thing he remembers is falling hard to his knees in the dark and thinking,Alex will never know how hard I tried.
But if he’s here, Daniel reasons, in a bed, then someone must have rescued him. Cared for him. And yet even as that thought heartens him, he realizes just how completely vulnerable he is, naked and weak and ill. Where are his clothes, his money, hisgun? Presumably whoever found him took all his things. And they might not give them back.
He takes a deep breath that hurts his lungs and forces himself into a sitting position. The room spins and a clammy sweat breaks out across his skin. Still, he moves forward, staggering to his feet only to have the floor lurch beneath him, and he falls back to the bed with a grunt, defeated at the very first hurdle.
The door opens. A woman stands there, squat and short, her broad face completely expressionless. She is Native American, and dimly Daniel recalls that there is reserved land somewhere around here—except he doesn’t know actually wherehereis.
“You’re awake,” she says unnecessarily. “Do you think you can eat?”
His head is still spinning, and his skin is damp and clammy. He feels weak, so weak. “I don’t know,” he replies honestly.
“Huh.” She gives a nod. “I’ll bring you some soup.” And then she closes the door without waiting for a reply. Daniel sinks back onto the bed, his eyes closing. He falls asleep without realizing he is doing so.
When he wakes up, the woman is putting a bowl of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup on the bedside table. He recognizes the smell from his childhood, days spent home sick from school—the tinny taste, rubbery chicken bobbing in broth, the way the noodles slid down his throat, loathsome and comforting at the same time.
“Thank you,” he whispers. He realizes he’s sprawled naked on top of the bedspread, and he tries to cover himself, fumblingfor the covers. The woman lets out a huff of laughter and throws a blanket over him from the end of the bed.
“Don’t worry, I’ve seen it all before,” she tells him. “You’ve been here for a week.”
He stares at her in blank horror. Aweek. A week away from Alex, from Ruby and Mattie, a week totally wasted, while the world burned. What will Sam be doing now? Where will he be—and how will he get there? He shakes his head uselessly.
