Page 35 of The Last Stars in the Sky
“Good job, Mattie!” My feet crunch through the dry, ice-encrusted leaves carpeting the ground as I jog over to right the can once more. “Very good job. Let’s try again.”
It’s been three days since we went to Corville. Three days since I sprinted from Kerry’s uncle’s house to the parking lot of Foodland, my heart thundering in my chest as I fought down a feeling too elemental and consuming to simply be terror.
When I got to the parking lot, I slowed, then stopped, hovering on its edge, my gaze sweeping through the crowd for my daughters. An open-topped army jeep was on the side ofthe lot, a man in full body armor standing in the back of it, a machine gun aimed unwaveringly at the crowd. Everyone was frozen in a tableau of terror; this was the army, but it looked like the enemy.
“Put the food down,” the man barked loudly. “Go back to your homes. Now.”
“Why can’t we take it?” one brave soul called out, lost in the crowd. “It will go to waste otherwise. This is fair.”
“This is military property now,” the soldier barked back. “You’re not meant to be out of your homes.”
“We need food,” someone else called out, their tone more resentful than pleading. There was a sense among the crowd, I was realizing, of bitterness as much as fear.
“You’ll get it,” the solider snapped back. “It will be distributed by the army in due course. Now go!”
A few people began to drift away, while my gaze swung wildly through the crowd, looking for my children. Where were Ruby and Mattie?
Then, a gunshot, and the soldier’s head whipped around, looking for the rebel. I recoiled instinctively, and before I could process where the shot had come from, I heard the rat-a-tat-tat of the soldier’s machine gun spitting bullets. A gasp, a scream, and people began to scatter, running in every direction. The soldier kept his gun aimed at the crowd as they ran. Then, through the clearing crowd, I saw Mattie and Ruby huddled beneath an overturned shopping cart, hugging each other. I sprinted toward them, heedless of the soldier and his gun.
A sound escaped me, something between a sob and a gasp as I pulled them up and hugged them each, fiercely, in turn. “What happened?” I demanded. I glanced behind me; the jeep was parked in front of the supermarket, empty now, the soldiers having gone inside. A shudder went through me.
“The army showed up,” Mattie whispered. “And they started shooting in the air.”
“Look.” This from Ruby, surprising us both. I turned to follow her pointed finger; there was a man sprawled in the parking lot, blood pumping out of his stomach. Everyone else had gone. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized someone had actually been shot.
“Mom, can we do something?” Mattie whispered.
I shook my head, my gaze fixed on the dying man, a pool of dark red blood spreading around him. “I don’t think so.”
“Please.”
I glanced at the army jeep; I was terrified that one of us might be shot, but the soldiers were nowhere to be seen. Reluctantly, holding my daughters’ hands, I walked toward the man. There was nothing we could do, I knew that already, but I was compelled to try, or at least show my daughters that I couldn’t save him. I couldn’t become the kind of person who walks away from a dying man. I couldn’t let my daughters see that I had.
The man’s eyes were open, his jaw clenched, one hand pressed to the bloody mess of his stomach. I couldn’t look at it. His body convulsed.
“I’m sorry,” I told him helplessly, touching his shoulder, offering him what paltry comfort I could because it was clear there was nothing else I could do.
“Damned army,” he choked out. “Damned government.” He convulsed again, thick, viscous blood leaking out between his fingers, making my stomach roil, and then his eyes closed. Ruby pressed her face into my shoulder. Mattie was rigid, staring at the man as if she wanted to imprint the memory of him on her mind, her soul. Had she ever seen a dead person before? The only person I’d ever seen die was my father—in a hospital bed, drifting off on a sea of morphine. This felt different, raw and wrong.
“Come on,” I said quietly, glancing again at the door of the grocery store. “We need to go.” I hugged them both again, tightly, in turn, as if I could impress the force of my feelings upon them, the depth of my regret. How could I have left them alone the way I had? And for what? A couple of cans of motor oil, some Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, and a bottle of gin?
“Where’s Kerry?” Mattie asked.
A cold wave of realization washed over me because Kerry had stayed with the truck, and I suddenly realized how naive I had been. How utterly, utterly foolish. Kerry could have driven off and left us here, as easy as that. She could go hole up in our cottage, just her and Darlene, with all our food, our clothes, ourhome. She didn’t need us, and I was pretty sure she knew it.
“She’s across the street,” I told Mattie, praying it was true. If she’dleft…what would we do? It was twenty miles back to the cottage. “Come on,” I said, grabbing both their hands. We had just started walking across to the road when Kerry swung into the parking lot, pulled right up in front of us, the driver’s window rolled down, her elbow resting on the frame.
“Hop in,” she said with a grin.
Kerry seemed unfazed when Mattie told her what had happened. “Typical, army coming in and bossing everyone around.”
“They shot someone,” Mattie whispered. “A gun went off, and they just startedshooting.”
“Well, you don’t shoot your gun at the army,” Kerry replied, her tone jarringly reasonable. “You don’t even shoot your mouth off, especially when there’s martial law in force.” She shook her head.
“Hedied,” Mattie said, her voice choking, and Kerry turned, her face briefly softening.
“I’m sorry you saw that,” she said quietly, and it was the most empathetic, the most human, I’d ever seen her. “But at least we’re all safe, and we can get back to the cottage now.”
