Page 53 of The Last Stars in the Sky
“My cousin Kyle.” She rolls her eyes. “The gamer? Also a pothead, but whatever. He has a car. At least, he did.”
“And you think he’ll just give you his car?” I ask, sounding far wearier than hopeful. “He might not even be in Corville. He might not even bealive.”
“Do you have a better idea?” Kerry asks, and of course I don’t. I turn my face away, and she kneels by my side, her expression turning almost gentle. “It’s not over yet, Alex,” she says quietly.Her gaze moves over my body. “Are you okay?” she asks in an even lower voice, and I know she doesn’t mean my shoulder.
I think of that man’s hand on my body, his hips pushing against mine, and I manage to nod.
“Okay, then,” she says, her tone bracing yet still gentle. “This is our best chance. We’ve got to take it.” Reluctantly, I turn to look at her, and her gaze bores into mine. “What other choice do we have? Doyouhave?” she says quietly, more of a statement than a question, and we both know the answer. I might feel ready right now to give up for my own sake, but I can’t for Mattie’s. For Ruby’s.
And yet…
“I just don’t know,” I whisper, closing my eyes. “My shoulder…”
“I know you’re hurting.” Kerry’s voice is soft. “We’ll help you.”
“Mom.” Mattie’s voice is as gentle as Kerry’s. “You can do it. I know you can.”
I’m not sure I can, but I know I have to try. “Okay,” I say slowly, and then with a groan I attempt to struggle to a seated position; my shoulder rages with pain, and I feel like passing out and throwing up at the same. I take a breath, swallow it down, and heave again as Mattie and Kerry each take an elbow to help me up. Somehow, I manage to stand, putting far too much weight on both of their helping hands. “How far is it?”
“Not too far,” Kerry assures me. “Just across the river.”
Across the riverisfar, but I don’t bother pointing that out. I just start to trudge forward, one weary foot in front of the other as Kerry and Mattie carefully back away, letting me try to make it on my own. I manage to do it, slowly, achingly, but still.
“I think it’s best if we follow the river into town,” Kerry suggests, “away from any buildings or people, just in case.”
“What about crossing it?” Mattie asks.
“We might be able to get across under the bridge,” Kerry says. “There are some flat stones that go almost all the way across, I think.”
I recall just weeks ago, when Mattie, Ruby, and I jumped across those flat stones. How I told them my mom and I used to pretend to be pioneers. I felt burdened at the time, I remember; now the ability to worry, to care about such things feels like a decadent luxury. Mattie must be remembering as I am because she gives me a small, sad smile, and then, stiffening her shoulders, she starts walking.
We walk along the riverbank, all three of us silent and wary, our narrowed gazes scanning the stark treeline, the few buildings above us that we can see from down here. Corville is an old mill town, built above the river, on either side of its steep banks, with the one bridge spanning its width in the center of town, and we are walking toward that bridge.
My shoulder hurts so much, and I feel so tired and dizzy that I can barely take anything in—a muted landscape of gray and brown, the town in the distance. It’s all I can do simply to put one foot in front of the other. Mattie and Kerry are more alert, every single noise, no matter how small, making them either still or jump. Where did those backwoods bastards go, with my dad’s truck? Are they waiting for us somewhere, angry and bent on vengeance? The thought would make me shudder if I weren’t so weary. We’re more vulnerable now than we’ve ever been before; we’ve gotnothing. Absolutely nothing. But I can’t let myself think that way, or I won’t be able to go on.
None of us speaks as we pick our way along the riverbank, trying to keep to the few trees, and I feel too muzzy-headed to try to think practically, plan next steps, after this unbearable setback. I don’t even want to, which feels worse; I want someoneelse to pick up the slack, to care for me, because I’m not sure I do anymore. Not after today.
When we reach the bridge, we discover the river is rushing far too fast to cross on the stones, the way Mattie, Ruby and I pretended to, just a few weeks ago. One of them is completely submerged by rushing water now; chunks of ice bob in the torrent.
Kerry surveys the rushing, icy river, her hands on her hips. “Well,thatsucks,” she states matter-of-factly. “We’ll have to cross over the bridge.” She makes it sound like no more than a minor inconvenience, but when she cautiously scrambles halfway up the bank to get a view of the bridge, keeping low and out of sight simply by instinct, she shakes her head at us as she slides back down the bank.
“More crazies up there,” she tells us in a low voice. “It’s been barricaded off with a whole heap of junk and guarded by guys in full camo.” Her voice is full of derision.
“The number of guys who have beenhopingfor this,” she says in disgust, shaking her head. “They actuallywantWorld War Three, you know? They’re wetting themselves over it.”
“What are we going to do?” Mattie whispers. For the first time since she was grabbed by that animal with the rifle, she sounds scared, her hands lost in the sleeves of her coat, her shoulders hunched. We are huddled right beneath the bridge, less than a hundred feet from a homegrown, hostile militia. I press my hand to my shoulder, which Kerry bandaged with part of her shirt, swaying slightly where I stand. I can’t manage to put two thoughts together.
Kerry is silent, thinking, and I realize how much I’ve come to depend on her for a practical solution, but she doesn’t seem to have one now. And then a memory slips through my mind like a ripple in water.
“We can cross further down,” I tell them. I recall a sepia-tinted fragment of memory of a long-ago picnic with my parents and siblings, by the caves near here, along the banks of the river. I must have been seven or eight; I swam in the river with my sister, where it was still. My feet touched the rocky bottom. “Isn’t there a little waterfall along here, Kerry?” I ask. “And then the water empties into a pool, and becomes pretty calm?” I’m picturing myself paddling in that little pool while my parents watched on and my brother skimmed stones.
“I don’t know,” she replies, shrugging. “I didn’t hang out down here, you know?”
“There are some flat stones there, I think,” I say. I picture my skinny, seven-year-old self, lying spread-eagled on one of the sun-warmed stones, eyes closed, face tilted up to the light.
“I’m pretty sure there is,” I go on, with far more firmness than I feel. “We can cross there.”
Silently, we walk along the riverbank, away from the town. There are no trees, just rocky ground and brown, winter-dead grass dusted with snow, and once again it takes all my strength, all my concentration, simply to keep going. For about two hundred feet, we’re pretty much completely exposed to the guys on the bridge, as well as anyone else who might be watching. I have no idea if they’d care about a group of women walking along the river, or if they’re the sort of people who use innocent strangers for target practice. Considering the men we’ve met so far, I’m not holding out much hope. In this brave, new world, I don’t know anything anymore, only that I can no longer trust in basic human decency.
