Page 30 of The Last Stars in the Sky
She shrugs. “I think their condo is near there.”
I can’t believe how unemotional she seems. “So you think your aunt and uncle are dead?” I ask, and she shrugs again, her face closing up.
“Probably.”
“Were you…close to them?”
“Not really. After my dad died, they pretty much cut us off.” She purses her lips. “They weren’t interested in helping my mom, that’s for damned sure. They don’t even help their own kid, and he lives right here in Corville.”
“Your cousin? Do you want to try to find him?” I’m both appalled and curious as to how indifferent she seems to her own family…but then again, am I any better? I’ve barely let myself think about my brother, my sister, my mother, never mind find a way to help them.
“Nah,” Kerry says, as she starts taking things off shelves and chucking them into a box. “He’s a pain in the ass. Never held down a job, just sits around and plays Call of Duty all day. Get a box.” She nods toward the truck. “Unless you want to be here all day?”
We work in time, in silence, shifting boxes of standard garage items—bungee cords, batteries, bicycle chains. Wrenches, pliers, hammers. Screws and nails. Spare tires. Folding chairs. We take it all, every last thing. I feel like the Grinch, stripping the Whos’ houses of all their Christmas presents, right down to the last can of Who hash, which we find when Kerry busts the lock of the door into the house.
“The fridge will be empty,” she says with regret as we walk through a neat laundry room. “Check those cabinets, though.” She jerks a thumb back toward the washer and dryer.
I open the cabinets above the washing machine and find laundry detergent, dryer sheets. Numbly, I take them.
Kerry has already gone to the walk-in pantry, and her satisfied hoot both excites me and makes me tense. I follow her into a neat kitchen that smells only slightly stale.
“Look at this.” She gestures to some shelves of canned soup, vegetables, meat, tuna. There are maybe fifty cans. She opens the garbage bag she brought and starts chucking them in.
“Check the other cabinets,” she says, and I do, finding a couple packets of spaghetti, some jarred sauce. Under the sink there are cleaning products, sponges, J-cloths, dish soap. Everything goes.
“Ah, here’s the real prize,” she says, as she opens the cabinet above the oven. There is half a bottle of gin, another of whiskey. She cradles them like babies before depositing them in a box.
We take it all out to the truck, whose bed is now brimming. Kerry goes back in for another haul, and I follow her reluctantly because I’m starting to feel antsy. We have been gone for fifteen minutes, at least.
“I think we should go back,” I tell her. She’s in her uncle’s bedroom, opening the drawers of his bureau.
“Check these out,” she says, and tosses a couple of heavy knit sweaters toward me. Instinctively, I catch them.
“We don’t need these—”
“Alex, stop living in your little dreamland,” she tells me impatiently as she riffles through the next drawer. “Weneedthis stuff. The world is never going back to the way it was.” She doesn’t sound all that bothered by the fact.
“Never? That’s a bit extreme, don’t you think?” I try for a laugh, but it comes out like a wheeze. “The world is still functioning, Kerry. In Tokyo, they’re probably still going about their business—”
She gives me her standard well-duh look. “We’re not in Tokyo.”
“I know, but…” I’m clinging to the remnant of the reality I knew, the reality Iwant. “The president said—”
She huffs a hard laugh. “Whatever.”
“At some point,” I insist, needing to say it, to believe it, “we’re going to get back to the way we were, or something like it. There are still so many people alive. Two-thirds of the US population, at least—” Or so I can guess. “Infrastructure will be repaired. Utilities will be restored. There are enough people around, enough infrastructure still left, armies and police and—”
“Yeah, two-thirds are alive fornow,” Kerry cuts me off, unimpressed. “But how many people do you think are going to die of air pollution? Contaminated water? Heart attack? Disease? Untreated cancer?” She speaks without any emotion at all. “Didn’t you ever watchThe Day After Tomorrow? OrI Am Legend?” She shakes her head as if I’m too stupid to be borne, and I feel a flash of anger.
“Isn’tI Am Legendabout zombies?”
She shrugs, and I continue, my voice tight. “This isn’t some dumb action movie, Kerry. This is real life. It’s going to be different. It’s going to be…realistic.” Which is about the stupidest thing I’ve ever said, but I’m too angry—and too scared—to make sense. I don’t want to live out some real-life version of one of those movies. “It’s going to be different.”
“Okay, sure, but meanwhile I’m taking these slippers.” She holds up a pair of fuzzy slippers with a grin. “I’ve always wanted Uggs. They might be a little big, but…” She shrugs. “Have you checked the bathroom?”
“We need togo—”
“How much shampoo do you have back at your place?”
