always known that, she’s lived that way to an extreme that I never went to, but there’s some sense in it. I was too comfortable, too content to see the danger those men posed. Once the smoke stopped to the south, I didn’t think about it anymore.”
“And I wasn’t smart enough to know that what I saw in the sky was the glow from electricity,” Lynn said bitterly.
“You can’t beat yourself up about that, kiddo. Vera said they’re running generators. They’ve got heat going in the houses, on top of electricity. We assumed they died; really they traded up. You had no way of knowing what you were looking at, having never seen a working lightbulb in your life.”
“Where are they getting the gasoline for generators?” Eli asked.
“Trade,” Stebbs said. “They’ve got a few women over there. Vera said a gallon of gas gets you half an hour. They’re set up in South Bloomfield,” Stebbs said. “Lynn, you familiar with that place?”
Lynn nodded. South Bloomfield was a small village by the stream to the south. It was nothing more than a bridge, a cluster of houses and a township hall at the crossroads. She’d raided the houses years ago in search of a pair of scissors.
“I’m going,” she said stubbornly. “Soon as possible.”
“At least let me come with you,” Eli said. “I don’t like the idea of you going alone.”
“Sorry, Eli, but I might as well drive right through town honking the horn as take you with me. You’re as delicate as an elephant in the woods. And Stebbs would slow me down, no offense.”
“I’m getting my leg rebroke. You’ll eat those words one day, missy.”
“’Til then I can still outrun you,” she said, ignoring the dark looks Eli gave her. “I’m going to check on Lucy.”
Vera was sorting through the prescriptions they had found when Lynn got downstairs. “How’d we do?”
“Pretty good, actually,” Vera said, holding out a bottle for Lynn to see. “This one is Augmentin. Normally I’d say it’s a little too strong for someone Lucy’s size, but it’s expired so some of the potency is lost. I’ll start her on it and see where it gets us.”
She handed her another bottle, with only a few small pills inside. “That one is amoxicillin, it’s an all-purpose antibiotic that I’d prefer to give her, but it lacks the punch of the Augmentin and there isn’t enough to keep a stable amount in her bloodstream long enough to kill off all the bacteria. You keep it, and if you ever get a cut that looks bad, take the pills until they’re gone.”
Lynn looked at Lucy, peacefully curled into a ball under her clean blanket, a freshly boiled Red Dog tucked under her chin. “This bacterial infection . . . how did she get it? Was it in the water? Something I gave her to eat?”
“I can’t say for sure how she got it, Lynn. But I can tell you that if you hadn’t been feeding her these past few months, she’d be dead for sure.”
“Right.”
“It’s not your fault. It’s just something that happened.”
“It is what it is—that’s what Mother would always say.”
“She sounds like a smart woman.” Vera smiled at Lynn and touched her shoulder. “I don’t want to upset you, but I’m going to move Lucy over to the stream house. The damp air down here could lay the groundwork for an opportunistic infection.”
“You could move her upstairs,” Lynn offered. “Plenty dry there.”
“Maybe, but the nights still get cold and judging by the ductwork I see here in your basement, there aren’t working fireplaces up there, right?”
“No,” Lynn admitted. “There’s not.”
“Eli said that little shed that he and Stebbs built is tight as a drum, holds the heat and has no drafts. I’m sorry, but in Lucy’s condition it’s the better bet over an old farmhouse.”
“It’s all right,” Lynn said. “I want her healthy. I’ll be fine. When are you leaving?”
“I’d like to take the meds back to the stream today, and get a proper bed set up for her there. If we could all be safely tucked in by nightfall I’d be pleased.”
“Take the cot she’s been using.”
“You’re sure?”
“No need for it here,” Lynn said. “It’ll just be me.”
She made it a point to be up on the roof when they left. Vera sloshed through the muddy yard, a sleeping Lucy slumped over her shoulder. Eli followed with the cot and Vera’s backpack. Stebbs walked beside him, weighed down with medicine, extra blankets, and Mother’s rifle, with instructions to leave it with Eli at the stream house. Lynn knew he would’ve refused it if she’d tried to give it herself, and was relying on Stebbs’ prolific common sense to overrule Eli’s objections.
Eli made it as far as the wood cord before he put down the cot and turned back. Lynn sighed and put her eye back to the scope for a distraction. Vera and Stebbs had stopped to wait for him, and she saw Vera leaning close to Stebbs while he spoke to her. Closer than necessary. Lynn bit her lip to keep the smile from spreading. “Wily asshole,” she said under her breath.
“Hey now,” Eli’s voice came from behind her. “I know you’re not happy with me, but I don’t think I quite deserve that.”
“Not directed at you,” Lynn said, nodding toward the older couple standing in the distance. “Don’t make them wait too long. Lucy needs to get indoors.”
Eli sat beside her on the shingles, ignoring the fact that her attention was focused on the rifle and not him. “I don’t want to go.”
She made sure she had control over her voice before she turned to him. “Vera and Lucy need you.”
“And you don’t.”
The words came out clipped and bitter as the air they landed in, dropping between the two of them like icicles. Lynn dropped her head back to the scope, close enough that her eyelashes brushed the cold metal.
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“It’s true though.” Eli looked to the south. “I’m worried about what you’ll do once we leave.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Just promise me you won’t do anything stupid.”
“Done.”
Eli sighed and put a hand on her shoulder. She hesitated a moment, then gripped him back. “Come back,” she said, her shaky voice betraying her. “When you can. When they’re safe.”
“Soon as possible,” he said, his voice husky. Then he was gone. He emerged in the yard, shoulders hunched against the cold, head down against the wind. Lynn covered them with the rifle, not allowing tears to blur her vision until they were out of sight.
When darkness fell, she put on hunting camo, strapped her rifle across her back, and filled a canteen. “It’s not stupid, Eli,” she said as she closed the door and headed south across the field.
South Bloomfield had once been a nice place to live, according to Mother. From her perch in the tree on the ridge, Lynn saw in the rays of the rising sun that most of the homes were brick two-stories with ancient, sagging porches. A few had swimming pools in backyards that now stood empty, except for the carcasses of the animals with the bad luck to fall into them. The town was upstream from Eli and Lucy, at a point where the water widened. The bridge spanning it had been rebuilt just before the Shortage, reinforced with steel guardrails that still held a reflective sheen. A relic of the past loomed over the village—a cell phone tower where Lynn had spotted a sentry once the sun rose.
She envied the tower sentry his position. From his height, the only thing preventing him from seeing forever was the curve of the earth. The bare branches didn’t offer much cover. Lynn knew that once spotted she’d be dead, so she was stuck in the tree until dark fell again. The sentry had been exempted from the daily work in town, which meant he was an excellent shot. Lynn marked him as her first target.
The first activity in town came midmorning. The man she thought of as Blue Coat led three women out of a yellow house near the center of town. He was armed. They were barely clothed. They shivered in the chilly air but
