38. Ava
THIRTY-EIGHT
AVA
It’s difficult to see in the dark, but I trust Loca’s instincts, and her strides devour the landscape. Her hooves land solid and full of purpose, and the sound and whip of the wind drowns out all my toxic thoughts as the world blurs around us.
It feels more like thirty minutes have passed, but I’m sure it’s barely been ten when I nudge Loca to run faster toward the farmhouse. The brisk air burns my eyes, and I squint in the thickening darkness. Loca stumbles here and there over rocks and uneven terrain as it worsens, but she moves with determination, like she knows time is against us.
I squint when something dots the skyline. The old barn comes into view, then the windmill, and white-knuckled fear returns as I grip the reins tighter. “I really hate you, Gerty,” I murmur.
With each gallop closer, I tell myself not everyone is dangerous. Hell, if Mitch could have changed to someone less hateful after harboring that much animosity and resentment, anyone can.
We slow as we approach the gate. It’s hanging off its hinges; in fact, I’m not sure it’s been properly opened or closed in years.
I scan the property with new eyes and guide Loca through, giving her a moment to catch her breath as we head up the dirt road. We walk past a pump house, which means these people are—or were—using a well. Considering our dwindling water supply, I consider whether theirs is drinkable. With so much sulfur in the air, everything smells the same, the safe barely distinguishable from the toxic anymore.
Weeds grow like beanstalks, weaving through the vehicle carcasses and up the crumbling outbuildings that line the driveway. It’s a fire hazard—a junk yard—and I’m nearly convinced the place is abandoned.
With the moon tucked behind clouds, the world beyond it is lost to outlines and shadow. But as the old farmhouse comes into full view, light glows through the draped windows.
“Shit.” I chew the raw spot on my bottom lip. I knew this moment might come when I’d have to differentiate my instincts from my fear of the unknown. Now that it’s here, and with each sense as loud and as unnerving as the rest, I listen to my desperation . I ignore the poisonous thoughts telling me to turn around, that it’s not worth it, because I’ve come this far, and I can’t afford to waste this much time. There is no going back now.
I eye a loft barn missing its doors. What looks like a covered wood shelter is empty beside it, and as I draw closer to the house, the roof is concave on one side, like it’s rotted through. The windows on the second floor are dark and boarded, and when I’m close enough to notice the blistering paint on the house, I pull Loca to a stop.
This place should be condemned and I’m more convinced than ever they can’t help me.
Movement in the corner window catches my eye, and my skin prickles with unease. Someone is watching me.
“Hell—” I clear my throat. “Hello?” Something tells me they aren’t the type of people I want assuming I’m here for nefarious reasons. “Sorry to intrude, but I need your help!” My voice booms in the silence and I scan the windows for more movement. “Please?” Loca and I stop at the wraparound porch.
The drapes at the window by the door rustle, and I gulp as a person’s silhouette takes form. Despite the dread that fills me from head to toe, I force myself to continue. “I need your help, please.” I show them my hands. “I’m not here to cause trouble. Someone is hurt. I just—” I swallow thickly. “Maybe you have a neighbor who can help me?”
The silhouette moves from the window.
The reins tighten in one hand as I flex the other at my side, prepared to pull the pistol strapped to my waist if necessary.
The knob rattles, and the front door creaks open. “We have no neighbors,” a female voice croaks. “And we don’t like visitors.” An older woman pokes her head out. Her silver hair, done up in a conical-shaped beehive like my third-grade teacher always wore, glimmers in the interior light. She looks frail, and suddenly the house’s disrepair makes sense. But even as the tension in my neck and shoulders eases slightly, my hope dwindles. This woman can’t help me. Not unless she has a working vehicle I can use.
“I’ll ride to Cactus,” I tell her. “Maybe there’s someone there who?—”
“Cactus is gone,” she says, and if I’m not mistaken, it’s with a hint of amusement.
“Gone?” It comes out in a breath. “Was it the fires?” The last of my composure begins to fray. “Wait.” I hold my hands up, gesturing to the ground as I dismount so as not to surprise her. “You said we don’t like visitors.” My boots hit the dirt with a thud. “Is there someone here who can help me?” I tug my vest down, hiding the pistol at my waist. “I have an injured friend who needs medical attention. Or a vehicle, maybe, so I can transport him?”
The woman peers warily down the road.
“It’s only me, I swear. My friend is back at camp, where he was injured.” I take a step closer. “Do you have a vehicle?” I try again.
“My husband’s truck,” the woman says. She opens the door fully and steps into view. She’s in her beige nightgown and slippers. She has a shotgun nearly as big as she is clutched at her side, but it doesn’t unnerve me to see it, like I expect. In fact, it’s strangely comforting; I might think there was something wrong with this old woman if she opened the door unarmed to a stranger during the apocalypse.
“Can I use his truck? I swear, I will return it.”
The woman nods, if a bit reluctantly, and again, I don’t blame her in the slightest.
“Thank you,” I say gently, taking a step closer. “I know you have no reason to trust me, but I’m desperate. I swear, I’m not here to cause any trouble. If your husband can help me, I’ll do whatever I can to repay you both.”
She looks at Loca and me again, and I imagine she’s wondering why I don’t have a vehicle of my own. “All right, then,” she grumbles. “You can tie your horse there.” She points to the porch post and her gaze practically burns a hole through me as she waits. Watching. Skeptical.
The porch protests as I head for the house, just like my aching legs and thudding heartbeat. I stop at the door a few feet from the old woman. She stands no taller than my collarbone and deep lines etch her face. Despite the gruffness of her voice, her eyes are softer than I expect and glisten in the dim light. “I appreciate this more than you know.”
“Hurry now,” she grouses, waving me in. “You’re letting out my heat.”
I step inside, but it’s not the heat I feel as she shuts the door behind me. It smells like sulfur and a backed up septic tank. My hand flies to my mouth as I clear my throat, swallow, and exhale through my mouth.
“What’s wrong with them?”
My head snaps to the woman as she weaves her way through the maze of boxes. This place is like a hoarder’s haven.
“What?”
The woman crouches by the fire in the hearth. She’s so frail, her fingers tremble as she tears cardboard into pieces and tosses them into the dying fire. “Your friend.” She gives me the side-eye. “What’s wrong with them?”
“Oh. He, uh, fell off his horse.” I scan the room, uncertain what I’ve walked into. “He’s unconscious,” I add. There’s a path between stacks of towering boxes, leading to two closed doors on the left side of the living room, and a kitchen disappears around the corner on the right. “I’m Ava, by the way.”
“Sheila. Or Buttercup, to my husband.”
I flash her a tight smile and continue my appraisal of the house. Every piece of furniture is vintage. Every box I see is decades old, if the outdated logos and faded colors are anything to go by. Boxes that once held laundry soap, sponges, jars, and toilet paper are now stacked empty. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say they robbed a warehouse at some point. Only, it must’ve been nearly fifty years ago.
“I have some old medical books over there on that shelf. You can take a look at them while I get us some tea. See if they can help your friend.”
“Don’t trouble yourself, please,” I say. I glance at the bookshelf, barely visible behind a mountain of cardboard. “I need to get back to him as soon as possible. If I could speak with your husband about the truck?” Sheila’s already in the kitchen, and noting the dying fire, I crouch to throw in a few more pieces of cardboard for her. I figure it’s the least I can do.
“Sheila,” I say a little louder. “I really don’t want to trouble you. If you could get your husband?—”
“You’ll have to wait,” she calls from the kitchen. “Lenny will help you when he can.”
I peer at the staircase, completely blocked by boxes. “And where is he, exactly?”
There’s clanking in the kitchen. “Indisposed , ” she says, as if telling me to mind my business. I glance at the two closed doors, assuming one is the bathroom, then shove my hands in my back pocket, trying not to touch anything or knock it over. The layer of fuzz covering everything practically glows in the firelight, but the pictures framed on the mantel catch my attention.
A woman with rich blonde hair and chubby cheeks and a slender-framed man stare back at me. They’re in dirty pants and collared shirts with tool belts slung around their hips. A half-constructed house is erected behind them. The very one I’m standing in. It creaks, and I scan its decrepit state, saddened for Sheila—for what she once had and what she lives in now.
The faucet squeaks in the kitchen and I continue my perusal of the place, not wanting to snoop but too anxious to stand still. I peek inside a few of the open boxes, careful not to knock anything over. If Sheila is anything like Ms. Maddison, who lived two trailers down from us, she’ll know if anything in her cluttered home is out of place. Most of the boxes are empty, though, awaiting their turn for the burn pile.
I spot a stack of newspapers amid the clutter and gasp. “No way.” I read the date, then the headline: Unprecedented happenings. I move it aside and pick up another.
How to hold out during the next ice age.
Preparing for the end.
What scientists are saying.
Catastrophic climate shifts.
A new era of survival.
Man versus Moon. The deeper I delve into the pile, the more I understand.
Gertrude changes the course of life on Earth.
“Moonies,” I whisper, taking in each box with new eyes. All that they stocked up on. All that they did to prepare, and this is the state they are living in?
“Here,” Sheila says, startling me. She shuffles into the living room with rattling china on her tea tray, her mouth pressed in a thin line of concentration. She looks like she might drop the tray at any moment, so I reach for it, not having the heart to tell her I can’t stay and socialize. A dozen questions flood my mind as I set it on a doily in the center of the glass coffee table, flanked by two high-backed chairs; they are the only two spots in the entire house uncluttered enough to sit on.
This close to her, I notice the glint in Sheila’s eyes is more of a glaze and wonder if she’s been crying, and the hollowness of her cheeks transforms her face in the shadows. “Dammit.” She wags her finger. “I forgot a spoon.”
“No. It’s okay—really.”
Sheila waves me away. “I can’t remember the last time we got a visitor,” she replies over her shoulder. She turns for the kitchen again and I note the tape in her hair, near the nape of her neck, holding it in place. With the state of this house and her beehive hairdo, I’m starting to think Sheila hasn’t been out in the world much lately.
I glance at the two closed doors, listening for movement inside, but all I hear are the drawers opening and closing in the kitchen and the crack of dying flames.
I carefully lift the cup closest to me and eye the purple, hand-painted roses. As I suspected, sulfur fills my nose, and gagging, I jerk my hand away. The tea sloshes over the rim and onto the threadbare rug at my feet. If there’s any tea in this, I can’t tell, and there is no way the old woman can miss the potent scent of rotten eggs.
I glance back down at the tray. A teapot and two cups. No sugar or honey or cream.
“Here we go.” Sheila shuffles over and sets a spoon by the teapot. To use for what, I’m not sure, and when she looks at me, a trickle of blood drips from her nose.
“You’re bleeding—” I look for something to wipe it with and pause, finding nothing.
“It happens,” she mutters, smearing it away with the back of her hand. “It’s the pits getting old.” Sheila lowers herself into the high-backed chair closest to the fire and brings the tea to her lips.
“Don’t drink that.” I reach for her cup, but Sheila glares at me and moves it out of reach.
“I beg your pardon?”
“The sulfur. Can’t you smell it?”
She glances from her teacup to me, her frown deepening. “So what? It’s been that way for months.”
I gape at her. “Months?” I shake my head. “Sheila, too much sulfur will make you sick.” I think about the steers at Knox’s ranch and how the concentration of it drove them to insanity and death.
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” she gripes. “You’re lucky I’m sharing any with you at all.” Sheila takes a defiant drink, her eyes not leaving mine. “Is that what the world has come to?” She licks her lips. “I welcome you into my home?—”
“I’m sorry. I just—” I lift the teapot lid to see no herbs steeping inside. The brown water is simply that—completely undrinkable. “Sheila, this water is making you sick. Surely you understand that?” I eye her bony frame up and down, but as the old woman stares at her dying fire, I realize she’s not listening to me anymore. Her hands continue to tremble and her eyes shimmer in the failing light. In my gut, I know it’s too late for her anyway.
“I should go,” I say, glancing at the closed doors behind me. I don’t even know if Lenny exists at this point.
“I thought you needed help?” Sheila sips from her cup, her gaze fixed on the fireplace.
“I’ll find it somewhere else.” I turn for the door. “Thank you for?—”
“Lenny,” Sheila says quietly, eyes still on the embers. The fire needs more cardboard, but she doesn’t seem to care. “He takes care of the hunting and fixing the house. And he was the one who would bring me news about life out there...” As her voice trails off, I’m unsure if it’s her sudden use of “was” or “life out there” that gives me pause.
“Sheila,” I hedge, glancing at the stack of newspapers from decades ago. “When was the last time you left this house?”
She takes another sip from her teacup before answering. “When we got word of Gertrude, we knew it was only a matter of time before the world fell to pieces.” Her hoarse voice is faraway and thoughtful. “I didn’t want to raise my child in a world like that.”
Scanning the room with new eyes, I note that some of the old boxes were filled with diapers and baby food at some point.
“You had a child in this house?” I ask carefully.
“Did.” Sheila’s voice is soft. Wistful. “Lyla. She died when she was a year old. I knew she was jaundiced, but we never saw a doctor, so I don’t know if that’s what took her.”
My hands fall to my side, and I feel for Sheila—I really do—but Knox is what’s important right now. Not a seventy-year-old woman who has not and clearly will not leave her house.
My stomach churns as the truth of that sets in. “Why did you bring me in here if you can’t help me save my friend?”
“I said I didn’t leave the house,” she repeats, finally looking at me. “But Lenny did.” She nods toward the second room with the closed door.
“Sheila?” I run my hand down my vest, ensuring the pistol is still there should I need it. “Is Lenny in that room?”
She nods. “He has a truck you can use out back. But?—”
“But what?”
“I haven’t been able to go in there since he...” She clears the trepidation from her throat. “If you want the keys, you have to get them yourself.”
Sheila stands up, hip and shoulder bones accentuated as she runs her hands nervously down the front of her silky, discolored nightgown. “They should be in his coat pocket, likely draped on the back of the chair.” She takes a skeleton key off the mantle and shuffles past me toward the room. The scent of rose water and powder fills my nose—not exactly horrible compared to the sulfur and mold combination in the air, but equally potent—and bracing myself, I follow behind her.
When Sheila stops at the door, her eyes meet mine. “I won’t step foot in that room.”
I hold my palms up. “I won’t ask you to,” I promise, though I have no idea how long Lenny has been in there, and I’m terrified of what I might see. I need that truck, though, and nod for her to unlock the door.
Sheila takes a step back and averts her gaze like she’s as uncomfortable as I am.
Rolling my shoulders, I reach for the handle. I inhale a lungful of air, scared what smells might accost me on the other side, and push the door open. It groans as the wood dislodges, and I step inside. Light from the doorway pours in, illuminating a human-sized form on the bed. Thankfully, it’s covered, and I peer around for the chair. “Where’s the?—”
The door shuts behind me, and I spin around, shrouded in complete darkness as my eyes adjust. “Sheila!” The lock clicks before I can find the knob. “What the hell are you doing, Sheila?”
“I told you, beggars can’t be choosers,” she mutters. “I’m sorry, child.”
“Sheila!” I pound on the door. “Sheila, let me help you. Whatever it is, I can help?—”
“I know you can.”
The icy burn of dread fills every inch of me. “What?”
She shuffles around on the other side of the door as I strain to listen. “That’s the only reason I didn’t kill you on the spot.”
“Sheila, what are you going to do?”
“What I have to.” The floorboards creak as she walks away.
“Sheila! Let me out of here,” I demand, but the racking of a slug in the shotgun barrel steals my breath. Whatever horrors I considered she might try with me are replaced with the certainty that Sheila is starving and desperate, and as she shuffles farther away, I know it’s Loca she wants.
“Sheila, don’t you dare touch my horse, or I swear to God, I will kill you myself!” I shout. “Let me help you find food. I have some back at camp. I?—”
When I hear the front door open, my fear turns to fury. I am so tired of feeling desperate. Of being weak. I kick at the door and ram my shoulder into it, to no avail. Once. Twice. I glance at the boarded-up window across the room where barely a trickle of moonlight filters in over Lenny’s body.
Pulling the pistol from my waist, I stand back, aim for what I can make out of the knob, and gritting my teeth, I pull the trigger. I hit the door but miss the handle by an inch. The light filtering through the hole illuminates the room more, and I aim again. This time, the door splinters in the doorjamb, busting it loose, and I yank it open.
I sprint through the maze of boxes, knocking most of them over, and head straight for Sheila on the porch as she struggles to hold the shotgun up high enough to aim at Loca. I careen into the old woman, and Loca’s head jerks up in the chaos. Sheila and I collapse on the porch.
I curse.
She shrieks and wails as my weight crushes her, and before I can stand, her teeth sink into my forearm, and I scream.
Tearing my arm away, I lurch to my feet, shoving Sheila back down by her forehead as she tries to stand. She grunts and hisses as her back hits the ground, and with a wobbly arm, Sheila reaches for the shotgun.
“I don’t think so,” I grit out. I grab the shotgun and step out of reach. My chest heaves. My mind whirls. And I don’t know if I should hate this woman or feel sorry for her.
“You don’t understand,” she cries, staggering to get to her feet.
“And if you didn’t just bite me like a feral fucking animal, I might have more sympathy for you.”
She shakes her head. “You don’t know how it feels. The hunger. The?—”
“Then you should have asked for help,” I growl. “For a trade. I offered to help you, and now you get nothing!” I shout, angrier with myself than I am with her.
Shotgun in hand and pistol holstered in my belt, I turn for Loca.
“Wait—you can’t leave me here alone. I’m sick. You said so yourself. I’m hungry?—”
I toss Loca’s reins over her head and mount up, the shotgun gripped in my hand. It’s heavy and awkward, but I’d carry it a thousand miles if it meant she couldn’t have it. Luckily, I know it won’t come to that.
“You can’t leave me unarmed!” she shouts, desperation tearing through her voice.
My pulse pounds in my ears, and I can barely catch my breath as adrenaline catches up with me. My hands shake, but I ignore it and walk Loca along the railing and past the porch. Heaving my arm back, I toss the shotgun as far as I can. It only makes it a yard or two before landing with a heavy thud in the overgrown weeds, but it might as well be a mile away to Sheila.
“You need food? Go and hunt something, then.” And with a final glare at a teary-eyed Sheila wobbling on her feet, I kick Loca into a gallop and ride away as fast as I can, letting the wind tear over me as I hold on for dear life. I feel pride and hate myself in equal measure, knowing how close I was to something worse happening, and my entire body begins to shake.
The past twenty minutes feel more like hours, and I have no idea what to do now. Knox could be awake. Or he might still be unconscious. I have no place else to go if I head south. And the thought of running into more people—bile rises up my throat.
Loca weaves us through the broken gate, and we veer north toward the pond. We take the road this time because I’m desperate to see Knox, to ensure he’s where I left him and still breathing.
Only as the adrenaline wanes do I feel the sting in my arm and remember the bite. My nostrils flare and I grit back my absurdity, fear, and utter disbelief. I don’t know if Sheila broke the skin beneath my long sleeves, but that’s a problem for later.
Drops of water hit my face, sporadically at first, until thunder rumbles somewhere in the distance and lightning cracks across the sky, a sudden downpour following. My clothes are drenched within seconds, my body cold and shivering even more as the wind whips over me. Visibility is even less than it was in the darkness alone, and I bite my lip to keep it from trembling.
The distance back seems longer somehow, and though it’s a straight shot back to the pond, I begin to wonder if I’ve gotten turned around somehow. Loca slips in the mud, and I urge her onto the asphalt for better footing.
Eventually, light and shadow forms in front of us, and confused, I squint to see it through sheets of rain; it stretches along the road ahead. As the raindrops illuminate, another rumble meets my ears, only it’s the sound of an engine.
“No.” I squeeze my eyes shut, praying that’s not what I think it is.
My wet hair is loose from my cap and whips me in the face as I peer over my shoulder at an approaching vehicle. A van. And as it gets closer, I realize it’s the van from Amarillo and the people in black.
“No. No. No.” Fear grips me anew, but it’s too late to hide. There’s nowhere to go and they’ve already spotted us. With a barbed wire fence lining the empty pastures on either side of me, I can only urge Loca faster.
The vehicle speeds up, the engine growing louder the closer it follows. “Hey!” Someone shouts.
“Leave me alone!” It’s a desperate shriek as I urge Loca faster and faster. I’m pushing her to a breaking point. I can feel it in her trembling muscles, but the van drives at a constant pace behind us, and I realize I’m leading them right back to Knox.
Suddenly, numbness washes over me. Their van will outlast us, and with nowhere else to go, exhaustion wins out. I slow Loca from a gallop to a trot and, finally, a sob breaks loose. They don’t have to know about Knox. It’s my only comforting thought as I lift my face to the pelting rain, Loca’s ribs heaving under me.
The van slows, the breaks squeaking as it finally stops a few yards behind us.
I hold the reins so tightly my fingers ache, and when the van doors open, I grip the pistol at my side and turn Loca to face them.