Chapter 19
January floats face down in the river, unmoving.
The ring of red water surrounding her grows larger as a carrier grabs on to her arm and pulls her soft flesh toward its snapping jaws.
I only feel relief. I take in another deep breath, and it soothes my lungs, but I know I’m not safe.
Carriers continue to fall from the barge above, and I know it’s time to go back to the shore. I swim.
By the time I’m nearing the beach, I’m gasping for air, and my heart feels like it could beat out of my heaving chest. With my knife still in my hand, I drag myself onto the beach to safety, then look over my shoulder, hoping that somehow Keisha is right behind me.
“Are you okay?” Ramsey asks, jogging toward me.
“What happened to Keisha? Did you see her?” I ask him frantically.
“After your boat flipped, it all happened so fast. I saw her go under, but…”
My stomach sinks. I turn back toward the river and wait, hoping that Keisha will emerge from the muddy water, begging God or the universe or even dumb luck that she made it.
The barge keeps inching downstream with the current, still dropping carriers into the water as it moves.
They splash awkwardly, continuing the chaotic scene.
Their flailing keeps them afloat, but thankfully they’re not actually swimming, so we’re relatively safe on the shore.
In the middle of it all, our canoe bobs upside down in the water, useless. But there’s no Keisha.
Then I notice it.
Our upside-down canoe is moving against the current. At first, I’m not sure if I’m imagining it, but then it turns toward the shore. The closer it gets, the more I let myself hope.
When I’m sure, I jump back into the river and swim out to meet it. I lift the boat with all my might, trying to flip it over to see who has been steering it toward land. When I look underneath, I can’t help but laugh out loud with relief.
Keisha’s startles, then smiles back. Behind her, little Lucia holds on to the crossbar in the center of the canoe. They caught the air pocket underneath and used the canoe as a shield. It’s brilliant.
“I can’t believe… I thought…” I can’t even finish a sentence.
“I’m glad you’re okay too, Quinn,” Keisha says with a warm but tired smile.
For the second time today a lump forms in my throat. I swallow it down and take a deep breath. “Come on, we’re almost to shore,” I say, turning my face away.
As we swim the last few feet toward the shore, Ramsey meets us halfway and pulls an exhausted Lucia out of the water while Keisha and I drag ourselves and the canoe forward.
When we finally reach the hard-packed dirt of the river’s edge, Keisha asks the question I’ve been dreading.
“Where’s Jan?”
Stupidly, I hesitate for a beat too long. “She didn’t make it,” I say.
I can feel Keisha’s eyes study me, and I look away.
I don’t even try to justify Jan’s death, even though I could.
In the end, it doesn’t matter if I killed her accidentally or on purpose.
January wasn’t built to survive in a world like this.
She was going to die sooner or later. I think we all know that sooner was better for all of us.
One less X factor. One less risk. One less loose cannon.
“It’s just us then. Like we planned,” Keisha says stoically.
I stare at her, trying to decipher her flat expression, but she gives nothing away.
Ramsey steps closer as the three of us turn back toward the river, sopping wet and exhausted from grief and adrenaline. The barge’s forward momentum along with the river’s current seems to be sweeping the carriers away or pulling them under.
“Do you think any of them will make it to the shore?” Lucia asks, her weak voice quivering.
“No. Look at them,” I answer, pointing at the carriers in the river. “They’re not really swimming. They’re moving enough to keep themselves afloat, but they’re not making much progress. Besides, the current is already taking them downstream.”
We wait for a few more moments on the shore to make sure I’m right. Finally, the barge disappears downstream, and the last of the carriers is swept underwater.
My wet clothes are cold and heavy. Lucia’s teeth begin to chatter as the sun sinks lower.
Then some instinct chirps in the back of my mind.
It’s time for meds. Suddenly my wrist feels uncomfortably light.
I look down and see nothing but bare skin.
Nurse Patrick’s watch is gone. Disappointment kicks me in the gut, but there’s nothing I can do.
His watch and Lucia’s meds are both at the bottom of the river.
My eyes flash to Lucia, and I wish like hell I had read her chart.
I vaguely remember the name of the drug Nurse Patrick showed me.
Something-tine? I just hope she didn’t need it that badly.
“Come on. Let’s get y’all dried off,” Ramsey says, leading us back to the restaurant.
In the dining room, Ramsey lights a fire in the wood-burning fireplace in a corner near the bar. We huddle around it, shivering while Ramsey strips a few nearby tables of their tablecloths.
“Here, it’s not much, but it’ll do while your clothes dry. Y’all get changed, and I’ll get us something to eat,” he says.
He turns back toward the kitchen, and we shiver as we peel off our wet clothes and place them beside the fire to dry. For a moment, I mourn the loss of the extra clothes in my backpack, reminded again that, as supplies go, we have almost nothing left.
As I’m wrapping the stiff tablecloth around me, something raises the hair on the back of my neck. Subtly, I glance toward the kitchen. Ramsey is standing in the middle of the doorway. He’s watching Keisha.
I clear my throat and his eyes shift toward mine. I give him a look that lets him know he’s been caught. Quickly, he looks down at his feet.
He shuffles in the doorway. “Everyone decent?” he asks, as if he doesn’t already know.
“We’re good,” I say with a bit of warning in my tone.
“Then let’s eat,” he says, bringing over a pile of cans and packaged crackers.
We gather around the fire as Ramsey begins opening the cans. Tuna fish and restaurant crackers feel like a feast after eating candy bars and freeze-dried mush for the last few days. I’m grateful for the food and shelter, but I’m annoyed that Ramsey is here.
I stare at his face, trying to get a read on him.
Then, as if he can feel me studying him, he glances up from his work, and his eyes meet mine.
Usually, people see me and look away quickly.
I’m used to it. I know I’m a little unsettling, but Ramsey doesn’t flinch.
Instead, he just smiles a big, lopsided grin.
“So, Peoria, huh?” Ramsey muses, filling the void in the conversation. Silently, I curse Jan for not being able to keep her damn mouth shut earlier. Once again, I’m glad she’s gone.
“It was a safe bet heading to the river bottoms, seeing as there ain’t too many people around here.
Looks like it’s gonna be a while before things get back to normal.
All this farmland’ll come in pretty handy once all the canned food runs out.
I figure it’s just a matter of time before all the folks who survive the city come down this way.
Course, people in these parts been training for something like this their whole lives. ”
“What do you mean?” Keisha asks.
“Well, there ain’t a lot going on in the river bottoms. We grow up learning how to hunt and grow food. Way I see it, guns and gardens are the new currency in a world like this, and we’ve got both. Folks’ll be needing a place like this and people like us.”
“So, you’re a bartender who knows how to hunt and farm?” Keisha asks skeptically.
Ramsey gives Keisha a cocky grin, pleased as shit he’s got her attention.
“I learned how to hunt and tend crops from my dad, but that wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life.
Actually, I always dreamed of owning this place someday, turning it into something real special,” he says, looking around the empty restaurant as if seeing everything it could have been.
“I guess it’s yours now,” Keisha says, batting her eyelashes.
“I guess it is.” He grins, completely hypnotized.
“We should go to bed,” I interrupt. “Thanks for dinner, and for letting us stay,” I add as an afterthought.
“It’s nothin’. Let’s get you girls settled then.”
We gather our clothes from the edge of the fireplace.
They’re stiff from the river water but they’re dry and relatively clean.
Ramsey leads us upstairs and into one of the storage rooms. He uses a utility knife to break down a few of the larger boxes to line the hardwood floor.
Then he pulls a stack of tablecloths off a shelf nearby, creating three small beds. Nothing has ever looked so inviting.
“Thanks, Ramsey,” Keisha says gratefully. Her eyes look heavy and dazed. We all need rest.
“I’ll just be down the hall in my room. Get some rest, and I’ll see you in the morning.” His eyes linger just a little too long on Keisha.
He turns and closes the door softly behind him, leaving a battery-powered lantern behind. We change into our dry clothes in silence. Lucia pulls her makeshift bed close to Keisha’s and snuggles in beside her. Soon, Lucia is fast asleep.
I need to talk to Keisha about Ramsey, but she beats me to the punch with a different topic.
“What are you doing, Quinn?”
“I’m going to sleep,” I say, attempting to dodge the conversation.
“You know what I mean. Are you done yet?” she asks quietly.
I know where she’s going with this, but I try to avoid the question anyway. “Done? What are you—”
“You can’t keep killing off anyone who gets in the way. We’re going to need other people to survive.” Her voice inches up a whispered octave. The strain in her voice makes my stomach sink.
“We didn’t need Jan or Ginger, and you know it. Nurse Patrick was…” I try to find the right words, the heavy pause hanging in the air. “I never wanted that,” I finish.
“You liked killing them.” It’s not a question. She doesn’t need to ask.
“Not Nurse Patrick,” I say quietly. “Look, you and me, we’ve been thrown away our whole lives.
I just spent the last two years in the Pegasus Center following every single rule, playing their game, and being whatever they wanted, and for what, Keisha?
” I pause, but she has nothing to say, so I continue.
“What were we going to do when they let us out of there? Transition to independent living? Go to college? Get jobs? How much longer were we going to have to try to fit in? We’re not the same as other people, Keisha!
Out here it’s different. We don’t have to pretend anymore.
We have choices now. We finally have some control over our lives!
And if I’m given a choice between living or dying, I’m going to choose to live.
Every time. I won’t feel sorry for that.
I won’t feel sorry that they’re dead so we can live.
You’re my best friend, Keisha. At the end of the world, I want to be with you.
Doing this.” A tear slips down Keisha’s cheek as she stares at the floor between us.
“Lucia is scared of you,” she whispers.
“I’m not going to hurt her,” I say quietly, looking down at my hands, picking at my fingernails.
“Do you promise?”
I look up and Keisha’s eyes pierce into mine, challenging me.
“I promise.”
“What happened to January, Quinn?” she asks with an edge to her voice.
“She grabbed on to me. I didn’t know it was her at first. I thought it was a carrier.
But she pulled me under, and I had to make her let go.
” It’s the truth, but does it matter? Could I have found a way to calm January down and get her to shore?
Maybe. But I wanted her dead anyway, and it was the perfect outcome.
I leave that part out though. “It was an accident. I’m not going to hurt Lucia. I promise.”
“Okay,” she says, holding my gaze. When she’s sure I know she’s serious, she moves on. “What about tomorrow? We need supplies.”
“First we need to talk about Ramsey.” I worry that this is going to take some convincing. I take a deep breath and ready myself for the argument.
“We need him,” she says with a warning look, cutting off my argument before I can even make it.
“He’s not like us, Keisha. We don’t even know him. I can tell you like him, but we can’t trust him.”
“You think I like him?” she says, her smile growing. “Wow. I’m amazing. Oscar-worthy. Too bad Hollywood is gone,” she says, throwing her head back dramatically with a quiet giggle.
My mouth hangs open stupidly.
“You know me better than that,” she says with a smirk. She’s right. I do know her better than that. I’m surprised at the amount of relief I feel realizing that all the eyelash fluttering, cheek blushing, and warm smiling was strategic. I should have given her more credit.
I roll my eyes. “So, if you can see through all that southern gentleman bullshit, then you know we need to get rid of him and keep moving south.”
“I get it, we don’t know him very well, but he doesn’t seem dangerous.
Look, we lost almost everything when the canoe tipped.
We need clothes, supplies, food—everything, really.
Let’s see if Ramsey will take us into town tomorrow to scavenge.
He knows the area better than we do. We’ll use him to help us get what we need, then get back in the boat and head south.
Just the three of us. In the meantime, we play nice,” she says with a warning.
“I’m not flirting with that prick,” I say, disgusted.
Keisha stifles a laugh. “HA! Now that would be the end of the world!” Her smile is infectious, and I crack a rare smile too.
“I don’t want to take any chances with him. We get our supplies, then we leave,” I say.
She nods in agreement. “You watch our backs. I’ll make sure we get what we need.”
“But if he tries anything, it’s lights out.”
Keisha sighs as she rolls over, snuggling into her stack of tablecloths, but I know there’s no real anger behind it. I turn off the lantern, close my eyes, and try to get some sleep.