Chapter 28
By late afternoon, my clothes are nearly soaked through with sweat, and my body feels stiff from being scrunched in the bottom of the boat.
I sit up and stretch, then gulp down as much water as I can hold.
Behind me, Keisha paddles the boat quietly.
In front of me, Lucia stares into the water below, letting her fingertips skim the surface of the water.
I glance back at Keisha, giving her a questioning look as if to ask, Is she okay? Keisha shakes her head sadly. Lucia’s depression has hit her like a train, getting worse and worse with each missed dose of her medication. Again, the only thing I can think to do is distract her.
“Lucia, if you’re feeling up to it, maybe you could try to catch some fish. We’re going to have to figure it out eventually,” I suggest.
“That’s a great idea!” Keisha says, just a little too eager.
“Sure, I’ll give it a try,” Lucia says.
I nudge the tackle box and the bucket of fishing poles we took from the garage in Naples toward her.
She picks out a small pole with a rusty hook, then opens the tackle box to see what’s inside.
There are little metal balls, colored worm-like bits, and elaborate reflective pieces that remind me of earrings.
I don’t know what to do with any of it. Nurse Patrick would have.
I look up at Keisha and shrug as I pick up a paddle.
“Try one of those wormy things,” she suggests. “Fish are supposed to like worms.”
Lucia ties one of the rubbery fake worms at the top of the hook, then looks at Keisha for approval.
“It could work,” Keisha says with an uncertain shrug. Lucia dips her hook into the water so it drags alongside the canoe as we move.
“I think you have to toss it out and get it away from the boat. Does that reel make the string get longer? Or is there a button that releases it?” I ask, with no idea what I’m talking about.
I’ve only seen fishing on TV in the dayroom.
It was one of Ginger’s favorite things to watch, and it annoyed me to no end.
Lucia pokes around for a bit, looking at the fishing pole from every angle. Finally, she presses a button on the pole with her thumb. The click lets the fishing line go slack, and the weight of the hook and the fake worm allows the end of the line to drag out behind the boat.
“Nice!” Keisha says encouragingly.
“I guess now we wait?” Lucia asks.
“Now we wait,” I confirm.
Lucia sits facing us, but she’s staring intently at the fishing line dragging behind the canoe. Waiting. Over her shoulder I see the outline of something stretching across the river. I can barely make it out from this distance, but it has to be a bridge.
“Hey, Keisha, look,” I say, pointing ahead. “Is that a bridge?”
“Yeah. It’s hard to tell from here, but it has to be. Unless it’s another barge,” she says, shivering.
“Nah, it’s too wide. I think it’s stretching all the way across. It’s got to be a bridge. Hand me those binoculars.” Just as I raise the lenses to my eyes, I’m interrupted by Lucia.
“Oh my god!” she nearly shouts. “I think I caught something!”
“Turn the little handle! Reel it in!” Keisha urges.
“I’m trying, I’m trying!” she says, excited, turning the little reel on the pole as fast as she can.
For just a moment, the spark in her eyes is back, and the smile on her face is infectious.
I can’t help but get excited about her catch too.
This could mean we have a way to feed ourselves without looting.
The anticipation grows with each turn of the reel. Finally, the end of the line breaks through the water and right there, hanging on the hook, is a tiny fish, about the size of Lucia’s hand.
“Oh my god, you did it!” Keisha says, bouncing in her seat, sending the boat wobbling.
“I did it!” Lucia echoes proudly, her smile beaming.
“Well, look at that. Maybe we won’t starve out here after all,” I say.
Lucia lets the fish rest along the bottom of the canoe. It flops, its tiny mouth opening and closing. Her face falls, her smile disappearing almost as quickly as it appeared.
“It’s suffering,” Lucia says, the cheer drained from her voice.
“It’s nature,” I say. “See if you can take the hook out and catch a few more.”
“Ew,” she says, ripping the hook from the fish’s mouth, leaving tiny drops of blood on the bottom of the canoe.
“Ew? Lucia, you stabbed Mr. Josh in the leg with a screwdriver!” I can’t help but laugh.
“He deserved it. What did this little guy ever do to anyone?” she says, still looking sad.
“You’ve been face-to-face with walking, rotting corpses, and this grosses you out?
” Keisha chimes in, giggling too. I laugh harder, laughing at Keisha.
Keisha laughs with me. Soon, Lucia can’t help it; she laughs too.
Seeing her laugh makes me laugh even harder.
Soon, the entire boat is rocking, and the tension of the last few weeks just melts away.
“It’s not so bad out here,” Keisha says. “It beats school.”
“It beats competing for the right to own shoelaces,” I add, rolling my eyes.
“It beats therapy,” Lucia says.
On the floor of the canoe, Lucia’s little fish has stopped fighting.
Its eyes stare empty into the sun, and its iridescent scales almost seem to sparkle.
My hopes are hanging on this little fish.
We need this fish to feed us. We need this fish to give Lucia a sense of hope and purpose. This is how we all survive.
“Does anybody even know how to cook a fish?” Keisha asks.
Another fit of giggles rocks the boat.
Lucia casts her fishing line back into the river, looking just a little lighter than before.
Still, I know that the temporary lift in her mood is just that, temporary.
I raise the binoculars again to look ahead at the bridge that’s getting closer and closer and wonder if it leads to a town where we might find a pharmacy that hasn’t already been looted.
“Do you think maybe we should get out near the bridge and see what we can find?” I ask Keisha.
“I could really use a can of Coke. Or peanut butter cups! Lucia, what do you want to look for?” Keisha asks, trying to keep her good mood going.
I don’t hear Lucia’s response, though. My attention is locked on the bridge.
We’re still pretty far away, but it’s starting to come into focus.
The bridge is massive and green and reaches across the river in a series of sweeping arches.
Several cars sit idle, probably long abandoned.
One of the vehicles catches my attention, though.
A red pickup truck parked near the center.
I remind myself that there have to be hundreds of red pickup trucks in the area.
The odds of that being the farmer’s rusty pickup truck are incredibly slim.
Still, I scan the bridge for movement or any human-shaped shadows.
My heart has picked up speed, but I tell myself it’s ridiculous to worry.
The farmer couldn’t possibly know we were traveling on the river.
We didn’t give him that much information.
We only said we were heading south. But now that I think about it, there’s really only one way the three of us could have survived out here, and that’s the safety of the river.
Could he have put those pieces together?
I decide not. And anyway, I cut his leg pretty badly.
He couldn’t be back on his feet yet. I try to refocus on Keisha and Lucia, chattering on about the snacks and other items they’d like to find at the hypothetical pharmacy, but my eyes keep finding their way back to the bridge.
“Earth to Quinn!” Keisha says. Clearly she’s been trying to talk to me for a while now. I snap my attention back to her.
“Yeah. Sorry. What did you say?” I ask, shaking the paranoia away.
“I said, are we stopping at the bridge? If we are, we should probably start steering toward the shore.”
“I don’t know. Maybe we should pass it. Maybe get a little farther away from that herd before we stop,” I say.
“Really? That herd is hours behind us. Do you think—”
A loud boom echoes off the water and through the trees, cutting off whatever Keisha was about to say.
“What the fuck was that?” I ask, craning my neck toward the bridge as we inch closer and closer.
Another boom. This time, a spray of water splashes tiny droplets across my face. I rip off my straw hat and scan the bridge, looking for the source of the shots.
There. In the center. Someone is aiming a shotgun off the side of the bridge. I can’t see their face clearly, but I don’t have to. It’s him.
“Get down! It’s the farmer! Get—” I shout uselessly. Another boom.
I cover my head as if it might help and hear something drop into the river.
I crack open my eyes, scanning the water for clues as to what just fell.
Lucia’s fishing pole. I don’t want to look up, but I do.
There, right in front of me, I watch helplessly as a dark red stain quickly blooms across Lucia’s shirt.
Keisha screams. Another boom. Another. Another.
“Get down!” I yell at both of them. We lie flat on the bottom of the boat, making ourselves as small as possible.
We’re just a few feet from floating underneath the bridge now, but the farmer leans over the railing, ready to shoot again.
I chuck an empty pickle jar in his direction and miss.
He ducks out of the way, but his chance to shoot at us again has passed.
We’re under the bridge now and there’s no way he can get another shot off from where he stands. I know Keisha is screaming. Out of the corner of my eye I see her holding on to Lucia, but I tune her out, trying to anticipate where the farmer might appear above me.
Another shot rings out as an inhuman screech echoes off the water. Another shot. Another screech. The carriers are here.