Chapter 30 #2
“We’ve been doing okay,” Keisha says through teary eyes and a brave smile. “As long as we stick to the river, the carriers aren’t a problem. We only leave the river to boil water, sleep, and look through empty houses for supplies.”
“Sounds like us,” Marcy says, placing her hand on her chest and smiling her most sympathetic smile at Keisha.
“The river has delivered us from many evils,” Suzanne says as she touches an oval pendant hanging from a gold chain around her neck.
I’d recognize it anywhere. I saw dozens of them during my time in the Catholic group home.
The pendant definitely has some kind of saint stamped onto it.
I work hard not to roll my eyes and stare at my boots instead, hoping I look sad.
“Do you think there are many carriers in the area? It’s been a while since we’ve seen them,” Keisha asks.
“Oh, we’ve seen them. In the beginning, you’d just see one or two at a time, but now”—Steven shakes his head as he pauses—“now you’d be lucky to find a nice, neat group of five. They’re flocking together. Every day it’s getting worse,” he finishes.
“Flocking together? What do you mean?” I ask, rejoining the conversation.
“I’m sure you’ve figured out by now it’s loud noises that wake them up?
” I nod, and he continues. “So then you know once they’re up and walking around, they follow sound and movement.
They hear one of their own screaming and come running.
Those hear another group screaming, then run to join them, and it keeps going and going until you’ve got a group of twenty, fifty, or a hundred.
After that there isn’t a single one of us who stands a chance.
Only Jesus himself could save you with the way those things move. ”
A chill sweeps up my spine.
“You’ve seen a hundred carriers at once?” I ask in awe.
“The most I’ve seen is thirty or so. But I’ve seen the way they buddy up. Imagine Chicago or New York. A flock of a hundred wouldn’t take more than a few minutes to gather. We’re right where we need to be if we’re going to survive this.”
Silence sweeps over the group as we all take in Steven’s words. We stare at the river until Grady’s cheery voice pipes in just over my shoulder. “Fire’s alive! Fish should be ready in a bit. Hope you girls are hungry!”
My stomach aches at the thought of protein, and we both smile at him gratefully.
While we’ve been talking, Grady has built a roaring fire.
He reaches into a bucket of water filled with live fish, then pulls a short, sharp knife from his belt.
I watch, focused on his setup and strategy.
We’ve only caught a few small fish, but figuring out how to make them edible has been tough.
They’re slimy, scaly, and bony and don’t have much meat on them.
I decide to take advantage of the opportunity.
“Can you teach me how to do that?” I ask Grady.
He eyes me skeptically, then says, “It ain’t pretty, kid. But yeah, I’ll show you.”
“We can share a jar of green beans,” Keisha offers to Marcy, hopping to her feet to pull one of the precious jars we stole from the farmer from our stash in the canoe. “It’s our last one, but this feels like a good time to use it.”
Everyone’s eyes light up at the sight of the jar. Just like that, we’ve earned their trust.
The next hour passes quickly. Grady is an excellent teacher and walks me through each step of cleaning a fish.
It’s messy, but way more efficient than the way I was doing it.
I pick his brain for tips on catching bigger fish.
He tells me the big ones stay toward the bottom of the river and teaches me to use smaller fish as bait and line anchors to sink my hook deeper. The information is like gold.
While I’m learning from Grady, Keisha chats by the fire with Marcy and Suzanne while Steven gathers more firewood behind us.
I try to catch bits and pieces of their conversation, but I’m having a hard time hearing them.
I can tell their conversation is serious, though.
They’re hunched over a map with creased brows, pointing to different areas. I hope she’s learning as much as I am.
When we finally have twelve neatly sliced fish fillets, Grady lays them on a wire mesh grill and carefully places it over the fire.
“These won’t take but a few minutes to cook. You flip ’em once, then they’re ready to eat.”
“Thanks, Grady. This was really helpful,” I say.
“My pleasure, kid,” he says with a gentle punch to my shoulder.
I bristle at the word “kid” but try not to hold it against him. He reminds me a lot of Nurse Patrick. A little patronizing, but he doesn’t seem like a bad guy.
“Can you show me how you keep your knife so sharp?” I ask.
He smiles at me with a look of pride. “It’d be my pleasure.”
While I tune up my machete, the fish on the fire start to smell amazing. Keisha puts our jar of green beans into a pot and scoots it into the fire to heat, and soon we have a pretty decent meal.
“Where did you find the green beans, girls?” Marcy asks us as she turns the empty jar over in her hands.
“An empty farmhouse a few miles back. Looks like someone was keeping a garden and had been canning things for years,” Keisha says.
Marcy glances at Steven. It’s quick, but some knowing glance just passed between them. A prickle of warning flashes in the back of my mind. What was that about?
“Let’s eat!” says Grady, interrupting the moment and pulling the wire grill from the fire with a pair of oven gloves. He seems completely oblivious to the exchange between Steven and Marcy.
“Let us pray,” Suzanne says, launching into a long-winded prayer.
Everyone bows their head and closes their eyes. I look up and meet eyes with Keisha, glance over at Steven and Marcy, then raise my eyebrows. Keisha knows exactly what I’m trying to ask. She nods once, confirming she saw the exchange too.
Finally, Suzanne finishes her prayer. We divide the food evenly and eat in silence. By the time we finish, there’s almost nothing left of the sun, and the mosquitoes have started biting yet again. I wonder how much more my skin can take, but there’s nothing I can do about it.
“Guess we’d better turn in,” Grady says, slapping his knee.
“Hey now. Dishes? You boys promised,” Marcy says with a smirk and a wagging finger.
Grady mimes being stabbed in the heart and falls to his side but smiles and reaches for my empty plate. Steven follows his lead, and the men carry the dishes down to the river to be cleaned, leaving us four women alone at the fire.
“The world ended, and we still argue over the dishes,” Marcy says, shaking her head.
Silence hangs in the air. That look between Marcy and Steven has been gnawing at me. Whatever it meant, the mood hasn’t been the same since. Sensing the tension, Keisha jumps in again to defuse it.
“Thanks again for the hospitality. It’s been so nice talking with you all. I think we can both say we learned a lot. Right, Quinn?” Keisha says with a smile.
“Absolutely!” I say with a little too much enthusiasm. I catch myself though, and dim my smile to show fewer teeth, but Marcy has already taken a subconscious step backward. Dammit. All this time alone with Keisha has made me a little too comfortable, and I’m out of practice.
“Where did you say that farm was? The one with the green beans?” Marcy asks, shifting her eyes like it hardly matters. But I can tell there’s something deeper to her question.
“Oh, I’d say about a week behind us, right, Quinn? Just before that big green bridge up north? The place was abandoned, so we helped ourselves.”
She should have lied.
Part of why Keisha is so believable is because she weaves lies together with the truth. Her honesty is usually so thick that most people can’t find the lie. It almost always works. Almost.
“Funny, we made that pit stop too. Four days ago. We met the man living there and he told us an awful story, didn’t he, Suzanne?” Marcy says with a haughty look that starts my stomach simmering.
“Oh yes, that poor man fought the devil! A swarm of carriers flocked to his house after a terrible fire broke out. Attracted every carrier in the area! Such an awful thing. He was saved, though. Survived by the grace of God, no doubt!” Suzanne says with reverence, completely oblivious to the fact that Marcy is grilling us with a purpose.
“Indeed,” Marcy says. “Say, Suzanne, do you remember how he said that fire started?” Marcy asks, staring me down in a challenge.
“Oh, he had quite a story. The way he tells it, two strangers came and set his chicken coop on fire and tried to kill him and take his belongings. He almost didn’t trust us after going through all that, but it just so happened Grady’s daddy went to high school with him!
Talk about a small world!” Suzanne says, still not catching on to Marcy’s game.
My blood is boiling now. She caught us and she knows it. She’s watching us squirm.
“Two strangers. Hmm,” Marcy says, never taking her eyes off us. “You know, I seem to remember—”