Райан Уэстфилд - Finding Shelter

She had picked up the adult way of speaking, and she’d lost the slang phrases that had been so common to her speech before.

There was no response. But there was the noise of slight footsteps. A very faint sound.

“I know you’re there,” continued Sadie. “And I know you can hear me. And I know you’re curious about me. Otherwise you wouldn’t have been nearby. I know you’re scared about what’s going to happen to your dad. It’ll be just you and your mom… it’s a tough situation… I can understand. I’ve been there myself.”

Sadie didn’t quite know where she’d picked up this ability. But she recognized that it was something adults did, from time to time. It was manipulation, plain and simple. But sometimes it was necessary.

Still no response.

“Why don’t you open the door?” said Sadie. “Aren’t you curious about me? I know you’ve been here all alone with your parents. All cooped up… It’s got to suck big time…”

Some of the slang was coming back, but it still sounded unnatural.

Sadie waited.

It didn’t seem like anything was going to happen.

There was no noise.

And then it happened.

The door handle turned.

The door opened. Creaking on its hinges.

Sadie hoped it was the daughter, and not the mother.

She held her breath as the door continued to open.

She craned her neck.

High up above, where the mother’s face would be, there was nothing. But below, there was a little girl’s face.

She was about her own age. Maybe a year younger. Hard to say, because she was thin and small. It looked as if she hadn’t been eating very much. More or less like the mother.

It was strange and sad to see that gaunt look on a child. Sadie realized that she’d had it lucky, in a way. She’d eaten much better than this child, for instance. Sadie had retained her strength, and even grown in height and strength since the EMP had hit.

Then again, what could be sadder than Sadie’s current situation? It seemed likely that she’d die, so it didn’t really matter if she was well fed or not.

The girl stepped into the doorway. She looked down at Sadie but didn’t speak.

“Hey,” said Sadie.

It was weird. Definitely weird. Sadie was speaking as if she were meeting a new potential friend on the playground at school. But in reality she was tied up on the floor.

“Hi. I’m Lilly.”

“I’m Sadie.”

“I know.”

“How’s your dad?”

“Not good. My mom’s out there with him. She says he’s going to die.”

There were the remnants of tears on Lilly’s face. But she seemed to be taking the imminent death of her father fairly well. Maybe she was in a state of shock?

“Don’t you want to be with him?”

Sadie was being careful not to jump right to her situation, even though it should have been painfully obvious that something was greatly amiss with her. She couldn’t move, after all.

“He told me to go away. He wasn’t very nice about it. He wanted to spend his last… time with my mom.” Lilly gulped as she spoke.

“That’s got to feel bad. Is he always mean to you?”

“A lot of the time. Since the power went out, especially.”

“That sucks,” said Sadie.

Then Sadie waited. She said nothing more.

“What are you doing here?” said Lilly. “I haven’t seen any other kids since… a long time…”

“Your dad kidnapped me,” said Sadie. “You’re not going to be believe me, but I heard about you and wanted to come see you…. I was just desperate to talk to someone my own age after so long… And then your dad decided to kidnap me and use me as ransom….”

Sadie didn’t want to add, “so I shot him,” even though it was obvious enough what had happened.

Did Lilly blame her for killing her dad?

Sadie was pretty sure that if the tables were turned, she’d be upset if her dad was dead.

But Sadie didn’t know her dad. Not at all. So it was a little hard to imagine.

There was a long pause. Very long.

Finally, Sadie decided it was time. Time to make her offer. Time to risk everything.

“So,” said Sadie. “Do you want to come with me?”

“Come with you?”

“Yeah. Back to my camp. You can live with me and my mom. My brother, too. And everyone else.”

“I… can’t leave my mom…”

“She can come too.”

“I don’t think she will.”

“But what will you two do without your dad? Why don’t you try to convince her to come?”

“She won’t do it. She’s too suspicious.”

“Suspicious of what?”

“People. Other people. We almost got killed. The three of us. There were some… other people and they…”

“It’s OK,” said Sadie. “You don’t have to tell me the story. But I wish you’d at least consider what I’m saying.”

Lilly shook her head vigorously. “There’s no way…. there’s just no way…”

“What are you and your mom going to do then? If you don’t use me as ransom, I mean?”

“We’ll find a way, I guess. We don’t really need that much to eat. My mom said we really only need 800 calories a day.”

Before the EMP, Sadie wouldn’t have known what 800 calories a day meant. Now, she had a very good understanding. She’d eaten 800 calories a day, and she’d been painfully aware of that fact all the while. It had been brutal. Her stomach had been in pain the whole time, and she’d been weak, with a horrible lack of energy.

“And that’s for her…” continued Lilly. “I only need 500 ’cause I’m just a kid. Not as much as an adult.”

“But our metabolisms are faster,” said Sadie. She didn’t want to start any kind of argument, since that didn’t really fit in well with her plan. But the words just tumbled out, like a reflex. “We burn more calories per pound of tissue. Our basal metabolic rates are much higher than adults.”

“Oh,” said Lilly. “I didn’t know that. But I’m fine… 500 is enough for me… we’ll get by…”

“I know it’s going to be hard without your dad.”

“He… wasn’t…”

“What is it?”

“He wasn’t… always nice to us… he’s been getting meaner…”

“So it won’t be that bad without him?” ventured Sadie. “Maybe it’ll be a little better?”

Lilly made a non-committal sound and shrugged her shoulders. It was as if she couldn’t actually admit the sad truth about her father.

“So,” said Sadie. “Your mom’s either going to use me for ransom… or what…? I don’t think she’s going to let me go…. your dad was telling her that…”

Lilly made a sound as if she was choking.

“You OK?”

It was weird. Sadie was the one tied up. She was the one in the bad situation. And yet she was asking Lilly if she was OK.

“Uh, yeah. I’m OK. I just get nervous sometimes… make that weird sound… sorry… they used to make fun of me at school…”

“Well, there’s no school anymore,” said Sadie. “That’s really mean that those kids used to make fun of you…”

“The teachers too.”

“That’s horrible,” said Sadie. “They shouldn’t have done that.”

“But they did.”

“My friend, Max, he’s always saying that the important thing is that we’re alive now. The past is the past. And now it’s the way past. The EMP destroyed our entire culture. We’re living in a different world now. A different reality. A new reality….”

Sadie was aware that she didn’t sound so much like a kid. She didn’t sound like an adult either. She knew who she sounded like.

She sounded like Max. He’d been rubbing off on her. His vocabulary. His attitude. His take on life.

“I guess that’s true,” said Lilly. “I don’t even know if…” She made that choking sound again but managed to continue. “The people I knew before… I don’t even know if they’re still alive… it’s weird to think about… Like the people that I’d see at the grocery store when I’d go there with my mom… maybe they’re all dead now… It’s horrible… My mom and dad don’t like to talk about it all… they like to pretend… but I think about it all…”